[HN Gopher] Pirate Site Blocking Is Making Its Way into Free Tra...
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Pirate Site Blocking Is Making Its Way into Free Trade Agreements
Author : dp-hackernews
Score : 282 points
Date : 2022-05-14 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| It's worrying but it's hardly effective anyway.
|
| The netherlands blocks many such sites as a result of local
| lawsuits and people know how to find them anyway. The sites are
| DNS blocked only so it's trivial to bypass, you don't even need
| to bother with a VPN.
| ratsmack wrote:
| Certain pirated content should be blocked, but there is other
| content that is locked up by profiteers such as scientific papers
| funded by public money. There is also information concealed by
| governments of their misdeeds, and whistle blowers need an avenue
| for safe public disclosure.
| czhu12 wrote:
| I'm not a fan of trying to pass legislation through trade deals,
| but specifically on the issue of anti-piracy: why shouldn't
| content creators have a right to protect their content?
|
| Frankly, it seems to me like if a studio wants to show their
| movie for $1000 dollars, only available on their windows phone
| app, geogated to just south east Arkansas, they should have every
| right to do that.
|
| I've always found the HN crowd really good at separating "what's
| good for me" from what's actually right.
|
| What am I missing?
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| ...and governments should not have the power to help the
| company enforce that decision.
| stuu99 wrote:
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > What am I missing?
|
| The obvious collateral damage from creating the technology and
| legal frameworks to enforce this and their high abuse
| potential.
| klysm wrote:
| I think abuse potential is key here. Having the governments
| enforce strictly requires a lot of observations and tools
| that can readily be abused for all kinds of shit.
| czhu12 wrote:
| Something being difficult to legislate doesn't absolve the
| need for legislation. Police are arguably much more
| destructive and prone to abuse and corruption, but the
| solution is not to legalize theft.
|
| The whole point of legislation is to draw lines along
| slippery slopes, I would think that the potential for abuse
| exists in almost every law ever written.
| 8note wrote:
| If they're acting it live, sure, they can choose when to
| perform, but there's nothing needed from the studio for me to
| watch a copy of the content.
|
| I don't need them to make the copy for me, and I don't need
| them to play the copy, so why should they control what I'm
| doing with my stuff?
|
| They have no right to decide that I can only show my copy of it
| for $20 on an iphone.
|
| What's actually right is to keep people free, not insist on
| arbitrary controls because the government has decided only one
| person is allowed to tell a certain story
| mjevans wrote:
| In the US at least, the purported intent of copyright is, for a
| limited time only, 'to promote the progress of science and
| (useful) arts'. Arts in that context being the output of
| skilled trades / crafts. The intent is to expand the knowledge
| of sapient life and promote the spread of said knowledge.
|
| Frivolous information isn't intended to be covered, it doesn't
| have an application that expands (as methods rather than
| material) the quality of type of things educated people can do.
|
| This was also created in an era where even sound recordings
| didn't exist. Copyright as initially created nearly everywhere,
| exists in a world where the printing press exists, but is still
| enough of a pain to work with that books are higher value items
| for commoners. E.G. this is an era where farmer's almanacs of
| all the things useful for a farmer in a year get published as a
| book to improve the skills of a very common job.
|
| The duration of copyright has also been abusively extended
| by... specific entities. In reality such draconian periods
| should only be possible as a form of consumer protection; as
| Trade Marks.
|
| Copyright with a far more reasonable term length would allow
| material to enter the public domain within people's lifetimes,
| and a leading and trailing edge for culture as new ideas are
| created and then as greater spread and work based on those
| ideas is integrated into a culture would encourage better
| entertainment as current works would need to compete with
| recent classics.
| czhu12 wrote:
| There is a difference between [advocating against bad laws
| that promote abuse or favor interests or hamper innovation]
| and [advocating for no copyright laws whatsoever]. I think
| we're somewhat talking past each other here.
|
| I have no idea what a good copyright law is, but assuming
| that one can be crafted, I think it would be totally
| reasonable for said law to be implemented.
|
| From first principles, it still seems like a publisher should
| have a reasonable right to protect their content from theft.
| btdmaster wrote:
| Side note: https://questioncopyright.org/minute-memes-
| copying-is-not-th...
