Feds Shut Down Megaupload.com

[Guest Rob]

Many countries signed ACTA today, including Canada/the US, several countries in Europe, and Japan.

 

:|

[Carl]

We have a pretty threatening SOPA in Ireland now too, sadly. Which is picking up speed. Problem we have is we can't tell our representatives to say no, as this site says: http://stopsopaireland.com/ . The European Headquarters for Facebook, E-Bay, Google & soon to be Twitter are based here. Not sure how badly it will effect that!

[Furah]

I disagree Racheya. As long as the 'reasonable alternative' is free, then no other service will take its place. Netflix as far as I'm aware is fully rolled out in America, yet piracy is still as rampant there as in the UK where the service doesn't exist. Piracy of games still exists even with extremely easy to use (and cheap) services such as Steam for games as well. The root of the problem is that goods should not be offered for free, as it massively devalues them, leading to a situation like this. There was no quarrel with pricing and availability before free piracy was available. It is only now that people think it is their 'right' to get something for nothing, even when somebody has gone through a lot of effort to produce it, that this comes up.

Some people will, no matter what, pay for music, movies, or games. Wolfire Games have, time and time again, seen that even if people can chose their prices that they will still pirate. No matter how many laws you bring in, no matter how dire the consequences, there are people who will always pirate.

Many countries signed ACTA today, including Canada/the US, several countries in Europe, and Japan.

 

:|

Actually, they signed last year. Fifth paragraph in.

 

I don't understand the mega box thing. Where will the money come from to pay the artists for free downloads? If it is coming from piracy on another arm of the company, then it should still not be allowed.

Not all downloads were free. It was basically a way for artists to sell their music and allowing them to keep a large cut of the profits, which they're unable to if they're signed onto a record label. Artists could still give their music away for free and the money would have most likely have been from advertisement revenues.

Your situation isn't trivial because we have it better than others, it's trivial because freedom of expression and freedom of speech and so on does NOT cover you to steal pieces of work. And that's what the majority of megaupload was used for.

I know that freedoms of expression and of speech don't cover people stealing copyrighted material. The problem is that SOPA/PIPA/ACTA in themselves are censorship. I'm all for the OPEN Act, because it aims at allowing people to protect their IP, without stifling creativity on the net, and with allowing legitimate sites who actually try to remove copyrighted materials at the request of arts to still run without fear of becoming the target of a lawsuit. Megaupload was considered one of the most cooperative filehosting sites, and would often pull material faster than other sites. I'm trying to get a reference for that, but I'm having a bit of difficulty finding it from my history, I'll edit this post when I do find it.

 

I do, however, know that many legitimate users are wanting to sue the FBI over the loss of their legitimate files. Sovereign immunity unfortunately prevents the FBI from being sued unless they agree to be sued, which I highly doubt they will.

 

[Jaffy1]

Actually, they signed last year. Fifth paragraph in.

 

European countries didn't sign then. Today this article was posted, saying that all EU countries signed save mine, Germany, Estonia, Cyprus, and Slovakia. That happened yesterday.

 

Though I can understand why they would want to, I can't say I'm very happy with it. According to law in my country it is perfectly legal to download music, TV shows and movies (just not copyrighted software) from host sites - uploading is illegal. As such downloading legally has worked quite well for me, allowing me to follow TV shows that are only on paid TV here, or not at all. For both shows I actively follow I could not watch it on TV now buy any of the DVDs unless I'd like to have them shipped from the UK or US, which gets you area code crap and is rather overpriced if you just want to watch something once or twice.

 

If this agreement and SOPA stuff were to be part of a new internet where there is a place where everyone, regardless of their location, can legally download TV shows and movies (and pay a small amount for every episode or so), I wouldn't be bothered, but with the current system of "Americans only" for "legal" streaming and no DVD releases in half the world they don't lose any profit if I download those - yet they take my entertainment away without gain for themselves.

[Furah]

Actually, they signed last year. Fifth paragraph in.

 

European countries didn't sign then. Today this article was posted, saying that all EU countries signed save mine, Germany, Estonia, Cyprus, and Slovakia. That happened yesterday.

