Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
from the duh dept
I know that some like to paint me — falsely — as being “pro-piracy” when I talk about why various attempts to use laws to “crackdown” on piracy are a bad idea. My concern is not that this will somehow “damage” piracy — frankly, I couldn’t care much less about that — but with two specific things:
- These laws almost always have massive and dangerous unintended consequences that hinder innovation, speech or both.
- More importantly, these laws don’t actually work at stopping piracy.
Given those two specific facts, you would think that maybe (just maybe) that those industries so focused on “stopping piracy” might, instead, focus on more productive solutions that cause less collateral damage. That means doing things like focusing on enabling or investing in new innovation.
Some will argue with the two points above, but I’ve yet to see anything that disproves either of them. Just as an example, this week we talked about a study from Oxford University that showed the dangerous consequences of 3-strikes laws, or other rules that lead to kicking people offline. And, now, we have another academic study that helps make the second point. Some research on file sharing sites found that anti-piracy measures simply don’t work. In the academic version:
Our data shows that current anti-piracy efforts are visible, but their overall impact appears to be rather limited. Furthermore, our analysis of the file sharing ecosystem suggests that future antipiracy measures that are currently under discussion may not be as successful as their proponents might expect.
What’s scary is that this still even needs to be said, or that certain maximalists still refuse to believe it, despite the massive amounts of evidence. Yet, they still keep focusing on the single strategy that’s proven not to work, and ignore the strategy that does (building innovative businesses).
Filed Under: cracking down, piracy, strategies, study
Comments on “Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective”
Standard incendiary ‘Friday, troll-for-comments’ post.
Re: Re:
It’s only incendiary to trolls and IP maximalists and those aren’t the most prolific commenters on the site.
Re: Re:
“Standard incendiary ‘Friday, troll-for-comments’ post.”
Out_of_the_Blue’s operating under a pseudonym!
Re: Re:
Standard incendiary ‘Friday, troll-for-comments’ post.
And you would appear to be a standard incendiary Friday troll.
Pirate Mike just wants free stuff!
Re: Re:
He just hates it when copyright is enforced!
(never mind the fact that “enforcement” isn’t working)
*insert Einstein quote about stupidity here*
waste of time trying to make those that refuse to see, actually see! those concerned are far more concerned in trying retain the control they thought they had in pre-Internet times and screwing customers over than really doing anything that will be beneficial to both the industries concerned and the customers. sooner or later, customers are going to get really pissed at being referred to as ‘pirates’ who want everything for free, when that is so far removed from the truth. what file sharers are fed up with is not being in control of the things they have paid good money for. if i want to sell my car, i done need permission from Ford to do so, therefore why should i need permission from Nintendo, for example, by way of paying for a new key code or something? it is nothing short of customer extortion!! the game console makers wonder why people are going more and more down the android route and financing projects like Ouya! then Sony, who basically instigated all this shit are trying to introduce even more strict measures that will piss customers off still further. freakin’ ridiculous!!
Re: Re:
“…if i want to sell my car, i don’t need permission from Ford to do so,…”
YET.
Fixed it for you.
Hmm...
I think maximalist know that “”cracking” down on piracy doesn’t work,they just want control of distribution and pricing and they only believe in copyright when it suits them.They’re like religious nutcases only believing in the Bible when it suits them,heresy I tell you.
Re: Hmm...
“…religious nutcases only believing in the Bible when it suits them…”
Somewhere around 98% of christians should be offended (interpretation relies on knowing every word of the bible…). The rest has a high concentration of nutcases…
Seems like a backhanded defence of maximalists to me…
Re: Re: Hmm...
Not really,you don’t see the analogy of certain hypocrisy. I was referring to Kent Hovind.
Re: Re: Re: Hmm...
Guess I am just a grammar-nazi (who do not use grammar correctly himself :)). The right word is likely interpretation instead of not following it. Hovind is a walking fellon and a talking fallacy with a lack of mitigating circumstances, but I would think that he has an interpretation of the bible that makes him able to form reality around the bible. Normal people form their interpretation of the bible around reality and I think that religion in that case is benign if not healthy.
The ‘war on piracy’ is not about making more money or even stopping piracy. It is about trying to claw back their ‘right’ to control what music we listen to, what books we read, and what movies or TV shows we watch. File sharing websites help independent content control and THAT, more than anything else, is what terrifies them.
