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MPAA Wants ISPs to Disconnect Persistent Pirates (torrentfreak.com)

Ernesto Van der Sar, reporting for TorrentFreak: The MPAA wants Internet providers and services to take stronger actions against persistent copyright infringers. Ideally, the most egregious pirates should lose their accounts permanently, the group says. To accomplish this ISPs should be required to track the number of notices they receive for each account. In recent weeks, many groups and individuals have voiced their opinions about the future of the DMCA, responding to a U.S. Copyright Office consultation. This includes the MPAA, which acts on behalf of the major Hollywood studios. In a 71-page submission the group outlines many problems with the current law, asking for drastic reforms. Ideally, the group would like search engines to enforce a "stay down" policy ensuring that content can't reappear under different URLs. In addition, it would like registrars to suspend domain names of pirate sites, such as The Pirate Bay.The problem is that ISPs don't necessarily see this abuse as a problem.

263 comments

  1. I have a better idea by L.+J.+Beauregard · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How about the MAFIAA stop producing crap and expecting people to pay through the nose to see and hear it?

    --
    Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
    Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
    1. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No one is forcing you to pay to see lousy movies. If the movie is lousy, it probably isn't worth the time and effort to even pirate it and watch it. I don't think that's a logical excuse for piracy. Obviously people do want to see the movies, but just don't want to pay for them. The free market decides what's profitable for movie studios and what isn't. Instead of blaming the MPAA and the studios for lousy movies and excessive prices, blame consumers for tolerating it. Quite possibly the strongest message consumers can send to the MPAA is that a movie isn't worth paying to see and it isn't even worth the time and effort to pirate it.

    2. Re:I have a better idea by L.+J.+Beauregard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. If "pirates" didn't exist, the MAFIAA would have to invent them. They are not making as much money as they think they should, and the reason can't possibly be their own failure to produce a salable product.

      When all Internet access is filtered and monitored to a fare-thee-well, you get kicked off for so much as saying "Aaaarrrrr," the possession of uncrippled computing devices is a felony, and the MAFIAA are still complaining about their huge profits being not quite huge enough, then what will they do?

      --
      Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
      Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
    3. Re:I have a better idea by Calydor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They will lobby for a law to make it illegal not to buy at least five of their movies per year.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    4. Re:I have a better idea by Bert64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Piracy" is an inherent part of a free market whenever you are pricing a product significantly higher than the cost to produce it.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    5. Re:I have a better idea by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is possible actually. They could make a law where Internet users pay a fee to "cover" all of their losses due to piracy. Similar to the the blank CD tax in some countries.

    6. Re: I have a better idea by dhjdhj · · Score: 2

      If it's such crap, then why are people bothering to steal it?

    7. Re:I have a better idea by Z80a · · Score: 4, Interesting

      MPAA don't do movies, the studios do.
      What MPAA do is to act like basically norton anti virus and constantly keep the studios scared of the EVIL pirates, so they can keep grabbing cash off the studios to "combat" that EVIL thing.
      Basically alarmist scammers of the highest degree.

    8. Re:I have a better idea by GrumpySteen · · Score: 3, Informative

      This already happens in some places. Take Belgium, for example.

    9. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have conflicted feeling about this idea, on one had I really really want to do things legally. I subscribe to netflix, amazon prime, hulu and own hundreds of cd's dvd and bluerays. etc. I don't mind paying for ad-free content. but I'm currently in a situation where we will be traveling half-way around the world where our netflix subscription will not work, with a 2 and a 4 year old who insist on/have favorite movies. So, even though I'm paying for like 3 streaming services, I'm basically forced to pirate their favorite stuff thats unavailable on physical, purchasable media, because I need it off line, and in different regions. I guess that I *could* buy a 20 dollar dvd and rip it but then I will be paying a fourth time for something that I feel I've already paid for. Some things are simply unavailable legally.

      It's too much, they're too greedy.

      Piracy is the easiest (and coincidentally the cheapest) way to consume content. I can put it on any device I own, time shift, format shift and region shift without worrying if it'll work because I changed location, device or format for something I paid for already. The alternative is you can sit next to hysterical children on a 12 hour flight.

    10. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sorry, replying to my own post. If paying an extra 50-100 bucks a year, means that I can download anything and do with it as I please, leagally, I'd probably be for it. depending on the exact wording and pricing of the legislation.

    11. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about you simply don't watch it? Your choices are:

      1) Watch it and pay.
      2) Don't watch it.

      I agree that Hollywood films are total garbage, so I don't watch them. However, you seem to have real problems. First of all, your time is apparently so worthless you'll waste it watching something you yourself have said is crap. Secondly, you have an extreme sense of entitlement whereby you believe you have a right to consume a product without paying for it. Either that or you're on an absurdly low income and can't afford to pay for the films, which is quite possible given how little your time is apparently worth.

      The problem here is you, not the MPAA.

    12. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I work in the oil industry. People on the internet can send email, and not drive around, and mail trucks drive around, saving fuel. I want to get paid for my losses too.

    13. Re:I have a better idea by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      I like this idea. Paying a fee means you've got a license to download. I suggest a 10% royalty be applied to all ISP's, with the money going to the copyright holders. Of course uploading would still be illegal.

    14. Re: I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Not stealing shit.
      By copying we aren't depriving them of anything.
      Only their imaginary sales.
      By looking at a pic of mona lisa online am I stealing from the Louvre?
      No.
      Same shit.

    15. Re: I have a better idea by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Only top German and Swedish cars get stolen in the US?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    16. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Uh, no. It's an inherent part of a free market whenever the price of a product is significantly higher than the cost to find and duplicate it, not the cost to produce it.

    17. Re: I have a better idea by Type44Q · · Score: 0

      I really really want to do things legally.

      Legal is for sheep; right is for men .

    18. Re: I have a better idea by dhjdhj · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah yeah yeah, the money, time and intellectual effort put into the creation of something people want to later hear or watch aren't worth anything. Spare me the absurd attempts to rationalize theft to smooth your own conscience.

    19. Re:I have a better idea by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      MPAA don't do movies, the studios do.

      Your ignorance would be charming if you were two or three years old, but given Google and Wikipedia and your ostensible exposure to them, it is only pathetic.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re: I have a better idea by dhjdhj · · Score: 1

      Just because a car isn't top of the line doesn't mean it's not worth having. Of course one problem with buying MP3 albums is that they typically cost the same price regardless of how good is the music (which is also often a subjective opinion) and nobody wants to go to a sliding scale. It's a problem, but still, if you don't want to pay the asking price, you ain't entitled to the product.

    21. Re:I have a better idea by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So what you're saying is piracy is legal in Belgium because the license has already been paid? Brilliant!

    22. Re: I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Except for those of us who like the internet and don't want their crap movies. I hate the crap they produce. It frustrates me when they try to lay claim to things they don't own like the internet. Screw them, I don't want one cent to go their way. BTW I'm not a "pirate". Some people honestly just don't want their crap even if it's free.

    23. Re: I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the money time and effort to create something costs more than the true price point of the product and so shit isn't making its money back... piracy or not.

    24. Re:I have a better idea by ITRambo · · Score: 1

      Suspend your accounts when traveling so you won't be billed for services that you can't use.

    25. Re:I have a better idea by GrumpySteen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You'd think that, but no. The old adage about giving someone and inch and them taking a mile is still as true as it ever was.

    26. Re:I have a better idea by mark-t · · Score: 1

      I don't know about other nations, but in Canada, the tariff blank CD's does not exist to cover piracy... although this does seem to be the popular perception. The official reason it exists here is to provide some compensation to copyright holders for private use copying.... nothing more, and nothing less. Of course, private copying of audio works is entirely legal in Canada, but the law also establishes that that copyright holders may still entitled to some compensation for it.

    27. Re:I have a better idea by compro01 · · Score: 1

      Yes, studios that make movies are members of the MPAA, but the MPAA itself does not make anything.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    28. Re: I have a better idea by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Both money and the internet and even time are best defined as tools. As I've been working on this post, it occured to.me: Laws and religion? Tools. Machiavellian and Art of War? Tools. Now that I've defined the tools in the toolbox, I can proceed. If you aren't willing to use money to get what you want then it is worth nothing in terms of money to you. However, if you find it's worth the time, effort, Internet usage, and flouting of the law, then that's what it's worth to you. Oh and morality? Tool, too. Back when shareware on CDs were a thing, none of it was worth buying/acquiring. But now that I have money and those titles are on Steam, they're woth paying money for. And actually, somewhere between the two times, acquiring some of the games was worth "pirating". DRM? I never thought I'd accept it, but Steam pretty much does it right, offering redownloading to the same or different PC. GOG has a "Galaxy" app that does the same for non-DRM titles and I've read that they've worked on the older titles to get them to work better than the Steam release.
      I had been attempting to acquire a lot of physical Shin Megami Tensei" games used for the PS 1 and 2, and then there was a sale for them for download to the PS3.
      None of this "excuses" "piracy" because I don't believe that it needs an excuse, but rather the onus is on others to induce me to stop. So, what was all of this for? To illustrate that under the right circumstances I can be pursuaded to do something other than piracy to get what I want.

    29. Re: I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Prime let's you download for offline viewing. Doesn't fix the other issues, but it might let you get enough content to keep your kids occupied.

    30. Re:I have a better idea by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about the MAFIAA stop producing crap and expecting people to pay through the nose to see and hear it?

      And stop making it difficult to access content that we do pay for. Why in hell should movies that have gone to stream "expire?" Leave the movie on Netflix/ Amazon/ Hulu, so you can keep making money on it.

    31. Re:I have a better idea by Calydor · · Score: 1

      That is a move that his kids aged 2 and 4 will understand and accept as the reason why they can't watch Frozen for the 1001st time.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    32. Re: I have a better idea by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      There are a lot of concepts that are popular, but I don't care for, and the notion that people shouldn't get something they aren't entitled to is one of them. People don't make a case for this perception and instead believe that everyone believes this and on top of it anyone who believes that they should be allowed to acquire something believe that they are entitled to it. Listen, I don't care about your entitlement nonsense; If my acquiring something makes no one else the lesser, I should be allowed to acquire it as opposed to, for example it being binned.
      It is really weird when Christians say that people should not have anything they aren't entitled to or deserve, because the primary part of Christianity is about a God going through convoluted motions in order for people to get something the faith saus they aren't entitled to/deserve/earned, that being not spending an eternity in Hell.
      "Fairness" is another. If things were made completely fair, they would have to handicap or to the logical extreme kill everyone because it isn't fair when there's the already dead if anyone else is alive.

    33. Re: I have a better idea by hackwrench · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Semantics. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

    34. Re:I have a better idea by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      As far as I am concerned your Netflix subscription entitles you to download anything they carry in their library, by whatever means available. Your torrents are paid for. Don't fret over it.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    35. Re:I have a better idea by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      the MPAA itself does not make anything.

      That is not true! They produce legislation. It is far cheaper than producing movies

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    36. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cant blame crappy content on pirates.

      Grand theft auto is still theft even if the car is a YUGO. (Yes, Yes, We all have our definition of "theft" as physical goods... not the point)

    37. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are legally allowed to record from a streaming service that you are subscribed to. It's the same as using a VCR to record from a cable station.

    38. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      copying for personal use is legal in the USA too. I can make backups and mixtapes for myself all I want. The idea that a royalty needs to be paid for that is ridiculous.

    39. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The money they do make through settlements and etc. don't even go back to the studios, they just get funneled into the same business model.

      Studios would do well just to cut them off since they're basically leeches.

    40. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Duplication is production.

    41. Re:I have a better idea by mark-t · · Score: 1

      I agree, but the law still allows for it, so the tariff is there. Yeah, it's a money grab, but what else is new? Living in Canada, I actually do happen to object to the blank media tariff as well, especially since the latest amendments to our copyright law which have jeopardized one's ability to legally even privately copy many modern works in the first place on account of potentially bypassing encryption, but I also don't feel any compulsion to want to pirate copyrighted content because of it either.

    42. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Sorry, replying to my own post. If paying an extra 50-100 bucks a year, means that I can download anything and do with it as I please, leagally, I'd probably be for it. depending on the exact wording and pricing of the legislation."

      Different AC here. Before you agree to any legislation like that, make damned sure it has a clause that says the price tag can't be increased, and that it actually protects you from litigation. For instance, the Blank CD tax in Canada was brought in at a reasonable price tag. It's done nothing but go up in price ever since, and it still doesn't actually protect you from being sued, or so the cartels insist. (Meaning even if it does, expect it to one day not.)

    43. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, so you only steal content that is crap? Why do you even watch/listen to crap?

    44. Re:I have a better idea by JThundley · · Score: 1

      I hate to sound like captain hindsight, but maybe you shouldn't have rented movies from a streaming service that only works in your country. Just because you want to do things legally doesn't mean you have to settle for supporting flawed services.

    45. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...but production isn't all duplication, dumbass.

    46. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aside from piracy, what is this magical, streaming service that works everywhere in the world without region-locked content? VPNs? To the MPAA, that is just another way of saying piracy.

    47. Re:I have a better idea by Hylandr · · Score: 1

      Never let the facts get in the way of this tired clickbait:

      http://www.latimes.com/enterta...

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    48. Re: I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yawn, same old tired attempts at logic I have sat through before. I remember a college professor always calling IP infringement "rape" because you are "raping" Vanilla Ice or other bands when you copy their cassettes... back in the early 1990s.

      IP infringement isn't . The closest thing it is equal to is some kids sneaking in the back door of an empty theater. Problem is that IP rights have so abused here in the US (for example, you cannot make a new invention... and I mean -anything- without running afoul of some vaguely worded patent) that it is no wonder why there is no respect the other way.