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
|
| >There will be programs that run on general-purpose computers,
| and peripherals, that will freak even me out. So I can believe
| that people who advocate for limiting general-purpose computers
| will find a receptive audience. But just as we saw with the
| copyright wars, banning certain instructions, protocols or
| messages will be wholly ineffective as a means of prevention
| and remedy. As we saw in the copyright wars, all attempts at
| controlling PCs will converge on rootkits, and all attempts at
| controlling the Internet will converge on surveillance and
| censorship. This stuff matters because we've spent the last
| decade sending our best players out to fight what we thought
| was the final boss at the end of the game, but it turns out
| it's just been an end-level guardian. The stakes are only going
| to get higher.
| car_analogy wrote:
| A perfect example of how "democracy dies in darkness". They will
| keep pushing anti-consumer laws through the backdoor of "free
| trade" agreements, until we stop it by requiring that:
|
| Before any international agreement may be ratified, [our country]
| must pass all the laws needed to comply with that agreement ahead
| of time, through regular democratic processes.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| There is no right to piracy in the constitution of the United
| States. And I would never vote for such a thing. If you
| actually care about democracy.
| hulitu wrote:
| Democracy is long dead. See Guantanamo, Assange, Snowden.
| google234123 wrote:
| Society is long dead in {{this location}}. See {{example rape
| case}}, {{example murder case}}, {{example burglary case}}.
| ATsch wrote:
| Making such a requirement sounds like a very speedy way to find
| yourself suddenly very restricted by US sanctions and notice a
| mysterious uptick in discussions about the democratic
| illegitimacy of your last election.
|
| Of course the World Bank and IMF will be happy to help you out
| of you drop them again though.
|
| That is to say, very few countries actually have a choice on
| agreeing to "free trade" policies, local laws aren't really
| enough to resist that.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| It seriously disgusts me that copyright holders can use the
| might of the US government to cause such damage to other
| countries as punishment for not upholding their imaginary
| monopolies.
| bitdivision wrote:
| This FTA is between the UK and Australia. I'm under the
| impression that both the UK and Australia currently have laws
| allowing them to comply with this agreement, so adding a
| requirement like this wouldn't change anything here.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > adding a requirement like this wouldn't change anything
| here
|
| It does change something. It makes it much harder for that
| law to be changed in future.
| zarzavat wrote:
| None of the branches of the UK governmental system care
| about international law, so this is not an impediment.
|
| The judicial system is constitutionally required to ignore
| it. The legislature is mostly controlled by the executive.
| And the executive only respects international agreements
| when they are convenient.
| gpm wrote:
| The requirement they are referring to is
|
| > must pass all the laws needed to comply with that
| agreement ahead of time
|
| Which is already met, so it wouldn't change anything.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| If they ever decide to change the laws, they will have to
| renegotiate the agreement, which is a change.
| swarnie wrote:
| It changes nothing in reality.
|
| I can't get to torrent search engines in the UK. I double
| click Nordvpn.com/bigmoney and then click "connect". I can
| now get to the torrent search engine without issue, even
| while connecting to a UK node....
|
| Its a lot of words to add maybe three seconds of delay to my
| web browsing experience.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I do love Erik. Best ads on Youtube, next to the Internet
| Historian.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Russia is currently at a perfect position to fight back against
| this. I'm no fan of Kremlin, dictatorship, or wars, but if an
| ordinary country wants to rebel against the international
| "copyright" cartel, they would face sanctions. Russia is
| already under enough sanctions that no more can be
| realistically added, and it also has an existing pirate culture
| and a developed network infrastructure.
|
| I would be happy to see if they start sponsoring pirate groups
| to undermine the right holders from "unfriendly countries" as a
| form of economic warfare.
|
| It's already legalized for certain classes of software[1], but
| I think it has not yet formally extended into other types of
| content.
|
| 1. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5240942
| onetimeusename wrote:
| A part of me suspects that the proxy war the US is waging
| against Russia to decimate the Russian military and force a
| regime change is motivated by getting Russia under the
| control of western IP, financial, and other regulation.
| oblak wrote:
| I think it's not about regime change as it is about slowly
| tearing them apart so that they can consume the remains.
| Russia is enormous and most of it is untouched.
| EB-Barrington wrote:
| Russia invaded Ukraine.
|
| Russia is waging war against Ukraine.
|
| Ukraine is defending itself against Russia.
|
| These facts are very straightforward.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| >proxy war the US is waging
|
| You mean the war of aggression that _Russia_ is waging
| against _Ukraine_?
| onetimeusename wrote:
| No, the US's response has significantly changed since the
| start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the point
| where regime change looks like it's in the cards. There
| are very clear corporate and regulatory interests in a
| Russian regime that complies with western governments. If
| lobbying efforts can cause site blocking in trade
| agreements, why wouldn't that be the case for regime
| change negotiations?
| handsclean wrote:
| Well yes, if the US were one of those parties then it
| wouldn't be a "proxy" war. Assisting one side without
| being directly involved is the definition of a proxy war.
