egafd.com

Diggler69 wrote:

>......Claims that the porn/film/music industries will
> disappear are just bullshit the same claims were made for blank
> audio/video cassettes and DVD,s. The world changes you have to
> adapt, a status quo will be reached if you can't adapt you go
> extinct your fault no one else is to blame.
>

Whilst I'm on the other side of the fence from you Diggler, I'm inclined to agree. Spotted this on the living room floor last night when mrs rgb was playing one of her awful LPs. The copyright date on the sleeve was 1981 - the music industry has managed to survive the last 29 years.

[img]http://www.rgbgals.com/images/hometaping.jpg[/img]

Cheers -;)

I do have great sympathy for anyone whose business livelihood etc is imperiled by new technology

The problem is that instead of embracing the inevitable and exciting new world i just see this repeated cycle of slow dim witted dinosaur type industries who not only fail to embrace the new opportunities but go to great lengths to attack it and the very people they rely on for an income

And what do we know about evolution? well dinosaurs go extinct but many of the creatures that adapt and evolve go on to dominate their territory

Ok i expect this from the music industry whose strategy in most countries was simply to bribe DJ's to play their records

But look at this page

http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/IT-Manage ... et-680179/

An awfull lot of internet geeks and gurus firmly believe that a lot of the mainstream innovations which provide so much to so many online were as a direct result of how the porn industry embraced the internet

So come on guys innovate

Always fun when someone from an industry that has expanded and made a lot of money thanks to the internet now crying about it and wanting to restrict it.

Compare today to before the internet got popular. How easy was it to set up your own porn company? To get your content out? How easy was it to find adult models? How easy was it for an adult model to find work? How easy was it for regular guys finding adult models to work with?

What would happen to these things if your draconian laws were enacted?

And as I written before, people will always consume porn, and lots of them will be willing to pay for it. But the type of content that people will be willing to pay for is going to change. And if you're unable to adapt to the change, any many producers won't be able to, then your company will die. Demanding new laws might slow it down your demise, but it won't stop it.


Diggler69, great comment

Paul, first of all, I want to say that I appreciate your thoughts here and I wonder if I've maybe misrepresented my (and potentially, Your Choice's) point of view.

First, I assure you that "doing nothing" isn't what I favor. As a retail entity, we've done quite well to alert producers when we find counterfeit product and the like.

We simply elected not to be a part of operations such as ACS's as we had difficulty reconciling the ethical and legal issues, the potential PR nightmare (currently in effect), and the ultimate returns on our participation.

As I've stated elsewhere, I can assure you and everyone else that if we found an operation that did proper investigation into large scale operators, particularly individuals that knowingly create torrent files and seed large libraries of content and would then prosecute them in criminal courts (as opposed to the civil system), we'd happily take part.

Thing is, in order to actually pursue large scale operations, ultimately make the point that we won't sit by as our content is distributed without our consent, it requires WORK.

What ACS and other operations of this variety does is too easy and too cheap. Futhermore, I think it's ultimately ineffective. ACS offers their service for free. Remember, you get what you pay for.

I would like to see something where people and agencies with legitimate authority and investigative experience are actually involved. Unfortunately, a few half-assed attorneys who can't even keep their site safe from a DDoS attack and doesn't have the foresight to properly encrypt sensitive data doesn't qualify as that.

Just some clarification here
It appears some of the ISP's sent the customer information to ACS in unencrypted form. That was totally inept. But ACS followed this up by not only failing to encrypt the information on receipt but they stored this info where it could be accessed via the intrenet albeit behind some sort of inadequate security.
If they had encrypted the info and stored it somewhere where you would have had to physically break into their premises to steal the data they would not be facing a potential ?500,000 fine

It also seems that they demand a high % for their incompetent services

"A leaked business plan from the German copyright-tracking company DigiRights Solutions, used by ACS:Law and anti-piracy solicitors Gallant Macmillan, reveals that about 20% of money accrued from damages is given to copyright holders, while the law firm keeps about 80%, from which it would have to pay ISPs and IP-tracking companies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... ght-claims

"I would like to see something where people and agencies with legitimate authority and investigative experience are actually involved."

This is a very good idea but as i have said before anyone working from IP addresses needs to forensically examine the HD's of people indicated as being potential infringers

I don't know how the law stands at the moment but unless you seize equipment quickly and without warning well it doesn't take that long to security wipe a HD and reset all your router settings

It also would require a government to allocate money, manpower, and resources how likely is that?

".... I don't know how the law stands at the moment but unless you seize
equipment quickly and without warning...."

Pretty much rules out the police, who would normally have to apply for a warrant
[unless they argued that torrenting was a terrorism issue]. That only leaves the
Revenue, who are more or less above the Law- but they wouldn't act solely to
protect the income of private companies.

I have not read all in detail hence maybe I have missed something.

With tape and DVD piracy it was those making, distributing and selling the bootleg copies that were targeted not the purchaser so why the change to targeting those downloading rather than the person uploading / hosting?
Surely the source of the traffic can be traced as easily as the destination.

Is it simply because more revenue if say 500 downloaders rather than one uploader are fined?

Probably because the copyright owners consider torrent users to be probably major uploaders as well as downloaders. It is called file-SHARING after all.

As for fines, the cases referred to in this story are civil not criminal, so dont apply. The demands made in the letters are not fines.

It's more likely laziness, lack of innovative thought and incompetence- targeting
'end-users' is simpler [witness recent legislation re. prostitution, drugs and
music-piracy].
Of course, as most of these small fry escape [by virtue of sheer numbers if
nothing else] it's all a colossal exercise in futility- while of course the big boys
still carry on making mega-profits and nothing fundamentally changes. But those
charged with 'abating this nuisance' can say "we're doing something"- it's only
when analyzed for five microseconds that it becomes apparent that it's a complete
waste of time.