    49. Re:I have a better idea by camperdave · · Score: 1

      It takes a certain amount of money to host a video: power and internet access, server maintenance, backup facilities and the like. If a video isn't pulling its weight, it's actually costing money, not making money. That's why they "expire".

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    50. Re: I have a better idea by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Just because a car isn't top of the line doesn't mean it's not worth having.

      You just answered your own question. Just because the stuff coming out of Hollywood isn't top of the line, doesn't mean it's not worth having. Consider the Star Trek movies: Despite the even/odd/multiple-of-five rule of suck, for a Star Trek fan it is worth having the entire set.

      As for paying the asking price, There are two suppliers: Paramount and Pirate Bay. Pirate Bay has the lower asking price, so it is purely an economic decision. If Paramount wants to be a monopolistic supplier, they need to cut off the alternate suppliers or match their price structure, not go after the consumer.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    51. Re:I have a better idea by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      DVDs rented out by a service like Netflix incur a cost to store, mail out, and check back in. Yet Netflix keeps DVDs until they physically wear out. Streaming movies cost virtually nothing to maintain and backup on servers. The only reason they "expire" is Hollywood licensing rules.

    52. Re: I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just rip them all and put them on a media server (plus, it's an excuse to get a new CPU.) Then you can watch the movies anywhere you want and appease your conscious. This falls under fair use.

    53. Re: I have a better idea by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

      My ancient GM has never been stolen. Then again I question why I lock the car each day, since it spends it's life on the roads, in my garage or (favorite) behind a barbed wire fence, a small police force and armed guards menacingly waving M-16s.

    54. Re:I have a better idea by sixsixtysix · · Score: 1

      The free market decides what's profitable for movie studios and what isn't.

      Yeah, it allows them to use cheap foreign labor to make the equipment/media, but if we try to use that same level playing field to get cheaper media, they cock block us with regions. The free market has decided that the global economy is a good thing, so price accordingly or gtfo.

      --
      ...
    55. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, Captain Hindsight - tell us what non-flawed service he was supposed to use instead.

    56. Re: I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you think they would receive any money? If I couldn't pirate stuff to check it out before buying, then I would simply not bother with it. At least with my way, if I like it, they will get paid. The alternative would be me completely ignoring them and them never even having a chance to get paid.

      It's the 21st century. Time to bring those antiquated business models into the present.

    57. Re:I have a better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong. My choice is to pirate the film and only pay if it's worth it.

      You can't know something is crap until you've watched it.

  2. Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is it the ISP's responsibility to enforce copyright laws? Piracy is only a problem for the ISP if excessive bandwidth is consumed and it results in degraded network performance. But that doesn't really have anything to do with copyright laws.

    There need to be different penalties depending on the type of infringement. The person who downloads a couple of movies on bittorrent and doesn't realize they're also uploading is very different from a person who is collecting money for access to a site with a massive collection of movies. In short, to collect a large settlement, it should be shown that there's an intent to distribute and/or the person infringing upon copyrights is profiting from doing so. This would probably render it unprofitable to pursue individuals who download a few movies but don't intend to share them.

    The focus needs to be on people who are making the movies available to begin with, those who are sharing massive amounts of content, and those who are making a profit from piracy.

    Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy. However, the punishment ought to be proportional to the egregiousness of the offense committed. The massive settlements against people who weren't infringing a lot of content is absurd. And there's no reason to disconnect people from internet access for piracy, either temporarily or permanently. That's ridiculous.

    I'd suggest that for the casual offender, the maximum settlement should be the larger of 1.3*(retail price)*(number of proven downloads) or, 10*(retail price). Let the much larger settlements only apply to the most egregious offenders.

    1. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy.

      It's not so much that a people defend piracy, it's that there is a large reaction against the means the record/movie industry is using to battle something that should be their problem.
      If they want to change their product to make it harder to pirate I'm completely fine with that.
      Lobbying to change the law to make reverse engineering illegal is something I don't approve of. If I want to figure out how a product I bought works then they shouldn't have a say in the matter. If the record companies didn't want me to do that they shouldn't have sold me the product.
      I would like to keep the laws in a state where you have to prove that someone is doing wrong before punishing them.
      I would also like that everyone is treated equally under the law and that means that the "victim" can't have a say in what the punishment should be, otherwise we will get a situation where hurting a nice and forgiving person is less severe than one who is vengeful.

      Now we have a bunch of companies that wants to change the law so that they can point out people they don't like and punish them without a fair trial.
      Not only that, they want other companies to go through the work to do the punishment. That wouldn't be a problem if everyone just told those companies to fuck off.
      Unfortunately that isn't happening and because of that those companies have become the largest threat we have to functional democracy where everyone is treated equal under the law. Not even terrorist groups like ISIS are close to causing that much harm to our society.

      I don't care much for piracy. I got too busy with other hobbies and more or less stopped consuming the kind of media involved there, but I rather see all the companies involved with RIAA/MPAA dismantled and everyone working for them becoming unemployed with all the damage that comes with that than let them change the laws the way they want to.
      So whenever someone comes crying about "how should the artist get paid" all I can say is bugger off, you don't have a right to get paid and you sure as hell don't have the right to change the laws to make your business profitable.

      TL;DR; It's not in defense of piracy, it's in defense of a functional legal system.

    2. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful
      By MPAA logic, Ford should refuse to sell to anyone with a speeding ticket, and GM will repo your car if you get a DUI. For some reason the silly MPAA suggestions sound even more insane when applied to other industries.

      Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy.

      It causes no harm, and anything that causes no harm should not be illegal. If you don't like that, please point out the error in it.

    3. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The problem is with your statement that piracy causes no harm. I'd suggest that the level of piracy is low enough that it doesn't cause substantial harm. It's likely that piracy converts more customers into non-customers than it turns non-customers into customers. It seems illogical that piracy would cause an increase in revenue; I think that's highly unlikely. At higher levels, piracy probably would make a significant dent in the film industry. Perhaps it already has, though I don't have the data to make that claim.

      I'm not defending the MPAA's tactics, but I also think you're wrong that piracy is harmless. I think piracy would be reduced if stupid anti-piracy measures like HDCP and CCI were eliminated. Make it convenient for people not to pirate and then go after the people who are intent on breaking the law at a large scale no matter what. Also, a disproportionate amount of money is spent on the cast of films when some of that should be put toward better writing and directing. That's really lacking from modern films and increasing the quality of those aspects would probably encourage more people to be paying customers.

    4. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy.

      I disagree, disobeying laws you disagree with is ethical if illegal. Civil disobedience is a vital line of defense against tyranny, should peaceful reform prove unfeasible.

    5. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Megol · · Score: 1

      Of course it does harm - the reason copyright was invented was to encourage production of art like books, plays, music etc. It costs money and effort to produce, how could removal of the encouragement be without harm?

    6. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem is with your statement that piracy causes no harm.

      So, I buy a movie on DVD, copy it to my hard drive in violation of the license, thus piracy, what harm befalls the distributor? If I take that copy and put it on a USB and walk it over to a friend's house, and give the USB drive to them with the "illegal" movie on it, what harm befalls the distributor?

      It seems illogical that piracy would cause an increase in revenue; I think that's highly unlikely.

      The facts show that piracy correlates with profit. You may like to ignore reality, but denial doesn't change reality. You are the one asserting that advertising and exposure decreases revenue. Go on, back up your insane claim.

    7. Re: Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, you could just not consume the product if you feel the market price is too high.

      It's quite a stretch from "this movie is too expensive for my liking" to "this government is cruel and oppressive".

    8. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is with your statement that piracy causes no harm

      It causes me harm that you don't send me 10% of your paycheck, because I don't have as much money to spend on stuff that makes me happy. This means that it is unethical for you not to send me 10% of your paycheck.

      Do you understand why your argument is nonsense?

      The fact that a group would benefit from someone doing something doesn't make it unethical not to do it, because you can't force people to act in a way that benefits you. In particular, there's no natural right not to have information copied - the content producer's desire for profit doesn't trump the human right to remember information and write it down again.

      This doesn't mean that people won't pay for content, ofc. I pay for reasonably-priced, easily-accessible stuff that I could pirate because I want to support the production of new content - not because I feel obliged, legally or morally.

    9. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      the MPAA is full of notorious pirates who say they changed your story just enough to legally use it without paying you. If you do not like it they would like you to meet their kennel of voracious lawyers who will devour your resources.

    10. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're arguing with straw men. Nonetheless, I'll answer your questions.

      Copying a DVD to your hard drive and not distributing the copy does not harm the distributor. That part of the law is unreasonable.

      If you give a copy of that file to a friend, that may actually harm the distributor. If that friend intended to buy the DVD but no longer does so due to getting a free copy of the movie, then the distributor has been deprived of a sale.

      Correlation does not equal causation. Increased consumer interest in movies could simultaneously drive up profit and piracy. If there's low price elasticity of demand, raising prices could simultaneously increase profit and piracy. You have not established that piracy causes profits to rise.

      Advertising and exposure certainly do increase revenue, despite your straw man argument. However, advertising and revenue are obtained through ads in other media, trailers, and film reviews. None of these involve giving away a copy of the full movie for free, which would reduce or eliminate the need for the customer to purchase a legal copy of the movie.

    11. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not defending the MPAA's tactics, but I also think you're wrong that piracy is harmless...

      It harms business models that assume they can first distribute information and still tell people what they are allowed to do with it. Some things should be harmed. Perhaps the best example of things that should be harmed are money making schemes that exploit unnatural laws to amass wealth, and then use that very wealth to prop up the laws that they depend on, creating a feed-back cycle that rips off the public interest.

    12. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Copying that DVD is still promoted as illegal and copyright infringement (all rights reserved, including ones they don't have). See DMCA.

      Fail.

      "If you give a copy of that file to a friend, that may actually harm the distributor." Prove it. Even you admit it only MAY. Probably won't.

      Fail.

      "Correlation does not equal causation" However, causation will cause correlation.

      Fail.

      "Advertising and exposure certainly do increase revenue, despite your straw man argument" You just agreed that there's a BENEFIT to piracy for the content industry. "advertising and revenue are obtained through ads in other media, trailers, and film reviews" All of which are done by pirating it just as readily as "official" channels.

      Fail x2

      "None of these involve giving away a copy of the full movie for free" Which still doesn't constitute actual harm to the copyright owner.

      Fail.

      "which would reduce or eliminate the need for the customer to purchase a legal copy of the movie." Just as much as a bad review would. Which isn't illegal. Or loaning out a copy. Which isn't copyright infringement. Or getting mates round to watch. Or any number of things.

      Fail.

      As to "purchase a legal copy of the movie." if I legally purchased the DVD I ripped, that is a legal copy of the movie I copied. Only if I sold it to them (which again they assert is illegal) would that copy become "illegal".

      Fail.

    13. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Recent articles show how terribly little these MPAA thugs are losing to piracy, a pittance against what they make. Like less than 4% IIRC, but you can look it up (but you won't).

      If the MPAA greedheads can't find a way to plug a 4% loss without fucking up MY life, then fuck THEM for being stupid or incompetent or lazy.

      Get it now?

    14. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by GrumpySteen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So, I buy a movie on DVD, copy it to my hard drive in violation of the license, thus piracy

      Assuming you're in the United States, that's not piracy. The Betamax and the Diamond Rio cases set precedents for time and space shifting for personal use, which is what you described.

      It is, however, a violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules. By making it illegal to break DRM, they made it illegal to record or copy anything that has even the most rudimentary DRM. If you circumvent the DRM on the DVD in order to copy it to your hard drive, you've violated those portions of the DMCA even though the act of copying is legal.

    15. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      It causes me harm that you don't send me 10% of your paycheck, because I don't have as much money to spend on stuff that makes me happy.

      If you were the GP's agent, and they had only got that job as a result of your work and with a prior agreement to send you 10% of their paycheck as your fee, then you would be well within your rights to receive that money. You took on the work as an agent with no guarantee of getting paid but on the basis that you would receive 10% if things worked out, and in this case things did work out.

      In particular, there's no natural right not to have information copied - the content producer's desire for profit doesn't trump the human right to remember information and write it down again.

      There's no "natural right" for me not to find your comments offensive and come punch you in the face, but hopefully we can agree that the world is a better place because in civilised society we don't condone that sort of behaviour and we have laws to punish those who do it anyway.

      No-one is disputing that in today's world copying information is fast and cheap. I expect almost everyone would agree that this is a good thing in principle. What often gets conveniently ignored in these discussions is that first there has to be some information worth copying. If creating or collecting that information involves a significant amount of work, it is useful to have some economic incentive for people to do that, and that's what things like copyright are for.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    16. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why is it the ISP's responsibility to enforce copyright laws?...

      It's not. This proposal is the basis for increasing the extortion done by the MPAA, e.g., "pay us $5000 and we won't have your ISP terminate your Internet access".

      .
      It makes it a lot easier for the MPAA surrogates to extort people into paying up, instead of paying for a lawyer to defend oneself against trumped-up charges.

    17. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy....

      I also do not think there is an ethical defense for piracy.

      .,br> However, there is also no ethical defense for the sloppy tactics used by the MPAA (and RIAA) to identify, accuse, pass judgment and punish. They have been shown time and time again to operate outside the law, accusing, judging and punishing innocent people.

      If the MPAA and RIAA want to use the law to catch and punish pirates, then the MPAA and RIAA should work within the law to do so.

    18. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Just like when I buy a DVD and it says I can't watch it in a hotel or on an offshore oil rig. That is where I watch most movies. I can't copy it to the device I want (laptop), or watch it where I want?

      Absurd.

      Greater restrictions just reduce respect for the law.

