Agreed. I think that a large portion of what makes their wildly gigantic lost revenue claims so flawed is the fact that whoever's responsible for them assumes that the draw of product A remains the same whether it's free or has a cost. Let's say a boxset of Season 3 of Prison Break costs about, I dunno, £24. I have an extremely mild interest in that show, however if it's available to me for free, I'll watch it if I have the spare time. I will NOT, however, shill out £24 for it, because it's just not worth that kind of money to me. So saying that by making Season 3 of Prison Break available to me (one user) Megaupload has cost 20th Century Fox £24 is complete bullshit, because I wouldn't have watched that shit in the first place. Also, while they may try and put Kim Schmitz (no way I'm calling him Kim DotCom, sorry) on the butcher's block and make a bloody example out of him, I don't think it's going to work. People will simply move onto the next website, be it 2shared or rapidshare or whatever.
But that isn't what they are doing. They are saying it lost them £24,000. I would be fine with it, if they were doing a 1:1 ratio, not a 10,000:1 or what ever they are doing depending on the current court case. Yes i under stand lots of people would of never bought it in the first place, but anything more then a 1:1 ratio is just stupid.
This. Anyone remember the woman who's been fighting a multi-million dollar judgment over a few hundred songs, for almost a decade now? The damages are so fucking punitive and baseless. My biggest concern re: MegaUpload/Video, aside from what's already being touched on here, is that as I understand it, the Feds now have the IP info for every person who has ever uploaded to or downloaded from those sites, and the same assholes behind all this are trying to get legislation passed that would allow, if you will, a reverse class-action suit. Of course, the video I got that from was uploaded by a guy who seemed just a little on the "They're watching USSSSSS!" side of things, but it sounds eerily plausible.
Not about SOPA but MPAA messing in Australian affairs http://torrentfreak.com/australia-us-copyright-colony-or-just-a-good-friend-120121/
This should be one of the biggest scandals in modern Australian politics. It should either have been debunked as lies, damned lies and filth of the worst order, with extensive and public investigations to vet and clear them, or Howes and Arbib should have seen their political careers ended and charges laid. It should have been a death blow for the careers of the people they were associated with. But nobody cares. How can we even pretend to be a country when this shit flies?
I'm not so sure moving to the UK would help. Maybe to a nice, non-extradition country. Like Mongolia. Also, hopefully googling "non extradition countries US" from work won't get me a visit from HR.
http://deadspin.com/5879953/ufc-president-dana-white-compares-anti sopa-activists-to-911-terrorists If people could actually carry through with a boycott, I believe that the UFC could be affected worse than most of those other companies. He seems to be out of touch with his fans. I met Dana one time outside of Ceaser's Palace in Vegas. He seemed like a nice enough guy then.
Spoiler This is costing entertainment companies money. Why? Because there is NO OTHER WAY to buy entertainment here. You know what would fix that? DISTRIBUTING CONTENT ON THE FUCKING INTERNET FOR MONEY! This: Spoiler isn't costing anyone anything. Why? Because it's mediocre content that I wouldn't pay to see in the first place. If it's free, like it is on tv or in a library, I would watch it for my personal use. If it costs money, I would rather wait for something I'm more likely to enjoy and go to the theatre for the best way to experience it. My view is that you can download whatever you like for your own personal usage. It's not lost revenue for anyone. Leave commercials in, do product placement, whatever you want to do to create new ways of making money on films/tv, but realize that a download does not equal a ticket does not equal a dvd. When you start to use pirated material for profit, then that should be illegal. For example, if I download Autocad to learn the program, draw some nonsense and generally introduce myself to the program and see "Hey, is this worth learning? Can I dedicate myself to getting better at this?", no harm no foul. I certainly wasn't going to pay $800 for the experience, and as far as software is concerned, there seems to always be a cheaper or free alternative to whatever program you are using. What's more, if I am investing time into learning a program, and I decide to use it professionally, I am likely a customer for life. However, if I open an architectural firm and steal the software, then I should owe those people their fair share. There will be abuses to the system, of course, but get back to reality. You can't erase piracy from the internet without breaking it severely and you can't piss off your most tech-savvy, first-adopting customers with DRM and lawsuits and expect them to continue touting your products. Every time I get on Reddit, I see calls for boycotting the industries responsible for this shit because they refuse to update their business model and they are starting to make a lot of sense.
Chater, just so not everything thinks that Canada is all water guns and maple syrup... sometimes our cops threaten to arrest protesters who attack them... With bubbles.