Police take down Proxy server :rolleyes:

The guy is clearly a scapegoat for an extremely unsuccessful campaign against Torrent sites...Especially since TPB has like a thousand proxies.

Getting hilarious.
 
The UK has been a police state for a long time; RIPA Act, Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2008 etc.

I'm just glad my VPN is based in Canada.
 
Bonkers...

... And to consider downloading is actually legal here too!

The Swiss commissioned a study that clearly showed the claims of people like FACT were ********... "piracy" actually showed a marginal increase in purchases
 
Moses said:
A police state? It's stuff like that which makes it difficult to take you seriously.
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He does have a point though, have you seen the article about police banner ads that are being put on websites deemed to be hosting copyright infringing content? The banner ads state that "illegal downloading is a CRIME" which it isn't. Since when are the police allowed to lie?


Have they? Or have they just said general monitoring isn't allowed (which wouldn't stop specific sites being banned/blocked). Which ruling are you referring to? C-70/10 - Scarlet Extended?
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Not that one. I can't find what it was that I specifically read, however I have come across something else that seems to state that an ISP doesn't have to take measures that it thinks will be ineffective.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-01/28/the-pirate-bay-blockade-lifted-in-holland

https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1904319
 
Moses said:
Does it matter if all the claims are true? I mean, I get that downloads wouldn't necessarily equal sales if copyright infringement didn't exist, etc, etc, etc... but it's their intellectual property, so why can't it be protected? People act as though they're entitled to access to the intellectual property of others, on their terms rather than the terms of the owner(s). It sucks that there's no streaming service which matches what I want, but to argue that means it's okay for me to torrent everything is lol (that's the gist of the general argument, rather than being your opinion).

I find it really difficult to care about websites which basically just exist to aid copyright infringement get shut down, or the same happens to ones which decide to allow a portion of their services to be used for copyright infringement because they profit from it.
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I think you've misunderstood the point here. It's that people who download "illegally" are often the ones who spend the most of content as well, because they have quick and easy access to be able to determine what they like and dislike, and that the content holders are refusing to see this fact and continue on trying to push the old mantra of one download is one lost sale.
 
Moses said:
Does it matter if all the claims are true? I mean, I get that downloads wouldn't necessarily equal sales if copyright infringement didn't exist, etc, etc, etc... but it's their intellectual property, so why can't it be protected? People act as though they're entitled to access to the intellectual property of others, on their terms rather than the terms of the owner(s). It sucks that there's no streaming service which matches what I want, but to argue that means it's okay for me to torrent everything is lol (that's the gist of the general argument, rather than being your opinion).

I find it really difficult to care about websites which basically just exist to aid copyright infringement get shut down, or the same happens to ones which decide to allow a portion of their services to be used for copyright infringement because they profit from it.
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Yes, it matters, because that's the crux of their argument and it's false.

This website profited from provide a service for anonymity and circumventing censorship. It is not up to the person running the service how their customers choose to use the service.

While I may not be the biggest fan of the general public owning firearms... the easiest comparison I can think of to this is arresting a gun shop owner because a couple of his customers killed people...

Free access to media allows an informed purchasing decision. Quality material gets the money it always deserved (and more, according to local studies) and the ****e that should never have been made due to poor quality is not as well supported... I find it highly likely this is how the distribution of funds shifted slightly after a wider uptake of "piracy".

It's the same as making a mix-tape for friends or sharing a book or lending your friend a cd/tape... just the digital version of that which happens to be much simpler to track and easier to control.

Technically those things are illegal too, but do you really think they harmed the industry that grew plenty while it was happening.

No... this is all about control, based on ******** propaganda... I am concerned that Energize is correct... one step in the direction of the police state.

I assume from your statement you either approve of the censorship in China or do not link these two things as similar?

spoffle said:
I think you've misunderstood the point here. It's that people who download "illegally" are often the ones who spend the most of content as well, because they have quick and easy access to be able to determine what they like and dislike, and that the content holders are refusing to see this fact and continue on trying to push the old mantra of one download is one lost sale.
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Exactly... I'm not the biggest fan of quite a few Swiss things... but at least they took the reasonable approach to commission an impartial study, rather than relying on the media industry commissioned studies/data.

Simply observing "approved" studies is not good enough... you have to look at where the money came from and at least consider the possibility for influence/agenda. It sucks, I don't enjoy thinking like that... but it is rampant in many places, not simply this industry/issue.
 
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Moses said:
Like this? http://immunicity.org ? It doesn't say it's a crime there. I'd agree it's silly calling stuff a crime when it's not, etc, etc, but can you show me where it happens (from official sources, obvs) out of interest?
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Not that no. Like this; http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sect...-replaced-with-police-banners/4011259.article


But no, he doesn't have a point when he calls the UK a police state. That's a ridiculous claim to make. By definition it's not.
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I don't think the UK IS a police state, my point was about how they have to start somewhere, and I imagine they start with stuff like this.



A Dutch judgment which has basically no relevance here and a discussion paper. That's not anything authoritative.
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I'm referencing this part specifically
The court applied case law from the European Court of Justice, which held that an internet service provider should not be forced to take measures that are disproportionate and/or ineffective.
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Which is quite relevant to the point.


