PSA to Americans: If you've ever sold on a piece of electronics, you probably broke copyright law

[Tollbooth Willie]

no vegeta you got told hard you little sperg lord

 

[Eejit]

Okay my head is practically spinning but I have it figured out. Here's how:

Krynn states that the law will have no effect pertaining to the wider issue.

Riom misunderstands Krynn in thinking that he was saying it will have no effect on the individual issue.

Mostly right, except that Riomhaire was talking about the overall ("widest") issue, including both macro and micro, being effected - as the micro subset was effected. Krynn apparently began speaking of the macro subset, but without making it clear that he was only discussing the macro and disregarding the micro issues.
It was obvious that Krynn was talking about the wider/macro issue, but not obvious that he was intentionally ignoring (rather than not noticing or not caring about) the smaller-scale issue entirely and not talking about the issue overall.

This lack of clarity was later compounded by Vegeta talking about "significant effect" later - suggesting that he was talking about the overall issue (with the small total effect from the micro portion) rather than the macro issue (no effect at all according to Krynn).

Anyway, yeah, it probably will have a bigger macro effect than Krynn seems to think - piracy is far more anonymous and has greater 'herd protection' due to the sheer number of people doing it. Selling on items purchased abroad is more noticeable, particularly when people such as Supap have been making a (previously) legitimate business out of it. Even doing it small-time on craigslist or Ebay would be more more visible than the average media pirate. For these reasons the fear of legal retaliation among those selling electronics this way will be greater and thus the law suits are more likely to have a somewhat wider impact than on illegal downloads.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Jesus jumped-up christ.

As long as we're clarifying, I'd just like to point out that I was mocking the absurdity of Vegeta's example, not being deliberately obtuse. If someone poisoned 20 candy bars and people found out about it, there would be a ****ing outcry, regardless of how many people didn't get poisoned. Same way that if I killed 20 people, it would have an effect on more than just those 20 people.

 

[Vegeta897]

As long as we're clarifying, I'd just like to point out that I was mocking the absurdity of Vegeta's example, not being deliberately obtuse. If someone poisoned 20 candy bars and people found out about it, there would be a ****ing outcry, regardless of how many people didn't get poisoned. Same way that if I killed 20 people, it would have an effect on more than just those 20 people.

It was a bad example, I'll admit. I should have clarified that I actually didn't mean deadly poison, just like poison that was enough to make the person dissatisfied with the product (and not actually think/know that it was poisoned, just think it was a bad bar) and yet not big enough of a deal for people to care, ie no overall effect on the product's sales.

Krynn's fishing example is far more apt.

 

[MFL]

Damnit, no! Keep arguing! I was gonna start selling popcorn at the corner.

 

[Eejit]

Krynn's fishing example is far more apt.

It's better, but still poor.

Instead of fishing in the ocean it's a medium sized lake, and if the fisherman is successful he'll likely come back for more and really depress the fish stocks.

 

[Krynn72]

But then thats still a bad example because fish dont last as long as ipods and other things, so this fisherman must be fishing in a medium sized lake full of giant rapidly reproducing fish who provide anywhere between several months to several years of sustenance. Yeah, once his fish is consumed he'll have to replace it, but many new fish would have been born during that time when he didnt need another fish.

Lets see how far we can take this.

 

[Vegeta897]

What if the fisherman sells the fish to someone who throws it back into the lake?

 

[Krynn72]

W

What if the fisherman sells the fish to someone who throws it back into the lake?

Well obviously he'd be re-caught and considered refurbished.

 

[Bad^Hat]

It was a bad example, I'll admit. I should have clarified that I actually didn't mean deadly poison, just like poison that was enough to make the person dissatisfied with the product (and not actually think/know that it was poisoned, just think it was a bad bar) and yet not big enough of a deal for people to care, ie no overall effect on the product's sales.

Krynn's fishing example is far more apt.

How is "eat shitty candy bar that makes you dissatisfied with product but you don't even know it was poisoned" in any way analogous to "get your balls sued off by mega-corporation."

 

[Vegeta897]

How is "eat shitty candy bar that makes you dissatisfied with product but you don't even know it was poisoned" in any way analogous to "get your balls sued off by mega-corporation."

Why does the degree of effect have to be the same? We're talking about different things here. Do you understand the purpose of the analogy? It demonstrates the same concept of a remote few not affecting the many. Like you already pointed out, if those people actually were killed, there would be a huge outcry. But this story isn't causing that kind of huge outcry, and so that wouldn't be analogous.

When you're using an analogy, the concept you're trying to explain has to be the same. No, eating a shitty candy bar is not the same as being sued. But we're not talking about the effects of being sued in this thread, and I was not making an analogy about being sued. We're talking about how the fortune of a few does not affect the grand scale of things. If I had made the effect of poisioning the candy bar as bad as being sued, the analogy would fall apart because the concept would no longer be the same, like you already pointed out before.

It would be like, if you were trying to come up with an analogy for the concept of one person's vote not having an effect on a presidential election because they're just one person, and you said "one person's vote is like a single drop of rain in a storm" and then I came along and was like "In what way is a storm analogous to the president of the united states?" which totally misses the point of the analogy.

 

[Bad^Hat]

I still don't understand what the poisoned candy bar is meant to represent.

 

[Vegeta897]

The misfortune of the kid who got sued.

Like the fish that gets caught in Krynn's analogy.

 

[Krynn72]

^ its a horny giant fish now, remember?