 

Though I can understand why they would want to, I can't say I'm very happy with it. According to law in my country it is perfectly legal to download music, TV shows and movies (just not copyrighted software) from host sites - uploading is illegal. As such downloading legally has worked quite well for me, allowing me to follow TV shows that are only on paid TV here, or not at all. For both shows I actively follow I could not watch it on TV now buy any of the DVDs unless I'd like to have them shipped from the UK or US, which gets you area code crap and is rather overpriced if you just want to watch something once or twice.

 

If this agreement and SOPA stuff were to be part of a new internet where there is a place where everyone, regardless of their location, can legally download TV shows and movies (and pay a small amount for every episode or so), I wouldn't be bothered, but with the current system of "Americans only" for "legal" streaming and no DVD releases in half the world they don't lose any profit if I download those - yet they take my entertainment away without gain for themselves.

 

They may have signed recently, the paragraph I specified only mentioned the countries that signed on 1 Oct, 2011. Australia is also an extremely abysmal with receiving movies and tv shows. I've seen pirated copies of DVD rips of movies months before they get coming soon trailers in cinemas, or tv shows years before they come out here. That's only mainstream movies/shows, too. Some movies I watch are refused classification here, too. While that doesn't explicitly prevent us from possessing them, importing them is technically illegal.

[Guest jrhairychest]

Hmmm............It's not exactly hard to see why the entertainment industry wants to put a stop to copyright infringement nor why these file sharing sites are starting to shut down :rolleyes:

Yeah it is. If they tackled the root problem of all this - their ridiculous DRM, pricing and restrictions they'd probably find a few more people turning away from piracy because they're being provided a reasonable alternative. Think of stuff like Netflix. It's relatively cheap and you get a lot out of it (not so much here in the UK yet, but it's a start). If accessing content was made easy and reasonably priced there would be less people pirating. Of course some people will, but people have always pirated and always will.

 

DRM, pricing and restrictions are nothing new and have always been priced as to what people will pay for them. It's basic supply and demand. The correct way to tackle this is to simply not buy the product so it forces the price down.

 

All you're doing is advocating theft. 'It costs too much' doesn't wash. Like anything else in life if it costs too much you don't buy it and wait until it comes down in price. You'd probably be horrified if I implied you advocated shoplifting - This is no different except it's digital.

[Jonanananas]

Hmmm............It's not exactly hard to see why the entertainment industry wants to put a stop to copyright infringement nor why these file sharing sites are starting to shut down :rolleyes:

Yeah it is. If they tackled the root problem of all this - their ridiculous DRM, pricing and restrictions they'd probably find a few more people turning away from piracy because they're being provided a reasonable alternative. Think of stuff like Netflix. It's relatively cheap and you get a lot out of it (not so much here in the UK yet, but it's a start). If accessing content was made easy and reasonably priced there would be less people pirating. Of course some people will, but people have always pirated and always will.

 

DRM, pricing and restrictions are nothing new and have always been priced as to what people will pay for them. It's basic supply and demand. The correct way to tackle this is to simply not buy the product so it forces the price down.

 

All you're doing is advocating theft. 'It costs too much' doesn't wash. Like anything else in life if it costs too much you don't buy it and wait until it comes down in price. You'd probably be horrified if I implied you advocated shoplifting - This is no different except it's digital.

 

I kind of agree with you, but I think we have to distinguish between two things here. The first being why illegal downloading is *not* ok - and the second thing being how the music/games/movie industry should react. They're not doing themselves a favour with their DRM and stuff.

 

Why were/are large streaming sites so popular? I bet for the majority it's not because it's free, though that of course is a part of it. Fact is, those streaming sites usually have a far better selection of movies because the large companies found no way to agree on licensing so that legal sites could get anywhere near the amount of movies of illegal sites.

 

If there was a legal streaming site with all current movies and popular movies of the past years, with easy methods to pay, a lot of people would use that. It would need some marketing of course, but I'm sure it would work.

[Ginger_Warrior]

You mean, like, LoveFilm (not in the US, but I'm sure Amazon have US alternatives)? Two million subscriptions, but people are still downloading pirated stuff from the Internet. Strange, eh?

 

Piracy still happens despite there being a decent, paying alternative. There's just no getting around that.

[Assume Nothing]

It needs to be a little more competitive in pricing. Given that demand is pretty elastic, lowering the price may actually be beneficial.

[Jonanananas]

I also think the ease of paying and the type of payment makes a difference. If I can just go there, watch the film and pay with a mouseclick, it's as easy and convenient as illegal sites. If I have to register, pay monthly, search the terms&conditions for additional fees etc...