Yeah, and I see that justification a lot, too. But that doesn't mean it's okay. Why's it okay for others to decide how intellectual property is protected? People claim copyright infringers then go on to buy stuff, and that may or may not be true... but that's irrelevant. If the owner of intellectual property doesn't want people to infringe their rights, why should others do it and justify it using a rational the owner doesn't accept?
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I think this part is irrelevant, I don't think downloading needs to be "justified" or stated that it's "okay". I am aware that it's illegal, but if I wish to, I will as from my perspective it's my wallet or theirs, so to speak. Because of the fact that there's little you can do if you buy media and it turns out to be utter crap. You often just have to deal with it, it can be very difficult to get a refund on media that has turned out to be utter crap.

So I don't feel a justification is needed at all, but do note that there is a big difference between a justification and a reason for something.

There are content producers that accept what you say and embrace it. That's their right. But then there are content producers who say that they don't want their intellectual property used in such a way... and that should be their right, too.

If they want to restrict access and stop copyright infringement, even if it costs them money overall, that's their right, no?
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Sure, that's their "right" as such, but with the ease of circumventing that it just isn't realistic to actually expect that. Additionally, some of these rights holders or content producers treat customers and prospective customers like crap, but expect or demand that they do what they're told with regards to the content that they are putting out.

I've found customers respect the content products significantly more when they are given respect mutually. Some companies know how to do it (CD Project) and some don't. But the amusing thing is that the companies who are crying about piracy, aren't against partaking in a bit o' piracy themselves. WB Canada has been shown to have sold tracks on CDs that they have no legal right to. Some Sony department had been found to be using cracked copies of various pieces of software. If you look it up you'll find most of these big companies are up to that, but as always the rules don't apply to them.
 
Getting around ISP throttling of certain services. On some ISPs Youtube/Netflix is unusable without running through a proxy, which shows that they are indeed chocking traffic through their network when it's coming from Youtube/Netflix, which is something a lot of ISPs flat out deny.
 
Moses said:
There was me thinking it was about the rights of intellectual property owners vs people who felt entitled.
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Surely one must acknowledge that current IP standards are aren't worthy of the current social complexities?

Whether these owners of such licenses like it or not, without going down a historically proven path of authoritarianism,
which is always quenched violently, they aren't going to win.

It is obviously up to them at this current time, but frankly they should just adapt, rather than keep old business models,
aka Kodak levels of stupidity. (though it may not be a relevant comparison)
 
Moses said:
If you strip away all the reasons they talk about (eg. downloads leading to lost sales, etc... which funnily enough is the sort of unsubstantiated claim the other side make when they say downloads are people trying it out and then buying :D) you're still left with the fact that it's their intellectual property. Why can't they decide how and if it's disseminated?
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I fundamentally do not agree with the idea of intellectual property...

He could have had his service, but blocked people accessing torrent sites (that's essentially the issue in this instance, right? I'd never accessed it before, or even heard of it). What anonymity given with this service? What censorship was circumvented?
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The UK web filter also blocks access to esoteric sites, not simply porn, this is related and can be easily circumvented with such a service.

Preventative policing is an easy ticket to taking away peoples' freedoms and is used frequently.

This idea I find abhorrent, taking away the free will of a person... prior to committing any act, whether approved or not by society is not a good road to go down.

If you want to set rules and punish people for doing what the masses do not agree to... fine... within reason... but to stop their ability to choose for themselves is not acceptable.

A better comparison would shirley be general search engines and torrent sites. The former is seen as okay because they aren't just for enabling copyright infringement, and actually act to try and stop their service being used for it when asked (even if they're not perfect)... whilst torrent sites basically just existed to enable copyright infringement/did nothing to stop it whilst allowing legitimate sharing of material which didn't infringement the intellectual property rights of others.
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You can find pirate bay and it's new web address through google very easily.

So I wouldn't agree with you as that being a reasonable comparison... by that comparison... google should have been taken down a long time ago and its owners would have also been arrested under the same vein as the person who ran this proxy.

There may be a similarity in the service you could attribute, but not in the treatment of the individuals at hand, which was my comparison.

What if I write a book and don't want you to be able to read it all before choosing whether or not to buy it? I'm not forcing you to buy my book without reading it first... I'm just saying you can buy it under my terms or go without. Why can't I have that right?
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Good for you... what if my friend lends me your book and I read it without purchasing? Would you want to have me arrested and jailed for daring to read your book without paying for it first. Who knows... if I liked it and had the chance to finish reading it before being arrested, I may have had the opportunity to choose to buy it and also share it with my friend who may have also bought it too ;)

Well, it's not the same. Making mix-tapes/sharing books/etc wasn't something they could, or can, realistically do anything to stop... they can try and shut down torrent sites, however (even if you argue they won't succeed because other sites will pop up). And it's also different because if I buy a book and let other people read it, there's a minimal impact... if I buy an eBook and put in on TPB (back when it was basically unrestricted) it'd be accessible to a vast number of people/they'd all have a copy.
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It is EXACTLY the same... only the media is different.

