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Will the Upcoming Six Strikes Scheme Stop Piracy?

The much-discussed U.S. six strikes anti-piracy scheme is expected to go live within a month. A reputable source told TorrentFreak that February 18 has been selected as the provisional launch date, but CCI denies this. In the meantime we’ll take a look at the expected effectiveness of the copyright alerts system. Will it be able to turn pirates into legitimate customers or will it drive people to VPNs and other means of sharing?

copyright alertsIn a few weeks the MPAA, RIAA and five major U.S. Internet providers will start to warn BitTorrent pirates.

The parties founded the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) and agreed on a system through which copyright infringers are told that their behavior is unacceptable. After five or six warnings ISPs will then take a variety of repressive measures.

This week TorrentFreak learned from a source close to CCI that the system is currently scheduled to launch on February 18. However, a spokesperson for the copyright alerts system denies that there is a hard launch date at the moment, and stated that they are “still working towards implementation.”

Exact launch date or not, it appears that after more than a year of delays the copyright alerts will soon go live. The question remains, however, if the plan will be an effective tool to decrease piracy.

The answer to this question is not an easy one to arrive at, but it’s evident that not all copyright infringers are at risk of being caught.

First it has to be noted that the copyright alerts only target a subgroup of online pirates, namely BitTorrent users. The millions of users of file-hosting services, Usenet and streaming sites are not going to be affected.

Needless to say, piracy on these services is likely to increase rather than decrease.

And that’s just half of the story. Even those who keep using BitTorrent can avoid the warnings by signing up for one of many anonymizer services.

BitTorrent proxies and VPN services are the preferred way for people to remain anonymous while downloading. These services replace a user’s home IP-address with one provided by the proxy service, making it impossible for tracking companies to identify who is doing the file-sharing.

In the U.S. 16% of all file-sharers already hide their IP-address, and this is likely to increase when the copyright alert system goes live.

The above doesn’t mean that the copyright alert system will have no effect whatsoever. In fact, it may be quite effective in deterring a small percentage of casual ‘pirates’. However, we expect that the overwhelming majority of copyright infringers will simply take measures to avoid being caught, while continuing their downloading habits.

Of course this is not news to the copyright holders or the ISPs.

When CCI Executive Director Jill Lesser was confronted with these circumvention options she stressed that the main purpose of the alerts is to educate the public. The participating parties realize that determined individuals can circumvent the system by using a VPN or switching to other means of file-sharing.

“Yes, there are ways around it, and yes there are other ways to pirate,” Lesser previously said, adding that these hardcore pirates are not the target of the system.

How big the real target group is will become apparent in the months to come, when the first statistics on U.S. BitTorrent usage are published after the six strikes come in.

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  • Anyone

    those that are deterred simply visit their friends that aren’t and bring a portable harddrive

    human nature cannot be stopped, sharing is what made our species great

    • ralph

      i agree with you completely. people growing up now are totally into sharing and they will either master a couple more technical things to hide their filesharing activities or bring their portable hard drive, sd card or whatever when they visit friends. Six strikes isn’t going to have much of an effect; people will adapt quickly.

    • DontCopyDatFloppy

      I think thumb drives are better, less fragile, but yeah…

    • Anon

      File sharing is the opposite of being a selfish asshole.

      Also is the inverse of stealing, since instead of taking something from someone, you’re giving it away to anyone who wants.

      It is the most natural display of compassion and care for others that a human can show to some complete stranger.

      Yet, copyfags and the government wants to kill it. They want us to be biased, selfish, individualistic (instead of community driven) self-entitled assholes who think that the only thing that matters is money.

    • xpmule

      naw what made our species great (what it is today) is the opposite selfishness !

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Price

      Price developed a new interpretation of Fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection, the Price equation, which has now been accepted as the best interpretation of a formerly enigmatic result.[6] He wrote what is still widely held to be the best mathematical, biological and evolutionary representation of altruism.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism

      The TV show “Dark Matters Twisted But True” Season 02 Episode 03. Did am interesting story on this.

      • Christopher Kidwell

        That scientist is an idiot, to be blunt and final on the matter.

      • Scary_Devil_Monastery

        “basically a scientist went and proved we don’t do anything except things that benefit us in some way and its genetic.”

        Most geneticists laugh at that simplified version of the story. If that was true, mothers would chuck their children out the window the second that child became a fiscal or time-consuming burden.

        The point is that mankind evolved as a tribe. Those traits which allowed the tribe as a whole to function better became evolutionary advantages. This includes caring for others and sharing information about interesting things.

        Sharing interesting information is arguably far more selected for than even greed and ambition.

        • Liam Jh

          “If that was true, mothers would chuck their children out the window the second that child became a fiscal or time-consuming burden.” – SDM
          Which brings up the great logic dilemma. If a village/family is starving the logical choice is to kill the children. They don’t contribute and only consume, a mother will have the chance to breed again during more plentiful times.
          The problem is logic does not allow for human compassion, a compelling desire for a mother to feed her child. It is genetically ingrained to protect the child, to nurture it and give it the best possible chance to continue the genetic line.
          People will continue too share, just in less obvious ways.

  • Steve Smith

    its like DRM and HDCP it don’t stop anything it just pisses off the legit customers

    • The Guy

      *sniff sniff* do you smell that? I smell a riot. Maybe…..

    • lakawak

      the new law has nothing to do with DRM, you dumb f*ck. If you are a “legit customer” then you have no problem with the 6 strikes law.

      • Guest

        Lakawak? Wow, I haven’t seen you hide behind that particular screen name in a while.

        Steve Smith is right. Like DRM, six strikes will do nothing but annoy legit customers. It will be completely useless at curbing piracy for its whole 10 minute lifespan.

        And many legit customers will have a problem with it, as it will be falsely identifying a whole lot of them.

        Also, it isn’t a law.

        Try again.

      • Guest

        I hope you are disconnected dude to “legit DMCA notices”.

        • azr

          lol

      • Andrew Lee

        This is not a goddamn law and if you would take more time to actually read the post you would know this. Yest I have a problem with it because many innocent people are going to be extorted before it’s said and done.

        How would you feel if I stole your internet from my laptop outside and downloaded gay porn. When they come after you the accusation alone would be humiliating as fuck. Would you fight it?
        If you did one thing is for sure everyone is going to think you’re a closet homosexual. Even if by some chance you win you’re reputation is going to be ruined.

        Don’t think this can happen? If you think that you’d be a fool.. There are going to be plenty of people warloading for shits and giggles. WiFi security is garbage on the average router which most people use. Even then if could be took farther by the people switching their id to read as your own.

        This is only going to hurt normal people that have basic computer knowledge at best. Which it might be good for them so they learn how to actually surf the web anonymously. A practice that should be done by all. It’s your right to have privacy and there is no reason you should not exercise that right to the fullest.

        With that said it’s you who is the dumb fucker.

        FFS I almost miss Wal-Mart because he was actually okay at trolling. It made it fun for me to be a dick and troll back..

  • Dashekey

    yeah but they can say we reduced it etc (bc they don’t see it, they can lt doesn’t exist, and like i though be4, bittorrent is stupid in the fact that it brags how many people are sharing a file in plain view on torrent stats on www (seeds 5432, leachers 1337) mafiaa says oh see look here, at least on emule it doesnt brag on www u have to get on network

    • Andrew me

      hopefully the bittorent coders will see a huge amount of people abandoning ship and they will do what they should have done and can easily do , encryption of the ip addresses , it is not hard in fact it would take very little to do it. I think the only reason they have not done it up until now is because they are afraid that their business will be attacked and closed down, Just like Megaupload.

      • UraPhake

        If that were true, then why hasn’t an open source app come into existence doing exactly that?

        • UraPhake

          Disqus sucks hard.
          Sorry for the double-post.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          google “Stealthnet”. Then google “Tribler”.

          Proof-of-concept already exists. The main problem being that onion routing always does cause a speed hit.

          And will, until a certain level of cable infrastructure becomes ubiquitous.

      • UraPhake

        If that were true, then why hasn’t there been an open source app already in use doing exactly that?

      • Whatever

        You can’t encrypt an IP address.

        You can hide it by putting a proxy between you and the internet but in Germany (TF article) it seems you can get convicted anyway if infringing content passes through your computer.

        VPN, TOR, Freenet and other darknets work on that principle.
        (a bit more complicated than “a proxy” but still similar to a proxy)

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “in Germany (TF article) it seems you can get convicted anyway if infringing content passes through your computer.”

          Well, no. In Germany this is a gray area. One which according to the german constitution is quite clear. But given current law may have to be challenged.

          See, if you can’t pass on messages without knowing the content and still have to assume responsibility then “messenger immunity” is dead. And the EU’s telekom package has a lot to say about that.

  • http://www.genomicon.com Nick Taylor

    The only effective way of stopping “piracy” is to abolish copy-monopoly.

    Unfortunately, the only way of doing that, is by getting corporate money out of campaign finance, and making corporate “lobbying” of democratically elected officials illegal – with prison, rather than fines, for transgressors.

    Fortunately, this will solve pretty much every other problem in the entire world as well.

    • knglerxst

      I agree, but as long as we live in a profit-driven system that will never happen.

      • http://www.genomicon.com Nick Taylor

        With the rise of open-source, increasingly we’re not.

        I don’t think profit is the problem – I think people/corporations extracting more value than they create is the problem… the various different types of rent-seeking, through scarcities real or artificial.

        This speech from Winston Churchill has been doing the rounds recently http://www.progress.org/banneker/chur.html and ought to blow a mind or two.

        And linked to that, this:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH42V0Ggt-s

        In my most humble of opinions, “IP” is attempting to artificially create a scarcity against which unending rent can be charged… potentially far worse than land-based rent-seeking.

        • Fantastic

          Pretty much right, heck there were government officials that even prided themselves on having run off parts of the economic system with the line that the US could survive on just “Service Industries and IP” And the whole of the ’00 into the ’10 the US lost the Service dustiness to cheaper sources (the Indian Call Center being the classic example) And so for them to keep their last remaining support for their bloated carcass of a system they need to as you say create an artificial scarcity by limiting the sources to which people have access. Just so happens that also falls in line with their idea of a “responsibly informed” or whatever BS buzzword they last used for information censorship.

        • bobmail

          Sadly, you can go back over history to understand that the profit motive is generally what gets the populace the most benefit.

          if you look at the comparison between the profit motivated western economies versus those of Russia, China, and even Cuba, you can see the problems. China has only risen as an economic power when they embraced the idea of profit oriented business.

          IP does not create an “unending” rent. It creates a system by which someone like you can afford to see an amazing movie (example) and at the same time providing enough economic benefit to the creator (and the public purse) to make it viable to create to start with. You aren’t paying a rent, you are paying an incredibly small access fee that allows you things you otherwise couldn’t have.

          You have to consider the alternatives in a reasonable a logical manner to understand why that makes more sense.

        • Anyone

          funny you mention China
          they don’t care about IP and are doing great

        • SoundnuoS

          http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/12/ip_china_piracy_bsa_government_defends/

          China isn’t totally ignoring IP. Also, if a country achieves growth by ripping off inventions, what will happen once most inventions have been taken and growth starts to be dependent on innovating something yourself?

