I think you mean "...stands for the freedom to make money off of people in the same way he has been the last 2 decades, namely through at best shady and several times completely illegal and fraudulent means".
Yes, even scumbags have rights, absolutely! No, don't ever paint this egotistical, opportunistic allegorical hyperbole of a man as any sort of "hero" or "freedom fighter".
>It's about expanding the power base
On this point, I could not agree more with you. It has been my own impression for a LONG time that all those "you wouldn't steal a car" ads and all the media attention the RIAA/MPAA-mafia are getting for their strong-arm methods is really nothing but a very clever and calculated PR campaign to implant this actually non-existent problem in people's minds so that they then can lobby and extort money and continue increasing their power and influence/leverage on governments the world over. So what I am saying is, it was never about changing people's minds to not copy a CD or a movie but it was mainly about rallying and lobbying for their cause; a self-feeding cluster-frakk because the topic is then obviously "en vogue" so politicians can no longer ignore them and have to give in to their demands. When actually they do not make less money now than they did 15 years ago.
It is very sad to see how successful this has become, seeing NZ fold like that.
> Yes, even scumbags have rights, absolutely! No,
> don't ever paint this egotistical, opportunistic
> allegorical hyperbole of a man as any sort of "hero"
> or "freedom fighter".
Larry Flint stood for freedom too, doesn't mean he's a humanitarian only thinking of the greater good of mankind.
Even the 'Founding Fathers' of the US were rich landowners that didn't want to get taxed by England. For all of the "fluff" that the history books talk about them being warm and fuzzy about human rights, their philosophies didn't disagree with their pocketbooks.
> When actually they do not make less money now than
> they did 15 years ago.
Their profits/revenues do fluctuate, but they use piracy as their scapegoat for everything.
Is the economy down, so people have less disposable income to spend on consuming entertainment media? It's piracy at fault! It definitely could not be because people have less money to spend, therefore they spend less money in aggregate.
Are other industries encroaching into the consumption media space (e.g. video games industry)? It's piracy at fault! It definitely could not be because people are now choosing to distribute spending of their finite amount of disposable income in other industries (e.g. buying few movies, and more video games).
I think you mean "...stands for the freedom to make money off of people in the same way he has been the last 2 decades, namely through at best shady and several times completely illegal and fraudulent means".
Yes, even scumbags have rights, absolutely! No, don't ever paint this egotistical, opportunistic allegorical hyperbole of a man as any sort of "hero" or "freedom fighter".
>It's about expanding the power base
On this point, I could not agree more with you. It has been my own impression for a LONG time that all those "you wouldn't steal a car" ads and all the media attention the RIAA/MPAA-mafia are getting for their strong-arm methods is really nothing but a very clever and calculated PR campaign to implant this actually non-existent problem in people's minds so that they then can lobby and extort money and continue increasing their power and influence/leverage on governments the world over. So what I am saying is, it was never about changing people's minds to not copy a CD or a movie but it was mainly about rallying and lobbying for their cause; a self-feeding cluster-frakk because the topic is then obviously "en vogue" so politicians can no longer ignore them and have to give in to their demands. When actually they do not make less money now than they did 15 years ago.
It is very sad to see how successful this has become, seeing NZ fold like that.