HelsinkiZim Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Ok, here's the thing... I have been thinking about how we can stop piracy once and for all for the past few years and I think I have a solution. Media companies need to lobby government to pass a bill that makes it legal to disrupt illegal sites and software. Think about it, if a budget was formed to pay the wages of a global task force whose sole job was to hack, distribute malware, rig seed/ leecher ratios, bombard with pop-ups, and generally make torrenting and streaming a living hell - piracy would be dead in a year - max. Well... not dead. As die hard broke folk will move back to irc networks, but the fact is it would go underground. Imagine an army of folk from developing nations whose job is to disrupt - flood - infect every website that tries to profit on pirated material (which they do from ads, and as we have learned from The Egyptian job, a small amount of money is a big amount outside of developed nations), Employees of the UNAP (United Nations of Anti-Piracy) could bring in a steady paycheck for their families too. Legally and un-anonymously. A global piracy hitman team, sanctioned by the US government. Funded by the entertainment industry. Why has none of the billion dollar corporations done this yet??!!!??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassius McGowan Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 I don't want government having any type of power of anything someone can do on a website or software. They would be able to shut you down on anything (they) seem is illegal. They could shut down this site because gear is being sold and they're not getting taxes from it. I just know government shouldn't have to much power over anything plain and simple. Tim Sewell, sandro, Shield3 and 5 others 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SR Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 1984. Marco Tecno 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HelsinkiZim Posted August 10, 2016 Author Share Posted August 10, 2016 We 23 minutes ago, Cassius McGowan said: I don't want government having any type of power of anything someone can do on a website or software. They would be able to shut you down on anything (they) seem is illegal. They could shut down this site because gear is being sold and they're not getting taxes from it. I just know government shouldn't have to much power over anything plain and simple. Well, how about a free market spammer-for-hire global initiative. Like fiverr.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Punk Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 The act of attacking file sharing sites has already been done, publicly as well as behind closed doors by government 'approved' black hats. Piracy prevention and data control is all around us, simple example is YouTube content viewable in the US may not be viewable in other countries, sometimes for political reasons, sometimes for 'copyright' reasons. Google own YT, so it is often the partner with governments to keep a large portion of media being controlled and accessed worldwide. The fact that piracy remains at all is a side effect from the early days when the world biggest entertainment groups were warned multiple times that this 'Napster' thing could pose a serious threat to the music industry and beyond, that the stolen profits from illegal online redistribution would seriously effect them...they all laughed, whilst wearing their short-sighted glasses in the boardroom. I have limited sympathy for the entertainment bigwig companies who now loose a certain percentage to piracy because they did not heed the warnings fast enough. But the reality is that it can hit the indie filmmaker or musician in the nuts...which is not good. I used to remember a time when music videos used to have budgets! Having a government body that effectively destroys or censors 'illegal' sites that distribute copyrighted works or other media sounds like perfect common sense. But unfortunatly it's not that simple. More often than not, pirated material is hosted on servers located oversees that are hard or impossible to police and warrant any duristriction over. These servers and scattered networks are often the same gateways that repressed citizens from dictatorships can access 'the truth' from - bypassing state run media outlet reports on world events, and get a more unbiased view on the world...through television, film and even music. Any government that overtly has the power and will to control what you see or what information you are allowed to read is a very bad idea. It happens more to us westerners than we think, we are just used to our particular flavour of brainwash. But don't worry, If Trump gets to play president, he'll eradicate online piracy in 5 mins, right after defeating ISIS by deleating all their Twitter accounts with the press of Bill Gates' finger on the magic internet 'Delete' button. (Yes, Trump thinks that is possible) A flip side to piracy is that it is used (or allowed) to be used to undermine dictatorial governments with 'subversive western values'. North Koreans risk imprisiment or death by smuggling in and viewing western films/ TV shows and music, often hidden on USB sticks and distributed amongst the bravest members of the population. There is nothing more destabilising to a hardline dictatorship than allowing its repressed population to see what a shitty deal they have...and to give an alternative perspective on how they should be governed and ruled. As soon as N Korea get to be an feasible outside threat, the people's blind loyalty and enslavement to dictatorship would likely be eroded enough with western Ideology, willing to either overthrow the government themselves, or at least be less resistant to an invading force to overthrow it 'for them'. It's been a proven propaganda weapon in the past, give a tribe or indigenous people a television, and in 5-10 years they will all be truck driving 20 a day smokers, drinking beer worrying about how to pay off their credit cards...meanwhile steal their land and put up your flag. In a nutshell, the big billion dollar entertainment companies were told to implement safeguards and file for better online control of their material at the dawn of the Internet revolution. They did not listen (to lots of people), and now independent content creators are paying the price for having to live in a world where a torrented copy of your work can be a massive hit in profit, not a 0.2 percentage of millions of sales. EDIT: Interesting... http://variety.com/2016/film/news/bittorrent-cash-grants-discovery-fund-filmmakers-musicians-1201833625/ Marco Tecno, jase and kaylee 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanveer Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 2 hours ago, HelsinkiZim said: Ok, here's the thing... I have been thinking about how we can stop piracy once and for all for the past few years and I think I have a solution. Media companies need to lobby government to pass a bill that makes it legal to disrupt illegal