The fight against Bittorrent is more important than many realize. If "they" get away with destroying a technology (after all, it's only a protocol) for something as unimportant as copyright, we're truly fucked.
Surely "Bittorrrent" and "The pirate bay" are two separate things? In what way are they destroying bittorrent by attacking a single tracker/index? Isn't that analoguous to saying that trying to block or shut down any random web server serving something illegal is an attack on HTTP?
Yes, an attack on a particular protocol is an attack on that particular protocol. The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.
So, if the police confiscates your car after finding you DUI/closes a hotel because it has been repeatedly found to operate a child pornogrpahy ring/locks up somebody who uses his gun to kill people, that's an attack on car driving in general/on the general idea of running a hotel/on the right to bear arms? I see that more nuanced.
Fixed that for you. Music and movies are huge industries.
BTW, I think they are loosing. Sure, some laws are being passed, but there are several generations alive today that consider piracy something normal and natural. It's all a matter of who is in charge; today's leaders are old, they don't consider piracy to be good and normal. When we (our generation) become old and get in charge, we'll embed our worldviews in the laws.
> When we (our generation) become old and get in charge, we'll embed our worldviews in the laws.
Part of getting maturing and growing up almost always includes a changing of worldviews as we gain more experience in the world.
THings like piracy - which once seemed perfectly acceptable when you are younger - can begin to seem a lot more like 'not paying for the work of the people that went into it'.
This is particularly true as people enter the workforce from school and over time begin to appreciate the actual value of what they produce, and its real-world implications.
I can't count the number of comments I've seen in recent years that start with a variation "I used to pirate..."
From my personal observations, this is the only thing that's changed. As the copyright industry is so eager to make examples of those they deem worse than murderers, sharing is driven underground, folks use VPNs, darknets and private trackers, but are they really sharing less?
I think the reality is that they're reacting to uncertainty which may threaten them and both those things are real but for the most part it's really just change and the best way to deal with change is to adapt rather than to fight it.
I think there are valid questions about what happens when the bulk of consumers are people who aren't used to paying for media but in many cases there are alternatives.
There have been a great many times in history where, for instance, movies were going to be killed - the introduction of the TV, the introduction of the video recorder and so on - but they're still going strong. Cinemas got nicer, screens and sound better, the whole thing became more of an experience than watching the movie at home and people kept going to the cinema as a result.
Similarly the music industry has changed it's revenue model to focus on live performances and merchandising rather than album sales. Even if album sales fall significantly they're relatively well placed to cope.
There are valid concerns (I'm not sure what an author does if people stop paying for books for instance) but if the free markets most of these corporations regard so highly mean anything then surely if there is a demand for something (say books) which someone else wants to make (say an author) then the market will, if it's possible, make it happen.
And if it doesn't then maybe we just don't want it that much after all.
Part of the experience that you mention is how you get your media to begin with.
The music and movie industries have tried their best to make it as hard as possible to consume legally bought media on anything other than what they want you to watch it on. Some of this is due to piracy concerns, some due to various contracts (you will only allow this movie on Starz for the first 6 months), but all of it is in their control.
Conversely, downloading a movie via bittorent will play on anything powerful enough to process an HD movie; downloading some MP3s will play on any device thinkable. The files require no complex codes to put into crazy websites, no additional software to install, no additional devices to buy. Being free is just icing on the cake.
Case in point: I bought Pacific Rim on blue ray when it was released a few months ago. Waited for it to arrive in the mail. Defeated its stupid plastic wrap. Popped some popcorn, turned the lights off, put the disc in my PS3 (the only blue ray player I own) and... nothing. It could not play the disc without connecting to the internet to download some new blue ray decryption keys or whatever. Never had this problem before, and sadly my PS3 is not connected to the internet. This disc was useless to me. Enraged, I downloaded an 18GB HD rip of it and had it playing on my $35 raspberry pi in an hour. Has this experience soured me on buying blue rays? Of course it has.
That's an odd experience with Bluray, given that most players simply can't connect to the internet so could never download updated keys.
To me it sounds like a PS3 specific thing, rather than a problem with Bluray. I get that to you the experience is poor regardless but the problem to me sounds like Sony rather than Bluray.
From what I've read online, this is a common occurrence on many blue ray players. The AACS keys expire every 12-18 months and require an update if you want to play any movies with newer keys.
I don't know how this is handled on older, unconnected players.
Little known fact: no major studio uses e-mail. It's all carrier pigeons and smoke signals. Why? Because they "hate the Internet". So you're right, using contemporary technology in this one instance is really weird.
They're not losing, the center of power is just shifting. Netflix isn't any more okay with weakening copyright protections for its home-grown content than Disney or Universal.
Music is actually much much much smaller than people realize. It's given as much importance as movies, but I don't even think it's 1/10 the size of movies.
except it seems to be that those who pirate (or consider piracy "normal") are not those who are going to be the elites that sit in parliment and make laws.
Haven't they linked piracy coming from Senate IP's? I think it's already happening in Congress. I also think you're underestimating how many people have pirated something at least once a year. Perhaps some are the kind of people who "always pay for their music and shows", since it's relatively cheap to begin with, but then go and pirate something like Adobe Photoshop.
