Illegal file sharing on the Internet, what should we do?

Not to mention that's bordering on net neutrality which needs to be stopped at all cost.

..and it won't work, because work arounds will be made.
 
Here's are some interesting notes from someone 'liveblogging' Valve's Gabe Newell at DICE:

Through this perspective, Gabe and Valve have observed the following:

  • 30-year old songs with a little service (Rock Band, Guitar Hero) generate huge profits
  • Pirates are ahead not just on price, but on service
  • DRM appears to increase, not decrease piracy
  • Privacy and transparency
  • Shrinking distance to customer empowers content creators
Gabe doesn't believe that pirates are really seeking to get things for free. They are people that spend thousands on their PC's and Internet service. He believes that pirates are beating companies on service. He cites TV shows not available in certain parts of the world. Pirates have TV shows up on the Web minutes after they have aired.

...

DRM decreases service value for customers. It also makes pirated copies of games look more appealing. Anecdotal evidence appears to suggest that DRM is increasing and not decreasing piracy.
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http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/6...009-Keynote---Gabe-Newell-Valve-Software.html
 
In terms of music will are still being ripped off, why is it that I can buy a physical CD for the same price as a downloaded album, because the "Music Industry" are still dictating the pricing. I can understand the cost of physical distribution, I know a great deal about the cost of online distribution and there is no way they are comparable.

They should take a completely different approach, if each album track cost 5p they would sell loads more, people wouldn't bother pirating if it was really cheap.
 
Pho said:
Not to mention that's bordering on net neutrality which needs to be stopped at all cost.

..and it won't work, because work arounds will be made.
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Such as going via proxies or the Tor network onto a torrent site - and yes, anyone who does torrent wouldnt put up with that ISP for 2 seconds - it#d be MAC please! :p
 
I cant see how they can try and sue piratebay. They do not host the files on the server its merely a search engine. I can go on google and search "dark knight torrent" and find exactly the same thing so why are they not getting in trouble?
 
Well it's nice to read the same usual "self justification" for software and music theft.
It's been going on for years - maybe if you do keep on telling yourself the same thing over and over again it does start to sound like the truth....even though it isn't.

Look, there is only one reason piracy goes on and that is because the chances of being caught are so slim.
Let us just say that we live in the ideal world where there is no piracy, where nobody can download illegal copies of games or software or music albums.
How many people who currently thieve off the net would actually go into a store and thieve off the shelves?
How many people would go in, take a few games, a copy of Windows and the latest albums and attempt to walk out of the store without paying?
I think the overall number would be pretty low.

Any argument about that being "different" is wrong - there is no difference.
If you're going to try and use the well overused argument about "it costing nothing because your not downloading anything physical" then don't.
There are a lot more costs involved in producing music, software or games than simply taking the code and burning it to a CD or DVD.
If you're going to use the "costs nothing" argument then only the first ever copy of a game, album or piece of software should actually be sold as all future copies cost "nothing".

And finally, just as an extension, there is simply the moral issue.
Now personally I was bought up by good parents who drove into me the importance of morals.
They were nothing more than "regular parents" but as a child I was told what was right and what was wrong.
Thieving was wrong - simple as and this has stayed with me through life.
If you cannot afford something you either didn't have it, saved or looked for a cheaper alternative.
Neither of my parents were ever in "well paid" jobs, yet somehow they got through and I'm pretty sure as a kid they attempted to give me the things in life I wanted.

Why it is that we now live in a world that thinks it shouldn't have to pay for anything I don't know.
Arguments about "things being too expensive" are again a load of rubbish spouted by the thieves out there.
It doesn't matter how cheap something is made, so long as there is a "free" option then that is the option that will be taken.
iTunes right now offers singles at 79p each and some really good deals on albums.
These are now DRM free yet people still want things for nothing.

Films cost millions to produce yet people think they shouldn't have to pay to go to the cinema to see it, nor wait for the disc release.
They should be able to see it before it has been released and for free.
Software takes years of development with hundreds and thousands of "man hours" yet people feel they shouldn't have to pay for that software.
It should be free to them - even if there are cheaper alternatives available.
Games are the same, years of development but just "downloading something that costs nothing" seems to be the OK thing to do.
I suppose that is why numerous games houses are simply just giving up.

I know somebody who wrote a book - academic book, but it contained a lot of his "life work" and he felt it would be a great tool for people doing a certain degree.
He stood up in front of the people he was teaching on a Friday and announced to them all that his book would be available from Monday and that although he was obviously bias he would recommend the book for the degree they were doing.
There was some odd looks from some of his students and when pressed it turned out 6 of them had downloaded an illegal copy of his book some one week prior...

I honestly cannot imagine how that must have felt - I don't think his description of his feelings did the situation justice.
 
Sweetloaf said:
Because if ISPs started restricting access to such a degree, people would choose a different ISP. That's not good business sense. Traffic shaping etc has probably had a large influence on which ISP people go with, it's the same principle.
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It does work for the blacklisted child porn sites - why should the bit torrent distributors be different?

It doesn't have to be perfect to make a big difference. If ISPs (all of them using the same list) blocked The Pirate Bay and a dozen other similar sites, then illegal bit torrent distribution would fall significantly.
 
R5Rich said:
I cant see how they can try and sue piratebay. They do not host the files on the server its merely a search engine. I can go on google and search "dark knight torrent" and find exactly the same thing so why are they not getting in trouble?
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Because Google don't actively seek to enable piracy. The Pirate Bay does - clue is in the name. :p
 
stoofa said:
*Snip*
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My justification is that products I want are not available in the shops. How can I purchase something that is not on the shelves? Now I had a fair few paperback books, and two boxes full of bought dvd's.

