The Government wants to jail online pirates for 10 years

I'm not saying it is fair - obviously there's a balance between no copyright law and extremely strict law like ours right now.

But why are we making a few people mega rich?

If you're going down that path you're arguing a whole different philosophy to the world.
One the world and the majority of its inhabitants has refused.

The world is capitalist, deal with it. If someone makes something that you want, you need to buy it. He chose to do it his way, just as Mr Ford did; nobody's making you buy them. I've got no time for that particular brand of lefty utopian idealism. The world doesn't work that way.

So you think there's no flaws in capitalism?

I don't think we are doing bad off of it, but that doesn't mean we have to sit down and shut up about things we don't like, especially when like piracy there are easily fixable flaws with no harm to anyone.

If you're going down that path you're arguing a whole different philosophy to the world.
One the world and the majority of its inhabitants has refused.

The world is capitalist, deal with it. If someone makes something that you want, you need to buy it. He chose to do it his way, just as Mr Ford did; nobody's making you buy them. I've got no time for that particular brand of lefty utopian idealism. The world doesn't work that way.

What's the incentive to invest and create something if you're not going to be compensated for it?

Many capitalists support repealing these laws as they consider them state granted monopolies, the Manchester Liberals were outspoken about Victorian copyright laws as being against free trade

Because you will be compensated for it. If you give people a better service than they get by pirating, people will buy your product. This is precisely the reason why services like Steam (for games), Bandcamp (for audio) and HumbleBundle (for everything) are so successful - they provide a good and convenient service that has the interests of the consumers in mind (e.g Bandcamp and HumbleBundle provide DRM-free media which means consumers actually own the things they buy rather than being bogged down by endless T&Cs) and also make the media affordable. Both Bandcamp and HumbleBundle use "Pay what you want" models but they give benefits to people who give more. The result is that whilst they sell products at lower prices than retail, particularly in the case of HB, they sell a huge quantity. I've spent a significant amount of money on HB, much of that going towards things that I would never in a million years have bought for the full-price. And it works - all of these websites are highly successful. Because of places like Steam and Humble Bundle, I have never pirated a video game. It simply doesn't make sense when I can support the developers at prices that I can afford using very good quality services. Unfortunately, equivalents like these do not exist for the motion picture industry and haven't been adopted widely enough in the audio industry.

In short, if you give people a good service (and even better, adopt a pay-what-you-want model, within reason), they will buy your product.

Because you will be compensated for it. If you give people a better service than they get by pirating, people will buy your product. This is precisely the reason why services like Steam (for games), Bandcamp (for audio) and HumbleBundle (for everything) are so successful - they provide a good and convenient service that has the interests of the consumers in mind (e.g Bandcamp and HumbleBundle provide DRM-free media which means consumers actually own the things they buy rather than being bogged down by endless T&Cs) and also make the media affordable. Both Bandcamp and HumbleBundle use "Pay what you want" models but they give benefits to people who give more. The result is that whilst they sell products at lower prices than retail, particularly in the case of HB, they sell a huge quantity. I've spent a significant amount of money on HB, much of that going towards things that I would never in a million years have bought for the full-price. And it works - all of these websites are highly successful. Because of places like Steam and Humble Bundle, I have never pirated a video game. It simply doesn't make sense when I can support the developers at prices that I can afford using very good quality services. Unfortunately, equivalents like these do not exist for the motion picture industry and haven't been adopted widely enough in the audio industry.

In short, if you give people a good service (and even better, adopt a pay-what-you-want model, within reason), they will buy your product.

And it's 100+ years later and those laws are still in place.

Lots of bad laws still in place, big business benefits from these laws at the expense of competition and free trade so block reform

If you said Yes you are most likely a hypocrite. Most people have downloaded from these pirates.

If you want me to try and make you feel better about stealing, I'm not going to.

Sharing a DVD in the comfort of your own home is covered by the license you tacitly accept when you buy it. Sharing it online with multiple people you don't know isn't. It violates the licensing, so is a criminal act.

All those people claiming they haven't/don't pirate are filthy liars. If you've ever searched youtube for a song or movie, chances are you've seen copyright infringing content without knowing it. Better spread them cheeks for a prison cavity search.

That reminds me that people are not necessarily in full knowledge that they are posting copyrighted material - if you're streaming a game onto YouTube for instance certain devs don't care and love it, whilst Nintendo think it is copyright abuse unless they get a cut from the profits. Where is the line drawn?

That reminds me that people are not necessarily in full knowledge that they are posting copyrighted material - if you're streaming a game onto YouTube for instance certain devs don't care and love it, whilst Nintendo think it is copyright abuse unless they get a cut from the profits. Where is the line drawn?

Pretty much on feasibility of enforcement. If they can't feasibly enforce something, they just let it slide. It's just not worth the time and effort to go ahead and start shutting people down on YT and Twitch.