      I saw "The Force Awakens" twice in the theater, and just bought the BluRay/DVD combo the day it came out. I was going to rip it (not allowed), but then figured it was easier to download it, which I did. And I watched it in the hotel on the way to work. And again on the rig. Think of all the money they are losing!

    19. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by RogerWilco · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy.

      I have pirated one movie. I ad bought a new Blu-Ray player a few years ago, and wanted to watch Avatar on it with some friends.
      I couldn't get it to play because it needed a newer version of the player's software. Something with Avatar using a never version of DRM.
      The software update program would not work as it ran in SD, not HD and my beamer didn't understand it, or something like that. Something weird with the HDMI.

      After two hours of messing with it instead of having a fun evening with my friends, I downloaded the movie. That ran without a problem.

      I haven't bought a Blu-Ray since, my player gets used for DVDs and CDs but mostly gathers dust.

      I hate this kind of crap. They should make it easier to use the legal version than the illegal version. Preferably no DRM at all. I've only bough songs on iTunes that are DRM free and would prefer if all companies used that model. DRM just makes the experience worse for your paying customers and doesn't really hinder the pirates.

      --
      RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
    20. Re: Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where do you get that assertion? I'm not AK Marc, and nowhere are my arguments "destroyed".

      Fuck you.

    21. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by ark1 · · Score: 2

      Actually GM wants to sells to those who don't follow laws of the road. More accidents means more cars and replacement parts needed. I'm sure sales gained from accidents are far superior to losses from fewer drivers (deaths/suspended permits).

    22. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you were the GP's agent, and...

      I don't see what this has to do with anything. I didn't priorly agree to not copy shit.

      There's no "natural right" for me not to find your comments offensive

      I'm not sure you understand what "natural rights" are. Go take a first level American History, or Politics, or Ethics class.

      If creating or collecting that information involves a significant amount of work, it is useful to have some economic incentive for people to do that,

      The economic incentives are 1) someone will pay you to create the work in the first place; an/or 2) I will pay people when I've copied their work, if I find their work worthwhile, as will millions of others.

      At the consumer level, it's not copyright which causes people to decide to pay for work, and it's not copyright which stops people from pirating - it's the desire to pay for copies of work worth paying for.

    23. Re: Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Fwipp · · Score: 0

      "My arguments"
      Whoops

    24. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't forget the part where the record/movie industry lobbied their way to extend copyright duration to absurd lengths, and in some countries, actually stole works from the public domain. It is one of the most visible and egregious examples of how badly corruption and bribery permeate governments across the globe.

    25. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Strawman 2: Straw Harder

      Prove it.

      If you want to be taken seriously, you need to accept that a hypothetical situation already shows proof.

      In the case of harming the distributor, I'm going to use an example of a multi-player video game. Keep in mind that in this hypothetical example you both absolutely plan on purchasing this game, specifically for the purpose of playing together at the same time.
      Your purchase: $70.
      Your friend's purchase: $70.
      Total value of games: $140.
      Distributor makes: $140.

      Instead, you create a copy of your own purchase and give that to your friend for free (and are able to bypass all of the online checks), it becomes:
      Your purchase: $70.
      Your friend's purchase: $0.
      Total value of games: $140.
      Distributor lost: $70.

      Note the term, "distributor" by the way. In some case the distributor is the copyright owner, but in most case the distributor is a license-holder. The copyright owner typically sells their product to the distributor and has already gotten paid. It's the distributor, who paid for the right to sell and make profit on the purchases he made from the copyright owner, that loses money. If they are both distributor and copyright owner (as in the case of MAFIAA member companies who use work-for-hire contracts), the copyright owner loses money.

      From the above example where two copies of the game would have been sold but only one was, the copyright owner's work is being used but without benefit to the copyright owner. The owner has less money available for other expenses, and therefore must sacrifice other purchases that would have contributed to their well-being. If we scale this down to just that example above, if those were going to be the copyright owner's only two sales, he would have $140 available to him to buy food. It is a multi-player game, and the expectation is that two copies would be purchased to allow for two people to play at the same time. If only one copy were purchased, giving him only $70, he would not have as much money available to buy food. Even if he didn't know that two people were playing his game, he, as the copyright owner, did not authorize a second copy to be available. Since the second copy was made available without his authorization, there is now a violation of his copyright because only he has the right to make copies; not you or your friend. The entire term 'copyright' literally means what it says. The violation of his copyright constitutes actual harm because it restricts his personal health and well-being (not being able to afford as much food). Scaled back up, the actual harm is caused by many people violating the owners' copyright such that it impacts their business model and even their employees. Think about how much it costs for a company of 1000 people to keep stocked up on decent toilet paper and you begin to understand why most of us only get one-ply sandpaper .

      Causation isn't correlation either. Causation can just as easily refute correlation as support it. Correlation is a guess. Causation is an answer. It is the difference between hypothesis and result.

      Statistically, increased piracy does correlate with increased sales, but not in all cases. Remember, that's an average increase, not a minimum increase. And not all piracy contributes to increased sales either. Someone who absolutely has no intent to pay for the product regardless of how much they want it will never correlate to increased sales. If the groups could be cleanly divided between those who only pirate to make an informed purchase and those that pirate because they don't want to/can't pay for the product, then the laws likely wouldn't try to overreach so much. But because of those pirates that give a bad name to piracy (because, y'know, that whole pillage and plunder thing that it's named after), the well-intentioned pirates (formerly known as privateers) get caught up in it all, too.

      There are many examples of overreach in copyright law; YouTube's DMCA-pandering is probably the

    26. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy.

      It causes no harm, and anything that causes no harm should not be illegal.

      It's not clear that it does cause no harm, though, as a body. Some cases of it cause no harm. Some have even been shown to be beneficial to the copyright holder, as advertising. In some cases, copyright infringement may actually cause harm by decreasing the value of legitimate distribution. What should not happen, however, is the assumption that it causes harm; damages should have to be shown in every case.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    27. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is a deeper question though. Why should someone be sent to digital exile based on the ALLEGATIONS of the MPAA?

      They are basically saying (in public) That they believe their word should hold the power of law. Imagine. They want to just point to someone and like that, they're gone from the digital world. No witnesses, no trial, no right to face an accuser, just gone because the King said so.

      Someone who would ask for that with a straight face is the last person who should ever have any authority over anyone.

    28. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy.

      How about piracy being an ethical offence against the industry slowly taking away your rights in the media, your product, your ability to watch something, to buy something, to have something come into public domain, rooting your computer, breaking a disc playback format, attempting to criminalise or prevent format shifting which is legal in most of the world...

      The list of the ethical breaches of the movie / music industry just has no end.

      I would happily pay for media, but no one seems to sell me what I want except for the pirate bay.

    29. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      There's no "natural right" for me not to find your comments offensive and come punch you in the face,

      Insofar as natural rights are even a thing, yes there is. There is a right to be free from violence. State-granted exceptions aside, this is literally encoded in every system of law from the very beginning (eye for an eye.)

      No-one is disputing that in today's world copying information is fast and cheap. I expect almost everyone would agree that this is a good thing in principle. What often gets conveniently ignored in these discussions is that first there has to be some information worth copying. If creating or collecting that information involves a significant amount of work, it is useful to have some economic incentive for people to do that, and that's what things like copyright are for.

      That's what things like copyright were for. Since the period has been extended so far, now it's for another purpose entirely; for the purpose of permitting movie studios to control our culture.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    30. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There has already been research that shows piracy increases revenue on average. It's like free advertisement and most people are social and participate in purchasing culture. Another interesting tidbit is that people who pirate on average spend more on media. Every attempt to crack down on piracy has always shown a near instant drop in sales and revenue. Take a graph of monthly sales revenue and mark a timeline with major crackdowns or legislation changes, and you almost always see a sizable drop in $$$ that takes a long time to return to normal.

    31. Re: Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, you could just not consume the product if you feel the market price is too high.

      That line of logic only works if there is competition that allows you to purchase the same product. Copyright gives a monopoly on culture. Hard to properly participate in society if you don't have access to the same culture as others. "Did you see that movie?" Nope, now I can't participate in your discussions, reducing social cohesiveness.

    32. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy.

      Like with all things I think the world is more complex than absolute pronouncements. Copyright was always meant to be a tradeoff. The government grants a limited time monopoly on distibution in exchange for people getting certain rights and the work entering the public domain.

      One half of that deal has been renaged on, with DRM and the ever extending copyright terms.

      Technically, me using a region free player to watch my US DVDs is copyright infringement (piracy) as is torrenting a show where the DVD has so much non standard copy protection stuff that it won't play. I think both of those while being piracy are ethically justified.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    33. Re: Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What whoops? My arguments were made by me. Asserting that AK Marc is whatever doesn't rebut the arguments I made. It merely compounds the error by

      a) getting it wrong about the author of the arguments
      b) implying that my arguments are therefore wrong
      c) and also asserting that AK Marc's arguments are wrong without either explaining what those arguments are, nor how they've been proven wrong.

    34. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because otherwise the MPAA/movie studios would have to prosecute pirates themselves, which requires actual evidence and costs money (and everyone knows that not a single Hollywood movie has made a penny of profit).

      You know, I would support harsher penalties for pirates if there were similar harsh penalties for false claims and phoney takedown notices.

    35. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by UnderCoverPenguin · · Score: 2

      whenever someone comes crying about "how should the artist get paid"

      The RIAA/MPAA argue that "the artists should be paid", but their actions are not about paying artists. It's about preserving the oligopoly status of their members, the record companies and movie studios.

      As a musical artist, I agree with you that they - the RIAA (and MPAA) should not have the right to get laws changed to make it's member companies' businnesses profitable. If their business model is nolonger profitable, it's because they failed to adapt.

      I don't need the RIAA or its members. In fact, I'd be better off if they'd just "bugger off" (as you put it). Because of their lobbyists, the royalty regulations designate an RIAA controled organization, "Sound Exchange", to collect and distribute "statutory royalty" payments. Of course, Sound Exchanege, so the RIAA, skims a percentage from those payments. Also, it costs artists $50 per year in "membership dues" to receive our share of the payments.

      (Granted, a truly independant organization - of the musical artists - would have to skim costs from the payments, but at least it would not be a puppet of the RIAA.)

      --
      Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
    36. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Well the tools are illegal, but the result of using them is not."

      Wake us up when the Supreme Court decides to rule on that contradiction, or Congress decides to declare their intent.

      Until then the rest of us will simply ignore the area of the law that even the government has no consensus on how to interpret. (For almost 20 years....)

    37. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By your logic, anyone who gets into a fender bender should go to Toyota(TM) jail because they might cause substantial harm.

      You can NEVER punish someone for something they "might" do.

    38. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      I didn't priorly agree to not copy shit.

      And I didn't explicitly agree not to punch you in the face, but our society as a whole has decided that that isn't acceptable behaviour, and that's why it's against the law.

      Do you realise that your argument here is effectively that you are above the law, that the only laws that apply to you are the ones you agree with?

      I'm not sure you understand what "natural rights" are. Go take a first level American History, or Politics, or Ethics class.

      What some people call "natural rights" is mostly an illusion, a convenient lie we tell ourselves to try to make us feel better when enforceable law doesn't match our personal expectations or beliefs.

      We each have our own personal moral standards, which govern the behaviour we personally believe to be right or acceptable, but those differ from one person to another and we can't necessarily expect that someone else will share the exact same beliefs. We have laws as a way of building consensus and recognising common ground, and as a way of deterring deviation from what is generally considered acceptable behaviour.

      I will pay people when I've copied their work, if I find their work worthwhile, as will millions of others.

      Big claim. No evidence.

      At the consumer level, it's not copyright which causes people to decide to pay for work, and it's not copyright which stops people from pirating - it's the desire to pay for copies of work worth paying for.

      For some people, yes. For many more people, unfortunately, no. There are plenty of people in the world who will simply take work done by others and enjoy it, without any thought that someone might have spent a lot of time and/or money to create that work in the first place or might deserve some form of appreciation and compensation in return.

      In order to avoid those who try to do the right thing propping up those who don't, we have laws, and those laws say you can be sued if you infringe copyright, or even face criminal charges in a lot of places now if you're doing so on a commercial basis.

      One of the biggest problems with this whole debate is people who argue against the basic principle of copyright without offering a practical alternative, and who take the position that copyright law is somehow unethical and therefore should be ignored. In the eyes of those who do the work to produce new content, and of the lawmakers they lobby, that just demonstrates the need for ever stronger enforcement and greater protections. What would actually make society a better place is probably much less severe copyright law and explicit recognition of the benefits of new technologies, but also effective enforcement of what is left.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    39. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 0

      Insofar as natural rights are even a thing, yes there is. There is a right to be free from violence. State-granted exceptions aside, this is literally encoded in every system of law from the very beginning (eye for an eye.)

      I'm not a big fan of the term "natural rights", for reasons I explained in another post. In short, I think the term is too often used as a fudge factor, when what we are really talking about is some combination of personal moral values, consensus within a community, and actionable law.

      Even in the sense of natural rights as those that are almost universally recognised without force of law, I think it's far from clear that someone's right to be take advantage of someone else outweighs that someone else's right to react. There are plenty of cultures in the world that do not accept or require a general freedom even from violence for certain groups of people who have committed certain acts deemed unacceptable, whether the group in question is women or children or some social group that is not in control. You or I might not find those cultures in agreement with our personal moral values, but that doesn't stop many other people being a part of such cultures, and in some cases even accepting them when they're on the receiving side of the violence.

      In any case, the violence aspect is a diversion that doesn't seem to bet getting us any further with the original debate. The reality is that many laws go beyond natural rights, and obviously there is no general legal right to ignore laws with impunity just because someone feels they should have some right that contradicts those laws.

      That's what things like copyright were for. Since the period has been extended so far, now it's for another purpose entirely; for the purpose of permitting movie studios to control our culture.

