FBI and Justice websites have been down for a few hours and Anonymous is claiming responsibility. Word on the street is that it is in retaliation of the Fed shuting down MegaUploads.

Is this the end of the Interwebz?!?!?!?!

Not the end, hopefully just the end of the Feds.

Its about time they started harrassing them. I say keep doing it until Big Hollywood and the Gov learn to stay the hell out of our surfing habits.

If people want the government to stay the hell out of their surfing habits then they need to stop downloading pirated material. As long as people think its ok to steal shit via download we will all be at risk of having piss poor legislation like SOPA getting rammed down our throats.

The government also enjoys employing false/incorrect logic. Piracy acts as a way to distribute media/information much better than the systems the companies have put into place. Their logic is that every download = a revenue loss of MSRP for whatever download it is. In reality, a lot of those people wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't free.

There will be no simple way to stop piracy. It will always find a way, instead of trying to kill it outright the government/companies should be trying to make themselves indispensable to consumers, by offering an incredibly easy way to download the file, and competitive prices. Once the unit is sold they should turn around and offer support for the product that the people wouldn't get unless they bought it.

Of course I simplified this, but the idea is there. By shifting their focus into things like ease, support and minimal cost it will convince more consumers to buy the product from them. As it stands now, it took me like half an hour to just set up/get through the god damn DRM in some of these games, and then the support is a bunch of assholes when something goes wrong. Watching my friends pirate games, click one thing and watch it install, I'm a bit jealous. I spent $60 on something to have to go through more hoops and more time than someone who spent nothing on it? Then when it fucks up I don't get support? Nonono. They're punishing the wrong people for the wrong reasons. It's a vicious cycle, but the pirates are employing better logic. Their ability to distribute files so easily defeats the conglomerates at every turn. Until they fall behind, piracy will always be the better option.

So I guess my point is this, the companies/government are only going to create more piracy. Instead of trying to fight it, they should embrace it as free advertisement, work on ways to make distribution better, and try to make a killing on after sale support.

If a law makes everyone criminals, the law is flawed and needs to be changed.

Piracy is only a problem because people refuse to adapt to change. The internet is the single biggest change to society since the invention of the printing press. The internet has made exchanging information trivially simple. IP is no longer a scarce resource, but the media companies have yet to adapt to this. Thanks to the internet, there is now an infinite supply to digital media. DRM is a losing battle, because it's not added value for the customer.

This image sums up the single greatest problem people have with paying for stuff they can download.



Why in the world would I pay money for something INFERIOR to the free product? Until the companies can make their paid version SUPERIOR to the free/pirated version, there is no market for their paid version. This is especially true with a lot of non-steam games too. Valve figured it out with Steam, people enjoy using the steam platform because it performs better than the pirated version and has features that a pirated version will not have.

Gabe Newell has the right idea, we just need more people to get on this bandwagon
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011- ... -for-steam

That picture made me cry.

I pretty much always buy things legitimately, but I'm very choosy as to what I purchase and who I get it from. When a product or service is less than what I might get were I to go another route, I just tend to go without rather than risk pirating and getting in trouble (I've already had DMCA take-downs for work I actually owned entirely and letters from the MPAA for things I did not own but downloaded) again.

I support Valve for example, because they make things easy as pie. I once bought a downloadable game on Amazon and I still had to enter a security code which was inconvenient because I wasn't online when I installed the damn thing off the USB stick I put it on initially. Pain in the ass, so I won't buy downloaded games from them unless they smarten up. iTunes is easy enough right, but I enjoy the convenience of building a ridiculously HUGE offline library (Right now I don't use portable devices or Mobile for playing music) and pay a monthly fee, which is more convenient and I get to do a sort-of social networking with music so I pay for Spotify Premium (arguably not as good as Pandora's pay-for service but I haven't tried that one yet and I don't know if I can have full albums to play with that service).

I still run Peer Block when I do torrent (not because I'm paranoid about the government but because I don't like being lurked upon by strangers unless they are going to provide something to me that I want), and it's usually only to demo a product or because I absolutely cannot find it anywhere else and have a pressing need for it. That is extremely rare, and when it comes to products that are exorbitantly expensive (Photoshop, et al) I just look for alternatives such as Gimp and LibreOffice. Most of my torrents tend to be out of print books and things of that nature which are out of copyright and thus considered a legitimately acquired item.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Anonymous are the Feds just trying to falsely make this Piracy act look valid.

