Homeland Security Seizes Dozens of Piracy Websites

[DarkSpectre]

ICE is involved because this falls under their jurisdiction. In case you never bothered to research the issue yourself. ICE which stands for Immigration & Customs Enforcement is responsible for things like illegal immigration, smuggling, and other customs related issues. The Department of Homeland Security is involved because ICE is a part of DHS. This is issue got sent to ICE because it involves interstate and international commerce, which ICE is responsible for policing. The DHS is involved because ICE is part of DHS. Intellectual Piracy is a crime, whether you think it should be or not it is, so it is the job of these agencies to enforce the law whether they agree with it or not. Congress makes the laws not ICE or DHS. Piracy is the responsibility of ICE to police, whether they want to or not. ICE doesn't decide the budget, congress does. ICE has to do its job with however much or little money they are given. Be angry at congress if you think they shouldn't spend money on law enforcement. If you don't like the laws as they are vote congressmen in that want to change those laws. If there isn't a congressmen that holds your ideas, run for yourself. In the end the people will decide. If the people are stupid and vote for the flashy idiot candidate without any substance than so be it, that is what they wanted. The people aren't protected against the tyranny of their own idiocy. If you want to effect change go out their and educate the people doing the voting so things change. In the end the state of affairs in the United States will always be the fault of the people. We the people decide who is in charge and who gets to make the laws.

 

[Playbahnosh]

Heh, this makes me happy I don't live in the US, and never will. They finally found a way to police the internet in the US, I feel sorry for them. The Great Firewall of China is nothing compared to this.

I can see where this is going. It's almost customary in the US to use legislations like this to do all kinds of fucked up shit that doesn't even have to fall under the extent of the law. They just slap the "could be associated with" or "vaguely seems connected to" sticker on whatever they want gone, and it's gone, nobody would dare ask questions unless they want to get gone themselves...

 

[Gindil]

Let's break this down into three parts:

Internet piracy has only ever sounded like whiny people unable to get over their sense of entitlement. "I want stuff, but I don't want to work for the money to buy it, because I'm somehow different from the rest of the population and deserve it for free". Not going to fly when some people need to hold multiple jobs just to get their next meal. Get over yourselves. When an organization (call them 'greedy corporations' if you like, but it only shows that you have precisely zero understanding of the industrialized world's economy) sinks millions of dollars into the creation of a product, they are going to make damn sure that their ability to make a profit and pay their investors, employees, and employees' benefits. Then they just might want to put some of that money into the creation of their next product so that the company can stay in the black. If you threaten to interrupt that cycle, they are going to try to stop you, especially if you're doing it illegally.

You can't stop people from getting digital products. With the advent of the internet and all of the ways to get movies, music, programs, communications, etc., it's a lesson in futility in thinking that any one corporation or government can truly stop people from doing so.

Now, with all of this legalizing force, can you truly make MONEY on the internet? With more authors making comics, movies, music, for FREE? It seems we are shifting to this so called sense of entitlement era you love so dear.

On the subject of violation of rights and overextension of government control... No. You have no right to take what isn't yours, and the government is completely in the right to pursue you for it. This is not overextension of government control, it's enforcement of policy. It's the same reason mob safe houses are seized. It's a fool's bet to think that the government wouldn't shut down the Salvation Army if they started a Robin Hood-style robbery scheme as a supplement.

I would say the government has no right to look into my home and eavesdrop on me. Link [http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90967/nsa-yelled-at-france-over-three-strikes-legislation/] Funny how all this stuff about IPs means they can basically come into our home just to seize our computers for "copyright infringement". Does that really protect us? Or does it make the music/movie industry look stupid?

Overall, people are just whining because they can't get free things now. Somebody said earlier that the word "terrorist" is being flung around far too much now. The same applies to "oppressive government" and "greedy corporations". If an argument can be formulated that uses either of those phrases, people have a knee-jerk reaction to resist it, even though both entities have sustained their lives so far and will continue to do so as long as their ability to protect assets and enforce policy is not strung up by manipulative thieves like internet pirates.

Actually, I look hard enough I can find substitutes. Great movies [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO0yXC0oyIA], Good music [http://www.jamendo.com/en/], legal torrents [http://vo.do/foureyedmonsters], and News discussing the ineffectiveness of legislation in a digital era [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101128/15302012021/who-needs-coica-when-homeland-security-gets-to-seize-domain-names.shtml].

Something I'd like to iterate from your post. Problems aren't solved by protecting industries. They're solved by finding solutions to the problems at hand. Just because the government spends millions on this fruitless endeavor won't solve the problem of the big media missing the point. They don't know how to compete anymore. They don't know how to do anything but take subsistence from the government and pay extra bucks to make legislation that is truly anti consumer.

Watch what happens when a bunch of artists decide to embrace the internet, finance their own films and do it without Hollywood or the Big Four companies in media. The quiet revolution has actually already begun. Good luck stopping it.

