MPAA and BREIN shut down 51 more torrent sites

The way that it should be looked at is this.

It is only harmful/loss of income IF i was actually going to buy it from some legal purchase means.

If i wasn't able to obtain it illegally and for free, I wouldn't have it anyways.

I won't feel guilty since no end person looses anything on an unlimited supply.

Simple.

i seriously think, that if we pay the internet bills.. anything on the internet is pretty much yours..you are getting what you pay for.. now.. there are lots of ppl who really dont know how to use torrent websites thats why they just check their mail and Facebook..i think if you download it.. for personal use is good.. but if u start making profit for others work.. then that is just shaddy.. unless you share it. and not sell it it.. but it really is tough in these times.. of economic struggles for those who can barely afford a dvd

Purely hypothetical: If I had a replicator (ala Star Trek) and somehow replicated a Toyota Camry for myself, would you consider it grand larceny? I find it hard to believe anyone would answer an unequivocal YES to that without at least SOME fine print to their argument.

Perhaps this a bit pedantic, but "stealing" is NOT the proper word. The proper word is "infringing". You don't infringe upon someone's wallet. You steal it. Likewise, you don't steal someone's data, you infringe upon it (unless you actually removed it from their possession, of course).

Infringement is NOT stealing. That is a fact, supported by laws.

Does that make it ok? NO, there's definitely something wrong there. But is it theft as in robbery or embezzlement? Absolutely not.

You (ironically) are the one with the false argument. You are making the case that it is stealing in the first place and it is not. You're just spouting more of the same old rhetocial fear, uncertainty and doubt oozing from every pore of the media. You may be very passionate about copyright infringement and that's great, but you should re-evaluate the mechanics of your arguments otherwise you can't really have a good discussion about it.

Assuming you obtained the raw materials for this "conversion" probably not. But you have infringed on Toyota's patents, and their trademark. Accordingly, it would be a felony to operate it, and certainly to redistribute it.

No, it's actually the height of pedantry, when an attempt is made to float this nonsense past anyone over third grade. This is the inane portion of the program where we argue that "farting" is not the proper word, but rather "flatulence" is.

"Infringement" is stealing, and it is the name we apply to the mechanism by which theft of trademark, copyright, intellectual property, or patent concept theft occurs, period.

"Infringement", describes those thefts, and it's criminal punishment can easily be at parity with "GTA". You all know what that means, right?

Your post here is nothing more than yet another version of "to-may-to", "to-mah-to", dogma. It is granted, a cut above, "it wasn't worth buying so I downloaded it.

Ya know, at the end of the day, I don't give a hoot who downloads what. What I'd really like, is for them to go off and "infringe" quietly, and quit running their yaps in open forum, displaying just how, slick, and important they think they are. When in actuality, they are only ignorant and mouthy. At the end of the same day, the majority of those running their mouths here, are more than likely the "leeches" of the torrents anyway, not the seeds.

And if you'll forgive me for being a "little pedantic", another word for leech might be "parasite". So, I would say it's not "leeching" from a torrent, it's being a "parsite" at a torrent.

And now Rick, how do you feel about kicking those semantics around for a while?

Companies and their advertisers cram click ads and banners down our throats and take up valuable browser real estate without user permission. People illegally download their products without company permission. Fair trade I think.

Yeah well, that's a cute postulation, but "Adblock Plus would get rid of the ads, then how would you justify the infringement?

Exactly. And for those reasons it would be wrong, but it wouldn't be grand theft in any way, shape or form.

I feel just fine kicking around semantics because it *matters* here, much as it does when it comes to law. Distinction of terms counts, because the difference between manslaughter and murder are huge in regards to our laws.

Tell me with a straight face that you'd feel just as bad if you never knew someone made a perfect copy of your car while you were sleeping as you would if they had physically stolen it and you woke up to an empty parking space. You'd be full of s@#$ if you said yes. I know you aren't that stupid and I know most other people aren't.

