Beware! Personal copies of games and movies are illegal

nickhallsa said:
@rwenzori and @Jan. I think you're not giving Joe Public enough credit. Have ACTA and SOPA not been shutdown? Also from our perspective SA has a couple of very organised civil action groups that would jump at the opportunity to see some revamping. I my opinion we need to do something that is happening in the UK. A total overhaul of the copyright system (and while we are at it, we can look at patents and trademarks as well!). One of the proposals from the report was that maybe copyright should be abolished in its entirety as it is wholly unsuited for the digital age. That being said, @Jan has the right idea, licence reforms are realisticly where we can achieve proper reformation, and in all likelihood it will be take a much shorter time to happen.
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SA Patent system is FINE thank you very much. Last thing I want to see in SA is us starting to allow for software patents.
 
Elimentals said:
SA Patent system is FINE thank you very much. Last thing I want to see in SA is us starting to allow for software patents.
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I agree with this. That being said, while it is technically true that software is unpatentable is SA, there is a loophole that allows it to happen anyway. What I want to see is this loophole being closed.
 
nickhallsa said:
I agree with this. That being said, while it is technically true that software is unpatentable is SA, there is a loophole that allows it to happen anyway. What I want to see is this loophole being closed.
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Its patentable yes, but you can not enforce it, our courts will toss it out.

Microsoft for example holds a couple of software patents in SA, but they mean zip.

If we touch the patents international corporations like above would do their best to allow them to enforce their portfolios, that I can promise you. The prove is in all the other countries that had the old patent law from the commonwealth days.

Interesting read: http://www.polity.org.za/article/software-patents-in-south-africa---to-be-or-not-to-be-2011-07-01
 
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nickhallsa said:
@rwenzori and @Jan. I think you're not giving Joe Public enough credit. Have ACTA and SOPA not been shutdown? Also from our perspective SA has a couple of very organised civil action groups that would jump at the opportunity to see some revamping. I my opinion we need to do something that is happening in the UK. A total overhaul of the copyright system (and while we are at it, we can look at patents and trademarks as well!). One of the proposals from the report was that maybe copyright should be abolished in its entirety as it is wholly unsuited for the digital age. That being said, @Jan has the right idea, licence reforms are realisticly where we can achieve proper reformation, and in all likelihood it will be take a much shorter time to happen.
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I disagree. Joe Public only gets out a'demonstratin' when he belongs to Cosatu or when he thinks he has to pay an extra R500pm in retarded toll-fees. I really don't see any large demonstrations about something airy-fairy like copyright happening here. Furthermore you way underestimate the stupidity and corruptibility of our govt ministers. You only have to look as far as the insane shambles of telecommunications here. One day there will be scandal about it way in excess of the little arms deal one.

No govt is going to abolish copyright - you get on to the USA's blacklists for doing so and trade suffers. That is the essence of the international aspect - forget the unenforcible laws - the copyright owner countries ( predominantly the "first world" ) enforce IP protection at the level of economics.

That said, I personally feel diddly for copyright for personal use, and would probably be fined a few trillions of dolas if the USA's IP bloodhounds got hold of my computers.

As for software popup EULAs, like oral contracts they aren't worth the paper they are written on, to paraphrase Sam Goldwyn. Stuff them. I always agree to everything in them, but I have my fingers crossed at the time.


Have you any links to these civil action groups?
 
The biggest mistake the media industry made was to ignore the internet as distribution medium. People want to see and hear (consume) stuff and are prepared to pay for it, but take the example in garp's post .. all the effort to drive to the shop, park, pay and rip to different formats vs. 3 minute search on the net, a little 'buffering' and voila. Can't beat that for convenience.

Meanwhile big media was obsessing over protecting the movement of their physical product (and profits) while the internet was bypassing them on both speed and convenience, hell right or wrong, it even beat them on price :D

So it became established that internet = free & easy, while the legal way was slow, expensive, and inconvenient .. sometimes even impossible. Plus in many cases they 'punished' the legitimate purchaser while the illegal user enjoyed a much better user experience. Anyone surprised that people began to take the easy way out?

There's a lot more I can say. Cost is one aspect. I fully recognise that artists need to be paid for their work but digital media has infinite supply & negligible duplication cost, in fact distribution cost has shifted from manufacturer to consumer now. Why, with the additional sales & exposure the internet brings, are prices still so high?

When I still tolerated Apple in my life I refused to buy vouchers on iTunes out of principle as I won't jump through hoops for something that's essentially broken. I also won't pay same price (or more) for the digital equivalent. I'm thinking ebooks here, I know it costs you less so I simply won't pay your ridiculous asking prices. I simply won't. Why, for example, don't you ask yourself why I've got such a huge (digital) game collection on Steam?

This article is a perfect example of this lunacy .. I paid for the content and just want to enjoy it on a different format but now I'm told it's illegal. WTF? Are you trying your best for me NOT to buy your product? Where will this madness end?

It's time the legal & especially copyright industry take a long hard look at themselves. They need to change to fit the times, else people will just continue to treat them with the contempt they deserve. Articles like this just pisses us off more.

And that's the honest truth.
 
Proof that no one (rights owners, SAFACT, police) is serious about illegally copied movies: The hawkers selling the camcorder copied movies are on the same street corner everyday without fail.

To me that is slightly more serious than me making mp3's of my owned CD (format shifting) for personal use.

The mind boggles as why they would want to shout at us for backing up movies or making mp3's while while others openly make money from bad quality copied movies. Seriously?
 
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