 

[DarkSpectre]

These artists and developers, don't have to share their ideas. They could keep them locked up inside their head forever if they wanted. Middle Earth is Tolkien's idea, he was just kind enough to share it with us. If I told you a great secret but made you promise not to tell anybody else then you did tell somebody else you are a liar and you have wronged me. It doesn't matter if I had you pay me money to know that secret. Intellectual property is like that secret. If I was a psychic would it be wrong for me to look into peoples minds and extract their thoughts? Books, movies, games though they come to use through a physical medium they are an idea. If the originator of that idea places restrictions on what you can do with it after they share it with you and you agree to it then you have to stand by your word. If you don't like the contract then don't agree to it. If a car maker had you agree that you wouldn't resell the car then you couldn't without being in breech of contract. Nobody is forcing you to listen to the music or watch movies. You can decide not to if you don't like the terms of the contract. It was their idea so they have the right to do with it what they want. If they want to charge an ridiculous price for it then that is their prerogative. They don't have to share their idea and you don't have to accept their terms.

 

[Atmos Duality]

The powerful/rich want more power/money, and they use the government to get what they want.

Most of human social history condensed into one line.

Is this any different? No. Is it ethical? Yes.
Will the Dept of Homeland Security continue to act this ethically in the future? Not likely.
Why? See above opening statement.

It doesn't matter if it's wheat, the cotton cartel, Nubian Gold or digital piracy.
Same idea, similar execution, different times.

 

[underattack86]

Intellectual Piracy is a crime, whether you think it should be or not it is, so it is the job of these agencies to enforce the law whether they agree with it or not.

Intellectual piracy is a crime without a victim, hence not a crime at all by the proper definition. You appear to be defending ICE: why, exactly? How is it acceptable to blindly enforce immoral and unjust laws simply because Congress demands it? ICE, DHS, Congress itself... they're all nothing more than parasites, feeding off the productive members of society like leeches.

The people aren't protected against the tyranny of their own idiocy.

And this is your justification for the actions of the state in aggressing against the so-called pirates? "The people" is an imaginary construct, all that factually exists is individual people, and how can one individual pirate be held responsible for the idiocy of an entire society's worth of uneducated idiots? That pirate is unfairly the victim of the voting public, the elected Congress AND the various criminal gangs who execute the laws.

Regarding the idea that "we the people" make the laws: there are 307,000,000 Americans. Of those Americans, 131,000,000 voted in 2008. Of those Americans, 69,000,000 voted for the guy who won. In the mid-terms, 82,5000,000 Americans voted. Out of those who actually voted, how many do you think understood the question before them? How many went beyond the concept of "red VS blue"? "The people" don't decide anything of consequence, and the state's agenda rolls on regardless of whether you vote or not. Democracy: the ultimate confidence scam.

Like the popular cliché says, "if voting changed anything they'd abolish it."

the right to share information without regulation

BINGO. The right to share information without regulation, AKA freedom of speech. You've hit the nail exactly on the head. "Piracy" is an act of taking, but in "intellectual piracy" nothing is taken, merely duplicated, with the permission of it's original owner (the sharer). Once a producer sells a product, the product becomes the property of the purchaser. By what right can the producer, having already traded the product, then claim a right to restrict it's use and duplication? By what logic can ANYBODY restrict others from copying them? If I use my computer to burn data I possess onto a CD that I own... at which point have I taken property from anybody else?

"Intellectual property" is a sham: property by definition must be scarce, but intellectual matters are immaterial and undefinable, and therefore cannot be considered property. There is NO argument that can rightfully define copyright as moral and just, or so-called piracy as immoral and criminal.

We each have a right to voluntarily share information however we wish. Doesn't matter if that information is a recipe, a digital copy of a copyrighted movie or nuclear launch codes. Once the information is yours, it's yours to deal with however you please. Any attempt to restrict this freedom to share (synonymous with the freedom of speech) makes criminals of those who try, whether they be ICE agents, Congressmen or any other shade of useless bastard.

p.s. first post, sup bitches

 

[Starke]

Let's break this down into three parts:

Internet piracy has only ever sounded like whiny people unable to get over their sense of entitlement. "I want stuff, but I don't want to work for the money to buy it, because I'm somehow different from the rest of the population and deserve it for free". Not going to fly when some people need to hold multiple jobs just to get their next meal. Get over yourselves. When an organization (call them 'greedy corporations' if you like, but it only shows that you have precisely zero understanding of the industrialized world's economy) sinks millions of dollars into the creation of a product, they are going to make damn sure that their ability to make a profit and pay their investors, employees, and employees' benefits. Then they just might want to put some of that money into the creation of their next product so that the company can stay in the black. If you threaten to interrupt that cycle, they are going to try to stop you, especially if you're doing it illegally.

You can't stop people from getting digital products.

It's not the getting of digital products that anyone wants to stop. It is the theft of other people's stuff, which is then defended in idiotic ways, like claiming that it can't be stopped.

Now, by that logic someone could march into your home, torture and murder your family one member at a time, but because you can't stop them, it's not a crime? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

With the advent of the internet and all of the ways to get movies, music, programs, communications, etc., it's a lesson in futility in thinking that any one corporation or government can truly stop people from doing so.