I would like nothing more then to have it all available from my hdd on demand, so I don't have to go into the boxes and dig through them or 10 minutes only to find its in the other box and dig for 10 more minutes in attempts to find the damned thing.

Why should we, consumers wait for years to get products we want now?

I think SiD the Turtle's post outlined exactly why most of piracy happens, not because we can't afford something, but because it is more convenient to have a digital copy. Now I buy games from Steam, yes some of them are more expensive, but it means when windows dies, I can re-install steam and simply re-download them all instead of trying to find all those disks again in the same damned boxes. Ok, yeah some Steam games have DRM and all, but still, I like my convenience.
 
stoofa said:
How many people would go in, take a few games, a copy of Windows and the latest albums and attempt to walk out of the store without paying?

Any argument about that being "different" is wrong - there is no difference.
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There clearly is a difference. :confused:
 
Without wishing to derail this thread (start another if you want to discuss it) I feel some people would benefit from a definition of theft:

In English law, theft was codified into a statutory offence in the Theft Act 1968 which defines it as:

"A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it". (Section 1)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft#Theft_in_English_law

What you should really be looking at is Copyright Infringement

Dowling v. United States said:
interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: ... 'an infringer of the copyright.' ...

The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.
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While this is a source using USA law it sums up the differences, in general, nicely.

Of course the moral issues attached are entirely up to personal opinion, but these are the facts on the legal aspects of the act.
 
Jotun said:
Personally, I think this is the best option. Offering the consumers something the pirates can't have as an incentive to buy it. Album art, or online play are 2 good examples, I heard that vinyl sales lately have gone up as people like the feeling of a nice solid product.

Spore is an example, the obvious benefit was the online play, it would have been enough to persuade a lot of people to purchase the full game if it hadn't had the DRM, and instead it crippled it so the pirated product was better than the version for sale. If companies offer something so that the consumer gets a better product than a pirate would then I think that is the best approach.


I tried ubuntu once. I installed it fine, however once I actually tried to use it I had so many problems. It seemed pretty much every problem I had could only be solved by editing configuration files manually using a text editor. It's not exactly intuitive. I wanted to like it, the idea of free open source software really appeals, so I've tried it a few times since then, but every time I try I just end up giving up and going back to windows.
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I don't know what year you tried it, but since 8.04 and 8.10 have been released you dont need to edit any config files at all!!!

Obviously if your blindly copying from guides on the internet, your going to have to edit configs and use the terminal, simply because its easier to explain rather than saying click > applications > internt yada yada yada

As for the piracy thing, iplayer & the other "brands" there a good idea, but still riddled with DRM. So still ultimately pointless. Thats where the "illegal" way still wins, I can download it in equal or better quality, watch it as many times as I like, watch it on different systems easily (linux, osx, windows, BSD) watch it round a mates problem free, no hassles. I'm talking about TV shows, dont really do films, as I like blu-ray :P thats why i dont watch/rent crap films, I dont even bother pirating them, no point if i think the plots crap.

Some people download every film release, they cant actually have the time to watch them anyway? :p If piracy didnt exist, do you honestly think these people would still buy every release?

I cant wait for the day when music/film/tv/software comapnies realise this, piracy/DRM is a double edged sword. The Fat cats do not want people to share there purchases, pirates liberate the media from evil & make it open to all.

I would pay a subscription of £10 a month for all the TV shows I wanted advert free, same for film & music. Wtihout any DRM of course.
 
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I haven't read the whole thread so this has probably been mentioned. The companies need to ensure that the legal offering is at least equivalent to the pirated copy. For example I own Angel DVDs, if I want to watch an episode I have to sit through a 20 second unskippable 'PIRACY IS A CRIME' before I can get to the content I'm trying to access. If I had them downloaded I wouldn't have to do this, same with DRM and the activation systems/install limits on games. Stop punishing your customers and try to offer them a better service instead. I've been buying a lot of music off fixtstore.com, I could be pirating the tracks if I wanted but the service and product they provide is just as good if not better than the pirated equivalent that i am happy to pay the money to support them.
 
Shamikebab that is a very good point I HATE THOSE PIRACY ADVERTS! I have bought the god damn dvd now let me watch it in peice.
 
Does anyone offer FLAC Music online as yet - you non, non DRM full CD quality?
Does anyone offer 720/1080p TV Eps and Movies online yet - in a non DRM format, such as x264?

I think the answer to both of the above is no.


Does P2P offer both of the above?
YES
 
Phil99 said:
Without wishing to derail this thread (start another if you want to discuss it) I feel some people would benefit from a definition of theft:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft#Theft_in_English_law

What you should really be looking at is Copyright Infringement



While this is a source using USA law it sums up the differences, in general, nicely.

Of course the moral issues attached are entirely up to personal opinion, but these are the facts on the legal aspects of the act.
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It's the drivel like this that downloaders hide behind which really gets my goat, I know technically that is the legal position but it amounts to the same thing.

I just wish donloaders would admit they do it because they are lazy/tight/addicted and be done with it much like I wish fox hunters would just admit they enjoy it. Yes I did mean addicted I'm sure a couple of guys in work must be as they openly admit to downloading more music, video's and games then they can possibly hope to play so what other reason could there be?
 
Oxy said:
I dont think its a question of being lazy/tight, I don't understand how you draw that conclussion?
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because if they weren't too tight/lazy they'd go and buy it? at the end of the day that's what it all boils down to, all the excuses about record and film companies not delivering content in the way you want it is pure I can't be bothered to go and buy it laziness. Every other post in this thread says stuff is over priced well tough thats the price the seller has set, personally I think bread is a right royal rip off at th minute but I don't pop down asda and help myself.
 
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