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EdAllen

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  • Apr 21, 2015 @ 12:39pm

    Re: Re:

    "All they see is that the customer is going elsewhere to purchase the content" full stop.

    That means they lose their monopoly. The monopoly is what makes the copyright valuable.

    Take that away and you might just as well beg for money, that is all the power you have left.

    No multi-million dollar bonuses down that path. Next up might be "downsizing" !

    Bankruptsy !

    Looking for WORK !!!

  • Apr 21, 2015 @ 12:30pm

    Re: Re: Vast majority of VPN use is business critical

    How about...

    A VPN service which uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Elastic_Compute_Cloud as its in/out points.

    Could be physically in any country so could be immune to subservient courts.

    The IP addresses keep shifting so hard to block by IP address and adding new addresses is easy.

    All traffic is encrypted and therefore unable to be spied upon. "Your Honor, they have locations open in both the US
    and Australia at the same time so they MUST be infringing!", would be difficult for even a sympathetic judge
    or politician to agree to knowing they would face public ridicule.

  • Apr 20, 2015 @ 03:17pm

    Re:

    Ultimately injunctions involve courts.

    Takes too long. Having the kill switch in their hand with no right of dispute or redress is the goal.

  • Apr 20, 2015 @ 03:15pm

    Re: Re: Vast majority of VPN use is business critical

    Actually I think personal/private VPNs are the primary target.

    Having just a few companies to pressure into giving up the keys to hundreds or thousands of customers is
    much more feasable than needing to locate a pressure point for each of those customers individually.

    The RIAA has given up trying to sue single customers and the MPAA is outsourcing all of those to copyright trolls.

    Of course if a troll manages to get to profitability then their law teams will immediately move the trolling
    back inhouse quickly.

    The only way for them to get the ability to see the contents of every VPN is to have the keys available to
    their designees, like Content ID, so all packets can be compared before they are forwarded.
    Not just once every time they cross into/out of a geolocation.

    That means Content ID holds all keys all the time, making them the number one target of government spies, hackers,
    and criminals in the world.

    Still while unsafe for everybody that would not outright destroy the Internet. That would be the next step.
    Outlawing all communications not into or out of a copyright owner's system would nail the lid shut.

  • Apr 09, 2015 @ 10:12am

    When does the illegality appear ?

    So, is me renting a server in the US illegal ?
    No.
    Can I sign up for Netflix US to deliver movies to it ?
    Yes.
    Still nothing illegal ?
    No.
    My server in the US can encrypt streams to my Desktop in NZ.
    Since that data is encrypted my ISP does not know anything about what
    it is or where it came from. So they cannot be sued ?
    No.
    Since the encryption was Open Source and only I have the key you cannot know
    what is in that data either. Anything you can charge me with yet ?
    No.
    Since I obtained that content legally are you now saying it became
    illegal when I sent bits from the US to NZ ?
    That is what we would prefer.
    Under what rationale ?


    Since nobody but me knows what is in those bits how can you PROVE I owe you anything ?

    Those bits could really be video of my friend visiting the Grand Canyon. The only way you
    have of proving they are not is by compelling me to give you the key. I tell you now
    that I will not volunteer the key. Are you going to ask for the right to torture me
    for that key ?
    We might.
    If I die under torture is that "justice" ?

  • Apr 07, 2015 @ 09:28am

    Of course changng incentives NEVER changes behavior

    Now, there are a lot of fallacies in play here, not the least of which is that budgeted income will always meet planned figures forever -- a conclusion made while operating in a vacuum devoid of external circumstances, perverted incentives or the foibles of the public.


    Even Viacom has begun to see how far from true the "Consumer Habits will never change" mantra is...
    http://recode.net/2015/04/06/viacom-says-the-internet-made-its-reruns-less-valuable/

    That is why these "projections" will fall short and the "fix" will be to block even more sites and to outlaw VPNs.

  • Mar 19, 2015 @ 11:50am

    Re: Oliver Twisted

    This is why "following the law" without adding a little judgement was long ago found to be inadequate.