The more file sharing emerges as a content delivery mechanism and the more crowd funding services emerge as legitimate funding mechanisms, the more irrelevant and obsolete these corporations will become.
THAT is what the ‘war on piracy’ is really about.
Re: Re:
That should have been “help independent content creation”.
Re: Re:
This is my belief too.
If you can control it, you can profit from it.
More and more, the internet is removing control from industries long obsessed with maintaining it. The more they lose, the more we win. And that can only be considered a good thing for the public at large.
Re: Re: Re:
I agree. I just hacked your bank account.
Freedom and sharing and all that other stuff means you’re ok with it.
Thanks
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh look, someone who is against sharing their own mother, good luck with that.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Did you create a perfect match to his financial dollars and while you copied those dollars, leaving the original in place, did you notice his account balance remained unchanged?
Fixed your analogy for you!
You’re welcome.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Wow, you’re really going to compare money with infinitely reproducible digital content? As the old saying goes, tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Re: Re:
I also cannot help but notice that file sharing is the most powerful storage outsourcing system in the world. Every computer connected to it basically acts as a server.
What we sometimes forget in the digital age is that we do not have an infinite storage capacity on our hard drives at home. Sometimes we need to stream in order to see stuff, or even delete stuff on our hard drives to make room. Therefore the issue of who you pay for in order to get extra storage has to come into play somewhere.
I reckon streaming-for-hire and storage-for-hire is where people can benefit most from all of this. I would pay for services that allow me to watch stuff without having to download them.
Re: Re: Re:
By the way, I wonder how long YouTube can go before it has to start charging in order to cover its server costs. 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. It’s hard to imagine that even Google can afford to run so much storage…
Re: Re: Re:
“I would pay for services that allow me to watch stuff without having to download them.”
I do. I have Netflix and Love Film subscriptions.
Re: Re: Re:
Won’t be too much longer until we do have something close to infinite data storage for home use. Platter hard drives jumped from 1TB to 2TB in such a short time…
Re: Re: Re:
“I would pay for services that allow me to watch stuff without having to download them.”
I hate love hate to be a nitpicker, but everything you see while on the internet has been downloaded to your computer. You couldn’t possibly stream a video without the images being downloaded to your machine. This is why the whole “copying is stealing” argument is laughable. If it were true, then I’ve been stealing websites for at least the last 20 years. The entire internet literally relies on file sharing for it to work.
Don’t believe me, go an look at your temporary internet files folder in Windows. The files might be hidden or look like they aren’t images, videos and html pages, but they can be opened as such.
Re: Re:
The ‘war on piracy’ is not about making more money or even stopping piracy. It is about trying to claw back their ‘right’ to control what music we listen to, what books we read, and what movies or TV shows we watch.
Though overstated, I think you’re absolutely right.
The content industries only shout “piracy” when they want more control at the bargaining table. They’re not even hiding it anymore:
Recording Industry Calls Radio ‘A Kind Of Piracy’
The fact that their “bargaining table” is now located in the back rooms of Congress, makes it even more odious.
Re: Re:
I think there’s a distinction you’re missing.
The holders or executors of copyright don’t care what you read, view, or hear. They only care that everything you read, view, or hear is in some way capable of funneling them money. They don’t have an agenda other than to make money on as many things as possible.
You could make the argument that the people creating and passing that laws that govern this process have a desire to control what you read, view, or hear. The legislature may have specific moral goals in mind and may reckon that by limiting the monopoly to players already locked in their symbiotic relationship, they can pressure those players to put forth only works acceptable to them.
Shit the amount of LEGAL free stuff on the web is absurd. A lot of it is only okay but due to the massive amount there are plenty of free things that are really fucking good.
This is what they don’t like because if it’s better than when they push they know there is no way to stop it without control over the web.
Honestly piracy is one of the best promotion tools that exist. More than half of every single song and film I own I found out about from downloading it first. I became a fan so I bought their shit in the hopes they keep doing it.
The flip side is there was plenty of shit I downloaded that I’m glad I did because I saved myself money. Only if I could get a refund on my time and a mind wipe.
Re: Re:
This. I download music (and even some movies) all the time, all legally, for free. Some of it is bad, some good, some great — the same as with more mainstream offerings. I almost always end up giving money to the artists making the great stuff.
Even if I didn’t have a problem with piracy, I probably wouldn’t do much of it — there’s simply no need.
