Is digital copyright incompatible with technology and / or democracy?

[stonetools]

I would disagree that the law has given up on the Internet, in the light of THIS:

NORFOLK, Va. — A California man pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to willfully reproduce and distribute tens of thousands of infringing copies of copyrighted works without permission, including infringing copies of movies before they were commercially released on DVD.


The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).


Sean M. Lovelady, 28, of Pomona, Calif., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. He faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release.


Lovelady was indicted April 18 along with three other leading members of the IMAGiNE Group, an organized online piracy group seeking to become the premier group to first release Internet copies of new movies only showing in theaters.

These are aren't the only guys looking at federal time.

Two founders of movie download site NinjaVideo.net have pleaded guilty to charges related to copyright infringement, the U.S. Department of Justice said.Hana Beshara, 29, of Las Vegas, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Last Friday, Matthew David Howard Smith, 23, of Raleigh, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to the same charges in the same court.

Beshara and Smith were among five alleged founders of the website indicted on six counts by a grand jury in Virginia earlier in September. Both face five years in prison on each count they pleaded to.

LINK

At this point, four out of the five Ninjavideo defendants have now pled guilty and are going to jail. Then there's Megaupload.
Clearly, the DOJ hasn't given up on bringing the rule of law to the Internet, despite all these oh-so-complicated technological issues. I'm sure that the defendants in those cases thought that their clever schemes were too fancy for law enforcement-right up to the time that the handcuffs clicked shut in their wrists.

Does the law has some catching up to do? Sure. The Obama Administration says that more legislation is needed in order to root out the worst foreign pirate sites. Once such legislation is passed, you will see the DOJ go after such pirate sites AND spam sites AND spoofing sites (The same type guys tend to be behind all those kinds of sites).

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Does the law has some catching up to do? Sure. The Obama Administration says that more legislation is needed in order to root out the worst foreign pirate sites. Once such legislation is passed, you will see the DOJ go after such pirate sites AND spam sites AND spoofing sites (The same type guys tend to behind all those kinds of sites).

So how, exactly, does more legislation in the USA help with dealing with sites in sovereign foreign nations? It's almost like the USA thinks that their laws are applied globally.

I note that the NZ courts basically just told the USA government to put up or shut up in the Megaupload case. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Kirtai

So how, exactly, does more legislation in the USA help with dealing with sites in sovereign foreign nations? It's almost like the USA thinks that their laws are applied globally.

I note that the NZ courts basically just told the USA government to put up or shut up in the Megaupload case. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.

The US government has lots of ways to get foreign governments to cooperate with the US is going after pirate sites. The ways include widely adopted international treaties, the UN Declaration of Human Rights (which safeguard artist rights) ,bilateral agreements, economic sanctions, and the International Court Of Justice.

AS to the NZ court's action, there is no hint that this would endanger the case against the defendants . THe prosecution is always required to disclose their evidence to the defendant before the trial under US law. I presume NZ law is the same.

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The US government has lots of ways to get foreign governments to cooperate with the US is going after pirate sites.

Agreed, the US is pretty good at forcing foreign governments to violate their own laws in favour of US interests.

Originally Posted by stonetools

AS to the NZ court's action, there is no hint that this would endanger the case against the defendants . THe prosecution is always required to disclose their evidence to the defendant before the trial under US law. I presume NZ law is the same.

Actually, the USA has refused to turn over the evidence needed by the NZ courts to determine if the extradition is legal but still want them extradited anyway.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Kirtai

Agreed, the US is pretty good at forcing foreign governments to violate their own laws in favour of US interests.
Actually, the USA has refused to turn over the evidence needed by the NZ courts to determine if the extradition is legal but still want them extradited anyway.

THe DOJ turned over what it thought was sufficient evidence. The NZ judge wants them to disclose everything.
Clearly, the defendants are getting their due process-and maybe even a little bit more.

[plib]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The US government has lots of ways to get foreign governments to cooperate with the US is going after pirate sites. The ways include widely adopted international treaties, the UN Declaration of Human Rights (which safeguard artist rights) ,bilateral agreements, economic sanctions, and the International Court Of Justice.