There's a big difference between stealing a car off a lot and making a perfect duplicate for yourself (impossible of course, but file copying sufficiently mimics such magic).

Whether or not it is wrong to copy media isn't up for debate. Hell yes it is wrong and illegal, but it isn't stealing. It isn't (typically) the same severity as stealing either. That doesn't make it right, but it makes all the difference at the end of the day when you're being prosecuted for the infringement of someone's intellectual property.

Intellectual property "theft" can actually be WORSE than physical theft. When you copy the protected ideas of others (not just talking about music here), distribute it, sell the results etc... The damage can be huge. But the tired old argument of all those crybabies out there (most of which are lying) of "I wasn't going to buy it anyway!" really DOES matter, like it or not.

In a court, intent matters. Loss matters. Many things matter and the depth of that conversation is subverted by people who make this a "stealing is wrong!" debate. Of course stealing is wrong... now can we get discuss copying music again?

File sharing is legal in Canada Woop Woop

On the flip side, why should I have to be subject to their ads if I do not illegally download? Why should I have to download a tool to get rid of them wasting my time and bandwidth? The software, music, and movie industries want to nickel and dime the consumer to death by all these fees and licenses, why can't I be just irritating by wanting to be paid for them to display an ad on my monitor? They want all this information like email addresses and other personal data for free, why can't they expect to give something free in return?

Yes i know, this will probably never happen. Its just something to think about. I really could care less what anybody does with their internet. If you illegally download, then shut up and continue on until you get caught. If you don't, then more power to you.

This isn't really a fair question, due to context. You're quite correct insofar as you your conclusion, but since the car doesn't represent my "intellectual property", but in fact, physical property. You can't use one, as a comparison for the other. The analog is flawed. That's why we use different nomenclature for different types of theft.

To tap into another hypothetical situation, let's say I wrote a song, you came to my house, got me drunk, and stole the only copy I had, then beat me to the copyright office with it. Should you be charged with 2 crimes, or just 1? If only one, which one?

Of course there is, but again the physical property, to intellectual property analog is invalid. Since you're so fond of this line of reasoning, perhaps you might find, "if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound", equally fraught with enough doggerel to be entertaining.

You're preaching to the choir here. I don't think that the entertainment industry has the right to claim $xxx.xxx.xx losses, when in reality they only suffered $xxx.xx in actual losses. And that's a point for the torrent set, I suppose. But there's the, "it wasn't worth buying so I stole it BS", coming from that side of the bathroom.

The RIAA is a bunch of Fascist looney toons who think that every time you need music you've purchased in a different format, for your own purposes, that you should rebuy it!

I buy CDs I like, because I like to have them. That said, I don't buy CDs I don't like just to have them. But, I do believe, that hardcore music down loaders, take as much as they can, just because they can. The net result of this is, they just hand the RIAA the ammunition they need to concoct the bizarre numbers regarding, "industry losses", that they need to further influence legislation.

When I was young, we smoked pot, dodged the draft, played hooky from school, and fornicated out of wedlock. That said, we knew it was wrong, and had the good taste to shut up about it, instead of standing on a soapbox and giving socio-pathological rants about it, claiming it was right, justifying it to ourselves, and whichever other juvenile delinquents who were unfortunate to have to listen to it..

And "intent" really doesn't matter that much in court. For example, "I went there to propose marriage, but I caught her in bed with another man, so I killed both of them. I didn't mean it, I just went crazy. How far do you think that would fly in a court of law? Once upon a time in a French Court maybe. But hey, as far as I'm concerned, she wouldn't shave her armpits, so he can keep her. Do you get the analog there? Or maybe I should have said, "she won't shave her armpits, smells like a cow, is flat out ugly, so I'll steal her to put her out of her misery".

One last thought: I was brought up to believe that, "two wrongs don't make a right"! Yet all the BS that comes out of the downloading set, flies directly in the face of that concept. So what do you think Rick, do two wrongs make a right?