The law does not make everyone a criminal. Do you expect to be able to walk into a store, grab a few DVD's or a piece of software and walk out without paying? Should you also be able to go to your neighbor's house and walk out with anything you wanted? I think if you did either you would be arrested, and it would not be the fact that there is a law against shoplifting that made you a criminal.

The "free" products you are referring to are illegal copies of copyrighted material. The product you pay for is not "inferior", it is the licensed version of the product and if you don't like it then don't buy it.

I am a software professional and software piracy cheapens the value of my work and minimizes the ability of companies in my industry to employ professionals like me. I expect to get paid for my work product just like any other professional. My mechanic expects to get paid when he fixes my car and I have to pay for my groceries as well. When all that crap is free I will be happy to allow my work product to be taken for free, until then people need to pay for it or risk being prosecuted for theft.

Piracy is not free advertising, it is theft and it is against the law. If you want cheap movies subscribe to Netflix. If you don't like a product then don't buy it. If you don't want crap laws like SOPA then police yourself and stop downloading illegal pirated materials.

Gabe Newell is most likely right, but that does not mean it should be ok to steal. If you go to a store and the service is bad you do not have the right to load up a shopping cart and walk out the door without paying. The fact is if that store is the only place you can go to get something you want you will just have to man up and pay for it.

You can try and justify it any way you want, but there really is no defense for taking something that is not offered for free by the producer without paying for it. Doing that is engaging in a criminal act, and just because you can does not make it right.

I do agree with you Shredder (being that it is theft) I was just trying to explain why it's so rampant and not* as bad of a thing as people make it out to be. It involves economics, psychology and a different outlook to explain it. I'm not making excuses or justifying it. Just looking at it differently. Most of that comes back to the argument that a majority of the people who pirate software/movies would never have bought the movie in the first place. Opportunity cost is too high.

Ok so were talking about piracy..how about these streaming sites that record a tv show then stream it online? Is this considered stealing also cause were not paying for the tv service that it was first showed on? And how about reading books and manga (for us anime fans), is that stealing or breaking the law cause we are only reading not paying for the actual book/manga? Even though the person that uploaded the book/manga bought it.

And with a bill like SOPA it'll shut down most streaming sites like meagupload youtube megavideo veoh ect. So why would these sites really be taken down and charged if the owners of the videos have they music or show or whatever else is "copyrighted" in their possession. They (the person that bought the copy righted product) have the right to do what ever they want as long as they don't copy the product well streaming isn't copying at least to my knowledge.

(Typed this on my phone sorry hooker for bad spelling/grammar)

The whole idea of streaming a show on say, justin.tv (usually entire show runs) runs counter to the traditional advertising-based model which provides revenue to the station that runs the shows and helps to pay the costs required to produce the shows and pay everyone involved. I agree with Shredder in that if having everything distributed for free was the de facto standard I'd happily go along. Otherwise, how do all of the people who work on these projects put food on the table (not saying that the amount paid is commensurate to the difficulty of the work but at least give people a way to keep doing what they do and live life with some stability).

I understand that kwang but I'm talking though most the time when an upload goes up it usually goes up from a dvd or blueray. But stream sites do edit the content and take out comeicals but also doesn't matter if comericals are in them onlinecase it dosnt get them revenue. But as a stream site like justin.tv could they really take it down if its only being streamed not downloaded/pirated.

The issue of SOPA isnt that it will stop people from pirating music/movies, but the bill and future bills will be used to turn the internet into TV. with only a certain amount of pages accessable and commercials ALL OVER THE PLACE AND ON EVERY SITE POPPING UP EVERYWHERE ALL THE GODDAMN TIME ALL OVER THE MOTHER F*CKING WEB.

We can't ever let the government regulate the net in ANY way shape or form. The net must NOT be turned into mainstream media garbage like tv.

