Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell • Hacker News Board

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#251

Post by slavik81 » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

Noos wrote: post #244

candu wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, your statement is tautological, since those are two terms for the same thing :) The real question is how "bad" we should consider copyright infringement to be. For many of us, copyright law has lost its moral footing with draconian DRM, extreme examples of RIAA / MPAA litigation, insane Disney-fueled copyright terms, and a corresponding erosion of the public domain. It may not have lost its legal footing, but l…

Copyright infringement is to artists as H1-B Visa abuse is to programmers. Both make it harder to earn a living and depress wages/destroy jobs in their respective fields. Both tend to hit the individual or little guy harder than the big company/rockstar-copyright infringement can siphon enough sales from small presses or independent artists to make it no longer profitable to operate. Many programmers seem to have no…

> Many programmers seem to have no real care for creators

Programmers are creators of lots of copyrighted works. Claiming that programmers just want to dismantle somebody else's livelyhood is misguided when we use on the copyright system heavily in our work as well.

On another note, I'm sad to see you downvoted. Your point of view is widely shared by the public and if we're going to enact any change, we as a community should listen to and think about how to address your points.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#252

Post by Noos » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #249

Noos wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement is to artists as H1-B Visa abuse is to programmers. Both make it harder to earn a living and depress wages/destroy jobs in their respective fields. Both tend to hit the individual or little guy harder than the big company/rockstar-copyright infringement can siphon enough sales from small presses or independent artists to make it no longer profitable to operate. Many programmers seem to have no…

Copyright infringement is to artists as H1-B Visa abuse is to programmers. Both make it harder to earn a living and depress wages/destroy jobs in their respective fields. See, here's the biggest problem with "copyright infringement" as a term; it's too broad. It covers $random_co using your stuff commercially, but it also covers your gran downloading songs from sketchy websites in Russia. I don't think even the most…

It's not unambiguous. If enough grannies decide to pirate goods (edit), the effect is the same, or if anything worse because they are distributed and impossible to stop, where as repurposers can be at least targeted. If you own a physical goods store, shrink is shrink...a professional thievery team vs 100 grannies and kids shoplifting results in the same loss, but if anything, it's easier to watch out for and stop the team.

Problem is distributed theft is a new thing for us as people, and it seems to be very hard for us to stop or deal with.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#253

Post by jsprogrammer » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #238

Endy wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because copyright is a broken system that needs to be dissolved.

No, because there's about five rights or so with considerations for hiw they're used. Whereas, "you can use whatever you buy but sharing the file or password is probably illegal" is easy for most people to understand and lets them avoid 99% of lawsuit risk. This is true whether copyright system is good or bad. Just simple, mental model.

Except that sharing is not illegal. The idea itself is absurd and sounds absurd when expressed. If you told people that sharing was illegal, the most common response you'd get would likely be, "lol, wut?"

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#254

Post by KenM » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:38 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #127

Fiahil wrote: post #89

With the recent shut down of KAT, we're kind of in a "low phase". It always has been a game of cat and mouse, but now, we've sadly lost two big mouses. I hope someone will quickly take up the torch.

> mouses Mice. :)

It's not really set in stone, from here[0], for instance - "Technically, since "mouse" is an acronym for "manually-operated user-select equipment," it could probably be pluralized as "mouses." But since hardly anyone is aware of the word's etymology, and because it sounds less awkward, most people pluralize it as "mice.""

[0] - http://painintheenglish.com/case/534

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#255

Post by doubleorseven » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:38 PM UTC

Where would i find me a Russian bride now?

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#256

Post by wangchow » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

Noos wrote: post #248

wangchow wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly true. However, the digital world is a changing landscape. Consider how technology replaces humans in the workplace and displaces jobs. No matter what, change causes collateral damage and the reality is this time it's hitting the bottom-line of the wealthy studios. If they can't afford to come up with a brilliant technical solution to the problem then they are SOL. :)

The wealthy studios are least hit, to be blunt. Generally the more wealthy the content creator, the better they adapt. James Patterson doesn't suffer from piracy as much as the B or C list author who can't get signed or make back his advance. Blizzard doesn't suffer, it's the small indie PC dev. I think the ebook market is a good example. The big companies can absorb ebook piracy just by raising prices and relying on…

Hmm. Well put--it certainly trickles down.

However, that has always been the case even with piracy aside: when have publishers not squeezed the profits from the artists of the world? Or what about Walmart running small companies out? Spotify paying peanuts to musicians? That's certainly been a trend of capitalism for a long time.

