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U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

torrentfreak.com

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Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#231

Post by benreesman »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #227
benreesman wrote: post #17

I've recently switched to privacy respecting computing options, so of course lost access to everything I've bought from Apple and Amazon for the last 20 years. If I never paid for content again they'd still be in my debt. You wouldn't steal a car would you? No, but I'd repossess one from some delinquent son of a bitch in a suit.

You only rented licenses if you didn't receive physical copies or DRM-free downloads.

The button said "Buy" and it was next to one that said "Rent". I bought it.

If they choose to make retrieving my purchase from the warehouse difficult, then I will take it by force with a torrent.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#232

Post by int_19h »

_lvbh wrote: post #228
int_19h wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck enforcing that. VPN protocols have already been honed in the process of evading Chinese, Russian, and Iranian blocks. V2Ray, Trojan etc.

I can envision whitelist-only ISPs that block any traffic to unvetted domains and IPs. Hopefully we still have some time left before total dictatorship

As far as I know, what you describe exists today only in North Korea. Which is to say, this is not very likely. Thing is, a "great firewall" with some packet inspection thrown in to cut off the common VPN protocols deters 90% of the population, and that is generally "good enough" for authoritarians.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#234

Post by lanfeust6 »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #220
lanfeust6 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only understand the frustration with finding any legal avenue at all to see certain films. I don't really understand why disparate services are a big deal. You don't need to subscribe to multiple things all at once, and it's all done in a few clicks in the convenience of your own home. I'm concerned and curious about one thing, which is that tech giants have a monopoly on renting. If you want to rent a digital movi…

Why not have some platform that lets users to actually buy the movie and download/stream it as a file at full quality on their device? Renting is sucky compared to just buying things, you could watch any movie you want and have unlimited access to it instead of juggling 5 subscriptions and get frustrated with shitty products. And publishers that make actual good movies that people want to watch would be rewarded

Probably owing to the legal/licensing constraints other users brought up.

I don't want to buy movies, 99% of the time. Renting is cheaper, and I don't care to rewatch most things.

Games we used to rent those too, before they got to be 50-100 hours long. For several reasons it's no longer practical.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#235

Post by thedevilslawyer »

dfxm12 wrote: post #35
thedevilslawyer wrote: post #24

No one would steal a car. More importantly, everyone would clone a car. Of course we should support this fully. Oppose this bill.

Oppose the bill based on freedom, as in speech. This comes above all else. Arguing over what is or isn't piracy is a non-sequitor when it comes to government censorship of the Internet.

I'd argue freedom of access to knowledge is atleast as important, if not more, than speech. Down with copyright - restriction on this freedom.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#236

Post by anon7000 »

tomwheeler wrote: post #133
parliament32 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely the problem, and the whole reason why we still pirate TV/movies. I would have no problem paying $XX to a unified service that has basically everything; I have no interest in paying a dozen different streaming platforms for effectively "cable packages" that often add/remove/shift content around. The music industry figured this out: I pay Spotify, they have 95% of music content I could ever way, the U…

> The music industry figured this out: I pay Spotify, they have 95% of music content I could ever way, the UX is good enough. I have no reason to pirate music anymore. > Why is this so hard for the film industry? My theory is that the United States has compulsory licensing for music, but not movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license#United_Stat... To my knowledge, a radio station or music streaming ser…

Yep. This kind of exclusivity agreement should probably be illegal across the board; they basically exist to make competition legally impossible. Great for business, sucks for people.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#237

Post by arunabha »

> The site-blocking proposal seeks to amend U.S. copyright law, enabling rightsholders to request federal courts to designate online locations as a “foreign digital piracy site”. If that succeeds, courts can subsequently order U.S. service providers to block access to these sites.

Of course, because what we need is the govt deciding which sites can be banned. I'm hoping this dies in committee, however for Bay Area folks, Rep Zoe Lofgren is the house sponsor for the companion bill and Adam Schiff is the Senate co sponsor. They can be reached at

https://lofgren.house.gov/contact/offices and https://www.schiff.senate.gov/contact/

If you oppose this bill, take 5 min and let your congressperson know. They might seem to be bought and paid for by lobbyists, but they care deeply about being reelected and even a small number of constituents showing up can be effective. In order of impact personal visit > letter > call > email. The higher effort channels(visit, letter) tend to get treated more seriously. Emails are largely ignored unless they are absolutely deluged.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#238

Post by blackjack_ »

brnt wrote: post #200
tarnith wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games too. Try to buy Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005). You can't.

Oh boy. That one. And Battle for Middle Earth 2. Nobody wants my money, so to the bay we go.

I Still have my OG copy of BFME2. The joke is that I don't have a disk drive, or an OS to support it.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#239

Post by chollida1 »

Me1000 wrote: post #181
chollida1 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://tv.apple.com/mx/movie/pirates-of-silicon-valley/umc.... ??

That link says "Content Unavailable" for me, possibly region locked? I changed the "mx" in your link to "us" but same error.

Ah, that's too bad for you.

its a great movie!!

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#240

Post by thejazzman »

jasode wrote: post #156
tomwheeler wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The music industry figured this out: I pay Spotify, they have 95% of music content I could ever way, the UX is good enough. I have no reason to pirate music anymore. > Why is this so hard for the film industry? My theory is that the United States has compulsory licensing for music, but not movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license#United_Stat... To my knowledge, a radio station or music streaming ser…

>To my knowledge, a radio station or music streaming service doesn't have to negotiate with the record label to play a given song, they just have to pay a small royalty as defined by law. The copyright holders can legally prevent their recordings from being streamed by Spotify. Famous examples were Taylor Swift and Neil Young withholding their music from Spotify. For extra nuance, copyright holders can't stop cover s…

Swift withheld from Apple Music because they were giving it away for free and not paying her (or anyone); I don't recall it being kept off spotify?
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