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[SHAD0Wdump]

By the way, don't forget while focusing on CISPA, pay attention to everything else congress is doing. I'm getting a distinct feeling they are using this recurring nightmare contract almost exclusively as a distractionary device.

Probably been the case for a while really. If I remember correctly from the SOPA situation, they got shit through because of that thing.

[Twi]

And now for your regular dosage of spiderface.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Angry spider!

On a more serious note, ARGH.

At this rate we really just need to dump everyone out of congress and re-elect it entirely.

I think someone should start up a national Vote of No Confidence against Congress, personally.

Yessss.

Because sadly, people don't see anyone more qualified, in response to MSH.

But yeah. WTF Congress?!?

[nenjin]

Money, is my guess. I think telecomms have finally linked up in whole with the intelligence and defense industry, and so you're seeing mind-bending shit coming out of quarters and from people you never expected it to. People who still thought the internet was just a series of tubes 3 years ago are now hand-crafting this legislation to present it on a platter to the telecomms and the defense industry. That shit doesn't just happen because Congress decides to inform itself. It happens because pressure is being put on members of Congress and money is being thrown at them by the ton by lobbyists.

I think the reality is we've basically been at this place for the last couple of years, and now both the telecomms and the intelligence industry have decided that this Congress is pliable enough to radically alter digital privacy and get away with it. The NSA is already set up to covertly monitor internet traffic on both sides of the ocean, from the satellites and at major traffic hubs in the US. This would just formalize and streamline requests the intelligence agencies have been making to ISPs for some time.

So yeah. They're now looking to lock in the techniques they've been doing extra-legally by making them legislation. Between the entertainment industry and the intelligence/military industry, they see only up-sides for this. The entertainment industry will get government and ISP support for punishing piracy to the point no one will risk it, while intelligence and the military gets one step closer to the kind of control over the internet that China already has.

[Aklyon]

There is no 'to risky to risk piracy' point. They'll just dive into the darknets and be harder to find by everyone except who knows enough.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Seriously, I don't know what they really hope to accomplish. The age of scarcity is over for anything that can be transferred as a computer file. Those who wish to exploit that for their personal gain will be able to do so as long as the internet or anything even remotely like it exists at all.

[nenjin]

There is no 'to risky to risk piracy' point. They'll just dive into the darknets and be harder to find by everyone except who knows enough.

It's going to seriously dissuade casual pirates and it's going to be the death of public torrent networks. Which are really the distribution hub of piracy that allows 1 copy to become 300,000 copies in 3 days.

I'm not talking about people tech-saavy or committed enough to go to darknets....just like when talking about murder or drugs I'd be excluding people who are committed enough to do murder or serious narco-traffiking. (And no that's not a qualitative statement about piracy in any way.)

Content sharing has become easy enough now for even non-tech saavy people to do it. Client, link to a tracker page, boom. You're in. That's what the industry perceives as a threat to its interests. CISPA would reset the bar for how much technical knowledge you need to pirate in anonymity, and I think that's the real goal. In private I don't think they're so deluded they think they can stop piracy. But they want to control the volume, and forcing people to go off the grid to do it would drastically cut down on the amount of infringement, because I think most people aren't committed enough to learn how to work off the grid just to pirate movies, song and games.

Plus, once a darknet starts having users who don't know each other connect to each other, it's not really a darknet anymore. It may be inaccessible by the general internet, but it's really just a large private network at that point. And those can still be hacked and accessed. (Because that's the next logical step for the intelligence agencies.)

If anyone is more likely to go to those places to seek anonymity....my guess would be its gamers. The amount of technical knowledge you need to install a cracked game is higher than what you need to download an mp3 or movie and double-click it. (Not by much in my view, but still more.)