Your analogy is deeply flawed. By taking a DVD from a store, I've deprived someone of that DVD, it cannot be replaced. When I download a copy of a file, the owner of the file still has the original file. I have not caused anyone direct harm by downloading a copy of something. You can argue that 1 download = 1 lost sale, but I can argue that the downloaders would never have bought the product.

Companies and people need to adapt or become irrelevant. The new reality is that the price for static text, images, sound, and video is approaching zero. This is basic supply and demand economics. The supply for existing IP has become infinite, thus the price will approach zero. You cannot fight the law of supply and demand.

I agree that people producing IP need to get paid, but the current system punishes the payers and rewards the criminals. It's a fundamentally broken system that needs to be fix if the industry is to survive. You should take a good look at the software you're developing and ask yourself, What does a paying user get that a pirate doesn't?

There is nothing flawed about my argument. By pirating software and other copyrighted material you are depriving industry of revenue required to employ people and grow business, and that cannot be replaced. Assuming that everyone who illegally downloads a piece of software or a movie would not buy it if breaking the law is not easy to do is quite a leap. Some percentage of those illegal downloads would never have been purchased for sure, but if someone wants something and it is not easy to acquire illegally for free they will pay for it. Piracy in no way helps any affected industry, it only hurts.

The law of supply and demand does not even come close to applying in this case. The only reason the increase in supply of pirated material is occuring is because it is easy to break the law. Decreasing cost of production and/or reduced demand are what drive increases in supply in a regulated market, and reduced demand is usually met with decreased production which results in higher prices. Just because something can be digitally copied for free does not mean it is cheaper to produce.

Your own words make the case for regulation, "The current system punishes the payers and rewards the criminals". Yes it does, which is why we are faced with having onerous and ill conceived legislation like SOPA being rammed down our throats. Expecting a product manufacturer to bear the burden of ensuring a paying customer realizes more value than someone who chooses to steal the product is ludicrous and impossible. If someone steals a bicycle there is no way to ensure that it does not work as well for them as someone who buys one.

This isn’t really true. I don’t pirate much (let’s say 1 game and no music/software in the past 3 years) but I can tell you that if I do pirate, it’s something that I would not pay for. Take Skyrim, for example, which is a great game. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that I pirated it. If that’s true, it’s because I didn’t have the spare $50 to spend on a game in general, particularly one that won’t run well on my computer that I can’t afford to upgrade. Surely some people who pirate would be otherwise buying the items, but I MYSELF am not “depriving” the industry of revenue because I MYSELF do not have the revenue myself to give to the industry. So by your logic my individual hypothetical act of piracy isn’t wrong, assuming I don’t help other people pirate by seeding/whatever else people do.

Yes, but that’s quite a strange answer for a developer to give. Surely you understand the difference between a physical object and a digital one. While a physical object remains the same regardless of the user, a digital object can be tied to a legitimate user. Most new software, as I’m sure you know, does this with a form of network support. For example, if you want to play online, you usually have to have a verified copy of a game these days.

The marketplace is changing dramatically, and neither shutting down the internet nor hoping that people will “see the light” and stop pirating is a viable solution. The industry is going to have to find a way to adapt. I’m not in the industry, so I don’t know what exactly that is, but I can give some examples. One that I mentioned above is the already-prevalent use of continuous verification for online play. Another is the new marketing strategy of making games free (or very cheap) upfront and then charging for special items/modes (e.g. everything on the iPhone these days). Another is however it works for groups like Mozilla to put shit out for free, since they still make over $100M/year. Another comes from a different industry, but might have some lessons; music today (despite still selling what I think is a surprising amount of records, considering the availability online) is more and more focused on the live experience of shows/concerts to derive revenue. I know it sucks to have people use your work for free, I really do understand that. But like I said, telling people to stop isn’t going to work, and killing the internet doesn’t seem like a real solution either. Particularly since that deprives another whole industry (…the internet and its companies) of revenue. So something else is going to have to change. Morals aside, I'm afraid that's reality.

What is that even based on? In the case you're right, what would they have to gain? The sympathy of the masses? I don't think it's viable Jester has already demonstrated that anon is a bunch of black-white hats :O

You misunderstood; that's just Cyning's code. Allow me to decrypt it for you: