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Why Web Pirates Can't Be Touched
gwoodrow writes "Forbes has a brief article about, essentially, the ultimate futility of fighting online pirates. From the article: 'As the world's largest repository of BitTorrent files, ThePirateBay.org helps millions of users around the world share copyrighted movies, music and other files — without paying for them ... That's illegal, of course — at least it is in the U.S. But when Time Warner's (nyse: TWX — news — people ) Warner Bros. studio accused them of breaking U.S. copyright law in 2005, the pirates gleefully reminded the movie company that they didn't live in America, but rather in the land of vikings, reindeer, Aurora Borealis and cute blond girls.' The article also touches on the many YouTube clones and AllofMP3.com."
Just admit you're stealing. I would have so much less a problem with it if you didn't go down the "digital copy is not theft since I didn't deprive anyone of anything physical". You did deprive them - of money. If at least you'd admit it, I wouldn't care so much. It's just the stupid logic you guys use that is so infuriating.
"America" might not be a country, but then neither is "Mexico", or "Brazil", or "France", or "Germany", or many other nations.
The United States of America happens to have a casual name that is also the name of the continent that the country is on. Yes, it can be confusing and inaccurate, but names can often be that way.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
{note to those who refer to the United States of America as "U.S.": U.S. is not a country)
That's because the pirates think in absolute terms. They think that they are in a place that will not change it's laws (or the interpretation thereof) in response to international pressure. Firstly, let's not pretend that these are some sort of freedom fighters striking at an evil empire. They're crooks, stealing from people, and crooks don't get much sympathy. Second, don't think for a second that if their country needed something from the US, Europe, etc that they wouldn't crack down on Pirate Bay like a swat team.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
This whole thing really boils down to the American belief that they are somehow superior to the rest of the world, and most of the crap thats going on regarding copyrights is not even about money, its about power and control. The problem with this is the harder they push these countries into towing the line on copyrights the harder the people in these countries will push back. In Canada we implemented a special tax on blank media to make up for supposed "losses" due to piracy. I only hope that the current government manages to destroy the counties economy so we can be rid of yet another imperialist regime a bit earlier. Off topic I would like to say that I have completely lost respect for American citizens for not standing up to their government and just bending over and taking it, as I actually believed that they would never allow it. Guess I was way off on that one, your less free now than ever before in the history of the country, you don't even get to elect your government anymore, and you blindly allow them to disgrace your country in the name of Patriotism and Democracy when in reality you have niether.