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US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

torrentfreak.com

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Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#81

Post by scarface74 »

mrandish wrote: post #23

I'm concerned our justice systems is expending enormous resources investigating and prosecuting these cases as felony crimes on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA lobbies (which have a revolving door of former fed prosecutors as employees/lobbyists). The cases are more properly pursued in civil court where the pirates should be sued for the damages they cause (not agreeing with MPAA's damage assessment, that's for the judge…

These are criminal cases. If you owned a software company and someone broke into your git repo and started selling your software as their own, would you want the police to be involved?

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#82

Post by Karishma1234 »

mrandish wrote: post #23

I'm concerned our justice systems is expending enormous resources investigating and prosecuting these cases as felony crimes on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA lobbies (which have a revolving door of former fed prosecutors as employees/lobbyists). The cases are more properly pursued in civil court where the pirates should be sued for the damages they cause (not agreeing with MPAA's damage assessment, that's for the judge…

I fully agree with this assessment. With many of these agencies when they are created there is a "published objective" but with time invariably those agencies end up being using for entirely different purpose. DHS is a great example. An agency created to avoid 9/11 like scenarios seems to be busy scaring little girls and destitute refugees and asylum seekers.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#83

Post by scarface74 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #80
f00zz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, artists have bills to pay. I try to buy e-books to support my favorite sci-fi authors, but it feels a bit silly that downloading the epub from libgen is literally less hassle than buying it on Google Play.

> Eh, artists have bills to pay. So? That doesn't change anything. The needs of creators cannot override our need for computing freedom. Enabling creators to pay their bills by charging money for data will have serious consequences for society in the long term. If they have bills to pay, they can find something else to do. Ideally, they should get paid for the act of creating rather than the final result. > it feels…

Are you at all involved with software development? How do you feel about people breaking the GPL?

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#85

Post by shajznnckfke »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #67
xhkkffbf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me say as an artist who has watched his hard work being openly pirated, I disagree. Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. If these cretins want to distribute art for free, they can get off their butts and make their own. No one is stopping them. The world needs more voices, but piracy encourages these loafers to do nothing.

> Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. So what? Let them be destroyed. I'd rather sacrifice some jobs than watch gigantic media conglomerates take over the computing industry and destroy our computing freedom with their DRM. There is no other way for them to enforce copyright in the 21st century so that's exactly what they'll try to do. They won't rest until every computer available to the public is lock…

Uh, arresting Kim Dotcom has absolutely nothing to do with the ethics of DRM. If anything, successful prosecution of illegal file-sharing operations reduces the economic incentives to put DRM in place.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#86

Post by loeg »

branon wrote: post #12

SAPRKS is a huge loss. All of the groups that were named were quite prolific and released exceptionally high-quality files, but SPARKS especially. Just goes to show how utterly broken and cross-contaminated the copyright and justice systems are. These groups should be lauded as heroes, not hunted down like criminals.

> All of the groups that were named were quite prolific

Anecdotal, but: I've certainly heard of SPARKS, but literally never heard of GECKOS, DRONES, ROVERS or SPLINTERS.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#87

Post by dane-pgp »

holidayacct wrote: post #44

The justice system is complete crap, the US government doesn't have the ability to deal with piracy because it is international. This doesn't work the way people think it does, there is literally no justice involved. The CIA is used to using movies and television as a pathway for manipulating the American population. There is a very long history of this happening and the people they use (yes use) to do this aren't ma…

> it is being done in broad daylight everyday all over the country because it only has meaning to the person being targeted.

I'm guessing you also believe that "gang stalking" is a thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking#False_claims_of_stalk...

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#88

Post by abakker »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #67
xhkkffbf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me say as an artist who has watched his hard work being openly pirated, I disagree. Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. If these cretins want to distribute art for free, they can get off their butts and make their own. No one is stopping them. The world needs more voices, but piracy encourages these loafers to do nothing.

> Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. So what? Let them be destroyed. I'd rather sacrifice some jobs than watch gigantic media conglomerates take over the computing industry and destroy our computing freedom with their DRM. There is no other way for them to enforce copyright in the 21st century so that's exactly what they'll try to do. They won't rest until every computer available to the public is lock…

You'd rather sacrifice someone else's jobs for your ideals? What a fair, well considered trade. The freedom you see to seem to be looking for here is freedom from consequences, not actual freedom.

As always with the products other people are making, you have the choice to not buy them. That is actual freedom. Be careful making other's choices for them, it is closer to the governmental overreach you are against.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#89

Post by sanbor »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #46
toyg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mrandish's point is that the amount of effort spent on Dotcom by authorities was disproportionate to the size and importance of the crime, and abusive of the legal system. This might well be true at the same time as the fact that Dotcom was a criminal. I would tend to agree with mrandish, for the simple fact that they don't do that sort of raid even for people who owe the taxman several multiples of the profits Dotco…

Let me say as an artist who has watched his hard work being openly pirated, I disagree. Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. If these cretins want to distribute art for free, they can get off their butts and make their own. No one is stopping them. The world needs more voices, but piracy encourages these loafers to do nothing.

> Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative

It does for some people. But also creates jobs, opportunity and initiative. In my personal case when I was 12 years old in Argentina I was able to access Encarta and Visual Basic 5 thanks to piracy. This let me to get into programming and get better education. If not for piracy, many people would not be able to afford Windows, Photoshop, and other software. In rich countries software might cost 0.5%, 1%, or 2% of your income, while in developing countries costs 20% or 30% of your salary (and you're already very tight with your income).

Also, despite all the piracy of Microsoft products, Bill Gates ended up being the richest person in the world.

Just bringing other points of view to this complex topic.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#90

Post by sugarpile »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #46
toyg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mrandish's point is that the amount of effort spent on Dotcom by authorities was disproportionate to the size and importance of the crime, and abusive of the legal system. This might well be true at the same time as the fact that Dotcom was a criminal. I would tend to agree with mrandish, for the simple fact that they don't do that sort of raid even for people who owe the taxman several multiples of the profits Dotco…

Let me say as an artist who has watched his hard work being openly pirated, I disagree. Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. If these cretins want to distribute art for free, they can get off their butts and make their own. No one is stopping them. The world needs more voices, but piracy encourages these loafers to do nothing.

Mind linking that art? I’ve got some 10gb/s boxes I’d love to seed it on.
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