fredklein: Obviously not. The digital age has opened a 3rd choice.

No it hasnt. It has made the "i dont want to pay for something so i shall just get it without paying" option (i.e. infringement) easier. That's all. Infringement was always an option. Its why copyright law in close to its modern form is 300 years old. Saying that it is now very easy to infringe should not now mean that it is moral to infringe.

vygramul: Your definition of "legitimately available" is entirely based on whether one is willing to pay the price for it? So I can say an iPad3 is not legitimately available because I'm unwilling to pay $500 for it, even though the Apple Store has 1000 in the stockroom?

If you want a Blue iPad, and all they have is green, then the iPad you want is not available.

If you want a 32Gig iPad, and all they have is 16Gig iPads, then the iPad you want is not available.

If you want to buy an iPad, and they say you can buy one, but only if you purchase a time-share in Boca Raton, then the iPad you want is not available.

If you want a Digital copy of a movie, and you can only get one by ordering cable (which you don't have or want) and then upgrading to HBO Plus (or whatever)(that you also don't want), then... the movie you want is not available.

If it helps, substitute "available with the features and options I want and without additional purchases" for "available" in my posts.

And, YES, availability includes price. If they charge $2,000,00 for an iPod, can you really say it's available? What if they 'just' charge $100,000?

Dr. Mojo PhD: If you take a person whose demands you think (and frankly are) completely unreasonable, deliberately antagonize them, deliberately provoke them in return

That's what makes it fun. You don't treat a reasonable person like that- you treat them reasonably. But the nut-jobs? It's hilarious to poke at them.

and do that while dragging cancer patients into the fray.

This is the part I don't get. How, exactly, have cancer patients been brought "into the fray"? Oh, yeah, that nut ball lawyer Carreon is suing them. That was his choice to do something that dumb, not The Oatmeal's.

it's using them as a shield

The purpose of a shield is to stop or redirect an attack upon the wielder. How does donating money to charities make them a shield? If Carreon is dumb enough to attack them (which he evidently is), 1) he'll fail, 2) he'll look like a bigger douche than he already does, and 3) he can still attack The Oatmeal. The charities don't 'shield' The Oatmeal from attack at all.

fredklein: I also refer you to the HitchHikers Guide quote above. Would consider the plans "available" "in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard""?? I mean, DentArthuDent just 'did not want' to do what he needed to do to find them earlier, right?

Now see i let this go before because it was silly, but seeing as you feel the need to hold onto this and abuse the late mister adams in such a fashion lets take a moment:

1) you seem to be arguing that any barrier to access is the equivalent of an absolute barrier to access. That a company creating rarity in a product is the equivalent of them making it so onerous to get it that no one could possibly do so. Hyperbole is delightful and all, but let us be realists for a second and note that a high price is not the equivalent to a complete barrier. It can become so. But not here.

2) Mister Adams was making a play off of the legal principle that the modern administrative state, in both Britain and America has requirements that plans to affect a community be open and known to the community so that they have an opportunity for comment/protest/etc. However, as often happens what is considered conspicuous notice by courts is often far below what a standard person would consider such. For an american context publication of certain plans in the federal register counts as notice but many citizens do not even know of the fed. reg.'s existence let alone regularly peruse its thousands of daily pages. Thus there is a disconnect between what is legally considered on notice and display and what would be considered so under common sense. As a comedian of the absurd, mister Adams plays with this observation in a fun breezy book/radio show/tv show from which your quote is taken. All of this is clear. What is unclear is what it has to do with the point at hand.

Neither I nor vygramul (i dont think) have argued that HBO's policy makes it easy to get streaming GoT. It's relatively expensive. Or to use hyperbole in a proper sense: it is far too rich for my blood. It is available but woefully expensive. ballbustingly pricey. Costs an arm and a leg. What have you. However for your quote to really have applicability, shouldnt it be a situation where to get GoT streaming you would need to be involved in one of those internet scavenger hunts where you had to learn calculus to solve a series of equations and travel to various cities to get a secret code so you could finally get to the website where the shows were? Its not that its hard to get GoT on HBOGo - its that to do so requires a large sweaty wad of cash, a wad that was larger and sweatier than you, i or inman would like to pony up.

Not really a prelude to a fight, just a musing "out loud" as it were.

fredklein: And, YES, availability includes price. If they charge $2,000,00 for an iPod, can you really say it's available? What if they 'just' charge $100,000?

yes it is. Its just too expensive.