          Once that happens China will start caring more and more about IP.

        • ThumbsUpThumbsDown

          The last Great Big trade freebee that China got from the West was the Great Big avalanche of Opium with which the British East India Company tried to protect its monopoly Control by turning all of China into drug addicts.

          Sound familiar? The parallels really are striking.

          Your presumption that China will eventually buy into a Western Monopolized Copyright regime assumes a stunning lack of National moral and political Vision that today is infinitely more obvious in American and European Policy.

        • SoundnuoS

          I think they will and are in fact heading full steam towards it:
          http://www.economist.com/news/business/21569062-valuing-patents

          China’s patent office received more applications than any other country’s in 2011.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          None of which is enforced internally very well. Do we need to spell this out for you?

          In the 50′s, China said they would become the premier industry nation of manufacture. This they accomplished. IP was the last hurrah of an increasingly desperate US to maintain a solid fiscal standpoint.

          And China has said they will do the same to IP as they did in manufacture. Twenty years from now they aim to run Apple off the market presenting their own designs and using western patent law. While still not enforcing IP internally and thus gain an innovative edge over the competition.

          You keep blithering on about how IP motivates innovation without seeing the big black iron ball and chain it ties innovation to. When you need an entire legal team just to see whether you are allowed to research and market something – that is indeed stifling innovation.

          And a lot of western think tanks are saying the same.

        • bobmail

          It only works because China was so far behind. As a leader, they will join such copycat countries as Japan in suddenly finding the IP world way more interesting, and will push to protect their inventions. Basically, when you grow by being a copycat, you can never get past the leader.

          China is the ultimate proof in short term gains, but long term pain.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “Once that happens China will start caring more and more about IP.”

          China has 4000 years of history with a largely unchanged version of “tooth-and-claw” market capitalism. Unbroken save by the odd 50-year period of invading mongol hordes or would-be reformist.

          But you say that they are going to change their culture overnight? And that innovation will magically follow different rules all of a sudden?

          That argument doesn’t even go well over with what is happening in the west since the open-source sector is, today, the foremost place you look for innovations in software.

        • SoundnuoS

          I refer back to the link showing that China has overtaken other countries in the number of patent applications.
          The article brings the validity of some of those patents into doubt, but the trend is clear.
          Once those patents start making money, enforcing IP will become of more interest.

        • Guest

          Restricting the populace’s access to culture and knowledge does not, in any possible way, benefit it.

          It sure benefits the bridge-trolls doing the restricting, however. How nice of you to stand up for them.

          IP is essentially dead and yet artists are still being compensated perfectly fine, so IP clearly has shit to do with ensuring compensation. The only thing it creates in reality is a system for enriching the thieves sitting in between artists and consumers.

          @SoundnouS

          Confusing industrial plagairism with piracy, are we?

        • SoundnuoS

          Guest

          Confusing who the reply was made to? Anyone brought up China.

          IP is far from dead. The only reason creators are getting compensated is because of IP.

          What you seem to not understand is that the system with micropayments for culture that has enabled the diversity we have in popular culture.

          Expecting that diversity to continue without the financial support being there is highly unrealistic.

        • mike

          You do realize that authors and musicians that are signed to big labels make 10 cents for a single CD sale?

          It is the big labels and publishers that are the thiefs. Do you think any of that money that the RIAA extorted out of alleged “pirates” when to the content creators? In case you don’t know, the answer is no they didn’t get 1 penny from it.

          What diversity do we have in pop culture? It is all homogenized and bleached out for your protection. There is no popular culture anymore, it is simply corporate driven drivel with absolutely no no substance.

          The bridge trolls are no longer relevant. It used to be expensive to create and market music, no longer. It used to be impossible to get read with out finding a publisher.

          There are shows on YouTube that are home made that are heads above what is on network TV.

          There are self-published authors and musicians putting out first rate work, better than anything the industry has done in decades.

          Really the last place for the bridge trolls are in big budget, lots of explosions, brain dead movies, but do we really need more of those?

          The media companies are now irrelevant and they have no clue on how to change it. This is simply a last gasp attempt to stay alive. They are hanging over a cliff, and there is a thin tree branch barely reachable and not likely to hold their weight. They are about to grab it…

        • SoundnuoS

          You do realise that independently releasing authors and musicians get 100% of sales and that they get pirated like the rest once they reach a certain level of reknown?

          Imo the period of 1950-1999 was a period of increasing diversity in pop culture. Today, imo, that diversity is decreasing because of the reliance on safe bets.

          The things that sell big get pushed hard. The things that don’t sell as much or as fast get thrown aside.

          What tops the boxoffice? http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/
          We’re getting exactly the kind of movies we’re paying for.
          The amount of musicians working professionally has been in a downward curve since 2000.
          People are already saying with a straight face that the results of creative work should be considered pr.
          How is that making it easier to make a living while focusing on creating?

        • Ardvaark

          You know, an “incredibly small access fee” is actually pretty much a rent.

          If you have to pay, several times, to use the same product it pretty much is a rent. And that’s what in some countries the copyright law is forcing for example when they don’t allow format shift.

          And of course it will always be an incredibly small fee compared to the full cost of the product (they aren’t that insane yet), which still doesn’t mean it’s a fair price as pretty much the whole industry has a tendency to inflate the prices.

          That’s one of the many things wrong with the industry: disrespecting its customers by forcing them to pay several times for the same thing and restricting their personal property’s use at the same time.

        • mike

          If the alternative is that Hollywood stops with its endless parade of remakes, sequels and reboots(That covers 98% of movies in theatres and straight to DVD) or they go out a business how is that a bad thing?

          If the alternative is that the music industry actually supports quality artists instead of the braid-dead whores that they have now, or they go out of business, how is that a bad thing?

          Both the music and movie industry failed to adapt to the changing world, they could have enbraced it and been stronger for it. Instead, like the Dinosaur, they can not adapt and now must die.

          Good riddace to garbage.

    • Guest

      “Unfortunately, the only way of doing that, is by getting corporate money
      out of campaign finance, and making corporate “lobbying” of
      democratically elected officials illegal – with prison, rather than
      fines, for transgressors.      ”

      Do keep in mind that the group you are talking about is made up mostly of lawyers and politicians. Even if a law were to pass that made lobbying a felony offense, the bribery would go on with hardly a hiccup, just in more discreet and indirect ways that would leave less hard evidence. Not to mention the law itself would probably be written with submarine loopholes that would be exploited early and often to make sure no one actually got punished.

    • http://twitter.com/theedwingarcia Edwin Garcia
      • http://www.genomicon.com Nick Taylor

        You got the Occam’s Razor version of that?

        … because at a brief scan, it looks like the same logic and legalistic contortions that the US govt goes through to try to pretend torture isn’t torture… and I’m not in the slightest bit interested in reading screeds of copy-monopolist propaganda.

        “Intellectual Property” is a legal fiction – which creates micro-monopolies over pieces of information. These micro-monopolies are then aggregated by corporations into macro-monopolies that are used to kill competition, and to extract rents.

        But don’t take my word for it – try violating the copy-monopoly of some corporation. See how you get on.

        • bobmail

          There is no monopoly.

          You can write a new song, you can record it, you can sell it, and nobody in a monopoly can stop you.

          What you consider a monopoly is just ownership. it’s like saying “owning your car is a monopoly”. It’s meaningless sloganism from anti-copyright trolls.

        • Guest

          Nobody has ever said that the copyright monopoly is about preventing people from writing, recording, or selling songs, you world-class dipshit.

          It’s about obtaining exclusive control over the channels of distribution and taking away peoples’ property rights in the process.

          Jesus christ, do you not even understand that it’s called the copyright monopoly because it seeks to monopolize the right to copy?

        • bobmail

          “It’s about obtaining exclusive control over the channels of distribution and taking away peoples’ property rights in the process.”

          There is a monopoly on distribution? You mean this internet thing is a sham, the only distribution is a single type as defined by “the industry”?

          Wow, what type of crack do you smoke?

        • http://www.genomicon.com Nick Taylor

          1) You are trying to confuse “the act of writing a song” with “reproducing a song”.

          2) What I consider a monopoly is not “ownership”.

          What we are talking about here is a government imposed monopoly on the reproduction of information. The supreme court itself uses the term “monopoly” and has done for years (see fox film corp. v. doyal (1932))

          “Intellectual Property” is a legal fiction, created out of the need for religious censorship about 500 years ago. The IFPI (who used to be a service-industry for musicians) lobbied for and won their corporatist agenda where the musicians were now contract to them, in the only countries that would listen – fascist Italy, and fascist Portugal.

          As a creator today, the danger is not that someone will infringe on your “copyright”, it’s that you will be successful, and wind up being sued by a corporation because you’ve breached a copy-monopoly that they’ve bought from somewhere.

          George Harrison once said (when he’d infringed someone’s copy-monopoly, writing what he thought was an original song) “Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ”. This is now a business model. These are the trolls… not people like me who point out what they’re doing.

          Patent trolls have cost the US 1/2 a trillion dollars in the last 10 years.

          http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/numbers-dont-lie-patent-trolls-are-plague-205192

          …

          Anyway – back to your own untrue assertions, ask yourself this: “if the case I’m arguing is so good, why do I need to lie about it?”

        • bobmail

          “What we are talking about here is a government imposed monopoly on the reproduction of information. ”

          It’s not a monopoly. You have no limits to the amount of music or IP you have access to. There is no limit to the number of songs or movies made.

          Now, more importantly, you have to understand that the concept is that your small payment of rights to access the IP in question is a very small partial payment towards it’s creation. A movie that costs 50 million would be too expensive for you to access directly. Only under a system of control partial payments can there be a way to have these works even exist.

          You have to thing the whole thing through to understand it, rather than taking just a blind hatred into the game.

        • Anyone

          if there is no monopoly why can’t I legally share the latest Lady GaGa song with my friends?

        • Ardvaark

          “You have no limits to the amount of music or IP you have access to.”
          Depends of your point of view, if you mean in the long run (read months to a year) then probably yes for part of the world, but that was acceptable in 1990, not today. Today gated releases (which means exactly limiting access to content) is still used and unacceptable.

          “There is no limit to the number of songs or movies made.”

          That statement is absolutely pointless, the copyright monopoly is applied to the right to reproduce and copy, not to produce.

          “Now, more importantly, you have to understand that the concept is that
          your small payment of rights to access the IP in question is a very
          small partial payment towards it’s creation. A movie that costs 50
          million would be too expensive for you to access directly.”

          Again, this is completely fine. The problem comes when I’ve paid for a product and can’t, because of the copyright monopoly, share MY property with others or even worse, have to pay more fees in order to be able to use what I already have because format shifting isn’t allowed.

          You have to think the whole thing through to understand that rather than being the ONLY industry that advocates limitation and control of your customers’ property you should take example to the rest of the market and let go of copyright at once.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “It’s not a monopoly.”

          As some people have already noted, it is a monopoly. And the supreme court itself applies those terms to copyright and have since the 30′s.

          Now, bobmail, why are you lying about something which is so clearly defined all you have to do is to pick up a dictionary in order to verify it?

