Discussion: Online Piracy, Net Neutrality, Killswitch, and Other Internet Issues

[wiegeabo]

A good chunk of piracy comes from there being an underserved market. They want to watch shows offline, on their own schedule. They want to stream shows and movies, and they'll be glad to do it legally, but they can't for a variety of reasons.

Mostly it's because the media studios don't want to listen to the customers and change their business models. And ISPs like Comcast want to restrict streaming because they don't want to spend money on increasing bandwidth. Partly because they're listening to the studios, and partly because they want to keep their tv business propped up.


For example. CBS, ABC, NBC, and TNT will have their shows online to stream from their websites the next day. I've got no problem waiting one day to stream when I want to watch something else.

But CW makes you wait 3 days. Fox 8 days. And USA 30 days. Plus, some shows don't get streamed. CBS can't stream The Mentalist because Warner Bros won't let them (I think it was WB). If I can't stream them when I want, or watch them live....then what exactly is my incentive to NOT pirate?


The media industries also greatly over exaggerate the effect piracy has on their revenues. They assume every pirated file equals a loss. Actually, multiple losses. But that's not true. For example, if I don't subscribe to Showtime, and never plan on subscribing to Showtime, and have no plans on buying the DVDs, then how would me pirating Dexter or another show hurt them if I did? And pirating wouldn't necessarily stop me from buying the DVDs.


Funny. Giving the customers what they want would put a huge dent in piracy, and might just make these companies a lot of money (it worked for Dave Mathews Band). But they'd rather waste millions filing lawsuits, causing their costs, and the amount we pay, to go up.

 

[wb95240]

I had a vision, of a world without Internet.[...] And it was so… boring. I’ve had a change of heart. I don’t want [to spoil] everything, but why [shouldn't] I have all the fun? Let’s give someone else a chance. If SOPA isn’t dead in sixty minutes then I blow up a hospital.

 

[CelticPredator]

Maybe SOPA can ban TDK Joker quotes next.

 

[Donut]

White House Will Not Support SOPA, PIPA

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/14/white-house-sopa-pipa_n_1206347.html

I have a bad feeling about this

 

[the_ultimate_evil]

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/cr/ff/33913-episode-64-sopa-and-rep-lamar-smith

pretty good video about it

 

[the_ultimate_evil]

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/cr/ff/33913-episode-64-sopa-and-rep-lamar-smith

pretty good video about it

 

[Master Chief]

What's funny is the pirate bay is immune to SOPA because it's at a .org address hahah, good times. A failure of epic proportions.

 

[Anita18]

What's funny is the pirate bay is immune to SOPA because it's at a .org address hahah, good times. A failure of epic proportions.

Wait seriously? They've already determined there's an easy loophole?

ANYONE can buy a .org address. It usually costs a little more but you certainly don't have to be a nonprofit to do it.

 

[Master Chief]

Hahah yup, here's an article on it.

Over on Techdirt, Mike Masnick has pointed out the mother of all ironies: The Pirate Bay, one of the largest outlets of copyright infringement, would be immune to the takedown tendrils of the imminently incoming Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Apparently it all comes down to the fact that The Pirate Bay has a .org domain — and according to Masnick, the current version of the SOPA bill working its way through congress excludes American domestic domains from being the target of takedown notices from copyright holders. In this case, a “domestic domain” is any domain that comes from a TLD run by an American registry — and sure enough, .org’s registry is Public Interest Registry, a US non-profit based in Virginia. In other words, thepiratebay.org isn’t eligible for a SOPA-based takedown, even if its servers are based in Sweden or another country outside the US.

Believe it or not, by the same logic, .com and .net domains — both of which are managed by American company VeriSign — would also be immune from the SOPA bill as it currently stands.

Presumably the bill distinguishes between domestic and non-domestic domains for legal or political reasons. SOPA was originally designed to target any “US-directed site” — i.e. any site that is accessible from the US — but a recent amendment narrows the target of SOPA down to “foreign internet sites.” If this is really the case, SOPA, as it stands, is toothless.

