The piracy battle

[Haggis_McMutton]

No, not the somalian guys. I mean internet piracy. Here's two cases:

1. The megaupload guy is fighting back. Here's the latest case he's won.
So, basically, the stuff he was providing was immediately put up by other people after the seizure, and now the tax payers are paying a ridiculous amount of money for all this legal stuff (apparently 5 separate cases now) with no tangible benefit whatsoever.

2. There have been some efforts to block the pirate bay. I'm not sure on the details, but part of it was government mandated and part of it was at the intiative of the internet providers (here's an article). The effect? Well, now instead of going to "thepiratebay.org" you instead go to: http://www.piratebayproxylist.com/ and pick a fresh proxy from the list which hasn't been blocked yet.
Another brilliant use of taxpayer money here.

On the other hand, it seems that having the shows easily and cheaply available (i.e. on netflix) causes piracy to massively drop (link). Who would have thunk, right?

A couple years ago, I was dead certain that piracy would win and would force the big producers/retailers to adapt or die. I'm still 90% sure, but all the recent attempts to fundamentally change the nature of the internet have me a bit worried now. Hopefully those in power won't be able to use piracy as a scare tactic to push extremely heavy-handed regulation onto the internet.

What do you guys think about this stuff?

[TeeGee]

I hate it when I download something and it's not what it should be. I also hate it when I am downloading and it slows my general browsing.

[DoomYoshi]

It's not considered piracy if it's only a few Terabytes a year, right?

[waauw]

yeah they are trying to block TPB here too, not with success though
I'm against anti-piracy, this is mainly just a lobby from the entertainment industry who do not like the fact that times change and that the way they have to distribute their products changes too.

a EU commission study showed that illegal music downloads don't effect the number of legal purchases
http://entertainment.time.com/2013/03/21/illegal-music-downloads-not-hurting-industry-study-claims/

Additionally series-producers have nothing but themselves to blame. Many of the great american series get broadcasted in the US months or even years later before they get broadcasted in europe. Of course european consumers aren't gonna wait that long for these idiots...

[2dimes]

I hate the fact that the internet is trying to make it so I can't just go online as 2dimes anonymously anymore. So I'm not as comfortable talking about embarrassing medical conditions, their effects on dating or other issues surrounding life with small deformed genitalia.

Now Facebook and google plus automatically tries to sign me into everything and I have to go under my real name Reginald P. Snordville III. Then everyone at work knows it's me.

[thegreekdog]

I hate the fact that the internet is trying to make it so I can't just go online as 2dimes anonymously anymore. So I'm not as comfortable talking about embarrassing medical conditions, their effects on dating or other issues surrounding life with small deformed genitalia.

Now Facebook and google plus automatically tries to sign me into everything and I have to go under my real name Reginald P. Snordville III. Then everyone at work knows it's me.

I'm with Reggie. As an internet user, my biggest concern is the apparent lack of anonymity (not realtive to you fools, relative to people who could potentially do annoying or bad things to me).

I am much less concerned with the fight against piracy. In fact, I would generally say I'm on the side of the "bad guy" big companies, writers, musicians, producers, etc. I think there are better ways to do business than how the bad guys are doing business (for example, Netflix), but I have no big problem with suing the living f*ck out of a fuckhole who takes your shit that you spent money and time to produce and puts it on his free webpage. Oh, sorry, did that come off as me hating fucking fuckface pirates?

[2dimes]

It also bothers me that it seems most people, if they thought they wouldn't get caught, would have tripped Abel Mutai raped him and then took second place behind the third place runner in Spain last January.

I don't even care that it's only a penny you stole. That fact remains you stole it. Giving it to someone else doesn't make it ok either.

I understand the studio stole it first. That still doesn't make it ok.

[waauw]

I hate the fact that the internet is trying to make it so I can't just go online as 2dimes anonymously anymore. So I'm not as comfortable talking about embarrassing medical conditions, their effects on dating or other issues surrounding life with small deformed genitalia.

Now Facebook and google plus automatically tries to sign me into everything and I have to go under my real name Reginald P. Snordville III. Then everyone at work knows it's me.

I'm with Reggie. As an internet user, my biggest concern is the apparent lack of anonymity (not realtive to you fools, relative to people who could potentially do annoying or bad things to me).

I am much less concerned with the fight against piracy. In fact, I would generally say I'm on the side of the "bad guy" big companies, writers, musicians, producers, etc. I think there are better ways to do business than how the bad guys are doing business (for example, Netflix), but I have no big problem with suing the living f*ck out of a fuckhole who takes your shit that you spent money and time to produce and puts it on his free webpage. Oh, sorry, did that come off as me hating fucking fuckface pirates?