          And the rest of your argument seems just like a desperate attempt to run past the fact that it hinges on the false assumption you started with.

        • bobmail

          It’s because people here idiotically assume that narrow ownership of a single song or movie somehow constitutes the entire music or movie industries as a monopoly. That is just not the case.

          They are failing at context, and idiots like you encourage them along, not bothering to point out the error in their logic, the one so big you can drive a truck through.

          There is no monopoly on the music or movie industries, plain and simple.

        • http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole

          There is no monopoly on the music or movie industries, plain and simple.

          Nope, you’re right. But there is on property rights for purchased music or movies.

          Way to strawman, fucktard.

        • mike

          I can make a copy of any song or movie and it does no harm to the IP trolls.

        • jimmy671

          Bobby is a bought and paid for man,who will argue for any position his paymasters tell him.

          So any position you may take on copy-monopoly he will take the opposite view point.

        • SoundnuoS

          I see no trillions in the article you linked. No numbers at all in fact? How much has the US made from patents in the last 10 years?

        • Goodbyenoway

          What you fail to understand is that I actually “own” my car and can do with it what I wish, I don’t actually “own” the DVD or CD I buy. I’m not free to do with it what I wish. The actual “owner” retains all the legal rights for 70 plus years. Don’t you understand the difference or do you simply not care?

          It’s ridiculous that when I play a song that is 50 years old at my wedding I have to pay a royalty to the writer’s estate and record company. This scheme is ridiculous. It’s not about freedom or artistic creativity but about maximizing as much profit as possible over and over again. It’s legal, but it’s wrong.

        • SoundnuoS

          That’s the way it works. You’re not paying for ownership, you’re paying for access.
          You don’t get ownership of the amusement park because you pay the entrance fee.
          What you’re paying for access isn’t even close to covering the cost of production, therefore you can’t expect to have the right to redistribute.
          Or would you prefer to pay 200+ million to have the rights to the latest Bond?

        • Anyone

          if I don’t own the DVDs I buy, why bother buying them at all?

        • SoundnuoS

          You own the disc, you don’t own the rights to redistribute the content.
          Why buy it? Because that’s the way you get legal access to the material.
          Why pay for the chair from IKEA when you can just walk out the door with it?

        • Guest

          ” You’re not paying for ownership, you’re paying for access.”

          No, the world collectively called bullshit on that scheme a long time ago.

          When we pay for a movie, or an album, or a book, we’re now paying for the ownership of it. And if anybody disagrees with that, tough shit.

          This is how the 21st century works. Welcome to it.

        • SoundnuoS

          And that’s why strikes schemes are being implemented. That’s also how the 21st century works. Happy now?

        • Christopher Kidwell

          And when those strikes schemes end up with the companies that agree to them going out of business and encrypted transfer of files being the order of the day, we can say “BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I TOLD YA’S SO!”

        • SoundnuoS

          Well, at this point, there’s really no sure way of telling how this will pan out.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          I beg to differ. There is ample precedence in European countries, where some nations reported a twentyfold surge in use of encryption/anonymization services and increasing support for the pirate parties.

          Of course, that is in Europe. we shall see how it pans out in the US where to my understanding the MPAA/RIAA propaganda is even more loathed than over here.

        • MadAsASnake

          No. x strikes schemes are being implemented because they don’t have a case that will stand up in a court of law. x strikes is what us southerners call a kangaroo court.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “And that’s why strikes schemes are being implemented. That’s also how the 21st century works. Happy now?”

          Yes. Ten years from now the entire ISP market will be quite aware of the market cost of subjecting their entire customer base to an unsafe scheme such as this.

          And a number of venture capitalists will be happily reaping the rewards of startup ISP’s which do not adhere to such schemes.

          The already surging VPN business will receive yet one more boost – as if that was needed – as has happened in all other countries where such schemes were implemented.

          None of these changes are to the benefit of the industry you are standing up for here, and indeed, will bring to the desks of congressmen and senators much of the same criticism as was levied thanks to SOPA and PIPA, putting “Copyright enforcement” even closer to crunch time.

          Happy now? Yes, I am. I don’t see why you should be though.

        • SoundnuoS

          Results of Hadopi. Swedens music business growing last year after introducing measures against piracy. The links I posted below in reply to MadAsASnake on NZ and South Korea.
          Something seems to happen when measures are being taken against piracy.

        • mike

          @Soundnous,

          You do realize that the IP trolls have tried to stop people from selling their books, CD’s and DVD’s, first-sale doctrine be damned?

        • SoundnuoS

          Have tried is not the same as have succeeded. I still see used books, cds and dvds for sale all the time. There are even completely legal shops dedicated to this.

        • bobmail

          “When we pay for a movie, or an album, or a book, we’re now paying for the ownership of it. And if anybody disagrees with that, tough shit.”

          You sir are an idiot, plain and simple.

        • http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole

          pot, kettle, black.

          He’s not an idiot, he just understands property rights. Anyone who claims that copyright makes sense in comparison to property rights is the idiot. Plain and simple.

        • MadAsASnake

          Why in this connected digital world should buying a disk be the only way to “legally” access stuff? This is dinosaur stuff.

        • SoundnuoS

          Made in reply to the question about DVDs. Substitute file or stream if you like.

        • Ardvaark

          “You own the disc, you don’t own the rights to redistribute the content.”

          I own the disc and its content and I generate a copy of the disc’s content with my own processing power and electricity and then give that, or a copy of that, away. The disc, oddly enough (or not), retains its content and is as good as new. Also, I made no money from doing so, the lack of rights to redistribute means I can’t sell the disc. Sharing isn’t at all included in there.

          Why pay for the chair from IKEA when you can just walk out the door with it?
          Really? Because the store would then have no chair which would mean a loss to the store.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “the lack of rights to redistribute means I can’t sell the disc.”

          Actually, the first sale doctrine does tell you the disc is yours for selling. Copyright, however, makes the case that it is not as it tries to specify the information carried as the actual product you bought.

          This is one fundamental outcome which necessitates every sale of a CD with recorded media to be surrounded by a legal framework which rewords how you may handle your property.

        • SoundnuoS

          And giving away a copy to someone who would otherwise have bought but is now content with the copy means there’s one less buyer. It’s a loss to the orginal creator.

        • Ardvaark

          It is also a loss to the original creator if I sell my original copy and someone buys it second hand.

          Doing so is, however, 100% legal. So giving it away for free, a much nicer move, carries the same impact to the creator as reselling but the one involving money is allowed while the free one isn’t. That’s some fucked up logic right there.

          Furthermore you cannot associate 1 download with 1 lost sale. Most people wouldn’t have bought or even known about the existence of certain artists were it not for the sharing of media and for those who did, there’s absolutely no guarantee that they would have bought the product anyway.

        • SoundnuoS

          Difference being that you (should legally) lose access to it when selling the original. Same with lending, usually lending something means you lose access to it while it’s lent.

          Sharing a copy between close family is usually considered ok but sharing one with your closest 300 million friends stops being very nice, especially if the impact is on some indie artist who wouldn’t have sold a million records in the first place.
          Nothing fucked up about that logic.

          If you reread my post you’ll notice that I tried to word it to cover precisely the situation where giving it away means a lost sale.

          Most people won’t go looking for something they haven’t already heard about somewhere, so the pr effect of filesharing might be exaggerated.

        • Ardvaark

          “Difference being that you (should legally) lose access to it when selling the original.”

          That’s entirely your opinion. Seeing as most people pirate regardless of the law, It suggests that people consider it a pointless law. So it only enforces the need to change said law.

          Now off to the important part:

          ” sharing one with your closest 300 million friends stops being very
          nice, especially if the impact is on some indie artist who wouldn’t have
          sold a million records in the first place.”

          Once again, there is no factors indicating that the scale of sharing influences artists negatively. On the contrary there are several independent studies proving the exact opposite.
          And I’m glad you mention Indie artists because you should know the huge number of indie artists queuing to show up on the Promo Bay and Piratebay’s front page. They don’t seem to mind piracy at all.

          Or for example pay-what-you-want packages like the Humble Bundle where Indie devs gladly sell their products for pennies and actually report higher profits.

          Finally, ““Most people won’t go looking for something they haven’t already heard about somewhere…”.

          That is absolutely fake. Some people download, for example, user made sets of music from several artist and then go look for those they really enjoyed. Or watch a video on youtube with some,probably pirated, bgm and go download to check out the artist. And that’s how word of mouth spreads.

        • SoundnuoS

          I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that the number of studies claiming that piracy actually is causing harm far outweighs the number of studies claiming it doesn’t.

          Here’s three of them:

          http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1932518&rec=1&srcabs=1989240&alg=1&pos=1
          http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1990153&rec=1&srcabs=1989240&alg=1&pos=2
          http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1989240

          In the first one the author goes through some of the available studies. In the second the author points out what is wrong with one of the studies commonly cited as showing piracy causes no harm.

          The third shows that sales in France increased more than in other countries when Hadopi was introduced. The same seems to be true for other countries introducing measures against piracy.
          If piracy isn’t a lost sale, where are those extra sales coming from?

        • MadAsASnake

          How about finding some that aren’t from a copyright advocacy and that have been peer reviewed. No there are not more – it’s a very muddy and confused picture which reflects a very muddy and confused situation.

        • SoundnuoS

          ANU College of Law? University of Texas? Wellesley College? Carnegie Mellon?

          What makes you think they aren’t peer reviewed?

          I found some more:
          http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2132153
          http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=262651
          http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1145904

          Haven’t actually read these yet, just posting based on the abstract.

          A bit from the abstract of the first link:

          “Based on our review of the empirical literature we conclude that, while some papers in the literature find no evidence of harm, the vast majority of the literature (particularly the literature published in top peer reviewed journals) finds evidence that piracy harms media sales. “

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “Why pay for the chair from IKEA when you can just walk out the door with it?”

          No, you mean, why pay for the chair from IKEA when you can just sit in it?

          Assuming no one else is sitting in it or the chair isn’t parked in someone else’s room, I don’t see the problem.

          Information is not equal to physical property and can not either logically or legally be subject to the same laws.

        • Pirateslife

          Well, contrary to schemes such as Itunes, Ikea does not have the right to repossess your property after you die. You are not buying a share of Ikea when you buy a chair, you aren’t buying temporary access to a chair, you’re buying a chair.

        • mike

          I rarely buy DVD’s but when I do, the disc comes out once, to be ripped into a .iso file, encryption and all. The disc goes back in the case which get placed in a box.

          From here, I can watch it on my TV or on my computer, my Andriod, or stream it to my hotel room or my parents house when I visit.

          The MPAA claims this is illegal, despite the fact that it falls under fair use and does not break the treasonous DMCA because it does not circumvent encryption.

          Luckily I don’t use one of the ISP’s suckered into this death trap, so I don’t have to worry about it. But if my ISP did buy into this would I get a notice for streaming what I paid for for my use excusively?

        • bobmail

          Actually, you own the DVD or CD (physical part) but it is only a carrier or the content that you have licensed. You can’t have ownership in the strictest sense, because ownership would grant you all the controlling rights to resell and redistribute as an owner could.

