Yeah.

One day the Lone Ranger and Tonto were surrounded by five thousan Apaches and out of ammo. The Lone Ranger turned and thanked Tonto for all the great years and all the times they saved each others' lives and with head bowed, remarked, "Looks like we've had it, old friend."

Tonto answered, "What you mean 'we' Kemosabe?".

ROFL Doc 

Ah, the first political poll.

I've always said that instead of shutting down stuff like TVShack (who's creator is being deported to the US, by the way for no good reason other than to be publicly executed for the pleasure of the media corporations) that just post links to where you can find movies and tv shows on existing hosting sites, removing the material from the host would be a better alternative. Or instead of making people, who stream movies from such sites, pay ridiculous fines, make the hosts take responsibility for their content. 

I personally can't say I feel sorry for what happened to Megaupload, mostly because of Megavideo, a site that limited how much you could actually watch at a time, without paying. It wasn't content made by Megavideo, it wasn't even uploaded by Megavideo, yet you still had to pay them to see it all, while getting constantly spammed with ads. I've long held the belief that if someone asks you for money in any way for pirated content, that mf deserves to go to jail. That's not file sharing/freedom of information/whatever, that's just robbery. That's the kind of dickery that sadly gets clumped together under the same umbrella as some kind singing his own version of a song he likes on youtube, and constantly complains about being oppressed and repressed and censored. It's not, it's just dicks being whiny dicks.

You know what I used to pirate a lot when I was younger, through an old dial-up connection? Books. Books I couldn't find in a library, books I couldn't afford to buy. Books that I read over a CRT monitor (causing some eye damage in the process). When I pirated Lord of the Rings, it was in DOC format. Was it wrong, morally and legally, yes. Am I sorry? No(apart from being half blind), but when newspapers started packaging hard cover literary works at awesome prices, guess what I got? But before that, I ran across something called Project Gutenberg. It's a site where you can find thousands of free books. I got Bram Stoker's Dracula from there for free, legally, no strings attached, no accounts, no adds, not in your face popups. It was there, anytime I wanted it, anytime I needed it, anytime I wanted to give it to someone else, without having to justify anything. That's freedom of information, that's filesharing, that's what the internet should be. Megavideo and sites like it are not that, they are the crap that constantly fuels the justification of those downright evil media corporations to strong arm governments into ruining the internet for everyone.   

Freedom doesn't mean being free to steal, it's being able to think for yourself and realize that your freedom ends where another persons' begins, but most of all, it means being responsible for your own actions. If you can't be, than others need to be responsible for you, something that rarely leads to good things, because none of us want to be responsible for the actions of others. So when the rule of law (just in its inception, but deformed in execution) cracks down on everyone, no matter what, you can't just help feeling that in some small way you could have prevented this. But hey, that would require a level of sensibility and unity of focus that the human race isn't capable of, but that's a thought wasted on such a simple matter.

People pirate anything they can because they can. Corporations seek to punish those who pirate anything, because they can. There's no moral high-ground, just a different degree of being a dick about it. Currently the corporations are winning in that regard, and beating them by being bigger dicks than them is just plain stupid. Which is why the internet as a concept was doomed since day 1.

With that, I await my morning coffee to kick in, because I'm convince I wrote half of this while sleeping.

As a content creator myself I can say stealing stuff is wrong and no one has a right to see a movie just because he wants to. And if we would accept that and not pirate or buy them the Big Media would make a u-turn faster than you can think of.

On the other hand there is NEVER EVER any excuse for those in power to abuse it or ignore the laws of due process. Just because we KNOW that almost all politicians are corrupt does not mean we can go around arresting them on accusations (otherwise there would be very few of them left). The wrongs of one person/company/institution never make right the wrongdoings of another.

At last....

Someone in this thread with a brain...

In other words just say no eh. I wonder ... since Joe Shmoe lacks an understanding of common sense would it be possible to actually do that? Uh ... no.

This is my first post in this forum. Firstly, I'd like to compliment all the others who have posted here - much brain usage has gone into your posts

I am a limo driver in Australia. Our company has a contract with agents in the shipping industry. I had a young Chinese ship crew worker in my car the other day who spoke almost perfect English. He is 22 years old. We were both able to discuss subjects such as world politics, finance and religious philosophy. It was a journey of about 1/2 hour. Towards the end of the journey, I asked him where he learnt English. He replied "I started speaking English about 4 years ago. I learnt it from watching Hollywood movies. One day I would like to be an actor."

I was gobsmacked. I just looked at him with my mouth wide open and told him he was amazing.

One of the things he was passionate about was how much he and his fellow Chinese workers were getting paid in China for what they produce. They work hard, long shifts, and get paid very little for it. They can't afford the luxury items (that they manufacture) that we in the west take for granted.

For me, this gets to the core of the whole thing. What most people want, whether you are Chinese, Australian, American, or from the moon, is equality. A level playing field, and a common respect for each others contribution to society (and the world). If you sit at your computer for 3 months straight and make a really good song that people like, or if you spend half your life in a Chinese factory manufacturing shoes, and people like what you produce, then you should be properly paid for it. In Australia, we have an old saying - "a fair days work for a fair days pay."

In general, the ones getting the raw deal at the moment are those that create or manufacture things. The people making the real money are those that hold the power to sell those things to the public. If you make a good song, and sign a contract with a record company and they then 'release' it to the public, you don't own that song anymore - the company does.

If you are a big player in these large companies, and you are really doing nothing to contribute anything positive to the world, but merely make money because you are in a position of power, why should the general public continue to give you money?

Who owns the internet? Also, is globalization really that bad?

Welcome to Wincustomize.com...

Always good to see another Aussie here...

The Internet is the great 'equalizer', in that it allows a single individual to reach his audience *directly* without having to go through the established 'middle man' corporations. That is why record labels and such are so afraid of it.

On the other hand, as with everything, the 'signal-to-noise' ratio is increasing, even on the Internet. There is so much 'noise' out there now, that it's getting increasingly difficult to make your voice heard, to stand out in the crowd, even if you have something amazing to offer.

It is at this point that the 'middle man' corporations are useful, because they have their own channels, reaching millions of people. Take Steam, for instance: if you're a Indie developer, you'll have a very, very, hard time getting noticed out there on your own, even if your game is really good. But highlight that game on Steam for 24 hours and that situation can change overnight.

So, it's not like the middle man doesn't have any value, he has. But because 'he' is the one standing between you and millions, 'he' believes he is entitled to the lion share of the business. Funny that this is the same dynamic as the one between farmers/vegetable producers and the large commercial networks that distribute their products to the consumer.

Other file sharing sites are deleting files or denying access to US residents, like rats abandoning ship. Read more HERE.

I'm surprised this is actually happening.

If they think that will stop it... probably not, or they'll move abroad as well. From megaupload's stats, most of their traffic was from places outside the states...

The rats abandoning these ships will find other harbors.

As proven with Mr.Dotcom going overseas and even barricading yourself in a "safe-room" won't stop the law from getting to you. Unless the sites themselves completely cut access to people in the US or the US blocks the IP's and locks us down like China they'll keep going after the owners of the sites. With what they did to Dotcom they've shown they don't really need SOPA or any other new laws to shut places down and lock people up.

I think this will end up going one of two ways. Either the indictment of people who own and operate these sites will continue and speed up, or, they'll stop for a while until these news are ratified and active and then they'll go after a bunch of them all at once or just block US access to them. In the end the ISP's here in the US are ultimately run by the government's laws so if they want to stay in business they'll do what the law tells them to do.

Perhaps in NZ, but in China, Russia, or eastern Europe? Maybe, but I would find it hard to believe.