After Megaupload, MPAA Targets Other File Sharing Services

Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:19 · Score: 5, Funny

I guess the pirate bay is still flying under the radar. Hopefully that one never goes mainstream.

Re:Pirate Bay? by sg_oneill · 2012-03-31 18:28 · Score: 5, Informative

Oh its above the radar. Heck its founders even did jail for it. But they are taking a solid stance and have basically told the MPAA/RIAA to fuck off and have deployed clever lawyers to keep it afloat.
This whole thing really is pissing me off. My band uses these services to facilitate distributing our album and what not, and since a lot of our followers really dont know how to drive bit-torrent, this is the easiest way to get them the goodies.
And because we are distributed across 2 countries (Members in the US and Australia) , we use it to send mixdowns and recording stems when we do stuff.. I mean I guess we probably should move to dropbox for that sort of thing, but the point still remains. These bloody lawyers are trying to ban ALL sharing, and seriously not all, in fact probably most, sharing is piracy.
Its bullshit, these people need to be called out as enemies of the internet and free speech.

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Re:Pirate Bay? by blackraven14250 · 2012-03-31 18:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

As a smaller, (presumably) independent band, the RIAA wouldn't mind killing you off. The RIAA isn't there for small artists; they're there for the few giant names they can push, and any competition is bad competition in their view.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-03-31 18:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

My band uses these services to facilitate distributing our album and what not
Your label is supposed to handle that for you. If you're not signed with a major label and have the temerity to try to distribute your own music, you're clearly some kind of terrorist socialist pedophile drug dealer pirate, and will be dealt with accordingly.

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The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Xelios · 2012-03-31 19:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

Independent film makers get similar treatment from the MPAA. And unlike musicians they really are forced to deal with them to have their film rated for release.

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Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Re:Pirate Bay? by AmiMoJo · 2012-03-31 20:04 · Score: 5, Informative

Heck its founders even did jail for it.
Actually none of them have. They have been sentenced but only one is actually living in Sweden and his will be served in the community rather than behind bars. The others left ages ago and the authorities have been unable to recover a single penny of assets from them to pay the millions of Euros in fines, and as they are now in countries that won't extradite to the EU there is pretty much no chance of them doing any time. Plus there are still appeals in the pipeline.
Meanwhile the Pirate Bay continues, benefiting from free publicity paid for by the media companies trying to take them down.

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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 20:28 · Score: 1

Oh its above the radar. Heck its founders even did jail for it.
No they didn't. Don't be part of the propaganda machine. It's still not over and they haven't done any time yet. But if/when they do, they will do it with their head held high. Why are pirates called pirates? Because they Arrrrrrrr.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 20:56 · Score: 0

The other ones do not have any money
Re:Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 20:57 · Score: 0

Just a question: Why don't you use sites designed for distribution of music instead?
If you don't mind giving away your music for free, try one of the sites listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_music#Record_labels_and_websites_distributing_free_music
Also, make video clips and upload them to YouTube!
Re:Pirate Bay? by TFAFalcon · 2012-03-31 22:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

MPAA will contact Youtube and get your video removed. They own all music after all.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 22:45 · Score: 0

That's why I laugh when people say small government is better.

Do they really think that the MPAA and other corrupt powerful organizations will go away, just because there is a small government? And who do they think will rush in to take over whatever the government no longer does?

It's quality not quantity that matters more.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Nrrqshrr · 2012-03-31 22:54 · Score: 2

Trying to get rid of the middle-man somehow became a suspicious deed, lately. It's like being an independent content creator is the new crime of the 21st century.
Re:Pirate Bay? by sg_oneill · 2012-03-31 23:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

As a smaller, (presumably) independent band, the RIAA wouldn't mind killing you off. The RIAA isn't there for small artists; they're there for the few giant names they can push, and any competition is bad competition in their view.
Well neither the RIAA or ARIA have ever done a frigging thing for us, so I don't doubt that. Heck I even had a genine "no no" issue of piracy happen to us once where I found a site in the US selling our MP3s for about half the priace we where selling them. I dont care if you pirate-bay or whatever our songs, its not really about that for us. But don't sell our work without giving us a cut of it, is all we ask.
Well I contacted ARIA, and they said "Oh thats in the US, we cant help you". So I contacted the RIAA and they said "Your australians, we are not really interested sorry."
Well I bet if we where AC/DC or something they would be.
Frankly I'd rather kim dotcom got my money than RIAA or ARIA. At least I'm under know illusions as to who Kim represents.

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Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Re:Pirate Bay? by PopeRatzo · 2012-03-31 23:56 · Score: 5, Interesting

Independent film makers get similar treatment from the MPAA. And unlike musicians they really are forced to deal with them to have their film rated for release.
And if you are an indie filmmaker, you can expect very harsh treatment at the hands of MPAA for your rating.
I just heard an interview with the director of the terrific new documentary Bully and he was talking about how the MPAA wanted to give his movie an "R" even though all of the characters were real teenagers involved in real bullying and the movie is possibly the most important movie for middle and high-school kids to see. He ended up just going "Unrated" which of course will limit his distribution (but it looks like a lot of media people are getting behind him to help out).
I've made a portion of my living as a professional musician, composer and arranger for about 25 years and I won't go near a project with anything but an indie label and not only an indie label but a really small privately-held indie label. I most enjoy self-released work, which in my opinion has now reached a point of quality every bit as good as anything on a major. I only pay for music when I can buy direct from the artist, or very nearly direct. I'm hoping to get to that point with movies someday.

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Skal+Tura · 2012-04-01 00:00 · Score: 1

You mean RIAA owns all music ;)
Anything having the slightest resemblance to music has a chance of to be taken down on youtube.

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Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Re:Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 00:28 · Score: 0

> I've made a portion of my living as a professional musician, composer and arranger for about 25 years and I won't go near a project with anything but an indie label and not only an indie label but a really small privately-held indie label. I most enjoy self-released work, which in my opinion has now reached a point of quality every bit as good as anything on a major. I only pay for music when I can buy direct from the artist, or very nearly direct. I'm hoping to get to that point with movies someday.
Me, too. I came to that conclusion after seeing how much harm these "associations" can promote.
The question is, since they monopolized distribution, it's somewhat hard to find new channels (because they make it hard) to get indie music. A possible good indicator would be the music origin, because supposedly they would have more trouble managing contracts with foreign musicians -- and movie makers, too.
Speaking for myself, music is more or less universal. Whether the good music I'm enjoying is in English, French, Russian etc. that really makes no difference -- at least, regarding hearing pleasure. Japanese took me a while to get used to, but I managed. I suspect Chinese would go along a similar path.
But motion pictures are a whole new dimension: I depend on subtitles to understand them. Right now, English might be the easiest and most understood subtitle language, but community contribute translations make it easy to create new versions in other languages. I find Japanese and Korean dramas very interesting, but I'd like to see more movies from India, since they have an advanced film industry there.
I'd appreciate some hints on what to search regarding these topics.
Right now, I feel organizations like MPAA and RIAA (among others) are detrimental to public interest and went beyond any possibility of regulation: they must be replaced by others, less inclined to political activity. In other words, I think the proper authorities should order them closed. I don't have great expectations about the government acting on this subject, though.
Re:Pirate Bay? by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 00:47 · Score: 3

I'm still trying to find the part where he's being funny. From what I've seen, his assessment is totally accurate.
Re:Pirate Bay? by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 00:50 · Score: 1

Even the music of the birds!
Re:Pirate Bay? by DragonTHC · 2012-04-01 02:28 · Score: 1

Stop trolling here, Stephen Colbert!

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They're using their grammar skills there.
Re:Pirate Bay? by nurb432 · 2012-04-01 02:32 · Score: 1

Its all about risk. if you are *just* running a business and it looks like you may lose everything, including your freedom, its time to bail out of the game. ( like the file storage sites they are going ofter ). And the *AA's know they are fairly easy to eradicate.
If you are making a personal/political statement, then you stand firm. The *AAs know this too... which is why they are finally changing tactics to attack the storage sites, and end users, instead.
And you don't think the RIAA doesn't want you gone too, as an independent? You are just pleasant collateral damage for them.

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---- Booth was a patriot ----
Re:Pirate Bay? by Kjella · 2012-04-01 02:46 · Score: 1

Plus there are still appeals in the pipeline.
No, the supreme court refused to hear it about two months ago so it is final.

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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re:Pirate Bay? by Tastecicles · 2012-04-01 03:10 · Score: 1

I have but one suggestion for music distribution: this.

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Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Ihmhi · 2012-04-01 03:16 · Score: 1

Are you sure you're in a band? You're missing an opportunity here.
As in, I've never met a band who doesn't take a shot at hawking their album, given the opportunity.
Got samples? Music video? Free tracks? I can't be the only curious one, but I guess I was the only one to ask.

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:Pirate Bay? by AmiMoJo · 2012-04-01 03:17 · Score: 1

The appeals are at the EU level.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 04:14 · Score: 0

That is an unfair characterization you're applying to the R1AA. The R1AA loves small bands and greatly support them.
Small Bands pay for their lunches and gas for their BMWs and what not. Small Bands don't have the financial backing to
challenge them when it comes to collecting their royalty (I'm not making this up - this is well documented that Royalties
generality go to the established acts).
The R1AA loves small bands. They especially love Indie, that is collecting royalties even when they have no legal right to.
Re:Pirate Bay? by jamstar7 · 2012-04-01 04:33 · Score: 1

Do they really think that the MPAA and other corrupt powerful organizations will go away, just because there is a small government? And who do they think will rush in to take over whatever the government no longer does?
Take a look at the legislation the *AAs are pushing for. They want the government to enforce 'their' copyrights at taxpayer expense. Smaller government means less resources to do this. It would make it harder for them to come out and say "We think XYZ's website infringes on our sacred copyrights and interferes with our government-mandated profits. Take his site down, slap a fine on his service providers, and throw XYZ in jail so we can make money on 'XYZ The Movie'. No need for a trial, he's on the internet and has a website, that's proof enough he's a pirate."

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Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Re:Pirate Bay? by dryeo · 2012-04-01 05:38 · Score: 1

The government is not going to shrink so much that they stop enforcing corporate laws. Here in Canada we have a bunch of conservative small government types in charge. They just got rid of the pesky fisheries regulations because it hurt business having to avoid polluting. They got rid of the pesky food labeling stuff as we can trust business to be honest, especially those Chinese and other 3rd world countries which they're also getting rid of those pesky regulations that was stopping free trade. Costs money to make sure there is no lead in our food you know and the market will take care of things.
Meanwhile they passed a huge crime bill introducing minimum sentences for things like growing plants that interfere with business. Illegalizing breaking any type of digital lock on stuff that you bought. Expanding copyright in other ways. Expanding spying on citizens. And so on causing the government to have to build like a dozen prisons, expand the courts and police.
They're also expanding the armed forces and eager to go to war while shrinking the department of veteran affairs. Costs money looking after those ex-soldiers coming home from Afghanistan you know, they can look after themselves and it was their own stupidity if they lost limbs.
Basically small government is government for the corporation.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Re:Pirate Bay? by jez9999 · 2012-04-01 05:48 · Score: 3, Funny

Well I contacted ARIA, and they said "Oh thats in the US, we cant help you". So I contacted the RIAA and they said "Your australians, we are not really interested sorry."
Why did you offer them australians?

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== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Pf0tzenpfritz · 2012-04-01 06:36 · Score: 1

Take mine instead: http://soundcloud.com/ax11/cosmodrome-intro-the-long-run :) Yes! That was as low, cheap and shabby as only the true artist will get.

