But the fact remains that the public never has any ownership of the rights that is then transferred to the author.
That is simply false. Without copyright, there would be no post-publication monopoly, and that is what copyright is. Without the statutes, I would have as many rights to copy, distribute, perform, etc. that work as the author does. Without copyright, those rights are "owned" by the public, because every member of the public "owns" their own property and free speech rights.
Let's be clear here. If by "initially," you mean "prior to publication," then you are right. But that's not what copyright is. Copyright is a post-publication monopoly. Were the work unpublished, it would be covered by other rights (privacy rights, private property rights if the work needs to be physically taken to be published, or what have you). These rights are not granted by Congress, do not exist "for limited times," etc. And they end as soon as the work is first published. The author "owns" those rights to exactly the same degree as he "owns" the rights to any other book on his shelf.
But the monopoly rights granted by copyright absolutely are held by the public initially. That's why copyright is not a right granted to authors in the Constitution. It is a right that is granted to Congress, because Congress represents the public - the ultimate "owner" of those rights.
The moment the work is fixed in a tangible medium, the author has the rights. The rights aren't first held by the public and then given to the author.
Yes, they are. They are given to the author, by the public (through their representatives), via statutory copyright laws. If copyright did not exist, they would not first be held by the author. They would be held by every member of the public.
Your own words belie the fallacy of your argument. You have to argue that the public would have gotten the rights had it not been for copyright. In other words, they never owned the rights. The authors own the rights.
That the public would have gotten the rights had it not been for copyright, is exactly what I have stated. It is not an argument, it is a fact.
If copyright did not exist, all works would be in the public domain. I, as a member of the public, have rights in public domain works. I can produce copies of them; and those copies are my property, to dispose of as I see fit. I also have the right to prepare derivative works, to perform the work publicly, and so forth. I have just as much a right to sell them, or not, as I do to engage in any other form of commerce with my own property. And because these acts are expressive in nature, they also arise from my free speech rights.
If you were correct, then as soon as a work enters the public domain, nobody would have the right to copy them, distribute them, perform them, or what have you. This is not what happens, and if it was, it would unquestionably involve Constitutional rights to speech, commerce, and property, and the laws that prevented me from doing so would almost certainly be unconstitutional.
Those rights do not arise from the government, and they do not arise from authors. They initially invest in the public, and are shared among all members of it. In theory, the public grants a limited monopoly on those rights to the author exclusively. It does this because granting this monopoly provides a financial incentive to produce and distribute artworks. The public benefits more from this increased production and distribution, than it loses from giving up those speech and property rights.
That is why copyright is supposed to exist. But the moment that the detriments to the public outweigh the benefits to the public, then lawmakers have a public duty to change the laws until the balance is once more in the public's favor.
So, once again. If artists make the majority of their money from sources that don't require copyright, then copyright probably isn't acting as an effective incentive to create and distribute artworks. Why should the public put up with the loss of their rights? What are we all getting out of it? Why shouldn't we get rid of some (or all) of those rights?
No shit Sherlock, that's because everyone is ripping them off. Duh.
The numbers were the same at least as far back as 2004, when there was far less piracy than today.
And as far as anyone knows, it was always the case, even back in the 90's. Musicians always made more money from things that didn't require copyright restrictions (live income, work-for-hire situations, teaching salaries, etc).
There was never a time when most musicians made their money from recording or composition royalties. They were always a pittance.
It isn't taken from some other person and given to the author.
That's exactly what happens. Were it not for copyright, everyone would have the right to copy, distribute, or perform whatever expressive works they pleased. They would have these rights as both property rights, and free speech rights.
That includes the authors themselves, of course. Copyright doesn't give license to copy, perform, and distribute copies of expressive works; such a government-granted licensing scheme would be clearly unconstitutional. The only thing copyright does is allow authors to take away these rights from everyone else.
Whether or not you believe copyright is justified, you cannot deny that it is nothing other than the removal of certain rights from the public.
