New anti-piracy system will hit U.S. Internet users next week

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by Robonakka
reply to post by ausername

 

It is not stealing. It is the exact same thing as recording a song off the radio. Or a movie from the tv. There is absolutely no difference. I pay the ISP for ability to get on my new fangled radio. But then I hear a song or see a movie and if I choose to keep it, there is no valid reason why I can't. I have purchased 100 DVDs I would not have, but did because I watched the movie for free online and thought it was good enough to add to my collection.

That's all fine and dandy for a discussion about video and music (although not accurate, but whatever), but of course piracy also hits programs and games...now that cannot be simply removed with the radio analogy.

Once again, this is their own "fault".. Interesting that most software is now digital only, and yet they still charge the same price. No big box stores to pay, no people they are employing to print boxes, manuals, etc...Just the same amount of cash being charged for some 1's an 0's.

I remember the old PC games in the 1980s and 1990s... Piracy was easier back then (no "cracks" needed as everything was DRM free) but we still bought games and built the industry with our dollars- Pirated games were okay but you never got those high gloss 200+ page manuals, cloth maps and extras.

I have no problem Pirating games/software if the digital price is not substantially lower than the box price. None at all. In fact, the only time I would actually pay for software is with an indie developer.

-And I certainly do not feel bad....At all.

Give me a nice Collectors edition with something worth paying for (like the Skyrim CE) and I will buy it.

The gaming/movie/music industry (mainstream, that is) are some of the biggest criminals out there and use their money to further sway the laws in their favor...

Here is a quote (and I reason I certainly do not feel bad about Pirating games)
"When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo in your clip, and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you're really not very price sensitive at that point in time."

"A consumer gets engaged in a property, they might spend 10,20,30,50 hours on the game and then when they're deep into the game they're well invested in in. We're not gouging, but we're charging and at that point in time the commitment can be pretty high."

"But it is a great model and I think it represents a substantially better future for the industry."
www.escapistmagazine.com...

...screw 'em. They continue to monetize everything (as they have been ) and I will stop spending ANYTHING (except for my VPN)

EDIT: Also, games are a bigger pain to crack now than at anytime in the past (including software) and your average user cannot do it. In the 1980s and 1990s ANYONE could copy a game. Now you need daemon Tools 9or a like program) to mount the image, then install and write over the .exe with a crack- Still simple but look at the comments on any game torrent and you will see that at least 1/3rd of the people (who know how to torrent) have major difficulty cracking games properly.

Originally posted by dreamingawake



If you have dedicated fans stealing from you then perhaps you need to find better fans. The bigger issue is not theft from the honest hardworking artists-that's far and few between, it's the companies crying foul when in fact there's no proof of losses. Remember Lars Ulrich against Napster? Years later he accepted that the times have changed. Companies need to do the same, instead of crying, being corrupt, trying to control everything, they need to adapt. Because their lack of adoption is the loss taken, not file sharing.

edit on 24-2-2013 by dreamingawake because: more

Someone somewhere else mentioned an interesting point: For $8.00 a month, you can get Netflix and have access to thousands of movies. They should just have Netflix become a part of everyone's OS with the $8.00 worked into your ISP's charge - voila, problem solved.

reply to post by DarKPenguiN


Yeah, that reminds me of when albums switched to CDs.CDs when they first came out cost more because there weren't that many. A few years later, when vinyl was gone and all you had was CDs, which actually cost less to produce than vinyl albums, the price remained nearly double what vinyl used to be.

Arguments such as being moral, ethical and the like are always going to be there for all of us. The one thing TPTB believe along with all of those organization, companies, etc., they own, is that they THINK they can control the masses and as long as we have smarter people than them, information will always be free!

I've seen this over and over and over again. Is it ethical? Perhaps not, but then again life isn't fair to all of us!

They will go live and then realize this technology they speak of just turns their once fast network into a puke slow network. This is like a gun ban but on the internet. Now we have forced data check points slowing the network down. It's not happening just on one end it's happening on the other side too. So now you have 2 check points maybe even more. Yeah this will definitely kill the internet experience.

All this will do is drive pirates to go into large privatized secured networks. They already do have large networks with a subscription fee to join. Using vpns and ssl vpn web portals also using secured shells servers. They may even come up with a new torrent app that utilizes those. So everyone will basically be a VPN server to connect and download and upload data. So the pirates will bypass all this crap while everyone suffers slower speeds and network congestion.

