Was reading this article about steps being taken in Britain regarding deals being done with various browser providers to stop P2P torrenting . Maybe we are looking at our own future here .
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Fortunately the 'net is extremely robust and these moves will never be really effective.
While the movie companies continue not to offer us direct downloads for a fair price they will continue to lose.
Taking other peopleâs creative work without paying for it or without their permission is stealing, and no amount of waffle about âcensorshipâ can disguise that fact. âJames Hansen
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I agree with @jehansen.
Those who actively download pirated movies, software etc are those who make the most noise and argue against any restrictions on the internet. They also try and find ways to bypass such restrictions and make excuses to why they do it (that is why the chose to breach someone elses copyright).
If one does the right thing, such âPiracy censoring dealsâ have no impact or consequence. It wonât affect me if it does come to Australia.
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CHOICE recently wrote this article on the whole Lego Batman movie debacle. I find resistance to change from big media companies shocking, especially when there are alternative models that could drive revenue.
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Iâve know about this for years, donât know if anyone else is aware.
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Found this article from Forbes concerning piracy and Game of Thrones . Here is a quote contained within said article by Jeff Bewkes CEO of Time Warner who owns HBO the network that airs Game of Thrones . Quote " Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world . Well , you know , thatâs better than any Emmy ." Unquote . Where do I stand on all this . The law is the law for everybody . Read the full article in the link below
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It is not black and white.
Once you introduce a completely opaque regime where unknown entities can contact search engine providers and ask to have pages removed from search results (or ranked very low), who exactly audits how this regime is working, who is making removal requests, what is being removed, whether the removal was justified, etc. ? By definition the public cannot audit this.
There are already concerns enough about search engine ranking. This is why the ABC raised the more general issue yesterday (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-21/the-algorithms-we-know-nothing-about/8277890).
However this (search engine results tampered with) already happens in Australia and has been happening for years, so the original question as asked (will we go down this path?) is not the right question.
Go into google and enter: game of thrones torrent download
At the bottom of the search results you will get:
In response to multiple complaints that we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 6 results from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaints that caused the removals at LumenDatabase.org: Complaint, Complaint, Complaint, Complaint.
(Whether search results for Australian users should be being determined by US law is arguable. Thatâs globalisation for you.)
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It is black and white. Stealing is stealing. Itâs still a matter of personal conscience, even if huge numbers of people are getting away with it. And since weâre talking about laws, have a look at the Seventh Commandment.
Moralising censorship with âstealing is stealingâ is just giving giant media corporations the fuel to cripple any piece of technology currently available and that which might be created that they donât have direct control over.
Additionally: Bringing in religion by using lines like âLook at (number) Commandmentâ (which should never be a thing unless youâre a Jew reading from the Torah, since that IS the Old Testament) doesnât exactly help your case when talking about the intersection of Technology and Businesses such as âpiracyâ and âcopyright infringementâ.
The backbone of the Internet was designed to route transmissions across a giant network in a manner that if even a few nodes are gone due to damage or maintenance, the data will still get across to the end point SOMEHOW.
Censorship via âprotectionâ of ephemeral (aka: âShort-livedâ) ideas in the form of copyright & Intellectual âPropertyâ is treated as damage to the network - which it plain and simply is - that the network will route around in one manner or another.
There is a reason why torrent sites are also nicknamed Hydra sites - like the Hydra of mythology; cut one down and two more shall rise in its place. Block or take down one torrent site, 2 (or more) others will pop up in its place.
Donât forget for the bulk of the past 25 years since we started having Internet access in Australia, there have been people in both the ALP & LNC who have actively tried to cripple our access to the Internet with various attempts at a Great Firewall of Australia, which all have proven to be ineffective as well as wastes of resources, all under the banner of quote-unquote âProtect the childrenâ (which funny enough is a common excuse for censoring ALL forms of media and information, from TV to movies to comics to books to music) at the expense of the current adults and the future of the country as part of a global inter-connected network.
Seventh Commandment by which religions interpretation? the one that says I canât take your car without your approval, or the one that says I canât shag your spouse (with or without your approval I guessâŠ) ⊠or possibly some other that Iâm unaware of. While I respect peopleâs religious beliefs, this isnât the forum to wave them about âŠ
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My reference to the seventh commandment was not because Iâm religious (Iâm an athiest). Almost everyone who has grown up in a Western culture knows about the ten commandments (even though we might be a bit vague about the precise numbers and details). I referred to the seventh commandment because stealing has clearly been a problem for a very long time. Itâs still immoral to take another personâs creative work without paying for it. Just because a person owns a computer does not exempt them from the need to act decently. Not all movies are made by big studios. Many are made by individuals who literally put their lives into getting a project made and distributed. This can take years of creavive struggle and material sacrifice. And then, to have the rewards from a successful movie stolen by pirates is causing many to seriously consider leaving the industry. In the long run, we are all poorer.
[soap box] I have far more sympathy for the many inventors who have had their IP stolen by multinationals who routinely do it to each other as well as to individuals and startups; or inventors who have a pittance because of the venture capitalist vultures who provide funds leaving the inventor with token interests (being better than nothing). Patents? Most of them are curiously narrow with ânew uses for old bitsâ today but that does not stop them being granted.
Any aspiring has to learn the system, whether it be clicks on youtube, tickets to a theatre, a software license, displaying a logo, or patents with a deep war chest for silks to defend and prosecute.
You might find the sanitised version of Mr.Ted Pritchardâs story interesting. His version was the auto companies strung him along getting him to invest ever more of his own funds on the promise of a license if he just modified . In the end he said they made a lowball offer and bankrupted him. He thought it was done on purpose to protect their petrol engine investments from any competition. Morality? He was trying to resurrect his business in 2003-4 when I met him.
Morality rarely exists in the corporate world and is subservient to legality and P/L, and while many could take a different view, mine is that when it is one sided it breeds a culture in the same way our Australian top profits âtaxâ" on most anything, especially software, because âtheyâ can, has done. The eventual outcome is often a shift if not a disruptive event.
Monetisation is everything today. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds with the internet in the middle of the parties. Offer me an at a fair and reasonable price in a global sense and I am happy to pay, but openly gouge me or geoblock me? And here we are.
[/soap box]
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The point was not about whether it is stealing.
The point was about introducing a regime that does not have checks and balances in it.
The point was that the regime being discussed is not auditable, does not have accountability, is not transparent, is not appealable.
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In the long run, if piracy continues, more and more people will be driven from the industry and there will be increasingly little left to pinch. Mission accomplished?
If it brings down mega corps who canât stand on their own two feet without bribing governments to help prop them up, then good riddance to bad rubbish.
Keep in mind âHollywoodâ started life as a bunch of Patent Infringers moving from the US East Coast (where Edison held all the patents for the tech) to the US West Coast (where Edison had no control), basically having stolen the work of Edison and his paid underlings, yet they want to turn the tables and decry âtheftâ (hint: Copying Is Not Theft) of their own tainted fruits?