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Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Re:Pirate Bay? by sixsixtysix · 2012-04-01 09:34 · Score: 1

what if they bought the mp3s at your lower cost and then resold them at a higher one? just saying'.

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Re:Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 09:44 · Score: 0

i know what you mean. it is really hard to call something "independent" when it uses the big label/studio's distribution network.
Re:Pirate Bay? by sg_oneill · 2012-04-01 09:50 · Score: 1

Are you sure you're in a band? You're missing an opportunity here.
As in, I've never met a band who doesn't take a shot at hawking their album, given the opportunity.
Got samples? Music video? Free tracks? I can't be the only curious one, but I guess I was the only one to ask.
If you insist. :)
http://www.myspace.com/theacceleratorsperth
Theres itunes and amazon links there (Go buy the MP3s, easier to torrent, it OK, I'm giving you permission)

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Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Re:Pirate Bay? by sg_oneill · 2012-04-01 09:55 · Score: 1

Actually none of them have. They have been sentenced but only one is actually living in Sweden and his will be served in the community rather than behind bars
My bad. I thought they did.

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Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Re:Pirate Bay? by Kalriath · 2012-04-01 12:09 · Score: 1

Yeah, I think I prefer down under here (Australia/New Zealand) where the government does the rating instead. A hell of a lot more unbiased, and costs a lot less too (only $1000 one time fee to get a film rated, or $25 if you're an individual who wants something rated for personal use rather than for commercial sales).

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For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Re:Pirate Bay? by VJmes · 2012-04-01 15:35 · Score: 2

They don't represent artists at all, they represent the movie and music studios. Any claim of artist representation they make is bullshit because by definition they're there to serve the record and movie companies, they cannot by association represent the artists who work for these companies because artists represent very different interests to those of movie and record companies.
Re:Pirate Bay? by TranquilVoid · 2012-04-02 18:59 · Score: 1
Really I see 3 parties with blame here;
- 1. file sharing sites: chasing advertising dollars by courting infringing content
- 2. file sharers: swamping/polluting file sharing sites and protocols with infringing content
- 3. MPAA/RIAA: ignoring legitimate uses of file sharing in their quest to remove infringing content
Not that I like defending them, but to my mind the MPAA/RIAA is least to blame because the ratio of legitimate to infringing content is very small on some of these sites.
Unfortunately for legitimate users of the technology, such as your band, this is why you can't have nice things.

vice president for worldwide content protection by macraig · 2012-03-31 18:23 · Score: 5, Informative

That Paramount actually has a "vice president for worldwide content protection" says plenty.

Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:28 · Score: 0

All it says is that they have lots of rich people on hand to schmooze other rich people. This is not extraordinary for a large corporation, much less unique. Hence why tech companies like MS and Google are finally trying to learn how to play ball and pay off... I mean lobby politicians, so that they're not completely railroaded by media and other old boys' companies when the two conflict.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by PatPending · 2012-03-31 18:42 · Score: 4, Funny

Heh. Reminds me of a story from the sixties about General Motors. A customer called GM to complain about his car.
The phone operator asked what was wrong and the guy said a mirror was defective.
"Which mirror?" she asked.
"The side mirror" he replied.
"Which side?"
"The passenger side."
"I'll connect you to the Vice President for Passenger Side Mirrors."
Dunno if it's true or not. My grandfather worked in the US auto industry for 30 years and had lots of interesting stories to tell...

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What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:55 · Score: 0

"Finally learning"? Microsoft exists as it does today because it already knew all about that more than a decade ago.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by game+kid · 2012-03-31 19:08 · Score: 4, Funny

Do you not realize how tough it is to be promoted to that office? The Executive Vice President of Employee Titles (who's also the Creative Director of Padded Résumés and Acting Senior Human Resources Strategist) does not just bandy these things around willy-nilly.

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You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:20 · Score: 1, Insightful

Why wouldn't they? They sell a product which is pirated around the world. Are the movie companies not even allowed to try to prevent this? They're not a charity. They make a product for the masses with an expectation of a returned profit. Even if they did have a stupid executive, why should it matter to Slashdot? Would you care if they have a "vice president in charge of video game soundtracks"?
Slashdot loves to rationalize piracy, no matter how little logic is applied. Even "They try to prevent piracy!" is used as some sort of argument against the MPAA.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:24 · Score: 1

No, that mostly came from good vs. incompetent lawyering. Proper political connections would have avoided that mess getting as big as it did before it went away. Compared with the RIAA or MPAA, Microsoft has been in the minor leagues politically. Hence why it's okay to villify them or Google, but god forbid we should ever question a group of companies convicted of collusion when they say something that takes away people's rights is absolutely necessary to get them proper compensation (e.g., never-ending copyrights).
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's better that 100 guilty walk free than one innocent wrongly convicted or something along those lines is the way the quote goes.
But because 90%* of people use a legal service to perpetrate illegal acts, the 10%* must suffer? A lot of people use cars in the commission of a crime. Should we start banning cars? Don't even get me started on guns...
*made-up figures for illustration purposes only
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 21:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

Piracy is only illegal because the law says copying and distributing music is illegal.
People who support piracy are fighting to have the law changed. These people believe that since music can be copied indefinitely and at no cost (even though there is an initial cost of producing the music), the music industry should change to a business model that makes music free.
There are also people who are just fed up with the music industry's abusive behavior. They can sue people who upload music to others for all I care, but many of us are sick of seeing sharing services get shut down - these services have useful, legal purposes. We're m also sick of all the fake DMCA take-downs, the "pay-up or else" letters that target innocent people, the attempts to make wifi network owners liable for how other people use their network, the extradition of young students to the USA for doing something that is legal in their own country, the SLAPP lawsuits, the constantly increasing copyright terms that lock away history from the public (yes, some songs and movies can be considered of historical value), etc.
You can disagree with this, but the fact is, people are not saying the music industry should stop using the protections that the law gives it: they're saying these protections should be taken away. They want to change the law, arguing "but it's the law" is beside the point.
And you won't convince anyone that the music industry should get protections from the law when the music industry behaves the way it does, just like if Hitler were alive you would not succeed at convincing anyone that he should have the right to own a gas chamber.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by kestasjk · 2012-03-31 22:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

Cars / guns aren't really the best analogy.. It'd be more like a shipping service that ships 10% legal goods and 90% illegal goods. If they took action to cut out the illegal stuff there wouldn't be a problem.

They also took it a step further in how they paid people who got the most downloads and got people to subscribe. Even TPB keeps a degree of separation between themselves, the illegal content, and the way they make money, but megaupload was pretty much making money directly off people uploading illegal content and getting subscribers to pay to download it quickly.

Also no-one needs TPB to distribute their personally created music.. Even if your band can't afford the miniscule hosting fees you can just host the torrent file; the whole point of bittorrent is it doesn't need sites like TPB.

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Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Skal+Tura · 2012-04-01 00:03 · Score: 1

MU was doing heck of a lot more to curb piracy than Pirate Bay has ever done ... Just saying.

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Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by rotorbudd · 2012-04-01 00:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

Ah, you had me there till Godwin's Law struck.
Gas Chamber = Ripped song?

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A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Skal+Tura · 2012-04-01 00:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

No, they should update their business plan to make most revenue from:
- Legitimate download sites (where artist gets more than 0.01% of revenue)
- Performances, ie. concerts bringing in the dough, and maybe some new innovative live performance formats for more revenue per gig
- Merchandise/fan products
- Physical media as a shelf decoration. pretty much like it is now, but saner pricing, and emphasis on showcasing it, that's why many people buy CDs/DVDs/BluRays, but also give access to digital, online copy which allows more convenient watching than putting the physical media in.
- Direct monetary gifts from fans -> who just want to support the artist, but does not necessarily need more crap etc.
- For some bands, "custom tailored" music, ie. for companies, movies etc. This is already happening but more direct and bigger scale adoption, ie. hourly rates or something like that.
Generally by increasing accessibility they should be able to monetize better.
If i want to buy an album today, i have very few choices: Physical store for media i cannot use since i don't own even a SINGLE "just a cd player", iTunes for devices which i don't own (i don't own iPhone, iPad, iPod or any other apple devices), Spotify for computer only listening (nothing to play in my car).
I need non-DRM'd MP3, FLAC or OGG format so i can play it on any of the devices i have, ie. car, phone, computer, ps3
As it stands now, i would need to change to iPhone and purchase via iTunes (at a non-sensible per track price), and change my car audio system to accept iPhone for convenient access to most of my devices. Ofc, for iTunes to work properly i need to change to Mac OSX as well which means buying a mac. This still leaves my PS3, and other DLNA devices out (or has iTunes gained DLNA capability?). No i don't want new expensive devices.
On car i only radio, usb and bluetooth.
On computers i don't even bother installing a DVD drive anymore for longer than OS installation.
I use a Nokia phone (E7, got to love the QWERTY and casing it has!)
So my options are extremely limited! In practice i listen to radio only anymore because access is so ridiculously limited.
I guess there is probably SOME option, but i really can't be arsed to search for such a solution, if i need to put in time to try and find such a solution it's not accessible enough. There is plenty of radio channels to choose from even just from FM, which is easy and convenient :)
Downside is none of the artists i really like gets no monetary gain from me directly in any fashion anymore, only thing they get is from the radio royalties get from me. I wouldn't mind buying a few albums if it meant i could listen on any device of my preference, anywhere, anytime, with or without access to internet.

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Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by TFAFalcon · 2012-04-01 00:29 · Score: 1

But you still need a site to tell people about your torrent. And RIAA will send a DMCA takedown to any site they see doing that.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 00:34 · Score: 0

I doubt GM has (or had) a VP for 'passenger side mirrors'. If the story is true, it's more likely the case that the call center operator was clueless and just said that.
It is far more likely that GM has executives in charge of safety devices (of which mirrors would be included) and executives in charge of parts quality.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by shentino · 2012-04-01 00:48 · Score: 1

Using common sense caching protocols to retain popular downloads does not an intent form. Giving higher scores to frequently accessed information is a very obvious common sense optimization.
The fact that the files that were retained the longest happened to be copyright infringing doesn't prove that MegaUpload willfully contributed to infringement.
All it means is that people really like to pirate stuff.
The only people who deserve blame are
A: The crackers who upload the stuff
B: The users who download it
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by shentino · 2012-04-01 00:51 · Score: 1

The powers that be don't care how much you do to curb piracy.
Nothing short of pledging your very soul to the cause of their profit margins will satisfy them.
The only reason MU got nailed and TPB didn't was because MU was unfortunate enough to be within reach of the feds and their politically subversive puppet masters, whereas TPB was safely blowing raspberries at the feds from across the ocean.
Believe me, if the MAFIAA could strangle TPB as badly as they did MU they'd do it in a heartbeat.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 01:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

Also no-one needs TPB to distribute their personally created music.. Even if your band can't afford the miniscule hosting fees you can just host the torrent file; the whole point of bittorrent is it doesn't need sites like TPB.
Nobody needs anything in this world but food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. The point is, people use The Pirate Bay to distribute legitimately, the number of hits that it gets (according to Alexa, the 206th most visited site in the world) make it worthwhile to put things there for distribution.
Just because you'd rather throw the baby out with the bathwater doesn't mean the rest of us want to. You don't think the RIAA would cream their jeans if they could just stop all music sharing on the internet, legit or not? You don't think they would abuse their power if given the chance? Come on. They themselves have gotten busted for the same shit.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by GmExtremacy · 2012-04-01 01:19 · Score: 1