 

But I may be overestimating this. It's entirely possible it wouldn't make a huge difference :/

[Omar]

You mean, like, LoveFilm (not in the US, but I'm sure Amazon have US alternatives)? Two million subscriptions, but people are still downloading pirated stuff from the Internet. Strange, eh?

 

Piracy still happens despite there being a decent, paying alternative. There's just no getting around that.

And that's not that big a deal, actually.

 

All you're doing is advocating theft. 'It costs too much' doesn't wash. Like anything else in life if it costs too much you don't buy it and wait until it comes down in price. You'd probably be horrified if I implied you advocated shoplifting - This is no different except it's digital.

Yeah, so it's no different except it's different.

[Edit] Stealing a physical object you think is too expensive actually results in higher prices to cover for the loss of the products, if anything. Copying a digital object you wouldn't have bought in the first place is equivalent to not buying it, as far as the seller's concerned.

[Sbrideau]

Apparently they shut it down with pressure form the label companies because MU was coming with a new service called MegaBox which would allow artists to put their music on it and to get 90% of the money, and even get money from free downloads of their songs. I don't remember where I saw it, I think it was on torrentfreak or something.

[Guest jrhairychest]

Yeah, so it's no different except it's different.

 

and theft is theft whichever way you look to legitimise it.

[Omar]

Yeah, so it's no different except it's different.

 

and theft is theft whichever way you look to legitimise it.

Theft:

a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property

 

So, what say you of what isn't theft?

[ilovecuttingyews]

[Edit] Stealing a physical object you think is too expensive actually results in higher prices to cover for the loss of the products, if anything. Copying a digital object you wouldn't have bought in the first place is equivalent to not buying it, as far as the seller's concerned.

Except that stealing a digital copy still results in less income for the creator of the product since people are gaining utility from it without having to pay anything. The primary problem isn't in the people who pirate something where they had no plans on buying it. Rather, the main problem is people who pirate instead of buying it. Often, I'll find myself in the store looking at the movies trying to decide whether to buy one or not. Unfortunately, one of my decision making tools is 'have I downloaded and watched it'. If I've pirated a movie, I am less likely to buy it later even if I had full intentions of doing so pre-pirating. So my pirating does have a direct impact on the income of the makers of that DVD/CD.

 

Just a note: I do have a sizable CD/DVD collection, and I try to buy whenever I can afford it to help support the artists who put a lot of time and effort into making music/movies.

[Omar]

[Edit] Stealing a physical object you think is too expensive actually results in higher prices to cover for the loss of the products, if anything. Copying a digital object you wouldn't have bought in the first place is equivalent to not buying it, as far as the seller's concerned.

Except that stealing a digital copy still results in less income for the creator of the product since people are gaining utility from it without having to pay anything. The primary problem isn't in the people who pirate something where they had no plans on buying it. Rather, the main problem is people who pirate instead of buying it.

 

From this Wired article:

[Paraphrasing the previous part of the article: the number of released albums and movies has increased, which means piracy isn't an incentive to stop creating.] That’s all very nice, one might object, but wouldn’t these heartening numbers be even higher if labels and studios could recapture some of the revenue lost to illicit downloads? Well, they surely might—but it’s not nearly as clear as you’d think.

 

One reason is that they already are recapturing much of that revenue through “complementary” purchases. As Oberholzer-Gee observes, recording industry numbers show large increases in concert revenues corresponding to the drop in recorded music sales. That suggests that, as people discover new artists by sampling downloaded albums online, they’re shifting consumption within the sector to live performances. In other words, people have a roughly constant “music budget,” and what they don’t spend on the albums they’ve downloaded gets spent on seeing that new band they discovered. For the firms that specifically make their money from the sale of recordings, that may seem like cold comfort, but if we’re concerned with the music industry as a whole, it’s a wash. Something similar might occur with respect to purchases of merchandise based on licensed film properties.

 

In other words, the money people used to spend on CDs is actually going to the people who make the music nowadays. Crazy.

[Danqazmlp]

I read through that article and skimmed the study, and to be honest, it seems to be grasping at straws a fair amount. There could be many more reasons for concert tickets being increasingly sold, attributing it simply to increased availability through pirating and other online means is hogwash. As the internet has evolved, it has opened up much more ways of advertising and selling concert tickets for one, but I did not see that factored into the equations at all. It reeks of classic narrow-minded studies where a researcher has gone at a study with an intended goal, not open to all outcomes. Harvard or not, it can still happen. Even if you look at the reading they did for the study, you can see previous studies completely contradict each other, with one saying piracy led to a 20% loss of revenue or something along those lines, ans another sayin it had no effect.