      The thing is, the two aren't mutually exclusive. The same laws that protect Big Media's back catalogue not-quite-forever because of political shenanigans do also protect Big Media more legitimately against someone ripping off their latest blockbuster movie or hit song or popular game. The vast majority of piracy is not people copying older works that are only still covered by copyright because of term extensions. The vast majority of piracy is people copying much more recent works that would have been covered even under the original copyright laws in most countries. Mockery of the Mickey Mouse Protection Act may be fair and justified, but there are still a lot more people ripping the latest Taylor Swift album or Avengers movie or Call of Duty game than a Mickey Mouse cartoon from the early 20th century.

      I have zero problems with arguing that copyright law has been abused and the principle has been taken too far and should be wound back. I've actively argued as much with my own elected representatives. But that doesn't mean anyone who doesn't want to pay for some work that took a great deal of time and money to produce should be able to just ignore the law and enjoy it for free anyway.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    40. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by PsychoSlashDot · · Score: 2

      Unlike what seems like a large portion of Slashdot, I don't think there's an ethical defense for piracy.

      The issue is that digital rights are an alien concept. Just like I - as a non-physicist - will never truly grasp subatomic physics, large portions of digital rights make ZERO sense to a consumer. That's a huge sign that they're nonsensical.

      You can't explain to a non-lawyer that it's unethical or wrong to take the songs from a CD you've bought and put them on your new iPod. The law tells us that's wrong, unethical, and illegal, and we're all bad people for doing it. It's roughly equivalent to a farmer selling you a banana and telling you that you can only eat it while facing East and wearing plaid. Sure, terms of the sale are legally enforceable, but as soon as you get home, you're going to take your clothes off, face wherever something interesting is happening, and eat your banana. Which is not a euphemism. Probably.

      Nonsensical laws are unethical. Circumventing unethical laws is not, if you have no means to have them repealed.

      --
      "Oh no... he found the .sig setting."
    41. Re: Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "My arguments"
      Whoops

      Learn how to follow threaded conversations.

    42. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      piracy causes no harm.

      what harm befalls the distributor?

      You're arguing with straw men.

      The real reason that A/C is so popular is so that a single asshole can lie, provoke, and disappear, to make the same or similar argument elsewhere.

      I'm arguing a "strawman" becuase I'm directly addressing the words of the A/C before. Verbatim. And addressing those in a direct and concise manner. That's a strawman to a lying AC who will claim that was some other AC or something, when confronted with their bald-faced lie. "No" harm means none. The law defines piracy, according to *AA desires, and that includes local copy for personal use, and sneakernet.

    43. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      I think you're veering off-topic. the *AA is talking about piracy (copyright infringement if you prefer) that involves the Internet. Decrypting and copying a DVD to your own media server for streaming within your home does not, in any way shape or form, involve the Internet.

      Technically it's illegal, it absolutely shouldn't be, but that's neither here nor there: it's not the same thing or category as distributing a movie to millions of strangers. The MPAA isn't being entirely unreasonable opposing the latter and seeking ways to stop the latter from happening.

      The problem here is more than the punishment - essentially one that destroys the ability of a serial copyright infringer to be a part of modern society - is drastically worse than the crime.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    44. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      THIS is EXACTLY why all you "filesharers", "pirates", whatever... should be using (and constraining such activities solely entirely within) Anonymous Overlay Networks such as I2P, Tor, Phantom, GnuNet, even CJDNS, etc.
      When you run your clients and activities ENTIRELY within their "hidden services", "eepsites", etc... the MAFIAA simply CANNOT TOUCH YOU.
      Since they cannot find you, you can then share fulltime around the clock, and the entire fucked up concept of leech and run goes away.
      You can leave your bittorrent client running all year long with thousands of files... no problemo.
      You're an untouchable gangsta of filesharing, blogging, IRC, mail, messaging, social networking love.
      ALL of this is happening RIGHT NOW within these netowrks... 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, hundreds of thousands of people just like you.

      So go download and run a few of the above mentioned network clients.
      Try it out, surf around the overlay networks, sign up for some accounts therein, send some messages, learn how to do stuff.
      And yes, share and share at will.
       

    45. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      There was as much or more art prior to copyright. Copyright exists in the US solely to encourage art. If it does not do so, then it is in violation of law. Fan fiction and such are innovations that are crushed by copyright. Before copyright, the writers, like Shakespeare, made nothing from their writing. They made all their money from direction and production. The modern economy is different, but why are all the conservatives (those usually for copyright), so in hate with the free market? Free the market, and let the market settle into a modern post-copyright era, then apply laws where needed, rather than using government-sanctioned monopolies enforced with government goons and guns to interfere in the market?

      Why do pro-copyright people hate capitalism so much?

    46. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that we haven't decided that you cannot punch them in the face.

      Self defence, for example.

      Or capital punishment.

      And the right not to get punched in the face doesn't exist naturally, but you NATURALLY get to punch someone back.

    47. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Prior to copyright, there were as many or more books, plays, music, etc.

      Copyright is used to kill fan fiction and other things that are creative works.

    48. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      The ISP wants to sell to pirates. But MPAA definitions, 100% of people are pirates, if the ISPs didn't sell to them, they'd have no customers. Same as GM. GM and ISPs both want to sell to criminals.

    49. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      There was as much or more art prior to copyright.

      Really? They had mass-produced thousand-page textbooks for teaching many thousands or even millions of children to do math, complete with many thousands of carefully constructed exercises and guides for teachers, did they? They produced works equivalent to a modern movie or a show like Game of Thrones, with budgets running into the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars, paying for production teams and casts numbering hundreds if not thousands of people, and then made those works available to millions of fans to enjoy? They produced software that took hundreds or thousands of programmers multiple years to develop, but which then benefitted many millions of people?

      No. No, they didn't. No-one in the pre-copyright era was even trying to do things on these scales. They were simply impossible with the technology available at the time, so they had no need for an economic model that would pay for them either.

      Before copyright, the writers, like Shakespeare, made nothing from their writing. They made all their money from direction and production.

      Before copyright, most artists made little money from their work at all, and those who did made their money almost exclusively from wealthy patronage. Many of the greatest authors and playwrights and composers and performers of their time died young and broke.

      Why do pro-copyright people hate capitalism so much?

      I think you have it backwards. Copyright is an economic tool that makes a lot of creative work commercially viable, at least with enough odds of success to make it worth a try. Copyright is a vehicle for sharing the cost of the initial production among many potential customers, so even very expensive works are still viable if they are attractive to large numbers of people. Copyright is also a direct incentive to produce better works and distribute them to more people, because there is no guarantee you will make any money at all from your work, but the better it is and the more people it reaches, the more you stand to benefit in return. Copyright is the epitome of free market capitalism: the more value you create, the more you stand to benefit in return, and the value is measured directly by how many people pay you for your work.

      I think your real objection is not to the free market aspect, but to the rules created for that market by artificially limiting copying by law. That is (or at least should be) a purely economic tool, and it should be abolished if and when someone comes along with a better idea that is more successful at incentivising the creation and distribution of new works with less of an ongoing social cost. But so far, no-one has. In fact, no-one has come up with anything that gets within orders of magnitude of the same effectiveness as our current copyright-based scheme. If anyone does, copyright isn't going to stop them from exploiting their alternative business model based on creating and distributing their own work in new ways, and the rest of the world will soon see the light, and those very market forces you claim to believe in will do the rest.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    50. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by St.Creed · · Score: 1

      Interesting argument. I hadn't considered the impact of scale on the funding of the whole operation. You're right, I think, that that poses new problems.

      However, while that would validate some form of copyright, it does in no way validate the current Disney extension. That was, for me at least, the straw that broke the camel's back: ever since it was ratified and a massive hold-up of the public was perpetrated by the MAFIAA, I have not been able to take copyright law serious anymore. While I don't make a target of myself, I have no objection to friends copying all my CDs, or downloading stuff from the piratebay. I will avoid paying for any content with copyright as much as I possibly can, with the exceptions of software (they're not the companies lobbying for the Disney extension and won't profit from immortal copyrights either). All my software is open source or fully licensed. But music or movies? Not if I can help it.

      --
      Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
    51. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      FWIW, I agree that extensions in favour of Disney and the like are an abuse of the principle and those aspects of the law should be changed. However, I also think it's important to remember that while the copyright term extensions are bad, in reality most piracy involves very recent works that would almost certainly still have been covered even under a much shorter and more reasonable term of protection. The whole issue of creeping term length is mostly a distraction in practice, when the terms are already so long as to be absurd anyway.

      Unfortunately, IP laws generally tend to be expert matters that can be widely co-opted for purposes beyond their original and usually reasonable goals without attracting enough popular opposition to start affecting things like elections very much. Of course that's partly because enforcement is so scarce. If everyone suddenly started getting sued for what the law potentially allows when they infringed copyright, the law would probably be changed within weeks.

      However, I think we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Copyright does have its merits, and I don't see a lot of people proposing plausible alternatives so far.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    52. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      They produced works equivalent to a modern movie or a show like Game of Thrones, with budgets running into the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars, paying for production teams and casts numbering hundreds if not thousands of people, and then made those works available to millions of fans to enjoy?

      Your argument is that there weren't more works because it was harder to get a single work to more people. That's invalid, and you are changing the question to fit your answer. Try addressing the answer to answer the question, and see what happens.

      I think your real objection is not to the free market aspect, but to the rules created for that market by artificially limiting copying by law.

      I think your objection is that you want to get paid more for your gay porn. Your assertion of other's beliefs will only ever be offensive. So you should probably find a way to discuss without explicitly telling others what they think. Perhaps, rather than just speaking to hear your own voice, you might want to ask a question, or take pause to listen to them.

    53. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by toddestan · · Score: 1

      That's the one thing the MPAA hasn't seemed to realize yet. The pirates don't just offer a cheaper product, they also offer a better product. As long as the MPAA insists on treating their paying customers like crap, the more these paying customers are going to turn to piracy.

    54. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      it's not the same thing or category as distributing a movie to millions of strangers.

      Neither is downloading Hurt Locker via bittorrent, but it can get you in court as if it were.

      Low hanging fruit. Ripping a DVD to your personal computer is illegal (According to the MPAA), under the same laws that make the commercial infringement illegal. So they are very much related.

    55. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      However, I also think it's important to remember that while the copyright term extensions are bad, in reality most piracy involves very recent works that would almost certainly still have been covered even under a much shorter and more reasonable term of protection

      When everything is piracy, you might as well do it better. If you can't make a fan-fiction remake of North by Northwest, you might as well target a more recent blockbuster, as it'd be more popular. You are using an effect of the long copyright to justify its cause. If the terms were the original terms, there would be much more in the means of fan fiction and other derivative creative work. Copyright is anti-innovation and pro-profit. The creative motive is long lost, and your attempt to appeal to is indicates you don't really understand it.

      Copyright does have its merits, and I don't see a lot of people proposing plausible alternatives so far.

      It's a simple question. Do copyrights increase creative work, or not. If so, then they should be continued (even if adjusted). But if no copyright were to encourage more creative works (note, the standard isn't quality, nor breadth of distribution, but individual works in the public domain, so no more of your irrelevant red herrings), then the "plausible alternative" is none, for now. There's no motivation to come up with an alternative when the current system benefits the decision makers. I'm not saying no copyright is the best solution, but complete abolition of copyright is better than what we have now, and will motivate those involved to solve the problem, rather than making it worse, which they do with every treaty and extension.

    56. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it is NOT "off topic". The problem is that society has moved on. We don't WANT clunky, cumbersome, bulky storage media for just ONE movie. We WANT to be able to store multiple movies in digital formats that we can replay ANYWHERE and ANYTIME, without needing to re-download every time and paying new license fees every time.
      Pay once, own that digital copy, do what we like with it. We don't want to do like Apple Music where you must continue to pay a subscription for years in order to access what you downloaded 5 years earlier. We don't want to burn DVDs to USBs so we can take what we already paid for on holidays. We want to either get a digital copy when we buy the DVD or just be able to pay for a digital copy that is fully transferable between PCs, tablets, phones and USBs.

    57. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I'm the same AC who wrote both of those posts. Your straw man was, "You are the one asserting that advertising and exposure decreases revenue." That's nowhere close to what I said. What I said is the overall impact of piracy will be to remove more paying customers than it adds. It's pretty clear that my AC post is discussing the overall effect of piracy. Even though some aspects of copyright law are flawed, that does not mean that piracy is harmless or that it should be legal. Arguing that the positive correlation between piracy and profits justifies piracy is also a bad argument. It doesn't establish causation because it hasn't ruled out other reasonable hypotheses that can explain the data.

      Look, I could have accused you of twisting my words about piracy. There's no reasonable way to read my post, either of them, and come to the conclusion that I'm saying that exposure and advertising decrease revenue. Instead of accusing you of being disingenuous, I assumed good faith and simply categorized it as a logical fallacy. If there's a reason for a customer to buy a product multiple times, giving away something for free can be worthwhile. Giving away free samples of food in the supermarket can entice customers to buy products they otherwise wouldn't have considered. Free samples of cologne might convince me to go buy the product. When I'm in a restaurant and the server brings out a sample of a beer for me to try, it might encourage me to pay for a glass of that beer. But food, beer, and cologne are all things it makes sense for me to buy multiple times. There really is no reason for me to buy a movie more than once. You assume that upon downloading and viewing a movie for free, while possessing a free copy, the majority of consumers will feel compelled to go pay for that movie. That intuitively doesn't make sense, and you'll need some additional evidence to convince me that this is occurring.

