Europe wants all countries to block pirate sites to combat online piracy

[DragonSlayer101]

What just happened? The European Commission has called out several countries that have either weak copyright enforcement or have not been doing enough to combat piracy. As part of its biannual list of foreign countries with lackadaisical copyright policies, the organization singled out thirteen nations for their insufficient actions against piracy, and called on their governments to implement an effective site-blocking regime to reduce the menace. Interestingly, the U.S. was nowhere to be found on the list despite being a hotbed of piracy-related activities.

The thirteen countries in the EC's crosshairs are headed by China (via TorrentFreak), which was singled out as the biggest concern. India, Indonesia, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine are listed as priority level 2, while Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand come in at level 3.

The EU, however, left out Vietnam from its list, despite the U.S. accusing the country of dragging its feet on the issue and allowing several pirate sites to operate freely from its territory. According to the United States Trade Representative's Special 301 Report 'Watch List,' some of the world's largest pirate sites operate from the country and serve up free movies, TV shows, and anime. The U.S. has accused Vietnam of not doing anything to shut down these services, despite repeated warnings.

Online piracy has been on the rise, and is believed to have been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic in recent years. The European Commission believes that the illegal activities thrive largely due to ineffective copyright enforcement to combat both physical and online piracy. To effectively tackle the problem, the organization wants countries to block piracy sites en masse. As an example of a step in the right direction, the EC highlighted how Indonesia ordered local Internet providers to block more than 3,500 domain names suspected of peddling pirated content.

However, site-blocking may not be the silver bullet against online piracy, as most of these services continue to operate by indulging in a practice known as 'domain hopping,' which involves changing over to new domain names to escape blockades. Some EU countries are tackling this by regularly updating their blocking orders, but others are failing to keep up with the pirates in this never-ending game of digital whack-a-mole.

The report, however, praises India for its efforts in blocking online piracy. In recent years, courts in the country have directed local and national ISPs to block tens of thousands of alleged piracy sites despite serious concerns from free speech advocates over the arbitrary manner of these orders. Either way, a lot still remains to be done to combat online piracy, and it remains to be seen how successful site-blocking efforts will be in enforcing copyright laws around the world.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/98827-european-commission-wants-all-countries-block-pirate-sites.html

 

[redhat]

What about corporation "illegal activities"?
stealing user people (facebook, google, microsoft ....)
monopoly (facebook has messenger but bought whatsapp, microsoft IE , etc....)
destroying competition (Nvidia, Intel, etc....)
I know they will be fined 1$ billion dollar but only after they earn 10$ billion from such activities.
reasonable and fair prices with good contect rather than beta one will certainly reduce piracy

 

[RandomWAN]

"Online piracy has been on the rise, and is believed to have been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic in recent years. The European Commission believes that the illegal activities thrive largely due to ineffective copyright enforcement to combat both physical and online piracy."

It's been on the rise since developers and content makers have been treating customers like cash cows. The legitimate way is again being made a more user-unfriendly experience versus what you get with piracy, so the customer will go with the option that provides a better user experience. Convenience trumps all in modern society, and if you provide the content/software as a reasonable price without DRM hurdles to jump, people will buy it.

In regards to blocking piracy, Pirate Bay would like a word. You can't stop the signal, so you may as well offer the content in such a manner as to make it more appealing to the customer than piracy.

 

[Burty117]

You mean, once every company and their nan's decided to all charge for their own service making online streaming as expensive (or more) than cable, suddenly pirating is on the rise? Who woulda thunk it...

I will always point to Game of Thrones as an example, Here in the UK, for the first few seasons this was true at the very least, you couldn't stream it at all, HBO Now wasn't a thing in the UK, they weren't airing it anywhere, the ONLY place you could watch it was on Sky Atlantic, so you're asking me to sign up for an £80 a month (with a minimum contract length of 2 years) Sky package that includes that specific channel just to watch your program?

I've been saying it for years, give consumers better ways to buy programs and movies and pirating will go way down. Due to subscription fragmentation and really dumb stuff like movies coming out in America then taking months to come over to the UK (we speak the same language you know) Pirating is ultimately easier to go through than buy the legit way.

I buy 4K Blu-rays still, I'd happily buy them in a digital format straight off a website as long as it didn't have any silly DRM stopping me from using it on any device I want, it's annoying enough having to crack 4K Blu-rays.

 

[yRaz]

You mean, once every company and their nan's decided to all charge for their own service making online streaming as expensive (or more) than cable, suddenly pirating is on the rise? Who woulda thunk it...

I will always point to Game of Thrones as an example, Here in the UK, for the first few seasons this was true at the very least, you couldn't stream it at all, HBO Now wasn't a thing in the UK, they weren't airing it anywhere, the ONLY place you could watch it was on Sky Atlantic, so you're asking me to sign up for an £80 a month (with a minimum contract length of 2 years) Sky package that includes that specific channel just to watch your program?