When you make an analogy, you aren't necessarily saying, "X is the same as Y in all possible ways." You could be saying, "X is the same as Y in one or more ways."
So no, that's probably not what he was saying.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 01:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

Piracy is only illegal because the law says copying and distributing music is illegal.
Exactly. I remember reading of a US study here on /. concerning sharing music being socially acceptable (I can't fucking find it no matter what I search, so here's the link to the Danish one) that found that something like 70% of people did not see anything wrong with sharing music with family and friends. The study I'd read dialed it down even further into more specific scenarios, but that one statistic stood out.
My point is, if the vast majority of people have no moral issues sharing music online, then perhaps it's not the people that are the problem, but the law itself. The laws are supposed to reflect the social mores of the day, are they not?
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by russotto · 2012-04-01 02:29 · Score: 1

It's better that 100 guilty walk free than one innocent wrongly convicted or something along those lines is the way the quote goes.
It's better that the MPAA and all its member companies go out of business than... no, wait, just leave it as the null comparative; it's just better.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 04:33 · Score: 0

I agree. All of the public domain and orphaned works that were pirated from the public is shameful
and I'm glad to see you've sided with the right side of the cause in this matter. Bravo! God Bless!
This will be the backlash - when people really begin to see what was stolen from the public trust.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by jamstar7 · 2012-04-01 04:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why wouldn't they? They sell a product which is pirated around the world. Are the movie companies not even allowed to try to prevent this? They're not a charity. They make a product for the masses with an expectation of a returned profit.
I don't mind a movie studio making a profit. I DO mind it when that profit is federally mandated, federally guaranteed, and federally enforced. You can blather on and on about a 'free market' all you want, but when federal regulations favoritize an 'industry' that the 'free market' would let die, something is wrong. In media, there is no free market. Under a 'free market', the media companies are responsible for financing their own enforcement of their copyrights. Under current legislation and under legislation 'under consideration' that will pass no matter what, the enforcement is pawned off on the government at tax payer expense. That is not the definitition of a 'free market'. Let the media companies adapt or die, but goddammit, let them pay for enforcing their precious eternal copyrights. It's only right in a free market.

--
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by rotorbudd · 2012-04-01 04:53 · Score: 1

I wasn't really thinking gas chamber exactly equals ripped song.
I was trying to show that when Godwin's Law kicks in the discussion is affectingly over.

--
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 05:25 · Score: 0

Murder is only illegal because the law says killing people is illegal.
People who support murder are fighting to have the law changed. These people believe that since more people are born then killed killing people is OK.
Here fixed that for you.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by tqk · 2012-04-01 05:32 · Score: 1

... something like 70% of people did not see anything wrong with sharing music with family and friends.
And why should it be wrong?!? That's not commercial copying for profit. Those aren't "lost sales." It's free advertising! If family and friends like what you point at them, they'll probably go out and buy some.
I say boycott them until they turn to dust, if that's the way they want to play. They don't deserve to exist and I'm sick and tired of watching them freak out over every damned technical innovation we come up with.

--
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 06:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

They make a product for the masses with an expectation of a returned profit.
First, whether or not they have 'expectation of a returned profit' is irrelevant. Just because they planned to make money does not give them the right to make money. If I started a business selling solar-powered eggbeaters (or anything else expensive and useless that nobody wants), it is entirely fair and right that my business should fail and I don't make any money.
Second, and less obviously, the business model they have right now isn't actually to be paid for the product. The product is the creation of the original movie data. But what they insist on being paid for is every instance of the movie data being copied. These are two very different things. The creation of the original movie data is difficult and expensive and is also the thing that the movie producers actually do. However, making a copy of the movie data is something anyone can do very cheaply and easily, and it is something done not by the movie producers, but rather by the user making the copy, and the host providing a copy to be copied, and the ISP providing the bandwidth for the user and the host. The amount of labor that the movie producers put in to create the movie data is high; the amount of labor they put in when someone downloads a copy of the movie data is ZERO. I'm not against paying them for their labor, but right now their business model is to be paid for something where none of their labor is involved- and to have the government enforce that payment for them at public expense. Which is ridiculous.

Slashdot loves to rationalize piracy, no matter how little logic is applied.
Everyone else loves to rationalize intellectual property, no matter how little logic is applied.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by dryeo · 2012-04-01 06:21 · Score: 1

A free market is when things are freely for sale. This includes laws, regulations and politicians. The free market rewards the most efficient players and what can be more efficient then buying laws to put your competition out of business.
Being able to pay off politicians is often much cheaper then creating, building, and marketing a superior product and customer service is just a money sink hole.

--
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by GmExtremacy · 2012-04-01 06:25 · Score: 1

"Murder is only illegal because the law says killing people is illegal."
That's indeed true. But it's also unlikely to change. Laws are not the same thing as morals.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 07:47 · Score: 0

Slashdot loves to rationalize piracy...
No no no! We're just playing the same game they are.. you know... screw the artist? I kid I kid... Unlike the ??AAs, nobody on Slashdot wants to screw the artists out of what is rightfully theirs.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by ILongForDarkness · 2012-04-01 08:21 · Score: 1

Well to be fair when you are a content company you kind of have some interest in content protect, no?
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by ILongForDarkness · 2012-04-01 08:24 · Score: 1

How about dropbox, google docs, etc.? Are they targets too? There are so many ways of sharing things that they can't stop all of them. Heck if they roll things back to 1995 people will just start burning disks for friends again all that will change is the variety of porn that is readily available. Everything else we'll just start asking friends if they have it again.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by ILongForDarkness · 2012-04-01 08:27 · Score: 1

What you mean that you aren't in such awe of content creators that you want to worship them and make sure that their 8 figure salaries don't drop down to (the horror) 7 figures? What is a matter with you? Are you still stuck worshipping dead jewish zombies that never created any content?
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Kalriath · 2012-04-01 12:16 · Score: 1

Cars / guns aren't really the best analogy.. It'd be more like a shipping service that ships 10% legal goods and 90% illegal goods. If they took action to cut out the illegal stuff there wouldn't be a problem.
So, Western Union then?

--
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".

Countersue by sixtyeight · 2012-03-31 18:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

When do the various file-sharing services get together and collectively countersue the MPAA for obstruction of commerce, racketeering, and whatever else comes to mind when one industry gets together to choke another?

For that matter, when does the internet start to crowdfund a bounty in the form of attorneys' fees to go after these guys? Perhaps we were waiting until the ISPs implement "6 Strikes", at which point all the open public WiFi hotspots will necessarily be taken offline or passworded outside common public use.

--
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability

Re:Countersue by Trogre · 2012-03-31 18:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

The best way to get these guys is to cut off their revenue stream. Stop buying [1] their crap.
[1] By "buying" I also mean downloading, for by doing so you are endorsing it, giving it further mindshare.

--
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Re:Countersue by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:39 · Score: 1

But the drop in revenue will only be attributed to more pirating.
Re:Countersue by infurnus · 2012-03-31 18:42 · Score: 1

The best way to get these guys is to cut off their revenue stream. Stop buying [1] their crap.
[1] By "buying" I also mean downloading, for by doing so you are endorsing it, giving it further mindshare.

But the drop in revenue will only be attributed to more pirating.
Yeah. Kindly fuck off with your "stop buying/downloading" and actually get off your ass and give a shit like the rest of us.
I've contacted the EFF about issues like this, what have YOU done, mister "sit around and do jack shit"?
Re:Countersue by infurnus · 2012-03-31 18:45 · Score: 1

Sorry for cursing, I'm just really peeved about stuff like this.
I'm an indie musician
Re:Countersue by sixtyeight · 2012-03-31 18:52 · Score: 1

The best way to get these guys is to cut off their revenue stream.
While I agree that it's productive, I have to disagree with that statement as written.
Boycotting can be very effective, but it's unlikely to happen significantly with the mainstream media. I more or less boycott the industry just because I don't find it entertainment but insult; however, most people aren't there yet. Either way, taking action in law to stop organized criminal behavior that's plainly detrimenting society is also not only necessary, but an implied duty in a society of laws.
(I know, our society hasn't looked like that recently. And I posit that the lack of public involvement is a large part of why.)

--
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Re:Countersue by hairyfeet · 2012-03-31 18:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

Doesn't work, and here is why: PPT math. You see they simply go into whatever legislature they intend to corrupt with a PPT and give a spiel like this 'As you can see here our focus group says people like X and people like Y, so by this chart here you can see that we SHOULD have made X PLUS Y but since we didn't? it must be those ebil pirates argh!" and then they will simply take your money in the form of a tax, while getting any draconian law passed, after they hand out the bribes of course. See the extra price added to CDs to cover piracy in many places for example.
You see just like the banks these multinationals have a great "heads i win tails you lose' sort of thing going and there is pretty much not a damned thing you can do to stop it. After all it doesn't matter what the people say or do, the elected officials simply ignore them if it comes down to them or a multinational. throw them out, you just replace shill A with shill B, no change at all. Hell I don't know a single person that has bought one of their CDs at retail in years, we all buy indie artists or pick them up at a used CD shop, see it make ANY difference?

--
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Countersue by javascriptjunkie · 2012-03-31 19:10 · Score: 1

Dude, this is Slashdot. It's okay to let one rip occasionally.
Re:Countersue by sixtyeight · 2012-03-31 19:19 · Score: 1

After all it doesn't matter what the people say or do, the elected officials simply ignore them if it comes down to them or a multinational. throw them out, you just replace shill A with shill B, no change at all.
"Well there's yer problem, buddy!"
We're encountering the symptoms of a lack of political accountability to the law, and to the People.
See my above link for a [darn good] patch for that.

--
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Re:Countersue by Maow · 2012-03-31 20:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

The best way to get these guys is to cut off their revenue stream. Stop buying [1] their crap.
[1] By "buying" I also mean downloading, for by doing so you are endorsing it, giving it further mindshare.

But the drop in revenue will only be attributed to more pirating.
Yeah. Kindly fuck off with your "stop buying/downloading" and actually get off your ass and give a shit like the rest of us.
I've contacted the EFF about issues like this, what have YOU done, mister "sit around and do jack shit"?
Sorry for cursing, I'm just really peeved about stuff like this.
I'm an indie musician
The ills of the entertainment industry are merely symptoms of a greater problem.
Boycotting in all forms is an excellent plan, while considering options to deal with the real issues (bribery, corruption, crippled economy, laws by the 1% for the 1%, etc.)
When facing civilization-challenging crises, entertainment is something that's rather easy to ignore / boycott.
We're likely on the same side, but I see entertainment as the circuses part of "bread & circuses" and seek farther-ranging solutions, which ought to trickle down into the content industries, copyright, and patents.
Of course, I myself am not exactly sure what to do, and expect any effective solution to be ... messy as hell, probably devastating to many, and entirely unpalatable. At some point, our status quo will be describable in those same terms, and by then maybe some ideas will be on the table with a critical mass of support behind them. Not there yet...
Re:Countersue by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 20:18 · Score: 1

The best way to get these guys is to cut off their revenue stream. Stop buying [1] their crap.
[1] By "buying" I also mean downloading, for by doing so you are endorsing it, giving it further mindshare.

