.. Please lock the thread, Shane.  

...or at least kick it back onto the rails.

@wolf359 - sorry, the threading is just too much.

" They have the ability to force their customers onto a new business model from the previous business model as a result of that. It is an unfair advantage."

How is this an "It is an unfair advantage"???

There are no alternatives to may key applications because Adobe was allowed to acquire them, and then eliminate them (or in rare circumstances, eliminate their own). This was at the heart of the Microsoft / Netscape web browser argument years ago. It went nowhere in the US for the most part. Having close to monopolized the market, they can take unreasonable control.

A current parallel to this in the US is how the owner of Albertsons stores recently acquired Safeway. The end result is that in a huge number of markets, the number of choices / alternatives disappear. So a lot of stores that were previously Albertsons are being sold to Haggen.

"ability to lock you out of your IP investments which are infrastructural. Again, some places, this seems to be okay."

Forgive me sir but you get "locked out of your IP investments"

all the time by simple advances in software and hardware.

But not overnight, or in a week or any other period of time in which business cannot theoretically continue day to day operations.

"The US has historically been rather tolerant of that, other places less so. But then, my feeling is that Adobe should NEVER have been able to acquire Macromedia - simply selective products of Macromedia, like Flash (which is what they wanted anyway)."

Why not ????

Show me one case where their was actual Harm to THE GENERAL PUBLIC by Adobe's Aquiring of Flash.

Well, my point was that they should have been allowed to acquire Flash, but not the entire portfolio of products.

Illustration: Freehand vs Illustrator. Now only Illustrator.

Raster: Photoshop vs Fireworks. Now only Photoshop

Dreamweaver vs GoLive. The exception, but now only Dreamweaver

In the somewhat newer field of RAW / digital camera software, Lightroom now bundled in a $10 a month bundle with Photoshop. They can totally take a loss on Lightroom in such a bundle, because there are no real rivals now to Photoshop.

I can think of one very easy way Adobe could pull out of this draconian spiral, and that's to do like what they did with AIR or PDF: open the file formats.

no commits about ppi's ? sniff sniff

guess I'm the only one around here that actually use's a 2D app. 

@Moriador
All I said is that I find it repulsive when people side with corporate greed-machines, that is not an insult, it's an opinion I'm entitled to.

@RorrKonn
I haven't a clue what the maximum PPI for a specific program is, but providing you know the maximum output dimensions of each program, you can work it out by dividing that resolution by the amount of DPI the printing press requires.  Whatever amount it comes to, that's how many inches you have to play with, at least I think that's how it works, I'm probably wrong though, so don't quote me on that.

http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/mythdpi.html#top I kinda get ppi's n dpi's more or less. I know the more pixels the better.

I know gimp will max out at about 4000x4000 pixels and MS5 will max out at about 30,000x30,000 pixels .

I'm wondering what corel paint ,photoshop ,paint tool sai etc etc will max out at.

You'll have to ask Primorge about the Photoshop thing, I don't do Photoshop :-D

You should probably start a new thread for it though otherwise we're gonna get out asses kicked.
You saw how brutal Shane was with me earlier, I think he means business ;-)

My losses to piracy exceed $1,000,000

I would be interested to know how you calculated that.
EDIT: Spelling errors stink.

pumeco : This is a thread about pirates.

If I convert a Poser render in to a painting and the pirates pirate it.

I want the pirated printed posters of my Art to be of the best quality.

Ya I know pirates are thief's and will still my Art. but if they make me famous world wide .I have no objects to being famous world wide.

and if ya famous world wide shouldn't be very difficult to make $$$ .

So If the pirates provide me with free advertisement world wide. I have no objections to world wide free advertisement. 

I do have a problem with low quality prints with my name on it.

I have no problem with high quality prints with my name on it.

If the pirates are here mite as well use them as a resource.

I know it hurt Max, n PhotoShops $$$ by there being on all the pirate sites but it didn't hurt there popularity.

If Max n Photshop was never on a pirates site & LW n Corel was on all the pirates site. which do you think would be the #1's ? 

I don't make the rules I just play the game to win.

I saw Prince talking about the music biz and why he quit and how Mariah Carey should have made 30 million in stead of 20 million.

cause of music biz dealings. no I don't want to get &*%^ out of 10 million but if that what it takes to get 20 million. that's the game.