 

I'm not saying it has no effect at all, and people may but some concert tickets, but I don't think it could be anywhere near substantial enough to make up for the lost revenue. I've personally downloaded a lot of songs, but have not gone to enough concerts to cover the cost by far, not even anywhere close.

 

 

Also, the article does say that even 'if' it may be leading to other purchases, it is still hurting the music industry, no matter what people think, otherwise they would not be putting so much money into combating piracy.

[Alg]

I'm a bit more surprised that people who would complain about buying a $10-15 album are okay with buying a considerably more expensive concert ticket.

[champion]

I'm a bit more surprised that people who would complain about buying a $10-15 album are okay with buying a considerably more expensive concert ticket.

I listen to probably ~10 new, different albums per month, more or less. That would add up to over 100 dollars every month. I just don't have that kind of money. I do have about 20 bucks to spend on a concert every couple of months, though.

 

Not to mention most shows I go to cost just about as much as an album would anyways.

[Omar]

I read through that article and skimmed the study, and to be honest, it seems to be grasping at straws a fair amount. There could be many more reasons for concert tickets being increasingly sold, attributing it simply to increased availability through pirating and other online means is hogwash. As the internet has evolved, it has opened up much more ways of advertising and selling concert tickets for one, but I did not see that factored into the equations at all. It reeks of classic narrow-minded studies where a researcher has gone at a study with an intended goal, not open to all outcomes. Harvard or not, it can still happen. Even if you look at the reading they did for the study, you can see previous studies completely contradict each other, with one saying piracy led to a 20% loss of revenue or something along those lines, ans another sayin it had no effect.

 

Fair enough.

 

I'm not saying it has no effect at all, and people may but some concert tickets, but I don't think it could be anywhere near substantial enough to make up for the lost revenue. I've personally downloaded a lot of songs, but have not gone to enough concerts to cover the cost by far, not even anywhere close.

 

The question isn't whether the amount of music you downloaded is equal to the amount of money you have spent on concerts, but whether the amount you downloaded instead of buying is equal to the amount of money you have spent on concerts.

 

Also, the article does say that even 'if' it may be leading to other purchases, it is still hurting the music industry, no matter what people think, otherwise they would not be putting so much money into combating piracy.

"It" could be the internet. Labels are becoming obsolete and expensive for artists (hence MegaBox, Bandcamp, iTunes etc, all of which cannibalize the RIAA members' revenue). No one likes to be the one who's getting creatively destroyed, and no one wants to have to get rid of their old, extremely profitable business model in favour of a decent one. Piracy is a pretext.

[Randox]

Loved that article. Really got me thinking.

 

The first thing I would love to say is that I hadn't really thought about the huge disconnect that exists in the music, video and even software industries. Just about all the costs in producing a product in those industries are in development. Once you have a product, it can be duplicated in a digital format free of charge. The point is, that the decision to make something or not is based pretty much entirely on whether someone thinks it will be profitable or not. As long as piracy isn't so rampant that people can't actually profit, then creativity should be fairly safe. I suppose this would be a larger problem for smaller developers and bands, but then you have all these fringe bands that probably would never get anyplace without digital distribution so even they seem to be holding out.

 

As it relates to jobs, after the fact spending has no impact on jobs for that production.

 

 

Now, some of the profits are reinvested back into the industry to make more profit. An album pays for the next one to be produced, a block buster probably funds multiple movies (seeing as a lot of them tank), and version one of software x pays for version 2. Again, as long as piracy doesn't steal proffits beyond a certain point, its affecting profit but not production or jobs.

 

This also ties into the way people buy things. There is a maximum profit already built into these industries, because people only have so much money to spend on music and movies and software on a yearly basis. After that, people just stop getting more, because they can't afford it. So the question then becomes how much of the piracy is based off people who either lack an entertainment budget (like students going through post secondary education on loans), or have a very tiny one (people with anual incomes below the poverty line for example). Yes, there are probably plenty of people who could pay for things, and don't, but how do we know that a lot of the piracy isn't being perpetrated by people who would be spending next to nothing on this stuff either way because they simply can't.