Except it isn't one corporation or government. Nor has it been for some time.

Put it this way, people said sixty years ago that we could never eradicate small pox, no single government or corporation could eliminate it. Now, smallpox is effectively extinct, what makes you think that a couple greedy little kids in their parent's basements are better at survival than a virulent disease that was with us for centuries?

Now, with all of this legalizing force, can you truly make MONEY on the internet? With more authors making comics, movies, music, for FREE? It seems we are shifting to this so called sense of entitlement era you love so dear.

You seem to be able to. Pirate Bay was making goddamn bank off of piracy for years. And as someone else mentioned earlier, advertising does make money. People have based their livelihoods off of people who pirate content.

On the subject of violation of rights and overextension of government control... No. You have no right to take what isn't yours, and the government is completely in the right to pursue you for it. This is not overextension of government control, it's enforcement of policy. It's the same reason mob safe houses are seized. It's a fool's bet to think that the government wouldn't shut down the Salvation Army if they started a Robin Hood-style robbery scheme as a supplement.

I would say the government has no right to look into my home and eavesdrop on me.

Except it does. From numerous methods. There's a threshold they can't pass without a warrant, and a threshold they can't pass with a warrant, but there is no right so fundamental that it cannot be set aside. Police can watch what goes into your home, what comes out, they can do that right now, and you can't say a goddamn thing. This is basically like that. Right to privacy doesn't mean right to commit crimes in my own home without fear of criminal repercussions.

Link [http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90967/nsa-yelled-at-france-over-three-strikes-legislation/] Funny how all this stuff about IPs means they can basically come into our home just to seize our computers for "copyright infringement". Does that really protect us? Or does it make the music/movie industry look stupid?

Why? Are you afraid they'll find something?

Overall, people are just whining because they can't get free things now. Somebody said earlier that the word "terrorist" is being flung around far too much now. The same applies to "oppressive government" and "greedy corporations". If an argument can be formulated that uses either of those phrases, people have a knee-jerk reaction to resist it, even though both entities have sustained their lives so far and will continue to do so as long as their ability to protect assets and enforce policy is not strung up by manipulative thieves like internet pirates.

Actually, I look hard enough I can find substitutes. Great movies [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO0yXC0oyIA], Good music [http://www.jamendo.com/en/], legal torrents [http://vo.do/foureyedmonsters], and News discussing the ineffectiveness of legislation in a digital era [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101128/15302012021/who-needs-coica-when-homeland-security-gets-to-seize-domain-names.shtml].

Something I'd like to iterate from your post. Problems aren't solved by protecting industries. They're solved by finding solutions to the problems at hand.

Actually that does seem to be what's going on here. If government was really looking to simply protect the industries our systems would be fucked over with god knows what. Just look at some of the DRMs that have been released by games, or recall the Sony Rootkit debacle. THIS is a middle ground. It is looking for a method to solve this problem. And if that means seizing a few sites? That's a hell of a lot easier to stomach than issuing tens of thousands of search warrants, seizing systems and forensically dissecting them at a later date.

Just because the government spends millions on this fruitless endeavor won't solve the problem of the big media missing the point. They don't know how to compete anymore.

Okay, seriously? They don't know how to compete with theft? Is that you're argument? And let's not mince words here, piracy is theft. These aren't the (theoretically) romantic pirates of the open oceans, these are thieves. So, because people have figured out how to rip off artists and publishers, it's all okay, because that's just "fair market competition"? I'm sorry, that one doesn't even pass the scratch and sniff test. This is theft, plain and simple. And if you're honestly sitting there trying to argue that this is some kind of competition?

They don't know how to do anything but take subsistence from the government and pay extra bucks to make legislation that is truly anti consumer thief.

Sorry, you had a little typo there, but I got it for ya. Happens to the best of us.

Watch what happens when a bunch of artists decide to embrace the internet, finance their own films and do it without Hollywood or the Big Four companies in media. The quiet revolution has actually already begun. Good luck stopping it.

See, here's the really funny thing. This is going out of it's way to avoid taking this shit down. If your theory was right, then the big bad corporations who own the goddamn world would have no qualms simply crushing the torrent network. And before you go off on that whole "can't stop the signal" bullshit, let me explain. There are technical limitations within the existing software that are fundamental to the design architecture. If the government's intent was to end torrents now, it would happen. It is because they ARE protecting these people you cite.

 

[underattack86]

It's not the getting of digital products that anyone wants to stop. It is the theft of other people's stuff, which is then defended in idiotic ways, like claiming that it can't be stopped.

It's not theft. Theft requires the loss of property: no property is lost when files are shared, the information is merely duplicated from the property of the sharer to the property of the recipient. Lets say, hypothetically, that I'm downloading a .avi copy of the movie Red Dawn. At which point in this transaction does MGM Productions lose property? The file doesn't belong to them, it belongs to the person who's hard-drive contains it. They retain all of their physical property. Clearly no act of theft has occurred!

