NZ Copyright Industry Claims New 'Three Strikes' Law Halved Movie Infringements After One Month: So What?

from the show-us-the-numbers dept

Fri, Jul 27th 2012 2:25am — Glyn Moody

The implicit justification for various new copyright enforcement laws, such as the "three strikes" approach, is that they will encourage people to buy more authorized digital goods and thus support artists and their works. Naturally, those in favor of this logic like to produce figures that purport to show that it is working.

Here's another example, based on the claimed results from just one month's operation of a new three strikes law in New Zealand:

In a submission to a government review of the legislation's efficiency, NZ FACT [New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft] claimed New Zealanders illegally viewed movies in the top 200 online 110,000 times in August last year -- the month before the new law took effect -- but only 50,000 times in September.

Of course, those figures are unverified, and might well be wide of the mark – note that they were in a submission to a review by the New Zealand government, and not something released publicly. But even accepting them for the moment, it's significant that the same report on the Australian IT News site wrote: Despite the drop in the first month, NZ FACT noted there had been no "discernible progress" since then.
So we have a drop followed by a plateau. The question is: what happens in the longer term? In Sweden, when the IPRED legislation against unauthorized file sharing was brought in, the Internet traffic for the country dropped by 30%, suggesting that the law had modified users' behaviors considerably. But eight months after that, traffic was back up to the original level, indicating that whatever users had stopped doing in the wake of the new law, they were doing it again -- something confirmed by more recent research. Similarly, an early report claimed that the French three strikes program had already resulted in increased digital sales -- except that was not the only possible explanation, as a previous Techdirt post explored.

This pervasive uncertainty means that one month's figures about supposed drops in unauthorized file sharing are really pretty meaningless. What we need to see is the long-term pattern. And more importantly, if there is indeed a significant, sustained fall in such sharing, we need to see an equally significant, sustained uplift in sales that correlates with that fall. Without that kind of positive effect, demonstrated with rigorous data, three strikes programs are little more than an exercise in vindictiveness.

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Filed Under: new zealand, sharing, three strikes

86 Comments

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F!, 27 Jul 2012 @ 2:56am

The real question
Did music sales double?
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JC Cater, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:00am

Lolol, US supported propoganda, ignoring shift in downloading from p2p to usenet, vpn, seedboxes and lockers.

No benefit to sales.

Score one for copyright cartel.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:01am

"Without that kind of positive effect, demonstrated with rigorous data, three strikes programs are little more than an exercise in vindictiveness."

Ahh, so you think the movie and music industry should just bend over and take it in the ass until the die, right?

You fully support people breaking the law?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:14am

DETECTABLE traffic stopped.
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PaulT (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:16am

Re:
Ah, AC, where would be without your immediate distortions and lies? That's not what Glyn was saying, and you know it. try addressing what's actually being said, for a change.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:18am

Re:
Oooh. Looks like we have a fine specimen here today, folks. An AC who jumps to conclusions.

Let us see how they act.
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relghuar, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:19am

...little more than an exercise in vindictiveness...
Ummm, and that should bother entertainment industry because ... ?
From their loud mouth-frothing cursing of anything "free" I was under impression that vindictiveness is one of their primary objectives?
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Titania Bonham-Smythe (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:26am

"...we need to see an equally significant, sustained uplift in sales..."

Every penny of which funds organisations that lobby for curtailments of our freedoms on the Internet.
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The eejit (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:26am

Re:
We'll have to see if there is a comparable increase in sales. I suspect that the answer will be...NO.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:27am

Oh right, lets all just assume that every copyrightable thing is an automatic download shall we, just so we can say an "unpopular" idea works
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:27am

Re:
And spends ridiculous amounts getting laws passed that cause more 'losses' than piracy!
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Dionaea (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:31am

Re: ...little more than an exercise in vindictiveness...
True, but it SHOULD bother the people living in these countries who get stuck with these utterly useless and vindictive programs because the retards in charge are being bought by the entertainment industry.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:34am

How long before a law is passed forcing us to buy their goods, because piracy or no, i wont be lining the pockets of greed orientated companies, companies who wont think twice in accusing their consumers, potential or otherwise, as fucking criminals, for the heinous crime of, gasp, operating an electronic device, pushing buttons, and not least shaing 1s and 0s, oh the humanity
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relghuar, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:45am

Re: Re: ...little more than an exercise in vindictiveness...
Just a little detail about people - fact I basically hold for an axiom ;-) :
People are idiots. The larger the group of people, the higher the average level of idiocy.