On top of all this the government knows about all the huge security holes out there that basically turns WiFi networks into zombies. There is a huge amount of unsecured routers out there. So you have a percentage of people with wide open networks that don't even use secuirty, then there is percentage of WEP secured networks which can be cracked in minutes. Then you have a huge percentage of un-patched routers with WPS vulnerabilities, which on average can be cracked in 1-2 hours. All brand named routers are affected by this. Linksys ran by Cisco recently wants to sell out to Belkin. Hmm I wonder why. A lot of the routers they designed can't even be patched with new firmware, as it's mainly also a hardware design flaw. Many without the ability to utilize the 3rd party firmware such as Tomato or DDWRT etc, because they lack enough flash ram.

To further add fuel to the fire we have Sun Java that always has a continuous flow of security holes. Sun Java even admits their coding is complete garbage and needs to be redone from the ground up. So you have what once was secured networks utilizing Java now rendered useless.

reply to post by TheEnlightenedOne


"Classic" arguments like moral and ethic thing is not much more than a bad excuse to make it look bad to mainstream population.
Reality is different. For example, it can even be a form of free advertising for the editor/developper. It's not uncommon to have someone see a game at a friend home that the friend would have illegally downloaded and is illegally using, and that you buy it because it looks cool and you'd never have heard about that game if your friend didn't show it to you. Some devs/eds do realize that and they do exploit it.
Huge one such electronic arts couldnt be so laxists about that, because even if they also do realize that, their investors won't be happy if EA just "don't seem to care" about it. That's why the only ones who prefer to exploit the phenomenon than fighting against it are mostly indies or small games studios (Stardock for example, is not that big, and do realize and exploit that).

EDIT: I would just add that if I was a game developper or an artist, I would much more worry about the quality of my product if it was NOT pirated than if it was...

Originally posted by thebtheb

Originally posted by dreamingawake



If you have dedicated fans stealing from you then perhaps you need to find better fans. The bigger issue is not theft from the honest hardworking artists-that's far and few between, it's the companies crying foul when in fact there's no proof of losses. Remember Lars Ulrich against Napster? Years later he accepted that the times have changed. Companies need to do the same, instead of crying, being corrupt, trying to control everything, they need to adapt. Because their lack of adoption is the loss taken, not file sharing.

edit on 24-2-2013 by dreamingawake because: more

Someone somewhere else mentioned an interesting point: For $8.00 a month, you can get Netflix and have access to thousands of movies. They should just have Netflix become a part of everyone's OS with the $8.00 worked into your ISP's charge - voila, problem solved.

Frankly, because Netflix sucks... Why? Because of Holllywood only releasing very old or "B" movies for streaming. This is why Netflix is scrambling to make its own original content.

Heres an idea (and really would stop piracy)- Why can I not subscribe to HBO ONLY streaming on my PC? Hell, I would do it for game of thrones alone... Or A and E for the walking dead? They expect me top buy a package and support Nickelodian, Lifetime (womens entertainment), BET (Black entertainment), MTV (not music entertainment) and a plethora of channels I do not want or need (plus installation) when just ant one or two channels.
-They dont do that. Fine. I still see the shows (sometimes before they actually air) BUT here is the thing... I spend more on the Walking Dead and game of Thrones (two series I pirate) than most who are fans and subscribe to cable. I buy the T Shirts, Comic books, paperback books, toys, etc... I have spent a good $1000 on Walking dead collectibles and comics alone since being turned on to the series.

Its a proven fact that Pirates spend more money than non Pirates.

My ONLY problem with Piracy is when people try to make money off of it (i.e. selling DVD's and such)

-This is not a "black and white" issue... Like most things.

Why are they going for the downloader. I bet the majority of the downloaders dont know how to set up a p2p website or make the programs to download the shared files. Go after the site makers and it stops most downloads but the most hardcore downloaders. They are after money here. The same way they build most every day cars that go 200km/hr when speed limits are 100 or 110. I think they gave a scare and hit some sites but will keep the rest up to catch downloaders. I don't know how many millions of downloaders there are but it is a potential revenue source. Governments never solve anything they just find a way to make money and create more laws.

Dont use P2P crap ... problem solved

reply to post by celticdog


Problem is with the design of most p2p systems... In which the downloader is also an uploader, and that's what authorities are "hunting down": uploaders.