Comments From An Insider
Great insight/comments on the porn industry previously posted to Slashdot and featured on fightcopyrighttrolls.com – http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2013/01/02/ive-seen-john-steele-preaching-an-insightful-comment-from-a-slashdot-org-discussion/
DTD 🙂
“More than half of every single song and film I own I found out about from downloading it first”
Name a person that buys more than 10% of media – that they have *never* seen/heard FIRST – before buying it.
Now in the digital age, or before….
I might own five out of 200 store bought DVD’s that I didn’t see before buying it – and I could pretty well guarantee; they were under $5.00 or I wouldn’t have.
The only small exception to that is a series/artist that I am almost positive I like, or that I follow a lot. Which… if Pink Floyd releases a new CD, I’ll just buy it. There might be 3-4 other artists I would do that with. But 98% of the time – I’ve seen or heard it first.
And yes, Pandora has prompted me to buy more CD’s over the last year than I had the previous 10 years before now.
I disagree
In my view, unintended consequences that hinder innovation and speech should cause us much more concern than failure to stop piracy.
Re: I disagree
Indeed. But this study attacks the escalating and excessive legalisms that dominate this aspect of entertainment.
How many times do we have to go over this…
*whine* Being innovate is HARD….
The music industry has been engaged for more than ten years in a campaign to drive down music sales by pissing off the record buying public. I wonder what would make them realize they won that battle and can stop fighting.
Ridiculous
Does spamhaus hinder free speech? All ISPs work together the BLOCK IP addresses that distribute spam. Working together to limit illegal distribution of copyrighted material is no more detrimental to freedom of speech than spamhaus. If BitTorrent, uTorrent, Vuze, etc. simply maintained a blacklist of copyrighted hashes like spamhaus, 50% of all illegal downloading would disappear. Spamhaus has due process, if you get blocked you can get unblocked. IMHO Why doesn’t Techdirt advocate such reasonable measures, why don’t ISPs – because they are PRO-PIRACY. IMHO They want to do anything and everything to keep illegal free media alive while HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS and jobs are lost. Disney announced layoff last week citing Home Video decreased due to piracy – Disney! Those are your friends and neighbors out of work.
Re: Ridiculous
“Disney announced layoff last week citing Home Video decreased due to piracy – Disney!”
Do they actually have evidence that piracy did it, or was it because John Carter was a terrible movie?
Re: Re: Ridiculous
Proof – US Home video sales (DVD, BluRay, PayTV, VOD, Streaming) are down 25% to $18.5B in 2011 from $25B in 2006 while BitTorrent data volume grew 10x.
Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
You know what’s cute? No citations or links to your proof.
In fact, the last time you were here posting you INCORRECTLY stated that theater chains KEEP over 80% of all profits generated by films the first two months playing. Which couldn’t be more incorrect.
You also stated some other bullshit about the music industry, which got corrected.
And here you are again. You’re track record speaks for itself. The proof/evidence is all against what you say. So please, come back when you have something of substance to add to the discussion. Because frankly, ripping apart your comments would bring me no joy whatsoever. So I’m honestly going to spare you and grant you the luxury of not being made to look like a dumbass. You still look like one, but I’m not going to make you look worse.
Re: Re: Re:2 Ridiculous
Wait…theatres barely get a cut of the ticket price? So that’s why I’m not allowed bring in outside food! I had always wondered why the snacks were so over-priced…
/sarcmarc
Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
Citation needed. Link to a study please or I’ll just assume you’ve pulled these numbers out of your ass.
Also, don’t assume piracy is the sole cause of the fall in home video sales. When people aren’t watching video, they’re doing other things, such as playing video games or listening to music. Or a myriad of other activities.
Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
Proof: Numbers that you made up.
Nice.
Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
Man, you get around, don’t you?
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/12/19/bittorrent-distances-itself-from-piracy-by-claiming-connection-to-facebook-twitter-code-deployment/
And then this little jewel: “all citations are 100% ACCURATE AND DETAILED ON MY WEB SITE”
Oh, ethicalfan you are hilarious
Re: Re: Re:2 Ridiculous
He also shows up on ArsTechnica from time to time. Doing the same thing, making claims that he says are 100% accurate and backed up by evidence. Which he (un)surprisingly never provides, and which quickly get ripped apart by people with more intelligence and who do so by providing citations and evidence to support the debunking he is privy to on a regular basis.