Don't hold your breath about them being bothered by any such triffles, let alone going out of their way to do anything about it.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:52am

Even if it's true, doesn't the 3 strikes law infringe on a human right according to UN?

It's like saying having the police shoot suspects on sight has dropped crime rate by 50%. But shooting a "suspect" on sight is not exactly fair or just, is it? That's why we have trials to see if someone is innocent or guilty, and we don't have the police act as executioners.
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Blatant Coward (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:56am

I would like to know if they are still monitoring the government offices as well since this is the same NZ that had a MP talk about how wonderful
listening to a compilation made by a friend, a illegal compilation, to be sure, after passing their 3 strikes law.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:16am

Wait, I'm sure there is data showing that the movie and music industries are making trillions of dollars after France introduced the three strikes. I remember Australia alone lost its entire yearly GDP because of piracy. Every year.

... *facepalm*
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:18am

Re: Re:
"We'll have to see if there is a comparable increase in sales. I suspect that the answer will be...NO."

The problem is there is never going to be a direct, overnight shift. It's a question of time. If you turned off the internet completely tomorrow, there would still be a huge backlog of all the stuff people have downloaded and never watched / listened to. It might take weeks, months, or even years to get past that.

It's a long term thing. Piracy didn't kill the music industry overnight, it took 10 years. Why would expect the reverse to have instant results?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:19am

Claims is the key word here.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:25am

Re: Re: Re:
Piracy didn't kill the music industry overnight, it took 10 years.

Oh, I didn't know music was dead. I can help, I still have music in my HDD! Maybe we should sample them together so they can reproduce and stop being an extinct species?
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Berenerd (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:26am

Re: The real question
That is my question too. Honestly, I think the numbers are either farce or they simply stopped looking. There are new ways of pirating music and I am willing to bet that the traffic moved to a more secure method (harder to track) than it actually reducing.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:26am

Re: Re: Re:
"It's a long term thing. Piracy didn't kill the music industry overnight, it took 10 years."

Even a moron in a hurry can tall that that is plainly false.

The music industry is healthy. The gatekeepers, not so much.

Just pull up any report on the money made worldwide by the music industry in the past century and you'll see what I am talking about.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:26am

Re: Re: Re:
"Piracy didn't kill the music industry"

Fixed because the music industry is stronger than ever, douchenozzle.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:28am

Re:
Ahh, so you think the movie and music industry should just bend over and take it in the ass until the die, right?

It's not dieing.

You fully support people breaking the law?

Yes, if the law is draconian, not needed and out of touch with reality.
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Berenerd (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:31am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Music isn't dead Unstealthy Ninja, the industry as it stands is falling and artists are moving to a more friendlier industry where they actually get to see the faces of their fans and see how their art and words touch them. The current industry frowns on happy fans often smacking them with the business end of a tour bus.
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PaulT (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:40am

Re: Re: Re:
"Piracy didn't kill the music industry"

It's still alive, moron. Only the recording industry is struggling, and even they're having positive rebounds in places where they actually allow people to access the music they want rather than trying to restrict people. Digital sales are INCREASING in many place, just not quickly enough to repair the damage they already did to themselves over the last decade.

Have the movie industry put legal alternatives in place and removed the windowing and other factors that drove people to piracy before they attacked it? No, I thought not, that's why this will fail to generate revenue. And no, I don't particularly want to wait another 10 years before you realise it's failed and you decide then might be a time to actually service customer demand.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:45am

Re:
We think they should adapt.

You can't stop piracy. At least no more than you can stop a tidal wave or a nuclear blast. It is time we go over copyright and the business models that depend on it and try to adapt them to the new realities.

You can't cling to the past forever. Very soon, computers will be able to interface directly with the brain. And then what will you do? What will you do when people can record music and video by merely watching/listening to it? When they can make "pirate" copies of a movie by simply going to the cinema?

