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  • Mar 28, 2014 @ 07:17pm

    US Home Video Revenue Down 25% Since BitTorrent

    2013 US Home Video Revenues were $18.2B which includes DVD, BluRay, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, HBO Go, Vudu, Apple iTunes, PPV, VOD. This is a $8B loss since $26B in 2006 due to piracy. This article is completely disingenuous. Why would piracy affect theater attendance? It competes with home viewing.

  • Jul 30, 2013 @ 10:47am

    Facts are stubborn things

    25 studies have found that piracy reduces digital content revenues. There are 25% fewer musicians filing taxes as musicians in the US since Napster and those that are left make 45% less money than in 1999.

  • Mar 05, 2013 @ 08:36am

    Ridiculous

    Why did all of the commercialization of railroads, electricity, radio, television and personal computers come from the USA? Because the investors who invested in Westinghouse, Edison, and Wozniak (Apple) knew their investment was protected by patents. Apple's most valuable patent was the switching power supply, used in all IBM and IBM clones. Masnick's isolated quotes from 1791 pale in comparison to the trillions that would have never been invested in American R&D without patent protection to secure the investor's capital.

  • Feb 27, 2013 @ 10:44pm

    How reliable is the NPD Report?

    The report was based on interviewing people who said that they pirated less a year later. More people were sued for using BitTorrent in 2012 than 2011. What is the reasoning behind believing that people said they pirated less than the year before? Regardless, if an artist wants to give away their music, that is great. The current situation on the internet forces an artist to give away their music. Copyright is a human right. Article 27 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

  • Feb 18, 2013 @ 11:20pm

    TPB is organized crime period

    A library pays the people who wrote the books. TPB sells ads to enable people to consume products without compensating the owners and creators. All ad networks are in the process of pulling ads from organized crime sites like TPB. 99.99% of the content indexed by TPB is there without the permission of the people who made the content. In The US, consuming that content is against US Federal law 17 USC 106 and 200,000 people have been sued since 2010 for doing so.

  • Jan 11, 2013 @ 11:04am

    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.

  • Jan 11, 2013 @ 11:01am

    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.

  • Jan 11, 2013 @ 01:51pm

    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.

  • Jan 11, 2013 @ 10:58am

    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.

  • Jan 11, 2013 @ 10:48am

    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.

  • Jan 06, 2013 @ 09:16pm

    Re: Re:

    Distributing on BitTorrent is never fair use.

  • Nov 27, 2012 @ 06:38pm

    lets just abandon 300 years of intellectual property?

    Google can build a business that can help you find a needle in a haystack, i.e. the exact site you want out of tens of billions with one word and we can't compensate creators of books, songs, movies, packaged software and tv shows? Now every writer, filmmaker and musician needs to get a new business model? Simply not true. Youtube now has content ID and can compensate every creator properly if they wanted to. the logic of this article is fundamentally flawed. It is possible to identify digital content and pay content creators in fast, highly automated networks. By the way THE LIVE MUSIC BUSINESS REVENUES ARE DECREASING IN THE US, NOT INCREASING!

  • Nov 27, 2012 @ 06:38pm

    lets just abandon 300 years of intellectual property?

    Google can build a business that can help you find a needle in a haystack, i.e. the exact site you want out of tens of billions with one word and we can't compensate creators of books, songs, movies, packaged software and tv shows? Now every writer, filmmaker and musician needs to get a new business model? Simply not true. Youtube now has content ID and can compensate every creator properly if they wanted to. the logic of this article is fundamentally flawed. It is possible to identify digital content and pay content creators in fast, highly automated networks. By the way THE LIVE MUSIC BUSINESS REVENUES ARE DECREASING IN THE US, NOT INCREASING!

  • Nov 27, 2012 @ 06:38pm

    lets just abandon 300 years of intellectual property?

    Google can build a business that can help you find a needle in a haystack, i.e. the exact site you want out of tens of billions with one word and we can't compensate creators of books, songs, movies, packaged software and tv shows? Now every writer, filmmaker and musician needs to get a new business model? Simply not true. Youtube now has content ID and can compensate every creator properly if they wanted to. the logic of this article is fundamentally flawed. It is possible to identify digital content and pay content creators in fast, highly automated networks. By the way THE LIVE MUSIC BUSINESS REVENUES ARE DECREASING IN THE US, NOT INCREASING!

  • Nov 15, 2012 @ 12:37pm

    Interesting Study - Invalid data points

    Data accumulated from people who are breaking the law has little value in court, why are we giving this data any creedence at all. The facts are that ALL industries affected by filesharing are in some form of decline since p2 arrived - music, movies, console and pc games, packaged software, cable subscriptions and book publishing while brodband providers and ad networks grow 10% a year on the backs of "free content" and pay no royalties.

  • Oct 13, 2012 @ 06:55pm

    Re: Whoops! Let me add something here...

    After the development of recording all first world democracies put in place statutory requirements for musicians to be paid when businesses used their recordings. Musicians/songwriters get paid every time their music is played on the radio or in a bar, live or recorded. That is what a civilized society does. That is why it is illegal to distribute music on the internet without the creator's permission 17 USC 106.

  • Oct 13, 2012 @ 06:47pm

    Re: Whoops! Let me add something here...

    Weir specifically says that young people will become lawyers and enter other professions if something isn't done about piracy.

  • Oct 12, 2012 @ 10:35pm

    Re: RE: Piracy Will Kill Music

    If an artist chooses to give their art away that is great. To force all artists to give their art away for free is tyranny. Bob Weir of the GRATEFUL DEAD tells Barlow on Youtube at last years' music tech summit that if something isn't done about piracy there will be a lot less professional musicians in the world. Comparing tape trading to BitTorrent is like comparing a butter knife to a bulldozer.

  • Oct 11, 2012 @ 01:37pm

    No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law

    No history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law and generate revenue on content without paying the content creators: Google, Youtube, Broadband ISPs, Megaupload, Limewire, Napster, Grokster, Bearshare, Groveshark, etc.

  • Oct 11, 2012 @ 01:37pm

    No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law

    No history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law and generate revenue on content without paying the content creators: Google, Youtube, Broadband ISPs, Megaupload, Limewire, Napster, Grokster, Bearshare, Groveshark, etc.

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