[whooping_a_panda]

Originally Posted by Xtreme Barton

Do you think internet piracy should be stopped ?

Examples:

Some argue for instance that music piracy is beneficial to the industry because its free promotion/publicity by getting the artist name out there.

Some disagree because they say it hurts not just the artist but everyone that is employed from that artist (cd making companies, packagers, shipping/receiving workers, etc ...). Beings no cd's are being sold economy suffers greatly.

Some students studying computer science believe its beneficial to help come up with new ways to beat it.

Obviously different markets are out their for piracy such as music, movies, software, games, etc...

considering the entire market as a whole do you think it is beneficial or harmful ?? Should it be stopped ?


thanks im hoping to get a decent number of voters so i can be a little more "credible"

Original thread by Xtreme Barton

[Xtreme Barton]

Please cast a vote !! id like to incorporate this into my paper and the more votes the more credible the poll looks ..

paper is due 2-2?-2012 so ill be collecting results probably the 19th or so

[whooping_a_panda]

I'm voting no, not because I advocate the infringement of other peoples IP and think everyone should be entitled to everything for free in life, but because the steps being taken to circumvent such infringement often has dire implications towards the existence of a free and non commercial internet.

Adding such draconian rules to protect the interests and well being of the dying business models of much of the entertainment industry seems unhealthy to me. The home VHS recorder didn't kill Hollywood and though the internet has a better shot at it, it won't either. They just need to adapt and change to the technology. The record industry could have made bank with a centralized downloading service had they implemented it properly before Apple finally talked them into using the rights and doing it themselves.

The point I'm trying to make was much better stated by Gabe Newell of Valve:

Originally Posted by Gabe Newell

Newell: The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates. For example, Russia. You say, oh, we’re going to enter Russia, people say, you’re doomed, they’ll pirate everything in Russia. Russia now outside of Germany is our largest continental European market.

[Diggrr]

I say no as well.

I stopped buying music CD's when the RIAA started suing parents for 100k+ as well as releasing virus infested mp3's to download sites. They only got a quarter of what's deserved in lost profits for that alone. I will flat turn off the radio if Metallica comes on...volunteer posterboys for greed and legal system abuse.

I'll buy software on CD/DVD from a local vendor.

Consider also for a moment that buying CD's (and software too) via internet download costs about the same as a hardcopy and still bypasses a large part of the conventional delivery system...who's the pirate now?
And still the sheep will line up to buy junk consumer goods (that's right, I said junk..who's got a 5 yo ipod?) made by oppressed and abused kids in Asian countries, so they can keep buying the overpriced music that they never physically posses.

Paying a $1 per song for what amounts to user-choice radio is stupid. My TV tuner card will DVR it's FM tuner, and from there I can make a legal mp3. I can also get CD's from the local library, current ones.

[I.M.O.G.]

I think it should be curtailed via reasonable means.

The most important part is what Gabe newell mentioned. Give people a better service than what the pirates offer and you are good to go.

Right now, no one offers a service that compares with SSL usenet + nzbmatrix + sickbeard + couchpotato + sabnzbd + xbmc. Not that I support people doing that stuff, but there is not a product that compares well to that sort of a setup... dvr service thru your cable company costs you an arm and a leg, and they still don't want to let you fast forward commercials, and their interface sucks, and you have limits on what you can record and how much you can save for later. Hulu is a nice start, but still has a ways to go. Netflix has a good audience, but could also stand for some improvements.

Make something better, and anyone kludging a half dozen different applications together to get what they want will stop working so hard and start paying for what they want.

[Archer0915]

Overall? As far as money I think it is balanced. As to the societal effects? It is costly. What do I mean by costly? Look at the poll results.

[Robert17]

The Law of Unintended Consequences will wreak havoc on any bills or regulations written by the knuckleheads that write them. The Law Writers don't understand the internet (who does?). Hollyweird could easily spend some large money developing methods to deliver content, a better mouse-trap so to speak, to capitalize on their creations but seem rather to prefer to shut everything down. The rapid development of technology will render most internet laws, as written, obsolete in a few years anyway. Then we get to go through all this again. They certainly have spent buckets of money on CGI for example. Why they don't team with some of pirates and utilize the web for their benefit rather than want it throttled is beyond me.

I'm definitely against pirating. I'm definitely against more poorly written laws and regulations as well. How would your written law that speaks to both freedom and prosecution regarding this matter look?

[Quigsby]

I wouldn't come to a conclusion on this by how well the US has implemented stupid laws in the past. I just took the question at face value, so I voted Yes. If I never got paid for any of my work there would be 3 people on the street.

[Xtreme Barton]

everybody has great points !! ill chime in when i collect the results.

