I agree with the sentiments of the FBI case, but not their methods. The movie industry is getting hammered by these unauthorized releases.
Or so they claim. Any independents backing this up? Remember we are talking about an industry which uses such bogus accounting that no movie appears to have even made its production costs back in decades. Yet somehow the companies involved are still operating...
You're talking potentially billions in losses to the industry.
Even if this claim was true there are other criminal activities which already have resulted in far bigger losses.
Of course, the FBI will act on this.
They shouldn't because they quite literally have "bigger fish to fry".
Civil computer disputes tend to draw paramilitary responses for some reason. The bizzare response of an international team armed with automatic weapons to apprehend a teenager in quiet Scandinavian surburbia (DVD Jon) is the rule instead of the exeception.
Whereas it would make more sense if this were happening in Eastern Europe, North West Africa, etc. The kind of places the real "cyber criminals" are likely to hang out.
I really do not understand where all the hype is coming from unless it is some superstitious overreaction to "white man magic" by people in charge of law enforcement.
You can see similar things happening with "anti terrorism". Where a lot of fuss is made about catching people who arn't even much of a danger to themselves. Whereas those who actually are likely to be dangerous tend to be ignored by law enforcement and the press. Even when they get sent to prison. Contrast Robert Cottage and David Jackson with Bilal Talal Samad Abdullah and Mohammed Asha
Oh, didn't you hear? Obama was the one who promised to attack Pakistan.
Whatever Bush's faults he didn't threaten to invade a country which actually has nuclear weapons (and probably the ability to deliver them by rocket to anywhere on the planet)...
That's why it's so tedious to hear people claim that everything will be just fine and dandy if you just give the vast accumulation of power in violation of our constitution to their team instead of the other team.
It's not as if there is much evidence that giving law enforcement increased powers (often with less accountability) actually helps much with catching what most people would consider "real crooks" anyway. (The latter currently including a rather large number of banking executives.)
So in other words the FBI agents violated law. And not just regular law, but Constitutional law.
The branch of law enforcement which would typically handle such cases being known as "The Flying Pig Squad". A title which is ironic or several levels.
Either way, how many 3-year max sentence criminal offenses warrant full scale FBI raids that costs numerous other businesses REAL money.
Someone may want to do damage to one or more of those other businesses. Or someone who was using their machines. e.g. some kind of bot net "turf war". Or the "leak" may have been deliberate by the studio or the MPAA. Both as "viral marketing" and to make a political point...
I'm not sure I understand a full scale FBI raid for determining who actually leaked the copy...
Especially when nothing like this happened with McColo. Which involved 24/7 lawbreaking and undoubtedly many criminals. That's before even considering the likes of scammers and phishers operating on the Internet...
Sure, there is some punishment in order but the guy who leaked a work print probably isnt responsible for the "billions of dollars" that the industry will say the leak cost them...
A big part of the problem is that unless a high doller amount is claimed the FBI just won't be interested. Thus you get corporate interests claiming entirely bogus values. Whilst the real crooks get away with huge sums of money because they take "only" tens to thousands per transaction. No doubt some of these would earn more in a month from their activities than the production costs of one movie.
'Taking a stand' would be tarring and feathering their local district attorney equivalent and their MP's until their right to
shoot burglars dead is once again respected by English law.
IIRC the current situation is that you can be sued if your home is not a safe "workplace" for burglars.
Burglaries will be sorted out after a few burglars end up dead for their efforts.
What do you think would happen when a (dead) burglar turned out to have been working for the "security services" or police? Also should the homeowner be able to claim ammunition and carpet cleaning from the burglar's estate...
Google doesn't have riot shields, batons nor tear gas to deal with unruly villagers. That tends to make them more of a soft target for said villagers than say... the Metropolitan Police.
Nor does Google have the ability to shoot people dead and only get fined for a "health and safety violation".
The issue here though is that the discussion is centering around governments, laws, and lawmaking. Laws and lawmaking are based on precedent, which is just another way of saying they are based on slippery slope.
There is also several thousand years of history about the behaviour of people in governments. Rather important is that governments tend to attract people addicted to having power over others. About the only effective countermeasure is to prevent self selection of members of government. Something which modern "democracies" utterly fail at...
