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File Sharing Remains a Perk of College Life
An anonymous reader points out a story on the effect of a new law on file sharing on campuses — in short, it may not make much difference. "Students who are about to graduate often hand down the tricks of stealing music and movies to the next senior class. ... At the College of New Jersey, that means surreptitiously finding a new home each year for a computer holding an enormous directory of illegal files on the campus. ... The machine runs software called Direct Connect, which lets people on a local network easily trade files among their hard drives in a way that is usually undetectable to anyone outside the network. ... Educause recently unveiled a website with information about the new regulations. It provides case studies from six 'role-model campuses,' listing the steps they are taking to combat piracy. Another page lists 57 legal sources of music and movies on the Web. But when asked which campuses have forged new policies in reaction to the law, Educause officials were unable to name any."
You are never going to stop folks from trading files. All you can do is try and make it difficult. And that brings its own problems because it usually causes the stuff not to work well and attracts people who like challenges to break your "protection". I believe the model of charging less would work better.
Copyright infringement remains different from stealing. As in "we will stop stealing when you stop calling it stealing".
I know its stated in TFA, but such regulations only effect on campus students, and at a school like mine, that's only about 5-10% of the total student body. So this regulation most likely has absolutely no effect on 90% of the students. And even the freshmen on campus know the ways around it, one of my friends always just uses the wireless of his off campus fraternity house to do all of his illegal downloading.
the sharing of digital media will go on.
If nothing else, there's always USB keys. Now pushing 128GB. My coworkers and I trade entire television shows pretty regularly.
Who needs fileservers? Sneakernet is becoming more and more efficient.
That's basically what we did when I went to college. Someone would host the DC++ server, and everyone else would connect to it and share files over it. You had to have 1 GB of shared files to join.
ResNet didn't give a shit, and in fact for a couple of years the guy who hosted the server was about as high up in ResNet as a student can get. We were using a ton of bandwidth, but as long as it was on the internal on-campus network they didn't care. In fact, I heard that we were kind of wink-and-nudge supported by the actual network administrators - college students are going to pirate stuff anyway, so they'd far prefer we do it on the local network, and leave the gathering of new materials to guys who'll use a VPN to a dedicated usenet box.
WTF does that mean? Sounds like college students are still as arrogant and clueless about life in the real world as when I was one 20+ years ago.
There's no shortage of file sharing outside of college campus networks, life in the real world just doesn't spoon feed you.
The Napster/Grokster lawsuits spawned BitTorrent. Killing suprnova caused a bloom of (better) torrent aggregator sites.
Excessive use of antibiotics just gets you antibiotic resistant strains.
I transfered schools last semester, and among the things I miss from my old Engineering/Comp Sci centric school was "the network". At first there was a website somebody hosted which has a list of IPs to connect to which hosted various files, from old movies, new movies, just released games, one server hosting nothing but porn, and even programs we would normally have to go to campus computers to use, like Inventor or Solidworks, and also PDFs of books and the answer books for the math courses. Some went so far as to upload their homework for classes.
It was definitely illegal, as well as constituting academic dishonesty if you wanted to, but fuck was it awesome. IT there had to know about it, but since they blocked torrenting, making it a hassle to do, people set that up and uploaded things usually got from going home for the weekend. I believe the reasons IT didn't block it was that they were using it too, and that it kept bandwidth down (the reason they blocked torrenting wasn't really because of DMCA notices, but rather because 90% of their bandwidth was being used by 10% of their users.)
It really was a geek's paradise.
why are these colleges worrying about piracy of movies and music, does society benefit from the creation of the vacuous nonsense that is entertainment? does humanity progress by the creation of these petty distractions? No? then screw them, why should we worry about the moral integrity surrounding superfluous crap.
I'm a sophomore undergraduate at a relatively large university in California, and the volume of filesharing I see my classmates engage in is enormous.
Most of the discussion about filesharing (here on Slashdot and elsewhere) seems to focus on P2P, but in my experience BitTorrent/Gnutella/P2P darknets are just the tip of the iceberg.
The vast majority of the filesharing volume I see here is by sneakernet and private servers. The house I live in has a server with upwards of 3 TB of movies and music; all of our residents can log in.
I've seen people merge their own several-GB collections with the collection on the server. Last year, I lived in a frosh dormitory; there was no server, but it was common for people to lend each other iPods or merge media collections on each other's laptops. That kind of sharing takes a few minutes to transfer a few GB--it's on an entirely different plane from the type of sharing the RIAA and MPAA focus on, transferring one song or one movie at a time over P2P.
