[stonetools]

How do you define "the piracy sites" such that they can be shut down without destroying the commercial aspects of the internet?

I don't mean, "what's your top ten list of sites focused on piracy;" I mean "how do you prevent future sites from springing up in their wake if those are shut down; how do you define a piracy site so that policies can be made to prevent them from becoming large focuses of illegal data exchanges?"

It's actually pretty difficult to keep setting up pirate websites from inside the Jessup Correctional Facility. I don't think they have guaranteed Broadband Internet there.
My guess is that prosecuting pirates is going to be an ongoing activity like prosecuting bank robbers, counterfeiters, and money launderers.

No, we're saying, "give up on DRM so you can focus on maximizing sales and use the law to go after those infringements which are causing you damage, rather than those caused by people just trying to use what they paid for."

IOW, just give up DRM for the convenience of certain customers and good luck with those decreased sales and those extra lawyer fees you will pay for going after those copyright infringers. Gee, if you put it that way....

Certainly. And as soon as someone comes up with a way of establishing what those losses are, so they can be mitigated or prevented, policies can be established and legal action can be taken.

You can't prevent losses that don't exist.

I am not saying "there are no losses from filesharing." I *am* saying, "in order to establish the best methods to mitigate those losses, we need to know how many dollars are involved." Who is losing how much money to whom--if we can't answer that, we can't decide on an action.

If your point is that you can't move against rights violators until you precisely determine the losses, you are wrong once again. The law has never held that view , since before there was a United States. You can't exactly determine the amount of losses from passing counterfeit currency and often even who the losers are, but the US government has been prosecuting counterfeiters for over 200 years. The DOJ prosecutes makers of counterfeit drugs and counterfeit products every day, without any objection that they are doing anything wrong. I guess its because this doesn't directly involve the Holy Internet. I might add that there was all sorts of rejoicing around these parts about the DOJ going after the Price Fixing BPHs, although the alleged damages there can't be precisely fixed. Its only when it comes to the rights of copyright holders that precisely quantifying losses becomes a bar to action.

We could cut back on losses from filesharing by requiring that every post, email, and file transferred online be checked by an individual searching through the entire copyright registry... but that, of course, would be ridiculous. The cost wouldn't be worth the gains.

In order to decide if the cost of a particular measure is worth what it gains, we have to know what losses it's trying to prevent. "Author is deeply offended that people are reading without paying" is not something copyright law addresses.... people have been reading books without paying for them for centuries.

Well, we could do all sorts of stupidity. I'll settle for extending the rule of law so that those setting up piracy sites in foreign safe harbors can be brought to justice.

Sure. Does that include rights to noncommercial IP, like individual blog posts, which are often copied against the will of the author? Or is copyright protection only extended to those creative works attached to a paycheck?

We don't have to solve every problem in copyright law before we bring Internet pirates to justice. False dilemma attempt DENIED.