[Archer0915]

Well from what I understand MS is going to make XBOX games that cant be sold. I mean what the heck? I don't even think you will be able to take them to a friends house but that is speculation.

These companies can make things much harder but they need to look at the bottom line.

R&D costs, implementation costs, maintenance costs and long term usage (how long until it is worked around).

After that they need to look at the negative impact on sales.

But as has been mentioned many times all of this will cracked.

So I ask: What is the point if all the money and time invested in any type of locking or new distribution method is simply overcome and nothing slows? I mean there is absolutely no encryption, code or anything else that can stop the recording and redistribution of anything transmitted to a set of speakers.

So in my opinion the companies can improve their distribution model but it will slow nothing down.

It is illegal and can lead to an entitlement issue. It alters the attitudes of many people in a negative way.

Do you know why there is such a high divorce rate in the entertainment world? Because they put in so many hours that they are married to the job. There people work their asses off and I do not think it is the right thing to do. Don't take their profits. Oh the media giants take all of their money all of their money comes from shows...

Well it is business and those people get a decent cut of the money going to the giants.

[Niku-Sama]

M$ is going to ET them selves right out of the video gaming world with that no resale on games thing.

i've always taken games over to a friends house to play over there with them, did as a kid, still do it now. if theres a game that i have that wont work on some one elses system because its already been used not even installed on mine. i'm sorry but i will find a way arround it

thats a bit off topic though but it makes you wonder why in terms of piracy and why they do these things, they almost encourage it at a certian point

[freakdiablo]

I voted no for similar reasons to what I think whooping_a_panda was getting at. The internet is an international entity, and like international waters it simply complicates things if one country or group of countries try to impose laws on it. As wrong as piracy may be, choosing a better delivery system such as Steam or Itunes, to me, seems to be a better solution than trying to impose restrictions on the internet.

[KonaKona]

Originally Posted by Archer0915

Well from what I understand MS is going to make XBOX games that cant be sold. I mean what the heck? I don't even think you will be able to take them to a friends house but that is speculation.

Originally Posted by Niku-Sama

M$ is going to ET them selves right out of the video gaming world with that no resale on games thing.

i've always taken games over to a friends house to play over there with them, did as a kid, still do it now. if theres a game that i have that wont work on some one elses system because its already been used not even installed on mine. i'm sorry but i will find a way arround it

thats a bit off topic though but it makes you wonder why in terms of piracy and why they do these things, they almost encourage it at a certian point

I really hope microsoft goes past shooting their foot and flat out blows their head off when it comes to that. The 360 is terrible. The early ones did nothing but break, microsoft has gone around ruining little portions of good games (online multiplayer between forza 2 and 3 is my experience, but I know it's not alone), and then they started ripping off nintendo with the not-mii stuff and trying to get into the "casual" and "family" market, when all they are doing is alienating the people that actually buy a 360, ala the ones that play stuff like cawadoody and batafeld. No one buys a 360 for kinect games, no one with half a brain at least. They've also done nothing but make the dashboard consistently worse and buggier, and do a horrible job when it comes to payments for their online services, which you still have to pay for. Go look at all the people that have gotten their account hacked and how microsoft does nothing about it until you go to the media over it. Heck, they are a pain enough if you just want to cancel a subscription.

They can go die in a moist hole somewhere for all I care, or better yet someone could figure out the online portion so you can connect to a online server that isn't owned by microsoft, then they will be in a big sea of poo once people can get true full functionality out of games they didn't pay for. I'd like to see that.


EDIT: This post got moved, by the way.

[diaz]

Yes, of course it should be stopped. However, like mentionned above, proper reasonable means would have to be put in place to deal with piracy in a fair manner.

Basically, hit the piracy at the core, not at the door. Find what classifies as direct infrigement of rights, like outright destribution of music and movies that should NOT be free - VS - material with no copiright infrigement relating to free distribution, such as free media (movies/music/software), or media with added income generating elements (adds, donation buttons etc..).

If you are downloading something, and you are using an ounce of judgement, you will know if you are stealing or not. That same judgement should be used.

The penalties for getting caught should not really be about the end user until it is dealt with at the core (ISP/or torrent websites for example), but mostly about the self-policing of the distribution means. Meaning that there would be no real penalty to the torrent website, simply an implementation of self policing to protect itself from future problems. This is a very sensitive thing, since now you are introducing control into it - but in the same way as there is police control on the street. They are not out three spying on you, but if they clock you over the speed limit, the will issue you a ticket. Something thought out, and reasonably agreed upon within society should be implemented. Of course, the people involved should be spokespeople/embassadors of our communities with savvy knowledge about IT/software/web, backed up with the proper lawyers and knowleadgable people to smoothly implement something that will slowly disable the ability to illegally "traffic" material over the web.