Re: Ridiculous
The same Disney that bought Lucasfilm for $4billion and ended fiscal 2012 with record profits?
Re: Re: Ridiculous
A lot of people have to work for a living and companies like Disney provide jobs that feed people and help them provide for their families. A business spends money to make money – that is why they bought Lucasfilmi They didn’t make record profits – that is the point. The entire US movie and music companies total revenues are declining year over year due to piracy. Period.
Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
Nov. 8 2012 http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-11-08/news/os-disney-earnings-4th-quarter-20121108_1_iger-record-revenue-theme-parks
“The Walt Disney Co. reported another year of record revenue and profit Thursday, lifted by improved attendance at its theme parks ? though not at Walt Disney World ? the debut of another large cruise ship, gains at its ESPN sports-television unit, and the continuing popularity of its superhero movie “The Avengers.””
And those layoffs last week? From the same article:
“Rasulo indicated that fiscal 2013 will be a transitional year that won’t include the introduction of hefty new investments.”
Re: Re: Re:2 Ridiculous
Either Disney is swimming in money or they are pulling an Olympus.
Which one is it?
LoL
Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
Again, give us proof. Its not enough to simply say “These companies are declining, because of piracy!” (especially when long-termers here on Techdirt can point to proof of the exact opposite!). If you want to convert us to the “piracy is evil” viewpoint, you’ve got to have convincing evidence. To date, I have seen NONE, in my 24 years on this planet.
Re: Re: Re:2 Ridiculous
Its not enough to simply say “These companies are declining, because of piracy!”
He didn’t just say that. He also said “Period.” It’s the “period” that makes him so right.
Re: Ridiculous
The same Disney that bought Lucasfilm for $4billion and ended fiscal 2012 with record profits?
Re: Ridiculous
“If BitTorrent, uTorrent, Vuze, etc. simply maintained a blacklist of copyrighted hashes…”
That’s a joke, right? Not even Mega-Hyper giant Google has a hash of every piece of copyrighted material. Not even their sophisticated ContentID can stop every infringement. It’s technically impossible to do so.
As for the rest of your comment, you are delusional. More so for believing a word of that comes out of the studios.
Re: Ridiculous
Copyright Math – Classic.
DTD 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0
Re: Ridiculous
spamhaus only blocks outbound emails from an IP address, all other net usage is unaffected; which means the zombie machine owner does not even notice that they are being blocked. They can still send email via Gmail etc.
The anti piracy crowd wish to kill any site that they object to by stopping all traffic to the site, and any money going to the site.
These are two very different ways of dealing with a perceived problem, with vastly different impacts on the affected sites.
Re: Ridiculous
Does spamhaus hinder free speech?
Spam is much easier to detect than copyright infringent, even outright piracy.
1. It’s possible to tell from the content of an email whether something is spam; it’s impossible to tell whether a song (for example) is pirated or legitimate.
2. Lists of spam emailers are build from users. That is, a user gets a spam email, and reports that it is spam to Spamhaus; it is only then that Spamhaus knows to put it on a block list. To be as effective, a “copyright infringement” blocker would have to get data on “pirated” versions from its general user base – something that is a) completely inaccurate, and b) illegal, since only the copyright holder knows the copyrigt status of a particular song. Even rights holders themselves often get it wrong (see e.g. the Dajaz1 fiasco, Viacom v. Google, all the incorrect ContentID matches, etc).
We have something like #2 already. It’s called a DMCA takedown notice. If those aren’t working well enough for you, then tough titties.
If BitTorrent, uTorrent, Vuze, etc. simply maintained a blacklist of copyrighted hashes like spamhaus, 50% of all illegal downloading would disappear.
Even if they did maintain a “blacklist,” it would be completely ineffective, since they only provide the software. They don’t provide trackers – so they would have no way of blocking anything on that “blacklist.”
And even that “blacklist” would be ineffective, because all a seeder has to do is break up that same file into different-sized pieces, and the hash will be totally different. Not to mention that hashes of different versions of the same content will be completely different.
IMHO Why doesn’t Techdirt advocate such reasonable measures, why don’t ISPs – because they are PRO-PIRACY.
If you think ISP’s are “PRO-PIRACY,” then your “humble opinion” is worthless.
IMHO They want to do anything and everything to keep illegal free media alive while HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS and jobs are lost.