| Proxy wars aren't necessarily aggressive or wrong,
| either.
| unmole wrote:
| It's fascinating how people will come up with bizzare
| conspiracy theories to fit their insignificant pet causes
| into much larger events.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| I should have phrased it differently but I was just
| speculating. I think it's _possible_ the war is "partly
| motivated" by getting Russia more under the control of
| western regulations which includes copyright laws.
|
| I don't think it's a wild conspiracy theory because
| Russia has been labeled a rogue state for some time and
| the US has an interest in regime change. It's not
| official policy but enough people have warned the US that
| regime change is a bad idea, including the NYT, that I
| don't think it's easily dismissed. I think it's quite
| possible there are western corporate and regulatory
| interests in having a Russian regime that cooperates with
| their interests more. But I can see how this is an
| extremely cynical take and I didn't mean to suggest that
| was the only reason for a war.
| koube wrote:
| The US is supporting its ally in a war because it's being
| invaded by an adversary. IP laws do not fit anywhere in
| this. You might as well say the US started a proxy war to
| help hedgies stop the GME moon.
| parineum wrote:
| If Ukraine was our ally we'd have boots on the ground.
| This war is in no small part about keeping them from
| actually becoming our ally.
| rpmisms wrote:
| You're aggressively dismissing an off-hand thought. That
| makes me far more curious about who told you not to think
| about it.
| mrighele wrote:
| He's dismissing it because the parent talking about proxy
| war waged by the US when the one starting it was Russia.
| He deserves all the dismissing that he gets
| [deleted]
| unmole wrote:
| > who told you not to think about it.
|
| The united coalition of Lizardmen and Freemasons, funded
| by George Soros. Bill Gates declined to invest.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I'm being serious. Soros only funds prosecutorial races,
| which is dangerous, but not as dangerous as lizardfolx.
| [deleted]
| orangepurple wrote:
| Do not reply to this poster which is applying rule 5 of
| disinformation: Sidetrack opponents with name calling and
| ridicule. This is also known as the primary 'attack the
| messenger' ploy, though other methods qualify as variants
| of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular
| titles such as 'kooks', 'right-wing', 'liberal', 'left-
| wing', 'terrorists', 'conspiracy buffs', 'radicals',
| 'militia', 'racists', 'religious fanatics', 'sexual
| deviates', and so forth. This makes others shrink from
| support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you
| avoid dealing with issues.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| is that really a conspiracy theory though? it is fairly
| clear what the ultimate goals the US and Russia have for
| each other are - Russia wants the US out of the picture
| so they can have free reign in Europe, and the US wants
| Russia broken down into two dozen irrelevant ethnostates
| they'll get to indirectly control
| bawolff wrote:
| Why would you assume secret copyright interests, when the
| open geopolitical interests are so blatent?
|
| It'd be like if someone made a million dollars, and you
| accused them that its all a front to launder ten dollars.
| It doesn't make sense.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| My answer is complex.
|
| >Why would you assume secret copyright interests
|
| I did not. I said "western IP, financial, and other
| regulation.". That includes a lot but in all amounts to
| essentially geopolitical control.
|
| However, this being a thread about copyright and this
| being a technology website I mentioned copyright and I
| think copyright laws and regulations are vastly more
| important than you are implying. The article mentions
| trade agreements that can force ISPs to block web pages.
| As it stands right now, the internet is decentralized but
| single government control of the internet is increasingly
| becoming apparent. Western nations share copyright laws
| which ultimately centralizes the internet across many
| different people and countries. So, for example, ISP web
| site blocking can be performed across many different ISPs
| globally with similar regulation and controls in all
| these different jurisdictions. (edit: especially at the
| behest of US based corporations)
|
| I think this is ultimately harmful for internet users
| especially because it can be associated with censorship.
| Previously, the decentralized nature of the internet made
| it harder for any single entity to control it, however,
| it is looking increasingly feasible to do so. So I agree
| with the parent commenter and add that it is actually
| beneficial for the internet if Russia enables pirating
| and is not under US/western internet regulations. Having
| alternatives is good for the internet and I think that's
| a very important point.
| bawolff wrote:
| I don't doubt that copyright serves to cement usa's
| geopolitical position.
|
| However on a scale of things that maintain usa's
| geopolitical position, copyright is kind of minor
| comparatively. Copyright is the long game soft power sort
| of thing. Ukraine is the short game. USA needs to show
| the world that if bad things happen to a country because
| they are friendly to usa, america wont let it go
| unremarked. If they don't, other countries will take
| note, and america loses its pax americana position. The
| ukraine thing is a rather direct challenge of america's
| hegemonic position. America is responding to it because
| its either that, or they lose their world position (or a
| step in that direction).