If the government's intent was to end torrents now, tomorrow everybody would be using torrents 2.0.

 

[Starke]

Intellectual Piracy is a crime, whether you think it should be or not it is, so it is the job of these agencies to enforce the law whether they agree with it or not.

Intellectual piracy is a crime without a victim, hence not a crime at all by the proper definition.

It is the crime of larceny or theft, depending on the state you live in. Neither requires a victim, only the appropriation of unlawful goods. As for there not being a victim? Don't buy into that bullshit. The music industry is half the size it was 10 years ago. That means that people either lost their jobs, or they're getting roughly half what they were. These people are victimized by piracy. On the gaming side of things, PC gamers are all victimized by piracy every time the PC gets shafted with a poor quality port of a console title instead of original material. Piracy has affected the gaming industry at a fundamental level. When titles on the PC are running up to 90% piracy rates, and the development houses that produce PC titles are collapsing, it's time to fess up and say there are a lot of fucking victims.

You appear to be defending ICE: why, exactly? How is it acceptable to blindly enforce immoral and unjust laws simply because Congress demands it? ICE, DHS, Congress itself... they're all nothing more than parasites, feeding off the productive members of society like leeches.

Because as we all know, stealin' other people's shit is the only truly moral way to live.

If there's a leach its the thieves themselves. They don't produce, they don't contribute, and they don't pay for what they take. They sit there "feeding off the productive members of society like leeches", and then crying every time they're faced with the prospect of actually paying for what they steal.

the right to share information without regulation

BINGO. The right to share information without regulation, AKA freedom of speech.

Except this isn't freedom of speech. For that matter freedom of speech isn't absolute. You can't (legally) yell "fire" in a crowded theater because of the harm that "speech" will cause to others (when no fire in fact exists). You can't steal shit and say it's free speech. You can't do this and call it "speech". It's not. What it is is a deliberate criminal act.

You've hit the nail exactly on the head. "Piracy" is an act of taking, but in "intellectual piracy" nothing is taken, merely duplicated, with the permission of it's original owner (the sharer).

Which is well and good when the sharer in fact owns the copyright. But, when the sharer is a 13 year old in New Jersy, you cannot convince me he owns the rights to The Godfather. What he's doing is criminal.

Once a producer sells a product, the product becomes the property of the purchaser.

While this is true of physical property (in some cases), in the case of intellectual property, what you are buying is a non-commercial license to that material. In short, when you buy something that is copyrighted, it does not become your work.

By what right can the producer, having already traded the product, then claim a right to restrict it's use and duplication?

By rights enumerated to them in the constitution.

By what logic can ANYBODY restrict others from copying them?

By the logic that, if one cannot sell their intellectual work, then why do so? As a society. Some individuals will always be driven to create, but for the rest, we would be a far poorer and more boorish society for it.

If I use my computer to burn data I possess onto a CD that I own... at which point have I taken property from anybody else?

The moment you give it to someone else.

"Intellectual property" is a sham: property by definition must be scarce, but intellectual matters are immaterial and undefinable, and therefore cannot be considered property.

No, you're talking property need not be scarce. Economics dictate the allocation of scarce resources. But these two things are not automatically interconnected.

There is NO argument that can rightfully define copyright as moral and just, or so-called piracy as immoral and criminal.

Actually there are many. But let's start with the first. Let's say you work for years slaving away on a book. By your logic, the moral thing for me to do is beat you over the head, take it down the street and have it published in my name.

Now, go look up your state's statute for theft or larceny. Go on, do it, now, I'll wait.

Okay, you see that part that says "or appropriation", or "or acquisition"? Yeah, you commit a criminal act simply by receiving the illegal content, and before you whine and moan about the corporations fuckin' over the little people, realize, if it is within your capacity to do so, that these laws have been on the books long before the rise of the internet, and long before piracy was a serious issue.

We each have a right to voluntarily share information however we wish.

You might want to remember something, "there is no right so fundamental that the government cannot limit it."

Doesn't matter if that information is a recipe, a digital copy of a copyrighted movie or nuclear launch codes.

Actually it does. With the recipe? It's only a crime if you don't own it and someone else has a copyright for it. With the film, yeah, unless you actually own the copyright, it's a crime, it also isn't free speech. Now, as for the launch codes? Well, that's what we call treason, it's a little different from copyright infringement, but basically that means the government gets to come, lock you up, get bored, get confused, and then kill you. So, like I said, a little different.

Once the information is yours, it's yours to deal with however you please. Any attempt to restrict this freedom to share (synonymous with the freedom of speech) makes criminals of those who try, whether they be ICE agents, Congressmen or any other shade of useless bastard.

Except, it quite clearly isn't. I get that you'd like it to be synonymous, but it ain't. And no amount of preening on the internet will make it synonymous. Now, if you would like that to change, what I'd invite you to do is to pirate something, go to your nearest police station, turn yourself in, and then use that argument when you go before the judge. Let me know how that works out for you, if you would be so kind?

p.s. first post, sup bitches

 

[Starke]

It's not the getting of digital products that anyone wants to stop. It is the theft of other people's stuff, which is then defended in idiotic ways, like claiming that it can't be stopped.