There is no evidence of lost jobs due to piracy. There are plenty of lost jobs, but those jobs would be lost without piracy, because the decline in revenue is likely due to other factors.
Your “DVD sales” figures are an example. Why is the decline in DVD sales due to piracy, and not due to Netflix, Hulu, Redbox, iTunes downloads, or any of the other completely legal services, which don’t generate as much income per movie as a DVD sale? Why is it not due to cross-competition from things like video games? Why is it not due to the rigidity of the format – that it is legally impossible to play a DVD on your phone or tablet?
Disney announced layoff last week citing Home Video decreased due to piracy – Disney! Those are your friends and neighbors out of work.
As others have pointed out, the Disney layoffs had nothing to due with piracy, and came on the heels of one of Disney’s most profitable periods in many years. The fact that you are blaming piracy shows that you are either ignorant, or willing to lie to promote propaganda.
You might want to reconsider your username. You’re certainly not ethical, and I’m not even sure you’re a “fan.”
Re: Ridiculous
This is not actually true. Many ISPs do use services like spamhaus, but many don’t. And this type of blocking is not uncontroversial.
But even if they did, there’s a really huge difference between the two cases. It’s easier and cheaper to identify spam sources than infringement sources. You can tell with high reliability if something is spam by glancing at it, for example. You cannot do this with high reliability for copyrighted materials.
Maybe for an hour or two until the pirated files are changed to change the hashes so they no longer match.
Neither ISPs nor TechDirt are pro piracy. The reason the neither support measures such as you describe is because they aren’t actually reasonable.
And you take their claim at face value? Disney is not exactly the most trustworthy of companies.
Yes, that’s sad, but irrelevant to this discussion.
Of course, if they were really my friends and neighbors I would have been strongly encouraging them to quit and move to a more reputable company anyway. The mainstream movie businesses are going to be paring down their workforces (because the marketplace is changing, not because of piracy), and more people are going to be out of work. It sucks, but it is the inevitable consequence of changing markets. The upside of changing markets is increased opportunities in other places.
Re: Ridiculous
you mean this is piracy?
“Disney is mulling cutting jobs that are no longer needed due to improvements in technology or because of recent acquisitions, Reuters reported.”
And then lets not forget this tidbit in there, too:
“The report comes after the blue-chip company revealed record earnings and hiked its dividend by 25% in November, capping off a record year for Disney in terms of revenue and net income.”
http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2013/01/07/report-walt-disney-eyes-layoffs-to-curb-costs/
The truth, it burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrns
I completely stay away from the MAFIAA and would not care what the fuck they are putting out or not putting out.they are not an important part of my life.I will make sure that they never see a dime of Revenue out of me.I will avoid them.
They are SHIT TO ME !!! So Fuck You Hollywood and shove it up your Dirty Assholes.
Spend your cash on Non-MAFIAA Indie Cool Art and Local Art ! Say Fuck You to the rest.
Ridiculous
Does spamhaus hinder free speech? All ISPs work together the BLOCK IP addresses that distribute spam. Working together to limit illegal distribution of copyrighted material is no more detrimental to freedom of speech than spamhaus. If BitTorrent, uTorrent, Vuze, etc. simply maintained a blacklist of copyrighted hashes like spamhaus, 50% of all illegal downloading would disappear. Spamhaus has due process, if you get blocked you can get unblocked. IMHO Why doesn’t Techdirt advocate such reasonable measures, why don’t ISPs – because they are PRO-PIRACY. IMHO They want to do anything and everything to keep illegal free media alive while HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS and jobs are lost. Disney announced layoff last week citing Home Video decreased due to piracy – Disney! Those are your friends and neighbors out of work.
Re: Ridiculous
Okay, so “Copyrighted Movie File”.mkv has a hash of 12345. The hash is given to the blacklist and suddenly no-one can share it(eye-roll!)
Except for the REALLY SMART people who know to stick in a zip file, throw a couple of jpegs in there and compress it. Now it has a different hash.
Dumbass.
Re: Re: Ridiculous
Except for the REALLY SMART people who know to stick in a zip file, throw a couple of jpegs in there and compress it. Now it has a different hash.
Or encode it with slightly different settings, or any of a number of other things that would change the hash value.
Re: Ridiculous
They’re no friends of mine. As far as I’m concerned they can take their awful paint-by-numbers tripe and cast it into the fires of Mount Doom where it belongs.