The problem is the system for preventing internet piracy does not work at all. The only way they can make it work is by imposing major internet sensorship and even that is limited in it's capabilities. The current system just leads to common people who don't mean any harm to society to get persecuted and getting enormously heavy fines. It's just a system that makes ordinary people out to be major criminals.

It's up to the big companies to reform their ways of distribution. Many still conduct a policy that predates the internet. They haven't followed changes in society.

If the number of lawbreakers is this large and contains this many ordinary people, it is a sign that the system isn't working.
It's like if a country would tax their citizens by enormous percentages, this would lead to people to work illegally. This is a mistake in policy, not of the people.

[waauw]

It also bothers me that it seems most people, if they thought they wouldn't get caught, would have tripped Abel Mutai raped him and then took second place behind the third place runner in Spain last January.

I don't even care that it's only a penny you stole. That fact remains you stole it. Giving it to someone else doesn't make it ok either.

I understand the studio stole it first. That still doesn't make it ok.

You do realise that if you buy a DVD and just loan it out to a friend for even 1 day, that is considered stealing too? The system is going too far, it's not taking into account feasibility.

[2dimes]

I don't agree with it but I understand. It's the only way to deter us.

Our buddy goes to jail for downloading curb Your Enthusiasm and we think, "Whoa, I'm not going to do that."

Prior to we thought, "Awesome! Free stuff."

[waauw]

I don't agree with it but I understand. It's the only way to deter us.

Our buddy goes to jail for downloading curb Your Enthusiasm and we think, "Whoa, I'm not going to do that."

It doesn't even work like that. Usually most people have an attitude of "it might have happened to that guy, but it'll never happen to me".
The system likes to take into account fairness, but doesn't take into account social reality. This is a big mistake in many policies.

[2dimes]

It's further complicated by Canuck law. We pay a tax on blank media supposedly to compensate artists and studios for recording their stuff. It's not like they could track what is being recording to distribute the proceeds to the right people.

This leads to you linking a YouTube video or the NBC site. I can't watch it in my region. Then I google it and watch a Canadian downloaded version of the same video.

They have successfully prevented me from watching older Saturday Night Live clips online. Which is further interesting because it would be legal for me to have recorded it from the free television signals when it aired. Our sharing laws are odd too.

That is likely the whole point of the whole thing with that Aussie guy. It's entire value is in it being an example to make others consider not doing it.

Edit: oh and NBC can't prevent a pirate from stealing their content from here. They just use a proxy to make it look to the system like they are in the US&A. TA DA!

[Haggis_McMutton]

I don't agree with it but I understand. It's the only way to deter us.

Our buddy goes to jail for downloading curb Your Enthusiasm and we think, "Whoa, I'm not going to do that."

Prior to we thought, "Awesome! Free stuff."

I think the point is deterrence doesn't work, unless taken to ridiculous extremes. (and you can't take it to those extremes without trampling all sorts of other things like internet anonymity).

What they need to do is adapt so that for the majority it's not worth it to go to the hassle of downloading the stuff.

This isn't new. Same thing happened with bootleg physical CDs, bootleg vhs, etc etc. Hell, there probably were similar arguments about the invention of TV (won't it kill the cinema?) and even the invention of the cinema and recording technology(won't it kill live performance?)

[Funkyterrance]

I think it's important to see piracy for what it is: stealing. If you sneak into the back of a theater to save the cost of a ticket you are a thief. You can talk about how easy it is, how everyone is doing it, etc., to try and make it sound less harmful but that doesn't change anything.

I don't think the government ought to be the one who controls it though, it should be the companies who produce the media. They need to do their part and come up with a format that is not so readily transferable to the internet. The effort will come out of their end but in the long run they will be able to charge the exorbitant prices they used to and their profits will come back again. The people whose livelihoods are at stake should band together, not cry to the government to get it's big clumsy fingers involved.

If I'm pretty sure there was a period where you could copy DVDs from one machine to another so they just started building the machines so that you couldn't do this to protected DVDs and that was that. Shortly after people started being able to download DVDs online but for a time it was a great way to stop piracy. Just come up with a new format that's not so digital and you would probably be all set.