Prince is focusing on the 10 million ,Mariah is focusing on the 20 million. between the two who's winning ?

RorrKonn, I paint at 4096x4096 image size max... on my too old machine with over 30 layers in groups things start to get laggy.

72 or 300 resolution depending. Save as .psd or .pdf depending.

I've never had to print anything larger than page sizes, but I have my traditional work slides scanned at 300.

Save larger, talk to your printer.

@Chikako: There are a number of other software titles out there, both free and premium, that can read and write to Adobe file formats. I can't find a single Adobe format that cannot be read by another software package. Can you give an example of one?  

There are alternatives to every title in Adobe's collection, both free and premium, which makes Adobe very much not a monopoly. Maybe folks need to look up the definition of the term monopoly. 

This thread is about piracy, not about Adobe specifically, or any other specific company unless it relates to piracy. Subscription models combat piracy. Adobe is an example of that but not the topic of the thread.  

@RorrKonn
Ah, sorry, wasn't thinking like that.  Only problem I see with it is they could change your name.  They could even get the credit for your work without the recipient ever knowing who you are :-(

You had the right idea early on in your life when you were creating "tangible" originals, because originals cannot be pirated, it's impossibe, because the copy is no longer an original.  As with everything, it always comes down to "tangible" goods, real art dealers rely on it :-)

In a nutshell, the way I see it is that "the little guy" and that means "us", should take advantage of the greedy corporations instead of letting them do it to us.  Creating a tangible product and "us using them" to publicise it for free, we win and they loose, and so do the pirates.  For example, I pointed out how much I admire Primorge's pen and ink style in that other thread.  And what I would do, if I had that sort of talent, would be to create a complete book in that style, and release it as one of thoie large-format hardback books with nice quality card for pages.  People will always part with a fair amount of cash if the product is of good enough quality.  This is something Jobs understood with Apple.  He understood that in order to get away with what they're doing, the product would need to be physically beautiful and appealing.  Give people quality and they will pay for it, they will even sacrifice freedom, which again, is something Apple have proved.

The same is true for a book of art.  Stick it in a shiutty old a% paperback and youlre probably wasting your time.  but present it in a huge, formidable harback book of beauty, with a nice cover, make it attractive, and you will sell to everyone who is interested in that work.  They have no problem with paying because they're getting something of value for their money.

Will people pirate the work in the beautiful large-format hardback book?
Yes!

Will those that get the pirated product get what the genuine payers got?
No, because it's impossible to send a physical large format hardback book through a torrent!

Would it cost me to advertise my product?
No, because I'd "use" Google and YouTube etc to my advantage and create plenty of free publicity.  I'd simply "use" them instead of letting them use me, and I guarantee I would be the winner if I did so ;-)

Basically, I'd be using them to my own advantage instead of being a sucker and letting them (and their system) use me, it's as simple as that.  It's the whole concept of digital that is the problem, not the pirates.  Digital is a monster that cannot be controlled.  If you play along with the monster he will bite you, so best thing is to be aware that he exists, but hide behind common sense and beat him at his own game, use your noodle, use him to your own advantage instead of letting him use you.

Go the tired and tested analogue route of tangible goods, but be sure to use digital and it's far-reaching rampant corruption to help you publicise what is actually capable of earning you money - your own tangible goods.

If you're against the use and development of digital goods, why are you in this forum Pumeco? Nothing about Poser is tangible. 

"Well, my point was that they should have been allowed to acquire Flash, but not the entire portfolio of products.

Illustration: Freehand vs Illustrator. Now only Illustrator."

I can speak from years professional experience on the matter of

freehand verses Illustrator,

For years freehand was a better overali vector art program

but then the Illustrator team at adobe really improved Illustrators text handling tools

,its ability to create color separations for offset printing as well as improving its integration with the rest of the Adobe suite including the emerging Quark killer, Adobe indesign.

while I dont neccessarily like the idea of the major industry standard Creative tools being under one or two companies

I do understand their business decision to kill off titles in their product lines that compete Directly with each other as Autodesk did with SoftimageXSI 

"Raster: Photoshop vs Fireworks. Now only Photoshop"

Fire works was originally designed to create low bandwidth

web content for the "Dial-Up" Era of the internet

with most its functions available in photoshop  it was, IMHO,

obsolete. 