Re: Ridiculous
You’re an idiot man. You go around spamming copy/paste sermons with discredited facts to reputable blogs.
Funnily enough, I doubt doing so helps bring anybody to your site, especially when the commenters rip into your sad little house of cards.
Re: Re: Ridiculous
I visited, and was immediately disgusted. There was an article there attacking the Ouya of all things, because its possible to watch pirated movies on it (I would certainly hope it has the ability to do so, given it runs Android, an open source OS!)
Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
Just to point out the ultimate in failure…
http://ethicalfan.com/2012/06/wozniak-megaupload-and-kim-dot-com/#comments
Read that article and look at the screenshots. Ethical fan has screenshots of a website playing a Star Wars movie and in the article claims it was Megaupload.
Except it isn’t. It’s a completely separate website that had NOTHING to do with Megaupload or Kim Dotcom. I actually tested it by loading the web page and wasn’t surprised to find that it was still up and didn’t have a “This website seized for copyright infringement” like the actual MU website has.
So basically, Ethical Fan did what I expect of those on the other side of the fence and provided FALSE evidence. He didn’t do due diligence. Just because it had the word mega in its URL was enough to convince him that it was Dotcom related.
Re: Re: Re:2 Ridiculous
He must be pretty dim if he thinks people won’t check up on his “facts.”
Re: Ridiculous
Obvious troll. Which kind are you?
http://consciouslifenews.com/paid-internet-shill-shadowy-groups-manipulate-internet-opinion-debate/1147073/
or…
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
Point 3
1. These laws almost always have massive and dangerous unintended consequences that hinder innovation, speech or both.
2. More importantly, these laws don’t actually work at stopping piracy.
You left out a big one:
3. “Stopping piracy” is not the same as “increasing profits.”
Simply put, spending resources on stopping piracy is often a bad business decision for the entities whose works are being pirated. You’re spending resources (often a significant amount) on stopping something that doesn’t necessarily result in lower profits; resources that should be spent on developing more content, better formats, wider distribution, and so forth.
So, not only does “stopping piracy” potentially victimize the general public and other companies, it victimizes the rights holders as well.
Re: Point 3
I wonder if the following exchange has ever taken place in a boardroom meeting.
CEO: Okay, its end of financial year. Let’s go around the table and see how well we did. Anti-piracy unit?
SUIT 1: Okay, with that massive budget you gave us, we successfully shut down over a thousand websites dedicated to promoting piracy, all via threats of litigation. With the same, we threatened millions of people all over the country into settling. Since they caved when we said all we had as an IP address, I don’t think we need to invest in actual evidence. Its not needed.
SUIT 2: Okay, as for product sales…WAY DOWN. My staff were swamped with millions of emails and posted letters saying people were boycotting our movies, because of how we’re acting.
CEO: Okay…since mass litigation is actually working as a revenue stream, we’ll continue with that. In order to save on costs, we’ll just have to decrease our investments on new movies. Why bother making new movies when we can just sue millions?
Re: Re: Point 3
I wonder if the following exchange has ever taken place in a boardroom meeting.
If you count the boardrooms of Righthaven, Prenda Law, or the CEG… then I’d have to say yes.
The article is wholesale nonsense.
You could insert any illegal act into it and “claim” the same things.
It’s essentially saying all laws are pointless.
Everyone is aware that Mke Masnick is an intellectually dishonest piracy apologist, but this is some weak sauce right here.
Re: Re:
Bravo! Well fucking done! That’s how you debate! By not addressing any of the points, discussing anything at all or expouding on your view-points…oh, don’t forget to call the article’s author a bunch of names as well.
It brought a tear to my eye when I read your comment, the power of the revelation that you gave me was that strong. Now I know never to read Techdirt ever again. After all, since Mike is a pirate, then it’s pointless to listen to his calls for EVIDENCE-BASED LAWMAKING.
/sarcmarc
Re: Re: Re:
You forgot:
0x00) Mike is a pirate
0x02) Mike is anti-copyright
0x04) Mike is a Google shill
0x08) Mike works for Google
0x10) Mike hates artists
0x12) Mike wants artists to starve
0x14) Mike wants to kill culture
0x18) Mike wants the entire economy to collapse
0x20) Mike breaks laws constantly and encourages the same
Re: Re:
“Everyone is aware that Mke Masnick is an intellectually dishonest piracy apologist, but this is some weak sauce right here.”