Something can be crushingly expensive and still be available. As an example:

1) a Bugatti Veyron costs about 2 mil. But its out there. If i had 2 mil i could buy one. Today. It is available. I do not happen to have 2 mil. Perhaps we could say it is not available to me, but that could apply to any product at any price depending on my cash flow.

2) a Bugatti Royale is one of the rarest production cars in the world. There are 6 of them. They all have names. They are not for sale. Any of them. It does not matter how much money i have. I cannot buy them. They are not available.

/why yes i watch top gear

Teiritzamna: 1) true also wrongful death is not offensive touching; slander is not trespass, nuisance is not false imprisonment - so what

SO, the penalties should not be more severe for a lesser crime. If I steal a DVD, the store loses a sale (the DVD I stole cannot be sold to anyone), possibly two (if I was going to buy it also).
If I DL it, no sale has been lost. It is a lesser crime, thus the penalties for DLing should be less then those for stealing a DVD. But this is not true.

2) what system would you have in place to ensure that there is an economic motive for the creation of such public goods?

Um, selling (copies of) it. You do realize that, despite the scourge piracy that is absolutely devastating the industries, that the movie and music industries are making record profits, right? I'll say that again: THEY ARE STILL MAKING TONS OF MONEY. There is no chance that they will cease making movies/music because of piracy.

I will note however that this goes somewhat to Mojo's central point that your rationale is that infringing someone's IP is not morally wrong and thus is the basis for the choice to download GoT in the strip, but that it then feels somewhat disingenuous to complain when someone else does the same thing.

There is a huge difference between a person making a copy of something for themselves, and a person who makes a profit (through advertising) by giving out copies of others work. Personal copy= good. Copy for Profit= bad.

Teiritzamna: 1) you seem to be arguing that any barrier to access is the equivalent of an absolute barrier to access.

Forcing someone to subscribe to a cable service and then upgrade to HBO Plus (Or Go or whatever), just so they can watch one farking show? Yeah, it's a pretty high barrier to access.

However, as often happens what is considered conspicuous notice by courts is often far below what a standard person would consider such. ... What is unclear is what it has to do with the point at hand.

What you happen to consider "available" is far different than what a standard person would consider such.

Neither I nor vygramul (i dont think) have argued that HBO's policy makes it easy to get streaming GoT. It's relatively expensive.

If you make something expensive, don't be surprised when people find alternatives to buying it from you.

fredklein: Teiritzamna: 1) true also wrongful death is not offensive touching; slander is not trespass, nuisance is not false imprisonment - so what

SO, the penalties should not be more severe for a lesser crime. If I steal a DVD, the store loses a sale (the DVD I stole cannot be sold to anyone), possibly two (if I was going to buy it also).
If I DL it, no sale has been lost. It is a lesser crime, thus the penalties for DLing should be less then those for stealing a DVD. But this is not true.

Well first we arent talking crime, we are talking torts - so lets keep that in mind as it is important. In the first instance - conversion - you have taken an object such that someone else cannot use it. Thus we make the damages the equivalent of the item taken. In the second instance - infringement - you have acted as a free rider and must disgorge the benefit you unjustly received. In both cases they lost a sale that was rightfully theirs. that is the basis of standard damages here. Additionally, in the conversion case they could argue that the conversion actually requires two sets of damages, the lost profits from the sale to someone else and the disgorged value of what you took. Usually getting both is a tough sell, but you are right - in conversion there is the potential for more damages. ok so what?

2) what system would you have in place to ensure that there is an economic motive for the creation of such public goods?

Um, selling (copies of) it. You do realize that, despite the scourge piracy that is absolutely devastating the industries, that the movie and music industries are making record profits, right? I'll say that again: THEY ARE STILL MAKING TONS OF MONEY. There is no chance that they will cease making movies/music because of piracy.

Um for all of the doomsaying, infringement right now at present is at a fairly low pace. That is in part because people find it morally wrong. also because rights are generally enforced. You want to see what happens when people believe that infringement is not morally wrong and where enforcement does not keep pace with infringement - the porn industry which has been absolutely gutted by . . . wait . . . infringement. pay has been spiraling downwards and the major houses are massively cutting back because they realize that on the modern internet infringing porn is totally cool. No one cares. Its too expensive anyway. Screw em. The problem regarding modern infringement apologists is that they believe that they cont do any damage. and in most cases they are right - the damage they do is fairly marginal. But when allowed to proliferate, the idea that infringement is harmless can totally bring down industries as it is doing in the humping trades.