"But not overnight, or in a week or any other period of time in which business cannot theoretically continue day to day operations."

Understood ,Sometimes business are in this precarious position due to bad planning and sometimes they simply have no choice due to the specialized nature of what service they offer

I have witnessed both scenarios in my former Career in the Design& printing business in the Washington DC Metro Area.

I worked for a large Format company where the specialized 

printer driver, required to interpret the postscript Data, to our 10 foot wide roll to roll printer.

was being coded and updated by ONE independant contractor

who was not a direct Employee of the machines manufacturer

Whenever there was a firmware update to the hardware of our

giant printer( which was often)

we could not print with it until  "that guy at home in his pajamas"

got around coding us a new Driver.

That company made a bad choice in going with this manufacture.

I left to work for a Rival large format company shortly before my former Employer went under.

Strangely Enough, My new Employer was in the process of upgrading to a grand format,10 foot wide printer and was about to buy a similar Device that used the same single source " guy at home in his pajamas" printer driver.

I warned the owner (my new boss)

 ,in  severest terms, not to do this

and we went with a Canadian Company Called "Gandinnovations" instead.

My point with this story is that it is up to business owners to make forward looking decisions as best they can  about platforms and software trends to minimize the disruption 

of the ever changing technology landscape.

I certainly do not want the government dictating  who can have a proprietary format or sell their graphic software business to another company.

BEST WISHES.

Shane Wrote:
"If you're against the use and development of digital goods, why are you in this forum Pumeco? Nothing about Poser is tangible."

I'm not against the development or use of digital goods, not at all, I'm against how corporations are using it to screw and manipulate people.  Adobe are basically treating you like a pet rabbit, playing with you by dangling their "Industry Standard" carrot in front of you and seeing how high you'll jump before you give up.  As long as you keep jumping, they'll continue to hold the carrot higher and higher in the air to keep their shareholders happy, because after all, the higher that carrot is, the more money they earn.

That's an entirely different thing to a digital product simply being what it is: a "digital product" - but without all the manipulation built-in.

Again, I can use Primorge and RorrKonn as examples of how they could use digital (and therefore Poser) to their advantage.  There is no problem using a digital product like Poser, it's something that should be embraced and enjoyed.  The problem only arises if they wanted to make a living from it, because there are two routes you can take there, not just one, and if you take the wrong one, you're in the same situation every business who relies on digital will always be in - and that is piracy.

Route 1:
Create in Poser and release a "Digital" book that can be stuck on a torrent site in seconds (lol).

Route 2:
Create in Poser and release an "Analogue" art-book, a tangible product of beauty that cannot be distributed on a torrent at all, not ever (much wiser).

In that example, Route 1 and Route 2 are exactly the same up to a point, because they both used digital in their production.  But what seperates the wise-guys from the idiots are what happens after that, how they choose to distribute it.  Do you release digitally knowing it absolutely will end up on a torrent site, or do you send off your file and have analogue books manufactured from it, books you know you are always going to get you a share of every copy produced?

Like I said, I'll take the analogue route anyday cause it's the only way I know I'll get paid for every copy I put out there.

I'm not going to put a massive stamp across which would stop all piracy analog or digital.

but I'm going to discreetly sign my name or put a small symbol like Derek Riggs or something in to the painting
,to make it more difficult to plagiarize my Art.

Even if some one tried to plagiarize Royo's or Boris's every one would know it since they have such a distinctive style.

In time I'll get my own recognizable distinctive style.

Only the best Artist are worth plagiarizing but since there the best Artist with there recognizable style
,they don't even need to sign there name cause we know who they are as soon as we see there Art.
so you can't get a way with plagiarize them.

Thanks primorge

...Until someone scans your analog book and distributes it as a .pdf or .cbr on a pirate site.

...Until someone scans your analog book and distributes it as a .pdf or .cbr on a pirate site.