Think about that and you will soon reach the conclusion that copyright need to change, and quickly.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:52am

Re: Re:
"You can't stop piracy."

Nobody is trying to STOP piracy, that would be foolish. The idea isn't to stop it, the idea is to make it unpalatable to those people who might take the risk instead of buying or obtaining the product through legal means. We won't stop most of the people here from pirating, as it isn't done with any reasonable risk/reward calculation, it's done out of spite. That's a different game.

Piracy is no different from looters in a riot. As long as the riot is going on, the looters think they can get away with it, they face limited risk, and plenty of reward. Reign in the riot, and suddenly nobody wants to loot anymore.

There will always be people who shoplift, there will always be people who steal, who sneak into the concert and who walk away with your drink in a bar when you aren't looking. You can't stop it all. But you can sure make it less desirable for the vast majority of people not interested in breaking the law.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:56am

Re: Re:
that is exactly what the mouthbreather is saying, until you provide "proof" that he excepts, it is just you going after peope for no reason

murder and rape laws don't seem to work either little glyn, should we then get rid of murder and rape laws?? since according to you, they don't work and are just "an exercise in vindictiveness."

right?? it is your logic...retard
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 4:57am

Re: Re: Re:
*accepts, typo
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:01am

Re: Re: Re:
Piracy is not stealing. Get with the program.
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abc gum, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:02am

Re: Re: Re: ...little more than an exercise in vindictiveness...
"People are idiots. The larger the group of people, the higher the average level of idiocy."

I find your comment to be amusing. Do you consider yourself to be an idiot along with everyone else and if everyone is an idiot, then just what does the word mean?

Based upon the premise that the term "idiot" refers to those who are below a certain level of intelligence and or ability to cope and this particular quality is measurable in relation to a reference point then how could it be that everyone falls into this category, and if this were the case then the term would have no meaning.

In addition, intelligence levels amongst society are typically documented in percentages of the whole. Your statement about an increase in sample size resulting in a higher percentage of idiots is simply not going to happen. Possibly you were referring to "group think" and its affect upon large groups vs small.
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Planespotter (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:04am

Re: Re: Re:
Ahhhh... the old "lets just get rid of all laws because this particular law isn't embraced by a percentage of the population" routine! Wicked!

Laws only work when the majority of the population support them and feel a benefit in having them, when that support drops to a significant level the laws become unworkable and eventually unenforcable... which is where we are heading with Copyright.

Please do not conflate Rape/Murder with Copyright, it just makes youy look daft.
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PaulT (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:04am

Re: Re: Re:
"The idea isn't to stop it, the idea is to make it unpalatable to those people who might take the risk instead of buying or obtaining the product through legal means"

Yet you often fail to provide those legal means, or provide them with unacceptable pricing, restrictions and other things that either block people from accessing the product legally or make it an unacceptable purchase.

I wonder why you refuse to accept that problem and instead launch personal attacks on people?
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PaulT (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:06am

Re: Re: Re:
"little glyn"

You realise I'm not Glyn, right?

Why are you people so obsessed with hyperbole, anyway? Are you finding that your lies and distortions don't work when you address the actual arguments?

"right?? it is your logic...retard"

Sorry, I forget to add a lack of adult maturity to the list of your failings. I'll remember next time.
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Planespotter (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:09am

Re: Re: Re:
But But... after one month the NZ FACT team have proved beyond doubt that the 3 strikes law has HALVED copyright infringement in New Zealand!

So which is it? Does it takes months even years or does it take just over 5 weeks to see if the "shift" is really happening?

Maybe everyone downloaded more in August because they knew that in September their Government was going to try and prop up parts of the Entertainment Industries with daft laws that cannot be proven to benefit society as a whole?
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Planespotter (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:14am

Re: Re:
Ninja mate give up, if this moron had his way parts of the US would still have special seats on buses for people who just happened to have different colour skin!