Who’s “everyone”?
ridiculous
Copyright infringement is very easy to detect. The BitTorrent UI has the IP addresses IN PLAIN SIGHT. Every person in the swarm on any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie is breaking Federal law 17 USC 106 – PERIOD. The bottom line is that US ISPs are shielding their subscribers and Verizon who makes $120 BILLION A YEAR (TWENTY TIMES THE WHOLE US RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY) spends millions in legal fees aided by Google-backed EFF to make it impossible to enforce copyright. If an IP address isn’t enough information to stop piracy, why is that method so effective with spam.
Re: ridiculous
So back again, and not bothering to respond to me pointing out how you couldn’t even make screenshots of the proper website?
You really are a fool and a tool. If you can put up retractions on your website, I might feel to helping out with your critical thinking and journalistic skills (and I’m not a journalist!) Here’s the first lesson for free: When you accuse someone of charging to watch the latter half of a movie: CHECK THAT THE MAN YOU ARE ACCUSING IS ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN THAT WEBSITE.
Re: Re: ridiculous
If you can put up retractions on your website
“Retractions?” Hell, I’d be surprised if he ever put up an “About Us” section.
Can you say “astroturf?”
Re: ridiculous
You’re forgetting that people utilize VPNs, which would create a bit of confusion in trying to locate a valid IP address. Also IP addresses do not equal a person.
So what if a company had free wifi and someone consistently came in to suck up the bandwidth and download free media via torrents? How would they catch that person? What if the company’s IP address was blocked because of that?
Re: ridiculous
Copyright infringement is very easy to detect.
No it isn’t. Stop trying to pretend it is. It takes a court to determine whether copyright infringement occurred, not some yahoo like you taking a cursory glance at a bittorent swarm.
The BitTorrent UI has the IP addresses IN PLAIN SIGHT. Every person in the swarm on any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie is breaking Federal law 17 USC 106 – PERIOD.
Besides an IP address NOT equating to a person, you seem to forget that the rest of the world doesn’t fall under US law. You know there are even some countries that file sharing for personal use is completely legal. Those people aren’t breaking any laws in their own countries.
Re: ridiculous
“Copyright infringement is very easy to detect.”
That must be why CBS took down issued a DMCA notice for How I met Your Mother. AGAINST IT’S OWN SITE!
Ditto why Viacom took Google to court. OVER VIDEOS IT’S EMPLOYEES UPLOADED ON IT’S BEHALF.
“The BitTorrent UI has the IP addresses IN PLAIN SIGHT.”
Which is all well and good. Because we all know IP address = a specific person. And we all know IP addresses cannot be faked/spoofed. /s
“Every person in the swarm on any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie is breaking Federal law 17 USC 106 – PERIOD.”
Which is an interesting point. Because again, we know that US federal law can differentiate between a person whose IP address is in the United States and one whose IP address is in say a country in Africa or Russia or any other country. You know, places where US federal law DOES NOT apply.
“The bottom line is that US ISPs are shielding their subscribers and Verizon who makes $120 BILLION A YEAR (TWENTY TIMES THE WHOLE US RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY) spends millions in legal fees aided by Google-backed EFF to make it impossible to enforce copyright.”
You are aware some of those US ISPs are owned by copyright/content holders, right? So the majority of them would love nothing more than to completely eradicate piracy. Heck, a few even have services that offer content digitally. Meaning that any piracy taking place is like lost dollars to them.
They, more than most, have every reason to enforce piracy. HOWEVER, they are not allowed to break the law to enforce copyright. Meaning they cannot just give out a customer’s information over the ALLEGATION of copyright infringement.
“If an IP address isn’t enough information to stop piracy, why is that method so effective with spam.”
Well, I think people already explained this. But there’s a difference between an IP address downloading something that may or may not be copyrighted and user submitted spam email addresses. Meaning, all spam from a given email is submitted to a blacklist. This can be easily corroborated by other users. Making it effective and accurate.
Notice how you don’t respond to anyone who directly calls you out and provides citations for their debunkings of your comments?
Again, cute.
Re: ridiculous
Copyright infringement is very easy to detect.
No, it certainly is not.
The BitTorrent UI has the IP addresses IN PLAIN SIGHT.
The BitTorrent UI does not send every IP address back to BitTorrent, Inc. And, if you value privacy rights, that’s a good thing.