Incidentally, the media server setup I described is not unique to the house I live in--most of the houses and some of the dorms at my university have one; nor is it unique to colleges and universities--the startup I interned at two years ago had one, too.
So when the RIAA/MPAA sues a single mom for her kid's Kazaa downloads, I see it as beating a dead horse. The real sharing is on the scale of GB and TB at a time, not individual songs. On the rare occasion when I do find something missing from the media libraries I have access to, I'll torrent it using PeerGuardian to block corporate IPs, so I'm unlikely to show up on any logs the RIAA keeps.
By focusing their legal efforts on P2P users, I think that the media cartels may have drawn out the battle while losing the war. Yes, we're more reticent now to use BitTorrent. But we've merely moved to faster, more local, less traceable forms of sharing.
Since these kids are paying ludicrous costs for their education, are likely to enter a very contracted workforce if they're lucky, whilst competing globally, having future tax obligations thrust upon them to bail out their parents who somehow believed their entitlement to vast amounts of unearned income from housing was justified, at the very least I think society owes them a few shitty Adam Sandler movies. And those attempting to enforce anti-piracy measures should be very aware of who's paying for the generous retirements they promised themselves.
I like Apple. They make nice stuff which works most of the time.
At my university (40k students), we have a DC network and the IT here are not just aware of it, but some of the IT guys are the same guys who maintain it. Our university is happy to look the other way because the sharing is virtually undetectable outside the network, and we have plenty of bandwidth in network to move gig files around in seconds while not compromising the connection to the outside world. The less we share outside the DC network, the less letters they get from the RIAA (which they already ignore for the most part).
By the way, its articles like this that shed light on these networks, which we certainly don't need.
If we mark off those resources for legal downloading (in the "comprehensive list of alternatives" link at the Educause site) that still don't work with FOSS platforms, how many remain? I know at least Magnatune is among them.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
My school tried a variety of solutions in reaction to P2P file sharing: 1) bandwidth caps for most network traffic outside of the school's network 2) Provided a DRM-encumbered music service for students and 3) developed its own P2P software to share files for "legitimate", "academic" use. It didn't stop illegal file sharing entirely of course, and from what I hear the Resident Life tech support was pretty much complicit in piracy as well. Still, better than nothing.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Students don't have much money (much less than people with jobs), but still have the same needs, created by the industry and our dynamic culture. The only way for these people to fullfill these needs is to piracy. I don't condone piracy.. but I have to say that the other option is frustration.
I don't theres any solution. But theres also no damage either: these people will not buy anyway. Once these people finish his studios and get a job, these same people will start buying things again, wen buying is easier.
Let students warez his music, there are things more important for us.
-Woof woof woof!
and I'm WAY too old for this, there was no internet to speak of when I was in college. We pirated music the old fashioned way, which analog cassette tapes. One guy would buy a new album (an "album" was like what we now call a compact disk, but it was about 1 foot in diameter and made of black plastic) and bring it back to the dorm, and pretty soon everyone who wanted it would have a second or third generation cassette dub (and yes, these were perfectly listenable). That was actually better than file sharing because it meant you spent a lot of time actually listening to music with your friends while making these dubs, instead of being an antisocial geek copying files over a computer.
Now get off my lawn.
In more technologically advanced countries the latest generation of broadband is plenty good at home. Even my parents and my uncle are moving to fiber connections now with 10/10 Mbit as the lowest, which is plenty and on upload even faster than my cable line. The whole "limited bandwidth" is going to be some oddity of the past in a few decades because even a fairly notorious HD hog such as myself doesn't download 100 GB/day which is what a saturated 10 Mbit line will upload. For comparison, a complete binary usenet feed is "only" about 500 Mbit/s and includes everything but the kitchen sink. Maybe live BluRay streaming is a little ways off still but then you're trying very hard to find the most marginal case possible.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Use DC++ (StrongDC, ApexDC). It's so much better than torrents. Tons and tons of everything you can imagine or not. Just find a decent hublist and you're good to go.
Honestly, how much of this is actually worth pirating, anyway?