[crispybits]

I don't think the government ought to be the one who controls it though, it should be the companies who produce the media. They need to do their part and come up with a format that is not so readily transferable to the internet. The effort will come out of their end but in the long run they will be able to charge the exorbitant prices they used to and their profits will come back again. The people whose livelihoods are at stake should band together, not cry to the government to get it's big clumsy fingers involved.

+1

[BigBallinStalin]

A couple years ago, I was dead certain that piracy would win and would force the big producers/retailers to adapt or die. I'm still 90% sure, but all the recent attempts to fundamentally change the nature of the internet have me a bit worried now. Hopefully those in power won't be able to use piracy as a scare tactic to push extremely heavy-handed regulation onto the internet.

What do you guys think about this stuff?

The government is inevitable and stupid. They'll keep pushing for SOPA and PIPA-esque bills every 5-10 years, and eventually the people will get tired of resisting. Or, they'll insert riders into somewhat unrelated bills (e.g. Cybersecurity bills--another unnecessary form of state intervention). However, as long as people can keep innovating around the government and its nonsense, then we'll be fine (except for of course the government wasting our money on that endeavor).

If piracy becomes more rampant and enforcement becomes too ineffective, then I'm hoping that IP laws will be forced to change for the better. Talk about holding back the economy: IP laws are a huge stumbling block, and they're state-mandated. Government intervention which hampers the economy? NO WAY, MAN! Big surprise there!

[BigBallinStalin]

I hate the fact that the internet is trying to make it so I can't just go online as 2dimes anonymously anymore. So I'm not as comfortable talking about embarrassing medical conditions, their effects on dating or other issues surrounding life with small deformed genitalia.

Now Facebook and google plus automatically tries to sign me into everything and I have to go under my real name Reginald P. Snordville III. Then everyone at work knows it's me.

I'm with Reggie. As an internet user, my biggest concern is the apparent lack of anonymity (not realtive to you fools, relative to people who could potentially do annoying or bad things to me).

I am much less concerned with the fight against piracy. In fact, I would generally say I'm on the side of the "bad guy" big companies, writers, musicians, producers, etc. I think there are better ways to do business than how the bad guys are doing business (for example, Netflix), but I have no big problem with suing the living f*ck out of a fuckhole who takes your shit that you spent money and time to produce and puts it on his free webpage. Oh, sorry, did that come off as me hating fucking fuckface pirates?

Lawful good: Willing to uphold the law--even if it is unnecessary, costly, and best to ignore.

[thegreekdog]

I hate the fact that the internet is trying to make it so I can't just go online as 2dimes anonymously anymore. So I'm not as comfortable talking about embarrassing medical conditions, their effects on dating or other issues surrounding life with small deformed genitalia.

Now Facebook and google plus automatically tries to sign me into everything and I have to go under my real name Reginald P. Snordville III. Then everyone at work knows it's me.

I'm with Reggie. As an internet user, my biggest concern is the apparent lack of anonymity (not realtive to you fools, relative to people who could potentially do annoying or bad things to me).

I am much less concerned with the fight against piracy. In fact, I would generally say I'm on the side of the "bad guy" big companies, writers, musicians, producers, etc. I think there are better ways to do business than how the bad guys are doing business (for example, Netflix), but I have no big problem with suing the living f*ck out of a fuckhole who takes your shit that you spent money and time to produce and puts it on his free webpage. Oh, sorry, did that come off as me hating fucking fuckface pirates?

Lawful good: Willing to uphold the law--even if it is unnecessary, costly, and best to ignore.

I suspect you think you're being chaotic good, which is probably the problem here, right? You're probably more chaotic evil. I'm not concerned with upholding the law. You've seemed to ignore my concern, so I'll type it again (differently this time). I'm concerned with protecting the works that someone spent time, effort, and money preparing. Those people should receive some form of compensation. There is an exchange. I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

Maybe I should create a thread about the "property battle" and wonder why it's not okay for me to take BBS's car without compensating him in some way. I mean we have all these unnecessary laws that are costly to enforce that prevent me from having BBS's car.

[thegreekdog]

By the way... anyone who is with the pirates on this one, please tell me where your valuables are and I will come take them from you.

And for whatever it's worth, I'm with crispy and FT - the companies should not use a clumsy tool like internet regulation to get what they want. They need to use the court system and for the current laws to be enforced.

[AndyDufresne]

Can I get in on the D&D stuff? Where do I fall on the spectrum? Recall, I'm mostly interested in Futurama and Star Trek and bananas.