|
| Im not saying america is above the type of long term
| power games you suggest, just that in this case they have
| a much more pressing reason to be involved, and i don't
| think secret conspiracy reasons make sense when their
| hand is basically being forced by direct means.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| Well, there's already rutracker for one thing.
| d0mine wrote:
| rutracker doesn't accept connections from Russia
| kofejnik wrote:
| No, rutracker is blocked in RU
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Russia does not allow pirate software. Your link is about
| discussion about legitimizing pirate software which didn't
| happen. I don't know why people think that Russia is some
| kind of pirate heaven, that's not true.
| soisthris wrote:
| So is the US; local bankers no longer own the banks. Good
| luck collecting mortgages and rent door to door.
|
| Go ahead digitally drain accounts, they'd just be putting the
| economic producers out on the street. See how that works out.
|
| Only 800,000 sworn LEO. 10k NYC cops threatened to strike
| over vaccine mandates and only 34 did. There's no loyalty to
| politicians.
|
| It's a stand off elites cannot win. There can be houses,
| food, discovery, technology and art without the deference to
| a caricature with a title.
|
| Bridges and technology need uniform language and measure for
| stability and correctness. The species does not need to carry
| forward ephemeral memes and suspect story that coddles a
| minority.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Would you also be in favor of trademark infringement?
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mc-donalds-starbucks-and-
| othe...
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Not really, but I am also not too bothered about those
| corporations anyways.
| grishka wrote:
| As a Russian, I can assure you that copyright was never
| really enforced in Russia in the first place, despite it
| being a member of WTO for some time. People around me who do
| pay for software and especially movies/tv shows/music instead
| of torrenting do it as a goodwill gesture more than anything
| else.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Not only Russia. This is standard in most of South America
| and more developed parts of Africa as well.
|
| I guess only copyright holding countries like to abide to
| these treaties. Particularly European countries. Some have
| anacronic copyright laws.
| medo-bear wrote:
| i think this still happens in australia en masse. began
| because there used to be (still is?) a very strict
| censorship lobby and all media was (is?) owned by one guy
| londons_explore wrote:
| It's sort of surprising that loud announcements about no
| longer enforcing western copyrights haven't been made.
|
| Such things would seem like an easy political win, and also
| walking back said statements are also then a valuable
| bartering chip for the future.
| pydry wrote:
| They did do that.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Same, it sounds like a smart statement to make to garner
| some popular support. Though, judging by the current
| situation on the fronts, they probably have bigger things
| to worry about.
| mlindner wrote:
| Even if the country theoretically was in a good place to
| defend against it (I don't believe they are), it would be
| political suicide for anyone in the western world to listen
| to someone that's closer to Hitler than any dictator in the
| world since World War 2. It doesn't matter what they say, the
| well has been thoroughly poisoned so any words that come out
| of it are automatically wrong.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| No politician needs to listen to them for this to be
| effective. Having state-sponsored groups to attack DRM
| among other technical measures to produce cracked content
| can make them drastically harder to block. It may also help
| with winning over the hearts and minds of the people in in
| the coming years. Russia has a history of playing both
| sides when it comes to manipulating western politics,
| supporting both far-left and far-right groups in order to
| destabilize western countries, so this may well be a part
| of their strategy.
| medo-bear wrote:
| > someone that's closer to Hitler than any dictator in the
| world since World War 2
|
| how good is your history dude?
|
| https://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_b
| a...
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Well nobody is closer to Hitler than Adolph Hitler, and
| what did he say? I remember a Finnish audio engineer
| recorded him speaking in his normal conversational voice,
| of which there was no other recording.
|
| He told his elite he fucked up. Russia was turning the war
| around, and specifically it was because of Donets, where
| there was a tank factory that made a disgusting amount of
| tanks, because its people were "living like animals." So
| they could make more tanks! So Communism worked at that
| place, at that time, when people worked with abandon,
| incentives be damned. And in fact English and Americans
| didn't want Russians to have a decisive victory, they
| wanted them to barely win so there wouldn't be a Cold War,
| not roll over Berlin before they did.
|
| Donets has never stopped fighting Nazism.
|
| EDIT: My Youtube isn't cooperating, it showed me a video
| about that recording where they cut and let a historian
| talk right in the moment I'm talking about, when a
| subordinate said "In Donets!" and Adolph Hitler replies,
| "Aye, in Donets". That's where they cut it. That tells you
| everything.
| oblak wrote:
| I had forgotten about that recording. Thank you. Definite
| worth listening to.