AS to the NZ court's action, there is no hint that this would endanger the case against the defendants . THe prosecution is always required to disclose their evidence to the defendant before the trial under US law. I presume NZ law is the same.

That would be this International Court of Justice? (my bolding)

Established in 1945 by the UN Charter, the Court began work in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Statute of the International Court of Justice, similar to that of its predecessor, is the main constitutional document constituting and regulating the Court.[2]
The Court's workload covers a wide range of judicial activity. To date, the ICJ has dealt with relatively few cases. However, since the 1980s there has been a clear increase in willingness to use the Court, especially among developing countries. After the court ruled that the U.S.'s covert war against Nicaragua was in violation of international law (Nicaragua v. United States), the United States withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986. The United States accepts the court's jurisdiction only on a case-by-case basis.

So they'll accept it's jurisdiction when it suits them, but not when it doesn't? Powerful persuasive position there.

In the NZ case the judge's objection was largely that the US saw the extradition proceedings as "administrative" rather than "judicial". Translation: "We don't have to prove a reasonable case just hand him over". Quite rightly the NZ judge told them to stuff it.

The US doesn't have near as many friends in the world as it used to, nor does it have the approval rating it used to, even in friendly countries. Its economic power is trending down and it's having trouble paying for its military expenditures. I'd say this isn't the best time to go sabre-rattling around the world for any reason let alone being Hollywood's hired gun.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I would disagree that the law has given up on the Internet, in the light of THIS:

These are aren't the only guys looking at federal time.

There are plenty of high-profile, isolated cases of the law going after people who cause a great deal of damage, financial or otherwise, to specific, identifiable victims online. The law is much less interested in stopping outright fraud (I cannot tell you how many emails have promised me a bigger penis if I click on their links), hate speech (Stormfront still has a website), privacy invasions, and various forms of illegal and coercive contracts.

I repeat: when I see legal action meant to shut down spam categorically, I'll take seriously the claim that the gov't intends to eliminate illegal data transfers online. Until they're willing to address the millions (billions?) of emails that promise benefits they won't and can't produce, they're not addressing the problem of "people using the anonymity provided by the internet to perform actions they couldn't legally do in person."

I'm also not accepting that copyright infringement is causing more damage than DDOS attacks, viruses, phishing, identity theft, and other types of online attacks.

Then there's Megaupload.

Aside from the problems currently going on in the Megaupload case... where's the assault against the dozens of other online storage/exchange sites?

The Avengers movie came out after Megaupload went down... did it take longer to hit the internet?

Clearly, the DOJ hasn't given up on bringing the rule of law to the Internet

They haven't given up on arresting high-profile criminal site managers. That's not the same as "bringing the rule of law to the internet." There's no attempt to go after the thousands (millions?) of small cases of fraud, defamation, harassment, and hate speech that occur every day.

If a person stood in the middle of a town square and yelled about how his ex was a vicious lying douchebag [insert string of profanity here], the police would arrest him for "disturbing the peace." Are there similar situations online? Are there arrests--or even legal warnings--for being deliberately rude and obnoxious?

"Rule of law" doesn't just mean "we go after the big criminals where the fines will be worth the cost of arrest." It's supposed to mean "we go after a lot of things, including tiny ones, so that people are careful to treat each other politely, for fear of retribution if they don't have the decency to do so for other reasons."

Does the law has some catching up to do? Sure. The Obama Administration says that more legislation is needed in order to root out the worst foreign pirate sites.

Translation: if it's illegal in the US, it should be illegal everywhere. And the US should be the ones to prosecute.

Somehow, I doubt that translates to "if it's illegal in Australia, we should send people to Australia for prosecution, even if they were in the US at the time they 'broke' the law." (I have written stories that are illegal to publish in Australia. They're freely available online. Should I be prosecuted?)

Once such legislation is passed, you will see the DOJ go after such pirate sites AND spam sites AND spoofing sites (The same type guys tend to be behind all those kinds of sites).