Some would say no matter how you rationalize it, ''stealing is stealing'' and that is what downloading copyrighted material from torrent sites is, as long as the law exists. Others would say, if these avenues of getting some of these materials didnt exist at all, then everyone will be forced to pay unfair and insanely high prices for any material, great or crap, as long as it's been copyrighted! I do wonder: for those who say it's stealing, some of these same laws make you a criminal whenever you lend your dvd to your girlfriend, or get several music tracks via bluetooth from your colleagues or borrow your friends ps3 disc to finish the offline mode of a game since your disc got scratched, or copy your friends pc game after your computer crashed and your installation disc was no where to be found,as far as you don't ask for permission from the copyright owners.i must say that if you have never been guilty of these or anything similar, i fear you may not be human! Dont you think there's something wrong if you cant do these?? All these also result in lost revenue and according to these laws, more than half of the population may be criminals!this is what filesharing including torrents achieve, just on a larger scale(as long as no form of payment is involved). Agreed, it does get to the point where it's worrisome for those who have a stake in it, but that said,i think some of those who stand on the high moral ground of ''stealing is stealing'' are hypochrites because of reasons stated above. Sometimes, not everything in life is black or white. But one thing is sure: Good products will always sell even in a world where torrents exist and unfairly high prices for materials,especially those not worth it (eg some ps3 games or district 9 ), will always promote some form of piracy. If anyone is againt torrents/existence of torrent sites/filesharing because of it's tendency to be used in distributing copyrighted work then there's something wrong cos they may as well be against the computer! In life,somehow there's always a balance and i think this situation isn't any different as efforts on both sides seem to balance each other.

Well drufense; I think you're being silly. And like you, I can think of a 1000 instances were copying a disc would be justifiable. Granted, the MPAA would like you to charge admission if you brought a few friends over to watch "Avatar", since you have a bigger TV than them, and they offered to bring the beer. And yes, they would probably like to collect "public viewing" fees from the showing, if you did so.

I'm neither affiliated with the MPAA, nor am I a hypocrite. I simply say that the moral, (and legal), side of the argument goes to the owner of the copyrighted material.

I don't really care who copies what. I'm am however, deathly sick of listening to all kinds of bizarre justifications from people who do infringe or steal, or whatever we're going to call it at this juncture.

So, for all the niggling silliness of examples you just put forth, I have two words for you, "fair use". That concept is written into copyright law also. But, it's not anywhere near as liberal as most of you think it should be, or would like it to be.

As I said, "Ad Block Plus" would help free you from the ads. (And also free you from the excuse).

Your position is more applicable to broadcast (off the air), TV. That said, the ads are there because the service IS free. Also, broadcast TV has no DRM. Consequently, if the entertainment industry wanted to start, (or rather "restart"), a bunch of nonsense about the right to "time shift" this material, I would be right there with you.

What I think is truly unfair, is advertising on subscription cable services, and as I understand it, they have DRM also.

It's still hard to justify the idea that, "I pay 30 bucks a month for internet, so I should be entitled to download every first run movie on the planet, every recorded song on the planet free of charge, and don't bother me with the damned advertising either. If you see my point. If I were your ISP, I'd simply give your your money back and cancel your subscription.

(Which incidentally, they have every right to do, should it be shown that you have knowingly downloaded illegal copyrighted material. Read your, "terms of service" agreement).

I posted earlier bout this, so i already mentioned that they bloat figures.
And while Red or Route turned around and said so whats the difference in stealing $100mil and $1.98, well, again, casettes...
Cd's and vinyl on tape passed to friends, theres ya $1.98, with ease, and at that point in time... no one gave a crap. I didnt see huge lawsuits and people being sued in the 80's, the corporations were doing fine, and were able to afford their fast cars and cocaine habits, but now this must of changed.
Tax increases, poor economy, only way to get the money is to sue people.
Anyone possible, for any reason... didnt they try to sue a dead chick or was that just a little urban myth to mock them. Still w/e.

