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Toshiba dürfte heute einen Rekordverlust von über 4 Milliarden US-Dollar und Massenentlassungen ankündigen. Der Konzern versucht sich bisher mit Partnerschaften und Spartenverkauf zu retten. (Toshiba, Sony)

In the copyright monopoly debate, there’s significant confusion about how a market economy works, and what constitutes a right to remuneration of any kind.

There is exactly one action that entitles somebody to money, and that is an agreement that money should be paid in exchange for a good or service, otherwise known as a “sale”. There are exactly zero other things that entitle somebody to payment.

When somebody views a movie through a window? Nobody is entitled to money.

When somebody listens to a street performer? Nobody is entitled to money.

When somebody plays a video game at a friend’s? Nobody is entitled to money.

When somebody copies said video game from their friend? Nobody is entitled to money.

When somebody walks into a store and agrees to exchange money for a good? Then, and only then, is somebody entitled to money. Only then.

There are absolutely zero excuses for “wanting” money but not “getting” it. If you’re not able or willing to find a counterparty with whom to perform an exchange on mutually agreed terms, you’re entitled to exactly nothing. Just like everybody else. Specifically including people who create art and want to be paid for creating art, or for that matter, anybody doing anything they like. Nobody owns the fuzzy, wishy-washy and generally handwavy “fruits of their labor”. They own exactly what they can exchange in a mutually negotiated transaction with a voluntary and willing counterparty. Nothing less, nothing more.

This is called a market economy, and it works so vastly superior to all other alternatives tried because all people do their own valuations of the value of goods or services all the time in a decentralized fashion, rather than somebody centralized trying to establish a “proper” value for goods and services. That kind of hubris has been tried from time to time in various forms of centralization of the economy, and it has always resulted in either huge shortages, or huge surplus stocks resulting in huge shortages elsewhere. Nobody simply has the brainpower to assess the continuous valuation and re-valuation of millions of other people.

When planned economies have been tried – notably under communism – they look fine on the surface until too many people are starving and lack basic hygiene essentials because of said shortages. At that point, the first protesters are generally jailed as political prisoners. Sometimes, they’re murdered by the regime “for the cause”, whatever that is – the murdered generally don’t care. Eventually, the whole fairytale idea of one person being a better valuator of something than millions of people doing the same thing breaks down, and the Maskirovka falls.

The copyright monopoly is a strong limitation of the property rights that are essential to a market economy, and indeed a limitation of the market economy itself. The copyright monopoly is therefore not just completely immoral from this angle, but also damaging to the economy as a whole.

So what does this have to do with the “authors must be paid” cliché? Everything. Since you’re neither buyer nor seller, you’re not a party to the transaction. Therefore, frankly and literally, it’s none of your business. When a third party makes a copy of a game, a third party who was not party to the original transaction, that third party has absolutely no obligation whatsoever to the parties in the original transaction: no sale has been made.

When you’re repeating the blatant cliché of “authors must be paid”, you’re asserting a right to intervene in a market transaction between two parties where you were not involved in the transaction or negotiations. This is the direct opposite of a market economy. And when suggesting the cliché as a rule, or law, you’re advocating a planned interventionary economy – literally a communist economy.

Put differently, other people’s business failures are neither your moral, legal, or business problem to solve. Trying to blame your customer’s morals for the weaknesses in your own business plan – your inability to find a voluntary counterparty with whom to make an exchange, a “sale” – is the last step before your business dies, and frankly, it’s rather unworthy. This is where the copyright industry is currently finding itself.

And as we’ve seen before, making a copy of something – in violation of the copyright monopoly or not, that doesn’t matter – is merely exercising your own property rights: rearranging the magnetic fields on your own property according to what you’re observing with your own tools and senses. Suggesting such an action to constitute a fantasy voluntary agreed transaction with a fantasy counterparty is suggesting a planned economy, the kind that didn’t work at all under communism.

About The Author

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.

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Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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When it comes to obtaining and placing unauthorized content online, so-called ‘release groups’ are what makes the world of piracy tick.

Most closely associated with the ‘Scene’ during the 2000s, release groups now come in all shapes and sizes, from elite groups at the top of the piracy pyramid through to one-man bands seeking kudos from the masses.

Another area closely associated with release groups are those affiliated with both private and public torrent sites. These can take many forms. Some are created by site members keen to gain recognition while furthering their chosen site’s brand, while others are operated by sites themselves.

While The Pirate Bay has never had an overt release group, other sites in the public space certainly have. RARBG, for example, has a release group operating in its name and ETRG (ExtraTorrent Release Group) provides a similar function for that site.

The latest site to jump on the release group bandwagon is KickassTorrents (KAT). Currently the largest torrent site on the Internet, KAT is certainly not short of visitors but it appears that the site believes it can better serve the public with the provision of a site-branded release group.

At the time of writing the group, which appeared around a week ago and operates from the three-year-old username KATRG, currently has 21 releases. In addition to Blu-ray and web rips, KATRG is also offering the latest Oscar DVD screeners to leak online including Room, Brooklyn and The Peanuts Movie.

KAT administrator Mr. Black informs TF that KATRG is being operated by a well-known encoder, whose identity will not be made public.

“Having a famous encoder with us that has such massive experience in knowing what the users want helps to gain attention and can only bring some good things to KickassTorrents,” Mr. Black says.

It’s worth noting that KATRG is not the original source of any of the titles uploaded so far. Instead, the group re-encodes Scene releases. That being said, lack of originality never hurt the image of YIFY, for example, who mostly re-encoded and then re-branded Scene releases.

But of course, just like any other torrent, KATRG releases are vulnerable to takedown by copyright holders. The image below shows that a blu-ray rip of The Bad Education Movie only clocked 98 downloads before being removed.

Nevertheless, KickassTorrents is offering a solution to this problem. It’s been in operation for some time, but essentially it remains possible to download releases even after they have been taken down from the site.

In respect of KATRG this is achieved by a forum thread which lists all of the group’s releases along with their hashcodes. Should any be taken down, users are invited to enter hashes into another search engine which then provides the download in question.

At the moment KATRG releases aren’t particularly popular with downloaders which is not that unusual for a relatively unknown group. However, just like releases from YIFY (and aXXo before him), KATRG’s efforts will eventually become trusted and with that will come popularity.

Also, since the release group name is also being spread around other sites, it effectively becomes free and effective advertising for KickassTorrents – not that the site really needs any more exposure.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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The Fairphone 2 is a smartphone with a modular design that makes it easy to repair (and possibly easy to upgrade in the future). It’s also built from ethically-sourced materials. As the name suggests, this is the second smartphone from the Fairphone team, and it’s generated a lot of buzz for not only avoiding use […]

Fairphone 2 modular, ethically-sourced smartphone begins shipping is a post from: Liliputing