The companies that have means to invest lots of legal and technical resources in developing DMC and help track down those torrent hubs have a lot of money. They are trying to shut them down to protect their bottom-line, not the content producers. It's a business after all.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#257

Post by andrepd » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

mikegerwitz wrote: post #163

Svenskunganka wrote: post #65

Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that. But I believe that pirating is related to a very fuzzy legal system regarding this topic and unfair treatment by the major movie studios & music labels. I'll try to explain as good as I can. Being a european citizen, it is very frustrating knowing that pirating is illegal even though being a Netflix, HBO & Spotify customer. Pirating is a much b…

The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping. https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t... . I prefer the term "sharing". As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying. Some people may want backups, may have lost their copy after paying for it, may be frustrated by DRM-laced copies tha…

>As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying.

Yeah, not always, but very often. Everyone here is trying to downplay this, but I would say >80% of people (disclamer: pulled from my behind) torrent simply because it's free and if they can easily obtain it free rather than paying, then they will. The argument that people pirate because the paid options are shit, and if they were as convenient as torrents people would just pay for them, is rendered moot with the Steam counterexample. Content distribution is much more well advanced and convenient in games compared to movies, and people still pirate en masse.

Of course, all of us are really just talking out of our collective asses until we can cite figures from a study.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#258

Post by andrepd » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #249

Noos wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement is to artists as H1-B Visa abuse is to programmers. Both make it harder to earn a living and depress wages/destroy jobs in their respective fields. Both tend to hit the individual or little guy harder than the big company/rockstar-copyright infringement can siphon enough sales from small presses or independent artists to make it no longer profitable to operate. Many programmers seem to have no…

Copyright infringement is to artists as H1-B Visa abuse is to programmers. Both make it harder to earn a living and depress wages/destroy jobs in their respective fields. See, here's the biggest problem with "copyright infringement" as a term; it's too broad. It covers $random_co using your stuff commercially, but it also covers your gran downloading songs from sketchy websites in Russia. I don't think even the most…

Offtopic, but why use the $igil, and still say (insert ...)? :) They have the same meaning.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#259

Post by digler999 » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #257

mikegerwitz wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping. https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t... . I prefer the term "sharing". As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying. Some people may want backups, may have lost their copy after paying for it, may be frustrated by DRM-laced copies tha…

>As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying. Yeah, not always, but very often. Everyone here is trying to downplay this, but I would say >80% of people (disclamer: pulled from my behind) torrent simply because it's free and if they can easily obtain it free rather than paying, then they will. The argument that people pirate because the paid options are shit, and if they were as convenient as torrents people…

Stop talking "out of your ass". I pirate an occasional movie for a friend, but I spend more time watching shows on Netflix. Why would I even pay for Netflix when I could get anything I want for free ? Because they have a really convenient UI and easy access to their content.

I recently purchased a Google Play Music subscription, despite having 10^6 "pirated" songs on my HDD. Why ? Because they have a reasonable price, cool UI and artwork, convenience of listening anywhere, and the AI bot that helps me find new music I might be interested in. All of those things dont exist in pirate land.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#260

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

Noos wrote: post #252

Karunamon wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement is to artists as H1-B Visa abuse is to programmers. Both make it harder to earn a living and depress wages/destroy jobs in their respective fields. See, here's the biggest problem with "copyright infringement" as a term; it's too broad. It covers $random_co using your stuff commercially, but it also covers your gran downloading songs from sketchy websites in Russia. I don't think even the most…

It's not unambiguous. If enough grannies decide to pirate goods (edit), the effect is the same, or if anything worse because they are distributed and impossible to stop, where as repurposers can be at least targeted. If you own a physical goods store, shrink is shrink...a professional thievery team vs 100 grannies and kids shoplifting results in the same loss, but if anything, it's easier to watch out for and stop th…

The ambiguity comes because laws are supposed to be a reflection of morals, not the other way around, and a very significant chunk of society, myself included, doesn't see downloading a file from the internet without the author's blessing as a wrong.

If enough grannies decide to pirate goods (edit), the effect is the same

I question whether this is a thing that significantly exists in the real world, especially given a number of studies [1] that show "pirates" purchase significantly more media (numbers ranging from 30% to 300%) than non-"pirates". If you have numbers on "losses" that don't come from sources that invent numbers out of whole cloth [2], I'd love to see them.

You can't simply treat an unauthorized copy as a lost sale [3]. And for the sake of pete, stop calling it "theft", or at the very least stop making flawed analogies to physical goods.

[1]: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-...

[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120206/04501417667/ny-ti...

[3]: https://archive.is/HLFhA