| rascul wrote:
| > Before any international agreement may be ratified, [our
| country] must pass all the laws needed to comply with that
| agreement ahead of time, through regular democratic processes.
|
| In the US it must go through the Senate, the President, and
| depending on things the House may have some say in the funding:
|
| > Treaty power is a coordinated effort between the Executive
| branch and the Senate. The President may form and negotiate,
| but the treaty must be advised and consented to by a two-thirds
| vote in the Senate. Only after the Senate approves the treaty
| can the President ratify it. Once it is ratified, it becomes
| binding on all the states under the Supremacy Clause. While the
| House of Representatives does not vote on it at all, the
| supermajority requirement for the Senate's advice and consent
| to ratification makes it considerably more difficult to rally
| enough political support for international treaties. Also, if
| implementation of the treaty requires the expenditure of funds,
| the House of Representatives may be able to block or at least
| impede such implementation by refusing to vote for the
| appropriation of the necessary funds.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification#United_States
| car_analogy wrote:
| That's the problem - everything gets packaged into one
| treaty, under one vote, with a lot of political momentum
| behind it. Like hiding objectionable laws in 9000 page budget
| bills.
|
| But you raise a good point - without a single-subject rule
| [1], we would be quickly back to square one, as instead of
| voting on ratification, there would be a large "Trans Pacific
| Partnership Omnibus Bill" that would simply have everything
| thrown in, without giving the public or the system the chance
| to examine each clause individually.
|
| The rot runs deep.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-subject_rule
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| today i saw someone on HN call piracy controls "anti-consumer
| laws"
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Because they are.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Seems strictly true assuming they're using 'pirating' to mean
| copyright infringement?
| Avamander wrote:
| You can make a bunch of comparisons here between various
| shadow markets. Prohibition would be an extreme example but
| the parallel is in my opinion quite clear. People have and
| continue to resist oppressive legislation that really mostly
| affects themselves, not everyone else. Be it drinking, piracy
| or extreme skydiving. It's ineffectual and breaches people's
| freedom. A reasonable middle ground here would be forbidding
| making profit off it, like some better countries have
| adopted.
|
| If we now take a look at the causes, it's quite clear that it
| shouldn't and can't be improved with restrictions. The
| underlying reasons and their possible solutions have been
| highlighted well by cable, Netflix and Steam. Unfortunately
| streaming services are cable-ifying. We'll probably have to
| endure and wait for history to repeat again. If you didn't
| get what I meant - making a service not affordable,
| cumbersome and restrictive makes people seek alternatives.
|
| Third and possibly the worst aspect here is that such
| legislation has collateral damage. Large players can steal
| content, revenue and obliterate anyone standing against them
| - simply by having deeper wallets. There are Kafkaesque
| content filters that you can't properly dispute. Artists have
| to agree to unfair contracts to properly earn royalties.
| Consumers get hurt by idiotic DRM. In the recent years I've
| seen Google search results being removed with DMCA requests
| by "unknown" for sharing "unknown" made by "unknown". Lumen
| DB literally contains entries like this.
|
| There's no way they'll improve their behaviour when given
| more power, there's no way it'll improve citizen's lives, it
| won't even help artists in any reasonable extent. It would
| only help a few select shareholders.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| mistermann wrote:
| Advocates of democracy would have us believe that this is the
| will of the people...and if it isn't, we can simply elect
| different people.
|
| It's _our most sacred institution_ , and should be supported as
| such.
| pessimizer wrote:
| "Free" trade agreements. "Free trade agreement" is a propaganda
| term anyway, but applying it to agreements that impose
| intellectual property monopolies is bizarre.
|
| https://cepr.net/trade-agreements-that-increase-protectionis...
|
| https://cepr.net/trade-deals-are-about-increasing-protection...
|
| > It is also important to point out that the liberalization of
| trade in goods is largely a done deal. Tariffs are already zero
| or near zero in the vast majority of cases. The potential gains
| from further liberalization are limited, especially since goods
| are a rapidly falling share of total output.
|
| > Instead, deals like the TPP are largely about locking in rules
| on items like intellectual property protections and preserving
| Mark Zuckerberg's dominance of the Internet. The TPP, like other
| recent trade deals, calls for longer and stronger patent and
| copyright monopolies.
|
| > These protections are 180 degrees at odds with free trade. They
| are about shifting more income from the bulk of the population to
| people who benefit from rents on patents and copyrights, by
| making them pay more for drugs, medical equipment, software and a
| wide variety of other items.
| pas wrote:
| FTAs are mostly about standard normalizations (food safety,
| consumer protection, investor-state arbitration, etc)
|
| the export of fucked up IP regulations is unfortunate, but
| since most countries are signatories to the various already
| existing WIPO regulations... in practice they are already in
| effect.