    58. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ISP and Internet Service isn't all about movies and streaming and piracy. There's a lot of legitimate uses for finding info around your job, creative collaboration, forums for leisure and connecting with people on hobbies and interest groups. There's also a lot of educational material that is put out for free. TED talks, university lectures etc. Denying someone access to this collective tool for copying some movies is going too far IMO. Copyright arguments aside, you're denying someone a lot more than access to Hollywood movies if you try to ban them from getting on the Internet. It's like people who get a felony conviction for possession of some weed or some other stupid incident being denied access to decent life opportunities because they have a record and fail background checks. Some violent murderer is one thing but someone who smokes weed or downloaded the 8th sequel to another crappy movie shouldn't have those other options denied. Maybe they should be encouraged. Like hey here's some cool things you can use your internet for instead. Here's tools to be creative, here's info on how to expand yourself and better your existence, or find some meaning in this void filled with plastic quick hit crap that doesn't ever satisfy for long because it's designed to be like a drug and keep you coming back for another hit so they can extract a tax and live a rich life from your sweat and toil...

    59. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I think your real objection is not to the free market aspect, but to the rules created for that market by artificially limiting copying by law.

      No. There is nothing whatsoever "free market" about limiting copying. NOTHING. If you want to argue that a less free market is somehow more free in practice, you can do that, but copyright is the exact opposite of free market. Remember, copyright violation is not theft, no matter how much the MAFIAA wishes it were so. Preventing theft ensures freedom. This is not that. This is preventing creation! Again, there may be valid reasons for doing so, but making the world a better place isn't one of them.

      Some examples have been used in this thread, like textbooks. But making textbooks subject to copyright makes the world a worse place, not a better one. It only leads to more textbooks with errors in them, hastily thrown together to make a buck — a buck protected by law. And this is very much to the detriment of students, and thus society. Absent copyright, educators would be free to fix the problems with existing texts and rerelease them, rather than wasting effort creating new, essentially duplicate works for hire. Copyright actually leads to more duplication of effort!

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    60. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      There is nothing whatsoever "free market" about limiting copying. NOTHING.

      Obviously copyright itself is a limitation, an artificial monopoly. That is the nature of copyright.

      The point is that, as you say, creative works are not property in the traditional sense. We can't just apply the traditional economics of physical property to creative works, where the fixed cost is a (possibly very large) up-front investment but the marginal cost of distribution is (usually) close to zero. Any model that determines the value of creative work based solely on the low marginal distribution cost is going to be unsustainable.

      However, it still seems desirable to have some form of free market where prices are set by supply and demand. In this case, supply is limited primarily by the existence of the works in the first place and the cost of initially creating them, while on the demand side we have the size of the market and the value of the work to each potential buyer as usual.

      Copyright is one possible solution to this set of constraints: we create a market not in the work in itself but in certain rights to use it. Someone who creates a work is free to offer copies for sale at whatever price they wish, but how many people buy a copy will be dictated by how big the target market is and whether the price is attractive to any given buyer.

      But making textbooks subject to copyright makes the world a worse place, not a better one. It only leads to more textbooks with errors in them, hastily thrown together to make a buck — a buck protected by law.

      I don't think your arguments here stand up to either logic or reality. A good textbook at a fair price will be more attractive than a bad textbook at a fair price, and schools will generally buy the better textbooks if they can afford them.

      Absent copyright, educators would be free to fix the problems with existing texts and rerelease them, rather than wasting effort creating new, essentially duplicate works for hire.

      But in reality, bad textbooks usually fail quickly, and better textbooks with some errors in early printings get reprinted with the errors corrected in later editions. The beneficiary of the ongoing sales are still the original creators, who did 99% of the work to create the book in the first place and then a bit more to improve it, not someone who comes along, makes a couple of minor improvements in a few minutes, and then starts redistributing something that is 99% someone else's work without those original creators receiving any benefit.

      Copyright actually leads to more duplication of effort!

      Sometimes, perhaps it does, but I'm not sure this is one of those times. New textbooks are usually issued to complement a new syllabus, or a new teaching method, or some significant advance in the state of the art. That usually means a substantial amount of new material.

      In this case, we already have a pretty good idea of what happens if we pool community resources to write an alternative that anyone is free to copy and edit. The result is something like Wikipedia, and it is a great benefit to society and often a fine source of information. What it mostly does not have, however, is anything close to the level of curated structure, editing, and detail that goes into a professionally published textbook.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    61. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      What it mostly does not have, however, is anything close to the level of curated structure, editing, and detail that goes into a professionally published textbook.

      Nor does your average "professionally published textbook". Errors and other assorted failures are par for the course, even when the textbook is not an outright scam.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    62. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      I don't know where you're from, but here in the UK school and university textbooks are mostly pretty decent, and the good ones are very good. And of course, that's part of my point: the good ones probably take more work to get right and will be priced higher, but if you value having good textbooks then you will presumably still buy them. If the extra quality isn't worth that much to you, you can buy lower quality work for a lower price and put up with its inadequacies. Either way, schools have limited budgets, so the price has to be realistic. Efforts will be focussed on creating works that have a good chance of being commercially successful, i.e., what the market wants.

      Over here, even an average textbook will typically have dramatically more work put into checking its correctness and writing useful exercises and citations than something like a Wikipedia page on most subjects. Despite the widespread applicability of, say, a basic maths textbook for 14 years olds, the entire global academic community has so far not got together to write a common, community-led version online that is free to use and free for anyone to edit. That surely tells us something about the benefits of commercial incentives.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    63. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was when art was handwritten. The invention of block printing allowed for mass copying which required copyrights. The internet has only made this a bigger necessity.

    64. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Odd how your first example says the distributor makes $140 and the second says the distributor loses $70. When I make a copy of something and give it to someone and it turns out that that makes the difference between buying or not, the distributor does not lose money, since the distributor has absolutely no additional expense for the second copy. The distributor makes less money, in this hypothetical situation tailored to your argument.

      It may also happen that the friend really likes the game from the pirated copy, and buys a copy he or she would not have otherwise. We know plenty of cases where piracy (or legal free distribution) has done that. In that case, the distributor revenue goes from $70 to $140.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    65. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Why are you focusing only on quantity and ignoring quality?

      Writing a novel can be fun. Editing to make it more pleasurable to read is much less fun, and people who are good at it want to charge for their services. Would you rather read a polished and well-edited novel, or the one I wrote for National Novel-Writing Month last November and haven't edited since? (My wife said she was able to read through all of it, and she at least didn't notice amateurish writing in the second half.) Would you rather your favorite author could spend a lot of time on writing (and researching and other things), or had to fit it around a day job?

      Moving from my favorite form of art, how about movies? They cost a lot to make, and won't be made without a reasonably reliable way of making money. We're not going to have movies as we generally think of them.

      Given that we want people to be able to make money from artistic endeavors, I don't have a better idea than a 10-30 year copyright.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    66. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Why are you focusing only on quantity and ignoring quality?

      Because the charter the laws are based on doesn't mention quality. If you want a lower quantity higher quality, then change the Constitution to support your opinion.

      Would you rather read a polished and well-edited novel, or the one I wrote for National Novel-Writing Month last November and haven't edited since?

      So we should base laws on what you think people should rather want to do, but not what they actually want, or what's coded in the Constitution.

      It's not a good argument to say "we need copyright because I'm too small minded to imagine a world without it." but it looks like that's your only argument.

    67. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TL;DR; It's not in defense of piracy, it's in defense of a functional legal system.

      That battle was lost a long time ago, at least in the home of the MPAA, the USA.

      The US legal systems (federal, state, and local) are riddled with laws, precedents, and policies that violate fundamental rights. Previous Slashdot discussions have covered this in depth. The abuses of the legal system by the MPAA are no worse than the many other abuses happening on a routine basis. It's a huge mess, and one of the reasons why many people suspect there is no fix within the system.

      I disagree, but it's going to take an effort on the order of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's to get the lawyers and judges to collectively start acting ethically and responsibly. That's not to say that all such folks are unethical as individuals, but the system clearly is, and legal professionals as a class in society had and continue to have a responsibility under their oaths to not allow that to happen.

      To use a software analogy, it's as if lots of programmers were deliberately writing bad software to create an artificial demand for their services. It doesn't take secret meetings in the dead of night, or other conspiracy, for this to happen. It just takes enough amoral individuals looking out for their own interests, and others willing to profit from it. Fortunately, though we do have some VERY amoral programmers, most are not. Also, it's a lot easier to clean up the mess when one's talking about code.

      That's apparently not the case in law and politics. Since most politicians are lawyers, and since associations of lawyers are quite active in lobbying, that distinction between 'law' and 'politics' is very fuzzy, and that's part of the problem.

    68. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by LienRag · · Score: 1

      There is probably no real ethical defense for piracy, but there is certainly absolutely no ethical nor economical defense for giving money to the MAFIAA (remember, he who pays the danesgeld never gets rid of the Danes)...
      So, either you go full RMS and watch/read/use only Public Domain/Copyleft works (or works that are sold directly by their authors without intermediation), either you go for the lesser evil and go to Pirate Bay to get your share of the common culture.
      Obviously, if you do that you should go later to Patreon and Kickstarter or one equivalent of these to contribute to the funding of artistic/intellectual creation.
      And yes, I know that Patreon and Kickstarter are intermediaries too, but they take 5%,not 90% - again, it's a much lesser evil while we work on creating a public/p2p way of funding creation and dismantle the MAFIAA.

    69. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The Constitution says "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." (Article I, Section 8, paragraph 8). This does not say anything about quantity or quality of Writings and Discoveries. I have no idea where you got the idea that it did.

      Are you claiming that people who are not friends or family actually want to read what I've written? I'm fairly sure most such people don't want to read what I wrote and never rewrote nor edited compared to a novel that has been worked on by people who want to be paid.

      I can easily imagine a world without copyright, and I think it would be a disaster, unless we had something to replace it. Patronage would be a possibility, but I don't think it would work nearly as well, and I'm prepared to expound at length should anyone be interested.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    70. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      This does not say anything about quantity or quality of Writings and Discoveries. I have no idea where you got the idea that it did.

      I didn't. Review. You said "Why are you focusing only on quantity and ignoring quality?" and I pointed out that "quality" was not a requirement. You've taken the fact that quantity isn't either to mean I'm wrong, when I never said anything contrary to that.

      Go on, Slashdot is threaded. Read again. Slower, and this time, for content.

      Are you claiming that people who are not friends or family actually want to read what I've written?

      No. I'm making no such claim. Nor do I see how me making and such claim would have been relevant.

      I can easily imagine a world without copyright, and I think it would be a disaster, unless we had something to replace it.

      So, you are like the people who in the 1800s tried to imagine a world without horses. It would be a disaster. It's a disaster because you can't comprehend it. I don't disagree that the first few years would be complete chaos, but Copyright was invented relatively recently, and not to "promote the progress" of anything. It's always been about control. Control profit. Control distribution of information. And *never* about promoting progress. The US tried to do that differently, and the narrow minded people like yourself reject it.

    71. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      "You are the one asserting that advertising and exposure decreases revenue." That's nowhere close to what I said. What I said is the overall impact of piracy will be to remove more paying customers than it adds.

      Yeah, fact free opinions presented as fact. " It's likely that piracy converts more customers into non-customers than it turns non-customers into customers."

      No, it's not likely. There have been many stories about things that went "viral" and saw the income increase greatly after being heavily pirated.

    72. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I didn't. Review. You said "Why are you focusing only on quantity and ignoring quality?"

      "But if no copyright were to encourage more creative works (note, the standard isn't quality, nor breadth of distribution, but individual works in the public domain, so no more of your irrelevant red herrings)," The discussion is threaded, so this was real easy to find.

      As far as a world without copyright goes....

      Some creative output is a lot of fun, and people will keep doing it. Some is drudgery, or very demanding, and people won't generally do it without payment. (Even those who would create anyway will likely create more if they don't necessarily need the day job.) Some requires expensive equipment and/or facilities. If we don't have some way to pay artists, we lose a lot of art everywhere, and we'll lose entire fields. There will be no more big movies, for example, and that would make many people unhappy. Currently, we've got copyright. That allows people to invest in art and charge for it without being undercut by someone who has no expenses. One useful feature is that it allows artists to win big, and that is an extra incentive. If an artist can become rich, that increases the incentive to be an artist, and, as a society, we can pay less for art. Now, I can certainly imagine a world in which there are no material shortages and art is one of the very few ways to earn prestige or whatever, and therefore an artist can get goods and labor for free in order to create, but I'd rather imagine something that can actually be implemented.

      One stand-in for copyright has been the difficulty of copying. Shakespeare did not publish his plays at first, so the Globe was the only theater where you could see Shakespeare plays. There is at least one case of a play being published by someone else in a corrupt form, from notes taken during the performance. Books, until very recently, were difficult to duplicate, and difficult to produce without expensive equipment. A musical performance could not be recorded at one time, which meant only those who paid to be in the hall could experience it. That doesn't apply any more in many fields. It's only a matter of time until oil paintings and sculpture can be easily scanned and 3D-printed in very high quality.

      Another way to pay artists has been patronage of some sort or other. Individual people with lots of money could pay artists to make more or less what the patron wanted, and we have government grants nowadays. I'm not real keen on these as a way of supporting artists. It means that I don't get much of a say in what art I'd like to see, even for niche art, it prevents artists from becoming rich, and it's not reliable. It also means that a new artist has to produce a lot for free in order to be noticed by a patron.

      One variant is something like patreon.com, in which the artist collects money beforehand and then produces something. As before, this doesn't work for anyone entering the field, as very few people will bet that what they produce will be good.

      There's another big problem with paying first and getting the art later: the patron can't be certain that he or she will like the art. Right now, I can buy books and music and movies after finding out what they're going to be like and how good they'll be, which means I can pay money and get a certain standard. If I have to pay beforehand and guess, I am likely to get less art that I like for my money, which means (by basic economics) that I am likely to spend less on art, reducing the amount of money available for artists. Couple that with the difficulty in getting rich, and we're going to get significantly less art.