          You don’t own it. You license it. You own the plastic it’s on, not what is on it.

        • http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole

          We understand the lie we’ve been sold. we just don’t agree with it, because it’s a restriction on our rights of property which don’t exist anywhere else in the world outside of “intellectual property”, which for some magical reason is subject to restrictions on our property rights in ways that nothing else is. Wat to be deliberately retarded.

        • ThumbsUpThumbsDown

          Keep writing Bobby!

          Your vast knowledge of Economics is showing.

        • SoundnuoS

          Strictly analyzed it is a monopoly on distribution, yes. That’s the only way you can ensure compensation to the original creator when it comes to selling immaterial products.
          It is however not a monopoly in the sense we usually understand the word, where competing products are being stopped from entering the market. No one gets to be the only one putting songs or movies on the market.

        • Anon

          every copy of the mona lisa is a different physical thing, and only physical things exist. if you don’t want to sink 200 million making your copy of a movie, then don’t. if you don’t want it copied, don’t publish. fine by me. don’t think you get to fuck with everyone else’s property and freedom of communication on some anti-physical theory of imaginary ‘property’. the copyright monopoly distorts the market to give you perverse incentive to engage in such assinine shit. you don’t own everyone else’s copies, you don’t get to charge for them. you didn’t make them. the world owes you nothing. you have your copy of 200 million dollar movie, it is the true physical result of your investment. if you’re unhappy with it, maybe you shouldn’t have invested. in a free market undistorted by copyright monopoly,. no doubt there would be many better investments. and remember – you still have it, even if somebody else has a copy too. no one is ‘stealing’ from you.

        • SoundnuoS

          As has been pointed out, any and all property laws are a product of society. Society says we can have intellectual property just like society says we can own a chair from IKEA.
          The only reason the stronger guy can’t take your chair is because society says he can’t. It’s the same with IP.
          No more or less reasonable.
          The morality behind the reasoning is also the same. You own the chair because you paid enough to get all the rights to it. You haven’t paid enough for the music or movie to get all the rights.
          What you buy when you’re buying a music or a movie is an experience. The experience doesn’t change because the music or movie is copied.
          Creating a new copy won’t create a new movie or piece of music that gives you a different experience.
          That’s why you still owe the person who created the experience something.
          Copyright exists because every reasonable person can clearly see that it’s absurd thinking you’ll get each and every right to a 200 million $ movie for 20$.
          Copyright exists because in the context of art there’s no reason why a unique song would be less valuable than the unique Mona Lisa.

        • Anon

          the mona lisa isn’t its copies. honestly, you merrily switch mental categories as you see fit to suit your insane agenda. either the mona lisa is its copies, or you’re wrong. oh yeah, you’re wrong.

          also remember, the work put into something doesn’t determine its value. the fact you sunk 200 million to produce something doesn’t mean you’re owed anything, that was your 200 million – and you still have the result. it is fundamentally unreasonable to expect payment from others for something you still have, whining as if you were giving it up in trade. no, the moral thing to do is recognise physical reality – each copy is a different thing.

          or if work did matter, then you should accept a linux cd as payment for virtually anything, after all the ‘cost’ is over 3 billion by conservative estimate.

          so again, the world owes you nothing. even if you were even slightly right, you’d still be wrong.

          when i buy something, it is mine to with as i please. opyright monopoly exists to steal from us all. if you don’t want something copied, don’t publish.

        • SoundnuoS

          They are in slightly different categories because in the case of paintings and sculpture hard matter becomes an unseparable part of the experience. One of the elements becomes knowing that the original creator made it himself. That isn’t there with the copies (even if you still have to compensate the creator for any copies you make of a painting)

          In the case of music and movies the reality is that every copy is the same thing. Each copy can provide the same experience and are equal in value from that pov.
          The art isn’t the medium, the medium is just a way of transferring the art.

          The fact is that the way music and movies are sold is through payment for access only. Do you also expect to own the amusement park because you’ve paid the entrance fee?
          Copyright doesn’t exist to steal from you. It’s a way of getting democratic access to art at reasonable prices.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “Society says we can have intellectual property just like society says we can own a chair from IKEA. “

          The logic is not the same. If a chair from IKEA could be copied by the touch of a button then it would be and society would be very quick to determine that it would be happy to allow you the rights to keep your property – and that the copy was NOT your property.

          In fact, that’s also what the law says about making a copy of media, as the copy does not belong to the rightsholder. It has simply been manufacture without rightsholder consent.

          And society does not back the view on copyright when presented as such.

          And cherry-picking the one line from Jeffersson which you can use to back your argument does not help when in fact Jeffersson’s entire argument was that Immaterial concepts do not and can not abide by such rules.

          Nor did your attempts at calling Jeffersson confused about the topic of immaterial property when the man had years serving a patent board and that the letter he wrote was adressing copyright as a concept.

        • SoundnuoS

          The logic is exactly the same. You get complete ownership to the chair because IKEA is willing to give you all rights to it for the price you’re paying. (Except the right to manufacture identical chairs and sell them, or even give them away as IKEA chairs. Why not? You paid for it)
          In the case of music or a movie the seller isn’t willing to give you rights of distribution with your purchase. Take it or leave it. Those are the conditions of sale, there’s nothing illogical about it.

          Please refute my arguments on Jefferson, they are still there in the thread. I made a second more clarifying post after your last one.
          http://torrentfreak.com/the-16th-century-religious-wars-and-todays-copyright-monopoly-wars-have-more-in-common-than-you-think-130120/

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Refute the argument you made?

          You mean the smoke and mirrors bit?

          Let me quote just one particular tidbit of particularly bad reasoning there…

          “…If you see a steam train rolling along the tracks you’re immediately struck by the idea: “Brilliant! A cart that moves itself over the tracks!” Now you have the idea and can’t indeed disposess yourself of it.
          This doesn’t mean you can do anything with it. You have no idea how to build a steam engine. This is the invention, that’s the bit that can be patented, and how to make that invention is not obvious from looking at it…”

          As soon as you have explained how the steam train is designed – better yet, provided a blueprint of the train – anyone who is a skilled mechanic can replicate it.

          This, in essence, is where so-called immaterial “property” breaks down as a concept. Because it insists that what is owned isn’t the blueprint, but the right to actually create a copy of what the blueprint describes.

          If how something works is not obvious then what you have is security by obscurity – people can not replicate it because it is known how to do so. As soon as that barrier falls, it doesn’t really matter whether the information is a blueprint of an iPhone or a train, or an mp3 providing the information on how to play a piece of music.

          Jeffersson’s argument is still sound – unless you already assume by default a definition of “property” which can not be logically extended.

          This is the same sort of attempt to move the goal posts you attempted when we were discussing the DMCA and you decide to sidestep the issue of “burden of proof” with a remarkably bad statement of whether one should abolish penalties of law instead.

        • SoundnuoS

          You’re actually just confirming my argument here. The idea is not the invention and the invention is not necessarily obvious from looking at it. It often needs extensive reverse engineering, blueprints and an education in order to find out how it’s done.

          And this is where Jefferson’s argument isn’t sound, first because he uses idea and invention interchangeably and secondly because he assumes the implementation will be immediately obvious to anyone looking at it.

          Even if you do figure out how something is made, knowing how it’s built is not the same as being able to invent it in the first place.

          An mp3 is not a blueprint to the song for the casual listener, as I pointed out. It takes years of training and some extensive reverse engineering to figure out how to make it.

          The goal posts aren’t being moved. I’m just pointing out where they actually are.

          The question is what it takes to create the material that is being shared on p2p networks. Anybody can duplicate a file, but it takes a lot more to create the original. That’s why society gives the right to the creator to charge for copies made.

          Nothing broken down about that concept. The piracy argument about being able to create something for “free” doesn’t become valid until new music and movies start spontaneously creating themselves on p2p networks.

        • MadAsASnake

          So please explain how 70 years encourages a dead person to create art?

        • SoundnuoS

          Please explain why children shouldn’t be allowed to inherit?

        • MadAsASnake

          again, how does 70 years encourage a dead persin to create art? Nothing to do with inheritance.

        • SoundnuoS

          70 years after death becomes about the inheritance. Copyright term in general isn’t just about forcing some 85-year old to continue working, it’s also about enticing new creators to dedicate themselves to creating.
          Long copyright terms becomes helpful because they at least create a slight hope that there can be something there to retire on.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “It is however not a monopoly in the sense we usually understand the word, where competing products are being stopped from entering the market.”

          Yes it is as in practice the word “monopoly” only has one definition. The same one the dictionary possesses.

          If we go by the dictionary definition “Immaterial Rights” can not exist in a market paradigm which must shun monopolies of all kinds. Whether that means being able to “sell” a product or not is completely beside the point. Necessity does not override logic, no matter how stringent it is perceived to be.

        • SoundnuoS

          Yet clearly immaterial rights have had no problem existing in market economies before.
          It’s only since people have tried to find ways of justifying how to take something for free that their validity has been doubted.

          Applying the market paradigm of shunning monopolies when it comes to unique products seems both illogical and impossible to me.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “It’s only since people have tried to find ways of justifying how to take something for free that their validity has been doubted.”

          I call bullshit.

          Every time modern technology has allowed people to perform something without effort, performed it has been. The copyright monopoly is in much the same position here that the manufacture of silk lace was in during the middle ages.

          So no. “copyright” has always been in doubt. It’s just that lacking technology has allowed the lunacy to stand. And with every passing week that paradigm is rendered ever more superfluous and irrelevant.

          “Applying the market paradigm of shunning monopolies when it comes to unique products seems both illogical and impossible to me.How will you break the monopoly on the Mona Lisa?”

          A unique product is a single item. By your argument, that “item” is the information pattern and we can solve it by simply burning the Mona Lisa since in itself it has no market value.

          By my argument, the mona lisa is one single item which can be traded back and forth according to market values but in itself a unique item does not constitute a distributor industry.

          It’s only when we assume “Mona Lisa” to be an “immaterial product” that strange shit starts to happen to basic market logic.

        • SoundnuoS

          Strange shit only happens to people who fail to see why we have the market logic we have. “Scarcity” in art isn’t about being able to make copies, it’s in creating the thing in the first place. Being able to create unlimited copies doesn’t remove this scarcity. Any song is still unique.

          Creating the art in the first place is the act that is considered valuable and that’s why the creator is given the right to charge for copies. (A right that’s also extended to modern sculpture and painting btw.)
          Technology isn’t spontaneously creating new art and until it does copyright is still valid. This is a case where the technology needs to be regulated (Like every technology we’ve had so far. Maximising the benefits and limiting the destructiveness)

        • MadAsASnake

          Yes, the scarcity is in the creation. It is, and always has been the responsibility of the artist to obtain funding to pursue that luxury. Leonardo spent much of his life creating works to commission – it was only later when he was independently wealthy that he did what he wanted, and he could only do that because he was good. It has never been the case that an “artist” is entitled to an income.

          Tech alters artistic expression and opens new possibilities in and of itself (ie Pixar). Nobody is challenging an artists right to sell copies under copyright, however, that copyright must be extremely limited otherwise it becomes simple rent seeking – very destructive market failure. One fabulous thing about the Internet is that it routes around damage, and that is what is happening here.