--Andy

[Funkyterrance]

I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

It's interesting that you bring up the book example because from what I understand sites like Abebooks really piss off some authors because their books are just getting passed on from one reader to the next, drastically affecting sales(If your book get's re-sold 3 times you are making 1/3rd the amount you would otherwise). This mostly applies to textbooks and instructional stuff but still, are you going to make a rule about re-selling books? It's really tough and more to try and stop piracy retroactively(legally) and you must continue doing it to instill fear in would-be pirates. The best way is to make the media harder to copy in the first place, curbing illegal distribution.

[thegreekdog]

I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

It's interesting that you bring up the book example because from what I understand sites like Abebooks really piss off some authors because their books are just getting passed on from one reader to the next, drastically affecting sales(If your book get's re-sold 3 times you are making 1/3rd the amount you would otherwise). This mostly applies to textbooks and instructional stuff but still, are you going to make a rule about re-selling books? It's really tough and more to try and stop piracy retroactively(legally) and you must continue doing it to instill fear in would-be pirates. The best way is to make the media harder to copy in the first place, curbing illegal distribution.

Yeah, maybe I am not explaining myself well. I'm not in favor of creating additional laws. I'm in favor of enforcing the laws we have. It appears that some people in this thread do not think we should enforce the laws we have.

[2dimes]

I don't agree with it but I understand. It's the only way to deter us.

Our buddy goes to jail for downloading curb Your Enthusiasm and we think, "Whoa, I'm not going to do that."

Prior to we thought, "Awesome! Free stuff."

I think the point is deterrence doesn't work, unless taken to ridiculous extremes. (and you can't take it to those extremes without trampling all sorts of other things like internet anonymity).

What they need to do is adapt so that for the majority it's not worth it to go to the hassle of downloading the stuff.

This isn't new. Same thing happened with bootleg physical CDs, bootleg vhs, etc etc. Hell, there probably were similar arguments about the invention of TV (won't it kill the cinema?) and even the invention of the cinema and recording technology(won't it kill live performance?)

This post is super happy fun ichiban! Domo.

[Haggis_McMutton]

By the way... anyone who is with the pirates on this one, please tell me where your valuables are and I will come take them from you.

And for whatever it's worth, I'm with crispy and FT - the companies should not use a clumsy tool like internet regulation to get what they want. They need to use the court system and for the current laws to be enforced.

I'm not with the pirates. However, I'll side with the pirates over the people trying to destroy the internet because they are unable to adapt to a technological innovation.

In other debates you seem to take a very pragmatic stance, so it's somewhat odd to see you take what appears to be a moral "stealing is wrong and should be punished" stance here. My point has been that piracy cannot be stopped via prosecution without granting some entity extraordinary powers over the internet. We can discuss the morality of it all day, but without such excessive force it's simply not gonna be stopped in a court of law. And if such excessive force is used, a big can of worms will be opened both for us and for the people using it ("pirate parties" will become a lot more popular for one thing).

Also, and this is less important, but please don't equate an aussie downloading game of thrones cause he really has no reasonable way of obtaining it outside of the extortionate hbo cable subscription with a guy breaking into a house and stealing a TV. Yes they're both stealing but acting like they're interchangeable is dishonest at best.
Just to make rds happy: oatmeal comic

[Haggis_McMutton]

I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

It's interesting that you bring up the book example because from what I understand sites like Abebooks really piss off some authors because their books are just getting passed on from one reader to the next, drastically affecting sales(If your book get's re-sold 3 times you are making 1/3rd the amount you would otherwise). This mostly applies to textbooks and instructional stuff but still, are you going to make a rule about re-selling books? It's really tough and more to try and stop piracy retroactively(legally) and you must continue doing it to instill fear in would-be pirates. The best way is to make the media harder to copy in the first place, curbing illegal distribution.

The thing is, they haven't really been able to find a solution that makes the media significantly harder to copy without also being a major pain in the ass for the people actually buying the stuff. As such we reach the ridiculous situation where, when buying the thing you have to jump through 5 hoops and watch an unskipable 2 minute clip about how piracy is the worst crime ever, but when pirating the thing you can just get directly to the content.

Anyway, I agree that one side of the coin is to try making it hard to copy, but it will always be harder to create a defense than to bypass it. The more important aspect of the solution seems to require the change of the business model of the content producers so that they can be competitive with the pirates. After all, many people would rather pay a couple bucks and sit through a couple adverts to get the media hassle free rather than having to track through torrent sites, warez, penis enlargement adverts and so on.
We've already seen that this reduces piracy by changing the incentive structure(eg: link in OP).