151–160 of 306 posts
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t this an example of “white collar” crime albeit perhaps a low level one?
Kind of - technically - but realistically no. The government is treating it more akin to theft than copyright infringement. If an artist steals another's work and makes some money off of it, the federal government isn't going to step in and help. It'd be up to the artist (or copyright holder) to sue for damages. Assuming the case is clear, the artist would get money from the offender. The offender rarely goes to jail…
The govt is accusing them of fraud (a kind of theft) in how they acquired the movies initially. This is indeed a white collar crime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you remember when Dotcom was pushing Russian propaganda? He (along with Assange) said he had evidence that it was Seth Rich and not the GRU that gave the emails to Wikileaks. Of course, he never released that evidence. This is part of a counterintelligence investigation. Why were Dotcom, Assange, Bannon, Manafort, etc carrying water for the GRU? I don’t know, but having an unrelated tax/copyright/fraud charge migh…
This seems like a "conspiracy theory".
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VFQgID8pZVw
[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp7FkLBRpKg
[3] https://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-report-julian-assange-...
[4] https://www.npr.org/2019/07/11/740608323/the-origins-of-the-...
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…
Do you know anybody who works in the creative fields? I do. Nearly all of them -- aside from the programmers -- favor strong copyright and even DRM. And to them, large piracy networks are as much organized theft, and do as much harm, as the Mafia robbing banks. The MPAA and RIAA are not evil to them, either, at least not in the sinister cyberpunk megacorp sense favored by hackers. Creative people see them as the mean…
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.
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…
Do you know anybody who works in the creative fields? I do. Nearly all of them -- aside from the programmers -- favor strong copyright and even DRM. And to them, large piracy networks are as much organized theft, and do as much harm, as the Mafia robbing banks. The MPAA and RIAA are not evil to them, either, at least not in the sinister cyberpunk megacorp sense favored by hackers. Creative people see them as the mean…
To call copying theft implies a spooky action at a distance to drain money from their account like a voodoo doll. Under that twisted logic if I have a sealed room and keep making copies of Harry Potter I can bankrupt JK Rowling! Hell it would be useful to test if it I can use it for superluminal communication.
Magic snark aside they are literally in denial of objective reality including conflating a granted monopoly with physical property. There is a difference even if illustrations would have to be rather fantastic. If merpeople or aliens from Alpha Centuari were making copies of our goods they would not even be violating our laws because they wouldn't be party to any treaty with them and out of our jurisdiction. Not so with literal theft where a freight captain would be justified using force in self defense against sea people/aliens.
19 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the then-Attorney General appeared before the media to proudly announce the conclusion of the largest operation in DoJ history. It was the destruction of a warez group. In the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks, the most important thing on the DoJ agenda was not to follow up on any of the numerous intelligence leads warning that Islamist terrorists were planning…
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…
Do you know anybody who works in the creative fields? I do. Nearly all of them -- aside from the programmers -- favor strong copyright and even DRM. And to them, large piracy networks are as much organized theft, and do as much harm, as the Mafia robbing banks. The MPAA and RIAA are not evil to them, either, at least not in the sinister cyberpunk megacorp sense favored by hackers. Creative people see them as the mean…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Aren't cams totally dead? This was mostly DVD prerelease, which happens long after the theatrical release.
even teleciene versions are few in number [a way of camming in your pirate loPHt]. it seems cams were a counting coup for scene credit and its now just looked at as dangerous.
actual copying of prerelease screeners is in the mire as well. screeners basically were watermarked and sent out as promotionals so a theatre location could judge if they wanted to show them or not, and as promos in store to encourage rentals.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Something tells me that if the fictional Star Trek "replicator" would suddenly be invented today, with the ability to copy any physical item, we'd see a similar story. Imagine, the removal of goods scarcity. Feed everyone on earth. Everyone could have anything they want just constructed out of thin air for them! It would be a utopia. But the same people would make the same argument against that utopia: "What about jo…