Since i didn’t state that i believe that, i’m not sure who you are agreeing with.

> “..I think it should be strongly discouraged against legal alternatives..”

People should be discouraged from one legal because of another legal alternative?

> “..to compensate people for their effort.”

You don’t seem to understand how entrepreneurship works. The entrepreneurs are never compensated for their effort. All the work and effort that entrepreneurs perform will always go unpaid, because it is not work for hire or an employed job. That’s what differentiates self chosen risk taking entrepreneurship from regular employment.

The money that is later collected through sales is not a compensation for that initial effort, it’s payment for the sold goods or services, nothing else.

People usually buy those goods and services because they feel that the asked for price corresponds with the perceived value of the good or service, not because they want to compensate any earlier effort.

If that would be the case, it would be charity, but encouraging people to give charity to self chosen entrepreneurs is a rather anti-capitalistic and anti-free market suggestion you put forward. According to capitalism and the free market rules, the responsibility for making sales and generating revenues lies on the entrepreneur alone.

His success is something that he himself should achieve, it’s not something that should be taken care of through charity, and people most certainly should not feel guilt unless they give charity to self chosen entrepreneurs. Such bizarre social behaviour would destroy the free market and competitive entrepreneurship, and generate products of lesser quality.

When you say “I think it should be strongly discouraged against legal alternatives to compensate people for their effort”, what you in essence are saying is that you believe artists are, or should be, freetards that should receive charity, instead of competing for it as a regular entrepreneurs.

> “If you think that ‘watching things has always been free’ and mean film, TV, music, books, what have you, you are both naive and a buffoon.”

Stating the indisputable fact that watching things is free makes you a naive buffoon? Here’s an idea, why don’t you sit down and watch or read a copy you have in front of yourself, and you will indeed find that it is free.

> “It has already been paid for you.”

No, it has not, because watching is always free. What has possibly been paid for is something else, as in the copy, but something else or the copy was not what i discussed.

But it should be noted that the original copies of what’s available on the filesharing networks have also been paid for in one way or another.

> “If you’re in the position to think this, you have been privileged all your life..”

Watching is free for all people, regardless of what i think, or how privileged i am. Access to copies of culture has also been free for everyone for the last 170 years, because of a thing called libraries.

> “If your only definition of monetary transactions only relate to goods and services..”

No, not monetary transactions, buying was the key word. And it’s not my definition, that’s society’s definition, and it says that only two things can be bought by a consumer, goods or services, and you can verify this fact in your own consumer legislation.

> “..I pity your image of the world, and how little you seem to understand about art and the people who create it.”

Understanding for art and the people who create it has nothing to do with the economical and legislative fact that only goods and services can be bought by a consumer. Having understanding for this fact says nothing about a persons image of the world.

> “Come to think of it, I kinda feel sorry for you either way.”

What leads you to believe that your personal feelings about any people have anything to do with this discussion?

If you think that ‘watching things has always been free’ and mean film, TV, music, books, what have you, you are both naive and a buffoon. It has already been paid for you. If you’re in the position to think this, you have been privileged all your life and probably are too accustomed to it to fully see the reality of people making things happen around you.

If your only definition of monetary transactions only relate to goods and services I pity your image of the world, and how little you seem to understand about art and the people who create it. Come to think of it, I kinda feel sorry for you either way.

I guess it’s time to permanently move away from US based companies and use a European one instead.

Now, however, I’m finding certain TV series are being removed as soon as they hit Usenet, for example 666 Park Avenue, Fringe, Supernatural. The odd thing is they seem to be only targeting HD rips (720 or 1080) as I can find 420 rips without a problem.

I’ve confirmed this issue with Astraweb, Newsgroupdirect and UNS. I’m now going to find a block provider who does not have servers in the US and will hopefully not comply with DMCA takedowns.

http://www.legalmetric.com/cases/copyright/txnd/txnd_306cv00338.html