          The landscape went digital in the 90′s. It’s now 2013, isn’t it time to catch up?

        • SoundnuoS

          So your solution is to leave creation to the independently wealthy? That sure sounds like the internet is empowering the regular guy.
          No artists are entitled to an income. That’s not even an argument since under no existing conditions has that ever been the case.
          What creators should have is the protection to enable them to actually sell their work instead of having it forcibly taken for free.

        • MadAsASnake

          That does not follow. Mowtown came out of the poorest most downtrodden segment of US society, as does a lot of jazz. Way better than the dull crap from manufactured boy bands and so on. That is the sort of tripe you would get if what you said was true

        • SoundnuoS

          Motown grew into a well oiled music machine, producing records at an industrial pace. They managed to do that because people were willing to buy the records.

          If the business model would have been about t-shirts and touring it’s highly unlikely Motown would have happened.

        • mike

          Comparing a car to a song shows what an idiot you are.

          A car has a marginal cost that does not decrease. The marginal cost is near zero on the second copy.

  • ralph

    Paid, legal options are very limited and expensive. BitTorrent is limitless, and fun. People will share hiding techniques with others and this will be the future. If Big Content had acted more quickly and positively things could have been different for them, but now it is way too late.

    Nobody likes being bullied.

    Jill Lesser sounds tired, or resigned. Or, maybe she is taking a big dose of Prozac.

    • Christopher Kidwell

      Hit the nail on the head there. If the big name companies were willing to give me access to their entire back catalogs, dating back up to a year ago, for 30 dollars a month? I would be willing to pay for it as long as they ixnay’d the damned DRM.

  • EnlightenedOne

    Have fun blocking my VPN! I have been using VPN for about a year now, no thanks to the cunts who think they can legislate away torrenting.

    On second thought, fuck it – bring the pain.
    Torrent quality will go up as idiots are shut down

    Greetz from New York City!

  • http://news.mensactivism.org/ Jhon Deo

    The above doesn’t mean that the copyright alert system will have no
    effect whatsoever. In fact, it may be quite effective in deterring a
    small percentage of casual ‘pirates’. However, we expect that the
    overwhelming majority of copyright infringers will simply take measures
    to avoid being caught.

    Good article but I disagree with their conclusion. I bet that the majority of pirates are ‘casual’ sharers who aren’t too savy about information technology.

    This won’t stop serious pirates. But it will mean: smaller swarms and less seeders; therefore: less content variety, slower download times, and torrents that die faster.

    Also hardcore pirates aren’t born, they’re made. We were all casual sharers at one point in our lives. Fewer people getting into piracy, means fewer people becoming serious pirates, and less content in the future. This is bad news even for downloaders who it doesn’t effect directly.

    • MadAsASnake

      There will be a variety of things happen… in some cases parents will find out what their kids are doing, and some, probably very many will be falsely accused. What happens to the first depends on the parents attitude, but the second group will be neither dissuaded nor educated, simply insulted and pissed off. Casual downloaders won’t necessarily be put off either, many of these will be tech savvy, and resort to torrents when they can’t find stuff elsewhere. It will change the profile of how people get stuff, but it’s blip on the radar stuff, nothing significant. Most people that are worried will get VPN’s or go to lockers.

    • Smeg

      It’ll make a small difference in the US only, the rest of the world will carry on as usual keeping the torrents alive. There’s more to life than the poxy US 6 strikes crap,, you all give yourselves way to much credit thinking it’s going to change how well torrents are seeded.

      • Russian Guest

        as the citizen of Russia I completely agree

      • zippos soppiz

        haven’t you heard? there is no place other that the USA the rest of the world is full of monkeys in caves, silly non USA person.

        >sarcasm don’t shut me.

        • Lulz

          Huh? ‘rest of the world’… What? Earth is flat and USA is the only continent. Come back to reality, eh?

        • USA

          USAUSAUSAUSA

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

      all it does is create a better pirate. strikes aren’t really new, most ISP’s have been cutting people off for years after 3 or 4 accusations anyway. I got a couple, and i spent ten minutes googling, learned how to proxy my traffic and never got another. then i taught the rest of my family how to do it. If they get hit a couple times for torrent traffic, they’re going to do the same thing, and either move to direct downloads, or proxy themselves, or whatever, because information is only a search away.

    • Guest

      If somebody’s savvy enough to fileshare, then they’re already savvy enough to bypass six strikes if need be. It’s not hard – all a person has to dois fucking google it and read how it’s done.

  • http://twitter.com/theedwingarcia Edwin Garcia

    the goal has never been to STOP piracy any more than we can STOP murder, theft, rape or any other crime. The goal is simply to manage piracy into reasonable levels by enforcing consequences for doing so.

    • n_mailer

      Six strikes doesn’t address crime. It’s more like a “no shirt, no shoes, no service” sign.

      Do restaurants who ban shirtless people want to manage shirtlessness into reasonable levels? Of course not. They want to ban it, but only inside their establishment.

      Do those signs stop people from going barefoot or taking their shirts off in general? No.

      Do they increase revenues for shoemakers and shirtmakers? Probably not.

      Do they cause shirtless, barefoot people to go elsewhere to eat? Yes.

      I imagine that the type of swarms watched under this system will see some participation decline from customers of affected ISPs in the U.S.

      • http://twitter.com/theedwingarcia Edwin Garcia

        so than why do you care if it’s meaningless?

        • Guest

          So if I were to slap you in the face, I would be permitted to do so because it’s meaningless?

          Okay then.

    • Who

      “The goal is simply to manage piracy into reasonable levels by enforcing consequences for doing so”

      you need to read the US copyright act.

      • http://twitter.com/theedwingarcia Edwin Garcia

        I think that would be you.

        • Who

          NOPE. YOU DO. Ive already read it.

    • Wallace

      Exactly … murder is great example. You’re allowed five or six accusations of murder and then they tie a cinderblock to one of your legs. You can’t STOP murder but you can achieve reasonable levels of murder.

    • Guest

      If you and your heroes in the RIAA actually managed to sue the right people most of the time, you might have actually garnered some sympathy.

      But they didn’t, and they can’t, so you won’t.

    • Guest
      • SoundnuoS
        • Guest

          Oh, in that case criminalizing their best customers makes perfect sense.

        • SoundnuoS

          No one is criminalizing anyone. This has always been illegal.

          If piracy led to increased sales then sales of music wouldn’t be down 50% since 2000. They would have gone through the roof.
          If piracy wasn’t a lost sale iTunes sales in France wouldn’t diverge with 25% (increase in sales vs control group) since the introduction of Hadopi.
          There’s clearly a significant group of people who are using piracy to avoid having to pay.

        • MadAsASnake

          25% was not solely down to HADOPI. Unlikely that much was.

        • SoundnuoS

          Well, it’s hard to see what else would keep it diverging for that length of time.

        • MadAsASnake

          Good Marketing from Apple / iTunes?

        • SoundnuoS

          25% worth of marketing? Wouldn’t they also have been marketing in other countries?

          Anon

          Interest in streaming also spiked heavily in France during this period and there was still enough left over for a 25% iTunes increase.
          What kept the divergence going during the whole surveyed time period?

        • MadAsASnake

          Why not?

        • Anon

          Again, “other countries” was basically just the UK. The entire comparison is basically France vs UK, so any difference between the two countries between that period could be the reason. Spotify could have been more popular in the UK during the entire period. Also, you haven’t addressed how the trend doesn’t really align with either Hadopi being debated (trend starts before) or the sending out of notices (trend remains same throughout this). Seems to me like this study massaged as much as it could and it still only barely fits. It certainly is nowhere near definitive evidence.

        • SoundnuoS

          From the paper:

          “We also conducted a series of placebo tests. We ran the same difference-in-difference model five more
          times, each time supposing one of the countries in our control group to be the “treatment” country. We
          were unable to reject the null hypothesis for any country in these tests; in other words, for each country
          (other than France) we cannot reject the hypothesis that that country’s sales increased by no more than the average of the other countries. Thus, at least with regard to the countries we studied, our findings are
          unique to France.”

          The divergence starts appearing with the first Google trends spikes for Hadopi.
          It’s not about the general rising trend in iTunes sales it’s about the divergence in sales between a strikes country vs non-strikes countries.

        • Anon

          There are several problems with that study, including misleading
          scales and labels. For example, the scales used make it seem as if
          France sales went up compared to the control, when in reality it looks
          as if sales in the control went down.

          The so called control was
          heavily dominated by the UK, and during this time the UK interest in
          spotify spiked, which could explain the aforementioned decrease in the
          control spending on iTunes.

          Another issue is that the trend
          described started before HADOPI. Yet another issue is that the trend
          had become saturated by the time the first notices went out, by their
          own admission. According to this, it was the debate over the topic that
          would have caused the trend. Thus, if this was true, you would see
          effect of six strikes already, and there would be no point in actually
          following up with it.

        • Who

          “This has always been illegal.” no it hasn’t LOL.

          but EVEN IF they some how STOPPED it do you think that by doing so it WOULD increase sales? NOPE.
          case think about it, people have to have 3 things to buy something. 1 a PAYING job, 2 money, 3 the want to buy. stopping piracy will NOT change this.

        • SoundnuoS

          Considering the results of the referenced Hadopi research the want to buy seems to be there if free gets made a little harder.
          Concerning 1 and 2. That situation does suck and I know how it feels but, and this might sound a bit harsh, content creators have no obligation to practice welfare.
          The solution to that is to get unemployment benefits changed to include cost of entertainment.

    • ScrewEwe2

      Consequences?

    • xpmule

      yup

  • Guest

    NO

  • MadAsASnake

    I’m betting that it’ll be even more of a farce than HAPOPI. HAPOPI are not a business that will loose customers. I suspect that in areas where there is competition (especially those that aren’t on 6 strikes) you’ll see almost no strikes, and those where there is no competition will see a lot. The ISP’s must realize that this will not impress their customers. The main point of 6 strikes will be to claim what a success 6 strikes has been. It does not need to be a success at all to do that. Look at HADOPI. I’d have preferred a system that saw the rightsholders being charged per IP. As we saw in NZ, the claim that downloading cost them bazillions vanishes into dry dust when they actually need to pay even a little to “stop” it…

  • ralph

    In France, the people that run HADOPI have been tooting their horns recently about its success, as a recent TF article discussed. My guess is all that happened is a bunch of BitTorrent users either started using lockers or a VPN service, a seedbox service, etc.

    To me, the most annoying thing about 6 strikes will be having to read how successful it is, according to the MAFIAA

    Statistics can fool you. What is clear is that people like access to content, when it is released and at a reasonable(free, e.g.) price.

    Prohibition did not stop people from getting a drink when they wanted one.

  • ScaryLarry

    Exact launch date or not, it appears that after more than a year of delays the copyright alerts will ‘soon’ go live, relatively speaking…in the grand scheme of things…in relation to life on Earth…

    • MyOtherBrotherLarry

      …’soon’…trust us…this time…soon.

