"Nothing short of executions without trial will save media company executives from the dreadful fate of not having enough black caviar to eat." (my own translation)

It also depends on what can be counted as piracy, the way i see it these companies want to consider everything there not making a buck off of as piracy.

Ive personally had some issues with my isp regarding this, I usually get my weekly anime fix via bittorrent, and my isp has flagged me for piracy and blocked ports and things, making me spend hours of time chewing out the bastards until i get my stuff fixed (which they eventually did, begrudgingly ofc). It all depends on what that count as 'piracy', b/c if these greedy bastards had their way downloading anything without paying for it would be piracy.

Another thing is that at what point does privacy become an issue? B/c i don't think they should be looking at what i do over the internet, which in my book is akin to wiretapping.


On top of that there is also the issue of public services such as wifi, will businesses have to quit providing wifi service due to fear of being flagged?

Im all for stopping the piracy, viruses and other crap on the internet. But not at the cost of my privacy or my service (blocking random ports, etc)

It will really be interesting if this comes to the US ... and you thought there was a stink raised over the Patriot Act.   

A few points, Xbox 360, PS3.. games that can not normally be pirated are too expensive by a long way, probably twice as expensive as they should be, and this is when virtually all their revenue is being recovered along sales of origal games. That said I own an Xbox 360 and I have 3 games, with absolutely no intention of buying another £50 pound game, its a blatent rip off, if they dropped that price to the say the price of a film around £15 to $20 then I would buy them at probably 1 a week; but I dont buy 1 a month now... markets are a strange thing. On another note PS2 games and with a chipped box (when I had it) after 2 years I had 7 origanals and around 40 pirated titles... BUT and this is the important BUT... if I had to purchase the 40 titles that was 1.99 down the local market I WOULD NOT have bougt them for 39.99... I just wouldnt have owned them. As the market is prodicted by was it Jonno001? up there, its all down to supply and demand.

On another note, who's going to sort out all the false claims and I guarentee you every one of the thousands or millions of pirates just in the UK where I live will demand an inquiry into each banning demanding proof and pushing it further each time, that accounts for any company, ALOT of paid for man hours, who's going to pay for that? My connection your connection charges? In effect we all gonna pay for piracy.

Piracy cannot be beaten, it can only be made harder so the casually pirate gives up, or produce good software that people will want to buy. Every game that comes up with a film release for the most part is just a cash cow thats an horrendous title usually badly written, and $40 of garbidge.

As well how are they going to police it? all I would do for example is download it on my laptop and turn my connection key security off, open for all... then if I ever get banned I just blame the next door neighbour and threaten to sew, as far as I can see job done.

If we start shutting people down for piracy we can shut anyone down on suspicion of....let not this be a ball to roll.

You'll never be able to stop poor quality product coming out unless it's unprofitable.

This is unenforceable, people will just take it underground, and pirates will start to view the government as an enemy, which will turn some pirates into hackers probably.

This is also one more reason why the EU is such a horrid idea, and a step away from democracy. Praise the Irish and Swedes.

A simple encryption protocol (available at your local Rar client) can and will bust that stupid idea into the dirt. How can anyone automatically tell what kind of content is being distributed?

You can't. You have to actually download the thing, unpack it and see what's inside. Then you blacklist it, the servers get ordered to erase it etc... But a day later another permutation is reuploaded by the pirates. And the cycle continues. Couple that with the various IP maskers, anon proxy servers and such and hunting a pirate become like chasing a ghost.
And if you take one down, there will always be others who want to either profit, "stick it to the man" or just prove that they cannot be caught to take their place.

You end up wasting more money catching pirates than they would have "stolen" via illegal distribution.

The proper way of getting rid of piracy is exactly what Sins has as a game - no invasive DRM and registration key needed for patches and additional content. Hell, I would even make it so that you cannot install and run mods without registering your copy. So if someone wants a free "demo"... fine. They can have them. But they would be missing on a whole lot more if they don't buy the game.

And that's how you do it. Offer a better quality service than pirates. Not by slamming teenagers into jail for playing bootlegged games or trying to shackle up the net...

Firstly, i'm a software engineer, the issue of interlectual property and priacy of it is somewhat an issue i take very seriously.

That being said however, I think entering a dicussion with regards to morales with somenoe who cannot make the distinction between copying music illegally and holding up a car dealership, is probably compariatble to bashing my head against a brick wall in an attempt to satisfiy an annoying itch, so forgive me while i pass on this one.

 

Read the topic again please. the EU REJECTED the law. but it did not stop any member from passing an own law either. So its up to the local democracy. I dont see how the eu hurt anyone in this case.

And why do you praise sweden and ireland?

Seems to work ok for the Chinese Government.