It's not theft. Theft requires the loss of property: no property is lost when files are shared, the information is merely duplicated from the property of the sharer to the property of the recipient. Lets say, hypothetically, that I'm downloading a .avi copy of the movie Red Dawn. At which point in this transaction does MGM Productions lose property? The file doesn't belong to them, it belongs to the person who's hard-drive contains it. They retain all of their physical property. Clearly no act of theft has occurred!

S 155.05 Larceny; defined.
1. A person steals property and commits larceny when, with intent to
deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or to
a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds such property
from an owner thereof.

If the government's intent was to end torrents now, tomorrow everybody would be using torrents 2.0.

I seriously doubt it, because it would require a complete restructuring of how the system works.

 

[Callate]

I feel like I've just been told the only options the restaurant still offers are "anarchy" and "fascism".

Can we eat somewhere else...?

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Information=freedom, copyright as it is = enslavement. Nuff said.

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

Give an idiot in power an inch and he takes a mile.

Give an idiot in power a few miles of international border and he'll find some way to irritate people on both sides of the fence.


I'm not conceding the defeat of the entire internet, we have a few more years of fun before Uncle Sam takes away our interwebz.....>.>

1 of 2 consequences: #1 Pirate Bay organizes an army and battles the whole world or #2 everyone just finds a new way to complain......like texting or their iphones.

 

[Gindil]

You can't stop people from getting digital products.

It's not the getting of digital products that anyone wants to stop. It is the theft of other people's stuff, which is then defended in idiotic ways, like claiming that it can't be stopped.

Now, by that logic someone could march into your home, torture and murder your family one member at a time, but because you can't stop them, it's not a crime? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

*sigh* One of those people. Alright. Let's look at this for a second. In the ten years of the DMCA, has it stopped the sharing of data at all? Has the DMCA stopped people from sharing songs on Youtube, Grooveshark, or LiveStream? Has the suing of individuals by the RIAA or the Copyright Group stopped people from using Bittorrent or LimeWire? Oh and just another thing. Link [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373091,00.asp]. Even when they bow to the "greedy corporation" overlords, there's still crazy demands made of them. Now, the RIAA can't stop the newest interation of Limewire who obviously won't work with them to make money. Napster tried to work with the RIAA and look what happened. Sued to oblivion. The game of whack a mole continues. Logic overcomes emotion once you look at the facts.

And yes, we should keep the Logical fallacies [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-fear.html] out of our arguments.

With the advent of the internet and all of the ways to get movies, music, programs, communications, etc., it's a lesson in futility in thinking that any one corporation or government can truly stop people from doing so.

Except it isn't one corporation or government. Nor has it been for some time.

Put it this way, people said sixty years ago that we could never eradicate small pox, no single government or corporation could eliminate it. Now, smallpox is effectively extinct, what makes you think that a couple greedy little kids in their parent's basements are better at survival than a virulent disease that was with us for centuries?

Uhm... We can still get chicken pox? Though I'm puzzled how a disease can be equivalent to filesharing...

Now, with all of this legalizing force, can you truly make MONEY on the internet? With more authors making comics, movies, music, for FREE? It seems we are shifting to this so called sense of entitlement era you love so dear.

You seem to be able to. Pirate Bay was making goddamn bank off of piracy for years. And as someone else mentioned earlier, advertising does make money. People have based their livelihoods off of people who pirate content.

That, is an outright lie. Links [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/02/pirate-bay-big-revenue-claims-fabricated-by-prosecutors.ars]

What you've yet to factor into this equation are things that are needed to keep a website up and running. Namely, server upkeep, customer service, programming hours, man hours, etc. Seeing just the final results without any of the work is like talking about how you make $100K a year before you're taxed to ~$60-$70K.

Finally, other, smaller authors are embracing the internet and not worrying about piracy. Just like Steve Lieber here [http://www.undergroundthecomic.com/2010/10/pictures-help-us-learn/]. Don't take my word for it.

I would say the government has no right to look into my home and eavesdrop on me.

Except it does. From numerous methods. There's a threshold they can't pass without a warrant, and a threshold they can't pass with a warrant, but there is no right so fundamental that it cannot be set aside. Police can watch what goes into your home, what comes out, they can do that right now, and you can't say a goddamn thing. This is basically like that. Right to privacy doesn't mean right to commit crimes in my own home without fear of criminal repercussions.

And my counter to that is the repeal of the Patriot Act, especially when the government doesn't follow their own rules in following the procedures. And no, they can't. Link [http://volokh.com/2010/08/06/d-c-circuit-introduces-mosaic-theory-of-fourth-amendment-holds-gps-monitoring-a-fourth-amendment-search/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+volokh/mainfeed+(The+Volokh+Conspiracy)] The 4th amendment continues to help protect us. This is one example. The belief that the government is the only authority, especially in the marketplace is greatly flawed. Fair warning that the government colludes in order to take away freedoms. In this case, some of the websites taken down were nothing more than search engines similar to Google. They had NO content on them other than a toolbar and were taken down without any type of governmental oversite. How that isn't abuse of "power" given is beyond me.