I've been saying it for years, give consumers better ways to buy programs and movies and pirating will go way down. Due to subscription fragmentation and really dumb stuff like movies coming out in America then taking months to come over to the UK (we speak the same language you know) Pirating is ultimately easier to go through than buy the legit way.

I buy 4K Blu-rays still, I'd happily buy them in a digital format straight off a website as long as it didn't have any silly DRM stopping me from using it on any device I want, it's annoying enough having to crack 4K Blu-rays.

I totally agree, the reason piracy is so prevalent is that it is easier to pirate something than it is to have 10 different subscription services. It's to the point where shows are fragmented on different services so this service has these 3 seasons of this show and that service has the last 2 seasons. Why would I search multiple streaming services to watch a show when I could pirate all 5 seasons of the show in one place?

it's not even about money for me, I'd happily pay for a service that has all the things I want in one place. And we aren't even talking about older games that you can't buy anywhere anymore so piracy is the only way to obtain and play them.

Look at how music stream has solved the problem. Things like spotify and pandora have basically eliminated music piracy because it's just a better system to listen to and find music.

The other side to this is that most movies and TV shows these days are garbage so they're hardly worth paying for. This like GoT, people were willing to pay to watch it the night it came out. There are other TV shows that I have some interest in but if there isn't an easy way to watch it I'm just not going to watch it.

 

[dangh]

I don't mind blocking fully piracy. But not as the first step. Let's ensure copyright law is reworked, intellectual property rights have fixed term as initially planned, each new content is available exactly same way in each country at the same time, and I don't have different e.g. movies on orish and us Netflix. Let's ensure as well software not updated or maintained for x (less than 15) years is abandon ware, it should be provided in store fronts like gog - drm free, worldwide, as installer file.
If everyone have same access and same affordability to every media content worldwide - I'll be more than happy with blocking piracy. But as it is now big city will use such initiative to further fragment delivery networks and sick all they can using xaas approach and we won't reach any of the goals.

 

[dmatheson]

I totally agree, the reason piracy is so prevalent is that it is easier to pirate something than it is to have 10 different subscription services. It's to the point where shows are fragmented on different services so this service has these 3 seasons of this show and that service has the last 2 seasons. Why would I search multiple streaming services to watch a show when I could pirate all 5 seasons of the show in one place?

it's not even about money for me, I'd happily pay for a service that has all the things I want in one place. And we aren't even talking about older games that you can't buy anywhere anymore so piracy is the only way to obtain and play them.

Look at how music stream has solved the problem. Things like spotify and pandora have basically eliminated music piracy because it's just a better system to listen to and find music.

The other side to this is that most movies and TV shows these days are garbage so they're hardly worth paying for. This like GoT, people were willing to pay to watch it the night it came out. There are other TV shows that I have some interest in but if there isn't an easy way to watch it I'm just not going to watch it.

I hear you, but careful of consolidation, it will lead to most dollars being spent on very vanilla content...that makes the most sense from a business point of view. Right now they're competing for niche viewers, with consolidation, you will see more what we had in the past with only two or three channels that really have any content of value at all. I mean, there are only so many ten-pole super hero movies I can stand no matter how hard they try to include my demographic.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Europe also wanted to fix tracking cookies and all we got was an annoying popup at every site everywhere (still with tracking cookies).

 

[digibluez]

Ok cool, but what about outdated copyright laws, no one is messing with it as long that benefits themselves, nice government

 

[waclark]

"Online piracy has been on the rise, and is believed to have been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic in recent years. The European Commission believes that the illegal activities thrive largely due to ineffective copyright enforcement to combat both physical and online piracy."

It's been on the rise since developers and content makers have been treating customers like cash cows. The legitimate way is again being made a more user-unfriendly experience versus what you get with piracy, so the customer will go with the option that provides a better user experience. Convenience trumps all in modern society, and if you provide the content/software as a reasonable price without DRM hurdles to jump, people will buy it.

In regards to blocking piracy, Pirate Bay would like a word. You can't stop the signal, so you may as well offer the content in such a manner as to make it more appealing to the customer than piracy.

The problem is people will still steal copyrighted content. I knew a guy and he downloaded movies and stuff, illegally. He had tons of stuff he would never watch. And, he had the money/means to afford all the stuff he was stealing, or at least the stuff he managed to watch. Some people just don't see the value in a book, or a movie, or a song or anything they feel can be replicated electronically. But take an hour out of their paycheck and they'll scream bloody murder.

 

[yRaz]

The problem is people will still steal copyrighted content. I knew a guy and he downloaded movies and stuff, illegally. He had tons of stuff he would never watch. And, he had the money/means to afford all the stuff he was stealing, or at least the stuff he managed to watch. Some people just don't see the value in a book, or a movie, or a song or anything they feel can be replicated electronically. But take an hour out of their paycheck and they'll scream bloody murder.

