US Sneapsters - Sign This Petition and Fight Piracy!

[Kazrog]

UPDATE: I've changed my mind, upon further research. While I support the aims of this bill, I think this bill will be ineffective if passed, and set a dangerous precedent for Internet freedom. This isn't the right way to fight piracy, it's dated and stupid.

 

[Pardi666]

But if I sign that, Who is going to pirate my music? lol

I bought 500 CD's for my debut album, sold about 120, gave most of them away and had about 20,000 people pirate them through Torrents, Rapidshare, Mediafire and such.

 

[updog]

That's why I am asking you to support the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (H.R. 3261) which cracks down on rogue websites and makes illegal streaming of content by rogue sites a felony. These rogue sites are responsible for peddling stolen creative works to tens of millions of unsuspecting consumers each and every day. These sites look legitimate, take credit cards, carry ads, show up in search results - and they are run by sophisticated thieves who make millions off of the hard work of the men and women whose efforts made these works possible. New laws are needed to shut down these sites, cut off their stolen revenue and protect American jobs and the American consumer.

exactly who are these "sophisticated thieves who make millions"?

it sounds to me like this petition isn't targeting the main bad guys like the torrent sites everybody knows, but rather sites that actually sell pirated shit. either that's correct or they're simply twisting the truth to make more people sign. i don't think the guys who own pirate bay for example, are really making shit off it. in fact, last i heard they were fined for more than they could ever pay.

 

[Arsenu,]

i really hate the term "intellectual property"!
i cannot imagine a CD in no melody or harmonic move has been already played like 10000000000 times!
piracy is NEVER going to go away and will naturally only get easier with time...
i hate the state it brought the music industry to but there's really no way around it...
nowaday only the BEST bands can really live off music which gives young bands much less of an oppurtunity to succeed without having to fear every bill each member gets...

Avatar was a breakthrough because it MADE people go to the cinema for pirating it was pointless (though it won't be in a few years when every one will have a 3D TV...)
iv'e thought a lot about what changes could be made to avoid piracy and my only 2 suggestions are these:
1. don't record audio! just let your live show run from mouth to ear so people will be EAGER to go to your concert (don't think it will actually work...)

2. produce an album which is worth the money! e.g. Trivium's In Waves - contains 18 (!!!) songs + 40 minute DVD - definitly worth buying!
records such as metallica's master of puppets which is basically 8 6-8 minute songs just don't cut it anymore...

 

[Kazrog]

But if I sign that, Who is going to pirate my music? lol

I bought 500 CD's for my debut album, sold about 120, gave most of them away and had about 20,000 people pirate them through Torrents, Rapidshare, Mediafire and such.

You'll always be able to give away your own music if you want to. Nobody, however, should be forced to give away a product they intend to sell and earn a living with.

 

[Kazrog]

exactly who are these "sophisticated thieves who make millions"?

Torrent sites and paid warez sites, among others. ThePirateBay makes tons of money from advertising, and by staying constantly on the run, they ensure that they are relatively immune to law enforcement these days. Don't believe their sob stories - they have been profiting massively from stealing everyone's copyrighted content. ThePirateBay isn't some kind of socially conscious Marxist hippie movement - they are a bottom line crime ring business like the mafia or druglords.

The main provision in the act that I feel will be most effective is requiring ISPs to put known pirate websites on a DNS/IP blacklist, so that people in the US won't be able to access these sites. By doing this, it's my estimation that 80% of your drive-by, casual piracy will disappear virtually overnight if this becomes law.

Obviously, there will always be piracy, but the goal is to reduce/contain it to the select few warez geeks who will go through foreign proxies (which cost money), darknets, usenet, etc. rather than everyone and their cat/dog pirating all of their music/movies/software/etc. thoughtlessly as a default.

