The END of Online Piracy

Aside from the classic ‘pirate’ websites the proposed bill can be an effective tool to take the whistleblower site Wikileaks offline, the domain at least. After all, Wikileaks posted thousands of files that are owned by the United States.

This worries me more than taking down the download sites.

2nd line.

Originally posted by serbsta
Well I think this is pretty much it...

United States lawmakers have proposed new legislation today that would allow the Department of Justice to take over domain names of websites that promote copyright infringement. The proposed bill would allow for court orders against domestic as well as foreign sites, which could potentially shutter many torrent sites including The Pirate Bay.
torrentfreak.com...

this act of governing does not sound like it has the consent of the governed,

this is not the will of the people.
i guess the citizens are getting used to that kind of treatment,

we ought to be ashamed of our government, and i don't only mean the usa

If piracy of films + music affects the companies so much why do they still make a profit every year??

The majority of films that are released are tosh anyway.. And now we have 3D trying to impress us (Get your TV and glasses now) IMHO a waste of money like HD.

Also with the new 3D tech and animation, movies should be cheaper to make as the scenes a computer generated.

Hexagon.cc the new way to share..

I would say that the US would have a fair chance at flexing there might on this one. The internet is effectively controlled by ICANN (resolving of Domain Names to IP)

Exert from Wikipedia
"IANA is managed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) under contract to the United States Department of Commerce (DOC). The Department of Commerce also provides an ongoing oversight function, whereby it verifies additions and changes made in the root to ensure IANA complies with its policies.

On January 28, 2003 the Department of Commerce, via the Acquisition and Grants Office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, issued a notice of intent to grant ICANN the IANA contract for three more years. It invited alternative offerors to submit in writing a detailed response on how they could meet the requirements themselves. Such responses were to be received no later than 10 days following publication of the invitation and the decision on whether to open the "tender" to competition was to remain solely within the discretion of the government.

In August 2006, the U.S. Department of Commerce extended its IANA contract with ICANN by an additional five years, subject to annual renewals.[1]

Since ICANN is managing a worldwide resource, but being controlled by U.S. interests, a number of proposals have been brought forward to decouple the IANA function from ICANN. However, it is widely believed[who?] that it would be impractical to change the current control structure without risking fracturing the Internet."

This may well be the end to piracy as we know it now, but with most things, it will change. I remember when I was a kid - we used to copy movies that were rented from the video store and then share them around. Same with PC Games etc. They may be able to stop the sharing of this stuff online but there are other ways to share.

Better still, how about making the movies really cheap to download, like 50cents a movie.

I am a pirate and proud of it, I purchase quality bluerays, which are few and far between and I went to the cinema to see Inception and Toy Story 3 as they where quality films. A vist to the cinema with my partner cost me £38 with tickets, drinks and pop corn. Bluerays when they first come out sell for £19.99 then a month later £8.99. Tell me who is being robbed, I belive everytime I go to the cinema they are taking the pants off me and as such only go and see films that deserve it.
Regarding the previous German poster it isnt about not being able to afford the films its more about high markups and the length of time it takes to get movies from cinema to dvd. If all of the studios got together and released movies for download at the same time they are on at the cinema at a resonable price and we got to keep them like a dvd that I would buy the films everytime. The system is corrput to put money in the hands of greedy corporations and not the artists.

People in my industry are damned tired of having to police the internet to keep their intellectual property off of the pirate sites and p2p networks. We are just small business people trying to make a living in a very tough climate. When one asks these pirate sites to remove one's own intellectual property from their servers one is met with nothing but resistance. I should not need to contact or hire a lawyer to keep my intellectual property from being stolen by scum on the internet.

When things are stolen over the internet, it is not always some giant corporation that is being affected. I am sure many of you believe that you are "sticking it to the man" when you share the work of another over the internet, but I and my contemporaries are not " the man". We are fellow humans trying very hard to get by.

I applaud any genuine effort to stop theft in the real world and on the internet.

reply to post by LordBucket


Actually, what you bring up could be referred back to the EO issued earlier about allowing Interpol into the US.

Cannot remember exactly what it was in regards to.

If anyone thinks that the governments do not want to begin shutting down the free flow of information on the internet, they are in la la land.

reply to post by On the level


If you ask most people they would compromise if a new legal market mechanism was established using these new mediums (torrents). Why don't they invest money into learning how to make BitTorrent customer friendly and that way an effective transfer medium can be used legally and hopefully at a lower price than overpriced dvd's and bluerays.

E.g:

$1.50 per TV show episode.

There's on average about 20 episodes in a season for a tv series.

That's $30 to watch every episode of the season.

A special price could be offered if the customer subscribed for the whole season at the beginning, they could get it for say, $20-25.

Beats paying $80-90 for a dvd season, no?

