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US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

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161–170 of 269 posts

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#161
post #9

I tried to be rational and then I got to the second paragraph of their own brief: "The second and even more pernicious effect is that illegal theft of intellectual property is undermining both the means and the incentive for entrepreneurs to innovate, which will slow the development of new inventions and industries that can further expand the world economy and continue to raise the prosperity and quality of life for…

The dinosaurs running the entertainment industry wouldn't know innovation if it smacked them in the face.

They are not idiots, at least not all of them. The're mostly the real-life example of Upton Sinclair's quote.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#162
post #99

What qualities do people look for when buying movies and music? 1. The content they want. 2. Quality (i.e. resolution, bitrate, etc.) 3. Reliability (it actually plays) 4. Low annoyance (no ads, warnings, etc.) 5. Safety (guaranteed freedom from malware, etc.) The movie and music industries haven't done a perfect job of delivering #1-4. Region coding means the content users want is frequently only available through p…

> However, let's not forget that every piece of code they write and every root-kit they successfully deploy will soon be taken advantage of by black-hats, quite probably in ways that will cause damage to systems completely unrelated to media playback of any sort. It will be stupidly easy to execute; if the malware shuts down computer when it detects illegal download, the only thing an attacker needs to do is to trick…

4chan yes, but remember most black hats are operating for profit. They don't want to shut down your computer. They want to root it so they can use it in their botnet, or maybe log your passwords and credit cards.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#164
Why they just don't offer better service than pirates? If they made it easier to buy than to download torrent, maybe people would actually use it. If I were in their place I would make it payable with bitcoin transaction, which would be as simple as downloading torrent.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#165

If "they" are both the planters of the rootkit (taking over the computer) and the ones claiming to be wronged, looking for recompense, doesn't this create an unreconcilable conflict of interest as well as a worthless chain of custody for evidence of any wrongdoing? What would stop them from simply taking over computers, planting evidence and profitting (extorting) hugely? I would think that once my computer spends an…

This is an excellent point. "We can only get $X per song in damages? Plant 100 songs on that computer."

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#166

Because every country strives to be more like Syria. "MPAA told Congress that they wanted SOPA and knew it would work because it was the same tactic used by governments in "China, Iran, the UAE, Armenia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Burma, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam."

Funny how all the countries listed here have a strong central government (too say the least), and the MPAA wants to replicate this balance of power in a more liberal context (ie in the hand of an economic agent). United Corporation of America, anyone?

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#167
This does not surprise me. I currently am legally entitled to watch several dozen movies, and quite a few TV shows on iTunes, I suppose I've spent about £500 over the years. Here's the problem. I cannot transfer any of these legally purchased movies or TV shows to other platforms, I am held ransom inside a platform-specific eco-system apparently forever. I am a willing customer, I want to reward creators, but in return I am treated like a criminal by the entertainment industry. If there is one thing which is clear it is that the entertainment industry hate their customers.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#169
post #131

Why should the entertainment industry get special treatment? Local, state, federal police, IRS should install rootkits to monitor all transactions and activity, turn on audio and video capture from webcams. Of course it's absurd and would destroy consumer trust of any device connected to the internet.

This is why I'm really hesitant about the Internet of Things. Can you imagine if some hacker got ahold of my toaster? He could burn my toast!

Or burn down your house for an immature laugh while ruining your life.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#170
I suppose this is about demanding extremes to have lots of room to negotiate in the inevitable following political negotiations. So they can be like - we didn't request the shoot-pirates-on-sight thing, we even gave up on the idea of rootkits, BUT we have to make stand on . Politicians will by their nature try to make compromises. So if you start by demanding what you really want you will lose it.
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