But the drop in revenue will only be attributed to more pirating.
Yeah. Kindly fuck off with your "stop buying/downloading" and actually get off your ass and give a shit like the rest of us.
I've contacted the EFF about issues like this, what have YOU done, mister "sit around and do jack shit"?
Wow, you've actually written an e-mail complaining about the MPAA? They must be panicking right now, and in a day or two they will dismantle their organization out of fear of you sending even more e-mails. You, sir, deserve a medal. In fact I have just contacted the Queen of England and Her Majesty says your Knighthood is well underway. Slashdot is truly blessed to have someone like you on our userbase.
Re:Countersue by infurnus · 2012-03-31 20:28 · Score: 1

Wasn't really about the MPAA, but nice strawman anyways
Re:Countersue by Trogre · 2012-03-31 20:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

So am I, on both counts.
And to answer your earlier question about what I am doing about these abusive organizations: I have stopped giving them money. On the rare occasion I buy music, I buy indie. If everyone did that, then we wouldn't have this problem.

--
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Re:Countersue by Trogre · 2012-03-31 20:54 · Score: 2

That's not my point. My point is this - if they're not making any more money, they won't be able to afford to keep crooked senators and buy horrible legislation.
I'm not trying to make a point to the RIAA/MPAA by not giving them money - I'm trying to gut them completely.

--
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Re:Countersue by ThePeices · 2012-03-31 21:06 · Score: 5, Informative

"But the drop in revenue will only be attributed to more pirating."
The movie industry has been doing quite well indeed.
Just look at their profits the past ten years. They are breaking profit records year after year. The movie industry has never made so much money in its history.
And all of this in the face of rampant piracy for many years.
What does that tell you?
Re:Countersue by TheTurtlesMoves · 2012-03-31 21:18 · Score: 2

People still like going to the theaters.

--
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Re:Countersue by gsgriffin · 2012-03-31 21:33 · Score: 1

Now that is a creative twist...crowd source to get enough money to pay lawyers.not sure if that sis well in my stomach.

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jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
Re:Countersue by WCLPeter · 2012-03-31 22:02 · Score: 5, Interesting

They are breaking profit revenue records year after year.
Sorry, had to fix that for you. No movie ever made has ever turned a profit, none. In fact, some world famous movies are such colossal failures they weren't even able to pay the actors who starred in them.
Re:Countersue by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 23:35 · Score: 0

Willing to share some of that kool-aid with us?
Re:Countersue by thejynxed · 2012-03-31 23:56 · Score: 1

Yes, and good luck, with all of the millions upon millions throwing their wallets to the content industry via iTunes alone, let alone via concert tickets (Ticketmaster and LiveNation, both fully controlled by the RIAA and account for almost all concert ticket sales in the USA and its territories, simply by owning the contracts with the venues).
This will never stop as long as anyone wants their music, wants it now, and is willing to pay for it.

--
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
Re:Countersue by GmExtremacy · 2012-04-01 01:13 · Score: 1

Huh? Why can't you do both?
How do you know he isn't doing both? Not buying or paying any attention to the garbage they produce is also a good method. Just make sure to convince others to do the same (which I try to do).
Re:Countersue by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 01:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you'd click his links, you'd see that they're totally accurate, and also widely accepted practices within the industry. Do you know why all the big stars get a piece of the gross income instead of a piece of the net income? Because, on paper, every movie has lost money, regardless.
Once you hear that such films as Rain Man, Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and the Tim Burton Batman "lost money" according to their studios bullshit accounting practices, it's hard to take any of their claims of "lost revenue" due to piracy seriously.
And it's not limited to the MPAA, either. The RIAA argued that Limewire caused them $75 TRILLION in damages. How does anybody credibly believe anything that comes out of these guys mouths?
Re:Countersue by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 01:50 · Score: 1

I stopped buying music completely. Now I just buy band merchandise and go to shows as often as I can. I figure the bands I care about get a far bigger piece of that then their iTunes or Amazon sales...
Re:Countersue by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 01:59 · Score: 0

This will never stop as long as anyone wants their music, wants it now, and is willing to pay for it.

As long as this bullshit continues, the number of people willing to pay for it will decline year after year. Something like 70% of people think sharing music with family and friends is socially acceptable, and this is after a decade of busting college kids and stay at home moms for millions of dollars in copyright infringement cases.
Back in the 90's the RIAA could bury their head in the sand and say that most people "didn't know" what they were doing is illegal. There are going to be some bitter, bitter tears on that day when they finally realize that it's not that people "don't know", it's that they "don't care". When the community at large has no moral compunction with stiffing you, it's probably time to examine your own part in why that is.
When a law makes the actions of the majority of the population criminal, then it's not the population that is the problem, it is the law itself.
Re:Countersue by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 02:03 · Score: 1

Yeah, same here. If normal people have to band together by the thousands just to compete on equal footing with these megacorporations with their lawyer brigades, then maybe it's time we examined the inequity of the justice system in this country.
Of course, that'll never happen.
Re:Countersue by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 02:39 · Score: 0

Yes, Big Content uses focus groups and maths to predict expected profits, and then blame piracy when it fails, purely based on the expected profits. I'm sure the torrent of X PLUS Y on pirate bay with 3 million complete downloads never factored into the equation.
Hey here's an idea, pick any random shitty movie and nobody pirate it at all - no torrents, no file hosting downloads, no YouTube clips or anything. Then when it fails (which it surely will because Hollywood makes such shitty movies that nobody would EVER bother going to the trouble to download it illegally) see if they still blame piracy.
That's realistic, because movie pirates are all kind-hearted angels who aren't greedy at all, they just want to prove that "sharing" a movie with their 30 million closest online friends doesn't really hurt anyone, so I'm sure they'll all be willing to comply for just this one movie, right?
Re:Countersue by nurb432 · 2012-04-01 02:50 · Score: 0

*AAs have more money to spend to grind them into the ground in a war of attrition. Even when you are right, sometimes its more prudent to close up shop.
I also expect open WiFI to be a target at some point in the future, perhaps even becoming a crime if they buy laws to support it.

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Re:Countersue by blind+biker · 2012-04-01 04:06 · Score: 1

By "buying" I also mean downloading, for by doing so you are endorsing it, giving it further mindshare.
Yeah, well... see, that line of thinking sounds less and less convincing every subsequent time I read it. At this point, I just categorize it as ineffective high-horse moralizing.
Oh, I know it looks good - it looks great - but sadly, it's not true. Whether we download copyrighted content or not, it makes not a lick of difference.

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Re:Countersue by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 04:46 · Score: 0

Its tax evasion via accounting. Every big company does it.
Re:Countersue by sixtyeight · 2012-04-01 05:19 · Score: 1

That's not my point. My point is this - if they're not making any more money, they won't be able to afford to keep crooked senators and buy horrible legislation.
I'm not trying to make a point to the RIAA/MPAA by not giving them money - I'm trying to gut them completely.
Now that is a very sound approach!
In order for it to be effective, we'd need to stop the funding completely. Encourage a boycott via internet ("Haven't given the MPAA/RIAA one red cent since [date]" in .sig lines? Mass campaigns to get people to abstain from funding them?

--
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Re:Countersue by tqk · 2012-04-01 05:42 · Score: 1

A Nazi on a train is ranting nonstop about the Jews. Someone pipes up and says:
"Yes, and those cyclists, too!"
The Nazi thinks a minute and says:
"Why the cyclists?"
To which the other person replies:
"Why the Jews?"

--
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:Countersue by bogie · 2012-04-01 06:37 · Score: 1

Gee wonder why you posted as a coward? Coward. Oh and this is modded up because...

--
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Re:Countersue by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 08:16 · Score: 0

But when Joe Schmoe does it, he loses everything and a gets a few years in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
If anyone was under the illusion that the corporations haven't twisted everything in this world, to include it's governments, to benefit solely them at the expense of humanity as a whole, I can't understand how they continue to be after the events of the last 4-5 years. Corporations are now super-citizens possessing more rights than actual citizens.
America! Fuck Yeah!!
Re:Countersue by hairyfeet · 2012-04-01 11:24 · Score: 1

Thanks bro, I so rarely get to use this in a sentence...WHOOSH! Kinda missed the point I was getting at which is this: if you do not give them your money they will take it by force of government and you have NO say in the matter. the people said NO! to 150 year copyrights, the people said NO! to bailouts, the people said NO! to the fed making their money less valuable with QE1 and QE2, the people said NO! to continuing the wars killing our kids....see a pattern there friend?
As the late great philosopher George Carlin put it "Its over, the game is rigged, its never gonna get any better, because that is how the owners of this country want it" and if you ever do manage to make even a teeny tiny scratch in their corporate profits they'll have their MSM propaganda machine, which makes the old Soviet system look like a free press, label you a terrorist kiddie fiddling monster, and then nobody will listen to you because the public believes what they see on TV.
So you can ban and boycott all you want, never download so much as a single MP3, they'll just add a 30% surcharge to your CDs, followed by a 40% surcharge to your DVDs and USB HDDs and if thay don't get enough profits from that they will just find more things to tax, maybe a 40% surcharge on every single device capable of playing a video or a song? That is what happens when a system is corrupted, they can use the force of government to make sure they NEVER lose, no matter what the people say or do. Sadly the system is so badly rigged now I doubt one of the top 5% could lose if they tried, they'd just be handed someone else's money to make up for their losses.

--
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Countersue by Kalriath · 2012-04-01 12:29 · Score: 1

When a law makes the actions of the majority of the population criminal, then it's not the population that is the problem, it is the law itself.
Disagree completely. Almost every person speeds on the roads, and yet that continues to be illegal. That's not a problem with the law - speeding should be illegal, considering the high risk it places on other road users. But under your theory, speeding should be legal simply because lots of people do it. Well, no.

--
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Re:Countersue by Trogre · 2012-04-01 12:46 · Score: 1

Interesting.
Do you feel the same way about voting for minor parties in government elections?

--
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Re:Countersue by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 15:18 · Score: 1

I don't consider file-sharing the life or death situation that most reasonable people would consider a valid exception to the rule.
Besides, is speeding in itself a crime? From what I've always been told, minor parking and traffic violations (to include non-insane levels of speeding) are not technically crimes but civil infractions, which is why things like speeding tickets don't generally show up on your criminal record.
Besides, some studies have shown that increasing speed limits by a small amount actually decreased accidents, whereas lowering them a small amount increased their frequency. Also, the lowered speed limit was ignored by more than half of the motorists, but so was the higher speed, as well...people generally drove at the speed they were comfortable with regardless.
The speed limits being lower sure does increase the number of people they can ticket, though, doesn't it? I suspect this may be the higher motivation in some places.
Re:Countersue by Kalriath · 2012-04-02 09:05 · Score: 1

I wasn't comparing file sharing with life or death situations - just saying that there's a flaw in generalising in the way you did which opens the possibility for someone to tear down your argument.
Just as a disclaimer, in the country I'm in, speeding is something prosecuted by the police not the local councils, and speed limits are largely uniformly set at 50km/h, 80km/h, and 100km/h for urban streets, minor highways, and motorways respectively. We also have a largely accepted 10km/h "margin of error" in which the police will not generally prosecute for unless you are near a school around start and finish times (where the margin of error becomes zero). It's a largely sane system, really.

--
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Re:Countersue by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-02 20:26 · Score: 0

This joke is quite a failure, as presumably the Nazi has just been explaining "Why the Jews".

Thats great news. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:26 · Score: 0, Troll

Breaking the law is breaking the law.. I can't wait for the coming DNS blocks. Finally a software developer or musician wont have to worry about starting a business and getting ripped off by people who want to enjoy his work for free.