On top of the cost of printing that analog book. Just having a short run indie comic printed can cost a small fortune. The same as having a demo tape produced. Actually much more, usually. So these high quality hard cover books are going to cost even more and if you don't have the marketing resources to advertise that book you'll wind up with stacks of them rotting in your garage. Ask any author who was duped by the POD publishers all through the 80s and 90s into paying thousands to have their books published with false promises of fame and fortune and getting their books distributed. Most of them got screwed. Others barely broke even only a handful ever actually made it anywhere. Then digital printing came along and kindle opened up an entire world of electronic publishing for indie authors and took control of the publishing world out of the hands of the giant publishers and put it in the hands of the indie authors who can now publish their books for free on the kindle and many have made millions doing so.  You can try going the crowd source funding route to get your book published but you still have to have the online marketing power to get enough backers interested in donating to your campaign. Which requires a whole lot of networking and social media leg work. Most crowd source funding projects fail to get funded at least the first time or two through. And depending on which site you go through you might still wind up owing that site a fee based on the amount you're trying to raise whether it fails or not. 

And none of that answers the on-going question of how to prevent piracy of digital goods, which is the subject of this thread and the main point of interest for CG artists looking to combat piracy. Telling them they need to find a different way to make their living is not an answer. More like an insult.  

Route 2:
Create in Poser and release an "Analogue" art-book, a tangible product of beauty that cannot be distributed on a torrent at all, not ever (much wiser).

Uh-huh. Such charming naivité. If I wanted to spend the time doing it, I can go to assorted sites right now, that aren't that hard to find, and download scanned copies of art books and comic books and even plain-text books that I know weren't in digital format originally. Hell, I'm old enough to remember when I first saw Sorayama, or Luis Royo, or Boris Vallejo images online over twenty-five years ago. Where do you think they came from? Here's a hint: in the days before web browsers, Usenet had a tonne of newsgroups named alt.binaries.(something), with some of those groups dating back to the 1980s.

http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/mythdpi.html#top I kinda get ppi's n dpi's more or less. I know the more pixels the better.

I know gimp will max out at about 4000x4000 pixels and MS5 will max out at about 30,000x30,000 pixels .

I'm wondering what corel paint ,photoshop ,paint tool sai etc etc will max out at.

My version of Photoshop (CS5) hits the wall at 50,000 pixels at any one dimension.  I was making some panoramas from stuff I'd shot in Death Valley and was disappointed that some of them had to be split in two.

Curious of opinions on this... if one were to download a hard to find scanned digital version of a book/magazine by a deceased artist, who did the artwork as 'work for hire', for a company that is long defunct, and said book/magazine is out of print and actual existing material copies of said book/magazine are currently of negligible monetary value within the relative market... is this significantly an act of piracy, or even just regular old piracy?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire

Hmmmph... no thoughts on that one, huh? Surprised. You could extrapolate my hypothetical to other media rather easily. Curious about grey areas in the subject.

@All
Grab a coffee, you'll need it if you plan to actually read all this :-D

Will the analogue book get pirated?
Yes!

Will people who get the pirated digital version, get what the genuine purchasers of the analogue version get out of it?
No, because they won't get a physical large-format, hard-back book with a fancy embossed cover - will they.

It's just getting too repetitive, I'm pulling out of this conversation before I give myself a serious headache.  It's like Roxie said, as long as you're not dumb enough to surrender to digital piracy yourself, don't worry about it, the ever faithfull and dependable analogue world is there for you - and always will be.  So here is my last post on the subject cause seriously, I think there is something fundamentally wrong here, and I'm pretty damn sure it's not my understanding of things, because I'm not effected by theses things - you lot are.

Here we go ... and I've added a tag for the language because it's gotten to that point now (though it's all in good fun).

I would never base my livelyhood on anything that can be transmitted through a freaking torrent, because to do so would but incredibly stupid and risky.  I'll never have to worry about such things because I'll never rely on digital for anything, nevermind my livelyhood!  Copies of physical products can be transmitted throught a torrent, sure, but the physical product itself can never be transmitted, so as long as what you produce is physical, you shouldn't give a rats-ass about piracy or pirates.  Seriously you all, I think you need to figure this one out for yourselves (and I really hope for your own sakes, that you do).  The problems you face are the result of the decisions you make, just as torrent pirates are a result of the technology they are taking advantage of - "Digital".

I'll stick to the "Analogue" world, the technology the real world is actually made of, and being analogue myself, I guess you could say I have an affinity for it.