Even if we don't want government censoring of wikipedia now.
Governments are more likely to use Wikipedia (and similar) to push propaganda. Censorship being only likely to happen in the case of propaganda is effectivly opposed.
Having a TLD of.adlt or.prn would allow parents and schools to block pr0n from their kids.
Except that there is no universal definition of "adult material" or "pornography". The only way you could even attempt this would be several hundred of.porn.legal-jurisdiction.
in the usa, children, who did not deserve to be sent to prison, were being sent to prison for minor offenses. why? because the prisons were being run PRIVATELY, there was a PROFIT MOTIVE. enter: one crooked judge eager to line his pockets, and you have a cash machine.
However this crooked judge (together with his co-conspirators) was able to do this for years before he got caught. Given that low level of risk it would be no suprise if he were the only one doing this sort of thing. There's also the issue of what restitution is due to the victims in such cases, includiing those who may actually have been guilty of whatever it was they were accused of...
I do agree (as I believe the U.S. Supreme Court also did not long ago) that simulated child sex (adults who look young, or animation, etc.), or simple nudity, does not qualify as actual child pornography.
What definitions of "child" and "adult" was the court using at the time? Especially given the irony of trying to try these people as "adults". Of course if things actually got to trial the only sane thing for the judge to do would be order arrest records destroyed and jail anyone involved in the prosecution for contempt of court.
As I see it, overreactions like this happens because politicians, bureaucrats and the justice system, all want to appear like they are taking Steps to remove the crime of child abuse.
However what they are actually doing in these cases is abusing children. So maybe they belong in jail...
and, witch hunt-like hysterias tend to collapse when everyone can be suspected of the crime.
It's more when someone of high status get's a credible accusation made against them and they can't find a way out which isn't obviously hypocritical. Generally it dosn't matter how many "plebs" accuse the "witch finder" though.
Unfortunately, laws don't really act as they were "intended", they act as they are written(at best, it's all downhill from there).
They may well act as "intended", just that those advocating them lied about their intentions when they were being passed.
Even if the law is actually written with the more-or-less-pure motive of cracking down on the 4chan babyrapers fan-art fanclub(and that isn't necessarily a safe assumption;
It's also not a safe assumption that it will even be used against that group of people.
pretty much any sex-related law has at least a few theocrats clinging to it somewhere),
If only to ensure that it's not likely to be used against them and theirs.
But drawing people being torn apart or burned or tortured (non-sexually) is not obscene?
The same applies to movies and TV. e.g. the first (1977) Star Wars movie was classified as suitable for all audiences, even though it includes the use of a WMD which killed huge numbers of people.
I suppose I must have missed the memo explaining how X+sex is evil and must be banned, when X is tolerated and "free speech" and what not.
The "violence is ok, sex is not" idea appears most common in the US. Where apparently one nipple equates to "sex"...
I watched Hostel once. Terrible movie, I don't recommend it at all. But pretending that the "virtual" murder in there is the same as a real murder is way beyond moronic. Care to explain why it would be different with porn?
There are plenty of movies depicting all types of things which would be considered criminal actions in the real world. Even though it's typically the case that "no actors were harmed in the making of this movie". So much so that if an actor is harmed it makes the news. In the case of drawings and animations there are no "stunts" and very little risk to actors doing voice over work. This however didn't stop the British Government's "extreme porn" law which effectivly outlaws certain forms of acting...
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I agree with the sentiments of the FBI case, but not their methods. The movie industry is getting hammered by these unauthorized releases.
Or so they claim. Any independents backing this up? Remember we are talking about an industry which uses such bogus accounting that no movie appears to have even made its production costs back in decades. Yet somehow the companies involved are still operating...
You're talking potentially billions in losses to the industry.
Even if this claim was true there are other criminal activities which already have resulted in far bigger losses.
Of course, the FBI will act on this.
They shouldn't because they quite literally have "bigger fish to fry".
Meanwhile, thousands of actual criminals commit much more heinous crimes and go unpunished while the FBI wastes their time on this.
