My French is limited to ordering food that isn't snails and a beer, but from the English translation it seems that he may be talking in the context of the Hadopi warnings sent in that time period instead of the actual number of downloads. Presumably those warnings only get sent to those who are subject to the law (i.e. people living in France).
If that's the case, at least I can't prove him wrong by pointing to a copy of Amelie timestamped september 2011 on my friend's hard drive (who have subsequently harpooned his hard drive, disconnected his internet tubes and moved to a snow cave in Nepal, no need to pursue him).
But it's hard to believe that not a single Frenchman downloaded a single French movie during those months, at least since there were 110 million "incidents", 8 million reports and 800k warnings sent out concerning illegal downloading of foreign movies.
There is only one statistically sane way to explain why the Hadopi numbers show 800k warnings for downloading foreign movies and 0 warnings for downloading French movies: they don't want French movies in their numbers. That way they can say the numbers show excellent progress and pretend the law is working just fine (at least for the French).
This sounds like a good idea. Whenever I want to watch a movie, I always search for "Illegal pirate torrent site", and if that has no results I go rent a VHS cassette. But for years now, there has been loads of search results, so Google is kind of forcing me to be a pirate.
I like the 6th search result best, it's a list of all the top torrent sites, file-hosting sites, streaming sites, linking sites and much more. It's a bit verbose, using pirate jargon like "Special 301 out of cycle review of notorious markets" instead of a simple "top lists", but you'll get used to it.
Anyway, the list is made by a pirate group called "MPAA", those should be censored or have their tubes taken away, the facilitating bastards.
I agree with Scalia. And I assume Beelzebub is out shopping for some new ice skates by now.
The constitution postulate some pre-existing rights. One is freedom of expression, others are only implied or not mentioned at all except in the 9th amendment. In my mind, these include a right to privacy, and a right to raise my children in a way I see fit.
These pre-existing rights will in their nature limit eachother. You have a right to expression, but it is not limitless. You do not have the right to express yourself in my home if I don't want you there, nor do you have the right to express yourself to my children in my home if that harms my parenting.
The government should protect our rights, and should codify such protection when neccessary. Laws that recognice these limits between our natural rights is not abridgement of these rights, the right to free expression is already abridged by some of our other rights.
Most people have TVs at home. If you buy a cable subscription you can watch cable channels. If you don't like what is on the cable channels you can cancel those channels, no rights are violated and no censorship is neccessary.
TVs can also show channels broadcast over public airwaves. If you don't like what is on the public channels you can use the on/off button. For adults, no rights are violated and no censorship is neccessary.
Parents on the other hand can't always control when their children use the on/off button. If they don't want their children to see naked statue butts, then that's their right. There should therefore not be naked statue butts on public channels unless parents can control those channels.
One solution is giving parents control over these channels. Some rudimentary parental control is available on most new TVs, but it doesn't cover all type of programs, it is difficult to use, and there is usually no way to allow statue butts but disallow violence. And there is no "Scalia is inappropriate"-option.
Another solution is some censorship of public airways. With censorship all you have to do is get parents who don't want naked statue butts to agree with parents who think naked non-statue tits are just fine and parents who object to palm trees and red paint but not blue paint. Censorship is harmful to those who want to see naked statue butts or whatever else is censored, but as long as there are uncensored alternatives outside the public airways, and as long as we don't censor ridiculous things like naked statue lower thighs, the harm from such censorship is limited.
Any solution will be a mess, but whatever solution makes the least mess is fine with me. Today that seem to be some commonly agreed upon censorship on public airways. Tomorrow it will hopefully be actual parental control over what your TV can show. The next generation will wonder what the heck a TV is and all this will be moot.
I think I recognize this sort of behavior. The story on Monday will be about this note:
"To my judge.
This is Shawn's mom. Shawn can't come to court today because he has the flu. He mailed the paper he was supposed to send you, but I saw that the neighbors dog attacked the mailman and ate the homework, and now I'm too sick to do it again.
(sign)
My mom."
The 200 million illegal watched Daily Shows confuse me. The show is available on their own website for free. I imagine most people watching it online watch it on their website, because its easier. Some people download it from some evil pirate site, for whatever reason, but what exactly is the harm in that? When the legal alternative is to watch it for free, how much does Viacom lose if someone downloads it?
I'm outside the U.S., and Viacom has partially blocked the Daily Show website for a couple of years. The full episodes were blocked, but the individual segments were available. Even though everything were available, the clicking became tedious fast, and I imagine most of the 200 million downloads are due to annoyed, blocked people. But still, everything was still available for free on their own website, so how much have the illegal downloads cost them?
I noticed the full episodes are no longer blocked here. I assume Viacom made some bad international syndication deals that blocked parallell internet broadcasting, and that those deals now have run out and been replaced with sane deals. If that's the case, horray!, and I predict far less evil illegal downloads of the show next year.
As a Norwegian, I feel a few points need to be clarified.
1) The Finns are completely crazy. The northern lights are visible from northern Norway 80% of the time, while they are only visible from northern Finland 75% of the time. How can they want tourists to visit them with only 75% chance of northern lights instead of 80%? They're insane!
2) We are simple people in Scandinavia, still used to the old ways of using stealing and owning things as metaphors when talking about markets. Much like Apple owning the mp3-player market and Pepsi stealing 5% of the cola market from Coca Cola last year.
We haven't yet grasped the new ways of trademarking, copyrighting or perhaps patenting the northern lights and enforcing our rights via lawsuits, or if that fails lobbying for stricter celestial penomenon rights. We'll catch up soon though.
