SOPA (maybe?) DroppedFollow

Given that it's a clear legal issue, no. It's the duty of the governing legal body to take care of it. It would benefit the hosting sites to pro-actively monitor for illegal materials so they're not closed down by the governing bodies but I guess crying about it being too hard as the government shuts you down is another option.

I'm all for the entertainment industry to look for new technology and new business models. Their failure to do so does not and never will justify breaking the law to illegally copy materials. Much like the old example of leaving your house unlocked; it would certainly be smart to lock it but that doesn't mean anyone is allowed to wander in and take your stuff. No matter how tempting the house looks, anyone stealing from it fully deserves to be arrested.

Edited, Jan 20th 2012 11:51pm by Jophiel

Their idiots because someone in a computer den figured out how to crack their copyright protections?. Or because someone decided you know what Ill just stream my DVD collection to millions of people and charge them 8 bucks a month. Or Ill do it for free!.

In all cases movie and music industries get burned, one copy is sold and is appreciated for minimal cost (that they do not see) or for free by people.

There is a company that does this, it is called netflix, I love netflix, but I bet they don't give a company like Universal the equivalent cost of a DVD to use their movies. I can watch any of their movies over and over as if I owned it, for 8 bucks a month, half the cost of a DVD.

They have a right to be pissy, but instead of implementing their own movie service (that they could then pay royalties to the correct company) they would rather take on the whole internet.

A similar thing took place in canada recently with the major ISP's (Rogers in particular because it still rents movies) wanted to have a set standard of pricing on network data, forcing the smaller cheaper companies to increase costs to their set levels. This is because many smaller companies do not charge for over usage, which is a byproduct of streaming movies. Rogers was the key player in this with Bell not far behind. Rogers is currently the largest ISP and video rental service in Canada. Essentially they wanted to monopolize the movie market here limiting peoples connections to netflix (because of standard overage charges) and increase their movie rentals. Barring an increase to movie rentals they still would benefit from universal costs, and why go with small ISP that costs the same as Rogers, when you can bundle cable, home phone and mobile services on top. Was a great market cornering attempt, but it didn't pan out, because people aren't stupid enough yet.

There is no "but". If you agree that it's illegal than the government has an obligation to enforce those protections. And the entertainment industry has every right to expect the government to do it.

You obviously haven't been keeping up on Netflix. They've been taking a bath trying to hold on to their contracts with the major studios and are pouring out cash. Their whole fee increase debacle centered around the fact that there's plenty of streaming competition now and, if Netflix doesn't want to pay up, then the studios will go to Amazon or Hulu or OnDemand or some other service. Netflix's streaming licensing costs went from $180mil in 2010 to $1.98 billion for 2012.

Studios don't want to create their own separate distribution networks because you just fragment the market that way. Few people want to have seven separate monthly subscriptions to different movie/TV studios. That's beyond the costs of starting & maintaining a network.

Once again, an example of the large studios actively making things difficult for everyone in the name of profit.

This happened back in the '30s, with radio. TED again, but it makes sense.

FTFY.

Well I don't know that the government has an obligation to police the un-policeable.

Does the government have an obligation to take every American who has ever downloaded anything without the appropriate license to court? If so, who is going to pay for the massive increase in court resources that would be required to do so? Ordinary individuals? Does hollywood want to have their taxes increased to pay for such an undertaking? No?

And why should industries which rely on the internet not being fecked up be forced to lose millions of dollars so that another industry can make more?

This is why I think we have an obligation to look at current copyright law and consider whether, like prohibition, that the current laws are unenforceable/only enforceable at a cost that is too high for society to pay. When a huge proportion of society disregards a law, isn't it time to question whether the law itself has any moral force?

I would support hard copyright on works less than five years old - with that turning to a softer copyright that allowed free sharing (but not selling) after that time. Then after 20 years, the work should revert to public domain. A bit extreme? Perhaps, but it would be a lot easier for ordinary people to understand, it it seems a lot more reasonable than the current set up.

I think it would be a lot more simple and easy to enforce, and it is difficult to argue that the companies/artists wouldn't have had an opportunity to profit off of it.

Such a law would give companies an incentive to allow service delivery companies like netflix to stream their shows - since after five years they would be getting something, rather than nothing.

I can tell you, if netflix stays around 10 bucks a month, even if it was legal to download anything more than five years old, I would pay for it - why? Because it is convenient - and because it works nicely with my 3DS - compared to getting video on my PSP which is a PITA

I don't think that current copyright law is seen to have moral force. As long as that is the case, it will be pretty much impossible to stop people from ignoring it - and in my opinion there is a real danger in continuing to cling to laws that a great portion of society doesn't believe are necessary or reasonable. By turning more than a quarter of your society (I'm guessing here, but it seems reasonable to believe that 1/4 of Americans have at some point or another downloaded or streamed content they didn't have the correct license for - even if it is just format shifting) into outlaws, you undermine the whole structure of law and order and undermine the legitimacy of laws in general.

There are a great number of things which used to be illegal which are no longer illegal - is it not worthwhile to question whether this may be another case where the law needs to adapt to changing technology and changing attitudes in society?

but taking down the distribution networks also hurts citizens who are doing perfectly legal things, such as storing and distributing their own photos, videos and music.

Or do you believe that there was no legal files at all on megaupload, and all the businesses and individuals who had megaupload accounts were using them solely for piracy? Even assuming the accusations against the company are wholly true and allowing for the fact that yes, the service was definitely used by pirates, isn't it also true that many legal files have been taken down, and for some people they may have lost their IP completely? Don't the little folks matter as well? Should they just be prepared to lose access to their IP entirely?

I can't think of any way to eliminate piracy (period) or even a way to strike at it in a forceful way which doesn't have negative effects on legal movement of information.

This is why I question whether it would make more sense to revise IP laws to be more in keeping with the realities of modern technology and attitudes towards IP.

I know personally, if it is a choice between very limited IP and an open internet - or the kind of IP we have and never being able to put my own work/photos/home videos into the cloud without fear of it being ripped down and lost forever - I'd limit IP in a second. I honestly don't see how the greatest good is served by the current legal structure.



Edited, Jan 21st 2012 12:49pm by Olorinus

There's no possible way to know, though. Megaupload insist that the majority of their stored files were the legal property of the individuals storing them.

Due process just gets in the way, though. Best to just have shut it down, just in case!


Youtube will be next.

That's why you use something specifically for what you want. Like Dropbox or Photobucket.

That's okay because I don't have anything at stake to convince you and don't feel like going through rounds of "Nuh uh, we could totally stop that" or "That plan would never work so we need to give up".

Inertia is ultimately going to be on the side of entertainment industry here. Eventually the people whose best idea is "Hollywood just has to change its model" are going to be hit with a rude awakening.

Why won't you watch this talk?

Believe it or not, parts of it actually are relevant to what we're talking about here. Particularly the part which talks about the radio industry in the late '30s.

Edited, Jan 21st 2012 5:58pm by Nilatai

Technically, yes. But since I've consistently advocated for shutting down the major distribution networks on the internet and not for chasing down the end users, I fail to see how that's supposed to be relevant to what I'm saying.

Sure they do. The difference being you have to actively share with those sites, which means it's easier to go after the individuals responsible as opposed to just going after everyone.