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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

#121

Post by btilly »

There is only one reason that I've ever had to use bittorrent. It turns out that some musicals are not available through streaming because the copyright assignment wasn't set up correctly and nobody has been able to come to an agreement on how to split the revenue.

Movies from My Fair Lady to Bullets Over Broadway are affected. You can go onto Netflix, Amazon, and so on, and none can let you watch. They can only ship you a DVD.

After literally failing to find anyone who could take my money, I went to bittorrent. (And had to VPN to pretend not to be in the USA.)

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

#122

Post by jjcon »

devwastaken wrote: post #16

Are these scandinavian countries cooperating with the U.S. media mafia on this? How did they get names and locations?

The us and eu are basically one entity when it comes to international crime (with some exceptions)

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

#123

Post by airstrike »

johnchristopher wrote: post #107
rbanffy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is one of the key selling points of piracy - having the product you want easily available while the other options (physical disk, download) may not be available in your region.

Yeah, no. When I was a teen and wanted pirated games I had to put a lot of time into it (downloading/getting the CD's) then hunt for working cracks and then later deal with the consequences of installing cracks. My time was free but as an adult now I could never justify spending evenings to make pirated games work. Today's piracy is way more easier than piracy 15 or 25 years ago. The key selling point of piracy is th…

> but as an adult now I could never justify spending evenings to make pirated games work.

Side note: I agree entirely but I do miss those evenings! Even legit games were such a chore to install that when they finally worked, you were swept by a wave of pure joy. Looking at you, Little Big Adventure 2!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Big_Adventure_2

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

#124

Post by violetgarden »

tzs wrote: post #103
breakfastduck wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is true on a grand scale. It's been widely recognized that the majority of piracy is committed by people who would not spend the money on the item anyway, or in cases where it is actually difficult to buy the item. There's a reason cheap & easy access to media (streaming) has reduced piracy. People are willing to pay for something if it has value, is offered at a reasonable price and is easy to purc…

> It's been widely recognized that the majority of piracy is committed by people who would not spend the money on the item anyway What about other items? E.g., someone who pirates a graphics editing program that costs several hundred dollars indeed might not have purchased it if piracy had not been available, so arguably that piracy did not cost that software maker a sale. But if piracy had not been an option, would…

Good points! You start looking for a competitor.

Personally, I don’t like the argument “they weren’t going to buy it anyways.” So you get to enjoy the software or movie, and it’s no harm done because you weren’t going to buy it anyways? I think a lot of times this is a cop out excuse. In my mind, and just as your graphics example points out somebody somewhere lost an opportunity or a sale. Not saying there aren’t cases where pirating is justified, but I often get the feeling a lot of people are holding on to excuses that don’t apply specifically to justify their 6 TB Plex library.

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

#125

Post by rusk »

johnchristopher wrote: post #107
rbanffy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is one of the key selling points of piracy - having the product you want easily available while the other options (physical disk, download) may not be available in your region.

Yeah, no. When I was a teen and wanted pirated games I had to put a lot of time into it (downloading/getting the CD's) then hunt for working cracks and then later deal with the consequences of installing cracks. My time was free but as an adult now I could never justify spending evenings to make pirated games work. Today's piracy is way more easier than piracy 15 or 25 years ago. The key selling point of piracy is th…

> Today's piracy is way more easier than piracy 15 or 25 years ago.

Not exactly... you still need specialist equipment to do it ... even something like the analogue hole is too inconvenient for the typical user. Even for me it’s just not worth the hassle. Downloading is easy enough for video and music but you still have to find the dodgy sites (in my jurisdiction thus requires some ducking and diving).

In some way it’s easier in some ways it’s harder. It’s an arms race and has been ever thus.

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

#126

Post by abakker »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #118
thinkloop wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only the original copy must be paid for. We are only paying for the original copy, but distributing that payment over many people and over time so it doesn't hurt as much - which single person is going to pay $10K or $1M or $50M for a song or movie?

> which single person is going to pay $1M or $50 million for a song or movie? Why not crowdfund those amounts instead? That way, all creators get paid before the work even starts and the result can be safely released into the public domain. We need to develop alternative business models like this in order to replace copyright. Cultural works must be treated like an investment.

that might be a great idea, except this thread started with the blanket statement that we should all just steal it, not invest at all. Maybe cultural investment can be coordinated, but until then, I think the solution should be for the distributed act of paying for what you want will be preferable.

The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft.

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

#127

Post by jjcon »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #108
SllX wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not disagreeing in principle, but there are criminal statutes on the books put there by Congress for copyright infringement, and it is the Federal government’s job to enforce these laws.

I don't think New Zealand has a "Congress"? You're not trying to say USA has the right to make laws in other countries are you? I mean I know USA does this, but it seems indefensible?

The US (like every other country) negotiates agreements with other countries to handle crimes committed against persons or entities in their jurisdiction.

This is nothing new or unique.

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

#128

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rolph wrote: post #75
throwaway77384 wrote: post #35

"Bridi, 50, was arrested on Sunday in Cyprus on an INTERPOL Red Notice. Correa, 36, was arrested yesterday in Olathe, Kansas, where he will appear in federal court. Ahmad, 39, was not arrested and is still at large." An INTERPOL Red Notice! You'd think these are terrorists, human traffickers or drug lords. Nope, they share films before the films are supposed to come out. I understand that one should not try to profit…

at least wait until the material is being sold on disk, at that point any number of people can watch a single disk and the theatre has made its payday on screen when you copy theatre screeners or cam the movie thats poking a stick right in a sleeping bears eye

What percentage of people who would watch a 'cam', but not watch the movie legitimately later, would have paid? If I had to guess I'd go What percent could, even if they wanted to pay, watch the movie legitimately in their country?

Does it matter if you watch a cam if you're not even able to pay for the movie?

The thing about movies is that they're also part of societal culture - in The West at least.

In my personal opinion copyright is all kinds of messed up, and limiting the length of copyright terms (to say 7 years from public release) first would somewhat legitimise such harsh actions.

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

#129

Post by jjcon »

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.

Pirates should be lauded as heroes? Take that to /r/im14andthisisdeep

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

#130

Post by [deleted] »

thinkloop wrote: post #113
matheusmoreira wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As always with the products other people are making, you have the choice to not buy them. That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. You can have as much as you want. Why would anyone buy copies when making new ones is as easy as copy and paste? Only the original copy must be paid for. So there is in fact a third choice to buying or not buying data: obtain a copy from someo…

> Only the original copy must be paid for. We are only paying for the original copy, but distributing that payment over many people and over time so it doesn't hurt as much - which single person is going to pay $10K or $1M or $50M for a song or movie?

[deleted]
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