Given this undeniable fact - if the majority of musicians' income is from things that don't rely on copyright, why shouldn't we limit copyright? The only reason the copyright monopoly exists is to grant authors a financial incentive to publish. Why should the public put up with the restrictions on their natural rights if it isn't absolutely necessary?
If you dig through his old comments, you'll see that he's a law student who started at some Southern law school around 2009 or so, after earning a degree in mathematics.
Re: Re: Re: Re: I'm not sure why this is relevant.
It is not specious because the part of the "social contract" my argument relies upon is the idea of intellectual property and agreements enforcing artificial scarcity which certainly exist objectively.
1. Most of the articles Swartz downloaded were not copyrighted. They were public domain. JSTOR locks them up and charges for them anyway.
2. If copyright really were a "social contract," then society at large should be able to change it or do away with it. If Congress truly represented the will of the people, they would, since the majority of people now believe that non-commercial infringement is not a social evil. Certainly, most people seem to believe that what Swartz did was not morally wrong; or at least not enough to deserve jail time.
3. There is nothing "objective" about copyright. The fact that the "scarcity" (actually, monopoly - the goal is not scarcity, but wider distribution to the public) is artificial means that it is not objective. It does not exist in nature; copyright laws are not securing any natural right. It is purely a creature of legal statutes, and is exactly as "objective" as the "right" to make a right turn at a red light.
Too dishonest to state an opinion on whether he thinks there should be any copyright at all.
Except, of course, when he stated his opinion:
I think that the current system is broken and does not promote the progress, as it should do. I think that I don't know what the *proper* solution is, and I don't think anyone does, because we simply don't have enough data or experience to know. We know what doesn't work, but we don't know what might work better. That's why I've always encouraged more exploration and the ability to experiment.
I would love it if someone did a documentary on Prenda, Righthaven, and the other copyright trolls. Think we could convince Nick Broomfield? It might turn out even stranger than "Aileen Wuornos: the Selling of a Serial Killer."
That IP address, in turn, represents the external IP address of a router, not of any device hooked up to it
Apologies, I thought I fixed this sentence before posting. It does represent the IP address of a computer; that IP address is dynamically assigned by the router. It cannot be associated with a specific computer after the router or computer is restarted.
But so far as I know, the only IP address that the ISP logs, is the external IP address of the router.
The BitTorrent UI has the IP addresses IN PLAIN SIGHT.
The BitTorrent UI does not send every IP address back to BitTorrent, Inc. And, if you value privacy rights, that's a good thing.
The UI, in turn, gets the IP addresses of people sharing that file from the tracker, not the BitTorrent client.
That IP address, in turn, represents the external IP address of a router, not of any device hooked up to it, nor of any particular person.
Every person in the swarm on any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie is breaking Federal law 17 USC 106 - PERIOD.
Unless those artists have authorized the file to be shared, in which case those people are breaking no law at all. Neither the authors of the client software, nor the people running the tracker, have any way to tell the difference.
You're also assuming it's easy to tell whether a file is of media from "any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie." It's not. The hash is just a bunch of numbers, representing an anonymous chunk of digital data.
The bottom line is that US ISPs are shielding their subscribers and Verizon who makes $120 BILLION A YEAR (TWENTY TIMES THE WHOLE US RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY) spends millions in legal fees aided by Google-backed EFF to make it impossible to enforce copyright.
ISP's are in the copyright holders' back pockets, though they're "helped" along by government intimidation (see: the "six strikes" deals).
Also, ISP's make tons of money because a fast internet connection is a necessity in this day and age. And Verizon is much more than an ISP. I believe most of their profits nowadays come from smartphones and such. Their profits don't come from piracy, and they have no financial interest in protecting pirates. They do, however, have an interest (financial and otherwise) in protecting their customers' privacy rights, which is why they're "shielding their subscribers."
