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Most of the piracy sites are super scummy. I can see the appeal in trying to shut them down. I've always wondered how the economics of those setups that push

Most of the piracy sites are super scummy. I can see the appeal in trying to shut them down. I've always wondered how the economics of those setups that push you through a half dozen link shorteners / ad pages with captchas all over the place work. I bet there's ad fraud going on with the captchas being solved for bots that are doing less than respectable things. Look at Kim Dotcom / Mega Upload for an example of who the big winners are in the piracy space. Some of it is big business, so it's easy to see the lawyers' side. I'd still consider myself pro piracy because it creates a floor in terms of how bad big companies can treat us, but there are some participants that deserve to be chased by lawyers.

superkuh 5y ago
No. Most of the piracy sites that are public and well known are super scummy. That is because only that kind of scummy income can protect and justify the exposure. Semi-private and private piracy sites are really nice, safe, and have better organization and UI than most big money for profit sites that attempt to distribute the same types of media. What.cd was way less scummy than any large commercial media distribution company.
- deleted 5y ago
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- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Yes, but there's no guarantee that What.cd[0] remains a charismatic defendant in any scenario where they don't get shut down. Nor should the law be written around protecting charismatic defendants. The argument against copyright maximalism should not be made on the basis that "nice" pirate sites can exist - in fact, you should advocate for copyright reform or reduction on the basis of the least tolerable, most scummy site that should be allowed to exist. [0] insert any other non-scummy pirate site here
raxxorrax 5y ago
True, but the industry has shown that it need the constant threat of piracy. Ebooks and music are already in a bad state again. I guess with VPN becoming more popular due to increased surveillance it can lead to a renaissance of file sharing.

superkuh 5y ago

No. Most of the piracy sites that are public and well known are super scummy. That is because only that kind of scummy income can protect and justify the exposure. Semi-private and private piracy sites are really nice, safe, and have better organization and UI than most big money for profit sites that attempt to distribute the same types of media. What.cd was way less scummy than any large commercial media distribution company.

deleted 5y ago
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kmeisthax 5y ago
Yes, but there's no guarantee that What.cd[0] remains a charismatic defendant in any scenario where they don't get shut down. Nor should the law be written around protecting charismatic defendants. The argument against copyright maximalism should not be made on the basis that "nice" pirate sites can exist - in fact, you should advocate for copyright reform or reduction on the basis of the least tolerable, most scummy site that should be allowed to exist. [0] insert any other non-scummy pirate site here

raxxorrax 5y ago

True, but the industry has shown that it need the constant threat of piracy. Ebooks and music are already in a bad state again. I guess with VPN becoming more popular due to increased surveillance it can lead to a renaissance of file sharing.