[femalewrestlingchannel]

What are your thoughts on this case?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/95444d64-437b-11e1-8489-00144feab49a.html#axzz1k6Gri2JQ

[femalewrestlingchannel]

I see it as another abuse of power by a tyrannical government. That's how I see it in short.

I see it as people OWNING the copyrights to items illegally uploaded onto the internet and  trying to stop said piracy to protect their investment.

Piracy effectively reduces the company's ability to fund future developments

Should government go after those personally responsible who downloaded the content, or the companies that host it, such as Youtube, Rapidshare, Yousend it, Youporn, etc, etc, etc, or both?

And why?

[femalewrestlingchannel]

I will, however, say it's reported that Megaupload ignored many requests for content to be taken down.

So that has to be considered as well.

[HB]

The problem has to be addressed.   I've been working with an independant record label which produces limited edition film score releases, and the file sharing thing is rampant and impacts their already minimal profit.  Let's say a limited edition release costs around $ 100,000 to produce ( licensing fees and re-use fees to the AFM eat you up )  and market with a pressing of 3000 to 5000 copies. If it sells 5000 copies at 19.95  it is still just around the break even point with a small profit.  So there are dozens of internet forums devoted to file sharing in this specialized niche, the CD is ripped and shared, 100 members download from most - not all - of the forums, so already there are over 1000 lost sales.  People can hue and cry but not everyone is going to eventually buy something they download for free.

Rapidshare has been very cooperative in my experience with deleting files that violate copyright . Other file sharing services not so much. If a file server doesn't cooperate then it should be handled.   This is quite an extreme step, but, sadly a needed one.  If Megaupload isn't helping the property owners by deleting files...they're sealing their fate.   After all,  copyright is a federal law.

I am no fan of groups like the RIAA who have screwed over consumers time and again and then cry foul when THEY feel they've been done wrong...but right is right

[femalewrestlingchannel]

I discussed this issue with a programmer friend today and I'm trying to get his team on it.

I'm simply wanting something that puts the user's IP address, first name, and home address in the code of the video downloaded.  It can be invisible, and he said that producer's could be sold a device that can "unpack or unlock" the information to find out who the original uploader was.  (I can't remember the exact programming language he used).

It's going to be impossible to go after those who download it.   But, if this becomes an industry standard, people are not going to upload videos they don't own willy nilly.

He stated that Itunes is currently like this now.  You can't easily transfer them.  I guess with bigger media, there are devices you can purchase for around $20,000.   However, I want to get something built and get it down to the $100 or $200 level.

We shall see.   

I don't have the time or knowledge to work on it.   But, he did say my idea was do-able.   We shall see.

[daveboxfan]

Don't you get it. This site wouldn't exist. Peroid if these people get their way. Why They will censor it out of existance because it conflicts with their sense of morality. . Wake up people Big Brother vizavee Muti-national corps is here.

[Rocko23]

By the same logic you should shut every ISP that allows their users to dl copyrighted material or shut down every telephone company which allows its customers to plan crimes by phone. Also I'd prefer the authorities to devote this much effort to stopping violent crime or child pornographers rather than whoring themselves out to the music and recording industry. This is not a criminal case by any strech of the imagination it is at most a civil dispute. The CEO's of these companies put politcial pressure on their puppet politcians who misused the justice department to a ridiculous degree.

To see how the artists themselves felt - just look at the adverts they did promoting the damn site!

[Nutmeg]

This is quite interesting........take a look at this.

http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-swizz-beatz-120120/

Apparently there was something in the works for a huge music business using it as a base:

"Mega’s competing music venture is/was called Megabox, a site that would soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers. And unlike the traditional record deals where artists get only a fraction of the revenue, with Megabox the musicians would get to keep 90% of earnings."

I would not be a single bit surprised if this had more to do with them being targeted, then the copyright stuff. Can't have anyone competing with big business after all can we?

Sounds more like taking the art of illegal download sales to international racketeering levels. Steal the artists earning via promoting illegal downloads  then force them to use you as a distributor to guarantee it does not happen anymore..provided someone else isn`t doing the same thing...

The next big gut laugh is how these guys are being portrayed as NOT a big business. So you honestly think a company that takes home more than 1 million per employee is being run by fellas taking home minimum wage and dedicated to the good of mankind? If you believe that you are as Joe Stalin termed it "a useful idiot' to criminals. These people don't love the little guy, or the big guy or anything but the dollar signs people give to them. Nor does Anonymous who are no better than the thugs who show up to smash mom and pop stores with the same glee as major retailers. Having them show up to 'avenge' Megaupload is like having the Klan show up to help investigate your home invasion. They are not there to help you, they are there for their own agenda.

You want a solution to the problem of illegal downloads? Teach people to lose their sense of entitlement. If every idiot with an internet connection didn't think they deserve free music, movies, video games, books, games, software, catfight videos, etc.. this would not be an issue. Pay for stuff. You may be shocked to learn when stuff sells they have to hire people to make and sell it , giving people jobs.

Otherwise the only way to kill the activity is simple: stop making the product. Seriously. Hey, if you feel like you are making catfight vids for free because of theft, you don't owe people a damn thing. If a producer stopped tomorrow I bet the first ones crying would be the punks uploading their vids all over the place, because you are providing them with something they lack the talent and intelligence to think of or do themselves.

