Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 99 posts

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#71

Post by neilv »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #62
neilv wrote: post #50

A recurring revenue opportunity for Reddit would be to forget about the old defender of online freedom image, and sell data. :) "How much is it worth to your case, to know who the commenters on this thread are?" "What would you pay to filter hiring candidates for ideology, troublemaker tendencies, or bedroom kinks that bother your conservative Chairman?" "Your own actuaries can tell you how much money this individual…

I'd love to see them try this, and then to watch the international backlash, not to mention holy GDPR fire raining down on their heads.

I'd love to see other companies crushed for behavior like the above hypotheticals. To push the public and lawmakers to finally decide that corporate surveillance is evil.

(Reddit still has positive karma balance, especially from earlier days, IMHO. There are many, many companies much more deserving of being made an example of.)

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#72

Post by aydyn »

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #59
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually kind of surprised Reddit didn't just cooperate? As a company which frankly has been acting with particular contempt for users of late, how does Reddit profit from fighting this?

People like their anonymity on Reddit. Every action reddit takes to make it less anonymous looks really bad. That kind of thing scares people and reddit already has some PR problems.

[dead]

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#73

Post by jowea »

neilv wrote: post #50

A recurring revenue opportunity for Reddit would be to forget about the old defender of online freedom image, and sell data. :) "How much is it worth to your case, to know who the commenters on this thread are?" "What would you pay to filter hiring candidates for ideology, troublemaker tendencies, or bedroom kinks that bother your conservative Chairman?" "Your own actuaries can tell you how much money this individual…

Oh yes one my favourite ~~TED~~ Onion talk business case studies:

"The Power Of Selling Out: Your Customers As Political Capital - Onion Talks - Ep. 9" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8c_m6U1f9o

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#74

Post by pessimizer »

dylan604 wrote: post #56
thfuran wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what your point is. Nobody (in the us) is shipping people straight to prison on the basis of public admissions of guilt. You still shouldn't publicly admit to a crime.

Just pointing out how ridiculous some post on a forum being used as evidence sounds.

Not very well. Of course it's evidence. You can't convict someone based on them walking into a police station and confessing to murder, either, but you can certainly arrest them or call them as a witness in a trial relating to that murder.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#75

Post by jtriangle »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #55
saghm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the conversations went something like this: Film industry lawyer: Tell us everyone who pirated our movies. Frontier lawyer: We've told you everyone we know of. Film industry lawyer: What about those people on reddit bragging about getting away with it? Frontier lawyer: We don't have any way of knowing if those are actual customers, let alone if they're telling the truth. If you have a specific IP you want u…

I'm actually kind of surprised Reddit didn't just cooperate? As a company which frankly has been acting with particular contempt for users of late, how does Reddit profit from fighting this?

It'd probably reveal how many of their users are actually bots, which would hurt their upcoming IPO valuation.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#76

Post by rychco »

pleasantpeasant wrote: post #2

I wonder if they'll still do this once Reddit IPOs

I'm firmly of the belief that all users should wipe their post/comment history & delete their accounts before this happens. User-content is what provides reddit their value, but once they go public it's (almost) guaranteed to become steadily worse & less useful as shareholders squeeze the life out of it.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#77

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #55
saghm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the conversations went something like this: Film industry lawyer: Tell us everyone who pirated our movies. Frontier lawyer: We've told you everyone we know of. Film industry lawyer: What about those people on reddit bragging about getting away with it? Frontier lawyer: We don't have any way of knowing if those are actual customers, let alone if they're telling the truth. If you have a specific IP you want u…

I'm actually kind of surprised Reddit didn't just cooperate? As a company which frankly has been acting with particular contempt for users of late, how does Reddit profit from fighting this?

I think that you are unfairly extrapolating from a couple of high-profile decisions that upset, in particular, nerds.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#78

Post by Wowfunhappy »

cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #77
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually kind of surprised Reddit didn't just cooperate? As a company which frankly has been acting with particular contempt for users of late, how does Reddit profit from fighting this?

I think that you are unfairly extrapolating from a couple of high-profile decisions that upset, in particular, nerds.

I think it was a bigger deal than that, but regardless: absent evidence to the contrary, my default assumption is that a for-profit company will prioritize profit at the expense of everything else. Recent events by Reddit merely deepen my conviction.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#79

Post by saghm »

bastawhiz wrote: post #63
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually kind of surprised Reddit didn't just cooperate? As a company which frankly has been acting with particular contempt for users of late, how does Reddit profit from fighting this?

On the flip side, what's in it for them if they cooperate? There's no profit involved with procuring information for another for-profit entity that they have no business relationship with, and then likely having to show up for some other court battle to testify about the accuracy of the data.

Not to mention the fact that in recent memory, they've already had to contend with the threat of a mass exodus of users due to unhappiness with how the site was run. Whether or not it ended up making any sort of impact in the long run, I have to imagine that their management has no desire to risk that sort of controversy again.
Post reply on HN