Major file-sharing bust in Europe targets P2P admins

Makes me wonder if Wikileaks is going to be safe in their chosen country of Sweden ?

 

I'll repeat the same mantra I always do, you're not going to stop piracy. It's about the same as the so called "Drug War", it's not winnable. I'll lay out my opinion:

1. It's too profitable. Like drugs and weapons, there is simply too much money to be made from it. Like every gang leader, cartel boss, whatever, when you take down one, another rises up. When you shut down a major P2P website, like roaches, multiple smaller websites appear. Everyone thought the death of MiniNova and the Pirate Bay would be the death blow to piracy....hardly. Piracy MIGHT be less convenient these days, but that is it.

2. EVERYBODY has to be on-board. The MPAA, RIAA, hell, the government itself, alone cannot win. You HAVE to have ISPs on-board with you, you HAVE to have hosting services on-board with you, you HAVE to have software developers, musicians, music labels, movie studios with you. And not the just big names, EVERYBODY. Without full cooperation, you'll get nowhere. This means the government has to FORCE all of these people to comply, and that's after STRICT laws have been put in place. Oh yeah, so far I've only been referring to the U.S government. Try doing all of that across the globe.

3. Money. Everyone wants to make it, not spend it. So until the aforementioned laws are put in to place and enforced without loopholes or exceptions, the mission is dead. ISPs don't want to babysit anyone, especially not on their own dime. Hosting services don't want to lose customers. The MPAA and RIAA can't afford to fight forever, movies and music aren't making what they used to. And, no, that isn't strictly because of piracy, though they are desperate to have you believe that.

4. Rights of the people. In order to accomplish the goal of erasing piracy, drugs, weapons, anything, the government has to be everywhere, all the time. In the case of piracy, the Internet would have to be taken over by the government, ALL governments (if world-wide piracy is to stop). In the U.S, they can't even stop spam, so you can forget piracy. Every byte of data would have to be recorded, from visited websites, to email messages, to messenger conversations, all the way down to every single file downloaded off of the internet. If that DID happen, someone would buy things legitimately, copy them, and start selling them on the street, as it happens in India and various other places.

5. Technology. For every method of crime-fighting, there is a method of getting around it. DRM? Broken. Packet sniffer? IP Blocker and Obfusication. It goes on and on.


So, it isn't just a question of shutting down a mass of websites or suing people left and right. There is far more to it, and, businesses being businesses, the government has about as much chance of eradicating piracy as an ice cream cone sitting on top of the Giza pyramids.

 

He has enough problems as it is by himself, let alone Wikileaks. Sweden is obviously not the land of privacy nor an internet safety haven anymore. It's joined all the other countries.

 

@ dw426

Gee, i thought i was quite a fast writer

Exactly, if "They" really wanted to stop it, it would have been done Years ago. Too many people in high places with their fingers in the pie it's not just the usual suspects, never has been.

As for piracy, yeah once again it could have been seriously sorted out years ago, if ALL the players had worked together. Makes you wonder why they didn't/havn't. Could it be $ once more ?

 

It's ALWAYS about money. Money is the reason the fight on piracy began, and money is the reason the fight, without MAJOR consequences to citizens and even businesses, won't be won. I never even mentioned every search engine would have to be purged for every mention of file-sharing, every URL of file-sharing websites (and then only the known ones could be purged). In reality, if this was fully enforced, I'm not certain places like Youtube would survive. Even Linux distributions would suffer because, as we all know, Bittorrent is a mighty popular method of getting them.

 

The media corporations should have embraced file sharing networks and leveraged profitable business models long ago. Metallica's mistake with Napster 10 years ago is a good example. If you can't stop it, then learn how to use it to your advantage.

 

Nice to see actual piracy like software cracking being busted down, trying to target the downloaders is stupid.

 

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/sweden-belgium.60p

 

It used to be extremely easy to blame Metallica, but now, you see the labels themselves either outright refusing to participate or making harsh restrictions if they do participate. They don't want the Internet to be the go-to place for music, too many profitable schemes get shut out, and too many middlemen don't get a share. Record stores can't charge 16 dollars or more for a CD anymore, factories don't get as many contracts they once did to press CDs, when you start making digital downloads. Labels don't make as much anymore because digital albums are cheaper, and, often, many buy one or two songs from an album and not the whole thing.

In other words, even though it is cheaper on them to do digital downloads, they still aren't making what they used to, and they can't stand that. It's the same way with the movie business.

 

I may get called out for it, but I don't give a crap about piracy. Call me crazy or uninformed, but I've yet to see, unlike other crimes, piracy cause murders, addictions, or any other unpleasant things. Also, it doesn't hurt businesses like you would be led to believe. Microsoft is still going strong, the honchos there are still billionaires, nobody at Symantec is starving and homeless, Adobe is still making millions off of Photoshop. I could go on and on. Want to know who uses the most pirated software? Companies, NOT us "little folk". It's been that way for years.

 

For the most part, the people who purchase music or software CDs would do so regardless of piracy. The people who obtain illegal copies most likely would go without the product, rather than paying for it.

 

You're right to an extent. It may sound like BS, but a lot of people will grab a free copy to listen to/watch, determine if it is worth the money, and then buy it. I'm one of those people, actually. I'm a bit "old-school", I'm not really into digital downloads that much. I like to have that CD in my hand, have all the liner notes, the photos (hand me a vinyl record and I'm like a chubby kid who just got handed the keys to the local candy store). Honestly, if Youtube would leave well enough alone and stop blocking the audio, it would be a great place to try out that new album without having to resort to downloading it for free.

 

How is it profitable? I would have guessed running a file-sharing site would be lots of risk for little pay? And what do the guys who crack software make?

Now if you mean profitable for the people downloading (as opposed to buying) then sure, but that only explains the demand; I'm curious about the supply?

 

When I say that, I'm not really speaking of torrent websites. I'm speaking about places like India and others where pirated software, CDs, movies are sold in shops, and, talking about crime rings that distribute pirated materials. Some people may be surprised where pirated materials pop up at, they aren't just found in the little street booths and the open trunks of cars. I've, literally, seen them show up in brick and mortar, legitimate stores in the U.S, I'm not kidding you. I've seen quite a few CDs that look professionally done, with just one or two things "off" about them. I've seen many more movies like this. I've bought at least two examples at Best Buy.

So no, I'm not talking about big, public torrent trackers or Emule here, but professionally ran, literal businesses.