Do you have evidence for that? The claim that they're all run by the same types of guys, I mean? Or do you just assume that anyone breaking the laws you think are important must all be alike?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by plib

....

The US doesn't have near as many friends in the world as it used to, nor does it have the approval rating it used to, even in friendly countries. Its economic power is trending down and it's having trouble paying for its military expenditures. I'd say this isn't the best time to go sabre-rattling around the world for any reason let alone being Hollywood's hired gun.

But.....but.....but......I thought "Might makes Right????"

[kennyc]

Shouldn't this entire thread be in the political sand box?

[stonetools]

[QUOTE=Elfwreck;2098352]There are plenty of high-profile, isolated cases of the law going after people who cause a great deal of damage, financial or otherwise, to specific, identifiable victims online. The law is much less interested in stopping outright fraud (I cannot tell you how many emails have promised me a bigger penis if I click on their links), hate speech (Stormfront still has a website), privacy invasions, and various forms of illegal and coercive contracts.

I repeat: when I see legal action meant to shut down spam categorically, I'll take seriously the claim that the gov't intends to eliminate illegal data transfers online. Until they're willing to address the millions (billions?) of emails that promise benefits they won't and can't produce, they're not addressing the problem of "people using the anonymity provided by the internet to perform actions they couldn't legally do in person."[I],


Er, a simple Google search reveals LINK that the DOJ has been pursuing spammers since early 2004. Gould they do more? I'm sure , but its not like they ignore spam-they do prosecute spammers.

I'm also not accepting that copyright infringement is causing more damage than DDOS attacks, viruses, phishing, identity theft, and other types of online attacks.

If you arguing that the DOJ doesn't go after those types of offenders, then you are wrong AGAIN.




Aside from the problems currently going on in the Megaupload case... where's the assault against the dozens of other online storage/exchange sites?

The Avengers movie came out after Megaupload went down... did it take longer to hit the internet?


(Shrug) The Avengers didn't come out on the Megaupload and Ninjavideo sites, did they?
You'll find that the Avengers became available on sites where the DOJ can't get to -yet. Those pirate sites are currently beyond the long arm of the law. But eventually, the federal marshal will ride into town. I hope its soon. I want movies like The Avengers to be made in the future. They won't be made if piracy ruins the movie making business model.


They haven't given up on arresting high-profile criminal site managers. That's not the same as "bringing the rule of law to the internet." There's no attempt to go after the thousands (millions?) of small cases of fraud, defamation, harassment, and hate speech that occur every day.

If a person stood in the middle of a town square and yelled about how his ex was a vicious lying douchebag [insert string of profanity here], the police would arrest him for "disturbing the peace." Are there similar situations online? Are there arrests--or even legal warnings--for being deliberately rude and obnoxious?

"Rule of law" doesn't just mean "we go after the big criminals where the fines will be worth the cost of arrest." It's supposed to mean "we go after a lot of things, including tiny ones, so that people are careful to treat each other politely, for fear of retribution if they don't have the decency to do so for other reasons."

Rule of law has to start somewhere. You begin by getting rid of the Wild Bunch and the Hole in the Wall Gang -to extend the Wild West metaphor , and end up by prosecuting the small fry.

Translation: if it's illegal in the US, it should be illegal everywhere. And the US should be the ones to prosecute.

Somehow, I doubt that translates to "if it's illegal in Australia, we should send people to Australia for prosecution, even if they were in the US at the time they 'broke' the law." (I have written stories that are illegal to publish in Australia. They're freely available online. Should I be prosecuted?)

On the contrary, rooting out the pirates will require international cooperation. Governments throughout the world are realizing that piracy causes harm and that government intervention is necessary. The pirates overplayed their hand.
You are free to publish what you like. You may not be free to commercially exploit what you publish. That's the law, currently, in the US and Australia.

Do you have evidence for that? The claim that they're all run by the same types of guys, I mean? Or do you just assume that anyone breaking the laws you think are important must all be alike?