Link [http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90967/nsa-yelled-at-france-over-three-strikes-legislation/] Funny how all this stuff about IPs means they can basically come into our home just to seize our computers for "copyright infringement". Does that really protect us? Or does it make the music/movie industry look stupid?

Why? Are you afraid they'll find something?

Read further down. Regardless, I don't support their music or movies. *wink* [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-hominem.html]

Actually, I look hard enough I can find substitutes. Great movies [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO0yXC0oyIA], Good music [http://www.jamendo.com/en/], legal torrents [http://vo.do/foureyedmonsters], and News discussing the ineffectiveness of legislation in a digital era [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101128/15302012021/who-needs-coica-when-homeland-security-gets-to-seize-domain-names.shtml].

Something I'd like to iterate from your post. Problems aren't solved by protecting industries. They're solved by finding solutions to the problems at hand.

Actually that does seem to be what's going on here. If government was really looking to simply protect the industries our systems would be fucked over with god knows what. Just look at some of the DRMs that have been released by games, or recall the Sony Rootkit debacle. THIS is a middle ground. It is looking for a method to solve this problem. And if that means seizing a few sites? That's a hell of a lot easier to stomach than issuing tens of thousands of search warrants, seizing systems and forensically dissecting them at a later date.

A middle ground? A government with a special task force for the movie and music industry going on to take people's freedoms all for a few files on the internet is a middle ground? Really?

Let's not forget that more than likely, these people have to answer a summons OR they have to fight in an expensive court case to prove that the government took their things illegally. What do you think is going to happen as a result? I have quite a few guesses. First, setting up your service outside of the US, taking away revenue and taxes. Second, more implementation of DNS services to ping their log ins, making these people more difficult to track. So ever more, the game of whack a mole continues. Even now, some of those sites are back online [http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91400/ice-domain-seizures-a-pointless-exercise/], So what the hell is the point? Did you know that they did this crap this summer? Link [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100630/14391410029.shtml]. Of particular note:

But what's most interesting is where the announcements about these raids happened: at Disney. And who else was there on stage? Execs from other studios.

Whack a mole indeed...

Just because the government spends millions on this fruitless endeavor won't solve the problem of the big media missing the point. They don't know how to compete anymore.

Okay, seriously? They don't know how to compete with theft? Is that you're[sic] argument? And let's not mince words here, piracy is theft. These aren't the (theoretically) romantic pirates of the open oceans, these are thieves. So, because people have figured out how to rip off artists and publishers, it's all okay, because that's just "fair market competition"? I'm sorry, that one doesn't even pass the scratch and sniff test. This is theft, plain and simple. And if you're honestly sitting there trying to argue that this is some kind of competition?

You don't seem to understand how this works. Quick history on movies and music. They were the old gatekeepers. In the music industry, you had the Big Four (soon to be the Big Three since EMI is having financial trouble) that controlled the market. Monopolistic competition [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition]. In all honesty, the artists were screwed over by the labels by the Sonny Bono Act. They got screwed over by deals that heavily favored the label to make money. Picture here [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml]. The DMCA screwed them over yet again by making the terms lifetime + 70 years after an artist dies. Let's think about that... A corporation can hold onto a copyright and control movies LOOOOONG after you die. Yet another example [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/nyregion/thecity/29hist.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all]. So in the end, who's screwing whom? Artists are actually making money from concerts. Hell, google "50 cent" and "piracy" and you'll be amazed at the CBS report he says about that.

Nowadays? Those markets are freed up. Yet, Hollywood (movies) and the RIAA(music) continue to try to put things back to the 80s in various forms. It ain't working [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100518/1031049467.shtml]

The final panel of the day, on "Music & Money," included both Michael Robertson and Tim Quirk -- both of whom have long been critics of the record labels and their business practices. It gave them a chance to (accurately) gripe about the record labels and how they've spent the last decade (or longer) shooting themselves in the foot time and time again by basically killing off every innovative new startup that popped up by demanding ridiculous fees just to operate.

Don't you love progress?

They don't know how to do anything but take subsistence from the government and pay extra bucks to make legislation that is truly anti consumer thief.

Sorry, you had a little typo there, but I got it for ya. Happens to the best of us.

Oops, Sorry about that. I actually meant to put this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use] up also.

Watch what happens when a bunch of artists decide to embrace the internet, finance their own films and do it without Hollywood or the Big Four companies in media. The quiet revolution has actually already begun. Good luck stopping it.

See, here's the really funny thing. This is going out of it's way to avoid taking this shit down. If your theory was right, then the big bad corporations who own the goddamn world would have no qualms simply crushing the torrent network. And before you go off on that whole "can't stop the signal" bullshit, let me explain. There are technical limitations within the existing software that are fundamental to the design architecture. If the government's intent was to end torrents now, it would happen. It is because they ARE protecting these people you cite.[/quote]

Notice how this happened right before COICA is to be debated and possibly rectified. Funny how no one can connect the dots until it's too late.

