French President’s Residence ‘Busted’ For BitTorrent Piracy
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
I'm really starting to think we need to chip away at the politicians' immunity. Too often they try to pass laws that they themselves wouldn't be held accountable for breaking.
God help up when we're guarded by wolves.
It's human nature to be more forgiving to yourself, your family, and your kind, than to others.
This is how it's always been. And this is how you yourself have lived your entire life.
As long as you don't understand this, nothing will change. Because all you're doing is complaining about something you 1) can't change and 2) don't even practice.
Only after this realization can the real conversation start. Everything before is pointless.
It should still count as a copyright strike under hadopi.
OK, you could use a similar argument about Greek taxes - everyone cheats the system, and brings it down. But it's pointless blaming the people. Maybe the system has to change.
> OK, you could use a similar argument about Greek taxes
When transaction taxes become too high, they're evaded as well.
For example, post-prohibition bootlegging in the US lasted as long as the booze tax was "high enough" relative to production cost.
We already have folks smuggling cigarettes in the US to evade taxes. And, in high tax states, some merchants don't collect sales tax.
No, a VAT doesn't stop this - smuggling and off the books manufacture isn't VAT-taxed. (Yes, you may get the VAT on the inputs, but not on any of the downstream value.)
See, the problem is that it is not okay to bring a video camera into a theater, record a movie, and then give it out for free or profit. It doesn't matter if you believe copyright is silly or archaic, it's still law. I hate the laws currently being proposed that basically censor the web but the honest truth is that free distribution of paid content really does hurt the creator. The people who make the things that are worth the time to pirate need to be compensated and if they aren't getting paid then they either stop creating or make doing things the legal way a huge pain in the ass for both pirates and normal users.
Remember how you had to activate Windows XP back in the day? That was a huge pain in the ass for people who bought the software legally but was put in place because Microsoft had such a big piracy problem. I think we're actually creating this problem for ourselves and Shifting the blame and responsibility. Even the pirate websites who are giving lawmakers the biggest excuse to make these oppressive laws are actually being defended by the very people they are hurting. Which do you want more: the new Britney Spears single for free or an open, I censored web?
edit : fixed the link. sorry, bad copy-paste.
To verify the results: http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/?q=62.160.71.75
If you want I can post screenshots of both
I mean... Do we have to trust YouHaveDownloaded.com ? Evidence seems scarce...
Google's cache [2] also works.
[1] https://plus.google.com/104846995293145552969/posts/cxxM2D3i... [2] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...
Isn't this addresses easy to spoof? I thought they were only suited for scaring friends, not basing investigative articles.
[1] http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-deniabili...
They could be angels for all I know, but a site that promotes anonymity and loads up with flash makes me pass it by.
I personally feel that if all of us as users realized that we're handing them excuses to censor the web on a silver platter we would quit downloading copyright materials. There is such a fine line between sharing and piracy that it's hard to decide which side any person falls on. Now, a person who records a movie in a theater and puts it online is guilty. No doubt about it. But what about the person who buys a CD, rips it to his computer, then wants to share it with some friends? If he sends a few copies to friends via email or other non public way, is he doing wrong? I'd argue no. But that's what makes this whole thing so scary. On the one hand there's a clear case we are the reason these laws happen. Our inability to resist the lure of free, pirated media. But then we also cannot restrict our right to share our own property with some people.
So I'm wondering, when does it stop being sharing and turn into privacy. Never is not the answer. Whether you support or think it shouldn't exist, the fact is that copyright laws have been in effect for a long time. So considering that, where does the line get drawn?
There's absolutely zero proof that even with all this piracy going on, that the amount of creative work has diminished. In fact, from my anecdotal evidence, I'd say there's even more creative works available now than ever before.
Thus, stronger copyright laws targeting non-commercial users are simply unneeded. The public is already getting the benefit of having huge amounts of art being generated (with no signs of slowdown), so there's no justifiable argument for these stronger laws, despite piracy.