| chaostheory wrote:
| It's not bizarre. It's the norm to use contradictory names for
| legal constructs and initiatives as a way to deceive the
| masses.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| More like "unfree trade".
| [deleted]
| dielll wrote:
| I used to pirate lots of music when in University but I stopped
| because currently all music I listen to is on Spotify which is
| cheap and costs like $4 in my country, even if it was the full
| $10 I still wouldn't mind paying for it.
|
| However, for movies and TV shows I need to pay for like 5
| services to get all the movies and TV shows that I need. No way I
| am paying all those. SO I will keep pirating Movies and TV shows
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| If the big media approach were about paying for content
| creation then surely we'd have regulations requiring that shows
| be available to any selling platform willing to pay the per
| user cost. Instead it's about creating fiefdoms to lock up
| content and hold tv/movie culture hostage.
|
| Copyright laws give commercial interests too much power against
| media consumers.
|
| I guess the only way to win is not too play ...
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Music piracy is not worth it anymore. Besides the price being
| OK (though for me a tenner is still a lot for how much I use),
| the convenience is extreme. What kills piracy is more
| convenience than price IMO. I remember having to edit all those
| M3TAG headers removing all the crap like "--From Warezzz.com
| Team--", removing bad rips, bad categorisation etc. Spotify and
| Apple music solved that.
|
| But for TV/Movies the convenience is becoming more and more
| crap with the fragmentation in all these services. Besides the
| price you also have to deal with multiple viewing apps,
| multiple contracts with different T&C's etc.
|
| If the industry really wanted they could bring piracy to a halt
| today by offering everything for a reasonable price just like
| with music.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I keep bringing this up, but I think it is very illustrative of
| the problem with media companies and how they leverage
| copyright: Do you all remember when Kodi plus Covenant let you
| watch very nearly anything, at any time, with a wide variety of
| audio and subtitle language choices? That was the last time I
| felt like I lived in the future. I would have paid good money
| for that, but no one sells it, at any price, because everyone
| want their own fucking fiefdom.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I agree, I think that "pirates" are basically made up of three
| camps; people who would pay if it was convenient, people who
| would pay if it was cheaper and people who would never pay
| anyways. I think the first camp is the largest and the only one
| really worth going after from a business sense. It's what I
| think Gabe Newell means when he says "Piracy is a Service
| problem"
|
| https://www.eurogamer.net/newell-stop-piracy-by-offering-
| sup....
| null0pointer wrote:
| There's a fourth camp: People who have no other choice
| because the content has not been made available in their
| region.
| mattnewton wrote:
| True! It's a rather extreme form of inconvenience.
| newsclues wrote:
| I wonder what the split between people that won't pay are
| people who don't have the financial means and people who
| refuse to pay out of principal.
| robonerd wrote:
| Varies greatly from country to country.
| Avamander wrote:
| > However, for movies and TV shows I need to pay for like 5
| services to get all the movies and TV shows that I need. No way
| I am paying all those.
|
| These services are also very georestricted, even if you might
| want to pay, it might not be possible. What's worse is that
| streaming or lending services rarely adjust prices to match
| purchasing power.
|
| If you're in the wrong country you'll practically pay three or
| ten times as much and get one tenth the content.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Not only do we get a fraction of all available content due
| region locking, the quality of the content we do get is
| abysmal. Netflix has compression artifacts on 90% black
| frames. It actually hurts to watch highly dynamic footage or
| any scene containing color gradients. Other streaming
| platforms are even worse.
|
| It's honestly insulting that this is what I get as a paying
| customer while copyright infringement offers me immaculate
| encodes sourced from blu-rays at zero cost.
| Avamander wrote:
| > The quality of the content we do get is abysmal
|
| You must have a very specific blessed hardware to actually
| get what you're paying for. Then you have to hope that the
| provider isn't automatically picking lower quality for your
| "viewing experience". The native Netflix Windows app allows
| you to watch 4K HDR video with Atmos, that's about it with
| a PC. The app hasn't been updated for four years, can't do
| optical surround audio and hardware decoding is broken with
| older Nvidia graphics cards. What a wondrous experience.
|
| Pirates on the other hand can just wait for the content to
| download and watch it offline, with whatever OS, whenever,
| with any HDMI cable or screen. Disclaimer, Dolby Vision is
| still more nuanced because how closed it is, but it's still
| less restrictive.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > You must have a very specific blessed hardware to
| actually get what you're paying for.