Mr Moron, Laws only work when the majority agree with them and see a benefit in them.
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The eejit (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:19am

Re: Re: Re: Re: ...little more than an exercise in vindictiveness...
Well, to be fair, you should have seen my 10-year reunion last week. The amount of idiocy was immense. And yes, I do count myself amongst those idiots.
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abc gum, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:36am

Re: Re: Re:
You might try addressing the issue(s) with facts and logic rather than bs and ad hominem.
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abc gum, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:38am

Re: Re: Re:
"Piracy is no different from looters in a riot. "

Wrong.
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Tim Griffiths (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:41am

Re: Re: Re:
"The problem is there is never going to be a direct, overnight shift"

According the industries there should be given that every download is a lost sale (the logic they use to base their damage claims on when suing people) then when there is one less download there should be automatically one more sale.

Unless the industry wants to admit that "lost sale" means "lost feature sale" and since the future hasn't happened yet that makes it a "lost potential sale" and once we get them to admit that download only represent a sale in potential we can start having a grown up discussion about how much piracy actually hurts the industry... which is actually likely not all that much... at which point we can repel these kind of laws and the industry can take the time to deal with the real problems causing their lost sales i.e. them self's.

If download in a month drop but sales do not go up then we have huge proof that downloads are not lost sales. What the industry forgets is that most people have a given budget for media, if some pirates more than that budget there comes a point at which their action of pirating does not actually hurt any one because it's not money they would have ever spent.

Most serious pirates download more content than they could reasonably consume let alone pay and as such using "downloaded" numbers as some kind of measure of harm is idiotic.

Just take Iphones, you can only pirate apps on jail broken phones which make up what? 20% of the market or there abouts and yet app devs will talk about HUGE piracy of their apps. Which is strange, if we say an app had a 90% piracy rate that rate can only become from 20% of the market and so rather than 90% of market for the app not buying it it can only be at most the same percentage as jail broken iphones.

Given that there are a whole wealth of reasons for jailbraking your iphone rather than just pirating apps then we have to assume that not every jail broken phone belongs to a pirate. So the percentage of the market who pirate apps is less that 20%, maybe a lot less.

What is happening here is that since pirates don't have to cearfully pick what they will and won't buy app wise due to budgets like normal consumers do. This means they consume VASTLY more than most none pirating consumers and so vastly inflates the rate of piracy.

There is an assumption in the industry that a download count exists in isolation and is representative of a users buying habbits. And that is not only idiotic it makes them think the amount of the market they are actually having trouble with is vastly larger than it ever could be. Which leads to the them pushing of laws like this that are not only dangerous but which will never be as effective as they think they should have been.

Even if a piracy law worked really well put a real long term dent in piracy the actual benefit to the industry (if there is one at all actually) will be so much less than they expect that the industry will presume the law is not doing enough and lobby for stricter laws that likely come at the expense of normal people.

They are trying to legislate for a world that does not exist while doing massive damage to the one that does.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:42am

The freetards from the MAFIAAtards just want to get things for free.

The current low level of notices effectively rendered the law impotent, the group argued, as public fear of receiving a notice are minimal.

They want to reduce the fee they have to pay to cover the costs of ISP for sending out the notices to pennies.

NZ FACT said it had not sent out any infringement notices because of the fee, and called for the fee to be reduced to a few cents per notice.

Note there that FACT send a grand total of zero notices and claims that piracy halved and now they need more to continue to address the "situation".

Those people are full of shite.

They never be happy until the whole world is censored and they can reach inside everybody's home to get them whenever they feel like it.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:48am

Re:
"Ahh, so you think the movie and music industry should just bend over and take it in the ass until the die, right?"

No, boy, they should learn how to deliver the their product in a more profitable manner.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:48am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Ahhhh... the old "lets just get rid of all laws because this particular law isn't embraced by a percentage of the population" routine! Wicked!"

Like Prohibition?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:51am

Re: Re: Re:
"It's a long term thing. Piracy didn't kill the music industry overnight, it took 10 years. Why would expect the reverse to have instant results?"

For the same reason voters expect Obama to reverse 20 years + of cumulative bad fiscal decisions by Republicans in only 4 years?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 5:53am

Re: Re: Re:
"The idea isn't to stop it, the idea is to make it unpalatable to those people who might take the risk instead of buying or obtaining the product through legal means."