Re:Thats great news. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:29 · Score: 0, Insightful

Breaking the law is breaking the law! Turn in anyone on your block hiding filthy Jews today!
Re:Thats great news. by TemperedAlchemist · 2012-03-31 18:31 · Score: 2

Yeah, that's what musicians do. Start businesses.
Ozzy Osborne soda is the best.
Re:Thats great news. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:43 · Score: 0

Breaking the law is breaking the law... unless you work for the government or a large corporation.
Re:Thats great news. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:56 · Score: 0, Troll

Infringing copyright to consume and enjoy material someone else has produced is equivalent to "saving jews"? Dude.. you are fucked up in the head.
Why don't you hire an artist to produce content for you? Then you own it, you can do whatever with it, including sharing it with others for free.
Re:Thats great news. by rohan972 · 2012-03-31 20:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

Infringing copyright to consume and enjoy material someone else has produced is equivalent to "saving jews"? Dude.. you are fucked up in the head.
The statement being replied to did not express the wrongness of copyright infringement, but of breaking the law. If the law is the basis on which you decide morality then it would seem you would have to conclude that saving Jews from Nazi persecution when they were in government was an immoral action since it was illegal. If you can't abide by that conclusion then you need a more thorough justification to claim that copyright infringement is wrong.

An average high school student could be expected to understand that point without having it explained. I pity you, since either your intellect is insufficient to understand the point or your character is insufficient to require you to make an honest argument. Both are serious deficiencies.

Why don't you hire an artist to produce content for you? Then you own it, you can do whatever with it, including sharing it with others for free.
My wife is a musician and we are quite ok without locking the internet down. Recording artists from major labels now put their songs on youtube for free and still sell copies. Why they are still getting bent out of shape over file sharing is beyond me.

--
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Re:Thats great news. by hawkinspeter · 2012-03-31 21:26 · Score: 1

Breaking the law is only breaking the law if you get caught. Otherwise, you're innocent.

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You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Re:Thats great news. by jones_supa · 2012-03-31 21:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

Breaking the law is breaking the law.. I can't wait for the coming DNS blocks. Finally a software developer or musician wont have to worry about starting a business and getting ripped off by people who want to enjoy his work for free.
MPAA may be full of shit, but at the same time it's annoying how anti-piracy comments always get robotically modded down in Slashdot. I just think it's good to look objectively at both sides of the coin.
Re:Thats great news. by GmExtremacy · 2012-04-01 01:07 · Score: 1

Then just get rid of the internet. Someone could use it to infringe upon someone's copyright (Oh, the horror!), after all!
Re:Thats great news. by AngryDeuce · 2012-04-01 02:30 · Score: 2

Recording artists from major labels now put their songs on youtube for free and still sell copies. Why they are still getting bent out of shape over file sharing is beyond me.
They're not. The middle-men, i.e., the RIAA, is the one getting bent out of shape.
The internet has basically eroded their hold on distribution and they're fucking pissed off about it. The whole "stealing from artists" line is just propaganda, the RIAA has been fucking stealing from artists since it's inception. Here's a suit from just a few years ago that, using their own calculations when going after individual copyright-infringers, found $6 BILLION in damages due to piracy by the CRIA (the Canadian wing of the RIAA). They later settled for $45 million, less than 1% of the original damages.
And then there's their latest legal arguments. In their case against Redigi, the RIAA argued that an MP3 downloaded from the internet was not owned, it was licensed, and therefore First Sale Doctrine did not apply. That's nothing new; we've heard that argument a billion times. The funny part is, while that case with Redigi was being argued, the RIAA was being sued for not paying disco group Sister Sledge their contracted royalties. See, they were contracted to receive a small percentage of "sales" revenue, and a higher percentage of "licensing" revenue. The RIAA, in a fit of irony it seems, argued that the music they sell online isn't licensed, it's sold, and thus, the group was not due the higher percentage of royalties for their online music 'sales'.
So, according to the RIAA, music sold online is both licensed and sold, depending on whichever argument justifies their thievery in open court.
Anyone defending these fucking assholes should have their head examined.
Re:Thats great news. by Thing+1 · 2012-04-01 02:39 · Score: 1, Troll

MPAA may be full of shit, but at the same time it's annoying how anti-piracy comments always get robotically modded down in Slashdot. I just think it's good to look objectively at both sides of the coin.
Both sides of WHAT coin? "Anti-piracy" is "anti-sharing". A sane society shares ideas. Copyright was supposed to be a temporary monopoly on the act of copying so that creators (not corporations) could gain some financial benefit before the work entered the public domain, about a generation after it was created. Now, there's no such deal; no work has entered the public domain since 1923, and they are unlikely ever to as long as Disney keeps buying copyright extensions (20 years every 18 years that go by, for the past two such).
An AC compared obeying copyright law to rounding up Jews. That is a bit over the top, but look at the erosion of liberties in the pursuit of one small industry's profits! The other side of that coin is a return to Constitutionality, and there is no compromise when it comes to the supreme law of the land. So, I suppose look at both sides, but choosing the unconstitutional side would not be beneficial to society.

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I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Thats great news. by Ihmhi · 2012-04-01 03:33 · Score: 1

Oh man, the bottlecap could be made of rubber and shaped like a bat's head and you'd open it by biting it off.
I would buy it by the case.

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:Thats great news. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 04:13 · Score: 0

The statement being replied to did not express the wrongness of copyright infringement, but of breaking the law. If the law is the basis on which you decide morality then it would seem you would have to conclude that saving Jews from Nazi persecution when they were in government was an immoral action since it was illegal. If you can't abide by that conclusion then you need a more thorough justification to claim that copyright infringement is wrong.
An average high school student could be expected to understand that point without having it explained. I pity you, since either your intellect is insufficient to understand the point or your character is insufficient to require you to make an honest argument. Both are serious deficiencies.
Stop blabbering. You only show yourself to be a retarded person.
You cant just make shit up. You have to actually demonstrate that they are morally equivalent. They are not. No sane person would believe that infringing copyright for personal entertainment and joy is morally equivalent to saving a human life.
Re:Thats great news. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 04:27 · Score: 0

A sane society shares ideas.
We already share ideas. We publish them in these things called scientific journals. You can even purchase books which explain these ideas in a clear and lucid style. But even otherwise forcing someone to share something is also what a sane society does not do.
Trying to spin downloading an episode of The Office as "sharing ideas" is ridiculous. Though entitled people such as yourself already assume that you are free to enjoy other peoples hard work by breaking copyright law. I don't get why people are opposed to enforcing laws. If you don't like the laws get them changed. Ah.. but that is too hard, because that would actually require some amount of self-sacrifice. I suppose you want others to do that for you too.
So stick it to the man, and get the makup woman or the spot boy or the lighting technician fired. We already know who gets fired when the revenue stops. It ain't the CEO.
Re:Thats great news. by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-04-01 04:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

MPAA may be full of shit, but at the same time it's annoying how anti-piracy comments always get robotically modded down in Slashdot. I just think it's good to look objectively at both sides of the coin.
To reiterate what the previous response has already pointed out, the comments that get modded down are not flagged as trolls because they're anti-piracy, it's because they are actually trolls. The arguments they put forth almost invariably consist entirely of some combination of rhetorical exaggeration, false analogies, tautological question begging and unjustified moral indignation. They provide no reasoning, they're just pure flame bait.
The main problem with the "anti-piracy" position is that there is almost nothing legitimate they can ask for that they do not already have. The existing laws go so far above and beyond what is reasonable to "fight piracy" that anyone arguing in favor of further extensions is inherently a dangerous extremist seemingly incapable of articulating a justifiable position. They advance an unsustainable framework of debate over which the only possible subject of compromise is the magnitude and timing of further increases in enforcement powers, rather than facilitating necessary and productive efforts to mitigate the outrageous damage already being caused by the legislation that their previous efforts have pushed through against all reason and justice.
Re:Thats great news. by Thing+1 · 2012-04-01 05:01 · Score: 1

This isn't about women or boys getting fired. This is about principles. Copyright originally had a limited term and it no longer effectively does, to society's detriment. I'm not spinning any sort of downloading of any specific show or piece of media. I'm saying there's a beast in Washington that is destroying our rights. And it won't stop until it has sucked all the gold off the table, like in Cowboys and Aliens. We've tried changing the laws, see Eldred v. Ashcroft.
Just like the laws against pot; you can choose to follow them and have your health suffer; or you can choose to break an unjust law, and help to cure the tumors that are constantly being created in your body. Knowing full well that the laws will likely not change during your lifetime; so what do the laws matter? Your health is far more important than some bureaucrat thousands of miles away defending Heart's forests, or Dupont's nylons, by unconstitutionally violating your rights.

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I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Thats great news. by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-04-01 05:09 · Score: 2

OK, this is a great example of this so let's go through it and I'll explain:

We already share ideas. We publish them in these things called scientific journals. You can even purchase books which explain these ideas in a clear and lucid style. But even otherwise forcing someone to share something is also what a sane society does not do.
Copyright is a prohibition on sharing. You are now claiming that its absence would be to force people to share. This is obviously a lie; something is not mandatory just because it isn't prohibited.

Trying to spin downloading an episode of The Office as "sharing ideas" is ridiculous. Though entitled people such as yourself already assume that you are free to enjoy other peoples hard work by breaking copyright law. I don't get why people are opposed to enforcing laws.
An unsupported conclusory statement, then an ad hominem attack followed by appeal to authority and a non-sequitur. You're really racking up the points there -- and the first three are pretty obvious, so let me just point out the last one in case anyone is wondering: There is a difference between "knowingly and willfully distributing The Office should be copyright infringement" and "all websites that host user generated content should be shut down, including the ones that process DMCA take downs, because users post a lot of infringing material."
The thing people object to is not "enforcing the laws" it is "enforcing the laws in a way that causes massive collateral damage to innocent third parties and reinforces the RIAA and MPAA distribution cartels by destroying new distribution channels that allow independent artists to get free exposure." Find an enforcement method with a sufficiently low false positive rate that it doesn't significantly impede fair use or innocent people and you won't hear the same objections.

If you don't like the laws get them changed. Ah.. but that is too hard, because that would actually require some amount of self-sacrifice. I suppose you want others to do that for you too.
Condescension combined with incompetence. A new low!
Hint: The way laws get changed starts with people communicating the problems with existing laws to other people, until enough of them understand and are vocal about the issue that Congress feels enough pressure to actually do something about it. That does eventually require people to put in some effort, but your sarcastic bloviating has provided no evidence that people are unwilling to actually do that.

So stick it to the man, and get the makup woman or the spot boy or the lighting technician fired. We already know who gets fired when the revenue stops. It ain't the CEO.
This is so flagrantly incorrect that it makes me suspect that I'm being trolled. You can't make a movie without a support crew, and the CEO has no job if he isn't making movies. Moreover, they're more likely to fire the CEO for missing earnings estimates than they are likely to stop making movies -- and let's not forget for a second that Hollywood continues to set revenue records almost every year.
Which isn't at all to say that the lighting tech doesn't have his job on the chopping block -- it's just not at all due to piracy. Rather, it's due to the studios being so consolidated that it's more profitable to make fewer movies that each have a higher gross than it is to make more movies which compete with the studio's own competing films for the same entertainment dollars. You want more lighting tech jobs, break out the antitrust laws and bust up the studios so that you have more studios to make more movies.
Re:Thats great news. by Scarletdown · 2012-04-01 07:14 · Score: 1

My wife is a musician and we are quite ok without locking the internet down.
Cool. Since you're so pro-sharing... post a link to the mp3s once she releases her music. I'll make sure everyone gets access to it and when she makes $0.0 we'll see how she likes "sharing".