A defining moment of my life came in 1998, when I finally landed a coveted ISP job. (Go ahead, laugh, it was a big deal back then.) At last, I had local 100Mb access to a Usenet server with a full alt.binaries feed. A co-worker had spools upon spools of burned CDs of MP3s. I spent one ten-hour shift examining these CDs one by one. There was almost nothing that I actually cared to listen to. A notable exception was the soundtrack to Tron (the 1982 original - not that I should need to say that, but seeing the empty desert of creativity that is 2010, I feel the need to) as well as less than 100Mb of other MP3s. The local access to the Usenet server proved equally as useless, except for the firehose of porn. What's the point of pirating the NBC Sunday night line-up, when it's all crap anyway? There are just people out there to whom accumulating shows is an end in itself. It's a pathological need, like those old ladies who collect 150 cats in one house and then let them all starve.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Back in the day, we'd hook up five or so cassette tape player in a row when someone got a fresh album, and make five tapes. We had lots of posters in the Student Union (we could even get beer there, that's how old I am) which said "home taping kills music". When CD's came out for twice the price of the vinyl, we saw how true that was. NOT. I've advised my kids to not upload, and share only with those they know in the real world. So far, I now have more music than I could listen to in a a normal lifespan, with no p2p or dodgy websites. Students hiding data from the RIAA (actually their terrified school ISP)-imagine that ! I have no fear for the new generation.
You folks have no idea of the economic destruction you create by stealing music and movies. You have no idea of the pain you bring to individuals, especially those really hurt by this recession. I hope you enjoy. Someone else has paid for it.
The part of these stories that always gets me is, aren't the students future customers? These are people that like digital content, and when released to the real world without file sharing networks and steady incomes then to buy the most, Most people understand the that fact that without payment these people cannot produce the media that we consume, I am just thinking that the companies can come up with some marketing strategies that will make file sharing obsolete and protect a future revenue stream while the students still have access to great content.
When I was in college back in 2000, a lot of my friends ended up getting work supplement jobs with 'Computing Services' on campus, doing the mundane desktop/printer/PC phone support to free up the campus sysadmin's time. Little did our close-nit group of friends find out the sysadmin's themselves had a huge storage server restricted by access-control lists that was loaded with mp3s, movies, dvdrips, ect. It was sort of a speak-easy to get access to it, but again, as the title states, when 'everyone' is in on piracy, from the campus nerd, to the academic probation athlete and all the way up to the Senior Sysadmin ranks, good luck with that policy. I know what our university policy was on piracy, but it was only on paper to make the board of regents happy; it's something that honestly could not be enforced.
Students trying to get stuff for free? Never!
I had a friend at uni who used to buy packaged foodstuffs and then send them back to the "If you're not completely satisfied" address with a fictional complaint. 9 times out of 10 he'd get a crate of said product by way of compensation; he survived for 3 years, barely paying for anything he ate or drank in this manner and you're amazed that people are swapping music without paying for it?
If any single group of people can find a way to get things without paying for them, it's student. Intelligent, poor, lots of free time = win.
I work for a public university, and the state covers less than half our costs. I don't know if that's true across the country, but I expect it is. 20 years ago it was a different story.
I wonder if they have a good way to setup an internal p2p cache server. Hmm it might be actually easy, if unofficial word is let out to run a particular program, just setup an internal server for it, and have it host the most popular files. Updating those files automatically would be the only challenge.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
the entire legal system may bow down to one woman sitting on a bus.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Why does the MPAA & RIAA and all the other horrible organisations with a similar agenda hate campus file sharing so much? Its not like the students would ever have the money to pay for such movies/rubbish anyway so whats the actual loss here? As its been pointed out, every time an app used to download stuff gets targeted a much newer and better one comes out. What are these organisations bribing campus officials with to get any changes (if any)? Sounds like a big waste of time all round.
i'd rather have trololotalk
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
... a single italian exchange student came along and couldn't setup his or her direct connect, got frustrated and asked our university's it-support.
IT-staff had known for years about the hub, but couldn't do anything as (a) they themselves were using it (b) local law would forbid tracing this kind of activity via network level capturing. However thanks to this one italian expert, police came in on the apartments of admins, confiscated wrong computers and didn't charge them with anything. Our school however did punish these guys.
Thats another thing to figure out; how can the school punish when the police cannot find any evidence to make a case?
Honestly in my experience if something is actually worth the money that developers are charging for a product, then most people have no problem shelling out that kind of cash. I know plenty of other students who download music, movies, etc quite a bit, and if it's an exceptionally good piece then they usually go out and get a hard copy of it. This why I like to think that all the file sharing being done helps get brand names and such out there. It's kind of like the product samples you get at supermarkets, except on a global scale. Not to mention, no matter how much noise is made over all this, there are still gonna be people finding ways around all legal bs.
