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

torrentfreak.com

211–220 of 306 posts

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

#211

Vast majority of comments here are hilarious. Piracy is a crime, deal with it. You don't have a right to content made for a profit without paying for it. If you don't agree with the price or the distribution method, don't consume the content, problem solved. The argument that resources should be spent on "real crime" is equally silly. These organizations can and do put immense resources into all other forms of crime.…

A huge number of the people on this site, myself included, already voluntarily donate huge amounts of time and money to free and open source software and hardware- they are already choosing to give away for free what others might otherwise pirate.

No one is disputing that piracy is a crime. They are pointing out the difference between the fact of what is, and their opinion of what ought be.

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

#212

Vast majority of comments here are hilarious. Piracy is a crime, deal with it. You don't have a right to content made for a profit without paying for it. If you don't agree with the price or the distribution method, don't consume the content, problem solved. The argument that resources should be spent on "real crime" is equally silly. These organizations can and do put immense resources into all other forms of crime.…

> Piracy is a crime, deal with it. If you don't agree with the price or the distribution method, don't consume the content, problem solved.

Sure, or I can just pirate content. That's another way to deal with it.

I'm not sure why I'm supposed to have a problem because you're trying to keep your bytes a secret. Pretty much everyone has accepted that you can't stop piracy, at least once the content is available on p2p.

This article is about topsites that were probably involved in hacking into content sources directly. That's a much bigger deal than everyday civil copyright infringement.

Some of us actually do want a future where you can download a car.

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

#213
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?

mrandish’s comment had three paragraphs, but I was mainly responding to the part of it that was concerned with US law, not the Kim Dotcom fiasco. New Zealand does however have a criminal statute on their books for copyright infringement for commercial gain, and an extradition treaty with the United States.

If your concerns are the activities of the American Federal government, you take that up with the US Congress for writing the law. If your concerns are the activities of the New Zealand government, then take that up with the New Zealand Parliament; but today’s news largely concerned a Trans-Atlantic multi-country operation and an indictment filed in the US Southern District of New York in which the acting authority is the United States, not New Zealand.

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

#214

Vast majority of comments here are hilarious. Piracy is a crime, deal with it. You don't have a right to content made for a profit without paying for it. If you don't agree with the price or the distribution method, don't consume the content, problem solved. The argument that resources should be spent on "real crime" is equally silly. These organizations can and do put immense resources into all other forms of crime.…

> Piracy is a crime, deal with it. If you don't agree with the price or the distribution method, don't consume the content, problem solved. Sure, or I can just pirate content. That's another way to deal with it. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to have a problem because you're trying to keep your bytes a secret. Pretty much everyone has accepted that you can't stop piracy, at least once the content is available on p2p.…

If you don't feel like paying for HBO, why should you have a right to watch Westworld?

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

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Piracy is a crime, deal with it. If you don't agree with the price or the distribution method, don't consume the content, problem solved. Sure, or I can just pirate content. That's another way to deal with it. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to have a problem because you're trying to keep your bytes a secret. Pretty much everyone has accepted that you can't stop piracy, at least once the content is available on p2p.…

If you don't feel like paying for HBO, why should you have a right to watch Westworld?

I'm not claiming a right. I'm claiming an opportunity. Those bytes are just sitting there waiting for me to click download.

I think the better question is: what are you going to do to stop me from downloading whatever I want?

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

#216
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…

> 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.

Did you enjoy the process? A lot of people do it for fun.

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

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't feel like paying for HBO, why should you have a right to watch Westworld?

I'm not claiming a right. I'm claiming an opportunity. Those bytes are just sitting there waiting for me to click download. I think the better question is: what are you going to do to stop me from downloading whatever I want?

I imagine these people under indictment thought the same way as you.

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Pirating GPL-licensed software is explicitly allowed by the GPL. That's kind of the whole point of the GPL, to ensure that that stays true.

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

#219
post #36

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…

Dotcom's company's whole purpose was to make money facilitating movie piracy, under the guise of being an innocent file storage and sharing company. Their internal processes and procedures were designed to make it appear that they took down pirated material when informed of its existence while actually making sure it was still there and accessible via other links that the copyright owner had not yet discovered. They…

The MPAA is no better.
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