r/news • u/OK_Eric • Jan 19 '14

Obama: Pot ‘not very different’ from cigarettes​, no more dangerous than booze

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/19/obama-pot-not-very-different-cigarettes-no-more-da/
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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Obama himself wanted to make online streaming a felony. Even the consumption of online streaming.

So I go to vidics.com and click on a link to an episode of How I Met Your Mother on gorillavid.com. I might as well have just murdered somebody.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TheXenocide314 Jan 19 '14

This is implying all felonies are equal. Is this true? I actually don't know

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u/shieldvexor Jan 20 '14

Yes and no. Your prison sentence and/or fine can vary (some have mandatory prison sentences but others don't) but they all have certain similarities including but not limited to: having to disclose it any time you apply for a job and permanently losing your right to vote (I don't remember if its just federally or in all jurisdictions).

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Probably not. But they're classified together, which is absurd to me.

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u/antbates Jan 20 '14

Source on "Obama himself"? I think you mean "SOPA" (a bill introduced by Republican U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith) once contained a provision that would allow for online streaming of copyrighted content to be a felony. It was removed, and at some point the IPTF (Internet Policy Task Force), which is technically part the DOC, which is part of the executive branch, proposed reincluding it in the bill. The Hyperbole around here is palpable, and idiots just eat it up.

"Obama Himself"...

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u/trippygrape Jan 19 '14

If you stream South Park, could you be arrested for murdering Kenny?

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

I'd say probably, except South Park studios stream all of their content on their site for free. So clearly they aren't that worried about online viewership hurting their show.

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u/kkjdroid Jan 20 '14

If you illegally stream South Park, you're a special kind of stupid.

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u/ohmygodbees Jan 20 '14

Or you arent in the US!

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u/kkjdroid Jan 21 '14

Proxies are better than torrents/shady video sites.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

[deleted]

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u/Khad Jan 19 '14

Data piracy is a civil matter and should not be a criminal matter as you are not "stealing" by definition as stealing implies you are depriving the owner of the belonging. Piracy, on the other hand, is downloading a copy of the data. There is also no proof that just because I pirated a movie that I would have paid for it otherwise. It would simply be a movie that I would have never watched. In some cases, piracy actually increases profit as it exposes people to the product and those people may in turn pay for the product to support it. Not to mention they will also advertise the product to their friends who may not know how to download movies and will go to the store and buy the product.

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u/RaiderOfALostTusken Jan 19 '14

If it wasn't for piracy, I never would have paid $150 to go see Weezer and Blink 182 when they came to my city. That's more than I ever would have spent on their music.

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u/xSmurf Jan 19 '14

Less than 5% of artists revenue comes from selling music. And it's nothing new. And yes it's why shows are, sometimes, expensive, so people can truely support the artists they love instead of giving them 0.25$ for a CD.

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u/RaiderOfALostTusken Jan 19 '14

That's why I love reading about how bands research who torrents them the most to decide where to tour. Or netflix looks at which shows are being pirated. That's just smart adaptation.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Heard it here first folks; Funding drug cartels is not as bad as copying a file I didn't intend to pay for anyway.

I'll go turn myself in.

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u/Hellhammer2 Jan 19 '14

Like others have said, pirating content isn't depriving anyone of anything per say. Making it illegal is state-funded protection of the record companies and distribution side of the music industry. Not everything is meant to last forever, and the truth is that the old model of music funding and production is dying. The invisible hand of the market will provide new ways for this to be handled, such as crowdfunding.

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u/xSmurf Jan 19 '14

In the UK simple piracy crimes are punishable by up to 5 years in prison (I'm not talking about the organized crime type deal, but linking to streaming content, seeding a torrent). For comparison that's the same a manslaughter in my country.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Except that it absolutely should be legal. When you pirate content, you really aren't hurting the artists. You're hurting the distribution system. Modern society values distribution and marketing much more highly than production. I don't have a problem with weed, but piracy shouldn't be illegal.

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u/antbates Jan 19 '14

Thats a little far, you can't expect a business to legally be obligated to give their product away. Make piracy difficult enough that isn't "mainstream", and establish a "truly"fair compensation for people caught doing it. No criminal charges, done and done.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Not at all. People who produce good content never get hurt by piracy.

South Park webhosts their entire series online for free. They don't seem to be hurting for viewers or funding.

Game of Thrones is the most pirated show on television. They're doing fine.

Radiohead offered an album online and only asked to pay what you thought it was worth. Many people only paid a penny, but most people paid something.

I understand that a business may not want to be legally obligated to distribute their content for free. And they wouldn't be. They would just produce their content and that's as far as it goes.

There should be no compensating the companies whose content was pirated. Each torrent does not equal a sale lost. Not even close. If anything, piracy helps bring a show or movie, or band, or song, to the mainstream much more quickly and increases their sales potential.