Wow, a filesharing protocol I hadn't stumbled across! Thanks Slashdot!
So, I've been trying to figure out how best to share some files with friends who are spread all over the place. Some of them are fairly large - think customized Linux distro of several gigs for instance. We've tried several programs that do all sorts of indexing and crap but in each case they well.. sucked. But this sounds fairly promising! What I am trying to figure out how to do is setup a hub for myself and for my limited number of friends. I want only those people to access it and I want them to be able to see each other's files too. I see the DC++ client has support for PKI certs and whatnot which looks promising. the client software seems fairly mature and there's several packages out there. But what about HUB software? I looked at YNHUB, last updated in 2K8, and Yabba who's date I cannot yet figure out. What are these campuses using for their HUB software? I'd prefer Windows as the host but if I must use Linux I can. I'd like to find something that won't advertise itself anywhere and would require me passing out certs etc. to use. Client software looks pretty easily available but HUB software is much less talked about - and I'd rather not have to delve Python scripts to use it either. What's available that works well? Something light would be nice as this is a very limited number of users. Honestly I'd consider using a private Torrent tracker too if I could find something equally light and secure. Shipping HDDs all over the place has been done but I'd really rather be able to do this on a more on-demand basis and this software looks promising. I just don't want to have to become a full on expert to set it up and maintain it securely...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
See, I'm on the other side of the bridge with this one. I came from one of the new campuses that provide notebooks to all their students. They do hand off MPAA and RIAA letters to students and I, as well as other friends of mine, have gotten at least one. It goes from 'we shut off your connection' to 'we will put you on academic probation' to 'we will actually kick you out' based on media influences outside of the school. They actually have a scanner on campus that scans open SMB directories for infringing material and shut off your connection and they have a eMule server that sends out random bad data... right on campus.
Coming from a more tech oriented campus they decided to be on the bleeding edge of copyright protection as well. Even though I was well aware of file sharing on campus, we never had anything on the scale of DC servers everyone knew about... at least outside of little circles that no one knows about except for a handful of people. Maybe everyone on a floor in a dorm, but it never got bigger then that. Our local LAN club also had copious amounts of sharing going on during actual events, but that usually ended when the event ended.
Our network admins are either retarded, confident they're doing the right thing, or more then likely they're receiving fringe benefits through large copyright holders for making sure the campus is 'free' of bad stuff.
Much like culture would without piracy? ;)
I'm sure this has been thought of before, but it seems like the copyright holders are missing an opportunity.
College students are in the unique situation that various fees can be rolled into tuition. Why not create a media portal for college students, working with college administrations, and charge each student, say, $15 a month for that access to that portal? Why would they pay? You'd have to offer features that the DC or SMB shares don't......iPod/iPhone integration. Perhaps even an app. Facebook integration. Access to larger numbers of titles/songs/performers. They could also offer the option to EXTEND the access post graduation. Will students still illegally share files? Yes. But if the RIAA/MPAA get their cut off of the top, it limits their 'loss'.
Furthermore, college students are identifiable. They can be surveyed. "What did and didn't you like about our portal?". "What new features would you like to see?". "Would you be interested in continuing our service post-grad?" "Why or why not?". Their loss would be providing valuable market data.
One would think that given Napster debuted over a decade ago, the writing on the wall would have been heeded, but it seems that they are focused more on loss prevention than R&D.
Taping casettes while I was young was a regular thing between folks that knew one another, so I'm "date'ing myself" here too, as you noted. If anything, it's done merely to function as a backup, which iirc? Is COMPLETELY OK BY THE LAW, but... don't quote me on that much, I just seem to recall that was the "out" one could use to escape any troubles associated, & I'd wager that making copies of your bought & paid for media is STILL OK, on a hunch. This was back in the day when metal or Chrome Oxide tapes "ruled", lol! Additionally/lastly - & that didn't "kill the arts" anymore than folks taping VCR tapes did. So much for "you're killing music" or film, OR whatever, because that's a crock of crap. This entire b.s about "stealing music" or "stealing movies" is merely a slogan & sentiment being spread by those that rape artists like Trent Reznor when they're "Green to the Industry", while they live off of trust funds & their investments that use others to do 90% of the work involved, while they toss those actually involved in the production of said arts mere CRUMBS from that FAT TABLE, & while they live the "jet set life" because of their monies they doubtless inherited & continue to invest it, making even more (not always the case on the latter note). I also certainly don't want to hear "but those that put up the monies take the risks" which is MORE b.s., because they mostly do so from loans, of which their cash or properties is yes, collateral, but how many of these filthy rich people go & claim "bankruptcy" when they make a mistake on such investments? TONS of them do. So, as far as their "we take risks investing", well... you take about as much risk as I do, when I go to buy a candy bar, because you have millions to play with to do so, & attorneys + accountants to bail you out when you do f'up on said investments. I've seen it before, & nobody can tell ME differently.
