5 major ISPs roll out the "six strikes" policy regarding illegal downloads.

What would be interesting to me would be to see how all of this would look to the Supreme Court in relation to the 3rd and 4th clauses of the first amendment. Is unrestricted media access by the public stipulated by free press? Are media producers being, in effect, censored by the transmission companies?

Unfortunately I don't think I'd like the outcome if itdidgo to the Supreme Court.

This post may also just be stupid. If so, disregard.

Simas_sl said:

You have to follow the whole thread man. I started by writing that I didn't have sympathy for pirates. Many people disagreed, commenting on how fucked up the media providers are. While I agree the media providers can be shitty and shady, I felt many of the comments about media providers overstated the situation (no competition vs. little competition etc), and said as much. Then, I wrote that I didn't think the situation was bad enough to justify piracy, instead I think those claims are rationalizations. It is my view that most people illegally download because its easy and there are likely to be little to no consequences.

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Its been pretty clearly spelled out for you.

The margins on distribution are absurdly bloated. The efforts to defend against piracy are to ensure continued robber baron level margins.

We have hard evidence that more reasonable content delivery will result in a decrease in real piracy. See Steam and pre-nerf Netflix. See also movies making enormous amount of money still despite DVD piracy.

This situation then is essentially price gouging that benefits mostly a middle man. We, the end users/consumers, have enough data to conclude that this is so. Why on earth would we feel a moral compunction to honor these middle man price gouging distributor's claim to "copywright" (generally on a piece of art, high or low, that they didn't create or truly evenOWN) when we know for a fact that they are artificially fixing a price astronomically higher than true value? You aren't moral or decent for buying physical blu-ray, you're pretty much stupid and uninformed. Which is just how the distribution network wants it.

How did we get to the point of Steam? Legit question, I'm not 100% on the history. But as I seem to recall it began as an effort to DRM software to protect it against piracy. In the process they have managed to build a better mousetrap. Now they have cornered the market and a legion of imitators have sprung up for a piece of the pie. This is after a time, as I remember, when there were serious concerns about the future viability of PC gaming due to widespread and unchecked piracy. As mentioned earlier, is this really a result of convenience and delivery only, or were games simply overpriced? Steam is more than just a clever interface, its a market correction.

In the realm of TV particularly though the situation is even more absurd because there is literally no physical good like there is with software, and can be with music or movies. People have recorded TV for decades, and even VHS was able to be copied and shared. Is that really THEFT to you? Are cable companies really worried about thieves, or protecting their ability to price gouge?

it's intellectual property. it's not as though digital pirates are breaking into art galleries and selling unique pieces for millions.

Springbok_sl said:

I just cancelled my Cox Cable (was $118 fucking dollars a month) to go strictly pirate, (funny timing on this news for me haha). Tv-links.eu satisfies a ton of my needs as well. Fuck monopolizing cable companies in their asses. Cox is literally the only service provider in my neighborhood, and can charge what they like. COME AT ME COX.

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And this is why your internet will be metered in the next few years. Just saying.

mkopec_sl said:

I read this in another article about the subject, although I cannot find it.

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No worries, I just happen to have worked for an ISP recently in the group that handled this stuff. I know that the ISP will scream bloody murder if/when the MAFIAA assholes try to push legislation that forces them to narc out customers. The copyright infringement notices as is cost the ISPs millions a year to have to process that bullshit.

I would like to say that since Steam launched I have pirated nothing game wise, however, I simply refuse to buy any more games(bought BF3 not realizing it required that shit) from EA since their digital copies are the exact same price as a boxed game and it's obviously a money grab. I won't pirate them, but I sure the fuck won't play them either.

Now if the MPAA and RIAA would stop being greedy assholes and come up with a solution or pick a distributor for their media or hell give it to all of them and let people choose their favorite. Stop with this exclusive bullshit because any sale is better than no sale and right now they are getting more of the latter. I'd gladly get on board to pay for ALL the shows I watch and I bet most would as well. There will still be a percentage of people that would pirate regardless but I'm willing to bet it would drop dramatically.

I know I stated this earlier but I felt going in depth was applicable since someone mentioned Steam and I believe this is the type of route the media companies should take. The media outlets are there and the ball is in their court but I seriously doubt they will come to their fucking senses.

I get maybe 15 shows a week from EZtv. Is there a cheap seedbox service I can get? Any links. I am computer savvy, but I want something non unix level geekdom to use.

Here's another good reason to pirate, buy a DVD for twenty bucks only to be forced to watch unskipable commercials.

and the hundreds of bands i've listened to and enjoyed for free to go out and buy their CDs or merch/shows.

fifey_sl said:

and the hundreds of bands i've listened to and enjoyed for free to go out and buy their CDs or merch/shows.

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Its really that simple when it comes to much of music piracy. Of course it also oversimplifies it but as primarily a jam band fan it makes it easier for me to justify. They have ALWAYS relied on touring and merch for their bread and butter, cutting albums was more a matter of course and to have a catalog for their legacy as songwriters. The Grateful Dead had it rightlongbefore their time, they were selling the party and the experience first and foremost, selling the music was an afterthought. They were also an earlier adopter of their own publishing and recording label, and one of the first to try to take on TicketMaster.