    • ralph

      They will have to go live to save face. Maybe this summer…

  • Guest

    Well, considering that the French spent millions of taxpayer dollars to catch one person, who ended up being the wrong guy, and now HADOPI has decided to send even more letters out…

    Either they’ve been withholding letters and have now decided to ante up due to the reduced funding (naughty, naughty) or they’ve somehow managed to find more people to send letters to.

    Neither option, of course, supporting the idea that stopping piracy was ever their goal.

  • FmpaaFriaaFjoebidenFhollywood

    Are ISP’s in business to serve and protect their customers? Or are ISP’s in business to bend over and give the MPAA and RIAA what they want?
    If people want to share files that contain media that is payed for so be it. Fuck all this micro managing shit where Hollywood and the recording industry use invasive means to hinder a service that you or I pay for !!!!!

    • ralph

      Part of the problem is that Comcast owns Universal Studios, Time Warner ISP is part of Warner Brothers and so forth. So, the ISPs to a large extent are part of Hollywood. The people who control the entertainment industry are the same people that control internet access, and together they control Congress.

      It’s not a pretty situation.

      • Wallace

        Exactly .. Six Strikes is the result of a landmark agreement between five media giants and themselves.

  • Internet_Zen_Master

    I do believe we need to define “casual pirates” here.

    Are we talking about the people who will take the urls of music videos on youtube and then rip the mp3 from the song via one of several dozen video>mp3 conversion websites (one of which has been told by Google to stop, and it’s STILL the top search-result you get [To their credit, they're actually trying to get users to sign a petition allowing 3rd party applications to access videos from youtube].)? Are we talking about people who don’t torrent?

    Or are these “casual pirates” just users who leech off the swarm and don’t do much to cover their digital tracks?

    And honestly, I thought the Six Strikes scheme was supposed to go live sometime in January, not February.

    Why do they keep stalling and saying “It’s not ready yet”, if they’re so confident that it’ll work?

    As the Zen Master says, “We’ll see.”

    • Who

      “And honestly, I thought the Six Strikes scheme was supposed to go live sometime in January, not February.

      Why do they keep stalling and saying “It’s not ready yet”, if they’re so confident that it’ll work?”

      because its not with in the law. and its just a scare tactic.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gear-Mentation/100003097514663 Gear Mentation

    In response to Jhon Deo below, yes this is bad news for piracy. The solution is to have anonymous bittorrenting that doesn’t need a VPN. Tribler was working on that, and I wish TorrentFreak would give us an update on it. It was supposed to be here by now. http://torrentfreak.com/researchers-anonymous-bittorrent-client-120601/

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001020944241 Pole Palooski

    People, we must unite!

    • Kiss My Face

      Yeah we can meet at my house, Tuesday sound good to everyone?

      • UraPhake

        You have beer and potato chips?
        I checked my calendar and I’m free this Tuesday, but not the following Tuesday.

  • icec0ld

    As ISPs have found with this system, the strike system is simply going to encourage users to simply up and leave their ISP for another.

    Strikes cannot follow accounts therefore as soon as you get a speed reduction, you switch ISPs if you can. Be part of this and watch as ISPs weep as their consumer base becomes increasingly fluid in a model that requires loyalty to make their money.

    Like any company, a successful sides with it’s customers.

  • Who

    “Will the Upcoming Six Strikes Scheme Stop Piracy?”
    will the new gun regulations STOP people from killing?

    “The much-discussed U.S. six strikes anti-piracy scheme is expected to go live within a month” so it got delayed again…….last time they said @ the start of 2013 and then @ the end of Jan.

    • ScrewEwe2

      I imagine the six strikes anti-piracy scheme will go live by the end of February 2813.

  • anon

    Will the Upcoming Six Strikes Scheme Stop Piracy?

    No

  • The_Strawbear

    So six strikes is quite a lot, given how many letters will actual get sent out, then all the disputes.

    Did we ever get a verdict on the ‘is a person responsible for an IP address’ legal thing from a while ago?

    • Anyone

      since this agreement is not within the law they don’t have to follow the logic that “an IP is not a person” and simply hold the internet connection ransom anyway

      if the law was on their side they wouldn’t need this extortion scheme

  • UraPhake

    “Will the Upcoming Six Strikes Scheme Stop Piracy?”

    The answer is “No” – because any headline ending in a question mark invariably means “No.”

    To the question: All of us were so-called “casual” pirates at one time. To say that using bit torrent is “too easy” and anyone can do it is ignoring why it became popular in the first place. It works. That’s it. Nothing else mysterious about it at all.

    Did other things which existed before bit torrent work? Of course. It’s like everything else with the Internet — you either use it or you don’t. You don’t have to understand the “how” and “why” of HTTP — it just is and grandma uses it as much as anyone else. Same thing with file-sharing apps.

    The file-sharing “war” is where one side ups the ante and the other side responds in kind. The “casual” user will be dissuaded from it for only as long as it takes them to find another means to the same end.

    Usenet has been around forever and the only reason it has come under attack by the copyright monopolists is because people ignored the 1st Rule of Usenet. If you don’t know what that rule is, then you probably stumbled upon TorrentFreak by accident.

    Everyone and anyone is singing about VPNs as the answer. Well…yes and no. They are a short-term answer only for as long as it takes the MAFIAA to find a way to make even that method imperfect. And they will find a way to do so, make no mistake. It’s only a matter of time as it has always been.

    But in the interim, new and better ways to facilitate anonymous file sharing is coming about and the “war” will continue.

    Just because something called “Six Strikes” is coming doesn’t mean anything will change at all. A new method to accomplish the same pirating end will only be as obscure and complicated for as long as it takes to prove that it works.

    All of you who believe you’re somehow “smarter” than anyone else who wants to download the latest crap from Hollywood are deluding yourselves.

    You’re not and that’s all there is to it.

    And the MAFIAA is exactly the same.

  • bobmail

    Ernesto, with all respect, you are looking for an all or nothing solution, a black and white “no more piracy” deal that doesn’t exist. Nobody with a lick of sense (not even the MPAA types) are stupid enough to frame it that way.

    Rather, the goal of any system is to make piracy the less attractive alternative, shifting the risk / reward deal so that it’s no longer the first choice. When that happens, all of the soft pirates, the opportunistic types that are there because it’s easy and risk free will give it up, shifting the numbers dramatically over time.

    There will always be pirates, just in the same way there will be strident assholes like Mike Masnick. Nothing you do will change them, they would rather burn in legal hell and spend all of their days trying to get around things than just getting back in the mainstream.

    The funny part is that you quote Jill Lesser, but you seem to be ignoring her point. You only have to look at France to understand that while the hardcore guys are still pirating, there has been a dramatic shift in overall consumer activity. That is the goal here, nothing else.

    • http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole

      All the six strike program is going to do is educate the public on how to use encryption and proxies. We’ll see the public becoming more skilled with technology and hiding their actions better.

      Thank you, CCI, you’re helping society to advance and providing opportunities for innovation.

    • UraPhake

      There’s no such thing as a “soft pirate.”

      We’re all hard and virile as you know — it’s why you hang around here in the first place.

      As to what you said about France, that’s just bullshit as has already been shown here on TF.

      • xpmule

        depends what i’m downloading..

        sometimes i am a HARD pirate ;)

    • Anyone

      the shift in France was to VPN

      if there was a “dramatic shift” you’d see a dramatic rise in itunes, amazon, etc., but you don’t
      Hadopi is an utter failure, this will be as well, at least in this case it isn’t tax payer money that is being wasted

      • SoundnuoS

        See my reply to Icecold: When France moved to Hadopi iTunes sales in France started diverging from countries without it. 25% up.

        • MadAsASnake

          That moved started before HADOPI. You need to get some material that has actually been peer reveiwed.

        • SoundnuoS

          As far as I know, it has. You’re free to peer review it yourself, the link is in my reply to Icecold.
          The divergence clearly follows the awareness of the law as measured in Google searches and starts kicking in when the law is presented to the assembly. Imo there’s a good correlation there.

        • MadAsASnake

          OK – just answer one question for me:
          Your premise is that knowledge of the upcoming law has altered peoples behaviour in a way that turns to substantial increases in online sales. Why therefore has there been no similar increase been seen in either NZ or the US?

        • SoundnuoS

          Some googling gives me this on NZ: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10791182

          Claims that NZ’s digital sales grew 40% faster than Australia’s in the period after the law was introduced.

          This is IFPI’s digital music report for 2012: http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/dmr2012.html

          Interesting bit about South Korea on page 22. In 2007 when they began to implement methods against piracy they ranked 23 in global music sales, in 2011 they ranked 11th.
          Seems something happens when measures against piracy are being taken.

        • MadAsASnake

          146000 to 154000 is not 40% (except in Hollywood of course). Of course visible torrenting has dropped. People going to vpn’s, lockers and other non-visible methods will do that.

        • SoundnuoS

          The 40% wasn’t about NZ sales to previous NZ sales but growth rate of NZ sales compared to growth rate of Australian sales. That’s more important since that gives you a non-3 strikes comparison.

        • MadAsASnake

          OK – so 40% of the difference (8000) is 3200. Couple of NZD a peice – you are getting excited of NZD6400 tops for the whole industry (there are plenty of other reasons for there to be a difference, but I’m sure you’ll ignore that). The artists might be able to buy a beer. Wow. That is tiny compared to the taxpayer dollars wasted on this farce, and statistically? It’s doubtful it’s even significant. Good at quoting industry insiders aren’t you?

        • SoundnuoS

          “New Zealand and Australian digital music sales were growing at about the same rate, but since September, New Zealand’s have been growing 40 per cent faster than Australia’s,” said Healey.

          That’s the quote I’m referring to.
          The divergence is what interests me. The numbers you’re quoting are just for the singles btw. Album sales were also up 48% according to the article.

          All numbers in the article are for NZ musicians only and they make up something like 10-20% of the total NZ market for music if i remember right.

    • icec0ld

      “There will always be pirates, just in the same way there will be strident assholes like Mike Masnick. Nothing you do will change them, they would rather burn in legal hell and spend all of their days trying to get around things than just getting back in the mainstream.”

      Setting up a VPN to hide your torrenting is an easy to use feature but is relatively unknown or unused at large right now. All a persecution and penalty system (especially one that is going to penalize non infringing uses) is simply going to encourage them to seek out and use said feature.

      “You only have to look at France to understand that while the hardcore guys are still pirating, there has been a dramatic shift in overall consumer activity. That is the goal here, nothing else.”

      Figures coming from a company that as to justify it’s success to tax payers are rather suspect. If they reported less than success they’d be axed so there is no incentive for them to contemplate anything but reporting success.

      Also, how is one reporting pirate figures when evasion techniques render such measurements shoddy at best and woefully inadequate at worst?

      And lastly, it’s worth noting music sales (France uses itunes for these figures) is rising the world over. A world wide trend won’t lend itself to a cause and effect relationship statistically.

      • bobmail

        “Setting up a VPN to hide your torrenting is an easy to use feature but is relatively unknown or unused at large right now. All a persecution and penalty system (especially one that is going to penalize non infringing uses) is simply going to encourage them to seek out and use said feature.”