Just an example.

i dont see how this ends piracy.

it says this gives them the ability to take over domain names, not the servers themselves.

so while typing in "piratebay.com" in the US will lead you to a 404, the trackers and torrents themselves will still be quite usable assuming they are located overseas.

another thing to note, is p2p (bittorrent, amongst others) more or less killed the warez scene. p2p is hardly the SOURCE of piracy, its more like the bottem of the barrell. most warez is still distributed on 0day servers across IRC. infact p2p is almost universally frowned on across the warez scene. eventually most files trickle down the ladders and end up on p2p services. its like the end of the line, commonly viewed as "sloppy seconds" and usually not available for leeching until far after its release. the real pirates that are the actual sources of most of these files have a very old system of distribution and rely much on user-clout. most people would be unable to participate due to ignorance of formalities alone.

its not the easiest community to just "jump" in to. you got to be a d00d.

so long as there are communications, there will be piracy.

reply to post by ShadowAngel85

You don't need DVDs or music, right? Consider them, as what they're: A luxury.

When music (the arts) becomes a 'luxury' - we will in fact be (all) living in a police/fascist state. Considering where your avatar claims you're at/from I'd think you'd of learned about that by now.

And as for your calling people 'stupid' - well, you've painted yourself a nice portrait for us with that one and it speaks a thousand words, believe me.

Oh, and about getting 'a better job'... Your lack of tact and knowledge of the TRUE world just astounds me. I guess it's good some people can still live in a fantasy land though isn't it.

As for me - my opinion? If you can find it on the internet - it's yours - or should I say mine?

(Funny that - I've never used a torrent or even once downloaded a movie - I listen to what I want on the Tube and if I want to watch a movie I watch it in bits and pieced on MegaVideo - but that doesn't change my opinion one bit.

peace

Another thing that I have always found puzzling about piracy is the fact that one branch of Sony sue people for copyright infringement, and the other branch of Sony manufacture blank DVD's / CD's, CD and DVD burners and in the past video recorders.
They accuse the torrent sites of knowing what their sites are used for and not doing anything about it, well what does Sony think people are doing with the millions of blank dvd's /cd's they sell.
When Sony first made the Betamax they were very much on the other side of the copyright fence

Sony Vs Universal studios 1984

reply to post by RelentlessLurker



Interesting.

I wouldn't say that this "trickle down" effect is still applied today though, maybe not as much as it used to be. There are torrents available for TV shows almost as soon as they finish airing on TV. Movies are leaked really fast, it doesn't take many days or weeks.

I suppose what I'm saying is that the majority of people who visit these public torrent sites aren't advanced users who know all about the workings of the warez/IRC scene. Once these main sources of torrents are taken down many will simply give up because they don't know of alternatives.

It's the top/down approach to talking piracy. I think its a lot more effective than making examples out of college students. Not saying that I agree with it or not, it is what it is.

what bugs me is the net companies also giving plans that give you 1TB of usage per month - what do they HONESTLY think people are going to do that need that much usage?

so it's "downloading movies/music is illegal, but we want you to do it, because then you pay us ridiculous amounts of $$$ on our overly expensive usage plans"

can't win!

Actually I think it's more likely to be the beginning of the end of enforced copyright on digital media, quite the opposite of the end of piracy. These are death throes.

And the death is happening entirely for practical reasons, as I don't think anyone is against copyright in principle. It's actually kind of nice to know you have legal protection for your own creative works. But with digital technology allowing anything which can be represented as patterns of zeroes and ones to be copied nearly instantaneously at will, the whole copyright system just doesn't work like it used to. The reality of technology has destroyed the ideal of copyright.

Though I sympathize with copyright, part of me thinks this won't be such a huge loss. People who really have something creative to say will say it anyway and the money is just an added bonus. It's the people who make a business of churning out uninspired work who will have to find a new line of work.

But the vested interests will fight this to the death of course. Once the measure mentioned in the OP inevitably fails when people just find less obvious ways to share stuff, there will be pressure and initiatives to invade our privacy for the Noble Purpose of enforcing copyright laws. Eventually, maybe a bit of a ways down the road yet, copyright will be recognized by everybody as obsolete, but this won't happen without a fight by those with a vested interest in copyright, a fight that they will take straight into our homes if we let them.

reply to post by silo13


Oh so it makes a police state just because you can't afford to buy something you don't really need? Are you serious or just try to be "different"?
I spend around 300-400€ per month in video games, music, dvds/blu-rays. NOBODY hears me ever cry about the prices, why? Because i can buy a damn big load of stuff with that money and i'm happy to support the people who create stuff that entertains me.
Why is it so hard for other people to learn that you need to buy it, if you want it?
Why should it be free? Do you like to work and not get paid? Imagine that, you work your ass off for a month and than your boss says "Sorry, you don't get paid".
Great, huh?

