Beware illegal downloaders: Data is being collected on you to crack down on piracy in

[normtwofinger]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

The problem is that this issue has broken through the 100th monkey barrier. Millions and Millions of people will download regardless of what the consequences are. The genie is out of the bottle. There are two ways that you can approach the parameters of the new paradigm. One, you can try to punish the millions of ner do wells, which won't stop the issue at all and will serve nothing other than proving that you are colossal dicks. Or shape your business model to be increasingly fair and ubiquitous as possible. Piracy even then would still happen, but you would have more customers than you otherwise would, which would increase your bottom line at the end of the day.

It's actually evolved beyond a moral issue of theft and intellectual rights. It's about a group (RIAA) that are fighting the fact that people want content that fits easily into their lives instead of trying to provide that content in exactly the manner that was fitting in 1930.

+1. Bang on post. Hollywood is forcing a 90 year old medium of presenting movies. They should allow a viewer to download a new release, for a fee, to watch at their leisure. People would still go to the cinema, because it's always an experience seeing something on the big screen. But people's lives and schedules are busier than ever, making the option of watching a brand new movie at home more appealing.

Take the music industry as an example. iTunes and other pay programs introduce paying for new releases and it takes off. I'm not exactly sure if music piracy has declined, but I know I haven't had the need to illegally download anything since the napster/limewire days about 10 years ago. I believe the same would happen to the movie industry if the same was applied.

[HPLovecraft]

I used to pirate PC games a lot. Ever since Steam, I've never pirated a game since.

[Ace]

For the record I don't download movies, I'm happy browsing Netflix and finding something remotely interesting to watch. Nor do I illegally download music for free, iTunes provides me exactly what I want: the ability to pay for individual songs that I like in a convenient way. So I agree that if the legit service is out there people will use it.

What really bugs me about this is that the government has to pick a side, either punish everyone, and place your stupid Levy's, or make it illegal and prosecute. I mean if everyone is paying a tax, shouldn't that also come with the right to download whatever. The tax is supposed to go to the producers isn't it?

[PsYcNeT]

I download day of broadcast TV because I'm too cheap to buy a PVR and I'm not always home to watch it. This is a product that isn't for sale yet, from a channel that already received it's advertising revenue, and that isn't available through any purchasable medium.

Should that be considered stealing?

[redflamesfan08]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

The case that annoys me the most these days is premium cable shows. They are putting out some of the best tv ever these days, and there is a large community that strictly downloads it for free and thinks it's okay. These shows make money in one way only and that is by subscription fees. I have no issue paying these fees as they are completely a la carte add ons to my cable bill. But I feel like I went out to an expensive restaurant with a bunch of cheap #######s who enjoyed their food, but when the bill came they all walked out and stuck me with it.

If everyone thought like that, the prices would keep rising until no one paid anymore and the shows eventually stopped being made.

Specifically with regards to the premium TV shows - it might be possible to add the channels a la carte to your cable bill - but try doing that if you're not a cable subscriber. Its been mentioned countless times on this forum and countless others - but I can't legally watch HBO shows when they are released without already having a bloated cable bill filled with countless channels I have no interest in watching ever.

So while you might feel like you're going out to eat with a bunch of freeloaders, I feel like I'm going out to eat at a bar that carries the beer I want, but will only let me purchase it if I also order their ridiculously overpriced appetizers.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

There is absolutely no excuse for stealing anything. Period! Pirating cannot be justified in any manner because it's theft. Whether or not you agree with hollywood's pricing has absolutely nothing to do with the fact you are illegally gaining access to their products without paying for it.

Is recording the radio stealing?

[Sr. Mints]

So am I liable for having my friend burn me a copy of the second season of Game of Thrones which he already downloaded?

If not, going that route seems safer.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

I used to pirate PC games a lot. Ever since Steam, I've never pirated a game since.

so much this. i was a huge game pirater in high school, and that stuck with me even when i moved out and could afford to buy games. along comes Steam though, with ultra-fast downloads, seemless patching, a slick and easy to use game library and friends list, and awesome sales. now instead of pirating games i'm buying ones that i wouldn't have even thought of to download before

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

There is absolutely no excuse for stealing anything. Period! Pirating cannot be justified in any manner because it's theft. Whether or not you agree with hollywood's pricing has absolutely nothing to do with the fact you are illegally gaining access to their products without paying for it.

That is such a confused stand on things.

First of all, you are confusing legality and justification. You also have no right to be gay and live in various countries. You can go to jail for smoking pot in many countries. The first example is a clear example that laws are not always moral. The second is an example that even laws which mean to do good can end up being pointless and harmful.

There is clear justification for both laws to be changed, as it is with the piracy laws.

Second of all, you are (somewhat indirectly) making an erranous legal statement, because the law does not say that piracy is theft.

Saying piracy is theft and illegal is like saying fraud is theft. It's just not the same thing.

Both things are illegal, but they are different crimes.

Different crimes, different issues.

So you are free to argue that piracy should be a crime if you like, but to claim that it's theft is just BS.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

There is absolutely no excuse for stealing anything. Period! Pirating cannot be justified in any manner because it's theft. Whether or not you agree with hollywood's pricing has absolutely nothing to do with the fact you are illegally gaining access to their products without paying for it.

Of course you paid the creator of your avatar for using it, right?

Copyright infringement is not the same as theft. I'm not saying piracy is excusable, but before we continue the discussion, we need to get this straight. A tangible good or service (hockey games and other events) is not the same as something that exists only as 1s and 0s. Digital products can be reproduced infinitely, so you need to remove the supply side of the economic equation. Yes, the initial creators needs to be compensated, but to create artificial scarcity of a common good is greedy, so it's not surprising that even normal people (who would never steal a wallet) choose to pirate.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

It's actually evolved beyond a moral issue of theft and intellectual rights. It's about a group (RIAA) that are fighting the fact that people want content that fits easily into their lives instead of trying to provide that content in exactly the manner that was fitting in 1930.

I think it's still somewhat moral...there are two morally ambiguous sides claiming the moral high ground, neither of which make too much sense in my mind. I'll preface by saying that I'm an ex-pirater, stopped as of 3-4 years ago.

Again, I think the problem lies at the core that two sides think they're in the right and are doing dubious things because of it. The sellers, in this case, are indicating that they think they have the right to throw down penalties and clear cut things. I often deal with this subject in the field of gaming, so the topic of Digital Rights Management (DRM) shows up a lot...a system which ultimately hurts the fair consumer than it does the pirater. And when that doesn't work, they try even worse version of DRM (Diablo III has been often hailed as a landmark in this regard, having such disrupting DRM that I've seen many people intentionally destroy its rating on sites because of the it). In that sense, this is the equivalent of your comment on RIAA.

At the same time, this seems to be an excuse for a percent of the populace to just take whatever they want, regardless of the issue. The holy grail of statistics, in my mind, has always been "if all the complaints and reasons to pirate were thrown out (accessibility, pricing at whatever level you want, middlemen, no DRM in the case of games), what % would still pirate"? As we can see here, we're seeing a lot of people who aren't in that percent...people who've stopped pirating as they have legal alternatives. Personally, I disagree (I would believe that we have to make an all-or-nothing type of choice, that a stronger message to the company, instead of indicating that there is a market for them to sell to and entice them to attempt to put in further restrictions to attempt to force me to by, show them that there is no market period for their product as is), but that's something I won't get into as of yet. But at the same time, you get quite a few people who think that any price is too much to pay for a movie, game, or TV show. Go basically anywhere on the deep side of the internet and you'll find some. I have absolutely no problems with the companies trying to stamp these people out. At the same time, they're making real problems for others, so I have few problems with people telling them that it's hurting the lawful consumer more than the pirater. I disagree with the method (piracy) in this regard and think, in basic economic terms, that it won't work as you're creating a false increase in supply line that is a carrot for these systems more than a show of disagreement, but I don't mind the message being sent.

Unfortunately, the stat I so desire is a pretty difficult metric to find as of right now, but if we could find it, I think we could answer how many people, in my mind, are self entitled to a good. The problems lie in the massive number of moving parts. I mean, we hear organizations punch out bias numbers all the time, but there's so little stock I can put into them because of the spin they desire.

An interesting example of this in the gaming world is the Humble Indie Project's "Pay what you want" system that they offered once upon a time. While I won't bring up the pricing (as you can argue the "actual" sale equivalent in pricing is over their worth at the time), the takeaway is that 25% still decided to pirate the game. They stripped virtually every reason you would want to pirate...price, big name companies...basically everything, and a penny was too much. Unless a quarter of downloaders don't want to register their credit card online (which seems odd provided that Steam uses that as its most common payment method), there's got to be something behind that stat. This is where companies want to step in I think.

Of course, in this model, I make an assumption that entertainment is a good, not a right (and that therefore, someone with more money is entitled to more entertainment than another person with less money). Often, I find when I disagree with people, this becomes a core problem.

Sorry if I've contradicted myself. I'm writing this with a time limit and my general thoughts on this are probably triple the length. I'll try to review this sometime.

[Envitro]

Well they're going to have a harder time detecting who is downloading what if they use forced protocol encryption with their BT client.

[jammies]

Long-term, this will cultivate disrespect for the law, much like Prohibition permanently affected the culture of the USA. Other than that, it will have little effect other than to ruin a few lives and waste law enforcement resources.

Of course downloading paid content for free is wrong, but it's perceived on the same level as jaywalking or speeding. And, I think, rightly so - content providers spent decades repackaging and reselling the same content on different media, using the argument that you didn't have rights to the content, but just paid for the specific piece of media on which it was duplicated. Now that consumers don't need to buy media, that argument is turned back on its head to say that if all you were buying was the media, and you don't need that, you shouldn't be paying anything at all.

[Reaper]

...behind seven proxies...

[polak]

It won't even have that big of an effect on the few people they do go after.

5 Grand is hardly "world ending" for anyone that can afford an internet connection.

[photon]

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6710/125/

In fact, it is likely that a court would award far less - perhaps as little as $100 - if the case went to court as even the government's FAQ on the recent copyright reform bill provided assurances that Canadians "will not face disproportionate penalties for minor infringements of copyright by distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial infringement."

Canadian copyright law once included statutory damages rules that provided for up to $20,000 per infringement, creating the potential for massive personal liability for non-commercial file sharing (the $20,000 per infringement is still available for commercial infringement). The industry insisted it had no intention of bringing such lawsuits back to Canada (CRIA members filed file sharing lawsuits in 2004), with one industry representative telling the committee studying the copyright bill that "we're not interested in sweeping up the John Does." Yet despite those assurances, the file sharing lawsuits have begun with reports indicating that thousands of Canadians may be targeted.

The industry misrepresented their intent? Shocking.

[Resolute 14]

[CaramonLS]

The Music industry has pretty much adapted. The amount of Piracy has decreased pretty significantly with things like Itunes and music sites like Pandora (f##k you CRTC).

The Video Games industry has adapted - with things like Steam / Origin they are really cutting down on piracy for online games, especially when they distribute them at a reasonable price.

Both of these industries have seen reductions in piracy rates and price drops for the consumer.

So why hasn't film and television adapted yet. I would wager that far more people who download illegally download TV shows or movies vs. video games or music.

I don't see why that industry shouldn't be forced to change.

[Jacks]

As others have said I download TV episodes but I also pay for cable. If Shaw offered a pay for episode setup, commercial free, I would cancel the cable and pay for the shows.

[bluck]

I believe all that needs to be done is to have a program like NetFlix get even better. The US netflix is terrific in the sense that new televesion episodes like the Walking Dead and Damages get uploaded the next day. Plus you have access to much more content (screw you crtc) I wouldn't mind paying double the cost that I'm currently paying so $15 for better content and the ability to watch movies on there as soon as they are released on blu-ray. This would sharply cut down my torrenting.