I don't worry about pirates, because all my media is physical.  I don't worry about Apple and Adobe spying on me, or cutting-off my right to use something I paid for, because I don't use their products or software - I don't abide by their manipulative policies.  I don't need permission to sell my media because I do whatever I like with it, it's in my possession, so if I want to sell something, I do whatever the hell I want!  I don't have Apple or Amazon telling me I can't transfer ownership of something I paid for, or how many times I can lend a book to someone, because I wasn't dumb enough to purchase "virtual products" from them in the first place!  I don't worry about whether the "codec" or "DRM" of a track is compatible with my music player, cause my music player plays "real" analogue audio, so things like "Codecs" and "DRM" don't even exist!  My Analogue Walkman laughs in the bloody face of DRM and codecs!  Codecs and DRM are strictly for people who believe in all that worthless, compressed, inferior, manipulative junk - cause that's all it is - it's just manipulative, worthless, compressed junk - that stuff insn't even real in the proper sense!

I was saying just the other day, I said hey there Sony Walkman, you sexy little Cassette machine, what do you reckon to the DRM and Codec situation then?
You know what she said? - She said shut the fuck up, don't be disgusting, just poke me with a Cassette and let's got for a walk, so we did - and it was nice!

I'm perfectly happy because I'm free.  I don't have much, in fact I'm piss-poor (seriously), but I'm still happy.  I was never sucked into borrowing money, so I don't owe money, never will, and I'll never been sucked into what Adobe and Apple want everyone to do, either.  I do what I want to do, cause I'm "ME" and no one owns "ME".  I'll never put myself in a situation where some acne-covered geek from Silicon Valley has control over me, or can tell me what to do with my own gear or media - it ain't ever gonna happen, man!

I'm an adult, so naturally I stopped taking orders when I turned 18 years of age - and I think you should, too!
I don't take orders from Apple or Adobe, they don't get anything from me, and that's the way it will stay to because to me, they are cancers to be avoided.

Whatever turns you all on I suppose, and yes, enjoy "Digital" by all means, I even enjoy aspects of it myself.  But you need to accept that the rest of us will continue to enjoy the "Analogue" world, the "real" world, a world that is guaranteed to be available forever, a world that will still be around long after the likes of Apple and Adobe are dead and buried along with everything "virtual" you ever purchased from them!

My physical stuff is mine, it's going nowhere, it will only ever go where I say it will go ... not where Apple dictates, or Adobe, or Microsoft ... only ME gets to makes those decisions because ME lives in the real world, and therefore all my stuff is "real" too :-D

I don't do digital slavery (digital handcuffs), I don't work for "virtual nothings", in fact I don't work at all.  I don't do fucking "bunny jumps" for Adobe or anyone else.  When I look around me, I'm surrounded by superior technology and gear I love, and none of it is under the control of a corporation, not now, not ever.  I don't have a greedy corporation sucking on my wallet, never will, what's mine is mine - and that's the way it's going to stay.

I watch the Apple keynote every time they release one, I mean I literally cannot wait to watch them, because each time I do, I just sort of know I'm going to laugh my self bloody senseless!  Whenever I hear that Apple have an new "keynote" to watch, it's kinda like an entertaining night out for me.  I grab my Walkman, go for a walk, pick-up a Donner Kebab from the takeaway.  I come back, I sit down with my Donner Kebab and prepare to catch-up on the next wave of privacy-invasive features Apple have planned for their sheep (features those sheep are actually going to pay Apple money for as well).

Health monitor, how unfit people are, yeah, that's right, I'm talkin' to all you fatties out there, you know who you are, and no point denying it cause your built-in spyCam probably caught those ManBoobs when it was your bed time!  Fingerprints, photos, voice patterns, bank account details, the ability for them to monitor you without even turning the device on!  The ability to have hot women accidentally sent to your mothers spyPhone, cause maybe your mother is dumb enough to own one as well, and you forgot to turn the synchronisation crap off before you visited wickedweasel.com

And "Facetime" - yeah, that's right, it was just marketing and had nothing to do with having a hot woman sit on your face!
Trades description act really should be told about that one I reckon ... oh my god ... the sly bastards.