I will note however that this goes somewhat to Mojo's central point that your rationale is that infringing someone's IP is not morally wrong and thus is the basis for the choice to download GoT in the strip, but that it then feels somewhat disingenuous to complain when someone else does the same thing.

There is a huge difference between a person making a copy of something for themselves, and a person who makes a profit (through advertising) by giving out copies of others work. Personal copy= good. Copy for Profit= bad.

Well first, i will agree that at least legally there is a huge difference. Enshrined in law even! The difference between willful infringement and willful infringement for profit is that one is a simple tort and one is a federal crime. However that doesn't mean personal copy = good. It means personal copy = bad, profit copy = worse. Second, what is the basis for one being good and one being bad? Seriously. I have never heard a rationale for it other than an ipse dixit that one is ok and the other isn't.

fredklein: If you make something expensive, don't be surprised when people find alternatives to buying it from you.

Now note, I don't think anyone would say companies would be surprised that people steal their expensive stuff. Surprise? Not at all. But they would enforce their rights to stop it.

Now i said steal here and i meant steal because the logic of your argument is not based on the fact that the material here is IP. The exact same logic applies to any goods, including physical ones. Thus any company makes their stuff expensive, people will steal it. That's just common sense. Diamond merchants, car manufacturers, guys who made Fabrige Eggs - they all expect that someone will want to get their stuff without paying for it.

The fact that a product is expensive is not a justification for getting it without paying for it. The fact that it is easier to get IP without paying for it than the others is not a justification either.

Of course if you wanted to get access to a product without paying for it, infringement is the far smarter choice. Its so easy. I dont need to physically take an object. Its just a tort not a crime. Its vaguely annonymous. Etc. Doesnt affect the morality of the act, but sure as shiat affects whether people are willing to do so.

fredklein: That's what makes it fun. You don't treat a reasonable person like that- you treat them reasonably. But the nut-jobs? It's hilarious to poke at them.

On that I agree. You treat cranks like cranks. I think Inman should have chosen the reasonable path first in the interests of acting in good faith ("Dear Mr. Carreon, please kindly tell your client to get bent..."), and I think a reasonable attempt at acting in good faith is absolutely necessary, and I don't see him doing that. After that I agree with you that all bets are off.

fredklein: This is the part I don't get. How, exactly, have cancer patients been brought "into the fray"? Oh, yeah, that nut ball lawyer Carreon is suing them. That was his choice to do something that dumb, not The Oatmeal's.

...it follows from that that if you deliberate antagonize a "nut-job," you know -- or you reasonably ought to know -- that they're going to do something insane. Like, say, what Carreon just did. The excuse "well that was their choice" doesn't wash with me. It's like grabbing a bystander and going "well it was his choice to shoot my human shield." Well no shiat it was their choice.

Look, let's say you've got a new girlfriend (or boyfriend if that's your slice) and her (or his) ex-boyfriend is a jealous psycho. So one day this guy does something nutty and starts flashing a piece and making insane demands of you.

Would your response really be to publicly emasculate that guy, personally insult his mother, then immediately turn around and be like "I'm tired of dealing with your bullshiat, I just want to chill and be nice to children and be all philanthropic and shiat," so you go down the street and buy a bunch of ice cream for some kids?

I mean maybe I'm the one being unreasonable here when I say I wouldn't do that because it seems like publicly emasculating a party I know to be "off" and then drawing attention to a group of innocent people knowing this just-got-his-balls-figuratively-cut-off-in-public guy is still paying attention to me, and that would make me kind of an asshole, and going "well it was his choice to pull his nine and start firing into those school children," wouldn't really wash for me. But I see that outcome as practically a given.

I really, really didn't expect at quite this level, this is just psychotic, but still.

Teiritzamna: In both cases they lost a sale that was rightfully theirs.

Not true. If I download a copy of Adobe Photoshop, what sale have they lost? I was never going to spend $600 (or whatever) on it to begin with. Thus, they have lost nothing.

Um for all of the doomsaying, infringement right now at present is at a fairly low pace.

Really? That's funny. I see these articles that say a quarter of all Internet traffic is due to piracy. Doesn't sound like 'a fairly low pace' to me.

Well first, i will agree that at least legally there is a huge difference. Enshrined in law even!

