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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 somethin

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.

tomp 13y ago
> for something as unimportant as money 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.
- chii 13y ago
  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.
  - higherpurpose 13y ago
    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.
  - tomp 13y ago
    I don't think it matters. As long as it's their siblings, parents and kids.
- mnw21cam 13y ago
  What are they loosing? There doesn't seem to be much evidence of them setting anything free at the moment.
  - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
    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.
    - TheCraiggers 13y ago
      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.
- GrinningFool 13y ago
  > 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..."
  - sdfjkl 13y ago
    "I used to admit that I 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?
- rayiner 13y ago
  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.
- malandrew 13y ago
  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.
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    And even the movie business is pretty small. This infographic puts the size of the entire market at a fairly paltry 65 billion a year. http://bitshare.cm/post/2082365481/the-film-industry-is-big-business-infograph http://bitshare.cm/post/2082365481/the-film-industry-is-big-... Disney's studio arm pulled in just shy of 6 billion last year. Parks and Resorts brought in 14 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company#Revenues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company#Revenue...
alkonaut 13y ago
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?
- rplnt 13y ago
  Many ISPs block or limit torrent traffic, whatever the content. Mine has been doing this as far as I can remember. Have to use encrypted mode only.
  - danieldk 13y ago
    The Netherlands has a net neutrality law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Law_in_The_Netherlands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Law_in_The_Nethe... As a consequence, blocking or limiting Bittorrent traffic is not allowed.
    - stingraycharles 13y ago
      Yeah, people tend to forget that net neutrality and censorship are two different things, albeit related.
  - alkonaut 13y ago
    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.
    - ultramancool 13y ago
      Except the attack would not actually be done via HTTP, but just by blocking access to its ports. Perhaps you could say it's an attack on TCP/IP.
    - Someone 13y ago
      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.
Confusion 13y ago
This is not about bittorrent. The ISP's were required to block IP addresses and DNS entries. They were not required to block bittorrent traffic

tomp 13y ago

> for something as unimportant as money 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.

chii 13y ago
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.
- higherpurpose 13y ago
  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.
- tomp 13y ago
  I don't think it matters. As long as it's their siblings, parents and kids.
mnw21cam 13y ago
What are they loosing? There doesn't seem to be much evidence of them setting anything free at the moment.
- Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
  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.
  - TheCraiggers 13y ago
    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.
GrinningFool 13y ago
> 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..."
- sdfjkl 13y ago
  "I used to admit that I 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?
rayiner 13y ago
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.
malandrew 13y ago
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.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  And even the movie business is pretty small. This infographic puts the size of the entire market at a fairly paltry 65 billion a year. http://bitshare.cm/post/2082365481/the-film-industry-is-big-business-infograph http://bitshare.cm/post/2082365481/the-film-industry-is-big-... Disney's studio arm pulled in just shy of 6 billion last year. Parks and Resorts brought in 14 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company#Revenues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company#Revenue...

alkonaut 13y ago

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?

rplnt 13y ago
Many ISPs block or limit torrent traffic, whatever the content. Mine has been doing this as far as I can remember. Have to use encrypted mode only.
- danieldk 13y ago
  The Netherlands has a net neutrality law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Law_in_The_Netherlands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Law_in_The_Nethe... As a consequence, blocking or limiting Bittorrent traffic is not allowed.
  - stingraycharles 13y ago
    Yeah, people tend to forget that net neutrality and censorship are two different things, albeit related.
- alkonaut 13y ago
  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.
  - ultramancool 13y ago
    Except the attack would not actually be done via HTTP, but just by blocking access to its ports. Perhaps you could say it's an attack on TCP/IP.
  - Someone 13y ago
    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.

Confusion 13y ago

This is not about bittorrent. The ISP's were required to block IP addresses and DNS entries. They were not required to block bittorrent traffic