The content creators are taking an hour out of people's pay check by over charging for garbage content. God forbid you paid to see the new starwars movies....

 

[RandomWAN]

The problem is people will still steal copyrighted content. I knew a guy and he downloaded movies and stuff, illegally. He had tons of stuff he would never watch. And, he had the money/means to afford all the stuff he was stealing, or at least the stuff he managed to watch. Some people just don't see the value in a book, or a movie, or a song or anything they feel can be replicated electronically. But take an hour out of their paycheck and they'll scream bloody murder.

And publishers need to not treat that as a loss since they were never going to get the business anyway. They try to add monetary value lost to piracy when they were never going to have that income in the first place.

Some people are going to pirate because they can. If they couldn't get it for free, they would likely consume very little of the content. Publishing companies live in the clouds where they think if they somehow eliminate piracy (it's impossible) that they'd see a massive increase in revenue, when they would instead see little gains since they would keep operating as normal.

If they would focus on actually trying to please the customer instead of trying to tell the customer what the customer wants or tying them into a separate streaming platform, they would see much more profitability.

People moved to streaming platforms to escape paying for a bunch of content they didn't want (cable television packages) and to avoid having advertising shoved down their throat. What did the publishers do? They decided they wanted all the money to themselves and started up a myriad of streaming services, many with advertising stuffed in. Hulu forces you to pay for an additional tier now to avoid ads when paying in the first place was the play to avoid ads. Amazon shoves ads down your throat at the beginning of streams now which is especially annoying if you're watching a television show. Instead of giving the customer what they want, they decided they were going to tell the customer what they like and now they've recreated the very thing that people were trying to avoid by migrating to streaming services.

These companies do it to themselves and this is why I feel no pity for them in regards to piracy.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Let's get real - many of those countries mentioned - their citizens are not going to start spending their $1000 monthly income on streaming sites.
So really it's just blocking their own citizens using these services.
Netflix will be interesting - throwing out the non- sharing thing in some countries - making many actually look at the price - and question their sub.
I would be surprised in 2 years - Netflix or ilk get a great yearly price to stop more people changing subs every 2 months - a problem they help create

Least with Music you get 50 Million songs - still plenty of niche stuff or old vinyl - African tapes missing - picked up by share sites,
But for movies - you get what we give you - we would rather give you a 5.5 IMDB base movie out of hollywood in 2004 - than a 9 star classic from 1957
Plus we can take it away - as now not PC or cut parts out
Remember when I was in London in the 90s C4 would only play a movie if have no cuts - It's good to see mindthink from old movies good or bad

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

The EU now seems desperate for money since the pandemic and the sanctions against Russia in general. But for pirates, if there's a will there's a way. And don't forget that many pirates are from within the establishments as well. An acquaintance I knew long... ago, free OEM copies.

Nearly impossible to stop piracy lust like the drug wars. Some Governments now de-criminalizing drugs just to put the criminals out of business.

 

[Sir Sparkles]

Pirate Bay mocks your futile plea Europe.

 

[waclark]

And publishers need to not treat that as a loss since they were never going to get the business anyway. They try to add monetary value lost to piracy when they were never going to have that income in the first place.

Sorry but no. How would you feel, if you showed up to work and your boss didn't pay you, saying, well, I was never going to pay you in the first place? If you were never going to buy something, then why should you be able to use it at no cost? If you consume content you should pay for it just like if you do work for someone you should be paid for it.

Some people are going to pirate because they can. If they couldn't get it for free, they would likely consume very little of the content. Publishing companies live in the clouds where they think if they somehow eliminate piracy (it's impossible) that they'd see a massive increase in revenue, when they would instead see little gains since they would keep operating as normal.

I don't know what publishers are thinking, but a random copy here or there isn't the issue. The issue is some guy standing on a street corner selling pirated copies of movies or books and it's more than just one or two copies. Tell the truth, you have a choice, buy a movie at full price from a legit dealer, or buy a movie at half price from a pirate. Which one are you going to do? I know most people won't admit it, but many would buy the pirated version to save a buck.

If they would focus on actually trying to please the customer instead of trying to tell the customer what the customer wants or tying them into a separate streaming platform, they would see much more profitability.

I think when it comes to books, music and movies the content creators are trying to please their customers. However, producing all of that content comes at a price.

People moved to streaming platforms to escape paying for a bunch of content they didn't want (cable television packages) and to avoid having advertising shoved down their throat. What did the publishers do? They decided they wanted all the money to themselves and started up a myriad of streaming services, many with advertising stuffed in. Hulu forces you to pay for an additional tier now to avoid ads when paying in the first place was the play to avoid ads. Amazon shoves ads down your throat at the beginning of streams now which is especially annoying if you're watching a television show. Instead of giving the customer what they want, they decided they were going to tell the customer what they like and now they've recreated the very thing that people were trying to avoid by migrating to streaming services.

