• That's the thing - distributors cannot enforce this contract upon citizens because they have no real political power so whether these contracts are enforced or not depends upon whether the local authorities agree with to carry them or not. The only way they can do this pretty much is when a part of the contract states that you are using the product and they can monitor your use, e.g. Blizzard banning your WoW account.

    But Sony Music cannot ban your ability to listen to a CD released on their label in a similar sense.

    Which is why I am again saying that in Sweden I am very well allowed to copy for personal use regardless of what Sony Music thinks about that.

  • bj_burger said:
    Now DRM is a pretty good way to stop piracy


    DRM is not effective at all—If that were the case, they wouldn't be pushing more copyright enforcement laws. Search for "break drm" in Google; I won't put a link here to not risk getting a moderator in a bad mood.

    Back on topic, the Megaupload case shows that the current laws are enough to deal with copyright infringement. Of course it won't stop the corporations from lobbying and pushing more stupid laws like these. They want the monopoly of distribution at any cost, and are using the state for that—a very smart move, since the state has the monopoly of force.

    As for ACTA, it's pretty much over. Many countries already signed on and it is unlikely that the EU will reject it.

    Willst wohl einmal hinüberseh'n
    Und fragen, wie es dort mag geh'n
    Mein Herz?
  • Yeah, Sweden signed ACTA. I am very disappointed right now.

  • I wonder, if anything actually changes. I somewhat doubt it.

    And you can still visit servers outside of ACTA region. Russia and The Ukraine provide sort of wild Internet space. Type in Google "Скачать музыку" and start downloading music =] and so on and on. Whatever you want, they have it.

  • I didn't notice this before because I hadn't tried downloading anything after Megaupload got taken down, but apparently a whole load of sites have stopped allowing sharing on their upload sites, so the files can only be accessed and retrieved by the uploader.
    I'm not sure if this is out of fear for being taken down as well or they were ordered to by burly men with guns.
    http://www.akiba-online.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1072692

    This link, for example, leads to a dead end with this message:
    http://www.filesonic.com/file/2358922474/Crosby,%20Stills,%20Nash%20&%20Young-4%20Way%20Street.rar
    All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

    If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager.

    "The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false." ~ Paul Johnson
  • Yeah, a lot of web sites are doing stuff like that even though it didn't even pass. Apparently though, it doesn't have to considering what they did to Megaupload.

  • It's an argument I hear quite often... But, it concerns books and there are bunch of people, who hate reading on screen (I am one of those). On the other hand, I tried to pirate some books, but never found a pirated copy of a book I wanted. I just read bad literature I guess. Things get different for russian books though, those are all over the russian web. Too bad I very very very hate reading long texts on computer screen. It's just extremely inconvenient. So, in this case, even if I obtained that book for free, I would buy it nevertheless.

    However, once I get a thing for free, why pay? I usually don't.

    But again, that doesn't mean I support PIPA/SOPA/ACTA or whatever.

  • It might be more effective if it wasn't some Brazilian author nobody's ever heard of. Get George Lucas to back this sort of protest (lulz) or Cormac MaCarthy. Or J.D. Salinger if he's still alive.

    I too hate reading on a backlit screen like my laptop. I think an eReader might be easy on the eyes, but I still have an affection for books, despite their comparatively exorbitant cost.

    "The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false." ~ Paul Johnson
  • bj_burger said:
    It might be more effective if it wasn't some Brazilian author nobody's ever heard of. Get George Lucas to back this sort of protest (lulz) or Cormac MaCarthy. Or J.D. Salinger if he's still alive.

    I too hate reading on a backlit screen like my laptop. I think an eReader might be easy on the eyes, but I still have an affection for books, despite their comparatively exorbitant cost.


    "Nobody" is quite contextual now, don't you think? I haven't heard about The Hunger Games until recently either although apparently people claim that it's the new Harry Potter. And even though bands like the Scorpions are today kind of forgotten in Europe they are building an audience in Africa.

    I know you've defended yourself for being Western-centric in the past, but this time around I do think I have quite the merit to accuse you for being such. The amount of books the guy has sold in Russia is nothing to scoff at, that's for sure. I'm happy if 10 people read my stuff at DeviantArt.

  • bj_burger said:
    It might be more effective if it wasn't some Brazilian author nobody's ever heard of. Get George Lucas to back this sort of protest (lulz) or Cormac MaCarthy. Or J.D. Salinger if he's still alive.

    I too hate reading on a backlit screen like my laptop. I think an eReader might be easy on the eyes, but I still have an affection for books, despite their comparatively exorbitant cost.


    Dude, Cohello is a massive, massive author. His readership spans continents and languages. I don't rate him personally, but I've definitely heard of him. So has my mum, and she doesn't even read much. He isn't as unknown as you might think.

    As for SOPA and PIPA, I think there is a broader issue to be considered. Marshall McLuhan said that "all the conservatism in the world does not afford even a token resistance to the ecological sweep of the new electric media"... I think the shift we're encountering with regards copyright is part of a broader trend in thought that defines data of all kinds (music, films, books, anything) in a different way, as something ethereal and floating "out there" somewhere, rather than as something housed in a physical technology like a CD or a book which only has one function. We are starting to reject technologies that don't have broad applications, and that alone, I think, means the end for the physical distribution of entertainment.

    I think only question, really, is how fast will the industry adapt to take advantage of the change in the market. It will happen eventually, and when it does everyone will be able to breathe easy again, but until then we are in border-country.

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