And like you say, this media is easier to control and in the case of music... lower quality most of the time... but most people don't care about that :(

Illegal?
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Yes... all of the above is / has been technically illegal... as has been (is) using are VCR to record live TV...


There was me thinking it was about the rights of intellectual property owners vs people who felt entitled.
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Whether laws are in place or not... people have the right to break those laws & that right should not be taken away from them in the first place.

The individual freedom is more important to me than any law based on safety... let alone ones that have been passed by greedy corporations.

It then also stems to the idea that those who are unable to pay what these corps charge are unable to enjoy... segregation is ok with you?

These companies and artists are not going bankrupt... far from it...


Unsurprisingly, I don't see people crying about not being able to watch the latest episode of Homeland when they want and/or for free as being similar to a state suppressing freedom of expression and presenting a false history.
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Trivialising the issue is ignoring it... you're welcome to, it's just a shame that you would choose to ignore it from your own entitled position.
 
Moses said:
Cool. So you agree with what I said regarding it. Glad we cleared that up.
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Haha... I think the word "yet" may be well appropriate, such a thing is a step in the wrong direction.

Good for you that you are unable to see the manipulation... I miss the days when I didn't notice it. Perspective can change in a day...

Frankly it's hilarious you criticise the police for having banners calling it a crime when you say it's illegal :\. But anyway, so what if you buy something and it's rubbish? In the future you can choose not to buy stuff produced by Michael Bay, if you watch something of his and it's awful. No one's forcing you to buy media. And I find it really hard to be sympathetic when people cry about buying a film for £20, or a game for £40, or whatever, then it being rubbish - there are all sorts of ways to find out with a reasonable degree of certainty if something's worth the money or not... and then even if they do buy something and it turns out to be awful, it was £20/£40/whatever. Not the end of the World. And in the future just boycott them... no one's forcing you to watch films/play games/etc.
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Because we are all clones? No... of course not...

There are frequently films with a rating of 7 or higher on IMDB that I find terrible & I'm glad I did not support their production with a portion of my life... as that is what money is in essence... it is a form of energy, your life transformed into an imaginary number.

You purchase that media before finding out and then have no option to return it.
 
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Moses said:
Of course loads of their practices are out of date, and basically a bit stupid. But they're slowly moving in the right direction, no? Eg. when you buy DVDs/Blu rays you get a digital copy a lot of the time, right? Ultraviolet, or whatever. Then services like Netflix/Amazon Instant Video/etc are improving (albeit slowly, and they still have retarded regional restrictions in terms of when stuff's released). I think the fact they're changing shows they realise there's an issue.

However, on the other hand, you must concede that they could do everything these people claim to want and you'd still have rampant copyright infringement. I'd wager a large body of people basically want something for nothing/feel entitled/etc/etc... and just use civil rights arguments/cry about censorship/etc/etc to try and justify the fact that they just want to be leeches. They say there's no alternative, and if there is they'd pay, but we all know that the large body of people I'm referring to would still pirate stuff even if there was a service like Netflix which showed everything everywhere the day it's released, was priced completely reasonably, etc, etc. They could present the perfect model and they'd still need to try and crack down on torrent websites (for example) if they wanted to protect their intellectual property.
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And what makes them a lesser person / less able to access collective information that should be free simply because they cannot afford something.

I'm happy to state this plainly because it is legal in this country... I download a bucketload and have no issue with it.

I am beyond the financial means I was in the UK & have increased financial freedom... yet still choose to download.

That which deserves my money, happily receives it. That which does not, does not.

Those that charge over-the-odds get a viable protest and an offer to pay a legitimate amount.

One of the issues I have at present... music digital downloads and their respective quality.

For example most recently, I am a fan of Cosmic Gate and they just released a new album.

I have a decent sound system and I can hear a massive difference between MP3 & Flac/CD/Vinyl... the highs and lows are so compressed it is unpleasant to listen to MP3 quality audio.

Their new album can be purchased for $10 on itunes, similar price in MP3 quality on beatport... but if you would like to purchase the AIF/FLAC quality version, then this price magically jumps to $32!!!

This is a significant issue at the moment with digital downloads of music.

A CD would have cost around the same as the itunes download, maybe a couple of dollars more... say $12-14 and I would have received physical media in least-compressed quality.

Why should I pay more than twice the price for CD quality music than I would have for a CD with worse service and cheaper overheads?

But wait... I can get the CD quality audio for free from one of my sources... without paying... guess what I did?

As I did this, I also happened to email them through their website and post on their facebook page, stating this difference, that there appeared to be some mistake and sharing my desire to purchase their album.

What is reasonable in this instance? Is it reasonable to pay 250% of the price of physical media for the same/similar quality with less stability through the lack of physical media?

I know... nothing major, just something that has frustrated me recently.

I have looked at considering setting up an alternative service to beatport, but seems many have tried and failed due to lack of support from the publishers (ie, not producers/artists as they would receive more money through these other potential sites).

/first world problems...
 
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