Punishements for downloading from an end-user perspective would have to be widely known, and distributed through IPS's for immediate distribution to each end-user, and be effective as of a certain future date. Of course, it would be on the news, and failure to acknowledge these would not consist as an excuse, such as traffic laws.

[Archer0915]

Originally Posted by diaz

Yes, of course it should be stopped. However, like mentionned above, proper reasonable means would have to be put in place to deal with piracy in a fair manner.

Basically, hit the piracy at the core, not at the door. Find what classifies as direct infrigement of rights, like outright destribution of music and movies that should NOT be free - VS - material with no copiright infrigement relating to free distribution, such as free media (movies/music/software), or media with added income generating elements (adds, donation buttons etc..).

If you are downloading something, and you are using an ounce of judgement, you will know if you are stealing or not. That same judgement should be used.

The penalties for getting caught should not really be about the end user until it is dealt with at the core (ISP/or torrent websites for example), but mostly about the self-policing of the distribution means. Meaning that there would be no real penalty to the torrent website, simply an implementation of self policing to protect itself from future problems. This is a very sensitive thing, since now you are introducing control into it - but in the same way as there is police control on the street. They are not out three spying on you, but if they clock you over the speed limit, the will issue you a ticket. Something thought out, and reasonably agreed upon within society should be implemented. Of course, the people involved should be spokespeople/embassadors of our communities with savvy knowledge about IT/software/web, backed up with the proper lawyers and knowleadgable people to smoothly implement something that will slowly disable the ability to illegally "traffic" material over the web.

Punishements for downloading from an end-user perspective would have to be widely known, and distributed through IPS's for immediate distribution to each end-user, and be effective as of a certain future date. Of course, it would be on the news, and failure to acknowledge these would not consist as an excuse, such as traffic laws.

There was a bit of this in SOPA.

[Nechen]

I'm surprised this thread hasn't been locked.

To anyone who says "no" I'd like to see what your response would be after you and half a dozen friends develop an independent video game and don't see a dime off it because only one person bought it off STEAM who then uploaded it to various download sites.

Having said that, I'd also like to remind everyone who supports the "stopping of piracy" that these artists and companies are never the ones sueing these parents with handicapped children. Its thug groups like RIAA who claim to be an umbrella group "representing the interests of their clients" yet for some reason they end up with all the money when its done???

Go and ahead and ask Blizzard how many times WoW has been pirated. You just have to be smart about it which 9/10 American businesses are not. Hell, look at the AppStore versus the Android Market...

[diaz]

Originally Posted by Archer0915

There was a bit of this in SOPA.

Of course, its not about the actual principle, its about the way it would have been implemented. Obviously not much collaboration happened at official level, probably mostly behind rich CEO doors. It seemed very sneeky and greatly favored people with deep pockets, not the actual talent/artists/programmers etc... It also did not have very effective ways to prevent abuse against overstreching action lawsuit, such a class or individual. As an example, if someone were to bring a laptop to your house and download illegal content, you would be held liable since it was your IP - unless that person comes forward taking blame.. From what I understand.

That path would have been a huge stepping stone towards large corporations "controlling" a big chunk of the web. What would be next?

[diaz]

Originally Posted by Nechen

I'm surprised this thread hasn't been locked.

To anyone who says "no" I'd like to see what your response would be after you and half a dozen friends develop an independent video game and don't see a dime off it because only one person bought it off STEAM who then uploaded it to various download sites.

Having said that, I'd also like to remind everyone who supports the "stopping of piracy" that these artists and companies are never the ones sueing these parents with handicapped children. Its thug groups like RIAA who claim to be an umbrella group "representing the interests of their clients" yet for some reason they end up with all the money when its done???

Go and ahead and ask Blizzard how many times WoW has been pirated. You just have to be smart about it which 9/10 American businesses are not. Hell, look at the AppStore versus the Android Market...

And people wonder why PC games feel/look like console ports...

[I.M.O.G.]

Originally Posted by Nechen

I'm surprised this thread hasn't been locked.

I'm surprised so many people say no. Was curious about the answer though. I think its also interesting the number of reasons behind why people choose no.

As for the rule and thread lock - the rule is there to discourage people from promoting pirating, and to prevent people from assisting or violating copyright that can get the site in trouble. Within those rules, I think its good to discuss this stuff more and think about what is good and bad.

What do you mean about comparing the appstore and the android market. I use the android market, and have paid for things through it, despite there being a lot of APKs available through other channels. I am not familiar with the appstore.

[Archer0915]

Okay the question was: Do you think Internet piracy should be stopped ? a blanket yes or no. Now when I see all these people voting no and hear some of the things I do I hear one thing.

Don't pass any laws and even if you do we will pirate anyway. Oh please improve you distribution model to save yourself lost profits because I am going to take what I want.

Not making accusations I am just saying.