These companies do it to themselves and this is why I feel no pity for them in regards to piracy.

I think people moved to streaming for many reasons. The reality, regarding cable bundles, is that they weren't paying for all that content they didn't want. Much of that bundled content was bundled in because it had no value and wouldn't have been available if not for bundling. Lots of people went to streaming services for convenience. Not having to be in front of your TV on a specific time and day has value (to me). Being able to pause a show while I take care of some task around the house has value. Being able to rewatch shows and movies without having to have equipment to save and store this content (eg Tivo/DVR) has value. And yes, not having to watch so many commercials has value. All of which has to be paid for.

As for advertising, again, you are going to have to pay one way or the other. You can have ad supported content or you can pay. I believe these services are giving you what you want, they are just not giving it away for free. How do you propose that all the people that work in the industry get paid if all content is free?

 

[waclark]

The content creators are taking an hour out of people's pay check by over charging for garbage content. God forbid you paid to see the new starwars movies....

Not sure I see how that justifies pirating the content. If the movie is bad, don't go see it. Is that too hard?

 

[nismo91]

EU better block their scammy and phishing domains first before telling others what to do.

once I managed a company's web server in my old workplace, almost everyday we're being notified by login attacks from fellow asian countries such as russia or korea or china. but when it comes to scams and phishing emails, it's almost always from attackers with EU bank accounts.

also aren't most pirated content originated from Hollywood? people all over the world don't watch non-english titles that much. I mean just look at the european film awards vs oscars and you'll know which ones people will pirate more.

it's funny they mentioned all these developing countries because I'm sure the poorer EU nations are also part of the problem. but no they won't look at their own, let's look at countries across the world with poor internet coverage and tell them what to do.

 

[Blqckout]

The problem is people will still steal copyrighted content. I knew a guy and he downloaded movies and stuff, illegally. He had tons of stuff he would never watch. And, he had the money/means to afford all the stuff he was stealing, or at least the stuff he managed to watch. Some people just don't see the value in a book, or a movie, or a song or anything they feel can be replicated electronically. But take an hour out of their paycheck and they'll scream bloody murder.

all I can say is, whats the point in paying when you can get it for free

 

[Blqckout]

Sorry but no. How would you feel, if you showed up to work and your boss didn't pay you, saying, well, I was never going to pay you in the first place? If you were never going to buy something, then why should you be able to use it at no cost? If you consume content you should pay for it just like if you do work for someone you should be paid for it.

the main difference here is that I dont make over a million a year, let alone 6 figures

 

[waclark]

the main difference here is that I dont make over a million a year, let alone 6 figures

I don't see how that makes any difference. Does everyone associated with making a movie make a million dollars a year or 6 figures? Does every aspiring writer make a million dollars off of every book they write? Does every singer or song writer make 6 figures? If you use the product you should pay for. Otherwise, don't use it.

 

[waclark]

all I can say is, whats the point in paying when you can get it for free

The point is very simple. It's the ethical thing to do. Based on that comment, you would have no problem with me sneaking into your home/apt when you're gone and steal everything you own, because why pay for it if I can just steal it from you. Right?

 

[Blqckout]

The point is very simple. It's the ethical thing to do. Based on that comment, you would have no problem with me sneaking into your home/apt when you're gone and steal everything you own, because why pay for it if I can just steal it from you. Right?

well no because thats real life, online is a wild west, nobody should care what you do unless you are threathening someone with genuine intentio to harm them or do somethng physical

 

[Blqckout]

I don't see how that makes any difference. Does everyone associated with making a movie make a million dollars a year or 6 figures? Does every aspiring writer make a million dollars off of every book they write? Does every singer or song writer make 6 figures? If you use the product you should pay for. Otherwise, don't use it.

so if you want to visit techspot then you should click on all the ads, pay a subscription fee and suport them trough other monetary gains right? sice this info is also found on paid newspaper sites

 

[waclark]

so if you want to visit techspot then you should click on all the ads, pay a subscription fee and suport them trough other monetary gains right? sice this info is also found on paid newspaper sites

Apples and oranges. I am subjected to ads here. I cannot turn them off. I do not have to click them as that is not a requirement to use the site. If they made it a requirement, then I would either click the ads, or go to a different site. If they charged a fee, I would pay it or go to different sites. I am not getting access to any content that has a cost associated with it so therefore there is no obilgation to pay.

Why is it that you think someone else should pay for your entertainment content, because that seems to be what you saying? Someone else will pay so I don't have to, or you're saying you don't want to content creator to make any money.