 

Then, as the article Omar pointed out, and I found this really neat, you also have an effect where the money shifts. You can't pirate a live concert. At least not unless you have perfected matter synthesis and have a power source many times greater than our sun. So what they seem to be seeing is people moving their music budget from music to concerts, so its likely that for some people the same net money is being spent, just in different places.

 

 

I'm not trying to say that piracy is harmless, or good, or not stealing, just that it isn't a clear cut issue. I also find it interesting that there is some level of piracy (for very specific reasons and circumstances) that literally costs the world nothing but electricity, bandwidth and electricity, because its in no way displacing any spending that would have occurred if piracy didn't exist at all.

 

 

And as an extra little bit of philosophy, if you have someone who downloads say a movie for free that there was no way they were ever going to pay for anyway (so it hasn't cost anyone money), is it really wrong? I mean, yes they got something for nothing, and its not supposed to work that way, but if there was no way they were ever going to pay for it, then there isn't a victim. A true victimless crime so to speak. To make it even better, if that person sees the video, and loves it, and tells all their friends and just one friend actually buys it, then that is a sale they wouldn't have made without piracy (I suspect the music industry probably benefits more from this effect). Of course, its hard to know if that's actually a higher profit, since maybe because of the finite movie budget, so maybe that sale displaced another one. And kudos to anyone who is still following my train of thought.

 

 

So yeah, your dealing with theoretical max profits, industries where sales have no direct correlation to jobs, and cases where sales are being displaced rather than replaced. Fun times.

[Bassy]

The problem is that Hollywood and the music business couldn't move fast enough.

 

Netflix is a prime example; because they managed to get the system up first, they now have almost a 30 million consumer base, increasing each day due to the convenience of its content. Hollywood has tried everything short of open warfare to get Netflix shut down, simply because Hollywood can't control Netflix pricing. They've made delays in the time Netflix can add a DVD to its library, and even has tried to get special arrangements so that Netflix users must pay a separate fee in order to watch certain movies (Starz movies).

 

It's a fact that currently the movie business alone makes over 60% of its income from sources it previously tried to make illegal. VCR's were supposed to be the end of the movie business. The same goes with DVD's, and DVR's. The music industry sees a similar trend with our move from radio to physical media to digital.

 

This infographic is a good analysis of how the movie industry has cried doomsday at every single technological advancement pertaining to media in the last century.

 

These two industries regardless need to learn to adapt and innovate, instead of punishing the consumer base for their own slowness. There will always be piracy, which is good because it keeps technology and the movie/music experience advancing, but corporate big wigs don't like changing their ways, and thus we'll have to keep taking them to task at the voting booth and the check-out counter.

[Randox]

Just a thought, but there is one very specific corner of the movie world that probably benefits from piracy. Move Theaters.

 

Going back to what the music industry has with piracy moving peoples music budgets from songs to concerts, not paying for DVD's would free up people's money for the theater, which is again, an experience you can't download for free (unless you have a theater in your own house, in which case your probably not the king of piracy). Since Hollywood seems to be doing everything they possibly can to hose the theaters as much as they possibly can (and the theaters in turn screw their customers with high concession prices, because they sure as hell aren't staying in business on ticket revenue), this seems a bit like universal justice to me. I actually make a point of waiting as long as I can to see a movie because of the way proffits work, and I would rather the theater get the money.

 

For anyone who doesn't know, on opening day the production company gets virtually all the ticket revenue. As time goes on, the theater gets to keep more and more of the revenue, which would be awesome except by the time their making money off it, everyone has already seen the movie, which is why your popcorn costs more than your ticket. Since Hollywood is directly responsible for every time I've felt like I'm being robed at gun point by my popcorn and soda, I prefer to make sure they get as little of my ticket price as possible.

[Guest jrhairychest]

Yeah, so it's no different except it's different.

 

and theft is theft whichever way you look to legitimise it.

Theft:

a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property

 

So, what say you of what isn't theft?

Property can't be digital? You're clutching at straws here.

[Jonanananas]

Yeah, so it's no different except it's different.

 

and theft is theft whichever way you look to legitimise it.

Theft:

a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property

 

So, what say you of what isn't theft?

Property can't be digital? You're clutching at straws here.

 

It's not the *removal* though, it's the *copying*. That does make a difference.