In most cases, the so called "piracy" is of material NOT available thru "legal means".

Make it available, and people will buy it!
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:08am

considering who released these figures makes me totally disbelieve them. those that are affected by the figures will put out the most self-serving ones. what is needed to make people consider for one second that there may be some truth in them is to have independent results published instead. on top of that, just because there is an apparent drop in 'piracy', it doesn't say anything about increases in other directions or that other means could have been utilised. add to that the leaked, confidential document by the RIAA concerning the most prolific way of sharing files andyou see what shit this report contains!
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:15am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"where they actually get to see the faces of their fans and see how their art and words touch them - and to work mostly for free".

FTFY.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:19am

The Emperor's new clothes
Be quiet!

They think it's working.

Don't tell them they're stupid. If they think they have won, maybe they won't try passing anymore dumb laws and the Emperor will be able enjoy his new clothes.
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Spike (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:23am

Higher sales because of three strikes? LOL, I love it.

Seriously, there is a category of pirates that don't buy anything period. If they cannot pirate it, they certainly wont go out and buy it either. These guys know how to do without if something isn't available for free, but chances are, it probably is available somewheres no matter what the laws are and they will find it. Nothing changes for these types.

People that buy and pirate both (unsurprisingly this category makes up a high percentage simply because they cannot afford everything they wish to consume), may continue to buy stuff they really enjoy provided they aren't alienated by the industry. People do have fixed incomes, their rate of movie/music purchases most likely will remain static, and if they want to pirate something, as the above category, will find it no matter what the laws are.

Three strikes regimes are just pissing taxpayer money away and possibly alienating people that already buy product from the movie/music industry. Do you think annoying your customers is good business sense?
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:24am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If the first "F" stands for Failed then I accept the edit.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:27am

NetFlix, Google Play Movies, Hulu Premium, and the high prevalence of streaming media available from TV Networks and Cable channels. That and the low quality and low character engagement levels of feature films. That had nothing to do with the drop.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:29am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
LOL. Yeah, Republicans are the problem! Democrats never had power in any of the branches of government for over twenty years. Try taking the partisan wool off your eyes and notice they ALL are the problem.
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Spike (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:29am

Re:
I must further add with the second category, these people, if they cannot pirate, will not increase their media consumption, they will do without and purchase as usual with what they can afford and enjoy it.

However if they start getting threats in the mail for casually torrenting that new album, they might not want to support such an industry any further thats giving the threats, since these people already buy their product, yet are getting attacked. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Duh. :-)
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Niall (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:29am

Re: Re:
What would be wrong with them having to take their own medicine, so happily doled out to the artists and the public?
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drew (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:30am

Re: Re: Re:
If the idea was to maximise sales rather than minimise copying you might meet with more success. Not only that, you'd be able to massively reduce your lobbying budget and hugely improve your public image.
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JH, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:36am

Re: The real question
I too was left wanting to know the sales numbers. I suspect the increase was negligible at best, and more likely non-existent (as most people reading this blog would expect). If it had been significant every copyright organization would be trumpeting it from the highest peaks right about now. The real question now is will other countries put similar laws into place when they've been proven not to work.
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Spike (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:36am

Re: Re:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks/

The industry still refuses to believe it. See the CRIA (Music Canada) note in the bottom paragraph.
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drew (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:36am

Re: The Emperor's new clothes
Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. If they think they've won this step they move onto the next stage.
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RD, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:37am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"For the same reason voters expected Obama to reverse 20 years + of cumulative bad fiscal decisions by Republicans by Inauguration Day."

FTFY - since the public and Repubs gave President Obama about 15 minutes from when he was voted in before they started holding him responsible for the entirety of the economic troubles this country is in.
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:45am

Re: Re: Re:
Nobody is trying to STOP piracy, that would be foolish. The idea isn't to stop it, the idea is to make it unpalatable to those people who might take the risk instead of buying or obtaining the product through legal means.

If the idea is only to make piracy unpalatable, then offer quality content in a convenient manner for a reasonable price. You know, like we've been saying for years.