HA
Anyone remembers "Patriot Act", the one thing passed by the Bush administration, to protect us from terrorism? How well did what one go? Wiretapping average American citizens anyone?
Whenever government makes an intrusion into civil liberties, ya should remember the "Patriot Act" as a clear example of such "attempts at security". Trade off between security, be it national or industrial ex., for liberty is unacceptable in my opinion, no matter how well it may seem to be justified.
Well at least that’s what I think on this, and not like politicians ever really care that the "small ppl" think until the time of elections.
CYA

To be honest? I really don't see the problem with this. As for definitions of piracy, well, donwloading something that isn't free without paying or permission from the owner. So yeah, downloading your anime fix, I'd consider that piracy. About the only thing that Microsoft consider piracy that I'd have a qualm with, is loaning a friend a game or other product for a short peroid of time.

 

On another of the comments made earlier, Do you _seriously_ expect me to believe that pirates only steal low-quality goods? I'm not buying that one for a second.

Regardless, it is obvious that this law was cooked up by someone who hasn't got the faintest idea about how the Internet works. You can't ban people from the net. Its impossible. What if they use their friends connection? Or get someone else to open an accout with an ISP? Will you ban them too? How will you know who to ban?

What if my brother/sister/room-mate/whatever is a pirate and you ban our phoneline from having access to the net via any ISP? You just punished an entire group of people over the transgressions of one person. Is that justice? No.

This law is, like many such things, a poorly thought-out idea with little base in reality. It would serve no other purpose but to create a bureocratic gordian knot... well, another one. EU seems to love those.

Not to mention that you cannot keep real hardcore pirates out of the net. There are any number of illegal methods of accessing the net and bypassing blocks, from hijacked accounts to all forms of social engineering to wireless network tapping to name but a few.

Right, what a way to pass. Insult someone and then say they'll pass.

I'd personally say you don't care about intellectual property except your own.

It speaks volumes when you talk about wealthy actors. If they did their work legally, they deserve their money.

That's the same argument any pirate gives. 'Damn those rich people! I'll just steal from them!'

Something tells me your bsing when you say you care about other's intellectual property.

Try educating yourself on what intellectual proptery is, idiot:

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

IP is given on a wide spectrum of things. From inventions, to education, to entertainment.

Stealing IP is worse then holding up a car dealership.

If you are a convicted sex offender, you get banned from the internet.

Stalking people online gets you banned from the internet.

Hacking gets you banned.

You use a computer during the banned years and you'll get put in prison.

Laws like this are already in motion. The internet isn't your playground children. You do a crime, eventually you'll do the time.

And idiotic children can raise as much of a stink as they want. Just because your a childish runt who thinks you can do whatever you want, doesn't mean laws shouldn't be in effect to protect the population.

Stealing Ip is the same as stealing inventions. TBH, the RIAA is doing you favors. IP property theft, if convicted, is an easy $100,000 penalty.

This is the real world, kids. You have laws to follow. Follow them or go to prison.

Was that really necessary?

TheDarkKnight2008 Who give's a dumb fuck if you're Software Engineer. And pls don't be a moral fag and try to push your standards to us.

Yeah, that's exactly the type of response I'd expect from a whiney kid.

The guy who I quoted was the software engineer, but I guess some people are too busy stealing to learn anything.

And also, considering the posts by Stardock, alot of the higher ups are 'moral ***s' too. Go tell them that, see what happens.

This doesn't need to be a personal pissing contest, guys.   

Agreed, but why not talk about ethics, considering this centers around it?

This all boils down to ethics.

From the terms of service for this site, section 3 (m):


Let this be a (very strong) warning.

What is ethics? I figure that if people have the ability to do something that they want to do and doesn't mind (or is unaware of) the consequences, then they will do it.

DarkKnight, it is obvious that you are both ignorant and opinionated, which is both an unfortunate and dangerous combination.

I hope that you will not find yourself in a position where you have any influence on other people's lives until you remedy these deficiencies of yours.

My apologies Dark Knight, but being insulting is only forgiven if you have your facts straight.

Every study does *not* contradict the statement that stopping Piracy will do nothing. While studies by industry groups generally come to that conclusion, most independent studies do not.

So, with apologies, you're coming into the argument being both insulting and a liar. This does not help your cause.

Moreover - your premises show dishonesty from the start - putting extreme strawmen into the mouths of anyone that disagrees with you that have nothing to do with the case at hand.

Now, as it happens, I agree that ideas are more important that matter most often. Which means I consider intellectual dishonesty worse than theft *or* piracy.

So while I do not in fact hold car dealerships hostage to their mpg ratings, it turns out making gratuitous strawman arguments while lying about IP Piracy studies you actually know nothing about is punishable by

Give me a minute, I have a chart . . .

Oh, here it is - being beat about the head and shoulders by a wiffle bat until unconscious.

Or good sense is knocked into you, whichever comes first. Typically with your type, unconsciousness, but we live in hope.

My apologies, I will be sending someone with a wifflebat to your place of residence.

Thank you - Jonnan

What can we do about it?

-make it more difficult to pirate (DRM)

-increase the reward those who don't pirate (updates)

-increase punishment for piracy (this EU internet ban thing)

-reduce the reward for pirating (removing DRM / needing the CD in drive, demos)

-nothing (rely on 'ethics')