If you're a fan of like Lady Gaga or something, telling you to buy merch and go to as many concerts as possible is a whole different proposition. But then again she seems to be massively thriving under the old system so if the suits fleece her and leave her bankrupt in ten years its pretty much her fault and a result of the outdated music industry more than piracy.

hodj_sl said:

Probably one of the most annoying, most intrusive, and most bullshit decisions by dvd producers ever.

Seriously this shit drives me fucking insane. Game of Thrones blu ray has unskippable fucking commercials for other HBO shows. How stupid is that?

Really fucking stupid.

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You know sitting here reading this I just realized that right now can I tv shows within hours (sometimes less) of them being played on cable and usually in high definition and without any commercials at all. I can, with sabnzbd, queue up shows that are soon to start, are started, already over and see a list of episodes and their entire season. Then select whatever I want to queue up to watch later and have it automatically download future shows without any further prompting from me. I can set it up so that I can do this from my computer, from my phone, from my iPad, hell I am probably only limited by my creativity. And all of this is onlyThe most basic level of functionality. I could build a HTPC and add as much storage as I wanted to keep or queue shows as long or as much as I wanted.


Any studio out there that doesn't think I would pay a premium for service like this is fucking insane. In fact they wouldn't even need to release their own service, instead they could release a sabnzbd plugin that I would pay a monthly fee that would allow me to download shows legally from their usenet provider using my current setup and that would perfect for me.


My setup is so easy to use when nzbmatrix went down my wife complained endlessly about having to watch commercials again or how her shows weren't downloading proper anymore and when am I going to fix the matrix or just hack them or something... Using couch potato on her iPad is easier then using a remote.

My point is how has something this developed, this functional, this flexible, and this easy to use not been snapped up sold to consumers like hotcakes? AppleTV or Roku plus all of this would be 1000x more amazing.

Is it morally equivalent to download a torrent for your own personal use as it is to record a broadcast, and package it for sale for say $1.00?

It's a fair question given people's nebulous stances on IP.

Srathor_sl said:

I get maybe 15 shows a week from EZtv. Is there a cheap seedbox service I can get? Any links. I am computer savvy, but I want something non unix level geekdom to use.

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First, I wouldn't worry too much about TV shows (except HBO/Showtime ones I guess), no one is going to go after people downloading 2 broke girls or Survivor. They care more about pre-release movies, games, software, and premium channels.

Secondly, the best bet is to download off small private trackers. On the torrents thread in Tech I'm sure people can invite you to one of them. IPT is ok, but it is really big now so will be a target at some point in the future, whereas small sites with a few hundred members are just not worth the effort to go after (for now).

Lastly, the way all this tracking works is by having a pretend client attach to the torrents they care about and see everyone else uploading - unless you run the tracker, there is no way to see who downloaded stuff in the past. So you can continue to use eztv/piratebay if you are super lazy, just remove the torrent immediately after its done and the window of time in which someone could tell you were "part of the torrent" is very tiny. Download only 1 torrent at a time and you will be in and out in a minute or two usually. You can also try to config your BT client to upload almost nothing (throttle it at 1kb, set it to a port thats blocked in your firewall for outbound).

private trackers don't deter copyright holders. i try to use vpns but they bring my download speeds to a crawl.

fifey_sl said:

Here's another good reason to pirate, buy a DVD for twenty bucks only to be forced to watch unskipable commercials.

and the hundreds of bands i've listened to and enjoyed for free to go out and buy their CDs or merch/shows.

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Fuck these companies. For their forced ads wasting my time, for bundling channels, for caving and sharing data instantly without warrants, for reprehensible business practices and double fuck them for dragging their feet instead of upgrading when given billions to upgrade and making billions off said business practices.


A Lego set that doesn't "allow" you to build anything other than the pre-set configuration. Restaurant staff constantly tell you what other entree you would like and should buywhile you're already eating one. Grocery stores disallowing the sale of a 24 pack of beer unless you purchase dog food, a bag of flour, aluminum foil, and some fucking paperclips too. Wouldn't tolerate that shit if I could avoid it, hence, pirating.

It's not even an issue about money, I have a job and am used to being fucked by taxed in the vampire state that is New York and will probably die with jimmies so rustled my balls will look like a newborn pug. Even overpriced, embarrassingly slow products are tolerable, but the nerve these shits have to decide it should be...MUST BE the industry standard to have its customers mindlessly stare at ads during a paid service? That the standard should be for obsolete middle men to control the flow of all media? I am no longer a naive 10 year old with my eyes glued so patiently to a screen that I will tolerate this shit.

These insufferable cunts needed to be treated like the money grubbing luddites they are, I personally view pirating as civic disobedience. That said I am hypocritically posting this via overpriced internet, oh ya because I have no alternative.