        You miss the point. As more and more technology has to be applied, as people realize they are trying to hide bad acts (rather than just socially acceptable file sharing fun) they will opt out as it reaches their threshold of pushing the law or pushing technology.

        Some people won’t do it because they are concerned. Some won’t pay for a VPN, Some won’t want to take an overt action that is clearly done to break the law.

        Some will. The point is that nothing is a perfect solution, rather it’s a question of changing the tide – something that started about a year ago when mega got trashed. Plenty of people woke up and stepped away from it.

        • Guest

          So there’s no need for new laws is there, dumbshit? Mega has already been proven to be little different from other legal services that do the same thing, but because your lot think he’s a flamboyant asshole, you’re preempting him at every step like it deals physical damage to him.

          You claim that his service is no threat, and yet, you’re trying to ruin it anyway. It’s the mentality of torching a house to the ground because you think there might be cockroaches.

        • xpmule

          lol no they will not opt out.
          tech changes as we all do on both sides..
          so are you guys gonna go after VPN’s ?
          I bet you you will and that is very dumb.
          Then you are dragging peoples privacy into the issue
          and you will not win stealing peoples privacy.

          The tide will not change because we started doing what we do because there was a need. People that here that i watch TV but haven’t seen 1 commercial in 2 years may be interested in having that too and if others want what i have or what i am doing then the need is not gonna go away. If if there is a need you will NOT stop us so your screwed and all your efforts just make you guys look bad ..in vain

        • bobmail

          “so are you guys gonna go after VPN’s ?”

          First off, I am not “you guys”,. I am just a guy with an opinion. I am observing what I think is happening, not anything else.

          “i watch TV but haven’t seen 1 commercial in 2 years may be interested in having that too and if others want what i have or what i am doing then the need is not gonna go away.”

          In the long run, you shoot yourself in the foot. By removing the economic system that props up the creation of the content, you in the end will have no more ads to see… because there will be no more content made in that manner.

          Shortsightedness seems to be a real problem around here.

        • guest

          And good riddance to that economic system. The new system will be the one that artists like radiohead or louis ck have used. These have been successful.

          A lot of people are fed up, showering these bastard media conglomerates with money. Good riddance to these greedy talentless middlemen!

        • SoundnuoS

          The new system….that Radiohead has never used again? Wonder why?

        • Anyone

          probably pressure from their label

          Trent Reznor (from Nine Inch Nails) regularly gives away his albums for free (in one occasion even without the option to pay) and he is doing more than fine

        • SoundnuoS

          So you honestly think they wouldn’t have done it again if that approach was working out better than anything else?
          Radiohead had no label contract and had complete freedom of choice in how to operate.
          King of Limbs was also released through their website, but not as a free download.

          Reznor is also back with a label for distribution of his latest record.

        • Guest

          Considering the shit tons of money it made for Radiohead and Louis CK, you can’t say “because it didn’t work”.

          Well, actually you CAN say that. But it would just make you a lying fuck.

        • SoundnuoS

          Read my last post: …working out BETTER than anything else.

        • Guest

          You mean when MegaUpload got illegally shut down?

          Oh yeah, that really changed the tide. It’s not like MegaUpload simply returned under the name Mega and it’s back to business as usual.

          No siree.

          No, no, I’m kidding of course. It did change things: the hatred towards the copyright monopoly and the governments it bribes has increased many fold.

          Which isn’t the change they were looking for when they ordered their gangsters to take down MegaUpload, but still, change is change amirite?

        • icec0ld

          The 3 strike system in every other country has been a dismal failure as people move to private trackers, direct download file lockers and VPNs. Why would the US be any different?

        • Guest

          “Some will. The point is that nothing is a perfect solution, rather it’s
          a question of changing the tide – something that started about a year
          ago when mega got trashed. Plenty of people woke up and stepped away
          from it.          ”

          Some will. The point is that nothing is a perfect solution, rather it’s
          a question of changing the tide – something that started about a year
          ago when megaupload got illegally raided. Plenty of people lost access to their files and came right back to MEGA the instant it launched, developing a healthy hatred of the MPAA and current copyright law in general in the meantime

          Fixed that for you…

      • SoundnuoS

        http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1989240
        A study showing that the iTunes sales in France (with Hadopi) are 25% higher than in the control group of countries without Hadopi.
        Isn’t that a statistically significant difference?

        • MadAsASnake

          It doesn’t matter to you that the authors of this report utterly disregarded specifics of the French market (in particular iTunes deal with the iPhone that could only increase uptake) and other market distortions that had nothing to do with HADOPI?

        • SoundnuoS

          What was the deal? Was the deal specific to France during whole period. What other market distorsions? Were they specific to France during this whole period? Did they last as long as the divergence lasts?
          The paper says Hadopi included massive information campaigns and offers to get people interested in legal alternatives, so I’m kind of assuming this effect has at least been considered by the people writing the paper.

    • Pelham123

      Mike Masnick doesn’t advocate “getting around” anything. He advocates working within the system to fix it. I do congratulate you for bringing his name to everyone’s attention here … Masnick’s site is one that makes you smarter every minute you spend on it.

      France has not seen a “dramatic shift in overall consumer activity,” which is why HADOPI is generally considered a failure. But Six Strikes is not directed at “piracy” at all – you get the same consequences for illegal torrenting and legal torrenting somebody wants to stop. It’s intended more as a marketing tool and as a platform for future collusion.

      The good news is that BitTorrent has never been risk-free, and Six Strikes is LESS risky than what users have faced in the past.

      And “soft pirates” have never used BitTorrent.

      • bobmail

        Masnick is the ultimate in promoting getting around the system. He advocates deleting the system to create anarchy, for the benefit of the marketing systems and commercial advice he offers to companies. When you understand how he makes his money, you start to understand why he stands for certain things.

        • Guest

          Point to one instance where he promotes getting around the system and deleting it to create anarchy.

          Just one.

          Otherwise, you are lying.

        • bobmail

          His stated goals are to either eliminate or effectively neuter copyright and patent, creating exceptions in each law that would render it useless.

          The best example is allowing for “parallel development” such that a second company can apply to ignore a patent because they were already developing something similar. Further, he wants to raise the burden of application to patents to levels that would make it all but impossible. Let’s not even get started on his absolute hatred of software and process patents.

          Masnick is very slick in making sure he never says in exact words what his intentions or goals are, but reading his site as a whole for a number of years, it’s easy to see where this zealot is going.

        • Anyone

          because copyright and patents are harmful to society
          they should be abolished or at the very least severely limited

        • Guest

          I asked you to POINT OUT AN INSTANCE WHERE HE HAS ACTUALLY SAID ANYTHING TO THAT EFFECT.

          You have failed.

          Your mere claims that he wants to eliminate or neuter copyright are worth absolutely nothing because you’re a prolific liar.

          I’ll say it again: proof or GTFO.

          I looked for proof on Masnick’s own blog and all I found was completely mundane stuff like his latest post about his awesome new desk and how awesome it is. Shit, what a crazed anarchist.

    • Guest

      If there’s an overall shift in consumer activity, why the declaration that they’ll be sending out more letters? You’ve stated that the hardcore pirates won’t be affected by six strikes, so that’s clearly not who HADOPI is trying to target.

      Either HADOPI hasn’t been sending out enough letters, despite more-than-sufficient funding which is now being axed (proving that with less money, they can still send out enough letters), or HADOPI has changed any of the behaviour. Hell, if HADOPI actually managed to change any behaviour, why send MORE letters, not less?

      You need to think past your nose, Baghdad bobmail, and by past your nose, I don’t mean stopping at Robert King’s pubic hair.

    • Guest

      “Ernesto, with all respect, you are looking for an all or nothing solution”

      Ernesto isn’t looking for any solution to stop filesharing, you inconceivably stupid fuck.

      “Rather, the goal of any system is to make piracy the less attractive alternative”

      Which it isn’t going to do. No system, or law, or threat has ever accomplished this and no system, or law, or threat ever will.

      “the opportunistic types that are there because it’s easy and risk free”

      The legal alternatives to filesharing are all easier and 100% risk free. The “opportunistic types” you’re talking about wouldn’t even be pirates in the first place – they’d be legal customers off downloading shit from iTunes and Amazon.

      “The funny part is that you quote Jill Lesser, but you seem to be ignoring her point.”

      No, he isn’t ignoring it. Learn to read please.

      “You only have to look at France to understand that while the hardcore guys are still pirating, there has been a dramatic shift in overall consumer activity.”

      1. The “shift” hasn’t even been dramatic according to HADOPI’s own numbers. Their research shows the vast majority of French pirates to be hardcore.

      2. The statistics you’re talking about were gathered using a survey orchestrated by an organization that’s openly anti-sharing. There is quite an incentive to tell them “no sir, I get my media legally!”.

      That is the goal here

      Then it’s failed before it leaves the starting gate.

      • bobmail

        “Ernesto isn’t looking for any solution to stop filesharing, you inconceivably stupid fuck.”

        With dude respect douchebag, read the title of the post. He is asking a question, aka, looking to see if this is a solution that does something in absolute. My point is that it does not.

        Clearly you failed basic reading. Maybe you will learn it next year in school.

        • Guest

          If you could comprehend the written word, you would understand that this article is simply examining the impact that six strikes could have on piracy.

          Ernesto is not looking for an absolute solution, he’s echoing a question that many people have, “how will this affect piracy?” and the answer to this question is contained within the body of the article.
          l
          So don’t tell me I fail basic reading when you can’t even grasp the concept of an informative article. I might die from an irony overdose.

        • bobmail

          Again, the question would be “How will 6 strikes affect piracy?”. That wasn’t the question asked. The question was asked as an absolute, will it STOP piracy. Not slow it, not diminish it, not change it… STOP.

          Basic reading. You failed.

        • Guest

          Are you just trying to piss me off by trolling or do you have some form of autism that makes it so you can’t understand what people mean when they say things?

    • ScrewEwe2

      Bob, without any respect to you, in case you missed it, in a response to you the other day on the “Court Refuses To Try Self-Confessed Pirate Bay Uploader” thread, it’s worth repeating, to just about anything you say:

      Most of us like the product, and can live without the rules, but the bullshit propaganda, from Anon, Nej and you, just proves to us daily, that you’re three mindless fools. If you’re trying to fill us, with regrets or with fear, you’re not changing minds Bob, at least around here. No one here cares Man, about what you believe, we’re just patiently waiting, until you three leave.

      Winnie the Pooh has a message for you: Here’s two Middle Fingers and a big loud FUCK YOU !

      • bobmail

        Fuck you too child. I am not here to change minds, only to discuss. You seem to think that everyone who is against piracy is a shill, and that’s just wrong. Accept that not everyone has your fucked up view of the world, and you will feel better.

        In the meantime, fuck off.

        • Guest

          lol, the shill doesn’t like being called a shill.

          Opposing piracy is one thing. Opposing piracy through dishonesty and the invention of made up facts is something else entirely.

          The latter is what you do, and this is why you are so transparently a paid shill for the MAFIAA.

          You are also incapable of discussion. You just make a claim and then when you’re challenged on it, you repeat the claim. That isn’t how a discussion works.

          And if you aren’t here to change minds then how come your entire presence on Torrentfreak consists of trying to sell lies?