As stupid as all this sounds, this is fairly representative of what happens when lawmakers try to write laws that curtail the use of general-purpose computers (PCs) and networks (the internet). If you know anything about the decentralized nature of the internet, you can see how stupid a law like SOPA is — and how ludicrous it is to base a website’s location on its TLD registry. SOPA, at its most basic, grants copyright holders the provision to to blackhole a website at the DNS level and force search engines to delist an infringing site. In a perfect world, as far as SOPA’s sponsors and supporters are concerned, this would effectively break the internet. In reality, though, there is no way in hell that the US will be able to police foreign DNS servers or search engines.

The internet has proven time and time again that it’s virtually impossible to control. Unfortunately, this has the double-barreled effect of a) terrifying lawmakers, and b) forcing them to make heavier and more aggressive laws in the hope that something might stick. That’s why we’re now staring down the smooth, rifled tubes of a SOPA shotgun. If you haven’t complained to your local Representative, it’s not too late.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/113275-the-pirate-bay-is-immune-to-sopa

 

[enterthemadness]

White House Will Not Support SOPA, PIPA

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/14/white-house-sopa-pipa_n_1206347.html

I have a bad feeling about this

It's a trap!

Google and co need to use nuke option anyway.

 

[Donut]

It's a trap!

Google and co need to use nuke option anyway.

Obama already lied about not passing NDAA. This will just be another lie

 

[enterthemadness]

Hint: why I said it's a trap.

Google and co still need to nuke the net and wake people up.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I would like to see a credible, independent study on internet piracy. That would shut a lot of people up.

 

[terry78]

Yeah, .org is the loophole but if it involves more cash and time to get it, some may be too lazy to even do it.

 

[Anita18]

Actually it's cheaper to register a .org now with GoDaddy and Namecheap than it is to register a .com domain.

But even when I was buying domains, the difference was less than $10 a year. Not enough to really make a difference. And really, ANYONE can register a .org, nobody sends you any extra paperwork. It's just that .com is the default and .org is associated with nonprofits.

 

[wb95240]

Isn't this a copy of the other thread that's in Politics? Just under a different name?

 

[Pagan]

White House Will Not Support SOPA, PIPA

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/14/white-house-sopa-pipa_n_1206347.html

I have a bad feeling about this

Sure they will. Only it will be called something else and be attached to some "must pass" appropriations bill.

 

[craigdbfan]

This entire SOPA legislation is disgusting. Any congressman/woman or senator supporting this has no place in congress.

These people are completely clueless if this is their main concern. There are for more important legislation to be focusing on during these times yet this is what they're focusing on?

Talk about a gigantic disconnect.

 

[craigdbfan]

This entire SOPA legislation is disgusting. Any congressman/woman or senator supporting this has no place in congress.

These people are completely clueless if this is their main concern. There are far more important legislation to be focusing on during these times yet this is what they're concentrating on?

Talk about a gigantic disconnect.

 

[SuperFerret]

That's why sites like Facebook and Youtube would be gone.

At least there's a silver lining here. Will it kill Twitter too?




Also, if .org, .com, and .net stuff are apparently immune, and you know that .edu and .gov would be too, what exactly is left?

 

[terry78]

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-criticizes-online-piracy-legislation-192706470.html

Seems the White House is challenging this thing.

 

[chaseter]

plus the patriot act had the backdrop of 9/11 to back it up. this is very obviously a corporate action that will have disastrous repercussion. edit, a little late i know.

And it was extended by Obama....when 9/11 was 10 years ago.

 

[SpideyInATree]

And it was extended by Obama....when 9/11 was 10 years ago.

Yeah, and there are still plenty of terrorists out there that would love to make 9/11 look like a walk in the park. The second someone forgets about 9/11 and what happened is when it leaves it open to be attacked again.

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

Obama is generally seen as a cool hip president youth in particular like and Rupert Murdoch a slimy decrepit puppet master.
Murdoch criticizing Obama on the subject is probably the best anti-SOPA propaganda you could hope for.

 

[Spider-Nerd]

I'd be shocked if it ever passes let alone get to the problem of actual enforcement. If by some stretch of the imagination it does pass it'll be struck down in the judicial system pretty quickly. There are way too many problems that arise in terms of privacy and interstate commerce for something like this to be constitutional.