    It is as stupid as a computer. Never a consideration of the costs nor what the benefit of applying
    a given law is this instance would be.

    So we got judges to reign over zealous prosecutors and have "jury nullification" to fall back on when
    both prosecutors and judges insist on a law being used against a particular defendant when common sense says it
    should not be.

    Still we get cases like this occasionally.

    How noble the law, in its majestic equality, that both the rich and poor
    are equally prohibited from peeing in the streets, sleeping under bridges,and stealing bread!
    Anatole France [The Red Lily] (1894)

  • Mar 17, 2015 @ 01:07pm

    Re: "now that many people see no reason to continue to fork over money"

    http://sitasingstheblues.com/
    There is the question of how I'll get money from all this. My personal experience confirms audiences are
    generous and want to support artists. Surely there's a way for this to happen without centrally controlling
    every transaction.

    The old business model of coercion and extortion is failing. New models are emerging,
    and I'm happy to be part of that. But we're still making this up as we go along.

    You are free to make money with the free content of Sita Sings the Blues, and you are free to
    share money with me

    People have been making money in Free Software for years; it's time for Free Culture to follow.
    I look forward to your innovations.

    And of course, Wikipedia is just a shared delusion.

    Get back under the bridge where you belong.

  • Mar 17, 2015 @ 12:49pm

    Re: duration?

    Just time when you started viewing this page subtracted from time of next click gives the duration.

    Both will be in the log he wants ISPs to keep.

    Of course the next panic will be when they realise that https only allows tracking to the IP address.

    Then they will insist that the ISP must be able to decrypt everything because "good" sites and "bad" ones can share the same IP address.

    That means that everybody inside a firewall must be branded "guilty until proven innocent" by the firewall logs.

    All your home routers track all URLs and encryption keys don't they ?

    Brings to mind the case where my Wi-Fi connection, totally encrypted, is hacked because of a bug in the manufacturer's
    software. Am I "guilty" because somebody accessed kiddie porn through it ?

  • Mar 17, 2015 @ 12:11pm

    Re: Re: Re: There is a distinction between the address an the content

    Even top level domains would not get him the tracking they are after. If you limit to IP address for trackin/block then what about ?

    Web Sites Sharing IP Addresses: IPs Hosting 225 to 249 Domains http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/edelman/ip-sharing/list-24.html

    So if they block by IP address then one baddie on a particular IP gets up to 248 innocents punished for no action of their own.

    Plus that puts the "metadata" at the level of the pages you looked at and the time till your next click.

    If the data collected and archived (for how long ?) is harmless then he should be willing to release a week's
    worth of his own "metadata" for everybody to see just how unintrusive it really is.

    If they really intend to limit to IP address then lots of innocents will be guilty by being in the same neighborhood.

  • Mar 04, 2015 @ 08:25am

    Re:

    "It is only metadata, no message content was read by anybody other than the sender and the recipients !"

  • Feb 18, 2015 @ 11:00am

    History could shed some light here

    Orville Wright developed the idea of twisting a plane´s wings to enable lateral control of the craft.
    For this great idea, the Wright Brothers were the recipients of an early “pioneer patent” –
    a right not only to the specific invention, but to the general concept.
    Even though Curtis developed flaps and ailerons on the wings to bring control to the craft,
    the Wrights fought in the courts (and often won) to stop him and other rivals
    from trespassing on their turf of general aircraft control.

    The effect on flight innovation was more than noticeable at the time. The patent war they unleashed
    took the steam out of the budding industry. In 1912, only 90 aviators were in the air each day in the United States.
    Across the pond in France, nearly 1,000 airmen were flying, testing and further developing their craft.
    http://mises.org/blog/patents-and-birdmen

    After WWII the US reduced the patent litigation and went on to maintain the lead gotten by the infusion
    of technology from around the world for years.

    The US forced mandatory licensing of Semiconductor and chip manufacturing for years,
    that grew rather spectacularly without the legal friction.