|
| Yeah. Running Linux in order to enjoy your computing
| freedom? They can't own our computer and prevent us from
| copying so they simply refuse to do business with people
| like us. Guess copyright infringement is our only option.
|
| > Then you have to hope that the provider isn't
| automatically picking lower quality for your "viewing
| experience".
|
| Even on my 100+ megabits/second link they do this. Would
| it kill them to allow me to download the whole thing
| ahead of time so I can watch offline and in high quality?
| Download the next episode while I'm watching the current
| one?
|
| Connection goes down? The content just stops playing.
| Reminds me of satellite TV and the loss of service due to
| weather. "Pirates" just don't have any of these problems.
|
| > The native Netflix Windows app allows you to watch 4K
| HDR video with Atmos, that's about it with a PC. The app
| hasn't been updated for four years, can't do optical
| surround audio and hardware decoding is broken with older
| Nvidia graphics cards. What a wondrous experience.
|
| God I hate the streaming platform software so much. I
| can't even begin to describe how much it sucks. Something
| simple like seeking or even rewinding 5-10 seconds is
| such a aggravating experience, it's actually trained me
| not to even attempt it anymore. On mpv I can just use
| arrow keys and it does what I asked it to do instantly.
| We had better software than this in the 90s.
|
| > Pirates on the other hand can just wait for the content
| to download and watch it offline, with whatever OS,
| whenever, with any HDMI cable or screen.
|
| Yeah. That's what we get for trying to support creators:
| companies that give less of a shit about quality than
| literal enthusiasts sharing files online for the love of
| it. One would think these corporations worth zillions of
| dollars would be able to beat these amateurs when it
| comes to offering superior service. Nope.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Of course. If the agreements force governments to make it illegal
| (and actually enforce) sales of e.g. counterfeit handbags in
| stores, then why wouldn't they contain passages enforcing the
| same thing for software or other things?
| riskable wrote:
| Because perfect copies of digital goods aren't counterfeits.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| A perfect replica of a dollar bill, made with the exact
| materials and equipment as the real thing, is still a
| counterfeit. Being a counterfeit isn't a physical property of
| the object, it's about provenance.
| agilob wrote:
| Could UK put some tax avoidance into FTAs?
| rjsw wrote:
| I don't think the UK needs any help in providing opportunities
| for tax avoidance.
| TimPC wrote:
| We could use this a vehicle for banning all cryptocurrency
| transactions. Just require all transactions in all currencies
| meet certain industry standard financial regulations and provide
| injunctive relief if transactions occur that don't.
| realce wrote:
| Hard to say if you're actually in favor of this or not, but
| this is exactly the endgame strategy for any protocols that
| provide an alternative to the Empire's approved ones.
|
| Nobody should be in favor of these things imo.
| TimPC wrote:
| I'm in favour of not burning more power that the country of
| Argentina for a coin who's primary historical purposes have
| been speculation and the facilitating of illegal
| transactions. I also think it's a hard problem to solve short
| of banning given the large numbers of rampant speculators.
| glerk wrote:
| And who are you to decide what power should or should not
| be used for? Someone appointed you king of the world? It's
| natural to want to impose your will by force and make
| everything you don't like illegal. But consider that
| tomorrow, the roles might be reversed and the boot might be
| on _your_ neck.
| seoaeu wrote:
| Society makes laws to prevent individuals from enrich
| themselves by harming the public. Committing climate
| arson so that you can get rich speculating on
| cryptocurrency is precisely the kind of externality that
| environmental regulations are designed to prevent
| glerk wrote:
| > Committing climate arson so that you can get rich
| speculating on cryptocurrency
|
| That's such a hyperbolic and frankly disingenuous way of
| putting it.
|
| Any human activity consumes energy to an extent. You are
| calling it "climate arson" because _you_ personally don
| 't like it, so it is a waste to _you_. What else should
| "society" ban because someone thinks it is not useful and
| harming the environment? Gaming PCs? Meat? Cars?
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| NB: Gaming PCs consume a tiny fraction of the energy of
| crypto, meat (especially beef), or cars.
|
| (I feel compelled to defend my lifestyle from the eco-
| chopping block.)
| mindslight wrote:
| Much more energy gets wasted by a high monetary inflation
| currency like USD, which pushes the economy to create
| additional busywork churn in the name of "growth".
| TimPC wrote:
| No where did I say I wanted to be king of the world. I
| think our democratically elected institutions can decide
| such things. My vote would be to do so.
|
| I agree that democracy potentially means that things I
| like may be prohibited. I don't see that as a good reason
| to throw out democracy.
| yossarian1408 wrote:
| You are referring to the US dollar correct?
| ekianjo wrote:
| Creating and moving cash also requires power and can be
| used for illegal transactions.