All this, all of this can be yours, dear minion, because it's Apple's thinnest, lightest, most shiny iPhone ever!  And hey, can you belive it, they even managed to shave a whole fucking micrometer off it since the last one, so hey, that has got to be worth paying 800 fucking dollars for, right, gotta have that!

• Do you know how many Vinyl's you can buy for 800 fucking dollars?
• Do you know what a beeeeeeeeeautiful, classy Turntable that would buy?
• Do you know what real Hi-Fi sounds like?
• Do you know what its like to actually own something you paid for?
• Do you know how much more money this stuff will still be worth long after "Apple" decides that "your" iPhone is going to be obsolete?

I do, but then I don't live in a fantasy world of "virtual nothings" and greedy corporations - they simply have no place in my world, what ... so ... ever.
Their shit just doesn't bother me, it's just infortunate that I hate to see others being sucked in by it - that is what bothers me!

And you know what, call me a wise-ass if you want to, but between you and me, I reckon Apple's next spyPad and spyPhone will be even better than the current ones.  I reckon they will be thinner, lighter, faster, and more privacy-invasive than the current heap of models!  The resolution will be so fine that you can purify water by pouring it throught the bloody screen mesh, perfect for those of you with eyes like a microscope!  And when it comes, when I see that price pop-up on that large projector screen of theirs in the next Keynote, I'll just sit here and think about what else I would spend that money on ...

REAL STUFF :-D

I sincerely hope you all appreciate the effort I went to with this post, I guess probably not, but I wish you all the best regardless, cause that's the kinda guy I am.  I'm not some rusty old guy having a mid-life crisis, either, I'm still young, but what you can't see, unfortunately, is that also have common sense!

kljpmsd : Thanks a lot for the info. My sympathy's having to split a panoramas.

Any one know Corel Painter 2015 max pixels ?

primorge : if a company owns the copy rights n the company ends. who owns the copyrights now ?
wall street the biggest pirates of all times owns the copyrights now.
copy rights last a long long time. longer for companies.
not that I have any objects from stealing from pirates but wall street pirates have vicious sharks/lawyers.
don't know I'd go swimming with those sharks.

pumeco : we know your love for real world objects.
I understand your point of view.
better to hold a real girl then a picture of a girl.
but can't always follow the better path.
and thanks for the language tag.

Curious of opinions on this... if one were to download a hard to find scanned digital version of a book/magazine by a deceased artist, who did the artwork as 'work for hire', for a company that is long defunct, and said book/magazine is out of print and actual existing material copies of said book/magazine are currently of negligible monetary value within the relative market... is this significantly an act of piracy, or even just regular old piracy?

 

The basic answer would be yes it is piracy.  The assets, which that picture is, do belong to someone/company.  Even if the person/company no longer actively is selling that asset it is their property and they have not given you the right to make copies of it. 

Here is a simple pair of questions:

Is it illegal to kill someone?

Is it illegal to make copies of materials and distribute said copies that you did not create and do not have the Arthurs permission to do so? 

 

The questions are very simple and the correct answer is YES.  The fact that you can do something does not give you the right to do that thing.  The penalty for your actions will vary depending on how bad it is, but the penalty is not a reason to do something either.

The odds of the original owners of that picture/article in your example coming after you is very small.  The fact you found it worthwhile to make the copy in the first place shows that it does have some value.  The correct course of action is to track down the owner ask permission and follow their wishes.  If they are not going to let you make copies then you have to wait until the property becomes public domain.

Really pumeco? You're not piss poor if you own zbrush, manga studio, and god all whatever video editing and effect software that you've mentioned prior. Soooo, when you finally do get around to buying your isolated plot of land and create the indie film that you mentioned prior, how do you propose to keep this film out of the hands of pirates? I mean, obviously it's going to be pirated... particularly considering your media manipulation plans to make said film a success?

Contradictions? Check.

Hi richard60, the problem with your assessment is you did not properly read my hypothetical; the author is dead, the author did not own the copyright, the company that did own the copyright is long out of business and the work is long out of print. To elaborate, the monetary value of existing material copies is hypothetically .60 cents. This is still piracy? and if so... from whom?

"Is it illegal to kill someone."

Well that depends; self defense, castle laws, the death penalty, war... grey areas.

And the analogy is flat out hilarious to begin with.

RorrKonn, wall street owns the copyright?