The UI, in turn, gets the IP addresses of people sharing that file from the tracker, not the BitTorrent client.
That IP address, in turn, represents the external IP address of a router, not of any device hooked up to it, nor of any particular person.
Every person in the swarm on any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie is breaking Federal law 17 USC 106 – PERIOD.
Unless those artists have authorized the file to be shared, in which case those people are breaking no law at all. Neither the authors of the client software, nor the people running the tracker, have any way to tell the difference.
You’re also assuming it’s easy to tell whether a file is of media from “any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie.” It’s not. The hash is just a bunch of numbers, representing an anonymous chunk of digital data.
The bottom line is that US ISPs are shielding their subscribers and Verizon who makes $120 BILLION A YEAR (TWENTY TIMES THE WHOLE US RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY) spends millions in legal fees aided by Google-backed EFF to make it impossible to enforce copyright.
ISP’s are in the copyright holders’ back pockets, though they’re “helped” along by government intimidation (see: the “six strikes” deals).
Also, ISP’s make tons of money because a fast internet connection is a necessity in this day and age. And Verizon is much more than an ISP. I believe most of their profits nowadays come from smartphones and such. Their profits don’t come from piracy, and they have no financial interest in protecting pirates. They do, however, have an interest (financial and otherwise) in protecting their customers’ privacy rights, which is why they’re “shielding their subscribers.”
The EFF is not primarily (or even significantly) funded by Google. And neither Google, nor the EFF, nor Verizon, nor ISP’s in general are trying to “make it impossible to enforce copyright.”
This is all just the usual conspiracy theory nonsense. It’s bogus misinformation that is deliberately propagated by large content corporations to curry favors in Washington.
If an IP address isn’t enough information to stop piracy, why is that method so effective with spam.
1. It’s not effective with spam. Spam blocking requires much more than just an IP address.
2. People who use an IP address for sending spam, generally do not use that IP for anything else, such as sending legitimate emails. That’s not true with IP’s associated with BitTorrent usage. If anything, that would just identify the IP addresses of the content industries’ best customers.
And even if what you claim were possible, and was implemented, so what? It wouldn’t mean higher profits for anyone, including “any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony.”
The content industries know this. Which is why they’re not really interested in “stopping piracy” either. They’re just interested in calling everyone a “pirate” who makes money off of the Internet. That way, they’ll have more ammo when they demand money from them.
That’s what your criticisms are all about. You don’t give a rat’s ass about “enforcing copyright.” You just want to get your hand in the deep pockets of Google, Verizon, and ISP’s, and you’re using “piracy” as a justification to do it.
Re: Re: ridiculous
That IP address, in turn, represents the external IP address of a router, not of any device hooked up to it
Apologies, I thought I fixed this sentence before posting. It does represent the IP address of a computer; that IP address is dynamically assigned by the router. It cannot be associated with a specific computer after the router or computer is restarted.
But so far as I know, the only IP address that the ISP logs, is the external IP address of the router.
Re: ridiculous
Which is why the music industry is dead, right? (Hint: It’s not. It was dying ever since Home Taping is Killing Music.)
Which is why they’ve never turned a profit, right? (Hint: Every year the CEOs of the RIAA get increasing bonuses. On the other hand artists have to sue their labels for lack of royalty payments and promotion.)
Which is why piracy has fallen, right? (Hint: Measures to mitigate the so-called effects of piracy – blank media levies, suing children, Megaupload shutdown, Pirate Bay trial – have not only never stopped piracy, but also never resulted in artists getting richer.)
Once again, ethicalfan, there’s only one thing proven here.
You wouldn’t know ethical if it smacked you in the face and you gave it a blowjob.
Re: ridiculous
Funny how the people who make that claim only do so in the context of someone else doing the detection for them. If it was actually easy to detect the could set up their own system to do so, snd then send in the lawyers against those carrying out the infringement.
Question… Given the abject failure of every idea we declare “War” on, why do they keep going?
The War on Drugs
The War on Terror
The War on Piracy
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Ethicalfan = Fifth Column Troll
I think EthicalFan is fifth column troll who undermining copyright maximalist position,If he was real deal he wouldn’t he better at defending his “real” position.I see right through him.
The Fifth Column
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=144&mid=11723219&pt=msg
If you imply a definition to the troll.