I really wonder who live in a fairy tale land where everything is nice and free and happy

And if you cry about the prices of media, why don't you also cry about everything else? Cars are expensive...oh # it, i just steel it, the car companies make too much money and you shouldn't pay for some steel and tires, right? Whoa, that house looks nice, why should i pay it? I just steal it.
Do you do that? Do you also think you shouldn't pay for food and clothes and other stuff? Then go into a store and just steal it? NO?
It's really mind-boggling that people who call themself "pirates" (Yeah right) and "different" only steal the "easy stuff" and pay for everything else without bitching about the prices

And about the "the companies make enough money" crap: Just search around the web, how many companies had to close down, because everybody just stole their products. It's especially hard in the video game industry where so many companies went bankrupt or got nearly bankrupt. The best example is Sega. Sega got nearly killed because people found out how easy it was to copy and use pirated games on the Dreamcast. NFL 2K2 was supposed to be the big hit video game on the Dreamcast but pirates released it one day before the official sale began to the internet and nobody bought it. Dreamcast shortly after was discontinued and Sega got into really big financial troubles and the only escape was a merge with Sammy Corp.

But also in the music industry, why do you think there are only 5 really big record labels left? All the other ones that existed in the 70's and 80's went either bankrupt (like Casablanca Records. Rock-O-Rama or Jet Records) or got bought (like Epic, Columbia, BMG, Island Records), mostly because of piracy. Same with movie studios.

Yeah, "pirates" can really be proud of themself, destroying companies left and right and i don't want to know how many people lost their job or even got homeless because of some greedy bastards who don't want to spend money for stuff they want

reply to post by serbsta


I'd guess that one reason why torrents are so popular is that the product itself is much better what is sold legally. Nevermind the cost issue the product itself is way better. Also all anti-piracy measures on dvd's etc. only cause harm to paying customers. Pirates always get around them easily so they're pointless. Regiond codes and copy protection get bypassed really easily. Not to mention the forced adverts in dvd's and warnings about piracy which are completely idiotic. Also not all people can go to movies or have a dvd rental option available and even if they do it¨s likely that torrent is way more convinient.

reply to post by ShadowAngel85


See now this is the thing that really vexes me. I recall a time before the word "piracy" had its meaning changed. Back then, it was piracy only if you had stolen something, and/or were trying to resell it.

Here's a hypothetical situation for what we now face: Your grandmother bakes a cake, and sells it to your cousin.
Your cousin says "MMM! This is really good cake! Here! Have some!"

Please....please tell me how in the #^$*(%)#&#^@& SHARING became piracy!?!?

My opinion? Greed and greed alone dictated this little gem of Orwellian double-speak.

reply to post by UKWO1Phot


I really love reading things like this.. This is the problem with opur world.. The pure sense of entitlement... Who in the hell do you think you are? Telling them how much they should charge for THEIR property.... \
How can you even say this?? Your character is in question here.. If you feel that it is to expensive.. You have 2 options, moraly .. Buy it .. Or protest buying it.... Stealing it is not an option for a person with a strong moral compass. PERIOD!!

So you feel the price is to high...you steal it. I truely hope all of you thieves will teach your children better than you have been taught.

Nobody in support of piracy has a product out there, that is being affected by this stealing. If you had a horse in this race and your families lives were affected by this thievery, your view would be different.

Silo is 100% correct.. You are stealing someones intellectual property .. PERIOD!!!

You can say that your country allows for this stealing.(and calls it something different).. I say then, your countries laws are flawed.

Waaaaaa "everything on the internet should be free"... waaaaaaa "they charge to much for their product".. It is getting so old.. You are theives... there is a victim here... Unfortunatly, these theives are also victims of our society... The sense of entitlement that our people feel is staggering.

Originally posted by UKWO1Phot
The majority of films that are released are tosh anyway.. And now we have 3D trying to impress us (Get your TV and glasses now) IMHO a waste of money like HD.

I dont see 3d cause an issue wit my eyes, never could and never did. Suck for me though I wonder what its like.. I saw avatar in 3d and it looked like a normal movie I am glad they got rid of that red/blue crap..

On the note of the piracy, This is old news, one thing you people need to learn is everything we have today in the PC world is because of hackers.. You computer wouldnt be as kick ass if it wasnt for them moddling cracking hacking a pc..

This piracy thing will develop into something else and then we will be here a few yrs from now repeating this same post as this.. We did it with napster, we are doing it with torrents, we will be doing it with what is next..

So in the end government 0 hackers 1..
We should take note on this, as people and look what i said above this line.. WE as people should be saying the same thing in our general life but i suppose that Floride is working overtime on the lots of ya.. Oh well..

I thought online privacy never existed.

If they wanted to, they'd just follow your IP address and look at everything on your computer.

Google holds everything you search for 1 year. Everything. After that, we don't really know whether or not it erases and starts over like they say it does.

Privacy never existed. And who cares if it does or doesn't. They [Elite] can't stop us.

If they kill us all, there'd be no one left to control. Their brains would implode.