What?

Hi richard60, the problem with your assessment is you did not properly read my hypothetical; the author is dead, the author did not own the copyright, the company that did own the copyright is long out of business and the work is long out of print. To elaborate, the monetary value of existing material copies is hypothetically .60 cents. This is still piracy? and if so... from whom?

Copyright does expire. There are a great many assets that have ended up in the public domain that were created after 1923. So there is some chance that the above hypothetical is, in fact, public domain. If so, no piracy. On the other hand, it could be an "orphan work", and they are problematic because it's difficult to prove that the copyright has expired if you don't know who created a work. (Edit: I guess, in your case, you do know who owned the rights at one time. So you could, in theory, do the research and find out when the rights expired.)

Me, I believe copyright should work like patents, with a much shorter length of time before expiry. Perhaps not ten years, but twenty or so seems reasonable to me, rather than 70 years after your death (or effectively never, if a corporation owns the copyright). If you've created something but haven't managed to make enough money from it in twenty years or so, you're very unlikely to do so in another twenty. The idea that you can be quite wealthy doing very little beyond living off of the copyright of your long dead parent -- like Christopher Tolkien -- is silly to me. 

In my opinion, if copying something could not possibly affect the livelihood of its creator, it's not piracy. It might still be copyright infringement, and hence illegal, but I wouldn't see it as some sort of enormous moral evil. But then I don't see breaking the law as an automatic moral evil. Sometimes following the law is evil. However (unless we're talking about hiding Jews from the Gestapo), you generally have to wait for a couple of generations for history to confirm or repudiate such choices.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/pie+in+the+sky

@Moriador, yes! Thanks for a rational look at my query. :)

Someone has to be paying your internet bill. And your power bill. Those are just two of many things that you never own but always have to pay for if you intend on using them, or they get cut off. And you never have control over the fees either. Pay the bill or get it cut off regardless of what the fee is or whether you can afford it or not. And if you're broke, then someone else is paying those bills for you, which means you're living off of them and aren't as independent as you might like to think. 

@Primorge: You might check google to see if the work you're talking about isn't already listed with them. Is it google docs? I can't quite remember the actual name of the site but it's a google site that collects and archives out of print documents of all sorts that are in the public domain. Basically a digital library of out of print works. Moriador, help me out here. I know you know what I'm talkin'bout. 

ETA: Actually google isn't the only one that does that. There are a few sites that do that, but google's is the biggest. 

@Ambientshade, well my question truly was a hypothetical... Although your advice is something I'll look into. What brought the question to mind was looking at a blog site where the author had scanned pages from old, really obscure horror comics (out of print and virtually worthless) and being stunned by the fact that somebody else remembers this stuff. Anyway the comic was called "Creepy Things" and the artist was Tom Sutton (deceased, and the publisher long gone)... well, fond memories aside, it just got me thinking in relation to this thread topic.

It's available on amazon in a hard cover edition. So someone still owns the copyright to it. 

I know, although as nice as the memories are it's sufficient for me to look at Sutton's work through image search. Or just about any artist's work for that matter. I've become spoiled by the web, I seem to have lost my fetishization of material objects... not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but...

It's easier for me to flee the scene of a crime without a lot of crap weighing me down. Lol.

@Primorge
Those Indie films I have planned are not about commercial success, I couldn't give a crap about that and anyone that gets involved will also need to accept that.  Like I said, simple things make me happy, I don't need (or want) a fancy house, I'd rather live in a self-built hut in the middle of a forest - so that's what I'll be doing.

The things I do have, I paid for when I had an income, and once I'm out there, I have things that can easliy set me up for life.
Just live simply and depend on no one.

@Shane
But they'll never be able to cut-off my energy because THEY don't own my energy ... I do ... and they cannot steal the sun :-D
I can generate my own energy - solar power.

Even here, in cloudy old England with it's infamous rainfall and overcast, I still managed to survive a solar-power test quite easily, even running the computer for a serious amount of time.  Simply charged-up the inverter using the panels and away it went - free electricity!  I have a lovely set of panels all ready for the off, ready to be loaded onto the back of a truck whenever and wherever I decide to go.  In fact, I've learned how to make the charging system slightly more efficient, and that worked too (at least I think it did, to an extent) - but either way, plenty enough energy for me.  I could even manage with four panels if I really wanted to, but I'm glad I bought six.