There's a popular myth that pirates are somehow Internet heroes, standing up for freedom. In reality, they are generally simply criminals, out to rich themselves on any Internet scam they can get away with. The pirate sites make money by hawking ads for just those fraudulent ads you object to in other contexts.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Er, a simple Google search reveals LINK that the DOJ has been pursuing spammers since early 2004. Gould they do more? I'm sure , but its not like they ignore spam-they do prosecute spammers.

Is there less spam now than in 2004? Is it a smaller percentage of online activity? If not, they're failing to bring law to the internet.

I don't doubt their intentions; I question their ability to achieve useful results.

I'm also not accepting that copyright infringement is causing more damage than DDOS attacks, viruses, phishing, identity theft, and other types of online attacks.

If you arguing that the DOJ doesn't go after those types of offenders, then you are wrong AGAIN.

I am arguing that the DOJ doesn't prevent those offenses. That it fails to effectively curtail those kinds of crimes. I don't care how many dollars they spend fighting crime, nor how many people they prosecute, nor how big the fines are--I care whether the end result is less crime.

The purpose of a crackdown is not "catch the ringleaders of this particular crime wave;" it's "put a big enough hole in the systems of crime that future crime will be easier to prevent, easier to prosecute when we can't prevent it." I haven't seen that any of the DOJ's actions have done that.

The Avengers movie came out after Megaupload went down... did it take longer to hit the internet?

(Shrug) The Avengers didn't come out on the Megaupload and Ninjavideo sites, did they?

I have a story for this one:

I live in Oakland, CA. The crime rate's high enough that it has its own Wikipedia entry. I live near (what was) East 14th Street, long known as a high-crime area. Businesses refused to set up shop on the street because "everyone knew" it was too dangerous for customers.

Several years ago, the city planners decided to fix this: they renamed the street "International Boulevard." They said "It will help create a positive image and stimulate an economic revival."

End result, more than a decade later? Well, there's no more crime on East 14th St. Instead, people share advice like "Theres always crime on International Blvd. DO NOT wander around past 11pm unless you want to put yourself in harms way."

The DOJ's takedown of Megaupload serves the same purpose as Oakland's renaming of its high-crime street: lots of flash, many assurances handed out to businesses, absolutely no effect on what's actually going on.

You'll find that the Avengers became available on sites where the DOJ can't get to -yet. Those pirate sites are currently beyond the long arm of the law. But eventually, the federal marshal will ride into town. I hope its soon. I want movies like The Avengers to be made in the future. They won't be made if piracy ruins the movie making business model.

In order to make an actual difference against piracy, rather than the occasional flash of "WE CAUGHT A BIG ONE!!!", we'll need an overhaul of the entire legal system in relation to the internet. "Marshal riding into town" won't work; we will never be able to afford as many marshals as there are towns. The internet is a LOT bigger than the "old west."

Part of that overhaul would mean defining legal activities that currently are often assumed to be "piracy"--establishing a solid foundation of what's acceptable for educational use, what counts as transformative and parody and is fair use, what's allowed for personal noncommercial use, what kind of sharing among friends and family is permitted.

Because right now, people are told that stripping the DRM from their Kindle books so they can read them on their Nook is a crime, punishable by up to 5 years in prison or $500,000 fines. That's ridiculous. And people decide, well, if I'm going to commit an act that might get me 5 years in prison because I WANT TO READ WHAT I BOUGHT, I might as well share it with someone else. Might as well download another twenty books for free... it's not like the penalty is *more* for downloading from a torrent than for cracking the DRM on my own.

To enforce the law more widely, the enforcers need widespread public support. For that, first the enforcers need to convince the majority of the public that they're not criminals, that their friends aren't criminals. They have to convince people that the law follows common sense, or people will ignore it.

Rule of law has to start somewhere. You begin by getting rid of the Wild Bunch and the Hole in the Wall Gang -to extend the Wild West metaphor, and end up by prosecuting the small fry.