Recording artists from major labels now put their songs on youtube for free and still sell copies.
Wow.. so someone got robbed and he _STILL_ has some money left in his wallet ! What the fuck? See ! He still has money ! Wow ! Isn't that a miracle ! Stealing is good !
You people are so full of shit.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/22/author-raises-1m-self-publish-webcomic
Producers of the fun little web comic known as Order of the Stick have the entire series available for free on their web site, effectively giving it away to anyone who wants to download the individual pages to their computers. But despite this, they still managed to raise $1,000,000 from fans who liked their work enough to support them so they can self publish a collected volume of their series.

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This space unintentionally left blank.
Re:Thats great news. by Travelsonic · 2012-04-01 08:48 · Score: 1

If all you have to rely on are absurd hypotheticals, and hypothetical hypocrisy, you're sunk. Now sod off.

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If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Re:Thats great news. by rohan972 · 2012-04-01 19:40 · Score: 1

You have to actually demonstrate that they are morally equivalent.
No I don't, because nobody in this thread has claimed that they are morally equivalent. You're obviously having trouble understanding this, so I'll try to give you a better explanation.

This AC in a post titled "Thats great news" stated that "Breaking the law is breaking the law." making (in context) a direct implication that breaching copyright is wrong because it is against the law.

This AC posted "Breaking the law is breaking the law! Turn in anyone on your block hiding filthy Jews today!"

The implication in the second AC's post is not that saving Jews is equivalent to copyright infringement but that the legal status of an action is not a definitive indicator of it's moral status.

The original argument is:
[Breaking the law] is [wrong]
[Copyright infringement] is [Breaking the law]
therefore
[Copyright infringement] is [wrong]

The reply is (expounded and adjusted for sarcasm):
[Saving jews] is [right]
[Saving jews] was [Breaking the law]
therefore the statement:
"[Breaking the law] is [wrong]" is incorrect.

If you persist in "not understanding" this point, I will assume you are a troll and won't reply again, because I don't see how anybody could be simultaneously that stupid and able to type.

I will also reply to this AC post here. Everyone already has access, my wife's music is on youtube. I won't be posting a link for you to troll her page, but she does what she can to get as many people as possible to listen to it. If they like it, they can also follow the links to the paid downloads.

Recording artists from major labels now put their songs on youtube for free and still sell copies.
Wow.. so someone got robbed and he _STILL_ has some money left in his wallet ! What the fuck? See ! He still has money ! Wow ! Isn't that a miracle ! Stealing is good !
So authorized downloading from the copyright holders is stealing now too, is it? Amazing. You should tell VEVO. Listening to the radio must be stealing too, right? No wonder you guys post AC.

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http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Re:Thats great news. by rohan972 · 2012-04-01 19:50 · Score: 1

They're not. The middle-men, i.e., the RIAA, is the one getting bent out of shape.
There is a fair bit of overlap between the RIAA and VEVO. Effectively the organizations putting songs on youtube are the same ones complaining about downloading. It's quite bizarre. The behavior you've pointed out is unquestionably dishonest. What I'm pointing out is that they seem to be actually crazy, and I mean that in the padded cell and medication sense.

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http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Re:Thats great news. by TranquilVoid · 2012-04-03 13:57 · Score: 1

Copyright originally had a limited term and it no longer effectively does, to society's detriment. [...] like in Cowboys and Aliens.
Your arguments seem to revolve around the length of copyright (which I agree is currently stupid), yet tellingly your example is a movie from last year. I'd wager that 99% of pirated material is from the last decade. Even if copyrights expired after the original 14 years, this conflict would be largely unchanged.

Just like the laws against pot [...] cure the tumors
Similarly, you've chosen an edge case, when 99% of marijuana use is recreational. Even if medicinal use was legalised, this conflict would be largely unchanged.
Re:Thats great news. by TranquilVoid · 2012-04-03 15:31 · Score: 1

Copyright is a prohibition on sharing. You are now claiming that its absence would be to force people to share. This is obviously a lie; something is not mandatory just because it isn't prohibited.
You're doing the same thing. Copyright is not forcing people to not share, it just gives them the right to choose how they share.

The thing people object to is not "enforcing the laws" it is "enforcing the laws in a way that causes massive collateral damage
I'm not so sure. There is a wide array of opinions but many seem to argue that copyright itself is unnatural and should be abolished. The GP seems to be responding, or assuming, that. This stance is more interesting to debate than "big lobby conglomerate behaves unethically".

Rather, it's due to the studios being so consolidated that it's more profitable to make fewer movies that each have a higher gross
Agreed, capitalism and globalisation seem to head towards monopolies. With instant global distribution the world needs less movies and musicians - we can choose the best worldwide, not just in our village.
I appreciate your thoughtful post, but I think there's something to the modding complaints. In most discussions there are far less trolls than people believe (the old incompetence vs malice thing) and it's really tricky to try to see an opposing viewpoint as 'interesting perspective' rather than 'unbelievably stupid'. Further, almost all comments make use of fallacies, and if you disagree with the comment this will really stand out. In fact, being more on the anti-piracy side myself, your post revealed a few mistakes in the GP that my mind naturally skipped over.
What I see are plenty of pro-piracy (or anti-**AA), sarcastic and exaggerated one-liners that get modded +5 when to me they are throw-away lines that don't contribute to the debate. In an emotionally-charged topic such as copyright modders are more inclined to use negative mods which just ends up silencing the minority opinion.
Re:Thats great news. by Thing+1 · 2012-04-04 01:33 · Score: 1

I intentionally chose that analogy because it was a recent work that people who were exposed to it would understand. And you're right, I did consider that the reference I chose was not yet in the public domain. That doesn't really seem "tellingly" to me. And with the laws on pot, it's not an edge case; humans are social creatures, and we like to be around other humans. You can't really separate "recreational" from "healing" in a similar way that you can't separate "recreational" from "making offspring"; when you prolong your life, it feels good. We're wired that way. See the documentary "What if Cannabis Cured Cancer?".

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I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Thats great news. by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-04-08 06:56 · Score: 1

You're doing the same thing. Copyright is not forcing people to not share, it just gives them the right to choose how they share.
I think it's pretty fair to say that copyright forces people other than the copyright holder to not share (without the copyright holder's permission). The key is in understanding what copyright does: An author can decide whether to share the work whether the copyright has expired or not. Even without a copyright, the author can post the manuscript on the internet and share it with whoever they like or stick in a safe and never share it with anyone. Copyright is not about what the copyright holder can do, it's about what other people can do. If there is no copyright, anyone with a copy of the work can share it with anyone. If there is copyright, those people can only do so with the copyright holder's authorization, i.e. they're forced not to share without authorization.
Obviously the would-be copyright holder has an interest in the latter outcome, because if everyone else is forced not to share then the copyright holder has a monopoly and can charge a monopoly rent for copies of the work. But saying that the former outcome is "forcing the copyright holder to share" has the same flavor as saying that not prohibiting Sonic.net from building a fiber network in an area already served by Comcast is "forcing Comcast to share" the market for internet service: It presupposes the existence of some legitimate right on the part of the would-be monopoly holder to exclude others from the market. Which makes it a frivolous argument in support of the creation or maintenance of such a right, because it's question begging. The argument takes the form "copyright holders should have a right to force others not to share copyrighted works because copyright holders should not be forced to allow others to share copyrighted works." The reasoning is entirely circular; it assumes the existence and legitimacy of the right it purports to justify the existence and legitimacy of.

I'm not so sure. There is a wide array of opinions but many seem to argue that copyright itself is unnatural and should be abolished. The GP seems to be responding, or assuming, that. This stance is more interesting to debate than "big lobby conglomerate behaves unethically".
I don't mean to suggest that no one has ever advocated the abolition of copyright, but those people are a small (if vocal) minority. Hardly anyone is going to support the proposition that creators should never be compensated even for the commercial exploitation of their works, and none of those people have the political power to actually accomplish it.
The real questions are what the contours of copyright should look like: How much copyright terms should be reduced, how best to realign penalties for entirely noncommercial use like P2P so as to be commensurate with the act rather than wildly disproportionate, how to mitigate the collateral damage and harm to innovation caused by overly aggressive copyright enforcement measures, etc.
The problem with the "anti-piracy" position is that most of the specific complaints people have about copyright enforcement are not in the nature of objecting to copyright enforcement whatsoever, but rather objecting to specific flaws: Lack of due process, presumption of guilt, prior restraints, excessively many false positives, outrageous penalties, harm to innovation, etc. I have never seen self-proclaimed anti-piracy crusaders actually address these issues. To the extent they even recognize the existence of a concern, the response is almost universally to downplay its significance rather than propose any effective method to actually address it.
Even to the extent that some are interested in arguing against the absolutist no-copyright-whatsoever position, it seems like the arguments they produce are not particularly productive. I mean what's with the one liners? If all you have to say is in the nature of "pirates can go to hell" or "authors

The Founding Fathers by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:28 · Score: 0

The Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves. Technology has changed. The laws have only gotten more complex and far-reaching...

This is why America needs the Affordable Care Act by l0ungeb0y · 2012-03-31 18:38 · Score: 5, Funny

The Affordable Care Act failing to pass muster in the Supreme Court would imperil the planned 2013 Legislative Lobby agenda by the RIAA and MPAA to introduce that Affordable Media Act (AMA) which would provide Government Subsidies to help keep Blu-Ray and Access to Media Streaming Services at existing Prices in exchange for the requirement for all American Tax Payers to show proof of the purchase of at least $500 per year in Digital Media from any one of a number of participants in a Government run Media Marketplace (member including Walmart, iTunes Music Store, Amazon and others) or pay a tax penalty of $100,000.00 or 10 years imprisonment since it can be assumed that by not buying media from an authorized Marketplace Member, you are engaged in Copyright Infringement.

American's want online media -- let's provide it to them in a lawful and controlled manner.

For once the MAFIAA may be right.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:38 · Score: 0, Troll

Americans should not longer tolerate those damn corporations who are (to quote from the MPAA 'fact sheet' mentioned in the article) "All About the Money". Those sorts of corporations should be put out of business immediately, their assets seized, and all their executives and board members rounded up and thrown in jail, with their personal assets confiscated or frozen as well for good measure. I believe Fortune magazine has a convenient list that would make a good starting point...

Re:Doesn't really matter by Cito · 2012-03-31 18:42 · Score: 1

100% spot on! I did the same about 6 years ago, I cut cable and never looked back I also run XBMC with icefilms plugin and have 12mb dsl with newsgroup access and I have a demonoid account and instead of a DVR I use a feature in uTorrent called RSS Downloader. I give utorrent a list of movies and tv shows I want and it automatically downloads them weekly for me, stores them on an shared external usb hard drive which my XBMC box can see so with so many shows saved in my uTorrent RSS Downloader I get new tv shows daily all commercial free zero spam! spam free tv is the only way to watch anymore!

April Fools Day? by kelarius · 2012-03-31 18:47 · Score: 1

WTF? It's 4/1, it's not allowed to have real news on 4/1!

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Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things

Re:This is why America needs the Affordable Care A by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:47 · Score: 0

Ha ha! You can't fool me! It's April Fools! Oh, wait...

