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It so so bad that enormous resources are wasted in multinational stings [1] to get a few torrent seeders instead of using these resources to stop human traffick

It so so bad that enormous resources are wasted in multinational stings [1] to get a few torrent seeders instead of using these resources to stop human trafficking or real crimes. It is disgusting. Especially since the ones who pushed so hard to get these laws themselves have been accused of copyright violations. [1] https://torrentfreak.com/new-scene-security-notice-sparks-piracy-raids-busted-dozens-of-sites-200901/ https://torrentfreak.com/new-scene-security-notice-sparks-pi...

Lammy 6y ago
These are the kind of things that made me realize the whole copyright thing is a conveniently legal way for any government to make sure only currently-Approved media is ever available to the general public. Nothing is accidental.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  Can you please elaborate on that? "Currently-approved media"? In my mind (European) by media we mean the Press. Do you mean Press or Social Media? A radio station, or a newspaper has a license to operate and is governed by specific requirements and protections. Facebook and Twitter are NOT part of the press (imho). The fact that e.g. BBC tweets some news doesn't fall under the Social Media "laws" but under the Press "laws". Do you imply conspiracy? Could it just be that greedy capitalism runs ahead and legislation is 10y behind and ran by white old folks who just care to be re-elected and not to keep up to speed because, why bother? I am not trying to make this political, I sincerely do not understand if you are implying conspiracy or ruthless reality.
  - olyjohn 6y ago
    I think by media, he means audio and video. Like how CDs and tapes are physical media. MP3s and MP4s are digital media.
    - Lammy 6y ago
      Yes, this is exactly how I meant “media”, like multimedia. Apologies for the confusion :)
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Your logical fallacies are whataboutism and false dichotomy. Copyright lawsuits do not detract from other issues. Copyright is a civil matter, whereas the ones you mention are criminal ones. The police and the US' various secret services are not involved in copyright issues.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  The FBI and other agencies are often involved in raids and arrests, and actively seize websites that are supposedly used for piracy. I don't understand how you can argue that it is a civil matter that does not involve law enforcement. Just search "fbi raid bittorrent", there are plenty of examples.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Copyright violation is actually a civil matter. But piracy is a federal crime and therefore under the FBI’s purview.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      Piracy historically referred to illicit printed copies created for unauthorized unlicensed material benefit to the copier, without demanded licensing terms or in absence of negotiations toward such licensing. The copyright lobby ensured it broadened to cover digital reproductions on shaky epistemological grounds imo.
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  > The Crown also revealed that police had handed seized hard drives to FBI staff who copied them at the police crime lab in South Auckland and sent the copies back to the US. Justice Winkelmann ruled that the handing of hard drives seized by New Zealand police in the raid to the FBI was in breach of extradition legislation, and the FBI's removal from New Zealand of cloned data from them was unlawful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom
- albatruss 6y ago
alternatetwo 6y ago
SPARKS weren't just a few torrent seeders, they were more specifically the source of a major part of BluRay releases in the warez scene. They also don't release on P2P, but on topsites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsite_(warez) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsite_(warez) In fact the scene despises P2P (or at least used to). I agree with you though. It's an absolute waste of resources that could be spent on actually making the world a better place.
- crtasm 6y ago
  Also they obtained and released blurays before they were put on sale to the public.
  - alternatetwo 6y ago
    Well that's honestly what happens (in my experience) with any major DVD/BluRay release. Once they get pressed and given to retailers, they leak.
    - crtasm 6y ago
      Yes, the people arrested are allegedly from groups who are definitely responsible for sourcing a large percentage of the pre-release films you notice online.
- JTbane 6y ago
  > In fact the scene despises P2P (or at least used to). I can't understand that, isn't peer to peer inherently more resistant to law enforcement than any centralized FTP server?
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
    From my understanding, the scene is about being part of a club, belonging, and part of this is contributing back. Torrenting is just getting movies, without these social aspects, and without being part of the "elite".
einpoklum 6y ago
Human trafficking hurts the profits of almost no large corporation; so - there's no economic pressure to eradicate it. And most governments are not very amenable to pressure by human-rights groups, especially when they advocate for foreigners with a different language, different skin color, no voting rights and no money.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  Sadly to me, it’s socially acceptable to believe that the concerns of others are just, like, your opinion, man, and that it’s okay to not share the concerns of wider society, and furthermore okay that other narrower societies are not one’s concerns either; that to not care about others is a political stance, and therefore, to impress upon one the necessity of human rights for all, is to open the floor for a political debate. It’s strange to me, but nearly every time human rights are invoked, those invoking it are called out for being needlessly politically correct. As if being politically correct were the goal all along, as if being a sjw were a goal itself, so that the goal or argument in favor of the goal can be dismissed out of hand without discussion or debate. It’s a thought-terminating cliché.[0] I feel gaslit by society sometimes. Where have all the nice good people gone? I know all those folks in Mr Rogers Neighborhood are real people irl, but they increasingly seem like characters and actors from a society that no longer exists and perhaps never did, but hopefully one day could exist. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...
  - einpoklum 6y ago
    I'm actually not a great fan of the "Human Rights discourse". I would rather phrase things in terms of interests, needs and desires, which should be catered to due to human (and sometimes class) solidarity. Will read your link; for now, I'll reciprocate with this: https://libcom.org/library/implosion-point-democratist-ideology https://libcom.org/library/implosion-point-democratist-ideol...