[Aklyon]

Thats the point, though. It doesn't stop a thing. All it does is decrease it by an amount. Piracy and copying will continue unabated, and we'll have an extra useless law we don't need in the process. This does not help the American people in any mesuarable way, only certain companies. And if they can't deal with the piracy as the service problem it is instead of treating it as a 'lost sales' thing, they can fail and go under, capitalism does not approve of their uncompromising old ways anymore.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There will definitely be a temporary dip in piracy, but I think it will return to its previous levels fairly quickly once people figure out how to avoid the new security measures. You'd be surprised how far people can adapt to circumstance if they want something.

[Aklyon]

People with free time and interest or curiosity will ruin anyone's plans for holding something in check, especially if you brag about not being able to do so. Ubisoft learned this the very hard way.

[nenjin]

There will definitely be a temporary dip in piracy, but I think it will return to its previous levels fairly quickly once people figure out how to avoid the new security measures. You'd be surprised how far people can adapt to circumstance if they want something.

It's a two-part thing I think. One will be the popularity of stuff that lets you connect to darknets. There are a few programs I saw just by glancing at a wiki article, but it takes time for demand to drive the software to become more user-friendly. Second will be, someone has to pony up the infrastructure to support a large file-sharing darknet off the grid. And that's a more important distinction than I think people are giving it credit for. That firmly puts file-sharing out of the protected, public realm and into the realm where real criminals do their work. Consider that there are no barriers between you and intruders, authorities or otherwise, when you're connecting to a darknet. (It's the reason real darknets only make connections between trusted clients.) I don't think it's a small thing if all file-sharing has to go off the grid, for a vast majority of people used to the internet, in terms of perception or practice.

And Akylon, I'm not arguing for these measures. But I think it's more important to understand their rationale than it is to just call it stupid. It's not stupid or irrational, it's a highly-calculated strategy that's thinking years in advance of its impacts. Like I said, they know they can't eradicate content piracy. What they can do is drive wedges between it and legitimate, publicly accepted behavior on the internet and effectively isolate pirates for prosecution. If the public views these people doing stuff "off the internet" getting railed by the government as ok....then they've done their job.

And if it turns out millions of people are still willing to go the lengths to pirate, they're completely at the mercy of content owners and the government if they're caught, and public opinion be damned.

[Theoboldi]

Sorry, but this is really getting silly now.

you expected something else from the government?

Not really.  But luckily enough it lets me quote Moby Dick, and that makes it okay.

[Theoboldi]

Sorry, but this is really getting silly now.

you expected something else from the government?

Not really.  But luckily enough it lets me quote Moby Dick, and that makes it okay.

there is one word in that sentence that perfectly describes the government.

and it's not Moby.

Yup, the goverment sure is lucky that we voted for them.

[Aklyon]

I know, and I know they've been planning like this. But its not the best way to do things, and certainly is costing them a lot in lobbying. Like mentioned elsewhere, treating it as a service problem instead of a thing to temporarily crush under pointless legislation would be more profitable. (not for the intelligence/military side of things, but they get enough money as it is, they can deal with it)
Give someone a reason to buy your stuff besides said stuff not being crappy, or at least so bad its good levels of crappiness (Like being able to buy a 'copyable' version (not something stupid like 'limit 3 copies per disk', just put it on the disk and don't make it overly diificult to do so without needing to waste time at a shop to 'convert it', or a digital download version somewhere Steam-like, or Netflix-like, etc) over just pirating it cause its easier, and people will probably prefer the legal option.
Acting like cavemen and crushing all who disagree with you under relentless lobbying, FUD, nonsensical numerals, and the other tactics they've employed ever since the VCR was invented only makes people more inclined to pirate once they know how, either because your version is significantly inferior in someway, delayed weeks behind other regions for no obvious reason announced, is ridiculously overpriced, or just to spite you.

[PTTG??]

It's still not going to help them. If they refuse to release Iron Sky in the US, I will find a way to pirate it.

[Heron TSG]

Hey, if you use Copyright Math, anything is possible.

(The link is to a TED talk about how the MPAA and others are blowing piracy out of proportion. Highlights: The problem is ringtone piracy, and your Ipod is worth $8 billion dollars.)