Slashdot Mirror
Now Published: Study Showing Pirate Bay Blockade Has No Effect
First time accepted submitter Neelix21 writes "Last week a Dutch court decided that the blockade of the Pirate Bay website was ineffective and disproportionate. The academic study that measured this effect has now been published: 'This paper studies the effectiveness of this approach towards online copyright enforcement, using both a consumer survey and a newly developed non-infringing technology for BitTorrent monitoring. While a small group of respondents download less from illegal sources or claim to have stopped doing so, no impact is found on the percentage of the Dutch population downloading from illegal sources.' The torrent monitoring technique also shows that if you are downloading a public torrent, anyone can find out." Happily, the linked paper is not paywalled.
it doesn't take a study to know that you can't block these activities. When you have mirrors in multiple countries it's nearly impossible to shut them all down. Even then there can be backups that are not online, so the service can be recovered and restarted easily. But that won't stop the controlling financial interests like R$AA, MP$$ and others from continuing to bang their heads, buy off politicians, and rattle the chains.
Oh wait people who have brains.
Ironically the dutch organisation who asked for this is called "Brain"...
The only reason they did it is because downloading is not illegal in The Netherlands (uploading of copyrighted material is) and they signed international treaties where they promise to combat piracy.
They should cancel those treaties and tell the publishers to provide decent quality and fair prices, they will easily be able to compete with downloading illegal possible virus-infected material.
The problem is publishers get a monopoly on the content they distribute. We should have a system where the artist can license many distributers and let them compete, so the only one with a monopoly is the artist.
Do you think that there would NOT be able 200 different torrents of the study within hours??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Those 4 tabs i see up there lined up after the slashdot one confirm that this is, in fact, most definitely true.
Talk about serendipity...
TPB is one drop in a sea. If "piracy" is a diversion of unrealized profits, then the content distributors have to accept percentage of use as a ratio between legal and illegal use. It's up to them to move the needle one way or the other by creating enough value to consumers for the legit product as opposed to pirating it. Otherwise, people will determine that it's in their own best interests to bypass the distribution model and just acquire the content by what means they see fit. I cannot figure out -- thirty-plus years into the piracy debate -- why this point hasn't stuck with content distributors is beyond me.
It's people who bought something sharing that with others.
It's been shown that piracy increases sales of good quality content: http://beta.slashdot.org/story/192485
Stop falling for the lies of publishers exploding with money, because they often don't give it to the artist anyway.
Happily, the linked paper is not paywalled.
if it were, I wouldn't know what to do!
As extra information, the blocking of TPB has been lifted, in the Netherlands. Mostly because because downloading copyrighted content is not illegal.
Thus,though a small share of downloaders reports a decrease in their downloading activities after the blocking, this effect is not reflected in the overall numbers. A likely explanation is that there are also new consumers who have started downloading from illegal sources, since the percentage of consumers that has never downloaded decreased over the measurements.
Lots of publicity about online piracy just makes people more aware of the possibilities. That beats all the other effects (awareness, blocking, relapse etc.) they mention.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This is from the IVIR (Netherlands)'s web site:
The Institute for Information Law (IViR), officially established in 1989, is one of the largest research centers in the field of information law in the world. The Institute employs over 25 researchers who are active in an entire spectrum of information society related legal areas: intellectual property law, patents, telecommunications and broadcasting regulation, media law, Internet regulation, advertising law, domain names, freedom of expression, privacy, digital consumer issues, commercial speech, et cetera.
The institute’s mission is to further the development of information law into a balanced framework that accommodates the needs and interests of the information society. The Institute engages in cutting-edge research into fundamental and topical aspects of information law, and provides a forum for critical debate about the social, cultural and political aspects of regulating information markets.