The EFF is not primarily (or even significantly) funded by Google. And neither Google, nor the EFF, nor Verizon, nor ISP's in general are trying to "make it impossible to enforce copyright."
This is all just the usual conspiracy theory nonsense. It's bogus misinformation that is deliberately propagated by large content corporations to curry favors in Washington.
If an IP address isn't enough information to stop piracy, why is that method so effective with spam.
1. It's not effective with spam. Spam blocking requires much more than just an IP address.
2. People who use an IP address for sending spam, generally do not use that IP for anything else, such as sending legitimate emails. That's not true with IP's associated with BitTorrent usage. If anything, that would just identify the IP addresses of the content industries' best customers.
And even if what you claim were possible, and was implemented, so what? It wouldn't mean higher profits for anyone, including "any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony."
The content industries know this. Which is why they're not really interested in "stopping piracy" either. They're just interested in calling everyone a "pirate" who makes money off of the Internet. That way, they'll have more ammo when they demand money from them.
That's what your criticisms are all about. You don't give a rat's ass about "enforcing copyright." You just want to get your hand in the deep pockets of Google, Verizon, and ISP's, and you're using "piracy" as a justification to do it.
The Wired article on Ian Rogers should be required reading for any industry executive (an probably any music fan).
We both grew up in Indiana listening to punk music in the 80's, and I know first-hand exactly what he's talking about regarding the recording industry at the time. I'm a bit jealous of him, actually - I'd love to have done as much for both technology and musicians. Guess I should have stuck with programming, instead of dropping out to study music composition...
Anyway, if he's on board with this project, then you know it's going to be awesome.
Spam is much easier to detect than copyright infringent, even outright piracy.
1. It's possible to tell from the content of an email whether something is spam; it's impossible to tell whether a song (for example) is pirated or legitimate.
2. Lists of spam emailers are build from users. That is, a user gets a spam email, and reports that it is spam to Spamhaus; it is only then that Spamhaus knows to put it on a block list. To be as effective, a "copyright infringement" blocker would have to get data on "pirated" versions from its general user base - something that is a) completely inaccurate, and b) illegal, since only the copyright holder knows the copyrigt status of a particular song. Even rights holders themselves often get it wrong (see e.g. the Dajaz1 fiasco, Viacom v. Google, all the incorrect ContentID matches, etc).
We have something like #2 already. It's called a DMCA takedown notice. If those aren't working well enough for you, then tough titties.
If BitTorrent, uTorrent, Vuze, etc. simply maintained a blacklist of copyrighted hashes like spamhaus, 50% of all illegal downloading would disappear.
Even if they did maintain a "blacklist," it would be completely ineffective, since they only provide the software. They don't provide trackers - so they would have no way of blocking anything on that "blacklist."
And even that "blacklist" would be ineffective, because all a seeder has to do is break up that same file into different-sized pieces, and the hash will be totally different. Not to mention that hashes of different versions of the same content will be completely different.
IMHO Why doesn't Techdirt advocate such reasonable measures, why don't ISPs - because they are PRO-PIRACY.
If you think ISP's are "PRO-PIRACY," then your "humble opinion" is worthless.
IMHO They want to do anything and everything to keep illegal free media alive while HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS and jobs are lost.
There is no evidence of lost jobs due to piracy. There are plenty of lost jobs, but those jobs would be lost without piracy, because the decline in revenue is likely due to other factors.
Your "DVD sales" figures are an example. Why is the decline in DVD sales due to piracy, and not due to Netflix, Hulu, Redbox, iTunes downloads, or any of the other completely legal services, which don't generate as much income per movie as a DVD sale? Why is it not due to cross-competition from things like video games? Why is it not due to the rigidity of the format - that it is legally impossible to play a DVD on your phone or tablet?
Disney announced layoff last week citing Home Video decreased due to piracy - Disney! Those are your friends and neighbors out of work.