The public wanted the Hole in the Wall Gang gone. The public shows no signs of wanting file-uploading and torrent sites gone. Especially not when they fear that making emailing a song mix to their boyfriend puts them in the same legal category as Kim Dotcom.

The big media companies have worked very hard to divide the public into "producers of media" and "consumers of media," and they're now reaping the results: the "consumers" have little interest in supporting the "producers" if the productions aren't conveniently available.

On the contrary, rooting out the pirates will require international cooperation.

Certainly. And whose laws should be deciding what counts as piracy? Whose police forces will take the risk of arresting possibly violent pirates? Where will they be prosecuted?

Why should other countries see this as anything other than an American attempt to stabilize its floundering empire by finding yet another excuse to push US troops into their territories?

You are free to publish what you like. You may not be free to commercially exploit what you publish. That's the law, currently, in the US and Australia.

Laos has no copyright. The Marshall Islands have no copyright. Does that mean anyone is free to set up a server in those places and distribute any material they want?

If not... why is it legal for me to publish something online that's illegal in Australia, but not legal for them to publish something online that's illegal in the US?

There's a popular myth that pirates are somehow Internet heroes, standing up for freedom. In reality, they are generally simply criminals, out to rich themselves on any Internet scam they can get away with. The pirate sites make money by hawking ads for just those fraudulent ads you object to in other contexts.

There's a big difference between "they're scam artists and criminals" and "they're the same types of guys who cause these other problems."

Not all criminals have the same motives. Not all scams are run for the same reasons, or have the same ways of getting profit. The same methods won't work against them.

Fix spam, fraud, and harassment, and patching the holes that allow unauthorized, financially-damaging file transfers will be easy. Refuse to fix the *big* problems, the ones that affect the majority of users online (how many people hide their email addresses when posting in forums and blogs?) and the random strikes at large file-sharing sites will continue to fail to accomplish anything useful.

[stonetools]

I don't doubt their intentions; I question their ability to achieve useful results

Well, can you give them something more than 8 years? It took 40 years to bring order to the Wild West and even longer to supress Atlantic piracy, didn't it? Eventually, the rule of law came to both areas.

In order to make an actual difference against piracy, rather than the occasional flash of "WE CAUGHT A BIG ONE!!!", we'll need an overhaul of the entire legal system in relation to the internet. "Marshal riding into town" won't work; we will never be able to afford as many marshals as there are towns. The internet is a LOT bigger than the "old west."

Part of that overhaul would mean defining legal activities that currently are often assumed to be "piracy"--establishing a solid foundation of what's acceptable for educational use, what counts as transformative and parody and is fair use, what's allowed for personal noncommercial use, what kind of sharing among friends and family is permitted.

Because right now, people are told that stripping the DRM from their Kindle books so they can read them on their Nook is a crime, punishable by up to 5 years in prison or $500,000 fines. That's ridiculous. And people decide, well, if I'm going to commit an act that might get me 5 years in prison because I WANT TO READ WHAT I BOUGHT, I might as well share it with someone else. Might as well download another twenty books for free... it's not like the penalty is *more* for downloading from a torrent than for cracking the DRM on my own.

To enforce the law more widely, the enforcers need widespread public support. For that, first the enforcers need to convince the majority of the public that they're not criminals, that their friends aren't criminals. They have to convince people that the law follows common sense, or people will ignore it.

Outside the MR bubble, they arguably DO have widespread public support. The downloaders and uploaders have had a chance to argue that before a jury of their peers that somehow the law is wrong , that DRM is an impermissible violation of the "rights" of "purchasers", that mass violation of the IP rights of digital media artists is somehow permissible , that we in live in a new era whereby we can disregard "outmoded" laws BECAUSE THE INTERNETT!!!. The juries returned verdicts against these pioneers in every case-and apellate courts upheld the verdicts.I predict similar results when pirate site holders get to try these same arguments before US juries.
You have a problem with the law? Then do the right thing and petition the democratically elected law makers-don't flout the law.

Certainly. And whose laws should be deciding what counts as piracy? Whose police forces will take the risk of arresting possibly violent pirates? Where will they be prosecuted?