sites and software. Think about it, if a budget was formed to pay the wages of a global task force whose sole job was to hack, distribute malware, rig seed/ leecher ratios, bombard with pop-ups, and generally make torrenting and streaming a living hell - piracy would be dead in a year - max. Well... not dead. As die hard broke folk will move back to irc networks, but the fact is it would go underground. Imagine an army of folk from developing nations whose job is to disrupt - flood - infect every website that tries to profit on pirated material (which they do from ads, and as we have learned from The Egyptian job, a small amount of money is a big amount outside of developed nations), Employees of the UNAP (United Nations of Anti-Piracy) could bring in a steady paycheck for their families too. Legally and un-anonymously. A global piracy hitman team, sanctioned by the US government. Funded by the entertainment industry. Why has none of the billion dollar corporations done this yet??!!!??? What a ridiculous idea. Corporations run countries like the US. All sorts of human rights violations already take place on a Huge Scale, despite the Plethora of Human Rights Laws. If Corporations are given a Free Fun (like with Private Prisons in the US), almost everyone who is not buying thousands in music and films will be in jail. Regardless of who commits piracy. Also a huge population of young children indulge in piracy. I am not sure I would want corporations handling them. A study by Harvard University Students not too long ago showed that Piracy actually helps draw traffic for sales for music and movies. So people opposing Piracy are also people who are either genuinely uninformed, or part of Corporate Greed. I don't support Piracy. But giving Corporations more teeth is suicidal for human rights. Also, Interestingly the Biggest Plagiarists are the Corporations/ Studios/ Uber Riche. Did you read about how Getty Images has been indulging in some terrible levels of piracy and monopolising Public IP of late (it is rightly being sued by a photographer whose worked it stole and then attempted to Blackmail her for using her own pics). When Large Corporations are given teeth, they usually go on a criminal rampage. Marco Tecno, Hans Punk, Benozaur and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaylee Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 consider this: writing from the good ol usa, i dont feel safe commenting on anything political online, this topic included i dont feel safe now sanveer and Nikkor 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nikkor Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Jawohl mein Führer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benozaur Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Very easy to come to that conclusion from a first world country. The world is a much bigger and uglier place along with the internet that connects it. I would hate for any organisation to have the power to shut down websites willy nilly. Total freedom doesn't come in a nice package and Internet piracy is a loophole that has been used (abused) since the early days of the WWW. Personally I'd like to have access to sites like wikileaks, un-moderated chat groups in google, etc... Who would decide which sites should be taken down - private companies, the Americans, Chinese, Russians, EU, UN...? Would it stop at piracy, would it get political, would it take on a commercial role? Sure its a thorn in big media's side, personally I don't care. Who hasn't downloaded a copy of After Effects\Premiere Pro once apon a time to get to know the software - then invested in a CC license once paid jobs started rolling in? Adobe got it right to introduce a subscription model as opposed to a lump sum up-front, genius. Netflix also has a pretty cool alternative to piratebay. We need more innovation from the private sector, not a blunt heavy tool operated on a national level... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JurijTurnsek Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Make content more easily accessible - why would I subscribe to HBO, when my only interest is 10 episodes of GOT per year? I don't have the answer, but subscription services seem to be the future. I tried Netflix, but I don't consume a lot of video content outside of some Youtube videos. Most films are rubbish and do not deserve to be played in theaters etc.So are most TV show - not a lot can come close to Breaking Bad. It's almost like you can gauge how "guilty" you are going to feel to pirate something by how good it turns out to be. And most of it is bull. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HelsinkiZim Posted August 10, 2016 Author Share Posted August 10, 2016 12 hours ago, Hans Punk said: EDIT: Interesting... http://variety.com/2016/film/news/bittorrent-cash-grants-discovery-fund-filmmakers-musicians-1201833625/ You make a valid few points. I think at the least, part of the huge fines they give these kids and a chunk of the assets they take from guys like Kim Dotcom should be put towards development of the arts and independent artists, not just funneled back into studio coffers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Chris Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 As a taxpayer, I think the government has bigger things to worry about than digital piracy, any policing of this is a waste of time and government resources and any lawmaker that spends a second worrying about it - at least here in the U.S. - is usually bought and paid for by entertainment industry lobbyists. The endless extension of copyright laws is a perfect example. Any proposal to create an organization to police a medium of free speech seems incredibly overreaching, Nazi and Communist comparisons are appropriate. And no matter what, it still wouldn't stop piracy. Escapist and Nikkor 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tugela Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 The only reason that piracy is a problem is that production companies gouge consumers. Take DVDs/BluRays/UHD BluRays for example. The cost of production is the same, the cost of the media probably a few cents difference, but the price difference to the consumer is huge. It is that kind of thinking in marketing that encourages piracy. If things were priced more reasonably the incentive to go to the trouble of pirating something would be greatly reduced. Without piracy the percentage of people who would actually watch/listen to creative content would drop dramatically. Distribution is a form of advertising. The problem is that that producers need to figure out how to monetize what they do without creating artificial closed markets where they can monopolize things in order to create fat profits. Successful artists have that all figured out. The ones that bitch about all of this are those who are unsuccessful and those who stand to make a killing in a monopoly (such as the labels). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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