I've always thought that the reason these lawyers of copyright are pushing this so badly isnt because they are worried about people copying films, music and software , Hell China already has the market on copies and duplicates and has done for ever ! They arent worried about it at all

the reason and only reason they want to stop P2P and sharing online is because its the easiest way to share files and information around the world that can and will potentially damage a country , wikileaks !

the reason they want the sharing sites shut down and users not able to share files is because we can each hold the truth about a country if leaked

they pass these laws and change the internet then we cant get easy access to these files.

Originally posted by Robonakka
reply to post by ausername

 

It is not stealing. It is the exact same thing as recording a song off the radio. Or a movie from the tv. There is absolutely no difference. I pay the ISP for ability to get on my new fangled radio.

Except that a song on the radio is licensed, and an unlicensed station playing a song or sound byte will be sued. You're technically an unlicensed radio station when you peer to peer share, and no one is being paid for it.

There is no way on Earth that can be called stealing. Copyright is the temporary right to be the sole copy maker of an idea or song. At least it used to be temporary. No one with a soul can argue that copyright is fair or even close to being what it was intended. How can anyone say a song or movie is inherently more valuable than the Ipad or cell phone? Yet a patent is only 17 years. And copyright is for life of the author plus 70 years?!?!?

I don't think you can copyright an 'idea', its not possible. With patents and copyrights, they're two very different things.

A book with copyright attributed to the author doesn't prevent you from producing another book. A movie doesn't prevent you from producing another movie. A hardware patent does prevent you from making the product at all unless your product is substantially different. Also patent laws are hideously complex.

I don't think lowering the copyright dates would do anything but keep the big dogs with better distribution methods on top. Some of these laws do actually help some artists / workers.

I will never respect copyright law as long as the term is so indescribably idiotic. And no one else should either. After all, it is NOT stealing. If it was then theft laws would apply. They do not.

Criminal laws can and do apply for copyright infringement. You can receive up to 10 years for it.

Calling copyright infringement theft would be inaccurate on multiple levels due to all kinds of things from fair use to how the copyright is infringed. However, if a large company copied your work and it became wildly successful but you didn't see a single cent from it ... would you call that theft?

Now if that large company is a peer to peer network - you can see the problem.

wow, next they will be cutting off our hands too, to slow the typing...cant type fast with a stub!

reply to post by dreamingawake


There is nothing new under the sun. I've been in the filesharing biz a very long time and this has always been the case. When it really took off with the old Bearshare and LimeWire all they needed to do was a simple search of your shared file directory. That was their evidence. When they went to the wind and users moved to edonkey, they simply set up server farms to lure users into connecting to and perform searches on. Then that was their evidence. Then users abandoned edonkey and adopted bittorrent and they went back to the old peer connection method.

All that has happened here really is an agreement between the industry and ISPs, similar to what has happened in the UK. The media industry drove the gov insane with their lobbying and the gov told them and the ISPs that they should sort it out between themselves, and if they really wanted to go down the legislation route, neither of them might like the outcome. So... The big ISPs agreed with the BPI to take a more proactive role in preventing copyright infringement. As payment for this, the ISPs could charge the BPI (well, their lawyers anyway) to release user information. Last time I looked, the average charge was £70 (was a while back so a rough guess)per IP address submitted. If the BPI requested information on say 4000 IPs, that's £280,000 in the pockets of the ISPs for grassing on you. Nice huh.

Theft is defined as the act of stealing, the taking of someone else's property. Stealing is defined as the removal of someone else's property without their permission thereby denying them of the use or benefit of that property. Property is defined as a possession, or the right of possession of a thing, something tangible.

File.sharing is so far from theft it's not even funny. To "steal" music you would need to physically break into a musicians house, raid his studio, and steal all his crap. You have then taken his property, denied him the benefit of said property and left him with nothing. That is theft.

I have a magical car copying machine. Im walking down the road and spot your car. I think "hmm that's a nice car". So out with the magical car copying machine and POOF, another car, just like yours, but not yours. I have stolen nothing from you. I have not deprived you of the use of your car. I simply copied it. That is not theft.

I always think of this court case when these conversations come up.

Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was a case heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. In their complaint, Universal Studios alleged that Nintendo's video game Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of King Kong, the plot and characters of which Universal claimed for their own. Nintendo argued that Universal had themselves proved that King Kong's plot and characters were in the public domain in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc.

Universal went to court and proved that RKO no longer owned the rights to King Kong and that it was public domain. They then a few years later tried to sue Nintendo over Donkey Kong saying that they (universal) owned the rights.