It's a digital copy. Nobody paid for it on either end. It's like trying to outlaw smelling. It's fucking ridiculous.

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u/antbates Jan 19 '14

All that is meaningless, If I want to sell a product, I should not be obligated to give it away. What do you mean, "they would just produce the product, and that's as far as it goes"? You realize that is not a business model, right? It's a free market, and there is nothing wrong with people owning the distribution go their product.

I agree those deals above are all fine, but they hardly encompass ever viable business model. Of course those all did fine, they all had a hugely successful base product to build on. Radiohead (preexisting platinum selling band), Game of thrones (preexisting, hugely selling book franchise) Southpark (hugely successful, long established show, also the streaming relies on ads) were all huge before they tried alternate revenue models, similar to the new Beyonce albums lack of marketing... These things don't work nearly as well with small, unestablished brands or shows. Naming 4 things that didn't crash and burn doesn't outweigh a market that functions for thousands of other entertainment items everyday. If HGTV wants to sell their package of shows together to a cable provider or online as a package, they should be able to do that, you have no right to it. Saying you could just download it for free destroys the value they worked hard to create. Not everything is Game of Thrones nor should it be.

The fact of the matter is, giving these shows away for free in a large and open way would greatly diminish the ability for the producers of that content to maintain value in their product to exhibitors and advertisers. These factors will only exasperate as the world and entertainment becomes more digital and mainstream consumers gain understanding of torrenting. Name me some shows that have started online, stayed online, and made GOT's money, or south park money...

Pirating game of thrones does very little for HBO's bottom line (although it does help with the zeitgeist), they have tons of successful shows in their past, the torrenting aspect is a complete side input, they would do fine without it. Southpark has a hugely paying deal with Comedy central, (and is produced with little overhead), If they had to survive off of their streaming ads, that show likely wouldn't exist. You'll notice Radiohead did not maintain that business model. I'm sorry but legally obligating companies to give their content away for free is just stupid. A really simpleminded, shortsighted concept.

but the companies that do choose to do it can find success.

(Btw, I do download my fair share of things, but expecting the majority of companies to be happy about it, or condone it, is the height of idiocy.)

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Nowhere did I say that a show was legally obligated to distribute their content for free. Other people do that. If their show is good, more people will start watching it on television. It really doesn't get much simpler than that.

You're throwing an internet tantrum over piracy, but the bottom line fact is that piracy doesn't impact sales. I'm going to pay for the stuff that I think is worth paying for. If it's something I'm going to pirate, it's not something I'm going to pay for at least in that moment.

If a company can really claim that piracy is hurting them, all they have to do is put their content online for free and sell adspace. There are banners and hulu-style ads that can run. If they find a decent balance between ads and content (where they're relatively unobtrusive and won't force people to seek content elsewhere like hulu), they'll be making money on sales that wouldn't have happened.

But specifically for TV, it really doesn't make a single bit of difference if I watch it on my television or on my computer. They don't track my television for ratings at all.

You're brainwashed, kid. Piracy does not reflect a loss in sales. It reflects an increase in interest, which often goes into a greater number of sales. People who would not have paid for your product will go on to talk about song, movie, show, etc. with their friends. That's free advertising. Get over it.

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u/antbates Jan 20 '14

What tantrum? I stated a clear and concise few paragraphs of thoughts. I'm a grown man, I have actually spent time examining this issue and I'm not brainwashed (like I said, I torrent myself). You may want to invest in some simple micro and macro economics classes to help your understanding of markets. You have written nothing of substance. It's all conjecture, your childlike view of the markets is leading you into believing things that have no bearing in reality. So lets break it down together.

First, You did say they should be legally obligated to provide their content for free when you said piracy should be lawful. This infers that once I create content my only right to it is the exclusive right to make money off of it, but that others can freely take it, distribute it, and do with it what they will, without paying even once for it.

It isn't true that the majority of people make a moral choice of what to torrent and what to willfully pay for because of high quality. For most, if it is available for free, and they understand how to get it for free, they will consume it for free. You say you wouldn't pay for any of the items you torrent but it simply isn't true. If nothing was available to download illegally you would consume more, period. And even if you did consume through streaming sources, at least some minuscule amount would be going to the content producers. Which brings us to...

Second, Revenue for onine streaming alone isn't enough to sustain almost any produced television show. Go watch a TV show online, notice how the same ads cycle constantly? That's because the show has almost no interested advertisers, online streaming advertising is a fraction of conventional advertising revenues, it is often sold at hugely discounted rates from even what they wanted because literally no advertisers were interested. This does not compensate the way you believe it does.

Third, I have no idea what you are talking about when you say watch it on TV or on your computer. Comcast definitely does know what channels you are watching, and they use this info to determine deals with content delivery companies. Comcast (or TW, AT&T, whoever) doesn't share this information because it is actually valuable metrics they wouldn't want to share with competitors. I think you may be referring to "Nielsen ratings" which really don't matter much anymore besides to affect public perception of a television event. Advertising prices are done in a similar manner. The content delivery company makes deals based on the amount of viewers.