Why should other countries see this as anything other than an American attempt to stabilize its floundering empire by finding yet another excuse to push US troops into their territories?

Apparently they don't see it that way -which is why anti-piracy legislation is passing in one country after the other, and the DOJ got Megaupload's boss with NZ help.

Laos has no copyright. The Marshall Islands have no copyright. Does that mean anyone is free to set up a server in those places and distribute any material they want?

If not... why is it legal for me to publish something online that's illegal in Australia, but not legal for them to publish something online that's illegal in the US?

(Shrug) Laws-including IP and obscenity laws- vary from place to place. Does that mean that we can't enforce IP law anywhere?

There's a big difference between "they're scam artists and criminals" and "they're the same types of guys who cause these other problems."

Not all criminals have the same motives. Not all scams are run for the same reasons, or have the same ways of getting profit. The same methods won't work against them.

Fix spam, fraud, and harassment, and patching the holes that allow unauthorized, financially-damaging file transfers will be easy. Refuse to fix the *big* problems, the ones that affect the majority of users online (how many people hide their email addresses when posting in forums and blogs?) and the random strikes at large file-sharing sites will continue to fail to accomplish anything useful.
__________________

I think ALL Internet related crime should be prosecuted-including copyright infringement- even if that particular offence is excused by some. How's that?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Well, can you give them something more than 8 years? It took 40 years to bring order to the Wild West and even longer to supress Atlantic piracy, didn't it? Eventually, the rule of law came to both areas.

If the the efforts of law enforcement were working, we'd see less illegal activity online as the web grows. More actual numbers, perhaps, but a smaller percentage of online activity would be illegal. Instead, the opposite is happening: new methods of committing fraud, copyright infringement, virus-spreading, and harassment are far outstripping attempts to stop them.

Outside the MR bubble, they arguably DO have widespread public support.

And that's why suspected pirate sites are languishing in tiny, near-forgotten corners of the internet, right? Because there's no widespread public support for unauthorized filesharing.

You have a problem with the law? Then do the right thing and petition the democratically elected law makers-don't flout the law.

"Work within the rules" is not the only ethical way to change a corrupt and oppressive legal system. When the power-structure's too entrenched, the only change comes from ignoring the law--and finding out how many other people are willing to ignore it, too.

(Shrug) Laws-including IP and obscenity laws- vary from place to place. Does that mean that we can't enforce IP law anywhere?

It means that we have no agreement on what "enforce IP law" means. In some countries, downloading is legal. In some, content that's under copyright in others, is freely available.

When Amazon sold copies of 1984 without the rights to do so, they weren't prosecuted for their crime. They were sued for removing them from people's Kindles--but apparently, they weren't worth going after by the rightsholders.

Where's the prosecution for the plagiarism--and copyright infringement for commercial purposes--of Ruth Ann Nordin's books?

If the point of the law was "prosecute known crimes, easy to prove, in order to show people this is wrong and discourage it in the future," those should've been high on the list to go after. Ignoring cases like that, leaves the public thinking "copyright law is to support the income of the rich, not for the good of the public."

I think ALL Internet related crime should be prosecuted-including copyright infringement- even if that particular offence is excused by some. How's that?

Fine--but it doesn't help to figure out how to do that. You seem to think file-uploading and torrents are somehow isolated from other illegal activities online; that legal teams can effectively fight file-sharing without fighting spambots, viruses and phishing. I don't--and I think that efforts against those three will cut down on file-sharing much more than efforts against file-sharing alone.

Efforts against file-sharing alone are tackling the symptoms. They go after one host site or another, without considering how the very structure of the internet allows these actions. They want to make this *one* use of that structure illegal, without any understanding that there's no way to phrase that restriction.

They want to spend a lot of money going after "digital pirates," whom they claim are causing a great deal of damage that's invisible to everyone except specialists in copyright math, while refusing to go after those who file false DMCA takedowns against political opponents, those who send those endless V1AGR4 ads that clog up servers, those who spew hatespeech that wouldn't be allowed in public in any city in the US.

