Obama Administration Announces Massive Piracy Crackdown

[Flame Of Liberty]

Too bad no one copyrighted the art of "holding a guitar" or "holding a videocamera." The entertainment industry would be screwed.

[3 Justin 3]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

I hate to see the government involving itself it piracy crackdown, and doubt it comes to fruition. But, I have no use for an argument like that. You are saying, you actually do want something, but don't like the price they are asking, so you will just take it anyway. You think it should be up to you to unilatellarly decided how much you should pay someone for their work? I am all for cracking down on freeloaders like you. If no one paid, then no one would make music or movies any more.

It is also odd that people are arguing against this American policy with examples that are protected in the US by the Fair Use doctrine. ie, ripping a dvd to a dvr or ipod.

Freeloader? Where the hell else am I supposed to watch Top Gear which doesn't even broadcast in N.America? I highly doubt HMV has any black metal. And for music that is decent I buy it.

[Rathji]

My opinion is that piracy is stealing and should be illegal and have a comparable, but smaller punishment to actually shoplifting the item in question.

That said, I think before this happens you need to change the laws to properly define piracy and have the proper technological developments to allow fair use, as outlined below.

1) If I buy a piece of media in ANY physical or digital format, I should be able to use that media in ANY format I would like, but I shouldn't be able to give it to my friends to use (or distribute through p2p).

2) If I am able to watch a show on TV because I have purchased the rights to that broadcast, I should be able to watch that content in multiple formats. This means that they should expand traditional TV services to include the ability to transmit to a portable device (It is possible that slingbox covers this already) and/or transcode into a portable format (for iPod, laptop, iPad etc). These transmissions or format shifted copies should include all the appropriate advertising because these people should be paid for their work. This might require an additional fee paid to cable companies to provide the equipment for these services.

The main barrier in these things is tech development to allow the format conversion or transmission to be done in a way to make sharing the content hard/impossible/prohibitive without infringing on these rights.

[gargamel]

Flames tickets cost a lot too, so do you guys just sneak into the Saddledome to watch the games for free?

Pirating movies and music is fun because you get stuff for free, but there's no reasonable justification for it. "CDs are too expensive" is a good reason to make due without them - not a reason to steal stuff.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

I hate to see the government involving itself it piracy crackdown, and doubt it comes to fruition. But, I have no use for an argument like that. You are saying, you actually do want something, but don't like the price they are asking, so you will just take it anyway. You think it should be up to you to unilatellarly decided how much you should pay someone for their work? I am all for cracking down on freeloaders like you. If no one paid, then no one would make music or movies any more.

Beyond that, Justin's argument is, simply, stupid. If he doesn't want to pay $18 for the CD, he can pay a buck for the one song he likes at itunes or the like. Ripping the song off is an alternative, but not the only one. I do like the false dichotomy he created though.

The thought crimes part of the bill I can see being struck down by the courts.

Incidentally, file sharing has had no negative impact on the creation of new works, which is exactly what copyright was intended to encourage: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ed-society.ars

[HotHotHeat]

So what's stopping me from walking into Starbucks and buying an hour of wireless for 10 bucks and doing all my downloading from there?...They couldn't track you could they?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

So what's stopping me from walking into Starbucks and buying an hour of wireless for 10 bucks and doing all my downloading from there?...They couldn't track you could they?

I could track you if I wanted, so I assume someone who has the backing of billion of dollars worth of industry and the ability to make laws work so it would be legal sure the hell could.

On a related note: If you would pay 10 bucks an hour to use a slow or congested wireless connection to steal something from the internet, you need to either get your head checked or take some basic math/accounting classes.

On iTunes, a movie costs $20 (or $5 to rent) and an album costs $13.

[Azure]

You guys do realize iTunes doesn't have everything, and music stores don't either?

Where should I find that content?

[Huntingwhale]

As someone who 'pirates' music and movies, l hope nothing happens.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Azure

You guys do realize iTunes doesn't have everything, and music stores don't either?

Where should I find that content?

So something isn't available in the music stores or on iTunes. Where do you find that content now then?

[drew24]

Say if someone were to pirate before this was passed, then would they safe if they stopped pirating post law passing?

[Cactus Jack]

The worst industry in the world. Not only do the music, movies and their respective retail industries not listen to what the consumers want, they offer premium pricing for formats no one wants to use anymore. It took years for something like iTunes to appear. And not only are they not giving the customer what they want, they sue them. What a dysfunctional industry. I hope it all collapses on itself and they all go away. 90% of movies are garbage nowadays but there will always be individuals that play music.

[Bownesian]

From the headline, I thought they were talking about these guys:


Better to deal with teenagers in mom and dad's basement (who wouldn't be buying the majority of what they are downloading anyway) than do something about guys who threaten literally billions of dollars worth of trade.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by gargamel

Flames tickets cost a lot too, so do you guys just sneak into the Saddledome to watch the games for free?

Pirating movies and music is fun because you get stuff for free, but there's no reasonable justification for it. "CDs are too expensive" is a good reason to make due without them - not a reason to steal stuff.

What about those that buy their content and can't transfer it to an iPod or a computer because of digital locks? That would be like the Flames selling you a ticket and only letting you watch the game on a small TV screen on the concourse.

[Weiser Wonder]

Originally Posted by Azure

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18815

Oh, I particularity love this part.



Oh don't we love big government.

'Thought' crime. Gotta love it.

The stupidity on this issue continues.

Readily available music makes it easier for bands to acquire fans who then buy their merchandise, music and concert tickets. I look at how I became a fan of Radiohead. I received a couple of their albums of theirs by ripping my brothers CDs (technically illegal) and downloading some of their albums from other places. I fell in love with the band and have since purchased over a $1,000 worth of Radiohead goods. Not to mention, spending thousands of dollars to fly to San Francisco to see them, putting money into the US economy.

And, of course, there's the famous Radiohead model. Where they made money hand over fist by the "pay what you want" method. NIN has done this successfully as well I believe. Obviously, Radiohead is not a normal band. But any talented band isn't having too much trouble right now because of torrenting. I see innovative bands like Animal Collective and The National doing quite well and getting big despite how it is easy to attain all their music for free. People get passionate about these bands and start spending good money on them.

The Record Companies are flooding the market with ever worsening music. How many American Idol contestants get record deals and put out 2 or 3 albums? How many sensitive singer songwriters can they trot out to put out one hit single? Of course no one is going to get passionate about those POS artists. Just be happy about the cheap money you can make off hacks. You won't get more by cracking down on piracy.

What an idealistic, reactionary POS bill this is. Healthcare deliberations were like pulling teeth to get some pretty basic consumer protections. This bill will pass faster than you can chink two scotch glasses together. To make it all the worse, the thought crime provision is disgusting. I hope the courts have something to say about that.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by Rathji

So something isn't available in the music stores or on iTunes. Where do you find that content now then?

Uh, torrents?

Small music stores are dropping by the wayside. Big chain music stores and iTunes aren't exactly concerned about putting the full library of lesser known artists out there for purchase.

Even online it's tough to find older CDs for those types of bands. And even if you do, if it's not a North American band/artist then you'll end up paying a small fortune for 12 songs.

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I could track you if I wanted, so I assume someone who has the backing of billion of dollars worth of industry and the ability to make laws work so it would be legal sure the hell could.

On a related note: If you would pay 10 bucks an hour to use a slow or congested wireless connection to steal something from the internet, you need to either get your head checked or take some basic math/accounting classes.

On iTunes, a movie costs $20 (or $5 to rent) and an album costs $13.

This post isn't very well thought through. First of all, even on a slow connection I could download a lot more than one album in an hour (actually most places offer 24 hours for a connection), secondly, I'd love to have you post my IP address in this thread, since you can look me up so easily. Third. Do open wifi connections not usually use 'rolling IP addresses' to hand out to clients on their network?

Having an open network at home seems to be grounds for reasonable doubt as to who exactly downloaded the content.

My point is that enforcing these piracy concerns are going to be a nightmare. People can, and will continue to find ways around things. It's too mainstream to stop.

[-TC-]

*downloads internet*

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Rathji

So something isn't available in the music stores or on iTunes. Where do you find that content now then?

Obviously through illegal sources.

Amazon doesn't have them, neither do any other online stores.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by drew24

Say if someone were to pirate before this was passed, then would they safe if they stopped pirating post law passing?

I doubt you would have much of a problem even after the law passes.

Unless you download a gigabytes per day.