  • Jan 27, 2015 @ 03:09pm

    Re: Whack-a-Mole time

    They don't envision YOU keeping the keys till they come hunting.

    They will insist that anbody using encryption they don't already have keys to is a criminal, convicted by your own actions, and failure to immediately surrender ALL keys will be grounds for immediate execution.

  • Jan 05, 2015 @ 10:24am

    Re: Give yourself power!

    Since "digital" is just bits and a photo can be transformed into bits.

    Is the ITC saying that they can censor photos and text as well ?

    How will they know if that prime number I got from Spain is a GIF rather than a class assignment ?

    So the ITC is only supposed to believe Hollywood. Hollywood is supposed to pass judgment on Japaneze and Indian movies too ?

    Hollywood plans to approve all BBC stories to assure that US citizens do not learn about torrent sites from a news story ?

    That sounds to me like much more work than they have been willing to sign up for in the past.

    The danger is that this Supreme Court might actually rule that censorship in the name of commerce trumps the First Amendment.

  • Dec 31, 2014 @ 01:43pm

    Re:

    Pol Pot.

  • Dec 31, 2014 @ 01:40pm

    Re:

    For that to happen they would need to change from the "its only valuable if it is hard to come by" thinking to
    realizing that if nobody knows Ed Wood directed movies how will they know to rent one.

    Content has no value to society without cultural links and since 1976 at least they have been doing their
    best to kill off culture via starvation.

  • Dec 31, 2014 @ 01:23pm

    Re: Re: Connection speed is NOT imporatant

    Do not underestimate the importance of the upload speed though.

    Upload speeds are currently under 2 Mbs almost everywhere. The real danger of Google is that they do not throttle uploads.

    Every seeder on a Google net is like 500 on one of their pet ISPs.

    That multiplier means every seeder on a Google link brings their "time till bankruptsy or change" closer and faster.

    No wonder their panties are brown.

    They want Washington to say that they can force Google to disconnect those seeders on a notice without going to court.

    To do that they need to have a ruling that Google is liable for their users behavior. Since the courts have already said
    no to that for a different ISP they need a law or a treaty which says it is.

    Hence this is propaganda to give Politicians cover.

  • Dec 31, 2014 @ 12:56pm

    Re: You should fear far worse than Google fiber

    Whoever wrote the original article is either unable to read or is deliberately lying to panic his readers.

    The St. Louis answers differ by no more than 5% which tells me that speed has nothing to do with peoples' behavior.

    They will not lose nor gain very much no matter what happens.

    This is another case of Copyright owners claiming a disaster is coming in hope of getting lawmakers to get a new
    technology squashed or at least delayed rather than changing themselves.

    They always do the same thing and Politicians have been willing to pander to them because they can help a
    reelection campaign.

    That YouTube is having 100 hours of video uploaded per minute shows how far away from the public taste they
    have strayed. They are losing control of the public and they know that means Politicians will wander away too.

  • Dec 31, 2014 @ 09:23am

    Re: Re: Common good needs recognition

    Once again funneling money into the pockets of a few is being sold as "it means more money so that is good for everybody". Ignoring that "everybody" is US, so the money taken from US to engorge the robber's pockets benefits THEM at our expense. That is the opposite of what we should want.

    Copyrights and patents were initially to impede the sharing of ideas so that the holders' capital could spread and harvest returns before the ideas' spread choked the rewards down.

    In a world of wire transfers between banks capital has no problem keeping up but the impediments are still there so business models don't have to change (because change runs the risk of reducing revenues). The Politicians never seem to learn that the cries of pending doom if anything changes are always shone to be false after the fact.

    Growing the pie by sharing instead of restricting use to a few is always better for everybody, both US and what would have been the original holders.

  • Dec 03, 2014 @ 03:33pm

    Not to worry, you can't make any money if you give things away

    Zenefits growth must be a delusion or a fraud.

    Zenefits should be hoarding that software as their vital IP.

    What kind of loonies are these Zenefits people ?

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