When copyright is extended a copy of every work extended is stolen from each of us because it would otherwise be rightfully ours and is not. That's stealing.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"Pirates" are in fact paying for some content by exposing themselves to product placement in movies and TV-shows. Anheuser-Busch doesn't care whether the viewer sees their product "legally" or "illegally", as long as they see it.
In fact, I have personally even downloaded (illegally!) some superbowl commercials intentionally for my viewing pleasure! I'm pretty sure the copyright holders don't really mind though. Or if they do, they are mentally insane.
By the way, I was so impressed by some of the Bud Light commercials, that I have been trying really hard to find that product here in Finland. :) Yet to be successful though.
> file sharing has been restricted to non-copyrighted files
There's no such thing as a non-copyrighted file in countries that subscribe to the Berne copyright convention (i.e. most of the world), except perhaps those few files where the author has released them into the public domain (assuming they live in a country where that's even possible...). The things you've been sharing are therefore almost certainly copyrighted (as Linux is), the difference is that they're not infringing because you have permission.
The reason I correct you is that the **AA types try that, even in court, claiming that people just have to filter out the "copyrighted" files as if there are master records somewhere indicating who has permission to publish what, when no such things exist and there's no algorithm that can tell you who has permission to publish what.
I can't speak for how things are run in college nowadays, but if I have any insight into human nature, I would have to say that either they believe it's right, or their answer is "it's okay when I do it." People have a hard time seeing any behavior they engage in as bad. I'm not saying they never think that, just that it works that way most of the time. I've actually seen someone who thought that file sharing was Communism... but had no problem copying every tape or DVD he had ever rented.
One of the more relevant biases is called "moral credentialing" (look it up on Wikipedia).
For the record, I see a lot more wrong with copyright law than with copying. And anyone with any technical insight should have realized a long time ago that our current copyright laws are unenforceable. I see the **AA types investing all kinds of money into lobbyists, technology and laws to change this, but short of a police state, that's not working so well in China, despite the government pouring all kinds of resources into controlling what the people do (though they don't care much about piracy, only about anti-government sentiments, the fact that they're trying to keep certain information scarce is the same).
A theory about how people are contrary?
Someone will deny it ;-)
Those who would control society are blind when it comes to understanding the people who make up society. Historically that has always been their downfall - not after much damage has been done, unfortunately.
The really fucked up part about it is that it can't be changed by anything other than the broad dissemination of knowledge, which is exactly what many of the people in power do not want. Thence hinders the advancement of humanity. ( Just to preemptively shoot down certain fundamentalist assholes: It's not a conspiracy, it's the broad spectrum of ignorance breeding ignorance, which is an entirely different problem)
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Sharing is not stealing. Taking is stealing. Nothing is being taken here...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I go to a university in Canada with about 25000 students. The exact same thing happens here, people who run resnet know DC++ exists and they look the other way. They actually moderately appreciate it because it means that fewer people are grabbing files from outside the network which a) means the RIAA is going to send them fewer legal threats and b) the university uses less bandwidth, since everything within resnet costs them nothing.
Students will ALWAYS find ways to download files.
s.clementmonkey@sympatico.ca, remove the 'monkey'.