That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Now think a moment... the "scholars" making this statement are evidently saying that the current copyright laws and frameworks are not balanced and do not accommodate the needs and interests of the information society. If the status quo was considered to work even passably well, then
- the more than 25 scholars wouldn't have anything to do
- they wouldn't have career prospects
- nobody in their right minds would give the IVIR any funding
- nobody would pay much attention to their articles
In other words, they're a think tank with a definite point of view, like the many think tanks based in Washington, DC that teem with Ph.D's publishing "scholarly articles" complete with impressive statistics and charts about the effects of government regulation, tax laws and so forth.
Any teenager could of told you the outcome because (intrinsically with their sense of entitlement) they understand John Gilmore's quote very well:
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
Of course the problem goes both ways:
Content Creators: Failing to understand "Whack-A-Mole" doesn't work on the internet.
Content Consumers: Unable to respect the wishes of the creators.
--
Only cowards censor
IP Address blocking is like King Canute taking up Whack-A-Mole.
Out of this, are there any consequences for the politicians, prosecutors, and administration who usurped common sense, and wasted taxpayer money by efforting this now redaccted blockade?
It's rhetorical, but I'd like to think the Dutch, being more progressive on some things and overall more sensical, that the appropriate chastising and possible ouster of said individuals would commence.
Now if they would just publish the report that shows how water is indeed actually wet.
There is no such thing as an "illegal download". Downloading files is perfectly legal. I have no idea what the term "illegal sources" in TFS means either. No law has been passed saying it is against the law to download from a particular site.
Whenever I see terms like these being bandied about I know someone is using deliberately vague and manipulative terms in an effort to con me.
When I see the sentence:Last week a Dutch court decided that the blockade of the Pirate Bay website was ineffective and disproportionate. , I expect the hyperlink to link to a report from the Dutch court, or to link to the actual study. Instead, I get a link to Slashdot. Um... Hello? I'm already reading Slashdot and you're linking to Slashdot? What kind of a bonehead play is that?
... unless you're making it specific, like "Slashdot reported last week that ...". Context is key, people! Either link to the relevant information, or don't bother.
PLEASE DON'T LINK TO SLASHDOT...
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
and sarcasm
That copy did not exist before, it does now. Therefore it was created.
The torrent monitoring technique also shows that if you are downloading a public torrent, anyone can find out
That's why I run a bittorrent client that downloads torrents at random, even illegal ones.
If anybody has a problem with that, I just mention privacy is the reason I'm downloading them.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Bad analogy. Consider rape. The thing that is taken is the right to say no. Not to say I'm equating the degree of the two. Rape is always wrong, but the legal right to say no because of bad copyright law, not always.
The literal translation of "copyright infringement" in Swedish is "brainchild rape".
Set your phasers on "funky"!
This only goes to show pervs and perps (not that there is a difference) will do whatever it takes to satisfy their fetishes, their perversions, and their most grotesque desires.
Actually downloading copyrighted content is LEGAL in most of EU. But only for personal/family use and for a small circle of friends. Uploading for mass consumption is not allowed.
This is made possible by the so called "cassette fee" in many a blank media, hard disks, etc. which theoretically gets delivered to artists through many copyright organization middlemen each taking their cut.
It is precisely this payment which allows people who, for example, bought a harddisk to download as fast as their network connection allows.
Because next they will prove that the war on drugs doesn't reduce any drug usage. What then would we do with all those that are put in prison?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Pirate bay shows blockades have no effect. After all, what's a blockade that cannot block anything?
They can take it down, another one will come back. Since the days of the Lycos MP3 search engine file sharing has only increased...it's practically a miracle that the RIAA & MPAA have survived all those lost billions of dollars. After all they are constantly losing money to so called "piracy".
http://mafiaa.org/
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
http://crictimemax.blogspot.com/
Awesome, good to hear about all the money they've wasted in the blockades and making a publication about it! Now let me be so I can take back some of the cash I've given M$ over the years for their buggy but poplar software :D LOVE the BAY!!
Very low quality pdf, and in Dutch... but it is what you asked for. :)
https://blog.xs4all.nl/wp-cont...
In that case, there is no 'quantifiable detriment to the owner'.
Um... Zero is a quantity.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!