      Copyright has a lot of advantages, and some disadvantages, and I don't approve of the laws as they exist today.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    73. Re:Why is enforcement the ISP's responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where is public interest in the insane $150,000 penalty for copying a single movie?

      If you consider that the punishments were targeting commercial pirates selling copies on the street, and also that they may have sold a thousand copies of something for every copy they are caught selling, the fine has to be sufficiently high to be a deterrent to commercial pirates. The problem comes in applying that law to non-commercial internet filesharers, if the law was applied as originally intended it is somewhat reasonable.

      I do on the whole agree with you, I just thought it was remiss to ignore why those fines were in place.

  3. LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Lol, also like the ISP's are gonna bend over and willingly lose money on behalf of somebody else.

    1. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Indeed. ISPs often do very little to secure their services against sufficiently determined freeloaders. Alienating paying customers and motivating them to become freeloaders is definitely not good for business.

    2. Re:LOL by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      ISPs want nothing to do with the legal quagmire of identifying and outing pirates, and denying service to select individuals, and they surely don't want to expend resources to enter that quagmire. If a court says a person cannot use the internet as part of a punishment, that's different.

    3. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      Yep, its true, most Pirates would like the ISPs to disconnect the MAFIAA too.

      Some bystanders would vote for fair trials.

      --

      You have the right to remain dead.

    4. Re: LOL by Type44Q · · Score: 0

      Some bystanders would vote for fair trials.

      For the MPAA, two to the head would be far more fair than they deserve.

    5. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I buy most anything and am unsatisfied with it, I can return it and get my money back. Even food and underwear fall under this universally accepted business practice. Why is it that the MPAA/RIAA don't extend the same offer for shitty films and music that they sucker people into paying for?

      I pirate because it's the only way I can know if a movie or music is good enough to pay for and not get ripped off again.

    6. Re: LOL by MTEK · · Score: 1

      So do you pay for it if it turns out to be good?

    7. Re:LOL by Hylandr · · Score: 2

      Movie Theaters will actually do this.

      My Wife and I sent to see the new 'Vacation' disaster and walked out One quarter of the way through. We spoke with Management about it and they gave us free tickets to use at some other date. Which we used when Dead Pool came out.

      If you are kind and polite when talking to people magick happens.

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    8. Re: LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, 2 of deez nuts.

    9. Re:LOL by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 2

      Your sig.
      CLimate change will continue to exist as long as there is money to be made...making it worse

    10. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Theaters (their own separate entity) will hand out tickets if you say your seat was too hard. It's a shotgun solution for pretty much any dispute, because it costs jack all but does a pretty display of customer love, as evidenced by OP. I knew about one lady that sprayed herself with Silly String and said kids did it.

      Not that the MAFIAAs wouldn't love the same shortcut to pseudo goodwill. Wasn't long ago we heard about "millions of $ worth of textbooks" being donated. Digitally. Fucking lol.

    11. Re: LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. My method of finding movies and music is:

      1) Pirate it
      2) Watch/listen to it
      3) Delete everything I don't like
      4) Buy everything I do like so that they will hopefully make more like it and I have a superior copy.

    12. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Getting free tickets isn't getting your money back.

    13. Re:LOL by hucker75 · · Score: 1

      Your sig is cool, I've pirated it.

    14. Re: LOL by wardrich86 · · Score: 1

      I do, but I continue to watch the bootlegged copy. No unskippable content, no ads, no pointless menus. Just the movie, which is all that I want. PLUS I can better manage my digital library and enjoy the movie around my home.

  4. LOL by Quzak · · Score: 0

    Couple of problems. 1.) Not the ISP's job to enforce copyright 2.) Due process, if you accuse me of wrong doing, you cannot and should not be able to deny me a basic need (my livelyhood is net based) without giving me my day in court with a jury of my peers. 3.) Fuck the MPAA. Piracy is here to stay and will only get worse for them until they no longer exist. 4.) Sign up for utilities under a fake name.

    --
    Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
  5. if you don't want to be disconnected... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...STOP using bittorrent to break the law, ASSHOLES!!!

    1. Re:if you don't want to be disconnected... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...STOP using bittorrent to break the law, ASSHOLES!!!

      Never going to happen. See, we have a cultural problem. Morons think it's hip and edgy to use a stupid outdated protocol that uploads while you download because it was designed 15 years ago before content delivery networks made downloads fast and reliable. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to upload while you download. None. Not in 2016. Bittorrent is obsolete fucking shit, but it's popular obsolete fucking shit!!

    2. Re:if you don't want to be disconnected... by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you don't want people to torrent your stuff, STOP PRODUCING it, assholes!

      See? I can be unreasonable, too.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  6. Maybe, just maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If the MPAA uploaded their shit for free I wouldn't have to pirate it.
    If they don't want people to pirate, they should stop producing.
    Their problem is that they never go through with this threat.
    For years they have been saying that piracy will kill their business.
    Well, piracy is still going on, and they still exist, so clearly it's not a problem.

  7. atul bhau by vini24 · · Score: 0

    game of thrones season 6 episodes 1 online watch game of thrones season 6 episodes 1 online game of thrones season 6 streaming online href="http://www.season6gameofthrones.com/"> watch game of thrones season 6 episodes 1 "The Red Woman"

  8. Why disconnect? by loonycyborg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This doesn't make sense. Or maybe it does. Given that having access to Internet is considered basic human right nowadays it seems kinda like a powergrab, essentially they're seeking a power to disconnect any people they want from society.

    1. Re:Why disconnect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they could get away with it they would probably have spyware on people's computers triple-checking every last file for even a possible copyright infringement, and detection would lead to immediate arrest on felony charges that would take years to clear.

      Sad thing is, I'm not kidding at all.

    2. Re:Why disconnect? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      And that is the problem. While they are trying to save their outdated business-model, the only way they can do so has so massive drawbacks for individuals and society as a whole, it can never work. Their business-model is dead, the only question is how much damage they can do before they finally realize that.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Why disconnect? by snadrus · · Score: 1

      Losing this basic human right of communication is akin to home imprisonment.

      So they're lobbying for home imprisonment without due process due to a household member's actions that may-or-may-not have reduced an entertainment provider's profits!

      Then what? Do rent-homes & apartments permanently stay disconnected? Or does the restrictions follow anyone with the same name? Either is insane.

      --
      Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
  9. MPAA doesn't want ISP to take stronger actions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The MPAA doesn't want ISP to take stronger actions, the really don't want ISP's at all. There own fantasy world, without internet, where they transport there product using ships, trains and lorries to brick stores which they can tell to put any competitor on the bottom shelve. That is what the want.

    1. Re:MPAA doesn't want ISP to take stronger actions by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  10. How about just stop using torrents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously. Stop torrenting. There are plenty of other ways to get free stuff without touching a torrent.

    You won't stop. Not ever. Because you're all idiots who were told by other idiots to use torrents. You do what you're told because you're idiots.

    1. Re:How about just stop using torrents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I love posts like these.

      Bit Torrent sucks! There are lots of alternatives but I won't actually name any because I don't want the Bit Torrent retards poisoning our new well since mass popularity brings crackdowns! But I just wanted to engage in some self-congratulatory masturbation and let you know you're all idiots except me!

      Well thanks for sharing.

    2. Re:How about just stop using torrents? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      And now you are an idiot telling other idiots what to do. If you knew what irony was, I'd make reference to it. You just think irony is what people do to their shirties to get rid of wrinkles.

    3. Re:How about just stop using torrents? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I don't get posts like this.

      So someone is prosecuting people doing crime A while the poster is doing crime B. Crime A is well known and published and everyone knows how to do it, crime B is occult and only a few people who are "in it" know how to do it.

      Why the FUCK would I want to draw attention away from crime A if I did crime B?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:How about just stop using torrents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are the better free ways to get free stuff?

    5. Re: How about just stop using torrents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lots of alternatives? Name them

  11. Hypocricy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How about we disconnect copyright abusers from the right to enforce their copyright?

    No? Then fuck you.

  12. Meanwhile in the real world ... by fnj · · Score: 0

    Thinking human beings consider the MAFIAA to be the most persistent pests and stinking evil nuisances in the world and should be disconnected immediately.

    1. Re:Meanwhile in the real world ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why you gotta be so rude?
      Don't you know I'm human too?
      Why you gotta be so rude?
      I'm gonna marry her anyway

  13. Smokescreen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they want ISPs to disconnect persistent pirates, then the ISPs better get ready to lose over 60% of their customer-base.
    Pirating software is the moral equivalent of a fart, most people do it, but they don't talk about it. Ironically, recent studies show that pirates are people who buy the most products in comparison to non-pirates. This is attributed to their buildup of knowledge from consuming so much content, and the self-confidence that arises from it.
    Any content creator whining about piracy might actually be whining about the majority of his/her customers who bought the products, so it's counter-intuitive to create animus with principled rationalization when empiricism proves you otherwise.

    However, the MPAA aren't content creators. They are contractors and intermediaries for 3rd party slavers. By slavers i mean, companies who take away over 50% of content creator income via contracts and get free money from doing nothing, all on the basis of an obsolete business system when content creators needed distributors and managers before the Internet. Thankfully the Internet now provides large prospects of independent management for content creators, and dependence on 3rd party Publishers and such is not absolute nor needed anymore except for some "funding" prospects (which also are being experimented by shit like Kickstarter for independent operation).
    And this is the problem here. Copyright is being used as a smokescreen for an obsolete business entity that's much more harmful than piracy to make itself look just and righteous, while everyone is evading the elephant in the room who castrates artists financially and creatively, the AAs, Hollywood, etc.

    1. Re:Smokescreen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And since we are on the topic of the anti-pirate collective. Let's see the credibility and morality of the collective through some historical examples of its operation:

      a. Drug trafficking (Vytas Simanavicius case[http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-chief-pleads-guilty-to-drug-trafficking-130421/])
      b. Defamation (Prenda/Malibu)
      [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/porn-troll-prenda-law-sanctioned-in-defamation-lawsuit/]
      [http://torrentfreak.com/accused-movie-pirate-sues-for-defamation-120723/]
      c. Uploading torrents and copyright material themselves unlawfully (Megaupload case, file-lockers, and honeypot schemes).
      http://www.brutalattack.org/index.php/2013/08/15/copyright-troll-ran-pirate-bay-honeypot-comcast-confirms/
      [https://torrentfreak.com/voltage-pictures-sued-for-copyright-infringement-150520/]
      This leads to hypocrisy.
      d. Breaking the 8th Amendment of the USA under the justification of example making. (Fining people hundreds of thousands per song or movie, instead of fair fines of the exact price of the pirated products + 20-30% of the cost as the fine at most, Aaron Swartz case)
      [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz]
      e. Actual cybercrime of spreading malware and trojans on the Internet (https://torrentfreak.com/30000-pirates-receive-fake-fines-with-trojans-attached-140708)
      f. Unwarranted and unlawful incarceration beyond what the law regards as a legal period (Piratebay founder Gottfrid Svartholm), or in other words subversion and undermining of the justice system and causing the loss of trust in the system and the twisting of the term "justice" itself into a worthless term.
      g. Bribery, blackmail and perversion of the justice system (Piratebay founder, KimDotCom, Prenda, [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/19/google-internet-censorship_n_6354518.html])
      h. Wasting more tax-payer money than artists lose to piracy over unlawful use of police forces (KimDotCom case, [http://torrentfreak.com/can-pirate-bay-make-comeback-141210/] and many more) when the police could be saving actual lives...
      So anti-pirates are also potentially indirectly responsible for civilian deaths due to siphoning police reserves.
      i. Filing millions of false DMCA notices and taking down many legitimate sites while hurting many businesses in the process. Censorship.
      [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071010/162619.shtml]
      j. Creating money out of thin air by making up piracy/download numbers, exaggerating them vastly, and thus undermining the economic system. Using this fraudulent way of getting money and passing it off as legal also constitutes money laundering. There's also the issue of false advertisement in the digital economy not being punished [see gaming, EA and Ubisoft just for some examples], digital products by nature not being capable of being ostensibly evaluated by an individual like material tangible products, and the attempt at monopolizing this "blindness" by scamming with rigged demos, paying up reviews and attacking negative reviews [see 4. bellow], paying up let's play videos and using the DMCA to take down any negative critique that may appear, and generally trying to monopolize the ability of people to know what they may pay for and scam on a massive scale, and removing the ability of consumers to have a return guarantee on products in any way possible. All summed up, piracy is the only tool currently in existence that gives power to consumers over the corporations trying to scam them in full scale, and trying to destroy the "consumer is always right" principle that existed as long as the "rights" mantra did.
      k. Fraud and embezzlement [SMAIS scandal and Snæbjörn Steingrímsson admission of guilt]
      l. Misappropriation of funds and being worse at lying than a 12 year old [Pedro Farré (SGAE) case scandal in Spain]
      m. Falsifying statements and signatures of various artists in order to gain support for several anti-piracy measures including a pirate-levy
      [http://abertoatedemadrugada.com/2012/01/spa-falsifica-abaixo-assinado-de.h

    2. Re:Smokescreen by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Al Capone went to jail for less than that...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  14. Hmmm... by EmeraldBot · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Between the incredible amounts of money they hoard and the iron fist they exert for control, the MPAA strikes me as far closer to something resembling a pirate than the loner in his basement who downloads a movie on Friday nights. Honestly, I think the MPAA should be forced to prove their victim would have bought the material otherwise, if they didn't have the opportunity to pirate it. That's the say, I don't think it's illegal to pirate a movie that's unavailable legitimately, because then there's no loss or damage that occurs, and somebody who's on minimum wage wouldn't even be worth extorting by law anyway. Between the idiotic DMCA appeals in which they steal other people's money with no obligation to return it, this stupid game of trying to blackmail ISPs, and the outright moronic way they calculate damages and laws, I regard the MPAA as far more of a villain than the end users they're targeting, and I say this as both a content creator and as someone who dislikes piracy.