But you said "it then feels somewhat disingenuous to complain when someone else does the same thing" (emphasis added), and now you admit they aren't the same thing at all.

Second, what is the basis for one being good and one being bad? Seriously. I have never heard a rationale for it other than an ipse dixit that one is ok and the other isn't.

If I make a personal copy, no harm is done. None.
If I make copies and start selling them, I'm doing harm (by reducing the number of sales the original owner can make).

Dr. Mojo PhD: I think Inman should have chosen the reasonable path first in the interests of acting in good faith ("Dear Mr. Carreon, please kindly tell your client to get bent..."), and I think a reasonable attempt at acting in good faith is absolutely necessary, and I don't see him doing that.

I guess you haven't seen The letter from Inman's lawyer. Sounds quite 'reasonable' to me.

"well it was his choice to pull his nine and start firing into those school children,"

It WAS his choice. It was his choice to start the whole thing by dredging up a year-old complaint and claiming it was libel. It was his choice to send a legal extortiondemand letter asking for an outrageous amount. It was his choice to not research the background of who he was dealing with, and considering what he might do. It was his choice to decide to sue the charities (ie: 'shoot at the kids').

All these things just prove, over and over again, how dumb/crazy he is.

Now, as for your analogy- Are you saying that, once I piss someone off, I can never do anything with kids, just in case the nut-job might decide to shoot them? I can't go home (assume I have kids), I can't walk past a playground or school?

Besides, No one's going to die. No one's getting shot at or physically harmed. The lawsuits will get dropped, and more people in the world will realize what a idiot he is.

Dr. Mojo PhD:

OK here's my take on how I think you've seen this issue, as opposed to how everyone else did.

Carreon sent TO a letter that basically said "Give us $20,000 or we'll tie up your time and your head for next few years." Everyone here agreed it was legal, but reprehensible.

But your attitude was "(shrug) that's just what lawyer's do."

To you, the most important issue was that he said he'd donate to charity, which everyone else saw as the ps at the end of a letter.

We know that n-one makes decisions rationally. We all decide something emotionally and then tack rational justifications on afterward. I get the impression that you did that in spades. You decided that Inman was in the wrong because he mentioned charities, and then you spent an awful lot of time and effort trying to find reasons to dislike him.

Which was basically why I asked that Galileo Q upthread - would you consider that since everyone sees it differently, are you prepared to re-evaluate yr position? At that stage you brushed the Q aside and launched into a (as you said) "wall of text" justifying your dislike of Inman.

(can I remind you that you were the one who used 'hubris' in that context?)

So what's yr attitude now - are you the Galileo here, or is the world pretty much the one who's got it right?

/interesting that this thead has carried on for 3 days - usually has descended into random abuse by this time, but this seems to have become more civil, if anything)

fredklein: Dr. Mojo PhD: I think Inman should have chosen the reasonable path first in the interests of acting in good faith ("Dear Mr. Carreon, please kindly tell your client to get bent..."), and I think a reasonable attempt at acting in good faith is absolutely necessary, and I don't see him doing that.

I guess you haven't seen The letter from Inman's lawyer. Sounds quite 'reasonable' to me.

No I hadn't. Now I'm unclear on this. Did he make his response at the same the time as the lawyer sent the letter, or did Carreon reply to Inman's lawyer's letter before?

fredklein: Now, as for your analogy- Are you saying that, once I piss someone off, I can never do anything with kids, just in case the nut-job might decide to shoot them? I can't go home (assume I have kids), I can't walk past a playground or school?

No, of course not. I'm saying that when you have a nutjob on your ass, don't antagonize the nutjob and lead them around.

mjjt: To you, the most important issue

And that's where your understanding of this fails. Issues and thoughts aren't in a "competition" to be important. The idea that some issue is the most important and all other issues flow from that and are justified or unjustified based on that is absurd.

It's just that absolutely everybody is in agreement that FunnyJunk crossed the line in demanding satisfaction to the tune of $20,000 for Inman's complaint that they are hosting his comics without permission and in some cases attribution. What is there worth discussing in that? We all agree on it. There's nothing to talk about. Repeating it won't make it more or less true.

Why waste my time on any given event discussing how true the absolute givens are? 2+2=4 will still be true no matter how emphatically I agree with it.

Dr. Mojo PhD: Did he make his response at the same the time as the lawyer sent the letter, or did Carreon reply to Inman's lawyer's letter before?

If I'm not mistaken, at the same time (plus or minus a day or two).