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Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

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Re: Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

#61

Post by rwmj »

jacquesm wrote: post #32
trotsky wrote: post #23

While I'd be willing to bet this is due to some malware flag (as that pretty much always ends up being the case with IM provider X is censoring Y), I am baffled as to why people would consider it scandalous that a multi-billion dollar company who makes pretty much all of its revenue from selling intellectual property licenses might drop links conveyed using its free service to a site that is unabashedly one of the wo…

The would consider it scandalous because: 1) they consider their communications private 2) they think that what they type into an IM client will pop out on the other end unchanged 3) they believe that their relationship with the facilitator of their communications media should not be subject to relationships that provider has with other commercial parties. Where does it end? Being unable to share the link of your fav…

That gives me an idea for the most evil chat system ever: modify links to hotels, restaurants etc based on the size of kickbacks from competing establishments.

More seriously, chat should work so that the client signs and encrypts each message, hiding it from the provider and anyone other than the intended recipient.

Re: Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

#62

Post by Splenivore »

javert wrote: post #48
natesm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited copyright terms are eroding the basis of society (the Constitution). 5 to 10 years would be reasonable.

Yeah, because I just can't stand to pay an enormous amount like $10 or $20 for that book or album I really have to have. I think it's unreasonable to expect people who make things to be able to profit from them for more than 5 years. Hell, why don't we make all property expire after 5 or 10 years? Please don't take the sarcasm personally; it was just the best way to illustrate my point.

Most property has value without artificial legal limitations.

I agree that 5-10 years is probably too short of a period for intellectual property to be protected. Honestly, putting an arbitrary span of time on the duration is a suboptimal way of accomplishing the goals of copyright law. Why not protect an artist’s creation as long as he or she is alive, and then release it into the public domain upon his or her death? One of the main problems with the current system is that corporations (e.g. Disney) can monopolize culturally-significant works for decades after their creator’s death.

Re: Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

#63

Post by alextgordon »

javert wrote: post #48
natesm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited copyright terms are eroding the basis of society (the Constitution). 5 to 10 years would be reasonable.

Yeah, because I just can't stand to pay an enormous amount like $10 or $20 for that book or album I really have to have. I think it's unreasonable to expect people who make things to be able to profit from them for more than 5 years. Hell, why don't we make all property expire after 5 or 10 years? Please don't take the sarcasm personally; it was just the best way to illustrate my point.

It's not like it's unprecedented. Patents expire after 20 years. Many people and organizations get very good use out of that 20 year term.

I'm not sure why there's such a disparity between patents (which cost thousands of dollars and expire after 20 years), trademarks (which cost thousands of dollars, and have to be actively defended), and copyright (which costs nothing, is automatic, and expires after your grandchildren are dead).

Re: Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

#64

Post by VMG »

javert wrote: post #39
jacquesm wrote: post #15

We'll be seeing a lot more of this in the next couple of years. The RIAA and the MPAA will get more and more desperate and will call in more favors with industry buddies as they get closer to the recognition that they are losing the war in spite of winning a couple of battles. In the Netherlands 'Brein', one of the rights organizations has done more to promote the pirate bay than the pirate bay ever could have hoped…

I'm disappointed to see the destruction of property rights (intellectual or otherwise) being lauded on HN. The RIAA and MPAA make deals with artists to distribute their music, and you want to interfere and just steal it instead. It's dishonest, it's juvenile, and it's eroding at the basis of society (equality under the law, property rights, basic respect and goodwill towards others, etc.).

What is fascinating to me is the hypocrisy.

Most HNers probably believe some sort of property rights for software (or even blog designs). May here would argue that the GPL is a great license and violators should be punished.

You can also often read that Hollywood and the Music Industry are producing worthless crap, but yet The Pirate Bay is dominated by commercial entertainment, not by Creative Commons content.

Much of it is certainly an emotional reaction to the aggressive behavior of RIAA/MPAA, but it really is sad to see so little capacity to see things from a different perspective.

Re: Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

#65

Post by alextgordon »

javert wrote: post #49
mrebus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you use the word property doesn't make intellectual monopolies property.

If you don't like the words, good, go look at the moral foundation that underlies the idea. It is a fact of reality that it is morally right to give people ownership rights for things they produce (besides, again, being the basis of society). And why not? Paying for something rather than stealing it (or changing the law so it's not officially "stealing" anymore), just isn't that big of a deal.

The kind of copyright you're talking about was invented ~400 years ago. There are buildings near me older than that.

Re: Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

#66

Post by m_for_monkey »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #26
Animus7 wrote: post #9

I wonder what the political forces behind this are, because I'd like to think that the engineers that implemented it understood that a) it will do nothing to stop piracy, and b) it will reduce usage of Live Messenger

To be fair, there is a lot of malware masquerading as The Lion King.torrent. They may not care about the piracy aspect; they may just want their users to have less malware on their computers, especially since Windows machines seem to be a prime target for botnets.

Censorship is never the right solution, though. That would be education.

Re: Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

#68

Post by burgerbrain »

javert wrote: post #39
jacquesm wrote: post #15

We'll be seeing a lot more of this in the next couple of years. The RIAA and the MPAA will get more and more desperate and will call in more favors with industry buddies as they get closer to the recognition that they are losing the war in spite of winning a couple of battles. In the Netherlands 'Brein', one of the rights organizations has done more to promote the pirate bay than the pirate bay ever could have hoped…

I'm disappointed to see the destruction of property rights (intellectual or otherwise) being lauded on HN. The RIAA and MPAA make deals with artists to distribute their music, and you want to interfere and just steal it instead. It's dishonest, it's juvenile, and it's eroding at the basis of society (equality under the law, property rights, basic respect and goodwill towards others, etc.).

Has it occurred to you that to many people the issue may not be piracy? I don't use the pirate bay, nor do I endorse copyright infringement, but this development nevertheless greatly concerns me.

No, I suspect it has not.

Re: Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

#70

Post by natesm »

javert wrote: post #48
natesm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited copyright terms are eroding the basis of society (the Constitution). 5 to 10 years would be reasonable.

Yeah, because I just can't stand to pay an enormous amount like $10 or $20 for that book or album I really have to have. I think it's unreasonable to expect people who make things to be able to profit from them for more than 5 years. Hell, why don't we make all property expire after 5 or 10 years? Please don't take the sarcasm personally; it was just the best way to illustrate my point.

> Yeah, because I just can't stand to pay an enormous amount like $10 or $20 for that book or album I really have to have.

This isn't about listening to something or reading something. It's about the ability to remix and build upon it.

> I think it's unreasonable to expect people who make things to be able to profit from them for more than 5 years.

It doesn't matter, because most people don't profit from their works after 5 years, if they ever profit from it at all. The current law helps the Disneys and bestselling authors and has little to no effect on small, independent creators. I don't think we should optimize for corporations, I think we should optimize for everyone being able to reproduce, distribute and build upon their culture - with a period of potential financial motivation to kickstart the creation of new cultural artifacts. If you're still living off your work 5 years on, you're probably already rich.

Girl Talk's music is literally illegal because his instrument comes with a license agreement. What if Stratocasters had come with one?

> Hell, why don't we make all property expire after 5 or 10 years?

This makes no sense. At all. Physical property and my culture are not comparable.

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