They knew they were wrong but it is always about money and control. There is no morality issue here from the consumers point when the Studios themselves engage in lies, fraud, and frivolous suits to do nothing but maintain control and profit.

For more than a decade now we have had end user license agreements which is essentially the only legal way these companies can control you and their products by making you agree to give up your rights to use their products.

These are dinosaurs who want to maintain the illusion of free enterprise but then want us to ignore supply and demand when it comes to the infinite replication of data for free or little cost while they bend us over a barrel.

Video game companies are crying about second hand sales of games hurting their profits but in actuality they want to get paid twice for every game, they want to charge you piece meal for DLC that is already on the disc you bought but you have to pay extra to unlock it. What a sham.

Originally posted by NihilistSanta
I always think of this court case when these conversations come up.

Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was a case heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. In their complaint, Universal Studios alleged that Nintendo's video game Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of King Kong, the plot and characters of which Universal claimed for their own. Nintendo argued that Universal had themselves proved that King Kong's plot and characters were in the public domain in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc.

Universal went to court and proved that RKO no longer owned the rights to King Kong and that it was public domain. They then a few years later tried to sue Nintendo over Donkey Kong saying that they (universal) owned the rights.

They knew they were wrong but it is always about money and control. There is no morality issue here from the consumers point when the Studios themselves engage in lies, fraud, and frivolous suits to do nothing but maintain control and profit.

For more than a decade now we have had end user license agreements which is essentially the only legal way these companies can control you and their products by making you agree to give up your rights to use their products.

These are dinosaurs who want to maintain the illusion of free enterprise but then want us to ignore supply and demand when it comes to the infinite replication of data for free or little cost while they bend us over a barrel.

Video game companies are crying about second hand sales of games hurting their profits but in actuality they want to get paid twice for every game, they want to charge you piece meal for DLC that is already on the disc you bought but you have to pay extra to unlock it. What a sham.

So true.
I recently read a book "the ultamite history of video games" www.amazon.com... and the entire thing was based on Piracy and Theft... Not "some of it" but pretty much everything from the late 1970s on up... hell, Nintendo stole Tetris from a Russian inventer.

-There is so much to all of this that the average person just does not understand since the propaganda arm is in full swing.

How can Lucasarts claim the Star Wars Universe has made no profit (6 movies, untold cartoons and million of merchandising opportunities and they say "no profit"?)- Same with Lord of the Rings... If the Lord of the rings movies have made NO PROFIT (to avoid paying royalties to Tolkiens family) why are they now making "the Hobbit"? If Star Wars made no profit why did we get another trilogy? They use creative accounting which is just a big lie to avoid paying taxes, actors and royalties but cry foul when they feel they 'arent being paid"

-And again, here is the CEO of EA talking about gouging the consumer as a good business model. www.youtube.com...

It really is a big standoff. Right now all of the media companies want to go completely digital and embrace the cloud because then they can control and monitor everything but at the same time they know that as they push for digital they increase the chances of piracy due to the nature of nothing being truly secure and the availability of everything in digital format.

This is why console makers are trying to lock user ids and subscriptions to each console. This is why prepaid cell phones usually lock all of the info to the phones hardware. Eventually we will get a set top box that operates as an all in one media center . It will be a computer, movie player, gaming console etc rolled into one and you will be tied to that box. You lose or damage the box well you lose everything you purchased.

I think the stuff we see in the OP is a red herring while they get ready to lock us down to hardware and implement ID systems. It is too tedious for them to monitor all of the traffic.

reply to post by sirhumperdink


not a good analogy as anyone can make a stone wheel. Try recreating "Sargent Pepper", or "Dark Side of the Moon" or "Thriller" on your own.

It's pretty simple, if no one makes money off of their music they'll be forced to do something else for money and eventually there won't be anymore new music. Not that I care because I don't enjoy any music made after 1995!

reply to post by RedParrotHead


I know you are joking but its only been in the last 70 years or so that artist are considered profitable and yet some of the greatest works ever came from people who died penniless.

reply to post by threewisemonkeys


You make a good legal point but you can't deny that by file sharing you're negativity effecting file creators monetary profit that could be made from that file (be it music, movies, software whatever) because people no longer have to pay for it.

As long as you will never complain about excessive product placement (yes, even in music and software) and/or very amateur entertainment I guess you'll be fine.

There is no law saying you have to stand in line at a crowded supermarket but it makes life easier if everyone plays by the unwritten rules and quits constantly looking for loopholes to get something for nothing