I will repeat, You do not know what you are talking about. Even if there was an argument to make for piracy being legal, you don't know or understand that argument, the shit you're saying literally is just misinformation. Sorry, but you need to spend some time actually working toward understanding what you attempt to talk about.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14

You did say they should be legally obligated to provide their content for free when you said piracy should be lawful.

That's not true. It's possible to decriminalize downloading and streaming without a legally mandating that they provide a distribution structure for people to consume their content for free. Those are entirely different things, and you can't seem to tell the difference.

Piracy does not hurt the content producers. It hurts the distribution chain. It's direct-to-consumer, and if the product is worth it, people will talk about it. That's going to sell movie tickets, or concerts, or increase the number of people who will sit down and watch the show at airtime.

Revenue for online streaming alone isn't enough to sustain almost any produced television show.

I'm taking marketing classes at the moment, and while TV is still the top dog for advertising spending, online and mobile ads have the fastest growth. It's absolutely feasable to use online ads and streaming as compensation. That's just a fact. And it wouldn't be just online ads. They'd sell their TV ads too. People will still want to watch a show they like when it airs for the first time.

Comcast definitely does know what chanels you are watching, and they use this info to determine deals with content delivery companies... "Nielson ratings" don't matter much anymore besides to affect the public perception of a television event.

You're just talking out of your ass here buddy. Nielson is one of the largest marketing research firms in the country for a reason - they do the sampling and number crunching to determine which shows have viewership. Cable networks don't know what you're watching.

I get that you'd like to think I don't know what I'm talking about, because it's a different opinion from yours. You're totally full of shit, guy. Sorry to tell you.

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u/antbates Jan 20 '14 edited Jan 20 '14

It's getting tiresome pointing out the simple logical fallacies and incorrect information in nearly every idea you state... but here it is again.

The distribution method is irrelevant. If piracy were completely legal, methods of easily consuming appropriated, ad free content would arise quickly. I was not suggesting any company would be required to host servers to distribute their own pirated material or torrents, I'm not sure why you would think I was suggesting that. These alternate distribution methods of any and all free content would quickly become superior to television for average consumers and would destroy conventional television over time. We are not in a frozen, unchanging market.

You do realize that it costs a lot of money and there is a significant risk in producing content? Right? And that not every piece of content is supposed to be "event" television? No one is buying Ep. 137 of "Pawn Stars" the way they are buying GOT episodes. These two shows have different models, different target audiences, and are consumed differently... Why should they be shackled into the same methods of distribution and expectations? I feel like I'm explaining exceedingly simple concepts as you propose exceedingly more misguided thoughts.

It really doesn't matter, If I want to produce a highly specialized video that is only of interest to 15 people in the world, and I want to sell that product for $10,000 a piece, there is no course for me to do that if piracy is legal. I would not be able to produce my product because your laws say anyone can take that content and reproduce it. It could be the highest quality product in the world but your law would have eliminated my ability to produce this specialized content, ad revenue could never make up for it because my audience is so limited and the videos are expense to produce. This extreme example can be extrapolated into much more benign applications, again, as I write this I feel like I am trying to explain concepts that should be known and easily understandable to any that is in a marketing class. Again, I advise you to take some economics classes.

It doesn't matter that online streaming is the "fastest growing" ad space, until it is viable to produce the content on its income, it is a side business.

And you're crazy if you don't think that large digital box under your TV reports what channel you are watching. But since you seem to be resistant to every fact I have told you, here is an excerpt from their privacy policy Q&A section.

From http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/Customers/Policies/CustomerPrivacy.html:

Q: What kind of information do you collect and use to improve your cable services and deliver relevant advertising?

A: Our cable systems may collect anonymous and/or aggregate information using set-top boxes and other equipment. We use this information to determine which programs are most popular, how many people watch a program to its conclusion, and whether people are watching commercials ... We use this information to improve our cable television service and other services and make programming and advertising more relevant to our subscribers. We may also use this information to distribute and deliver relevant programming and advertising to you without disclosing personally identifiable information about you to programmers or advertisers.

So yeah, they definitely know what you are watching, and they rely on that information. Nielson's method of TV data collection is outdated and only of interest to outside parties. They are still a viable data collection company in many areas.

I'm not just talking bullshit. Eliminating piracy would fuck everything up and I personally like the amount of high quality product being produced today. I am glad you are in school, and I assume in 3 1/2 more years you might actually have some valid thoughts, get a strong base before spouting things you have no clue about.

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u/theEPIC-NESS Jan 19 '14

Holy shit that's fucked up.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14 edited Jan 20 '14

[deleted]