    The internet is regarded as a utility in some places, and it's being considered as a possibility inside the United States; would the MPAA be interested in cutting off people's phone service next? Their electricity, perhaps?

    --
    "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    1. Re:Hmmm... by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "Between the incredible amounts of money they hoard and the iron fist they exert for control, the MPAA strikes me as far closer to something resembling a pirate than the loner in his basement who downloads a movie on Friday nights."

      Did you pay attention that in this entry, as it happens in others when there's a strongly economical partner (i.e.: articles about global warming) some 80% or more of the comments come from Anonymous Cowards going on with either long-winded cliche opinions or non-related ones with the net result of increasing the noise to info rates?

      The MPAA just wants to get their cake -and they surrogate to themselves the right of saying what their cake should be.

  15. So no more YouTube? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I suspect YouTube may be the largest repository of pirated content on the planet. If that's true, is YouTube going to be disconnected for persistent piracy?

    1. Re:So no more YouTube? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Content ID forced pirates to abandon YouTube long ago. Do you know what decade you're living in right now?

    2. Re:So no more YouTube? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pirated content is everywhere on YouTube. Content ID isn't working too well.

  16. If they want copyright respected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    then they need to respect copyright (and most especially the responsibilities) themselves.

    When they steal works from the public (by extending copyright), they disrespect copyright. When they destroy works before it gets to public domain, they disrespect copyright. When they make claims asserting copy right but are lying about it, they disrespect copyright. When they make claims of a work for hire (so the performers don't get residuals) but claim a creative work (which isn't a work for hire) so they can get the copy rights that works for hire do not accrue, they disrespect copyrights.

    When they have spend 50-80 years breaking their end of the copy right bargain, why the hell should I or anyone else still obey the restrictions on us?

    1. Re:If they want copyright respected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how about when they abuse their power and dont pay the artists? Isnt that "copyright infringement"?
      How come they didn't pay the billions they owe for violating copyright laws?

      Canadian Recording Industry Faces $6 Billion Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

      http://www.michaelgeist.ca/200...

  17. Allow DMCA abusers to be shut down too by auzy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the law also allows DMCA abusers to be shut down too, I have less of a problem with this law (by which I mean, companies which send out DMCA notices incorrectly). And by shut down, I mean, being unable to send out notices in the future, and disconnected from the internet entirely (including their company website)

    It wouldn't surprise me if all members of the MPAA have incorrectly sent out DMCA notices before, for media they had no rights too (a news station for instance shut down a video of a Mars landing uploaded by NASA).

    So, if laws were put in place to allow companies to be shut down, if they abuse the DMCA, or make a mistake, I wouldn't have a problem with this, because it would ensure that notices were only sent in cases that they were warranted.

    But the way it stands, it just opens the system up to more bullying and abuse.

    1. Re:Allow DMCA abusers to be shut down too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hell, considering how often the MPAA and its member companies have been caught abusing, infringing, or violating the copyrights of others, all of them should be disconnected from the Internet as well.

  18. Dosconnect the MPAA for persistent whining by Air-conditioned+cowh · · Score: 2

    As I understand they are they ones with the problem that they need to address. I can quite happily live without watching any more films. In fact I did for many years before downloading became possible. Then I developed an interest in films and even started visiting the cinema once in a while. Based on my own experience piracy = promotion. They should be grateful.

    1. Re:Dosconnect the MPAA for persistent whining by Opportunist · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Correlation =! causation. A lot of people stopped downloading movies and at the same time they stopped going to the movies, that is true. Hence the conclusion that downloading means people go to the movies more.

      The fallacy is that they stopped going to the movies 'cause they stopped downloading. Closer to the truth is simply that they stopped both because the junk produced today ain't even worth the bandwidth, let alone money.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  19. Say no to piracy by xororand · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea.
    We should not tolerate marine thuggery.

    Copyright infringement, however, can't be easily equated to piracy or theft.

    https://www.gnu.org/philosophy...
    http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/...

    1. Re:Say no to piracy by Sax+Russell+5449D29A · · Score: 2

      That's an excellent addition to any file sharing related discussion. People have become so accustomed to the term 'piracy' and 'theft' in this context that they have forgotten where those terms originated from and why. Another lovely term I've come across in Nordic Countries is 'illegal downloading', often used by local MPAA/IFPI organizations. This despite the fact that in these countries downloading is in fact legal whereas unauthorized sharing is illegal (in most cases, except to your friends and family).

      --
      -SR
    2. Re:Say no to piracy by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      But ... the lack of pirates is one of the leading causes of global warming! Why do you hate the planet?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Say no to piracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought that 'pirate' is a self-selected term that groups dedicated to downloading warez, music and videos, etc. chose for themselves. I mean, the Pirate Bay didn't get its name from the MPAA/RIAA you know.

    4. Re:Say no to piracy by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      "Piracy" has been used for commercial copyright infringement for quite some time now. More recently, it has been extended to individual copyright infringement. I think we're stuck with the term.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    5. Re:Say no to piracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People have become so accustomed to the term 'piracy' and 'theft' in this context that they have forgotten where those terms originated from and why.

      There is a reason people are accustomed to this use of the word, it is because it has been used in this context far longer than any of us have been alive.

  20. persistant pirate to MPAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    downloaded everything i NEEDED and want....your crap now well if i get bored.....maybe....
    and i gave up uploading cause i cant handle haviing to quality control garbage you put out ...YOU WON

  21. THEY do!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you should see all the hoes around me ...ts great ....and cause the mpaa and friends tv s shut garbage im actually enjoyin myself more

  22. Guardians.of.the.Galaxy.E17.Come.and.Gut.Your.Love by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sounds like they gettng nice dont it

  23. Perhaps the MPAA is willing to compensate the ISPs by dk20 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    MPAA - Your action will lead to another company losing revenue.

    Using your maths, each customer lost thanks to your rule is a multiple of the actual loss.

    So, again using your rules, how about you compensate the ISP for each customer you terminate to the tune of $250,000?

    I mean that is the number you use right? And it is all about lost revenue so I am sure you can appreciate the revenue the ISP has lost and want to compensate them just as you expect to be compensated for your "losses".

  24. So, lemme get that straight, what was that? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You want me to disconnect my customer, who will then burden and pester me and my support about it, I will lose that customer and potentially others, if word gets around that I randomly disconnect my customers based on nothing more but hearsay from you and your whims? You want me to risk my common carrier status and insanely bad press and PR? Without any kind of compensation whatsoever?

    You find the door yourself or should I just toss you out the window?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:So, lemme get that straight, what was that? by mark-t · · Score: 1

      I would imagine that the standard for such disconnection would be considerably higher than hearsay.... presumably, actual guilt or innocence would be established by a court of law. If the MPAA isn't willing to put up with the waiting times for going through the legal system first, that's just too fucking bad for them.

    2. Re:So, lemme get that straight, what was that? by Ken+D · · Score: 2

      If that was true then they wouldn't need to try to strong arm ISPs into doing this, because the court judgment could just include this.

    3. Re:So, lemme get that straight, what was that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be impolite to toss them out the window before the acid moat's installed.

  25. Re:Perhaps the MPAA is willing to compensate the I by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    That's about right. That's pretty much what the average customer could have paid for his internet access to the ISP in the next 70 or so years.

    That's actually a pretty conservative estimate, considering that it's 70 years from now, not, like with copyright, lifetime + 70 years.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  26. The Library of Alexandria by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One of the main reasons so much material from the ancient world is lost forever, is that copying was expensive and only very limited numbers existed of most works. So when disaster struck, whether natural or in the form of people, that often destroyed the last copy of many works.
    So why are people letting the MPAA and RIAA do what they do?

    Alexandria
    Never forget.

  27. Because you don't know until afterward. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Duh.

    1. Re:Because you don't know until afterward. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Has it occurred to you that some people steal it because the odds its gonna be so shitty its not worth buying are high? It's one of the few things you cant return once you realize its not fit for purpose or worth the buying price.

    2. Re: Because you don't know until afterward. by dhjdhj · · Score: 1

      That's a problem of consumer law and business practice. On quite a few occasions, I've bought a book for my Kindle and requested a refund a few days later because I decided/felt the book was no good. Amazon has always come through. They are of course able to remove the book from my Kindle. Having said that, they have also refunded me MP3 albums when I've decided I don't like them. So it CAN be done.

    3. Re: Because you don't know until afterward. by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Can you explain what "That" you are referring to in the previous post is? This is a problem of people and people have many avenues of dealing with the problem. You are probably one of those people who agree with the statement "No one is above the law", but the relationship between people, the law, and society is very different from that. Saying, " acting outside or within the boundaries of the law is an improvement from my perspective, but not by much.

  28. Headline correction by overshoot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    s/Persistent Pirates/Repeatedly Accused Pirates/

    --
    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
  29. Causes no harm? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It causes no harm, and anything that causes no harm should not be illegal. If you don't like that, please point out the error in it.

    It causes no harm as long as the work has already been created.

    It causes great harm if the deal between society and creators, as set out through copyright, is that the creators have to invest whatever is necessary to create a work that will benefit others, but then they have a mechanism to generate revenue in return by controlling distribution for a while. Allowing creators to create as part of this deal, but then failing to effectively enforce the copyright protections, is failing to hold up the other side of the bargain, pure and simple. The harm is then whatever it cost the creators to create and share the work in the first place plus the opportunity cost for them because they didn't invest their resources into something else useful instead.

    If society feels that the current bargain is not appropriate for today's world, that's fine, it can change the laws. If society collectively wants to do away with copyright because "information wants to be free" or whatever, fine, do it. Some people will still create new content and no doubt some people will still find ways to do so commercially. But society shouldn't complain if it makes that change and then finds that, lacking the same incentive to create and share new works, hardly anyone is making big summer blockbusters or original AAA quality computer games or well-produced studio albums or high school math textbooks with thousands of carefully constructed exercises and matching answer books for teachers any more. Nor should it complain when other business models that are less reliant on simply paying for something you find valuable -- things like blatant product placement throughout TV shows and movies, or subscription-only on-line software -- become the norm, even though a lot of consumers don't like them.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    1. Re: Causes no harm? by Type44Q · · Score: 0

      If society feels that the current bargain is not appropriate for today's world, that's fine, it can change the laws.

      So that silly myth that they teach in schools, the one that suggests "society's" in charge... you actually believed that shit?!

    2. Re: Causes no harm? by Ken+D · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So that silly myth that they teach in schools, the one that suggests "society's" in charge... you actually believed that shit?!

      I know, right? I have no problem with copyright being issued for a limited time and yet somehow the copyright period gets longer and longer and when was the last time something ended up in the public domain? Someone has unilaterally altered the bargain and we shouldn't need to pray that they don't alter it further.

    3. Re:Causes no harm? by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Some people will still create new content and no doubt some people will still find ways to do so commercially. But society shouldn't complain if it makes that change and then finds that, lacking the same incentive to create and share new works, hardly anyone is making big summer blockbusters or original AAA quality computer games or well-produced studio albums or....

      People were creating art long before there was such a thing as copyright.

      The world before copyright gave us Shakespeare and Beethoven. The world now gives us Justin Bieber and Sharknado.

      Nuff said.

    4. Re:Causes no harm? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 0

      People were creating art long before there was such a thing as copyright.

      Yes, they were. There was much less of it, and almost all of that was directed to the interests and preferences of a wealthy elite rather than what benefitted society as a whole. I don't know about you, but personally I think we're better off moving away from the patronage of the rich as the primary means for creators to earn a living, and the economic incentive created by copyright is one way to promote alternatives, because it lets you amortise the cost of a very expensive work over a very large number of people who each contribute only a small amount towards it.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    5. Re:Causes no harm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What makes you think laws are synonymous with collective will?

      Actions are synonymous with collective will. Marijuana is fine. Driving a little over the speed limit is fine. Piracy of overpriced and inconvenient content is fine.

    6. Re:Causes no harm? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      So what else is fine because a lot of people do it? Driving while on the phone? ("Fine" until you have an accident, but then someone dies.) Piracy of software that was created by one guy working really hard in his bedroom for 5 yeas? ("Fine" unless you're that one guy, or anyone else using the software who would benefit from the continued development he can't now afford to do.) Tax dodging? ("Fine" until everyone else starts doing it as well, but then sorry, your society collapses.) Discrimination in the workplace? ("Fine" as long as you're OK because you're not too old/female/gay/black/Muslim/whatever.)

      Laws move slowly, often a lot slower than social norms and popular understanding of new issues, but over time they do tend to reflect consensus ethics. I notice that the examples you gave are all cases where the current laws are arguably out of sync with much of society, but also not widely enforced. If they were, you'd see them changed very quickly to match what was and wasn't acceptable according to common ethical standards, probably after a bit of popular debate so more people understood the underlying issues that prompted the laws in the first place, which in some cases would be no bad thing anyway.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    7. Re:Causes no harm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      high school math textbooks with thousands of carefully constructed exercises and matching answer books for teachers any more.

      Has math changed enough lately that there actually is need to do this?

    8. Re:Causes no harm? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      Math itself hasn't changed much at that level, but different syllabus requirements come and go, and so do different teaching methods.