 

[updog]

Trivium's In Waves - contains 18 (!!!) songs + 40 minute DVD - definitly worth buying!

i don't know man, i think it would work better (and sell better) if the 18 tracks were just released as two albums instead like SOAD did with Mezmerize and Hypnotize. if an album is that long, many people will value some of the songs far less and probably think half of the songs are just some b-sides the band decided to put in as to make a some sort of gimmicky special edition album or something.

 

[Donovan S.]

I may be wrong, but don't people upload things to Piratebay? I don't think Piratebay themselves actually STEAL anything do they? They just allow people who visit the site to upload whatever they want and profit from the visits through advertisement, similar to how Facebook profits from their visitors through advertisement, right?

I don't think piracy is going to go away any time soon. A law won't prevent it either. If they want to steal something, they'll figure out ways to do it.

 

[updog]

Torrent sites and paid warez sites, among others. ThePirateBay makes tons of money from advertising, and by staying constantly on the run, they ensure that they are relatively immune to law enforcement these days. Don't believe their sob stories - they have been profiting massively from stealing everyone's copyrighted content. ThePirateBay isn't some kind of socially conscious Marxist hippie movement - they are a bottom line crime ring business like the mafia or druglords.

most of the lawsuits they've been able to avoid has been because they hold no software on any server whatsoever. they're merely a list site as far as i can see. anybody can pirate, but they're just sort of giving tools to make it a bit easier, but isn't that basically what any file hosting site like rapidshare, megaupload and such are doing, although without their lawful consent?

i'm not purposefully defending anyone, i just want to hear points of view.

EDIT. took away a bit where i said there's no ads on piratebay. that was just my adblock talking. there are ads on piratebay, however just a few. still enough to keep them going i guess.

 

[Kazrog]

I may be wrong, but don't people upload things to Piratebay? I don't think Piratebay themselves actually STEAL anything do they? They just allow people who visit the site to upload whatever they want and profit from the visits through advertisement, similar to how Facebook profits from their visitors through advertisement, right?

Piracy is theft. ThePirateBay exists for the sole purpose of enabling this kind of theft, and profiting from it. That's nothing like FaceBook whatsoever.

I don't think piracy is going to go away any time soon. A law won't prevent it either. If they want to steal something, they'll figure out ways to do it.

As I said in my previous post, this law WILL prevent about 80% of piracy because it will force ISPs to add known pirate sites to a DNS/IP blacklist, making these websites inaccessible in the USA. Motivated pirates will find ways around it, but most people simply won't know how and it will be easier to simply go through the legitimate channels.

 

[Kazrog]

have you ever visited pirate bay? if you haven't, please do so for me now. how many ads do you see?

As an independent software developer, I track pirate sites constantly and keep tabs on what's going on. I'm very familiar with ThePirateBay and they have always run ads, usually for porn or dating sites, free iPad scams, etc.

i'm seeing none. they're selling pirate bay t-shirts and that's it.

You must be running AdBlock or something similar...

most of the lawsuits they've been able to avoid has been because they hold no software on any server whatsoever. they're merely a list site as far as i can see. anybody can pirate, but they're just sort of giving tools to make it a bit easier, but isn't that basically what any file hosting site like rapidshare, megaupload and such are doing, although without their lawful consent?

Rapidshare and Megaupload are legal file hosts and respond to DMCA Takedown notices within 24 hours. I know because my company has to send these notices all the time. ThePirateBay, by contrast, is famously resilient to such things, writing harassing letters back, etc.

i'm not purposefully defending anyone, i just want to hear points of view.

I totally get where you're coming from, and because there's a lot of misinformation out there, I am happy to clear things up. Being a developer has opened my eyes to how rampant and insane the pirate scene is these days.

 

[Arsenu,]

^ Kazrog you seem very eager to prove how wrong pirating is but you're avoiding the fact that it's IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP.
even if those laws you mensioned will pass and 80% of the sites will be shut down, new ones will emerge and new ways to avoid the law will develop.
fact is that the moment your guitar signal goes through a sequences it becomes digital, and that means you can upload it to the internet for people to download...
no matter what you do you can NEVER stop it.
for example: i remember when Half Life 2 came out it was considered impossible to hack because it was useing Steam.
since than i've played the game a few times without ever buying it...