Its sad that I have to see some of my favorite creators practically BEG people to actually pay for their products so they can eat.

[Nutmeg]

They are not there to help you, they are there for their own agenda.

You pretty much just summed up most governments right there in one statement.

But I wasn't speaking of governments. Please spare me your coffee shop anarchist routine/agenda. Take it to Starbucks where it belongs.

[NJGoomba]

fightfanatic Let me lay out a scenario. I break into your home and steal items from you. I take them to a Pawn Shop and sell the Items. What do you do? 1) nothing 2) You take the responsibility for that and NOT government and look for the Pawn Shops yourself, or 3) Will you call the Police and the Government to do their Job?

Having said that I will say this though, the SOPA and PIPA Bills as they were written were wrong and much to broad in scope. But I think this was do to the President and Congress (both the Democratic and Republican Party) not wanting to be seen doing nothing and trying to Pass anything.  

[BigDevil]

I have been staying away from this thread because I have some very strong feelings about SOPA and PIPA and as anyone who knows me can attest too is that when I feel passionate about something I get hot headed and sometimes end up saying things I don't mean. With that said, I don't know anything about mega upload except what I have been reading recently. I have never used the site and do not agree with piracy.I don't like the fact that the scum bag that owns the site was willfully breaking laws and ignoring the letters asking him to take the pirated stuff off his site. I also resent the fact that he was making so much money illegally like he was.

What the Justice Department did was prove that with the laws already in place they were able to take that site down which is proof that SOPA and PIPA are not needed.

 My reasons for being so against SOPA and PIPA are
1. The governemet could order the blocking of websites using methods like the ones used in China. Does anyone in a country that claims to be free and loves their freedom of speech as much as we do really want to use the methods of a comunist country to censor the internet. And i do belive that at 1st it would be going after piracy but like any and most governemts they would go to certain langauge in the bill to censor other sites (siting for security purposes or "We are only going after terrorists'). Which is why over 40 humans rights organizations and 110 law professors have come out against both of those bills.
2. U.S. internet companies would have to monitor everything users link to or upload or face the risk of litigation. Which is why AOL, EBay, Facebook, Google, IAC, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga wrote a letter to Congress saying these bills “pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job-creation.” It is also why 55 of America’s most successful venture capitalists expressed concern that PIPA “would stifle investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt American competitiveness”. More than 204 entrepreneurs told Congress that PIPA and SOPA would “hurt economic growth and chill innovation”.
3. SOPA and PIPA wouldnt even work!! The censorship regulations written into those bills won’t shut down pirate sites. The sites would just change their addresses and continue business as usual, while law-abiding companies will suffer high penalties for breaches they can’t possibly control.
Those are just a few of the reasons I am against SOPA and PIPA
These are just a few of my reasons for being so against SOPA and PIPA. And if they would have passed it would have only been a matter of time before the rest of the world would have enacted the same laws.

But since they still feel that more has to be done there is another bill that was co written by democrats and republicans called "Online Protection & ENforcement of Digital Trade Act" Which basically gaurentees that Americans have the right to benefit from the internet and that Americans have a write to a open and free internet while protecting copy writes.

Also there are plenty of ways to get movies cheap, every decent sized town in the USA and probably Canada and Europe have stores that sell used DVDs cheap which is totally legal. The store I go to sells them for $2.00 a piece. If you need software there are plenty of free alternatives that are just as good as the big ones. You need photoshop there are a lot of very good free ones out there. MS Office? there are also good free alternatives those are just a couple of examples. All people have to go is google what they are looking for and they can find it. Or do like i do and go to download.com to find them.

[BigDevil]

this has nothing to do with protecting copyright that is a front, if the us government was so concerned about this it would have acted ages ago. It is about control, control of the internet nothing more. The US are saying just like china we can determine who does what on the internet, this is really really scary and we all need to get concerned. Do not believe the hype about piracy.

Next it is europe, nothing to do with piracy. In europe the goverments are using legislation designed to prevent medicines being parallel imported to shut down websites !!!

Protecting everyone's right to free speech is very important to me, but I do not see this as a attack on anyone's rights at all. I see this as a website whose owner refused to take copyrighted material off his website period. He was asked several times to take the stuff off but refused so he got what he deserved. These guys weren't kids sending one another songs through there email or messengers this guy was living in a 30 million dollar home so to think that they cared about anyone but himself is outright foolish. In fact defending megaupload and that scum bag that owned it is almost as bad as thanking Tony Montana for fighting drugs. As far as buying medicines off the internet why would anyone want to go to some website that they have no idea where it is based in and order medicines from who knows where and weather the meds are real or not. Here in the USA if you need meds and you are either uninsured or under insured you can get whatever you need for free. All the big pharmaceutical companies have programs for people that cant afford there medications. Just go to their website download the form fill it out have your Dr sign in and send it in with the prescription. I have glaucoma and had to do that for a yr when i was uninsured. Like clock work my eye drops came in the mail directly from the pharmaceutical company. Also all the pharmaceutical companies give the Dr's samples if you cant afford your meds tell the Dr the problem and he will give you the samples. I had to do that for the yr i was uninsured for my other meds that I have to take.