And that's aside from "they want to spend money stoping 'copyright infringement' instead of creating new jobs," which is a lot more relevant to most people online.

Attempts to "bring law to the internet" are doomed as long as the people pushing for "law" are ignoring what everyone else thinks the real problems are.

[stonetools]

If the the efforts of law enforcement were working, we'd see less illegal activity online as the web grows. More actual numbers, perhaps, but a smaller percentage of online activity would be illegal. Instead, the opposite is happening: new methods of committing fraud, copyright infringement, virus-spreading, and harassment are far outstripping attempts to stop them.

So LE needs more time, more tools and more resources to go after the worst offenders. The Obama Administration says precisely that. Lawlessness flourished on the Atlantic too- but eventually, the last big pirates were brought to justice.

And that's why suspected pirate sites are languishing in tiny, near-forgotten corners of the internet, right? Because there's no widespread public support for unauthorized filesharing.

They're flourishing because they are currently beyond the reach of LE. When they can't outrun the long arm of the law, they won't flourish. Al Capone was untouchable for years too. Where did he end up?

People engage into unauthorised file sharing precisely because there is no LE-and they have been told that it's OK. Once there is effective LE, people will stop. Will they stop completely? Nope-but that's not the goal. The goal is that piracy will fall to a level so that it won't crowd out legit business activity. You like iTunes? Get rid of Napster. Want DRM free books? Make it so authors won't have to worry about some pirate using an illegal copy of his ebook to draw eyeballs to his ads for fake cancer drugs. That's within reach.

"Work within the rules" is not the only ethical way to change a corrupt and oppressive legal system. When the power-structure's too entrenched, the only change comes from ignoring the law--and finding out how many other people are willing to ignore it, too.

So the US legal system is corrupt and oppressive because it is serious about upholding the IP rights of artists? Do tell. Next you'll be comparing prosecuting copyright infringement violations to slavery and the Holocaust.
Let's be realistic. Your position is all about going easy on copyright infringers because you have dfiferent views about arcane matters such as DRM. That's understandable. But that's not resisting an oppressive legal system.

Fine--but it doesn't help to figure out how to do that. You seem to think file-uploading and torrents are somehow isolated from other illegal activities online; that legal teams can effectively fight file-sharing without fighting spambots, viruses and phishing. I don't--and I think that efforts against those three will cut down on file-sharing much more than efforts against file-sharing alone.

Efforts against file-sharing alone are tackling the symptoms. They go after one host site or another, without considering how the very structure of the internet allows these actions. They want to make this *one* use of that structure illegal, without any understanding that there's no way to phrase that restriction.

They want to spend a lot of money going after "digital pirates," whom they claim are causing a great deal of damage that's invisible to everyone except specialists in copyright math, while refusing to go after those who file false DMCA takedowns against political opponents, those who send those endless V1AGR4 ads that clog up servers, those who spew hatespeech that wouldn't be allowed in public in any city in the US.

And that's aside from "they want to spend money stoping 'copyright infringement' instead of creating new jobs," which is a lot more relevant to most people online.

Attempts to "bring law to the internet" are doomed as long as the people pushing for "law" are ignoring what everyone else thinks the real problems are.

Actually, I want them doing all that-AND enforcing anti-piracy laws. I see no reason as to why they can't go after spambots , identity thieves, frauds, phishers, con men-hey throw in the banksters.INdeed, I presume they are doing that. I just don't see why we should go easy on pirates.

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by stonetools

You have a problem with the law? Then do the right thing and petition the democratically elected law makers-don't flout the law.

Yeah, who needs civil disobedience anyway? Other than Gandhi of course. Or Rosa Parks. Or...um...

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

while refusing to go after those who file false DMCA takedowns against political opponents

This is something that annoys me a lot. Filing a false DMCA takedown is perjury which, I believe, is a felony offence but I've never even heard of anyone being charged with that despite it being a much more serious crime than copyright infringement.