| TimPC wrote:
| It's almost like we created a system of rules for moving
| cash and made certain behaviours with it illegal due to
| some of the problems with this. Imagine that.
| id wrote:
| You might not realize it, but you are giving credibility to
| decentralized currencies with this comment.
| ben_w wrote:
| Given governments use "think of the children" rhetoric against
| decent cryptography in private communications, combined with
| the research demonstrating the presence of illegal material
| inside the Bitcoin blockchain[0], the only reason I'm not
| surprised cryptocurrency hasn't been banned already is that
| legislators aren't technologists.
|
| [0] https://fc18.ifca.ai/preproceedings/6.pdf
| searchableguy wrote:
| IMF is doing that by making countries ban crypto currency
| industry for providing loan.
|
| https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/05/05/argentinas-centra...
| zarriak wrote:
| I guess it probably depends upon ones consumption but this
| strategy seems outdated because nowadays private trackers/groups
| eg discords seem to make up a much larger share of piracy etc but
| I guess that's more hurting all of the people lower on the
| hierarchy of content creation than the big record labels.
| addingnumbers wrote:
| It will be effective for the pirates who would give up and make
| a purchase before spending a solid 20 minutes searching for a
| piracy site. Counter-piracy measures only make sense when they
| are less expensive than the lost revenue, so their goal is not
| necessarily to eliminate all piracy.
|
| I'd guess there are Pareto-like distributions where 4/5 of the
| infringers are low effort and not part of any invite-only
| communities.
|
| Beside that, the language used is "online location," a pairing
| of words so vague and incompatible that it's hard to argue it
| should be limited to web servers and not discord channels.
| pooper wrote:
| > I guess it probably depends upon ones consumption but this
| strategy seems outdated because nowadays private
| trackers/groups eg discords seem to make up a much larger share
| of piracy etc but I guess that's more hurting all of the people
| lower on the hierarchy of content creation than the big record
| labels.
|
| I think a better way when it comes to big record labels is to
| refuse to listen to or watch their stuff even if you can get it
| free of cost. Don't give them your time at all.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Because being on a big label suddenly makes the art bad? If I
| like a song I need to do research and trace it's origin? I
| don't understand how this is a viable idea nor how it helps
| rolph wrote:
| it doesnt make the art intrinsicly bad, but is a yellow
| brick road to it. almost every body likes fame or fortune,
| but this leads to demands, to generate product according to
| the employers specifications, AKA "commercialization"
| Retric wrote:
| Music isn't a limited commodity, you can boycott
| effectively unlimited artists without significant cost.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Culture is about shared experience, anything that cuts
| you off from sharing in popular culture has a cost. You
| might not care, but I think - particularly for
| children/teens - there is significant cost.
|
| Interested in your thoughts on that?
| Retric wrote:
| Music has largely stopped being a shared experience,
| that's hard to demonstrate but the same thing happened to
| TV. Who shot JR on Dallas was the kind of thing people
| talked about and the resolution episode got 53.3% ratings
| share in 1980, that was only topped by final Episode of
| M.A.S.H which hit 60.2%.
|
| Only 2 shows in the last 25 years even approached it.
| Seinfeld Finale - "The Finale" hit 41.3% 24 years ago and
| Friends hit 35.6% 18 years ago.
|
| In 2020 by comparison the Super Bowl was 4x as popular as
| the most watched single TV episode and streaming was
| dominated by people watching reruns not new shows.
| Average viewership of actual TV shows is unsurprisingly
| much lower.
|
| PS: Best selling album of 2020, #12 Abbey Road by The
| Beatles because and #6 was the Frozen II soundtrack.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Speaking of, I'm asking here because I don't know where to find
| out anymore otherwise: anyone know where I can find the retro
| gaming torrent community these days? All my sets are just
| sitting here not being updated or seeded to anyone and it is
| making me sad.
| advisedwang wrote:
| An injunction like this might be enough of a threat to make
| Discord et al start self-enforcing. Kind of like how the DMCA
| (arguably) led to YouTube implementing ContentID.
| seaourfreed wrote:
| Free Trade Agreements are being made to block free trade.
| NonNefarious wrote:
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > the services of the ISP are used by a third party to infringe
| copyright or related rights in the territory of that Party.
|
| Given the trouble Google has found itself in over News, Images,
| and Books search, and YouTube videos, surely ISPs could be
| injuncted to block Google's domains.
| [deleted]
| ABeeSea wrote:
| Good. Lots of communities on the internet try to tie themselves
| into philosophical knots to justify piracy because they just
| don't want to pay for things.
| [deleted]
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