Wonder any of these crooks did anything to "help" the FBI make this time wasting a priority.
Civil computer disputes tend to draw paramilitary responses for some reason. The bizzare response of an international team armed with automatic weapons to apprehend a teenager in quiet Scandinavian surburbia (DVD Jon) is the rule instead of the exeception.
Whereas it would make more sense if this were happening in Eastern Europe, North West Africa, etc. The kind of places the real "cyber criminals" are likely to hang out.
I really do not understand where all the hype is coming from unless it is some superstitious overreaction to "white man magic" by people in charge of law enforcement.
You can see similar things happening with "anti terrorism". Where a lot of fuss is made about catching people who arn't even much of a danger to themselves. Whereas those who actually are likely to be dangerous tend to be ignored by law enforcement and the press. Even when they get sent to prison. Contrast Robert Cottage and David Jackson with Bilal Talal Samad Abdullah and Mohammed Asha
The proper response to 9/11 should have been the same as if it was a major traffic accident that killed 1500 people - mourn, rebuild, move on.
Probably also investigate both to find out who was involved and why so many things failed so badly.
NOT go out and commit mass murder against Iraqi and Afghan citizens, which makes us no better than the terrorists.
Especially when the only basis for attacking either of these countries is a highly dubious conspiracy theory in the first place...
Oh, didn't you hear? Obama was the one who promised to attack Pakistan.
Whatever Bush's faults he didn't threaten to invade a country which actually has nuclear weapons (and probably the ability to deliver them by rocket to anywhere on the planet)...
That's why it's so tedious to hear people claim that everything will be just fine and dandy if you just give the vast accumulation of power in violation of our constitution to their team instead of the other team.
It's not as if there is much evidence that giving law enforcement increased powers (often with less accountability) actually helps much with catching what most people would consider "real crooks" anyway. (The latter currently including a rather large number of banking executives.)
So in other words the FBI agents violated law. And not just regular law, but Constitutional law.
The branch of law enforcement which would typically handle such cases being known as "The Flying Pig Squad". A title which is ironic or several levels.
Either way, how many 3-year max sentence criminal offenses warrant full scale FBI raids that costs numerous other businesses REAL money.
Someone may want to do damage to one or more of those other businesses. Or someone who was using their machines. e.g. some kind of bot net "turf war".
Or the "leak" may have been deliberate by the studio or the MPAA. Both as "viral marketing" and to make a political point...
I'm not sure I understand a full scale FBI raid for determining who actually leaked the copy...
Especially when nothing like this happened with McColo. Which involved 24/7 lawbreaking and undoubtedly many criminals. That's before even considering the likes of scammers and phishers operating on the Internet...
Sure, there is some punishment in order but the guy who leaked a work print probably isnt responsible for the "billions of dollars" that the industry will say the leak cost them...
A big part of the problem is that unless a high doller amount is claimed the FBI just won't be interested. Thus you get corporate interests claiming entirely bogus values. Whilst the real crooks get away with huge sums of money because they take "only" tens to thousands per transaction. No doubt some of these would earn more in a month from their activities than the production costs of one movie.
So you're prepared to give someone a death sentence on suspicion of being a 'crook'. "Screw a fair trial, I just want to blow someones head off"
Sounds like they could have a promising career in the Metropolitan Police. Or indeed many other police forces...
'Taking a stand' would be tarring and feathering their local district attorney equivalent and their MP's until their right to shoot burglars dead is once again respected by English law.
IIRC the current situation is that you can be sued if your home is not a safe "workplace" for burglars.
Burglaries will be sorted out after a few burglars end up dead for their efforts.
What do you think would happen when a (dead) burglar turned out to have been working for the "security services" or police? Also should the homeowner be able to claim ammunition and carpet cleaning from the burglar's estate...
Google doesn't have riot shields, batons nor tear gas to deal with unruly villagers. That tends to make them more of a soft target for said villagers than say... the Metropolitan Police.
Nor does Google have the ability to shoot people dead and only get fined for a "health and safety violation".
The issue here though is that the discussion is centering around governments, laws, and lawmaking. Laws and lawmaking are based on precedent, which is just another way of saying they are based on slippery slope.