I just however think that this isnt just about piracy, this is like, bloated figures, governments say yes tackle this huge problem, look at the figures lost in our economy... straws... clutch... yeah, this will all solve everything... ammo for takin controls of the interwebs at many levels ? Shut everything down you dont like. I get the sites shouldnt be there, but was there not an issue with the the way it was done. A tad wrong / illegal. As much as I dont see a problem with the torrent sites shut in this manor, does it not give governments and corporations a little loop hole to use it whenever they want. Brute force and censorship. Google didnt give a crap about it til they saw android sales were low and attributed to torrent usage, and boom, sales down, censor torrent searches.

I think the companies are hypocrites. They are out to make money. They sell consoles and films and music, mp3 and divx and other codecs for shrinking the data and sharing it faster arise, p2p file sharing takes off. The increase in sales for DVD players that can read CDR discs with mov avi file types become more mainstream, they want you to buy there products coz they know how easy it is to get this stuff surely. Surely p2p helped sales. I honestly cant see a need for a dvd player that can play divx if you are buying your own stuff, unless you are backing up your dvds to divx or vob files, just in case if you have kids, are clumsy or an insane dog, they are goin to get scratched.
So have they made all the money necessary from the products? Supply and demand, quotas filled, now cut people off from teh p2p as its time to move on to greener pastures. On to streaming now the speeds of the net increase, the servers can finally handle global amounts of films and tv so its no need to be happy selling players.
I would say hats off, you found a way to make money, during an age where p2p piracy should make a huge hole. But wait, did making players for the everyday home, mean you encouraged p2p. So as to sell more, make more money. Would as many people have had access to such files if you hadnt of made it mainstream.
Even internet providers say, download music films files, of such a size in such a time... they in my opinion encourage to. You can say no no, the small print, the extra bits no one reads, you cant p2p. But that is not what they are advertising. No one, says ooh i must get this Service provider because i cant do...

Modchips, Pandora Batteries, SD cards, USB sticks, HDD's, PC's, HTPC's, Consoles ( now with divx and streaming ) HDTV's with usb and ethernet interfaces. The Jobs these all provide.

So to those who just say its illegal. Its business, it always has been business, they never took their eyes off the prize, the p2p users never got away with anything, they were welcomed by those who saw beyond. They could of done what they are doing ages ago, but apparently it was wrong back then. So what changed ? Money time and change. And its time to change it, to make more money. (Good luck in this recession)

And to Captain cranky: I liked reading your posts, you discuss and argue your point better than red and route who IMO just seem to say illegal and offer as weak an argument as the p2p people who have no morals and say its fine. If things were a simple case of right and wrong... the human race... virus ... yeah.

the piracy problem is solved in Egypt
now, the western world have example how to do it

Uh, thank you Gars, for that nugget of wisdom.

Can i just point out that techspot moderators are deleting posts they dont like on this subject......

So much for freedom of speech..

So they shut down 51 sites..

Go google .torrent.. 316 million results...

That leaves you with only 315000949 to go..

Find a better way to do buisness or die, same as betamax, cassettes ect ect..

Digital distribution is the future, you can sue and close down as many people as you like, it wont change a thing.

Games and movies are still breaking sales records to this day. Theft is paying 10 quid for a plastic disk, in a plastic box, with a piece of printed paper when i can go and download it for bugger all.

Videos on you tube regulalry pull in over 10 million views, and the make money from advertising, why should i pay for an old fashioned notion of doing buisness.. I would be quite happy to see these companys go bust and stop churning out the crap..

Wew dont need overpaid hollywood stars to make a good movie you know..

The profanity you speak of was censored by the forums before you deleted my post.

The links i posted were for google search results, not torrents.

I suggest you read the forum rules yourself.

As a side note its not very polite to post someones ip on a public forum. luckily i have a dynamic ip.

Lets see if you do too.