 

[Gindil]

You can't stop people from getting digital products.

It's not the getting of digital products that anyone wants to stop. It is the theft of other people's stuff, which is then defended in idiotic ways, like claiming that it can't be stopped.

Now, by that logic someone could march into your home, torture and murder your family one member at a time, but because you can't stop them, it's not a crime? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

*sigh* One of those people. Alright. Let's look at this for a second. In the ten years of the DMCA, has it stopped the sharing of data at all? Has the DMCA stopped people from sharing songs on Youtube, Grooveshark, or LiveStream? Has the suing of individuals by the RIAA or the Copyright Group stopped people from using Bittorrent or LimeWire? Oh and just another thing. Link [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373091,00.asp]. Even when they bow to the "greedy corporation" overlords, there's still crazy demands made of them. Now, the RIAA can't stop the newest interation of Limewire who obviously won't work with them to make money. Napster tried to work with the RIAA and look what happened. Sued to oblivion. The game of whack a mole continues. Logic overcomes emotion once you look at the facts.

And yes, we should keep the Logical fallacies [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-fear.html] out of our arguments.

With the advent of the internet and all of the ways to get movies, music, programs, communications, etc., it's a lesson in futility in thinking that any one corporation or government can truly stop people from doing so.

Except it isn't one corporation or government. Nor has it been for some time.

Put it this way, people said sixty years ago that we could never eradicate small pox, no single government or corporation could eliminate it. Now, smallpox is effectively extinct, what makes you think that a couple greedy little kids in their parent's basements are better at survival than a virulent disease that was with us for centuries?

Uhm... We can still get chicken pox? Though I'm puzzled how a disease can be equivalent to filesharing...

Now, with all of this legalizing force, can you truly make MONEY on the internet? With more authors making comics, movies, music, for FREE? It seems we are shifting to this so called sense of entitlement era you love so dear.

You seem to be able to. Pirate Bay was making goddamn bank off of piracy for years. And as someone else mentioned earlier, advertising does make money. People have based their livelihoods off of people who pirate content.

That, is an outright lie. Links [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/02/pirate-bay-big-revenue-claims-fabricated-by-prosecutors.ars]

What you've yet to factor into this equation are things that are needed to keep a website up and running. Namely, server upkeep, customer service, programming hours, man hours, etc. Seeing just the final results without any of the work is like talking about how you make $100K a year before you're taxed to ~$60-$70K.

Finally, other, smaller authors are embracing the internet and not worrying about piracy. Just like Steve Lieber here [http://www.undergroundthecomic.com/2010/10/pictures-help-us-learn/]. Don't take my word for it.

On the subject of violation of rights and overextension of government control... No. You have no right to take what isn't yours, and the government is completely in the right to pursue you for it. This is not overextension of government control, it's enforcement of policy. It's the same reason mob safe houses are seized. It's a fool's bet to think that the government wouldn't shut down the Salvation Army if they started a Robin Hood-style robbery scheme as a supplement.

I would say the government has no right to look into my home and eavesdrop on me.

Except it does. From numerous methods. There's a threshold they can't pass without a warrant, and a threshold they can't pass with a warrant, but there is no right so fundamental that it cannot be set aside. Police can watch what goes into your home, what comes out, they can do that right now, and you can't say a goddamn thing. This is basically like that. Right to privacy doesn't mean right to commit crimes in my own home without fear of criminal repercussions.

And my counter to that is the repeal of the Patriot Act, especially when the government doesn't follow their own rules in following the procedures. And no, they can't. Link [http://volokh.com/2010/08/06/d-c-circuit-introduces-mosaic-theory-of-fourth-amendment-holds-gps-monitoring-a-fourth-amendment-search/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+volokh/mainfeed+(The+Volokh+Conspiracy)] The 4th amendment continues to help protect us. This is one example. The belief that the government is the only authority, especially in the marketplace is greatly flawed. Fair warning that the government colludes in order to take away freedoms. In this case, some of the websites taken down were nothing more than search engines similar to Google. They had NO content on them other than a toolbar and were taken down without any type of governmental oversite. How that isn't abuse of "power" given is beyond me.

Link [http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90967/nsa-yelled-at-france-over-three-strikes-legislation/] Funny how all this stuff about IPs means they can basically come into our home just to seize our computers for "copyright infringement". Does that really protect us? Or does it make the music/movie industry look stupid?

Why? Are you afraid they'll find something?

Read further down. Regardless, I don't support their music or movies. *wink* [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-hominem.html]

Overall, people are just whining because they can't get free things now. Somebody said earlier that the word "terrorist" is being flung around far too much now. The same applies to "oppressive government" and "greedy corporations". If an argument can be formulated that uses either of those phrases, people have a knee-jerk reaction to resist it, even though both entities have sustained their lives so far and will continue to do so as long as their ability to protect assets and enforce policy is not strung up by manipulative thieves like internet pirates.