There is also several thousand years of history about the behaviour of people in governments. Rather important is that governments tend to attract people addicted to having power over others. About the only effective countermeasure is to prevent self selection of members of government. Something which modern "democracies" utterly fail at...
Even if we don't want government censoring of wikipedia now.
Governments are more likely to use Wikipedia (and similar) to push propaganda. Censorship being only likely to happen in the case of propaganda is effectivly opposed.
How'd you feel if your child saw a bumper sticker on a car, in a grocery store parking lot that said, "your wife's other car is my big cock".
:)
Maybe car manufactures should try naming their vehicles after poultry
Having a TLD of .adlt or .prn would allow parents and schools to block pr0n from their kids.
.porn.legal-jurisdiction.
Except that there is no universal definition of "adult material" or "pornography". The only way you could even attempt this would be several hundred of
in the usa, children, who did not deserve to be sent to prison, were being sent to prison for minor offenses. why? because the prisons were being run PRIVATELY, there was a PROFIT MOTIVE. enter: one crooked judge eager to line his pockets, and you have a cash machine.
However this crooked judge (together with his co-conspirators) was able to do this for years before he got caught. Given that low level of risk it would be no suprise if he were the only one doing this sort of thing. There's also the issue of what restitution is due to the victims in such cases, includiing those who may actually have been guilty of whatever it was they were accused of...
I do agree (as I believe the U.S. Supreme Court also did not long ago) that simulated child sex (adults who look young, or animation, etc.), or simple nudity, does not qualify as actual child pornography.
What definitions of "child" and "adult" was the court using at the time?
Especially given the irony of trying to try these people as "adults". Of course if things actually got to trial the only sane thing for the judge to do would be order arrest records destroyed and jail anyone involved in the prosecution for contempt of court.
As I see it, overreactions like this happens because politicians, bureaucrats and the justice system, all want to appear like they are taking Steps to remove the crime of child abuse.
However what they are actually doing in these cases is abusing children. So maybe they belong in jail...
I like democracy, but it would be better if coupled with an IQ test and a common sense test before you could exercise your right to vote.
It might be more useful if such tests were required of potential candidates.
and, witch hunt-like hysterias tend to collapse when everyone can be suspected of the crime.
It's more when someone of high status get's a credible accusation made against them and they can't find a way out which isn't obviously hypocritical. Generally it dosn't matter how many "plebs" accuse the "witch finder" though.
Unfortunately, laws don't really act as they were "intended", they act as they are written(at best, it's all downhill from there).
They may well act as "intended", just that those advocating them lied about their intentions when they were being passed.
Even if the law is actually written with the more-or-less-pure motive of cracking down on the 4chan babyrapers fan-art fanclub(and that isn't necessarily a safe assumption;
It's also not a safe assumption that it will even be used against that group of people.
pretty much any sex-related law has at least a few theocrats clinging to it somewhere),
If only to ensure that it's not likely to be used against them and theirs.
But drawing people being torn apart or burned or tortured (non-sexually) is not obscene?
The same applies to movies and TV. e.g. the first (1977) Star Wars movie was classified as suitable for all audiences, even though it includes the use of a WMD which killed huge numbers of people.
I suppose I must have missed the memo explaining how X+sex is evil and must be banned, when X is tolerated and "free speech" and what not.
The "violence is ok, sex is not" idea appears most common in the US. Where apparently one nipple equates to "sex"...
Although drawing a naked baby being raped by guys in rabbit suits might not involve any children who once or ever will exist, it's still obscene.
So is Fred Goodwin's pension. Yet I don't see the British Government trying to ban that...
I watched Hostel once. Terrible movie, I don't recommend it at all. But pretending that the "virtual" murder in there is the same as a real murder is way beyond moronic. Care to explain why it would be different with porn?
There are plenty of movies depicting all types of things which would be considered criminal actions in the real world. Even though it's typically the case that "no actors were harmed in the making of this movie". So much so that if an actor is harmed it makes the news. In the case of drawings and animations there are no "stunts" and very little risk to actors doing voice over work. This however didn't stop the British Government's "extreme porn" law which effectivly outlaws certain forms of acting...