You really shouldn't question the competency of the patent examiners when you don't have all the facts. What they know, and you don't know, is that this really was invented just now and not in 1885. All the prior art is just a byproduct of Doc Brown travelling back to 1885 in his DeLorean with a 2015 camera sling.
"Establishing and maintaining user-controlled anonymous communications"? Did this Jay Walker guy possibly invent talking to other people?
Seems I might need a counterclaim to cover myself. Perhaps I should patent "A method for a pedestrian to cross a roadway containing vehicles with the right of way."
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Conscientiouspirate.
We decide what's included in our numbers
If that's the case, at least I can't prove him wrong by pointing to a copy of Amelie timestamped september 2011 on my friend's hard drive (who have subsequently harpooned his hard drive, disconnected his internet tubes and moved to a snow cave in Nepal, no need to pursue him).
But it's hard to believe that not a single Frenchman downloaded a single French movie during those months, at least since there were 110 million "incidents", 8 million reports and 800k warnings sent out concerning illegal downloading of foreign movies.
There is only one statistically sane way to explain why the Hadopi numbers show 800k warnings for downloading foreign movies and 0 warnings for downloading French movies: they don't want French movies in their numbers. That way they can say the numbers show excellent progress and pretend the law is working just fine (at least for the French).
Good idea
I like the 6th search result best, it's a list of all the top torrent sites, file-hosting sites, streaming sites, linking sites and much more. It's a bit verbose, using pirate jargon like "Special 301 out of cycle review of notorious markets" instead of a simple "top lists", but you'll get used to it.
Anyway, the list is made by a pirate group called "MPAA", those should be censored or have their tubes taken away, the facilitating bastards.
Google Mars
My money is on Google sending some guys in a street view car, it's currently missing from www.google.com/mars
Scalia is right?
The constitution postulate some pre-existing rights. One is freedom of expression, others are only implied or not mentioned at all except in the 9th amendment. In my mind, these include a right to privacy, and a right to raise my children in a way I see fit.
These pre-existing rights will in their nature limit eachother. You have a right to expression, but it is not limitless. You do not have the right to express yourself in my home if I don't want you there, nor do you have the right to express yourself to my children in my home if that harms my parenting.
The government should protect our rights, and should codify such protection when neccessary. Laws that recognice these limits between our natural rights is not abridgement of these rights, the right to free expression is already abridged by some of our other rights.
Most people have TVs at home. If you buy a cable subscription you can watch cable channels. If you don't like what is on the cable channels you can cancel those channels, no rights are violated and no censorship is neccessary.
TVs can also show channels broadcast over public airwaves. If you don't like what is on the public channels you can use the on/off button. For adults, no rights are violated and no censorship is neccessary.
Parents on the other hand can't always control when their children use the on/off button. If they don't want their children to see naked statue butts, then that's their right. There should therefore not be naked statue butts on public channels unless parents can control those channels.
One solution is giving parents control over these channels. Some rudimentary parental control is available on most new TVs, but it doesn't cover all type of programs, it is difficult to use, and there is usually no way to allow statue butts but disallow violence. And there is no "Scalia is inappropriate"-option.
Another solution is some censorship of public airways. With censorship all you have to do is get parents who don't want naked statue butts to agree with parents who think naked non-statue tits are just fine and parents who object to palm trees and red paint but not blue paint. Censorship is harmful to those who want to see naked statue butts or whatever else is censored, but as long as there are uncensored alternatives outside the public airways, and as long as we don't censor ridiculous things like naked statue lower thighs, the harm from such censorship is limited.
Any solution will be a mess, but whatever solution makes the least mess is fine with me. Today that seem to be some commonly agreed upon censorship on public airways. Tomorrow it will hopefully be actual parental control over what your TV can show. The next generation will wonder what the heck a TV is and all this will be moot.
You wouldn't download a car
You wouldn't break into my shed and steal all my CDs and DVDs? Seriously, would you? I don't mind, I kind of need the space.
Leave the car alone though, I forgot to make a copy and they're difficult to download.
Excuses
"To my judge.
This is Shawn's mom. Shawn can't come to court today because he has the flu. He mailed the paper he was supposed to send you, but I saw that the neighbors dog attacked the mailman and ate the homework, and now I'm too sick to do it again.
(sign)
My mom."
(untitled comment)
I'm outside the U.S., and Viacom has partially blocked the Daily Show website for a couple of years. The full episodes were blocked, but the individual segments were available. Even though everything were available, the clicking became tedious fast, and I imagine most of the 200 million downloads are due to annoyed, blocked people. But still, everything was still available for free on their own website, so how much have the illegal downloads cost them?
I noticed the full episodes are no longer blocked here. I assume Viacom made some bad international syndication deals that blocked parallell internet broadcasting, and that those deals now have run out and been replaced with sane deals. If that's the case, horray!, and I predict far less evil illegal downloads of the show next year.
(untitled comment)
1) The Finns are completely crazy. The northern lights are visible from northern Norway 80% of the time, while they are only visible from northern Finland 75% of the time. How can they want tourists to visit them with only 75% chance of northern lights instead of 80%? They're insane!
2) We are simple people in Scandinavia, still used to the old ways of using stealing and owning things as metaphors when talking about markets. Much like Apple owning the mp3-player market and Pepsi stealing 5% of the cola market from Coca Cola last year.
We haven't yet grasped the new ways of trademarking, copyrighting or perhaps patenting the northern lights and enforcing our rights via lawsuits, or if that fails lobbying for stricter celestial penomenon rights. We'll catch up soon though.
(untitled comment)
(untitled comment)
Seems I might need a counterclaim to cover myself. Perhaps I should patent "A method for a pedestrian to cross a roadway containing vehicles with the right of way."
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Conscientiouspirate.
Submit a story now.
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