DMCA safe harbor status by billcopc · 2012-03-31 18:47 · Score: 4, Interesting

I don't know all of these services, but doesn't the DMCA's safe harbor provision exempt them from this sort of witch hunt prosecution, as long as DMCA reports are handled in a timely manner ? You could receive a thousand such reports a day, as long as you promptly take down the content (or challenge false claims), you're supposed to be in the clear, as far as the law is concerned.

I've received such complaints in the past, when one of my hosting clients had their site compromised and was used as a warez drop. I fixed the problem, nuked the offending files and never heard of it again. Given that I'm currently in the process of setting up such a file host (no payments though), I'm a bit concerned about this legal abuse. Youtube allows user uploads, and honors DMCA takedowns, and they seem to be doing just fine. Both sites are hosting user-created content. Both have the potential to carry copyrighted material. Both generate ad revenue from their traffic. What makes a filehost any different ?

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-Billco, Fnarg.com

Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:52 · Score: 0

What makes them different is the amount of bribes that they have or have not funneled into the coffers of the various Congresscritters, judges, lawyers, and others in the interconnected web of privilege that runs America.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by SuricouRaven · 2012-03-31 19:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's vague enough for lawyers to argue over. The problem is that DMCA takedowns are of limited effectiveness in such a dynamic environment: Take one down, someone will upload a new one in a few seconds. The legal case against Megaupload hinged on a technicality: They took the files down on request, but didn't also take down duplicates of the same file uploaded by someone else, even though they could (as they used file-level dedupe) have done so trivially. It isn't entirely clear what the responsibilities of a service provider are any more: The DMCA doesn't get into the technical implications of hashlists, de-duplication, fingerprinting, the countermeasures against them or the countermeasures against the countermeasures. It was written on the assumption that publishing content would be a difficult and expensive task, so if you can get it pulled down you've seriously inconvenienced pirates. The whole model breaks when publishing a file is just a matter of uploading, which it really always was.

The only way to actually stop piracy would be by passing new laws so draconian that I'd rather just see the entire copyright-driven industry destroyed than sacrifice that much freedom or hand so much power to those who can afford lawyers.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by kamapuaa · 2012-03-31 19:42 · Score: 1, Troll

"The "red flag" test stems from the language in the statute that requires that an OSP not be “aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent.” The "red flag" test contains both a subjective and an objective element. Objectively, the OSP must have knowledge that the material resides on its system. Subjectively, the "infringing activity would have been apparent to a reasonable person operating under the same or similar circumstances.""
These services exist for no other reason than to facilitate piracy, and any reasonable person knows this. Therefore, no, the DMCA provision doesn't apply.
I know, I know. "I don't know this! What makes you the judge!" Well fuck you. Yes you do know that these sites exist entirely to facilitate piracy.

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Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 20:00 · Score: 0

Youtube has a very effective proactive tool for automatically finding and removing copyrighted content before any DMCA take down request is even made. It works for audio on streaming videos but its really not a practical approach for these sites that can host encrypted / compressed content that can't be analyzed by such a tool.
As far as I understand it this kind of proactive analysis is not currently required by law but I'm sure it doesn't hurt when it comes to defending themselves. Besides that google has an army of lawyers and deeper pockets than any other file sharing site. That alone should be enough to put them low on the list of targets for the mpaa/riaa
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by AmiMoJo · 2012-03-31 20:08 · Score: 1

Most of them are not based in the US so the DMCA does not apply. Megaupload's mistake was to have servers in the US. Everyone else learned from that and is now making sure they don't have any assets under US law at all.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by SuricouRaven · 2012-03-31 20:11 · Score: 2

Many people, including myself, have been subject to false positive results from their copyright-screener. It's an inprecise process, and youtube's policy is to pull anything suspicious. There is a nominal appeal process, but even after many attempts I never recieved a reply or even acknowledgement.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 21:06 · Score: 0

Youtube only exists for pirating music videos ..
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by reub2000 · 2012-03-31 21:11 · Score: 1

Considering that I can simply do a search with the song title and artist name, and find a song on youtube, how effective has this tool been?
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Raenex · 2012-03-31 21:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

Probably more effective than you think. One of the things YouTube did was to give copyright holders the option to profit from advertisements on the video, so it's quite possible that they are up there with after-the-fact permission. Some of the songs on YouTube are actually official videos from the holders, in particular Vevo. I'm guessing the rest just don't care enough to have the videos taken down, as I've seen some of them up for years.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Raenex · 2012-03-31 21:51 · Score: 1

DMCA provided fair harbor, and many other countries don't provide an equivalent, so it's not like moving to a country without it would necessarily benefit. You can look at the ongoing saga of Pirate Bay to see proof of that.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by jones_supa · 2012-03-31 22:07 · Score: 1

I hear this all the time. In YouTube, when you hit an incorrect copyright infringement claim or your video gets flagged for no good reason, it's very hard to actually reach a person who can fix it.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Kjella · 2012-03-31 22:08 · Score: 2

The legal case against Megaupload hinged on a technicality: They took the files down on request, but didn't also take down duplicates of the same file uploaded by someone else, even though they could (as they used file-level dedupe) have done so trivially.
If you take MegaUpload's definition I simply have to have a dynamic link generator, oh I took down the last link but you can push "generate download link" and get a different URL to the same file and that's legal until we get a DMCA takedown for that. Everybody understands that's not how it's supposed to work and the law isn't that into the details as URLs. It simply says "(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed". "The file accessible at URL: $foo" is identification, but it's not the literal URL that is infringing but the file it points to. I think the prosecution will argue pretty hard that after that you're aware of the file and fail the "(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;" condition, meaning you're no longer protected from liability.

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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by GmExtremacy · 2012-04-01 01:02 · Score: 1

DMCA provided fair harbor
But at the same time, it also expects websites to comply with DMCA takedown requests. Some websites seem to have found that they can't comply with all of them, so automated systems are born. These automated systems are far from perfect, and remove content not violating any copyright. The DMCA just allows supposed copyright holders to shoot a takedown letter first and ask questions later.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by EvilIdler · 2012-04-01 02:13 · Score: 1

I know at least MediaFire is being used by larger companies for legal purposes. A recently started company is using them as their main distribution method. Does the MAFIAA just want to shut down all competing digital distribution? What's next - Band Camp?
I know one of the accusations about Megaupload (which is very plausible, really) was that they simply removed the discovered links, not the actual files, when receiving a takedown notice. I doubt this is standard practice in the file hosting business, though. They should perhaps investigate WHY two users seem to have the same file, if they need to do anything special at all when two hashes match. Mostly they should just stay away from users' private files and nuke them from orbit if notified that the user doesn't have rights to distribute them. Use file servers with de-duplication if space is such a problem :)
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by mounthood · 2012-04-01 03:42 · Score: 1

It's vague enough for lawyers to argue over.

Politics is the issue, not any vagueness in the DMCA. The FBI and Justice Department could be going after the RIAA/MPAA for collusion, price fixing, fraud or any number of things, but politics says they go after Kim Dotcom and try to equate bit-torrent with terrorism.

The only way to actually stop piracy would be by passing new laws so draconian that I'd rather just see the entire copyright-driven industry destroyed than sacrifice that much freedom or hand so much power to those who can afford lawyers.
Wish more people saw it this way. Hollywood cannot survive as it is today; it has to adjust to the Internet like every other company.

--
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Scarletdown · 2012-04-01 07:22 · Score: 1

Youtube only exists for pirating music videos ..
Not always.
Lately, my biggest use of the 'tube is for making demonstration videos to embed in listings for various items that go up for sale on the 'bay, like this one that recently sold...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13wKuFDyX0s
Or this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8SrpQhwZxY

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This space unintentionally left blank.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Travelsonic · 2012-04-01 08:55 · Score: 1

Actually no, you ASSUME they are meant PURELY to facilitate piracy. IF they intend on hosting legit media, and have means of dealing with illegal content, then they're existing for means other than purely being there for piracy, shithead - take your smugness and shove it up your ass.

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If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by SuricouRaven · 2012-04-01 09:03 · Score: 1

There's a technical side too. Even if Megaupload had used hash blacklists, it'd be trivial for the pirates to adapt: Just stick an extra, unique file into their rar for every upload, or divide their split video files on different bytes. The end result is that the pirates are barely inconvenienced at all, while Megaupload has to pay for the extra storage.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by Kalriath · 2012-04-01 12:41 · Score: 1

And that means not even having a Paypal account. They'll grasp any tenuous jurisdiction they can.

--
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Re:DMCA safe harbor status by billcopc · 2012-04-02 09:46 · Score: 1

This much I knew. What got Megaupload in hot water is all the dirty stuff Kim Dotcom was doing on the side, not the web site itself.
So then, are these other file hosts also engaging in money laundering on U.S. soil ? Or is this just another case of MAFIAA lawyers making baseless threats for profit ?
Seems to me, it's the lawyers who are laundering money by getting paid from dirty warez profits. o_O

--
-Billco, Fnarg.com

April Fools by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 18:57 · Score: 0

Come on, Slashdot. I know it's early and all, but I expected better than this for an April Fools Day joke.

Re:This is why America needs the Affordable Care A by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:07 · Score: 0

Troll much?

Re:This is why America needs the Affordable Care A by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:13 · Score: 0

The radio and web sites all are controlled by angels who talk to me personally. It would be way more expensive than copyright issues. Ba ha. I don't watch TV or listen to music except the angel songs I get from God. I'm spoiled.

God says...
C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\words\AUGUST.TXT

t merciful
Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible
and deadly sins, in the holy water?

Verecundus was worn down with care about this our blessedness, for
that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound,
he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a
Christian, his wife one of the faithful; and yet hereby, more
rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the
journey which we had now essayed. For he would not,

I understand most of these... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:19 · Score: 0

Not that I agree with the stupidity, but MEDIAFIRE? Really? That's the most legitimate filehost I've ever used, I was recommending it post MU shutter. This is just well out of hand if MediaFire can be a target.

Slashdot starts April 1st by bring the room down by Picass0 · 2012-03-31 19:23 · Score: 1

Wow. We've gone from "OMG Ponies!" to "Turn off the lights the internet is over"

The MPAA and RIAA have shit all over April Fool's day.

legit by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:24 · Score: 0

I thought this was April Fool's day... article is too legit to be a joke

Proposed solution: Content addressible networking. by SuricouRaven · 2012-03-31 19:50 · Score: 1

We have magnet links: A convenient, standard way of addressing a file by hash and size. If that were combined with some form of decentralised distribution-and-caching system, there'd be no need for lockers.

I'm not talking about piracy, but anything that needs to distribute lots of data without spending a fortune on a CDN. Linux package repos, patches, freely-distributable content, that sort of thing. Storage is cheap now. Something like freenet, but without the need for performance-hurting paranoia in every aspect. Ideally something so simple for clients that it could be built into browsers to get HTML5 video or downloads without the user needing to even be aware of what's going on.

I keep posting these half-formed ideas, hoping that if I get enough people thinking it over then someone with more skill than me will be able to work on the details and impliment it.

jail time? by dutchwhizzman · 2012-03-31 19:55 · Score: 1

From what I understand, the founders have not done jail time but are fugitives, with a price on their head and all that.

--
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?

Re:Slashdot starts April 1st by bring the room dow by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 19:55 · Score: 0

Wow. We've gone from "OMG Ponies!" to "Turn off the lights the internet is over" The MPAA and RIAA have shit all over April Fool's day.

This one's an important story, and it wasn't April 1st on the West Coast at the time of publication.

Don't worry. Whether from the MPAE or the RIAE, or even Aperture Science, if you take a look at the queue, I think you'll find there's a pony for that.