Actually, I look hard enough I can find substitutes. Great movies [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO0yXC0oyIA], Good music [http://www.jamendo.com/en/], legal torrents [http://vo.do/foureyedmonsters], and News discussing the ineffectiveness of legislation in a digital era [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101128/15302012021/who-needs-coica-when-homeland-security-gets-to-seize-domain-names.shtml].

Something I'd like to iterate from your post. Problems aren't solved by protecting industries. They're solved by finding solutions to the problems at hand.

Actually that does seem to be what's going on here. If government was really looking to simply protect the industries our systems would be fucked over with god knows what. Just look at some of the DRMs that have been released by games, or recall the Sony Rootkit debacle. THIS is a middle ground. It is looking for a method to solve this problem. And if that means seizing a few sites? That's a hell of a lot easier to stomach than issuing tens of thousands of search warrants, seizing systems and forensically dissecting them at a later date.

A middle ground? A government with a special task force for the movie and music industry going on to take people's freedoms all for a few files on the internet is a middle ground? Really?

Let's not forget that more than likely, these people have to answer a summons OR they have to fight in an expensive court case to prove that the government took their things illegally. What do you think is going to happen as a result? I have quite a few guesses. First, setting up your service outside of the US, taking away revenue and taxes. Second, more implementation of DNS services to ping their log ins, making these people more difficult to track. So ever more, the game of whack a mole continues. Even now, some of those sites are back online [http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91400/ice-domain-seizures-a-pointless-exercise/], So what the hell is the point? Did you know that they did this crap this summer? Link [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100630/14391410029.shtml]. Of particular note:

But what's most interesting is where the announcements about these raids happened: at Disney. And who else was there on stage? Execs from other studios.

Whack a mole indeed...

Just because the government spends millions on this fruitless endeavor won't solve the problem of the big media missing the point. They don't know how to compete anymore.

Okay, seriously? They don't know how to compete with theft? Is that you're argument? And let's not mince words here, piracy is theft. These aren't the (theoretically) romantic pirates of the open oceans, these are thieves. So, because people have figured out how to rip off artists and publishers, it's all okay, because that's just "fair market competition"? I'm sorry, that one doesn't even pass the scratch and sniff test. This is theft, plain and simple. And if you're honestly sitting there trying to argue that this is some kind of competition?

You don't seem to understand how this works. Quick history on movies and music. They were the old gatekeepers. In the music industry, you had the Big Four (soon to be the Big Three since EMI is having financial trouble) that controlled the market. Monopolistic competition [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition]. In all honesty, the artists were screwed over by the labels by the Sonny Bono Act. They got screwed over by deals that heavily favored the label to make money. Picture here [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml]. The DMCA screwed them over yet again by making the terms lifetime + 70 years after an artist dies. Let's think about that... A corporation can hold onto a copyright and control movies LOOOOONG after you die. Yet another example [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/nyregion/thecity/29hist.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all]. So in the end, who's screwing whom? Artists are actually making money from concerts. Hell, google "50 cent" and "piracy" and you'll be amazed at the CBS report he says about that.

Nowadays? Those markets are freed up. Yet, Hollywood (movies) and the RIAA(music) continue to try to put things back to the 80s in various forms. It ain't working [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100518/1031049467.shtml]

The final panel of the day, on "Music & Money," included both Michael Robertson and Tim Quirk -- both of whom have long been critics of the record labels and their business practices. It gave them a chance to (accurately) gripe about the record labels and how they've spent the last decade (or longer) shooting themselves in the foot time and time again by basically killing off every innovative new startup that popped up by demanding ridiculous fees just to operate.

Don't you love progress?

They don't know how to do anything but take subsistence from the government and pay extra bucks to make legislation that is truly anti consumer thief.

Sorry, you had a little typo there, but I got it for ya. Happens to the best of us.

Oops, Sorry about that. I actually meant to put this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use] up also.

Watch what happens when a bunch of artists decide to embrace the internet, finance their own films and do it without Hollywood or the Big Four companies in media. The quiet revolution has actually already begun. Good luck stopping it.

See, here's the really funny thing. This is going out of it's way to avoid taking this shit down. If your theory was right, then the big bad corporations who own the goddamn world would have no qualms simply crushing the torrent network. And before you go off on that whole "can't stop the signal" bullshit, let me explain. There are technical limitations within the existing software that are fundamental to the design architecture. If the government's intent was to end torrents now, it would happen. It is because they ARE protecting these people you cite.[/quote]

Notice how this happened right before COICA is to be debated and possibly rectified. Funny how no one can connect the dots until it's too late.[/quote]

 

[Snotnarok]

There went internet neutrality. Next step is giving the net to the big companies.

Honestly, if you want to increase net neutrality, you need to make the broadband companies compete. This whole idea of rules for the internet that they need to adjust to really won't fly unless they're faced with a strike to their income.

I don't want anyone having direct control that is the whole idea of a free open internet. When someone starts controlling it, it becomes a problem.