This is so completely outrageous because if you read the law they basically force the schools into taking technological steps that have significant/and or insurmountable costs and/or incalculable collateral damage. The schools must impliment one of the folling technological solutions to inhibit piracy and it MUST work or they have to try another (with reviews). There are four categories of "technology-based deterrents" they can choose from: 1. Bandwidth shaping 2. Traffic monitoring to identify the largest bandwidth users 3. A vigorous program of accepting and responding to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices 4. A variety of commercial products designed to reduce or block illegal file sharing Bandwidth shaping? This means that I'm screwed if I want to download an Ubuntu ISO. Traffic monitoring? I'm screwed if I want to download lots of GNU/Linux ISOs- not to mention my privacy. Respond to DMCA notices wouldn't be acceptable because of the insurmountable costs to forward notices to students unless you correctly interpret the law-at least my interpretation of it. That being if the school hosts the content on there servers they must act. If a student hosts it on their private servers the DMCA doesn't apply and they must bring a lawsuit. The university should still be protected under the DMCA since they still made a good faith effort to comply with correctly filed DMCA complaints. Lastly we all know that commercial products that are designed to reduce or block 'illegal file sharing' have both collateral damage on fair use rights and content that isn't held by the copyright owner in question claiming copyright whose copyright is being refused- not to mention degrading performance of the network. Interfering with network traffic should be illegal. It doesn't matter who does it. Neither ISP nor government should should interfere with a users traffic. We should all have unfiltered access to the internet without any firewalls and if the technology is shared bandwidth evenly distributed amongst users to whatever alotment they've purchased or otherwise obtained until it is utilized at which point they can be charged for more or be throttled. Of course bandwidth prices should never be costly- and the more you purchase in a given month the less it should cost as you are contributing more to the maintenance of the system- and therefore entitled to lower prices as is the case with ANY OTHER PRODUCT- when purchased in quantity (just about).
...on the world's smallest violin.
^_^
Thats another thing to figure out; how can the school punish when the police cannot find any evidence to make a case?
The school is not required to use the same burden of proof that the police are required to use in order to convict in a criminal case. Criminal cases usually require evidence proving the crime "beyond a reasonable doubt." Civil cases usually require evidence to prove the wrong-doing beyond a "preponderance of the evidence," meaning there must be a 51% or greater chance that the wrong-doing occurred. This is why O.J. Simpson was convicted in civil court of killing his wife, but not in criminal court.
At my school, the school punishes infractions of the student code if the Dean feels that a "preponderance of the evidence" supports to disciplinary action. Your school probably has a similar standard, and although it could be more or less than a preponderance, it is most assuredly a lower standard than that required to convict someone of a crime in a court of law.
IANAL, but I did do competition Mock Trial in high school, and this stuff is basically common knowledge.
If I pirated media, I think that when/if piracy becomes impossible or excessively difficult I'd just give up media instead of buying it. I was thinking about it the other day, but the problem is that there really isn't competition for torrenting from the commercial sector. Pirated copies just work, and "play for sure", whether it's music, games, or video.
If I buy a DVD, I have to deal with the latest DRM bullshit to play it. Whether it's buying a new computer, a new TV, a new DVD player, etc, I can't be sure until I get home if it will work. And thanks to the no returns on opened media policy at most stores (which I imagine you could fight if you cared enough but for a $10 movie who does?), I would be out of luck. If I buy it online, I have to deal with the licensing server shutting down, not running on my computer, not letting me download to a portable device, etc. To make matters worse, packaging varies from vague to outright misleading about DRM measures in use.
Similar problems for video games. I regularly go back and play video games from even before I was born, let alone two years ago. Will I still be able to play (single and multiplayer) after it is no longer profitable to run the gaming service? Sure Starcraft is still up on BNet but if it ever went down, you could still play offline multiplayer (and most of my tastes are more niche than Starcraft). Thankfully, many of the games I like come from studios that are DRM-free and have affordable, online downloads, but not everyone can be this lucky. Suppose I liked MSM crap like Bioshock or Spore instead of Penumbra or Sins of a Solar Empire?
Music is the least of my worries. Assuming I know I like it in advance, I don't find the idea of paying $1 per song that outrageous, and since I can just buy it DRM free as an mp3 from amazon.com or iTunes (though then I need a VM and some klugy software with a shitty UI) at decent bitrate. Most of my friends have huge music collections of many GB but how much can you really listen to? Me, I'll take Pandora and 2-3 GB of stuff I really like. Oh wait, I forgot, they're killing Pandora.
This is a getting a bit rambly, but my point here is this: we've all heard the nerd rage about how a pirated copy does not equate to a lost sale, but it seems like there is more or less a consensus that it's off by a constant factor: IE, each pirated copy is 1/20 of a lost sale. Of course due to the way the market works and how hard it is to monitor piracy, the precise ratio is hard to find. Maybe it's not a lost sale at all. Maybe anti-piracy, not home taping, is "killing" the more-profitable than ever media industry.
Because right now, if money and objections to the industry weren't an issue to me, I'd pirate it: It'd run faster, easier, more virus-free, and forever.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Interesting article, but... the first sentence about "passing down tricks of stealing music" seemed to have nothing to do with the rest of the article. This is in fact one reason no student will take the RIAA or MPAA seriously, the transparent and intentional attemps on their part to confuse the two.