Have to say, the panels generated more than electricity, they generated a big smile accross my face when I plugged into the inverter for the first time.
Like I was saying ... about taking advantage of Google and YouTube instead of letting them take advantage of me ... I learned about panels etc.

So yup, I would be bothered about those extortionate energy company assholes if I had to depend on them, but seeing as I don't, I'm not in the least bit bothered.  And I don't care what prices they'll be charging in the future, either, because I won't be paying them, they won't be getting a penny out of me once I ditch England.

Hell, the only reason I'm paying them now is for convenience, it's not like I can dangle six large solar panels temporarily from the roof (tempting as it is to do so).  Had to lay them out on plastic sheets in the garden and bring them in at night when I tested them.

Anyway ... 'nough of that ... I'm not giving away all my secrets to the good life.

This is totally ot, and I apologize... how old are you, pumeco? "None of your business" will suffice of course. ;)

Ok, off to Netflix... this got boring.

That's just as well, because "none of your business" is all you're getting ;-)

@RorrKonn
Sorry, missed your post, you're welcome :-)

Primorge The examples were meant to be extremes.  In the case of self defense  the fact is it is still illegal, just that the penalty is will be waived because of circumstances.  You can not just kill someone and claim self defense without it being investigated, because if you could no one would be convicted of murder.  As far as the pictures the fact is someone does own the copyright.  Whether or not they are active is beside the point the proper thing the company should have done is sign a statement releasing the content into the public domain if they did not wish to keep the rights.  That is if they went out of business by their own choice.  If they filed for bankruptcy then their assets were sold off to pay debts and the person/company that bought their assets now owns those copyrights.  Whether or not you agree is not the point.  As I said before the proper way of doing this is to find the copyright owner and get permission or wait until goes into the public domain. 

primorge : a lawyer would explain all this a lot better but.
if ya go out of business and ya stock hits 0 ,then all ya business assets go to wall street.
of course if ya on wall street then ya don't own ya own company any more ,wall street owns it.
and they can fire you from ya own company if they want ,just ask Steve Jobs.

if ya want to read a REAL HORROR story ,read how wall street works.

I'm guessing ya don't have kids.** **pumeco is a teenager

----------------------- 

 and somebody shoot this beyond worthless editor

RorrKonn,

Pumeco is a teenager? Christ... lad certainly is well spoken. I would say that perhaps pumeco's true artistic calling would be in the realm of letters, he's most likely a writer and doesn't even realize it. That's not an insult, merely a truthful opinion.

"Whether or not you agree is not the point. As I said before the proper way of doing this is to find the copyright owner and get permission or wait until goes into the public domain."

Richard60, curious to know where I didn't agree with anything whatsoever in my topic relevant posts. Easy enough to re-read what was actually said, though (this again).  My questions and related scenerio are hypothetical (again)... sigh.

I agree with the facts that you've presented in your answer.

It's true, I'm just an acne-covered teenager trying to get laid.  I'm useless at English, useless at writing as well, I must be because the school teachers always thought I was, but then, I was a rebel and did skip school a lot, so I guess I completely failed to match the other pupils grades :-D

That's me in the photo, and seeing as you're wanting to know, can you guess how old I am?

I know I look a bit cheeky and mischeivous in that one, but that's just the way I am, and I look even cooler when I'm out wearing my sexy little Cassette Walkman made by Sony of Japan (actually made in Japan by some hot Japanese babe) - not a ten year old slave-kid from China.

Sony Walkman, THE original personal audio device - the genuine article.

Plus, I'm wondering if there's any willing females here intertested in shacking-up with me in my forest hut?
A carefree life of sex and passion beyond your wildest dreams awaits you!

Ok, so I admit the hut is gonna be small, very small and cosy, but at least it will have a real log fire, a woodburner with a little window on it and a fur rug placed in front of it, a setting ideal for passionate love making, very romantic - and I've seen those films so I know what I'm talking about, so don't argue.

Turntable playing some smooth Portishead Vinyl in the background ... fuck yeah!
I'm guessing at times like these, there's going to be a lot of girls wishing they weren't already spoken for :-D

Hehehe (chuckle) :-D