Re:Slashdot starts April 1st by bring the room dow by pntkl · 2012-03-31 19:57 · Score: 1

Follis.

Re:Doesn't really matter by Siridar · 2012-03-31 20:31 · Score: 1

If you're going to all this effort, and already have usenet - ditch torrents completely. I can highly recommend the sickbeard/couchpotato/headphones/sabnzbd setup.

I pirate most of my music from Youtube by Eightbitgnosis · 2012-03-31 20:34 · Score: 2

MegaUpload can't provide me that, but that's fine when Google does it

Re:I pirate most of my music from Youtube by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 22:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

I see you enjoy double-encoded 128/192 kbps mp3s.

Can we sue the MAFIAA? by Mistakill · 2012-03-31 21:00 · Score: 0

Please? anyone?

Re:Can we sue the MAFIAA? by shentino · 2012-04-01 00:57 · Score: 1

They've already got the politicians deep enough in their pockets they may as well have sovereign immunity.

I'd like to thank the MPAA by unkiereamus · 2012-03-31 21:27 · Score: 2

Speaking as a casual infringer...I don't infringe by habit. But living in a third world country, sometimes I literally cannot pay for the content I want. So in those cases, I will infringe...

Anyhow, I don't count myself as a diehard pirate, but I didn't even know about 4/5 sites listed, so I thank the MPAA for improving my options.

--
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.

Re:I'd like to thank the MPAA by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-02 01:43 · Score: 0

That. And most of the time in third world countries no money AT ALL goes to the artist anyway. What you buy is either copies, stolen or there's just too many steps and the profit chain stops at the distributor.

M.P.A.A. just keeps going...??? by YankDownUnder · 2012-03-31 21:56 · Score: 1

Oy - MPAA, why don't you get with the evolution of how the media should flow - rather than dictate how you WANT it to flow...BTW, MPAA, STFU and LEARN.

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YankDownUnder Veni, Vidi, volo in domum redire

thanks by isaracoglu · 2012-03-31 21:57 · Score: 1

Thank You.. ibrahim saraçolu

Reasonable access by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-31 22:08 · Score: 0

There will never be an equilibrium between whats fair to pay for products and what those greedy sons of bitches want for their crappy products. Greed is greed, and when you have the greedy paying good money to lobbyists to make laws happen. Fairness for consumers will never happen, unless another revolution happens. its time to rise up against the Lord and Kinds again. and retake what the people are owed.

Re:Slashdot starts April 1st by bring the room dow by jones_supa · 2012-03-31 22:17 · Score: 1

Anyone missing the pony pink, can invert the colors of Slashdot. There's a Compiz plugin for that.

MediaFire/PDFs/Facebook by michaelmalak · 2012-04-01 00:19 · Score: 0

Hey, I've used MediaFire's free "hosting" to "post" PDFs of my original creation to Facebook because Facebook has no built-in way to do that.

Wont Buy by andydread · 2012-04-01 00:32 · Score: 1

I quit purchasing all MPAA and RIAA content after the SOPA/PIPA/Megaupload fiasco. Will not purchase their content ever again and am doing everything in my power to convince people I know not to purchase their content. Then I see this article and it just re-confirms that I am on the right track. Fuckem. I'll give my money to the EFF.

Great. by GmExtremacy · 2012-04-01 00:58 · Score: 1

Waste more taxpayer dollars shutting down things that innocents use so that we can gain absolutely nothing. Why? Because people are copying data! The horror!

Re:assessment is totally accurate by TaoPhoenix · 2012-04-01 01:08 · Score: 1

I'm getting lost in the meta-humor.

Has no one else noticed/bothered to point out that this is the very first story published on April Fools?

So wait - on April 2 they release it as "Haha, **AA has NOT targeted those companies".

To which the elephant in the room is "... yet".

**AA goes "Ooh, neat, let's do that!' "

So then April 4'ths news is "D'oh! Now it IS news, therefore our April Fools joke is prophetic!"

Either that, or they get to say "yes, this really is news, but we purposely waited to post it on April Fools to obfuscate it."

--
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine

First AFD story in what time zone? by tepples · 2012-04-01 01:43 · Score: 1

Has no one else noticed/bothered to point out that this is the very first story published on April Fools?

In what time zone? The anglosphere covers time zones as far east of Greenwich as New Zealand and as far west as Alaska.

iTunes Store sells non-DRM'd MP4 by tepples · 2012-04-01 01:57 · Score: 2

I need non-DRM'd MP3, FLAC or OGG format

iTunes Store sells non-DRM'd MP4, which plays on far more than just iDevices. I'm unfamiliar with Nokia phones because Nokia has failed in North America, but I'm under the impression that newer smartphones that play MP3 will also play MP4, and so can the PlayStation 3 console. If it's a problem, you can always transcode. (Transcoding to a lower bitrate, such as 192 to 128 kbps, generally doesn't add noticeably more artifacts than transcoding from lossless.)

There is plenty of radio channels to choose from even just from FM

In your country, does FM have indie artists, or is it just the major labels?

Convince enough others by tepples · 2012-04-01 02:02 · Score: 1

So how does one convince enough others to do the same to make a statistically significant dent in sales figures, especially when the major television news outlets are owned by the MPAA?

Re:Convince enough others by GmExtremacy · 2012-04-01 03:42 · Score: 1

I didn't say that it would be easy or likely. But nothing has ever succeeded by people just giving up.
There are many things you can do (change will not be easy no matter what), and for the most part, you can do all of them at once.

No export for you by tepples · 2012-04-01 02:04 · Score: 1

This will never stop as long as anyone wants their music, wants it now, and is willing to pay for it.

And is willing to immigrate to a country where the copyright owner is willing to take the customer's money.

Different users may have different licenses by tepples · 2012-04-01 02:06 · Score: 1

it's not the literal URL that is infringing but the file it points to.

I disagree. Say Aerith and Bob have accounts on MU. Aerith is authorized to distribute copies of a given work, but Bob is not. Only Bob's URL is infringing.

Re:Different users may have different licenses by Trilkin · 2012-04-01 04:42 · Score: 1

TV Tropes is rotting your brain!

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Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.

Sony is in both sides of the MAFIAA by tepples · 2012-04-01 02:18 · Score: 1

You mean RIAA owns all music

Now that Vivendi has sold its TV and movie assets to GE and Comcast, and now that Time Warner has sold its record labels to Access Industries, you're right that Sony is the only major record label that's also a major movie studio. Yet I'm under the impression that the movie studios still maintain relationships with record labels for movie soundtracks and music video production. So there's still very much a MAFIAA.

Third party claims by tepples · 2012-04-01 02:22 · Score: 1

Infringing copyright to consume and enjoy material someone else has produced

Say I consume and enjoy material someone else has produced under license from someone else. That doesn't stop a third party from making a copyright claim on someone else's material. We've seen a third party make a copyright claim on bird songs of all things.

An ICE seizure "blew my mind" today by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 02:23 · Score: 0

The site is http://www.techpowerup.com/

I used to go there to learn how to overclock AMD based systems and to discuss other 'computer technical' material circa 2006 or thereabouts.

(It's mostly a gamers forums is why, they are into 'ekeing out' performance that way, via hardware/mobo side overclocking & thus, best guys to learn that from imo)...

HOWEVER:

All I see now is the "seizure" page from ICE now, but no reasons why (there probably IS a valid reason though, or they wouldn't have done it).

The host there, a fellow that goes by the handle/nickname W1zzard, does a decent program called GPU-z (for checking videocard capabilities, much like CPU-z does)...

Funny part is?

His page for download of that program is still up beneath that domain though, here, oddly enough:

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

* Thus, has me wondering what's going on there... & I went searching (out of curiousity) for a comprehensive list of domains seized by ICE but cannot find such a list...

APK

P.S.=> IS there a comprehensive list of domains seized by ICE in total summation? Thanks... apk

Encrypted/Distributed file services by nurb432 · 2012-04-01 02:33 · Score: 0

This is the future.. and the sooner we get there the sooner we can be done with these people.

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---- Booth was a patriot ----

April 1 by nurb432 · 2012-04-01 02:58 · Score: 0

Too bad this one isn't a joke.

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---- Booth was a patriot ----

Re:This is why America needs the Affordable Care A by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 03:59 · Score: 1

Similar laws have already been passed under the name private copying levy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

Levies are often considered a compensation for illegal file sharing.

*MAY* be an "April Fool's Day" joke? apk by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 04:37 · Score: 0

Is this an April Fool's day joke, or what? Others *think* it may be here http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=9846408bbdda18b13758e413a488c144&t=360868

APK

P.S.=> Nevertheless - I am STILL interested in obtaining, if possible, a comprehensive list of sites seized by ICE, IF anyone has such information or a lead to a legitimate link to it... thanks! apk

Re:*MAY* be an "April Fool's Day" joke? apk by Kalriath · 2012-04-01 12:51 · Score: 1

It's an April Fools prank. If you check the DNS nameservers for the domain you can see that their name servers are still with their legitimate registrar, xname.org. If you do the same for megaupload.com, you can see that their nameservers were changed to "ns5.cirfu.net" (CIRFU standing for "Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit", an FBI division). You can even see the difference in the banner image between TechPowerUp and MegaUpload as well.

--
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".

Re:Proposed solution: Content addressible networki by rrohbeck · 2012-04-01 08:29 · Score: 1

A Chrome and Firefox plugin that automagically downloads files via combined methods. Multiple HTTP/FTP connections a la axel plus BT, ed2k, Freenet, TOR if available. That would mean, that magnet links should generally include all of those methods (not sure if they can.)

--
thegodmovie.com - watch it

Re:Proposed solution: Content addressible networki by SuricouRaven · 2012-04-01 10:01 · Score: 1

Magnet links are extensible. They can contain any arbitary number of hashes or other pieces of identifying info of any type. You could put a whole file in if you wanted, uuencoded, but this would defeat the purpose of a link.

They refuse to change so they will die. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 11:09 · Score: 0

The problem is that media companies refuse to change with the times and develop a digital friendly business model for the new generation of people that basically live on the internet. I know for a fact that millions of people (myself included) who would be happy to pay to download, if it was a reasonable fee. $5 per tv episode is not a reasonable fee, but $1 or $.50 might be. And if millions of people paid this the movie and tv companies might actually make some money. They way it is set up now is ridiculous, plus the amount of taxpayer dollars they are wasting as well as their own money is just abhorrent. I'm just shocked that the movie industry did not learn from the book and magazine industries (although new digital only content is improving, i.e. Destinations Uncovered) or the music industry for that matter where the artists are finally taking control. These industries are getting shut down because they refuse to adapt. That's what will happen to the movie industry and they will deserve everything they get. Same goes for the cable industry - they're not changing with the times and offering more personalized content, so people are getting content elsewhere. If cable companies would let me purchase JUST hbo or JUST another station they might get my business, but paying $100 a month to get what they want me to watch is an insult.

Good point, good job/good catch... apk by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-01 15:52 · Score: 0

I also later noticed the "troll face" in the banner for the TechPowerUp.com GPU-z download page (which was the only page 'still standing' of that entire domain that I pointed out in my 1st post this a.m. & then realized it's April 1st so... it makes sense, they were playing a joke is all!).

QUESTION: Do you know IF there is a comprehensive list of domains that ICE has seized though? I did look briefly afterwards & couldn't find such a thing... does it exist?

APK

P.S.=> I hate this holiday... lol! apk

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After Megaupload, MPAA Targets Other File Sharing Services

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