If you don't offer services the customers want, even if you manage to decrease piracy, you will have a relapse because there are no alternatives.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:50am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
+1

He clearly doesn't know how music is created outside the grasp of the labels.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:51am

Re:
So lets crackdown on the pirates and not improve service, not improve access methods and let the money of the people who are willing to buy but cannot due to windowed access-AKA regional limits-blow away in the wind, or go to the coffers of those that sell VPN bolt holes under the fences.

Silly, get the low hanging fruit.
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gnudist, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:53am

Re: Re: Re:
The problem with trying to stop piracy is that it's a lot of work thet's to bring entirely uncertian gains.

Everyone I know that pirates only does so when their entertainment budget runs dry.

How many more sales would you even get from these people without piracy? Just how many of these make up the pirate population?

I keep hearing studies on the amount of piracy but nothing real has been done by industry to see how it actually impacts them. They just assume one iilegal download = one sale they didn't get without even seeing if thet's the case or not.
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Lord Binky, 27 Jul 2012 @ 6:55am

Yay, the measured piracy drops and sales don't change significantly so the result was one or a combination of 1) People moved to unmeasured piracy methods 2) Pirating people paused (yay alliteration) to confirm they could circumvent being caught for a strike 3)The current television seasons finished right around the three strike law taking effect.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 7:00am

Re: Re: Re:
Yeah. But it doesn't hurt to repeat the obvious. At some point it might get through the thick skulls.

Also, it's dying, not dieing. =/
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Tim Griffiths (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 7:14am

Re:
What do laws exist to do and how do they ultimately posses authority and legitimacy? The public. A law is only law so long as the public as a whole support it. If the public as a whole no longer support a law then that law will (should) change through both direct action (either through civil disobedience or political engagement) and the results of public elections favouring those who hold the same views as the majority.

Civil or gay rights are a very clear example of this fact. It's only a few years ago that the age of consent for sex between two men in the UK was lowered from 18 to 16 to match hetrosexual sex.

The law was changed because our social attitude to homosexuality had changed. So a few days before this law changed and two young men under 18 had sex they would be breaking the law and yet there was enough support for their moral right to do so that a few days later that law was changed. So was it wrong for them to have sex?

We are at the start of a fundamental change to our society brought about by the internet. There are going to be moral changes that place people in a situation where they are breaking the law while feeling like they are doing nothing wrong.

Digital locks are already an example of this, you can legally copy a CD you own but it's illegal to break the DRM on the disk to do so. Most people will simply break the law because they feel they should be allowed to do so. What this should mean is that such still pointless laws that exist purely to give the legacy industry a veto on the adoption of a new technology will be revoked.

Sadly our system is currently a mess and our laws far more often represent the views of a small number of business owners than the public at large.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 7:16am

Re: Re: Re:
We won't stop most of the people here from pirating, as it isn't done with any reasonable risk/reward calculation, it's done out of spite. That's a different game.

Then we agree that 1 download doesn't equal one lost sale, right? Because those ppl wouldn't buy anyway, right?

the idea is to make it unpalatable to those people who might take the risk instead of buying or obtaining the product through legal means

You do know that most ppl that download don't think they are doing anything wrong right? Also, you do realize ppl share offline, right? That they have done it for years now since the cassette, right? It takes a tiny bit of intelligence to notice you will not stop sharing. Ever. Every1 has that pirate friend that downloads the stuff for them and shares offline. For free.

Also, just one hint for you: my budget for entertainment is fixed and limited. If I can't download I won't buy anyway. And that's universal.
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The eejit (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 8:09am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Pretty much. However, according to the GAO's stats on budgets, Republican Presidents have had a tendency to run larger deficits in the past 20 years (and some time before that.)
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relghuar, 27 Jul 2012 @ 8:28am

Re: Re: Re: Re: ...little more than an exercise in vindictiveness...
Of course I count myself amongst the idiots - and quite publicly! If I got a penny each time I proclaimed (sometimes quite loudly) "I'm an idiot!", I could quit my job by now....
As to the increase in sample size, I really love Pratchett, he has a knack to get the point right and simple ;-)
"The IQ of a mob is the IQ of its dumbest member divided by the number of mobsters."
Personally I think this is not limited to mobs, but applies just as well to almost any group of people.
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JEDIDIAH, 27 Jul 2012 @ 9:16am

The wolf, the lynx, and the lamb.
You can alter the original comment to include both parties and it still comes out the same.

It's hard to get to Washington and not be a pod person. It's a side effect of the selection process.
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JEDIDIAH, 27 Jul 2012 @ 9:20am

No magic money machine.
> Nobody is trying to STOP piracy, that would be foolish. The idea isn't to stop it, the idea is to make it unpalatable

You just contradicted yourself.

I have no interest in living in a police state just so that you can satisfy your sense of artistic megalomania. This isn't even about revenue. It's about petty notions of control.

The numbers in this article confirm it.

"Stopping piracy" has nothing to do with increasing revenue in the content industries.
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MrWilson, 27 Jul 2012 @ 9:57am

Re: Re: Re:
"OMG, my copyrights are being raped and murdered!"
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gnudist, 27 Jul 2012 @ 10:32am

Re:
"The freetards from the MAFIAAtards"

Owww, that makes my head hurt. Why not just "the freetards from the MAFIAA"?
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Hephaestus (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 11:08am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Unless the industry wants to admit that "lost sale" means "lost feature sale" and since the future hasn't happened yet that makes it a "lost potential sale" and once we get them to admit that download only represent a sale in potential we can start having a grown up discussion"

Nice logic!!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 11:16am

Re:
"Without that kind of positive effect, demonstrated with rigorous data, three strikes programs are little more than an exercise in vindictiveness."

Ahh, so you think the movie and music industry should just bend over and take it in the ass until the die, right?

You fully support people breaking the law?

Yes, that's exactly what he advocates.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 11:41am

With all the negative publicity it's earned, the copywrong industry needs to die. Couldn't happen to more well deserved folk.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2012 @ 12:02pm

Re:
"Ahh, so you think the movie and music industry should just bend over and take it in the ass until the die, right?"

Oh wow! No wonder you're so against piracy, you have it confused with anal rape.

You're going to be so happy from now on!
They aren't even remotely similar.
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Get off my cyber-lawn! (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 12:36pm

Why do they always MEASURE THE WRONG THING?
Declaring that passing a law and reducing "pirate" activities improves the sales of the industry is akin to declaring that passing a law and reducing pre-marital sex improves the fertility rate of married women!

Apples & Oranges....fruit salad anyone?
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Divide by Zero (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 2:51pm

Most people I know either held off for a month or so, or just straight away switched to various proxies, VPNs and seedboxes. What really pisses me off about the whole law is the presumption of guilt, and the blatant give us free stuff from the entertainment industries. For a changeI'm feeling pro Telecom, purely because they want the cost to send an infringement notice put up to $104.

Also, NZFACT can suck a dick for having the most misleading name of all time.
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John Fenderson (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:53pm

Ends don't justify the means
Even if three strikes completely eliminated piracy, it's still immoral as long as a "strike" consists of nothing more than an accusation.
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John Fenderson (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 3:55pm

Re:
Ahh, so you think the movie and music industry should just bend over and take it in the ass until the die, right?

At this point, yes. It seems to be the only way to save society from them.
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F!, 27 Jul 2012 @ 11:52pm

Re:
DETECTABLE traffic stopped.

Bingo. All the 'three strikes law' has done is move half the 'infringers' to more secure methods. Without matching sales figures showing growth in sales, the numbers are meaningless. I'd even bet 'piracy' has increased because there have been alot of folks holding back because they didn't want to get caught, all the 'three strikes law' has done is effectively make it easier because information on how to 'pirate' securely is more widely available.

Either that, or everyone's finally cottoned on to the fact that hollywood produces nothing but utter dreck.
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PaulT (profile), 27 Jul 2012 @ 11:55pm

Re: Re:
"Yes, that's exactly what he advocates."

Does anybody have a drooling-moron-to-English dictionary handy? I'm trying to work out how he can still be reading the same words as everybody else and come to the exact opposite meaning of them.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2012 @ 5:41pm

Re: Re:
Because they're twice as bad.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jul 2012 @ 12:28pm

Re: Re: Re:
We gots ourselves a double baby!
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