As others have pointed out, the Disney layoffs had nothing to due with piracy, and came on the heels of one of Disney's most profitable periods in many years. The fact that you are blaming piracy shows that you are either ignorant, or willing to lie to promote propaganda.
You might want to reconsider your username. You're certainly not ethical, and I'm not even sure you're a "fan."
The 'war on piracy' is not about making more money or even stopping piracy. It is about trying to claw back their 'right' to control what music we listen to, what books we read, and what movies or TV shows we watch.
Though overstated, I think you're absolutely right.
The content industries only shout "piracy" when they want more control at the bargaining table. They're not even hiding it anymore:
1. These laws almost always have massive and dangerous unintended consequences that hinder innovation, speech or both.
2. More importantly, these laws don't actually work at stopping piracy.
You left out a big one:
3. "Stopping piracy" is not the same as "increasing profits."
Simply put, spending resources on stopping piracy is often a bad business decision for the entities whose works are being pirated. You're spending resources (often a significant amount) on stopping something that doesn't necessarily result in lower profits; resources that should be spent on developing more content, better formats, wider distribution, and so forth.
So, not only does "stopping piracy" potentially victimize the general public and other companies, it victimizes the rights holders as well.
On the post: Just As Many Musicians Say File Sharing Helps Them As Those Who Say It Hurts
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That is simply false. Without copyright, there would be no post-publication monopoly, and that is what copyright is. Without the statutes, I would have as many rights to copy, distribute, perform, etc. that work as the author does. Without copyright, those rights are "owned" by the public, because every member of the public "owns" their own property and free speech rights.
Let's be clear here. If by "initially," you mean "prior to publication," then you are right. But that's not what copyright is. Copyright is a post-publication monopoly. Were the work unpublished, it would be covered by other rights (privacy rights, private property rights if the work needs to be physically taken to be published, or what have you). These rights are not granted by Congress, do not exist "for limited times," etc. And they end as soon as the work is first published. The author "owns" those rights to exactly the same degree as he "owns" the rights to any other book on his shelf.
But the monopoly rights granted by copyright absolutely are held by the public initially. That's why copyright is not a right granted to authors in the Constitution. It is a right that is granted to Congress, because Congress represents the public - the ultimate "owner" of those rights.
On the post: Just As Many Musicians Say File Sharing Helps Them As Those Who Say It Hurts
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, they are. They are given to the author, by the public (through their representatives), via statutory copyright laws. If copyright did not exist, they would not first be held by the author. They would be held by every member of the public.
On the post: Just As Many Musicians Say File Sharing Helps Them As Those Who Say It Hurts
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Er, initially vest in the public. Sorry.
On the post: Just As Many Musicians Say File Sharing Helps Them As Those Who Say It Hurts
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That the public would have gotten the rights had it not been for copyright, is exactly what I have stated. It is not an argument, it is a fact.
If copyright did not exist, all works would be in the public domain. I, as a member of the public, have rights in public domain works. I can produce copies of them; and those copies are my property, to dispose of as I see fit. I also have the right to prepare derivative works, to perform the work publicly, and so forth. I have just as much a right to sell them, or not, as I do to engage in any other form of commerce with my own property. And because these acts are expressive in nature, they also arise from my free speech rights.
If you were correct, then as soon as a work enters the public domain, nobody would have the right to copy them, distribute them, perform them, or what have you. This is not what happens, and if it was, it would unquestionably involve Constitutional rights to speech, commerce, and property, and the laws that prevented me from doing so would almost certainly be unconstitutional.
Those rights do not arise from the government, and they do not arise from authors. They initially invest in the public, and are shared among all members of it. In theory, the public grants a limited monopoly on those rights to the author exclusively. It does this because granting this monopoly provides a financial incentive to produce and distribute artworks. The public benefits more from this increased production and distribution, than it loses from giving up those speech and property rights.