Lammy 6y ago

These are the kind of things that made me realize the whole copyright thing is a conveniently legal way for any government to make sure only currently-Approved media is ever available to the general public. Nothing is accidental.

HenryBemis 6y ago
Can you please elaborate on that? "Currently-approved media"? In my mind (European) by media we mean the Press. Do you mean Press or Social Media? A radio station, or a newspaper has a license to operate and is governed by specific requirements and protections. Facebook and Twitter are NOT part of the press (imho). The fact that e.g. BBC tweets some news doesn't fall under the Social Media "laws" but under the Press "laws". Do you imply conspiracy? Could it just be that greedy capitalism runs ahead and legislation is 10y behind and ran by white old folks who just care to be re-elected and not to keep up to speed because, why bother? I am not trying to make this political, I sincerely do not understand if you are implying conspiracy or ruthless reality.
- olyjohn 6y ago
  I think by media, he means audio and video. Like how CDs and tapes are physical media. MP3s and MP4s are digital media.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    Yes, this is exactly how I meant “media”, like multimedia. Apologies for the confusion :)

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Your logical fallacies are whataboutism and false dichotomy. Copyright lawsuits do not detract from other issues. Copyright is a civil matter, whereas the ones you mention are criminal ones. The police and the US' various secret services are not involved in copyright issues.

kevingadd 6y ago
The FBI and other agencies are often involved in raids and arrests, and actively seize websites that are supposedly used for piracy. I don't understand how you can argue that it is a civil matter that does not involve law enforcement. Just search "fbi raid bittorrent", there are plenty of examples.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Copyright violation is actually a civil matter. But piracy is a federal crime and therefore under the FBI’s purview.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    Piracy historically referred to illicit printed copies created for unauthorized unlicensed material benefit to the copier, without demanded licensing terms or in absence of negotiations toward such licensing. The copyright lobby ensured it broadened to cover digital reproductions on shaky epistemological grounds imo.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
> The Crown also revealed that police had handed seized hard drives to FBI staff who copied them at the police crime lab in South Auckland and sent the copies back to the US. Justice Winkelmann ruled that the handing of hard drives seized by New Zealand police in the raid to the FBI was in breach of extradition legislation, and the FBI's removal from New Zealand of cloned data from them was unlawful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom
albatruss 6y ago

alternatetwo 6y ago

SPARKS weren't just a few torrent seeders, they were more specifically the source of a major part of BluRay releases in the warez scene. They also don't release on P2P, but on topsites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsite_(warez) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsite_(warez) In fact the scene despises P2P (or at least used to). I agree with you though. It's an absolute waste of resources that could be spent on actually making the world a better place.

crtasm 6y ago
Also they obtained and released blurays before they were put on sale to the public.
- alternatetwo 6y ago
  Well that's honestly what happens (in my experience) with any major DVD/BluRay release. Once they get pressed and given to retailers, they leak.
  - crtasm 6y ago
    Yes, the people arrested are allegedly from groups who are definitely responsible for sourcing a large percentage of the pre-release films you notice online.
JTbane 6y ago
> In fact the scene despises P2P (or at least used to). I can't understand that, isn't peer to peer inherently more resistant to law enforcement than any centralized FTP server?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  From my understanding, the scene is about being part of a club, belonging, and part of this is contributing back. Torrenting is just getting movies, without these social aspects, and without being part of the "elite".

einpoklum 6y ago

Human trafficking hurts the profits of almost no large corporation; so - there's no economic pressure to eradicate it. And most governments are not very amenable to pressure by human-rights groups, especially when they advocate for foreigners with a different language, different skin color, no voting rights and no money.

aspenmayer 6y ago
Sadly to me, it’s socially acceptable to believe that the concerns of others are just, like, your opinion, man, and that it’s okay to not share the concerns of wider society, and furthermore okay that other narrower societies are not one’s concerns either; that to not care about others is a political stance, and therefore, to impress upon one the necessity of human rights for all, is to open the floor for a political debate. It’s strange to me, but nearly every time human rights are invoked, those invoking it are called out for being needlessly politically correct. As if being politically correct were the goal all along, as if being a sjw were a goal itself, so that the goal or argument in favor of the goal can be dismissed out of hand without discussion or debate. It’s a thought-terminating cliché.[0] I feel gaslit by society sometimes. Where have all the nice good people gone? I know all those folks in Mr Rogers Neighborhood are real people irl, but they increasingly seem like characters and actors from a society that no longer exists and perhaps never did, but hopefully one day could exist. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...
- einpoklum 6y ago
  I'm actually not a great fan of the "Human Rights discourse". I would rather phrase things in terms of interests, needs and desires, which should be catered to due to human (and sometimes class) solidarity. Will read your link; for now, I'll reciprocate with this: https://libcom.org/library/implosion-point-democratist-ideology https://libcom.org/library/implosion-point-democratist-ideol...