          Give it up, Bob. You’re fooling exactly no one.

        • bobmail

          “Give it up, Bob. You’re fooling exactly no one.”

          I am clearly fooling you, dipwad, because you think I am something I am not. Makes you perhaps the biggest idiot on this site (and that’s a real accompishment… considering people like scary devil).

        • Guest

          So go on then, bob. Answer the questions asked of you about HADOPI. If they’ve managed to scare off so many softcore pirates why are they sending out more letters, not less?

          I’ll be waiting for the answer that never comes.

        • Guest

          Sigh.

          The biggest idiot on this site would have to be you, Bob, for thinking anyone is buying your weak act.

        • http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole

          Not everyone is a shill, just you.

        • ScrewEwe2

          Maybe you would get further if you didn’t call everyone a “child”. You’re not here to discuss. I would say you’re here to “diss” and “cuss” and raise a big fuss. I’ll admit that I do that too, but primarily when it’s aimed at you.

          You’re slipping Bob, you forgot to say that I live in my mom’s basement.

      • xpmule

        he’s here for the same reason they are doing the 6 strikes.. It’s a propaganda war !
        Which is why i will be standing behind people like this guy ready to re-educate them and direct them to resources to help the people being victimized.
        For example thanks to TF if i know an average person that gets a letter in the mail about piracy i would direct them to the TF pages showing what they can do about it etc.

    • xpmule

      I was agreeing with you until you said they “will give it up”
      We have to want and see but this may produce a backlash from average citizens and many may just find alternatives to bittorrent and they will if my fellow file sharers continue to get the word out on how to handle violations of our rights and how to find alternative means of file sharing that will decrease their risk of being harassed. And we will also educate people on how to fight people like you.

      If anything this will draw the issue into the spotlight and THAT will not look good for your side.. so by all means fire up all the spot lights you want.. we’re not scared.

      Even if we’re to lose the battle overall we would win the war..
      An asynchronous war you will never win because we create a new soldier 1,000x for every 1 you guys harass.. so the eventual outcome is your side tucking it’s tail between it’s legs and crawling away like a loser.. so you guys might as well just get it over with and get on your knees and beg for our forgiveness ;)
      why put it off when you doomed to failure anyway ?

      educate all you want.. WE will RE-EDUCATE people !

  • foff

    This will push all torrent activity to vpn’s and seed boxes. Someone will set up a file locker that allows you to download the torrent to a locker then you will be able to download the file like you do from any filelocker. Essentially it will be a giant seedbox.

    • jrau18

      Sounds like you’ve already got the idea. Go do it. I’d use that service.

  • VankSoop

    Somehow I dont think it will ever be enough man.

    ids-Anon.tk

    • Spammers Suck

      How do I flag this spammer douche?
      Nice job Disucks.

      • jrau18

        Click the down arrow on the right side of the commetn

  • mojo

    We may lose Hoth and face suspended animation, but a new Jedi will rise…

  • John Smith

    They’re just doing this so they have an excuse to keep your ip address for possible future purpose. Pretty much invading your privacy.

  • ThumbsUpThumbsDown

    Nothing regarding Six Strikes has been litigated.

    It is takes a superhuman act of imagination to wrap our brains around the scale of that litigation and the liabilities that will follow.

    Do these five regulated ISPs actually believe that they can collude to impose one Universal TOS as a waiver of Due Process standards on 260 Million American Citizens (75% of all Americans) and NOT have their Corporate Balls handed to them?

    Two possibilities:

    They Can get away with it; or, they can’t.

    Which one depends on us.

  • Hello World

    this has been going on since last year according to me its all F**cking brag! just start the dam thing so that we can continue our dam lives and work with our vpns. every time its (next month, next month, oh it has been delayed, next month)

  • Guest

    No, it won’t stop “piracy”.

    But ‘Six Strikes’ is the beginning of Internet Control.

    • Guest

      Beginning? Corporate and government interests have been trying to control the internet since forever.

      ‘Six Strikes’ is simply another failure to add to the heap.

  • Hiya_tiger

    Sucks for you Americans :’(

    Don’t let The Man keep you down, VPN away.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ralph-Dudley/529888223 Ralph Dudley

    prediction: an influx of hacked computers seeding major Hollywood releases to troll copyright ‘police’

  • ScrewEwe2

    No

  • http://www.facebook.com/hiteksoul Andrew Thomas

    No! It will not stop piracy! What is going to happens is some people will pay the price but ultimately the system/ scheme will eventually flop! Leaving a mark in history like other attemps

  • ScrewEwe2

    A few day’s ago on one of the other threads someone mentioned the “Torch” browser. Been testing it out and it’s pretty good and fast. You can torrent with it and also download YouTube vids easily with it. Worth checking out.

  • ScrewEwe2

    Off Topic. IsoHunt has been offline for the last 2 day’s.

    • icec0ld

      not really that important. Clearly says they’re doing maintenance upgrades on the servers on the 503 page

      • xpmule

        page didn’t load for me either.. i checked the domain and it was renewed about 5 days ago and expires in a year. So it’s gotta be a problem with them.. maybe the unplugged the server basically to do some work on the site or something ?
        I don’t assume the worst though i leave that for other people..

  • aaaaa

    piracy will never stop

    • Guest

      bobmail: but, uh, that’s not the point… we only… umm… want to stop “softcore” pirates! yeah, that’s right! we’re not failing we’re winning! cuz, cuz, see we’re stopping this one vague subset of pirates now. that’s our goal!

      • Anyone

        #winning

  • Kal

    Personally, I think we should all go back to bootlegging VHS tapes. That’ll show ‘em.

    How out of touch can the CCI be? If your goal were to educate the public, you would keep making inane copyright commercials about how downloading cars would be bad. This is about trying to enforce copyright, which we know doesn’t work.

    • Who

      “you would keep making inane copyright commercials about how downloading cars would be bad” they are trying to stop that BTW.

      ever heard of a 3D printer?

      http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=3d+printer&oq=3d+printer&gs_l=youtube.3..0l2j0i10j0l7.15830.18541.0.18742.10.8.0.2.2.0.92.444.8.8.0…0.0…1ac.1.5BGPDR_LJYU

      • Kal

        If the ability to download physical objects with 3D Printers were anywhere near as prevalent as the ability to share information, then I assure you the RIAA and MPAA would be told by everyone to go fuck themselves, right before we stormed Disney’s corporate headquarters and murdered the shit out of Mickey Mouse.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005069441277 Chuck N Dies Last

    Pirating is boring. I go legit, but will still kick the suits in their stupid faces.

  • Goodbyenoway

    It will have no effect except to trap the innocent. I went the VPN route 2 years ago. You can’t stop progress or sharing no matter how much these vultures try.

  • agatong

    I don’t understand one thing it says the hardcore pirates aren’t the target so there going after more the casual downloaded then the hardcore?

  • Goodbyenoway

    Like with everything else they try this is doomed not only to fail but to make you/others smarter about what they do. Here’s some examples:

    I had Comcast cable. In order to get a particular channel I wanted I had to purchase a package that cost $125 per month. I got 200 channels I didn’t want. The result? I searched for an alternative. I switched to a satellite company. I pay $42. I get the channels I want. Cable loses because they follow an outmoded business model. They don’t get it.

    When I started file sharing I had no idea I had a download limit with my ISP until they called to warn me. What did I do? I found an ISP that offered a business account with unlimited downloads.

    The only time I got a letter I did research and got myself a VPN and now it’s been 2 years, no more warnings, no more letters.

    They will always lose because there is always a way. They need to get with it or they’ll just go out of business.

  • UniZero

    With the cost of a private VPN and paid streaming content being so close, a lot of casual pirates might opt for the latter. Obviously, there is more to piracy that television, movies, and music.. but I think a lot of people are overlooking how equivalent the cost is for Netflix, Spotify.. etc in comparison to a VPN network or Usenet. I know it’s a little more expensive, but I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that would have a “if I’m going to pay I might as well do it legally” attitude.

    • Who

      the problem is netflix is much more limited than what can be downloaded off the web. like for example…..if some movie is out of print, then they will not rent it out, EVEN IF they do have it in stock.

      “if I’m going to pay I might as well do it legally” attitude”
      that’s JUST the problem. the RIAA/MPAA are the ones that keep telling every one that its illegal. this is what Ive got to say about that….LOL….look up US copyright law.

  • mary hinge & cupid stunt lspcs

    Yes. ….i mean, what a silly question

    • fffffff

      twas a joke?(for those who need a check up from the neck up)

  • RUBananas

    Not even going to bother with the article. It’s probably BS. I’m just replying to the headline of the article, “Will the Upcoming Six Strikes Scheme Stop Piracy?”

    Two words answers that question very clearly:

    Fuck No!

  • CheekyMonkey

    SAG-AFTRA ONE UNIUN Why now? Such a coincidence… United they stand in there lobbyists :-)

  • sobercool

    “the main purpose of the alerts is to educate the public.” Well, let’s hope that works!

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  • sosad

    I could copy the Mona Lisa and give it to a friend or hang it at my house i wont be doing anything illegal.
    I could buy an Ikea chair and build a copy and give it to anyone i wont be doing anything illegal.
    I could suck/mirror the RIAA website and send it to my friend i wont be doing anything illegal.
    I could buy a fruit from the drugstore, share the fruit and grow the seeds i wont be doing anything illegal.
    I could buy a car and let my friends use it i wont be doing anything illegal.
    etc etc.. https://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-scheme-may-lead-to-lawsuits-against-pirates-121212/#comment-735074281
    The problem is not PIRACY or COPYING, it is LOBBYING, copyrights holders are just pirates copying stuff from studios/artists and trying to monopolize the market. Competition. They have already lost and are obsolete.

  • Asashii Fustazi

    it will stop stupid main stream idiots from piracy when their mommy or daddy gets that letter in the mail. every idiot is downloading illegal shite now and that becomes a problem. first rule of fight club mass main stream tards is to not talk about it, loose lips sink downloading ships!!!!!

  • Pingback: Estados Unidos podría presentar su nuevo sistema antipiratería (Mini-SOPA) en febrero – Noticias Tecnológicas y de Hacktivismo

  • cupid_stunt

    no

  • semwem

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  • Michael Prymula

    I never use BitTorrent anyways, streaming sites are much more reliable.

  • Pingback: The Internet’s “Six Strikes” Rules and You « LeakSource

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  • Max

    Awesome my neighbour is a dick. I’m gonna bust his basic WEP and download loads of gay porn

  • J

    Lol, Johnny Depp is a pirate…I get it now.

  • VicB3

    Great encouragement for small local ISPs who want to grow and won’t pull this crap!

    The first ISP who tries this will lose customers on an epic scale,
    said customers never to return. And in future marketing courses they’ll
    be lumped in with the likes of Sears, Dell and Best Buy on how to
    squander customer good will and go out of business.

    Excuse me, but I gotta’ go check my download manager.

    Just a thought.

    VicB3

  • Marcus2012

    How are we supposed to bypass this six strikes rule?

  • Jon

    So will MP3Rocket be part of this “six strikes” or because the technology is different, it won’t be flagged?

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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