Then what are those people who pirated music?...not criminals.
If they didn't exceed the 506 thresholds they would be civil copyright infringers
...people who pirate any kind of intellectual property aren't necassarily bad people...
and that's one problem with "RIP!" as a source of info, it's a manifesto and it uses techniques to specifically forward an opinion, not explore an issue -- the filmmaker, for instance,r confuses the issues of transformative use (remixing, etc - that's preparation of derivative work) with infringing "uploading/downloading" (distribution and reproduction respectively)
Even Lessig, whom he used in the film and called "the coolest lawyer in the world" (I doubt the filmmaker knows many) makes the distinction in his Library of Congress "Copyright Law in Cyberspace" talk [which is primarilly about the problems involved in transformative use]
...so screws to what copyright law says, I never had a say in it
it is a justification NAMBLA could also use
or we could use it for vigilante killing
or really any law we disagree with and wish to circumvent - it basically allows for negation of laws in wholesale fashion
this goes back to the sub-conversation about "politically aware" -- does it require one to be informed, what about those who opine that they are disenfranchised.
if I want to learn something money shouldn't be barrier
there are areas in copyright law that address some of these issues - part of the classic 4 part test for fair use is nature of use for instance, lending library law also has special provisions in USA
but "shouldn't" - again brings us back to the political thought, not the jurisprudential thought
...and if you want to see what I mean, see the last part in A Remix Manifesto about Brazil...do you think they have the financial capacity to pay royalties to have permission to legally remix?
already seen it -
I think the filmmaker's entire approach was manipulative for instance, in the US he shows Time's Square, but for Brasil he showed a beach, not, say, Sao Paulo, IIRC the largest city in the Western Hemisphere
As to if they have financial means to pay royalties...depends on the person, the nature of use, and if the creator is requiring royalties, etc
...and a question. In the current US law system, if someone does patent a cure to cancer, is someone else doing something illegal if they make a copy of that cure and say sell it at a cheaper price?
Yes, if it were within the patent term and were restricted by the patent claims, it would be patent infringement [An interesting legal question arises in a more general sense that I don't believe has ever been put to test - can eminent domain..I believe they call it "compulsory acquisition" in your country -- be applied to intellectual property].
As we look to incite emotions by playing to altruism (similar to a rallying cry of "for the children") we can ask ourselves why the second company would charge any money at all, or why DJ girltalk would like to quit his job as a medical researcher (remixing ain't going to cure cancer) and why he accepts payment, or why we drum when there are children to be fed.
This goes back to Article I, Section 8 of the US constitution (the outlining of the power to legislate IP laws)
Angiogenesis Inhibition
TNF-a promotion
telomerase re-expression
etc, etc
all these are therapies in which there is ongoing research, expensive research that takes man-lives of work without any assurance it's even going to work.
If it's the the evil of cancer we are battling, drop the sticks and pick up the test tube and do it for free -- these are the sorts of positions we get when we use self-righteous altruism as an emotional manipulation tool as Rip! does.
The filmmaker started with a position and built a film around it, it isn't an exploration of the issue and it's properly labeled a manifesto