Copyright infringement
The reasons for this post:
1. The recent discussions which were going on for several weeks about Bono’s article in the New York Times, where the U2 front man clearly states there should be no free online file sharing.
2. Discussions of that kind are not something new. Free online information sharing has been regarded as something close to a crime for a long time now.
3. The rights of people who produce the product (please note! only produce, not distribute).
4. The rights of consumers worldwide (not only in the USA!).
5. My own opinion which I want to share and hopefully get a response from others who know more about those matters or have opinions similar to mine or different of it.
6. My believe that this is a problem to all of us and all of should find a solution for it. Everyone could come to create something of hers or his and should have the right to share it with others as he or she sees fit.
I was considering writing everything as one piece of text, but decided to keep it in the form of short notes, as my current information on the issue is fragmented and incomplete. Most are things that I hear from other people here in Bulgaria (or friends from other countries like Sweden 
, or I read on blogs and in newspapers from all over the world.
I should say I don’t have any final opinion on what is the right or the wrong thing to do and do not know whether there could be a solution which will satisfy all sides in the dispute. However, I do have a certain view on things concerning copyright infringement. I do not support it, but I am part of it and I would like to tell you why:
The first and main reason is that being in Bulgaria makes part of a world which is not part of the “big world”. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it is like this — I do have an Xbox 360 (not modified and not pirated) it is my own and paid with my own money. All the games I play on that console are legitimate (most of them bought from England during my recent visits there). However, the fact that I live in Bulgaria does not give me the right to use Xbox Live (the online network for the console) and there is content which I am ready to pay for but cannot get because Xbox does not have business in my country (small market not of big interest to Microsoft). Now, I’ve heard that I could register the console as it was being used in the UK or Germany and buy points from Amazon.com and download the content and pay for it. I haven’t done that yet, but should I ?! It would be a lie and it would not be very legal. (The same is with the PSP and Playstation 3 networks).
And that is the first thing I hear from people in Bulgaria — We are forced to, because they do not give us the right to use it and we are people too and we have the right to use it.
Another example — If you want to see an official music video of Metallica from this country you cannot due to copyright issues. So I can watch my favourite music videos of Metallica but have to use another Youtube channel (which is not legit). It is a small thing but it matters because of all other things we here cannot do, just because we are not part of a larger market.
And one other example — I had to get most of my textbooks and dictionaries to learn Swedish from Sweden, because almost all sites I did find online did not ship to Bulgaria. (I should say things are improving in this regard and thank God. Thank you, thank you wonderful Ebay guys!).
– What do consumers say:
1. Why should I pay for it when I can get it (it being a movie, computer game, music clip, software of some sort ect) for free from some torrent site (in every country there at least a dozen of those).
2. Why pay for something twice? It is not my fault that I own an old Metallica cassette and it is not working now. Why should I pay again for the same content that I’ve already paid before. The disc does not cost as much as they ask of me.
3. Even if I wanted to pay for it, they just do not supply it to our country. I cannot go to another country just to buy music.
4. They are just greedy and unreasonable. They want the big money and do not care for the people at all. They deserve to get robbed.
5. Why should I pay a huge amount of money for something I do not know if I would like. They should have a policy for that. You should be able to get a free sample and test it before you buy. Oh, they have game demos, well not for all games and not for all users (some of the games demos are available only on certain markets).
6. Why should I pay for her whole freakin’ album when only one song is good?! They should let buy one song and not price it like the disc has 12 songs on it.
7. Quality does not matter so much to me so as to make me pay for a movie I can download for free from the Internet.
8. If we did not have piracy here, we still would not know how to use a computer. And they do not care.
What people from the (music, movie) industry say:
1. The industry will got to ruin if this does not stop.
2. Copyrights protect the artists.
3. There should be better legislation in order to protect the industry from illegal file sharing.
4. All of us are hurt by the piracy.
5. Every year we suffer huge losses as a result of piracy.
And in order to not just talk without some proof — here are some articles I found online when I was researching the piracy issues:
‘Piracy in US leads to $1 billion loss for Indian films’
Movie Industry Wants “Speed Bumps” for Pirates
Piracy level in Nigeria is 58 per cent, reveals survey
Will Xbox Live ban help cut 360 piracy?
App Store Piracy Losses Estimated At $459 Million
What Bono said?
– Internet service providers (ISPs) are profiting from illegal file sharing at the expense of the music industry.
– ISPs are “reverse Robin Hoods”.
– The movie industry is currently protected only by the fact that it still takes a lot of time to download a movie.
– It is “perfectly possible to track content”.
How did the people react (more of that comes from Twitter):
– Not cool Bono!
– The difference between Bono and God is that God is not walking around thinking he is Bono.
– @CAKEMUSIC: Does Bono have a right to oppose unrestricted file sharing? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8439200.stm http://bit.ly/5ts7Uk
– @fingertrouble: I’m gettin limited sympathy for the indies and the ‘file sharing hurts indies’ argument Bono et al are peddling. What we have now is change.
– @Jon_Reiss: Bono in NYTimes.com Like me – He has a good argument against file sharing – amoungst other ideas http://bit.ly/7VjCHD
–@ericorchard I don’t know, man. I know too many bands who are only making money because of file sharing. And Bono still looks rich to me.
– CharlieChicago: In response to Bono and Krist Novoselic’s controversial remarks on illegal file sharing. http://bit.ly/6ooZGH
In conclusion I wan to say that although I sympathize more with the consumers (being one myself) I had a chance to see the other side of things. And there is a short story about that:
Me and my husband have a friend who is movie director. His recent work is on a film about a group of Bulgarian directors who are now in their seventies but were very popular in the 70s and 80s. They had made a series of short commercials which were put on before a movie was played in the theatres back then.
Now, our friend watched those old commercials (which are more like comedy short films rather than product advertisements) and wanted to share them with more people. His idea was to let young people see who talented are those elder men who now live in a village and grow grapes and make wine 
He discovered, however, that the state which holds the marketing and distribution rights for the short films will not agree on giving up the films to someone else to distribute unless a huge amount of pay is paid. Of course neither the old directors nor our friend have that kind of money. So those films will just rot somewhere (or will be uploaded illegally to torrent site). I remember then I was angry and took entirely the side of the movie makers, saying they should have the right to dispose of their own work as they do please. But it is not like that isn’t it? When you sign a contract with a producer he comes to own what is yours — your thoughts, your talent. That’s just not right…
Though when I read Bono’s article and saw him complaining of the musicians being robbed I did not feel the same. I remember I thought : Well they should make enough money and the losses from piracy are just a small amount of the whole profit.
Is that true though? I don’t know. Are there people who lost their careers due to piracy?
Many things are unclear, there is no solution found yet. My impression is that more people are rebelling against the limitations that come with copyrights. On Youtube recently there was an initiative from producers to unite all popular copyrighted music videos in one channel and see that all illegally uploaded videos are taken off the site. Users automatically started avoiding the channel and the illegal videos were put back on in just a day. So obviously violence and the use of authority are not the way to go.
So where to from here?
And have you tried to watch or download tv series from some of the official sites? “Your country is not eligible, sorry.”