tiny url

I was speaking with my sister about this MegaUpload thing and she's quite pissed because it was the site her scrapbooking group used to store and share their brushes, filters and other elements.  She reckons about 15 gigs of her own work is suddenly gone from the net, no longer for others to share until another suitable venue is found.  Fortunately, she has backups of it all, but that's not the point.  Her entire group has been disadvantaged, not to mention penalised, by this FBI decision.

For mine, the FBI should be dealing with REAL CRIME, and the MPIAA, RIAA and other scum sucking capitalist pigs should be taking these IP matters through the civil courts, as was originally intended by legislation.  We ordinary citizens cannot get law enforcement to act on our behalf when it comes to personal business matters/dealings, and neither should these filthy rich bastards who think the cops/FBI are at their beckon call.

If I lived in the US and MPIAA or RIAA lawyers/representatives ever knocked on my door for any reason, I'd probably open fire with a mouthful of abuse first, then take a baseball bat to the mongrels.  Why, because the bastards aren't there within any true legal capacity, but to intimidate, bully and threaten people who told are they have no rights. 

Yeah, piracy is wrong, but thes fuckers are going all the wrong way about combating it.  The more 'big brother' and aggressive they become, the more these rebel organisations are going to come back with a vengeance to disrupt and destroy the corporate bigwigs.  How about fairer and more realistic pricing?  I mean, 20 bucks in a cinema for a 1 1/2 - 2 hour picture.  I refuse to pay it, but if I want to see something badly enough, rather than pirate it, I'll either rent or buy it on DVD/Bluray, or wait until it comes on telly if its not that important/good.  Still, prices on digital media are too high and could come down, but no, the execs wouldn't take a salary cut to enable that idea and still make a profit.  Nope, and as far as I'm concerned the Hollywood moguls [their legal parasite and associations] asked for what they're getting.

starkers said it all. Lets go give 'em what fer!

Then afterwards the ones to replace them come back and say ... ya missed me. Then we shoot 'em.

I hate to get all melodramatic here, but this reminds me of The Dark Knight.

Batman* and Co. went after the Mobs money - the one thing they treasured - in order to shut them down permantely.  The Mob responded by unleashing The Joker onto Gotham City to kill Batman, which didn't work out so well because The Joker wanted to play games, not end them.

The Government institutions, namely in the United States where - more often than not - a Politician is elected on the back of a campaign where the biggest contributors are third party Corporations looking to elect people who'll protect their right to expect billion dollar profits for a disproportionate amount of work, are now going after the internet.
They'll eventually shut it down.  SOPA/PIPA?  Ha.  It's called the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA).  It's an international piece of legislation being negotiated around the world as we speak.  It's protected under National Security Laws, so don't worry - you won't read about it until it's actually signed into effect.
It's "The Man's" ace in the hole.

The question, them, is who is the internet's Joker and - more importantly - how bad is it going to get? 

Which is usually used for shortening long ass url's, not doubling in size url's which takes me back to my original question.  Why are you linking to that instead of the real thing?  Your link is 13 characters long and could be taking people to somewhere they don't want to go and you hide it by changing the displayed names.  Whereas the the real link is only seven characters long and will always go to the same place.  So why put in the effort to make all of those changes?  I'm only curious because it seems extremely stupid and dubious to me.

Really crazy stuff. Hard to believe they can just take down a huge website without any due process.

Being negotiated my arse!  What's really happening is that the Hollywood moguls have various legal eagles and puppets from the US government standing over foreigners and bully their way to getting exactly what the MPIAA and RIAA want.  In any event, and sadly, it's not the artists or rank and file backbone of the industry that'll benefit from any legislative or monetary win.  Nope, it'll be the filthy rich moguls again, lining their already bursting coffers with even more money they neither earned or deserve.

lMegaupload sold memberships (as in, "for cash") to watch unrestricted commercially owned, pirated movies and planted adware in with the membership to boot--for years. There's no moral high-ground or democracy issues here.

Effectively SOPA, if your sister only uploaded brushes, etc. which she had the rights to or permission to disseminate freely... essentially what we do here to prevent what happened to Megaupload happening to WC.

While that is correct, it is far short of an actual trial. It is also very much rigged in the prosecution's favor.

"The federal prosecutor, or Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”), is the primary government official interacting with the federal grand jury. The federal prosecutor leads all grand jury sessions, although he cannot testify or be present during grand jury deliberations. As a practical matter, a federal grand jury will almost always return an indictment presented to it by a prosecutor. This is the basis for Judge Saul Wachler’s famous saying that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.”

- http://library.findlaw.com/2008/May/1/247197.html

 

Starkers, problem is that sites like MegaUpload are WMDs. Weapons of Mass Distribution.

Pirates would be much less willing to distribute pirated software, movies, whatever, if they had to host it themselves, i.e.; pay for the bandwidth. I bet they would be less willing to 'share' if bandwidth costs came out of their own pocket.

Sites like MegaUpload, LetitBit, etc..., are all making money based on the work of others (just have a look at the list of items seized from the owner of Megaupload, I lost count of the Mercedes and 82" LCD TVs), and they operate on a thin veil of legality: they will abide to a DMCA take down notice, but knowing very well that in a few hours the same file will be back with a different link. At least Youtube has content filters, these guy's don't even care - they can't, they know very well what *really* drives their business!

As for movies and music and such, it's about time the RIAA, MPAA, and their likes embraced a new business model instead of fighting against it: if people want to watch a new movie in the privacy of their own homes instead of in a theater, then sell it to them and adjust your price accordingly, don't be greedy! The way to fight piracy is not to go after the end users (although going after the distributors and the crackers is a different story altogether), but to make it much more convenient to simply buy the damn thing! Look at what Steam is doing for games!

Piracy is a cultural thing. If everybody around you thinks it's ok to do it, then you're likely to do it as well and think nothing of it. But if people frown on it, you have the opposite effect. It's the minds and attitudes that need to be changed.

tiny url.. why does anyone use that stuff... you have no idea what the link points to.

Jorge...you're a producer of IP on the net....you're in the minority....most people on the net are happily [or ignorantly] IP abusers...

Well said, Jorge and Jafo - very true.

Sorry, but no one has the right to provide copyrighted material without the permission of the owner, period. Not in an way, shape or form! Some people make a living on their hard work, what gives anyone the right to distribute that work without the permission of the owner? I hope they take down MegaUpload and every site like it around the world. Sites owners are solely responsible for the content on their site, and if they cannot control it, they do not deserve to exist. Oh, and as far as Anonymous and other low life, scum of the Earth hacker organizations like them.....

Well, in a lot of case, it is not the people who have make the hard work who make the money...

People who make science research, people who develop software, people who create music/song don't receive the big money...

Well, i am pretty sure that there is plenty of birthday video everywhere on the internet... where you can ear the song "happy birthday to you"... who is under copyright... don't believe me, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You ... so, next time that you sing it at the birthday of your wife, friend, child and more... please pay the author right else your are not better that other people who steal IP...

Point is that IP is pushed to the extreme... some material who was public domain before are with copyright today... some people other that the author make million...

Both pirate and these ( big media company ) who fight them are people that i have no respect for...