That is why copyright is supposed to exist. But the moment that the detriments to the public outweigh the benefits to the public, then lawmakers have a public duty to change the laws until the balance is once more in the public's favor.
So, once again. If artists make the majority of their money from sources that don't require copyright, then copyright probably isn't acting as an effective incentive to create and distribute artworks. Why should the public put up with the loss of their rights? What are we all getting out of it? Why shouldn't we get rid of some (or all) of those rights?
On the post: Just As Many Musicians Say File Sharing Helps Them As Those Who Say It Hurts
Re: Re: Also Intreasting.
Yes, it does. It breaks down the amounts by income group. Those in the top 1% do not make any more from recording income than the lower 99%.
Unless you think it matters whether someone who makes $100K per year as a musician is a "hobbyist" or not.
On the post: Just As Many Musicians Say File Sharing Helps Them As Those Who Say It Hurts
Re:
The numbers were the same at least as far back as 2004, when there was far less piracy than today.
And as far as anyone knows, it was always the case, even back in the 90's. Musicians always made more money from things that didn't require copyright restrictions (live income, work-for-hire situations, teaching salaries, etc).
There was never a time when most musicians made their money from recording or composition royalties. They were always a pittance.
On the post: Just As Many Musicians Say File Sharing Helps Them As Those Who Say It Hurts
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's exactly what happens. Were it not for copyright, everyone would have the right to copy, distribute, or perform whatever expressive works they pleased. They would have these rights as both property rights, and free speech rights.
That includes the authors themselves, of course. Copyright doesn't give license to copy, perform, and distribute copies of expressive works; such a government-granted licensing scheme would be clearly unconstitutional. The only thing copyright does is allow authors to take away these rights from everyone else.
Whether or not you believe copyright is justified, you cannot deny that it is nothing other than the removal of certain rights from the public.
Given this undeniable fact - if the majority of musicians' income is from things that don't rely on copyright, why shouldn't we limit copyright? The only reason the copyright monopoly exists is to grant authors a financial incentive to publish. Why should the public put up with the restrictions on their natural rights if it isn't absolutely necessary?
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re:
In fact, this fool is the person who used to post as Average Joe:
http://www.techdirt.com/user/average_joe
If you dig through his old comments, you'll see that he's a law student who started at some Southern law school around 2009 or so, after earning a degree in mathematics.
Mike and I have been debating him for quite a while. But for whatever reason, he totally lost his shit in 2012, and has been nothing but a whiny crybaby ever since.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120818/01171420087/funniestmost-insightful-comments-week- techdirt.shtml#c1210
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re: Re: I'm not sure why this is relevant.
1. Most of the articles Swartz downloaded were not copyrighted. They were public domain. JSTOR locks them up and charges for them anyway.
2. If copyright really were a "social contract," then society at large should be able to change it or do away with it. If Congress truly represented the will of the people, they would, since the majority of people now believe that non-commercial infringement is not a social evil. Certainly, most people seem to believe that what Swartz did was not morally wrong; or at least not enough to deserve jail time.
3. There is nothing "objective" about copyright. The fact that the "scarcity" (actually, monopoly - the goal is not scarcity, but wider distribution to the public) is artificial means that it is not objective. It does not exist in nature; copyright laws are not securing any natural right. It is purely a creature of legal statutes, and is exactly as "objective" as the "right" to make a right turn at a red light.
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re:
Except, of course, when he stated his opinion:
- http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130121/14473121743/global-hackathons-prepared-to-carry-forward-wo rk-aaron-swartz.shtml#c377
Here's the more important question: What does Mike Masnick's opinion on copyright law, have to do with Aaron Swartz or prosecutorial misconduct?
The answer: None.
Meaning you're trolling the comments to harangue Mike about irrelevant bullshit.
On the post: Prenda Law Fails In Attempt To Remove Judge Who Wants To Know Who Alan Cooper Is
Re: Re:
I would love it if someone did a documentary on Prenda, Righthaven, and the other copyright trolls. Think we could convince Nick Broomfield? It might turn out even stranger than "Aileen Wuornos: the Selling of a Serial Killer."
On the post: A Music Streaming Service That Builds In CwF+RtB? Built By Trent Reznor And Ian Rogers? Sign Me Up
Re:
They're still around, and still deserve your business. (Disclaimer: a friend's fiance works there.)
On the post: Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
Re: Re: Point 3
If you count the boardrooms of Righthaven, Prenda Law, or the CEG... then I'd have to say yes.
On the post: Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
Re: Re: ridiculous
"Retractions?" Hell, I'd be surprised if he ever put up an "About Us" section.
Can you say "astroturf?"
On the post: Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
Re: Re: ridiculous
Apologies, I thought I fixed this sentence before posting. It does represent the IP address of a computer; that IP address is dynamically assigned by the router. It cannot be associated with a specific computer after the router or computer is restarted.
But so far as I know, the only IP address that the ISP logs, is the external IP address of the router.
On the post: Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
Re: ridiculous
No, it certainly is not.
The BitTorrent UI has the IP addresses IN PLAIN SIGHT.
The BitTorrent UI does not send every IP address back to BitTorrent, Inc. And, if you value privacy rights, that's a good thing.
The UI, in turn, gets the IP addresses of people sharing that file from the tracker, not the BitTorrent client.
That IP address, in turn, represents the external IP address of a router, not of any device hooked up to it, nor of any particular person.
Every person in the swarm on any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie is breaking Federal law 17 USC 106 - PERIOD.
Unless those artists have authorized the file to be shared, in which case those people are breaking no law at all. Neither the authors of the client software, nor the people running the tracker, have any way to tell the difference.
You're also assuming it's easy to tell whether a file is of media from "any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony movie." It's not. The hash is just a bunch of numbers, representing an anonymous chunk of digital data.
The bottom line is that US ISPs are shielding their subscribers and Verizon who makes $120 BILLION A YEAR (TWENTY TIMES THE WHOLE US RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY) spends millions in legal fees aided by Google-backed EFF to make it impossible to enforce copyright.
ISP's are in the copyright holders' back pockets, though they're "helped" along by government intimidation (see: the "six strikes" deals).
Also, ISP's make tons of money because a fast internet connection is a necessity in this day and age. And Verizon is much more than an ISP. I believe most of their profits nowadays come from smartphones and such. Their profits don't come from piracy, and they have no financial interest in protecting pirates. They do, however, have an interest (financial and otherwise) in protecting their customers' privacy rights, which is why they're "shielding their subscribers."
The EFF is not primarily (or even significantly) funded by Google. And neither Google, nor the EFF, nor Verizon, nor ISP's in general are trying to "make it impossible to enforce copyright."
This is all just the usual conspiracy theory nonsense. It's bogus misinformation that is deliberately propagated by large content corporations to curry favors in Washington.
If an IP address isn't enough information to stop piracy, why is that method so effective with spam.
1. It's not effective with spam. Spam blocking requires much more than just an IP address.
2. People who use an IP address for sending spam, generally do not use that IP for anything else, such as sending legitimate emails. That's not true with IP's associated with BitTorrent usage. If anything, that would just identify the IP addresses of the content industries' best customers.
And even if what you claim were possible, and was implemented, so what? It wouldn't mean higher profits for anyone, including "any Billboard Hot 100 artist, Disney, WB or Sony."
The content industries know this. Which is why they're not really interested in "stopping piracy" either. They're just interested in calling everyone a "pirate" who makes money off of the Internet. That way, they'll have more ammo when they demand money from them.
That's what your criticisms are all about. You don't give a rat's ass about "enforcing copyright." You just want to get your hand in the deep pockets of Google, Verizon, and ISP's, and you're using "piracy" as a justification to do it.
On the post: A Music Streaming Service That Builds In CwF+RtB? Built By Trent Reznor And Ian Rogers? Sign Me Up
Ian Rogers
We both grew up in Indiana listening to punk music in the 80's, and I know first-hand exactly what he's talking about regarding the recording industry at the time. I'm a bit jealous of him, actually - I'd love to have done as much for both technology and musicians. Guess I should have stuck with programming, instead of dropping out to study music composition...
Anyway, if he's on board with this project, then you know it's going to be awesome.
On the post: Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
Re: Ridiculous
Spam is much easier to detect than copyright infringent, even outright piracy.
1. It's possible to tell from the content of an email whether something is spam; it's impossible to tell whether a song (for example) is pirated or legitimate.
2. Lists of spam emailers are build from users. That is, a user gets a spam email, and reports that it is spam to Spamhaus; it is only then that Spamhaus knows to put it on a block list. To be as effective, a "copyright infringement" blocker would have to get data on "pirated" versions from its general user base - something that is a) completely inaccurate, and b) illegal, since only the copyright holder knows the copyrigt status of a particular song. Even rights holders themselves often get it wrong (see e.g. the Dajaz1 fiasco, Viacom v. Google, all the incorrect ContentID matches, etc).
We have something like #2 already. It's called a DMCA takedown notice. If those aren't working well enough for you, then tough titties.
If BitTorrent, uTorrent, Vuze, etc. simply maintained a blacklist of copyrighted hashes like spamhaus, 50% of all illegal downloading would disappear.
Even if they did maintain a "blacklist," it would be completely ineffective, since they only provide the software. They don't provide trackers - so they would have no way of blocking anything on that "blacklist."
And even that "blacklist" would be ineffective, because all a seeder has to do is break up that same file into different-sized pieces, and the hash will be totally different. Not to mention that hashes of different versions of the same content will be completely different.
IMHO Why doesn't Techdirt advocate such reasonable measures, why don't ISPs - because they are PRO-PIRACY.
If you think ISP's are "PRO-PIRACY," then your "humble opinion" is worthless.
IMHO They want to do anything and everything to keep illegal free media alive while HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS and jobs are lost.
There is no evidence of lost jobs due to piracy. There are plenty of lost jobs, but those jobs would be lost without piracy, because the decline in revenue is likely due to other factors.
Your "DVD sales" figures are an example. Why is the decline in DVD sales due to piracy, and not due to Netflix, Hulu, Redbox, iTunes downloads, or any of the other completely legal services, which don't generate as much income per movie as a DVD sale? Why is it not due to cross-competition from things like video games? Why is it not due to the rigidity of the format - that it is legally impossible to play a DVD on your phone or tablet?
Disney announced layoff last week citing Home Video decreased due to piracy - Disney! Those are your friends and neighbors out of work.
As others have pointed out, the Disney layoffs had nothing to due with piracy, and came on the heels of one of Disney's most profitable periods in many years. The fact that you are blaming piracy shows that you are either ignorant, or willing to lie to promote propaganda.
You might want to reconsider your username. You're certainly not ethical, and I'm not even sure you're a "fan."
On the post: Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
Re:
Though overstated, I think you're absolutely right.
The content industries only shout "piracy" when they want more control at the bargaining table. They're not even hiding it anymore:
Recording Industry Calls Radio 'A Kind Of Piracy'
The fact that their "bargaining table" is now located in the back rooms of Congress, makes it even more odious.
On the post: Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
Point 3
2. More importantly, these laws don't actually work at stopping piracy.
You left out a big one:
3. "Stopping piracy" is not the same as "increasing profits."
Simply put, spending resources on stopping piracy is often a bad business decision for the entities whose works are being pirated. You're spending resources (often a significant amount) on stopping something that doesn't necessarily result in lower profits; resources that should be spent on developing more content, better formats, wider distribution, and so forth.
So, not only does "stopping piracy" potentially victimize the general public and other companies, it victimizes the rights holders as well.
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