      Perhaps a better example would have been undergraduate or masters level texts, where there may be both significantly smaller markets and significantly higher levels of expertise required from significantly fewer potential authors, but in some subjects the contents of those texts might still need substantial updates from time to time.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    9. Re:Causes no harm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "It causes great harm if the deal between society and creators, as set out through copyright,"

      They reneged on that deal when they abolished public domain.

    10. Re: Causes no harm? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The problem is that we have a large population that is hurt slightly by overlong copyright terms, and a small number of people who benefit a lot from it. The people who benefit a lot have incentive and money to try to influence the laws to the public harm.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    11. Re:Causes no harm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Art back at those times had to be seen or owned in person, there was no copy of a music, you had to have your own orchestra to play it. Andt here were FAR FAR less artists than nowadays. The amount of music created in this decade alone is larger than all musics created in the 18th century. That made copyright irrelevant. Nowadays everyone can play a movie or a music a completely different scenario from old times.

  30. Causation causes correlation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why on earth would your proclamation be relevant?

  31. Better ID rates by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2
    If the MPAA wants to do this, they had better significantly improve their ability to properly identify real pirates, and stop using the "your IP address" type of garbage.

    .
    There also needs to be significant penalties if the MPAA mis-identifies someone as a pirate. I'm thinking a proper penalty for mis-identifying a pirate would be that the MPAA's Internet access be terminated.

  32. Use the tools you have by bhmit1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The MPAA isn't the judicial branch, they don't get to be a judge and jury in these cases, they are the plaintiff. Nor are they the legislative branch, if they want to write a law, they need to buy off their congressman like they always have before. And the ISP isn't a police force, they are a witness and vendor to the defendant. If the MPAA wants to enforce penalties like this, use the legal system that already exists rather than acting like the mafia and enforcing their own laws with their own judge and their own police force.

    Regardless, I don't see what reason the ISPs would have to work with the MPAA, it's against their financial best interest to eliminate consumers. And it's against the better interest of society to have laws that permanently cut off individuals from the internet, this has become a basic necessity in modern life, not unlike electricity made its transition to necessity in the last century. Anyone that cannot legally use the internet would be much more likely to be unemployed, possibly homeless and a burden on the local society.

    If an ISP chooses to enforce these policies, they should immediately lose any local monopoly on providing internet service, open up the area to competition, possibly municipal internet. And ISPs should become liable for denial of service for any reason that is not legally recognized and where an individual was never convicted of a crime. It would be nice if the government found a few laws that the MPAA violated just for attempting to get a policy like this through, discrimination against individuals, anti-trust, extortion, etc.

  33. A Little Due Process First by medv4380 · · Score: 2

    I'm fine with the courts restricting someones internet access due to excessive piracy, or other internet related crimes. I'm not so fine with someone doing that with outside of Due Process. The MPAA, and other has send DMCA take down notices to the IP address of Printers.

  34. If profits go down, it's due to pirates. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If people don't watch so much, it's due to pirates.

    Pretty much anything that happens will be blamed on pirates if it helps the "content industry" get more cash or extrajudicial support.

  35. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  36. P1rate6ay is down again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wish the MPAA/RIAA would get their nose out of everyones asses.

  37. they haven't thought this through by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    they are going to object to their own bypass of due process when they suddenly find themselves booted off the internet.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  38. “Whac-A-Mole” by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The MPAA feels that the way the current law is being used is an endless game of “Whac-A-Mole”.
    It does seem so, but perhaps the reason is the way the MPAA is using the law with indiscriminate takedowns.

    Perhaps we need a 50% rule.
    If more than half of a major actor's involvement in the Internet is bad, then they need to either stop using the Internet or come up with a real plan to amend their ways. That includes both public websites like YouTube if most of their content is actually infringing, and the MPAA if more than half of their takedowns are bogus.

    As for minor actors, like the general public, I'm skeptical of a plan that pits folks with money, lawyers, and a axe to grind against individuals. In most cases, it's not a fair fight. (Until the folks get fed up and get together then it will not go well for the MPAA.) If these folks are really doing something bad, then we need a
    better settlement system than extortion.

    The Constitution says "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".

    The founding fathers had it right. An unlimited term (as per Mickey Mouse) conflicts with promoting the useful arts. An author that gets too comfortable has less incentive to create. An author that doesn't get the benefit of his work because he works for a corporation has less incentive to create. If unlimited terms eliminated all prior art, then the things being created would dwindle to something much less interesting then what was intended. We definitely need Copyright reform , but the direction required is the reverse of recent events.

  39. I Want MPAA Employees Disconnected From Life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And I want MPAA employees disconnected from life.
    It's exactly as lawful as their request.
    So either shut up, MPAA, or die.

  40. As soon as they pay for it. by Revek · · Score: 1

    Maybe. But probably not.

  41. Does it really matter? by AnotherBlackHat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Pirates use the internet because it's currently the easiest way to do things.
    But if it was impossible to spread "unapproved" media through the internet, people would just go back to sneaker-net.
    I can buy 32 gig on portable media for under 10 bucks.
    Swapping drives with just two people 5 days a week is yields a respectable 4.2 Mbps "sneaker-net a bandwidth".
    You might have to wait a month for content to saturate the network, but everybody would have access to everything.

    And that's close to the minimum a sneaker-net would be.
    Most people have more than 2 friends they could swap with, and 128 gig drives are pretty cheap.
    Things are going great, and it's only getting better - Moore's law FTW.

    1. Re:Does it really matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And then you can post your USB sticks through the mail! Let the Motion Picture people start trying to tell the postal service to open all the parcels that might contain USB sticks.

  42. Re:Say no to dolts by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

    You dolt. Piracy has referred to copyright infringement for hundreds of years. The GNU philosophy statement is disingenuous in that sense, and cannot support a factual argument. Semantic, sure, but not factual.

    The case you linked to has a footnote clarifying what a pirated work is, and how that differs from bootlegs.

    Take your links, add a dictionary, and your support actually does not support you.

  43. So pirates just need a VPN? $30 a year? by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    My understanding is: VPNs are not that expensive. I think some are actually free.

    So what is the problem?

  44. But that's not all.... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    "MPAA Wants ISPs to Disconnect Persistent Pirates"....and they went on to say, "and we want a pony! And a 60-ft red yacht with gold handrails! And we want the letter "E" removed from the dictionary!"

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  45. Let's start with a better proposal by Casandro · · Score: 1

    Let's first ban all forms of DRM so that I can easily just watch my BluRay disks or copy them to harddisk without having to go through dubious providers.

    Once DRM is gone and piracy therefore has dropped considerably as you can simply pay for DRM-free copies on the Internet, we can talk about hunting "pirates".

    The MPAA has to understand that their 1970s business models of "renting cartivision tapes" just can't coexist with a computerized digital world where making copies is trivial.

  46. Disconnecting people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These pirates should get disonected:
    reklamacja@kredytum.pl
    kasia@wysylka.szybkapozyczkaweb.pl
    allegro@webglobal.pl

  47. Iif instead of hiring these private police/mafia. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The studios used actual police this would have been addressed long ago.
    It is not in the best interest of mpaa to have anything actually stop it. They want to slow it and say give us more money see were doing something.
    And hollywood stuck on stupid forks it over.

  48. If Google can us Oracle ave code. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am pretty sure I can use and sell anything mpaa has got as long as I got Google kind of money.
    This is just the wealthy stealing from the poor not the other way as they want you to believe.

  49. MPAA Wants ISPs to Disconnect Persistent Pirates ( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People in hell want ice water.

    Save America from clowns like the MPAA -- Re-elect no one.

  50. However you are using a logical error. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ad hoc ergo propter hoc.

    You presume that it would have been paid, then use the idea it wasn't paid as "proof" the payment was lost.

    You need to prove it would have been paid first and that payment was withheld thereafter because it was no longer necessary, rather than merely no longer wanted.

    If you find the meal was badly prepared, after the mean you wish you hadn't paid for it. If someone gives you a taste of the meal first, your desire to buy the meal is gone,but that contravenes no genuine harm to the chef, since their meal would not have been wanted anyway.

    1. Re:However you are using a logical error. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, the irony of ignoring the initial statement "If you want to be taken seriously, you need to accept that a hypothetical situation already shows proof."

      Note the statement "absolutely plan on purchasing this game, specifically for the purpose of playing together at the same time" followed later by "and are able to bypass all of the online checks". That is intent to purchase, and intent to consume content. Illegal means (bypassing online checks) were used to justify not purchasing a second copy. That is not a demo. That is a lost purchase.

      In your example, after the tasting fails the chef does not receive payment for an unwanted meal but neither does he expend resources of product or effort creating the meal. You'll have to accept the only way you're getting a sample without having to pay for it is from a pre-prepared sampler platter. Regardless of whether you wanted the meal or not after the fact, if you ate the full meal you are still required to pay for it. You can argue with the chef or manager to try and get out of paying, but if they refuse you're still stuck paying for it. Walking out the door at that point without paying makes you a criminal.

      Many times people argue that a copy doesn't represent material property, but again that is ignoring that the violation is not actually theft despite what the MAFIAA calls it. It's violating a copyright holder's rights by diluting their ownership. Once again, only the copyright holder or their designates are allowed to create copies. That is what the law actually punishes.

  51. Well, the MPAA Does Write Our Laws by BrendaEM · · Score: 1

    Until campaign donations are are control, what do you expect?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  52. Good luck with that by SilverBlade2k · · Score: 1

    The ISP's won't disconnect pirates because those people pay to have an internet connection. Why should the ISP's willingly stop a revenue source just to appease the MPAA?

    It shouldn't. Policing pirates isn't the job of the ISP. It isn't their responsibility.

  53. Slashdot refuses to Stop... by SeaFox · · Score: 1
  54. The real headline if you care to read it.... by axewolf · · Score: 1

    The powers that be are acting through the MPAA to express the want for the people who are most addicted to the media to have to get jobs and leave the comfort of their parents' homes.

  55. ISPs would have to deal with violent customers by OpinOnion · · Score: 0

    In many places where you have just one ISP you'd be depriving people of a basic and highly necessary service. That kind of termination of service for something the anti piracy lobbies cannot accurately and honestly pinpoint or prove would just be irresponsible. There are plenty of scenarios were one person in a home could be pirating without the others consent or knowledge. Yet some silly record and movie company organization thinks it has the authority to demand that service cut off, without investigation or proof? They are fools and they would wind up facing a class action lawsuit and having to pay millions in damages if they keep trying to strong arm ISPs. Obama's FCC doesn't really mess around. They smacked Verizon down so hard that Verizon is forced to give hotspot access away for free. Thing like internet as a basic utility are HUGE and barely talked about over the sound of tin foil crinkling.

  56. I agree all MPAA members shout not have Internet! by HannethCom · · Score: 1

    MPAA has been found multiple times pirating movies and issuing illegal DMCA take down notices. Thus I agree, that pirates, meaning all MPAA members, should automatically have their Internet terminated.
    This includes any company filing a DMCA take down notice, that turns out to be false.

    --
    Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
  57. A hypothetical is STILL ad hoc ergo propter hoc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But a hypothetical is STILL ad hoc ergo propter hoc and writing "You must recognise this hypothetical" does not stop it being a logical fallacy and totally unsupported.

    Explain why the hypothetical must be accorded reality rather than remain a hypothetical and lets see if the argument for that holds up.

    1. Re:A hypothetical is STILL ad hoc ergo propter hoc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you'll see this, maybe you won't, but you're focusing on the entirely wrong part of the hypothetical. It isn't that the hypothetical needs to be treated as a real incident; it's that it is wrong to say that a hypothetical argument is wrong because it doesn't show proof. It is not a real incident and therefore does not need real proof. If you cannot accept that a hypothetical incident also includes hypothetical proof then you're misrepresenting the argument to focus on one you can win, which means you're using a strawman argument and therefore your argument has failed.

      No amount of Latin will help you if you don't understand your own arguments.

  58. Re:Say no to dolts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The age that people have been committing its tradition of propaganda should never excuse its continued use. If you don't support the implication of this propaganda, then take a stand and work with people who don't know otherwise. Let's make a change for the better instead of continuing on a bad line of thought.

  59. Notices == accusations... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is the slippery slope to 'guilty regardless of innocence'. Unless a 'notice' is verified to be a genuine serious infringement (sufficient for prosecution against the accused), the accused should not be punished. The law demands due process, and this is an attempt to bypass that.

  60. And in regards to false accusations and takedowns? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will ISPs be required to permanently disconnect firms that persistently issue false takedown and infringement notices as well?
    Seems only appropriate.

  61. Welcome to 1950 business model by Smiddi · · Score: 1

    How about the MPAA update their business model to match todays technology?

  62. How coincidental. by tlambert · · Score: 1

    How coincidental.

    Most of us want to disconnect the MPAA.

  63. Perhaps by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 1

    one of the reasons the ISP's have no interest in the MPAA and their delusions of grandeur is that the ISP's have a better understanding of the concept of " Due Process ".

    They also understand that anyone who is wrongfully accused and disconnected sans hard evidence is just a very pricy lawsuit landmine just itching to be stepped on.

    I would let the MPAA / RIAA fund their own crusade and catch the inevitable blowback when it happens.

  64. Does that go for Open WiFi too? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't mean mine - I don't allow even a guest net. But Comcast creates guest WiFi points through their modem/routers, as I understand it.. So.... does that mean open WiFi connections will have their service terminated as well? And what about B&N and any other business with free WiFi... are they going to get warned/disconnected too?

  65. BAD LAWS UNDERMINE JUSTICE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bad (especially, broad) laws undermine justice. When there is no longer a line between right and wrong, but rather a smorgasbord of infringements so vague they can be lobbed at anymore, the people no longer see law as justice. Even worse when difference classes of people are completely immune to the law regardless of their offenses. This is similar. Today's copyright is a complete lie, and the public no longer believes the fairytale.