 

[Kazrog]

^ Kazrog you seem very eager to prove how wrong pirating is but you're avoiding the fact that it's IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP.

I never turned this into a moral discussion, and never used the word "wrong." I also never said that this was about stopping piracy - this is about reducing it, significantly.

even if those laws you mensioned will pass and 80% of the sites will be shut down, new ones will emerge and new ways to avoid the law will develop.

Good luck getting around a DNS/IP blacklist without an overseas proxy. And those proxy services won't be free... and they will likely be slow, etc...

fact is that the moment your guitar signal goes through a sequences it becomes digital, and that means you can upload it to the internet for people to download...
no matter what you do you can NEVER stop it.

Again, reducing, substantially, not "stopping."

for example: i remember when Half Life 2 came out it was considered impossible to hack because it was useing Steam.
since than i've played the game a few times without ever buying it...

Again, it's not about stopping piracy, it's about reducing it to a smaller number by orders of magnitude. Nobody is crazy enough to think that anything will end it outright - it's just way too easy to pirate everything these days.

 

[Donovan S.]

Piracy is theft. ThePirateBay exists for the sole purpose of enabling this kind of theft, and profiting from it. That's nothing like FaceBook whatsoever.



As I said in my previous post, this law WILL prevent about 80% of piracy because it will force ISPs to add known pirate sites to a DNS blacklist, making these websites inaccessible in the USA. Motivated pirates will find ways around it, but most people simply won't know how and it will be easier to simply go through the legitimate channels.

The current ways of piracy used to be hard for "most people". The "most people" became smarter and learned the ways of the few motivated pirates. This will happen again and again. If someone wants to pirate something, a law won't stop it from happening. It may prevent "about 80% of piracy" at the current point in time, but I doubt that percentage will stay the same over the course of time.

 

[Kazrog]

The current ways of piracy used to be hard for "most people". The "most people" became smarter and learned the ways of the few motivated pirates. This will happen again and again. If someone wants to pirate something, a law won't stop it from happening. It may prevent "about 80% of piracy" at the current point in time, but I doubt that percentage will stay the same over the course of time.

Again, good luck getting around a national DNS blacklist without a foreign proxy. Proxy services to get around it will want money. At that point it's easier for people to simply go the legit route (pay for their music/movies/software from an authorized vendor), and they will take the path of least resistance, in the vast majority of cases.

 

[updog]

Again, it's not about stopping piracy, it's about reducing it to a smaller number by orders of magnitude. Nobody is crazy enough to think that anything will end it outright - it's just way too easy to pirate everything these days.

just to be clear; those weren't my quotes that were answered in Kazrog's post before ALivingSight's, even though it appears to look that way for some reason.

to what you said about TPB, you're right about them being dicks about removing links when asked to, didn't consider that point myself.

i'm curious about why their domain provider can't just shut them down.

 

[Arsenu,]

^ again, Half Life 2 was awesome!

 

[Mm1066]

I can understand about the file sharing ban, but I disagree about streaming. Streaming music on YouTube I think is a great way to gain attention for your music and it's pretty much the modern way of doing it.

 

[Donovan S.]

Well, anyways I signed the petition. I really don't think this is any kind of long term solution though, only patchwork.

 

[Kazrog]

just to be clear; those weren't my quotes that were answered in Kazrog's post before ALivingSight's, even though it appears to look that way for some reason.

Damn clipboard, wow, I'm very sorry about that!! Fixed...

to what you said about TPB, you're right about them being dicks about removing links when asked to, didn't consider that point myself.

i'm curious about why their domain provider can't just shut them down.

They just keep moving, really a motivated bunch...