Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Live in the UK? Hope you like internet censorship!

So let's see some of this censorship in action then, sounds like Thayer are only plying to the uk court.

I for one have yet to have any access blocked to a site.


Keep your attitude in check. It's not helpful mate.
 
andyroochoo said:
There is no Internet censorship in the uk as the title of this thread suggests.
Click to expand...

Of course there is censorship. All modern western societies censor all sorts of things, that we take as being beneficial. I can't libel or slander you. I can't advocate for your harm based on your race or colour. In some places you can also add based on religion, gender and sexual orientation.

I can't advertize medical products that don't work as claimed.

I can't publish naked photos of children. I can't publish details of the national budget until it's been officially tabled. At least not in Canada.

I can't publish how you voted in an election.

In Canada the head of elections Canada can not write anything at all that may show any bias towards a particular party. Heck, they are not even allowed to vote... Makes for a wonderfully fair election process, incidentally....

We accept censorship in many many aspects of our lives. The question is not whether censor is good or bad, but how far are we willing to allow censorship. How much is too much, and how little is harmful?
 
andyroochoo said:
So let's see some of this censorship in action then, sounds like Thayer are only plying to the uk court.

I for one have yet to have any access blocked to a site.


Keep your attitude in check. It's not helpful mate.
Click to expand...

Censorship systems, such as Cleanfeed for all BT lines, are on 99% of all British ISPs. The list of websites subject to this censorship is currently controlled by the IWF, which is free to basically add whatever it wants to that list without any formal court process. At the moment, they claim to only block peadophile websites, but they have in the past blocked the whole of Wikipedia.

The issue now is that the official use for this existing censorship technology may be broadened so that the outdated entertainment biz can have its way.

In perhaps a more frightening move, the government also wants the power to block all websites which vaguely "may contain potentially unlawful content". So, with such broad censorship powers, what's next? Maybe they'll find WikiLeaks is "potentially unlawful"?

Again, actually read the OP.
 
snberk103 said:
It is stealing if you take something that does not belong to you. What you want to call it is semantics.... see the bolded bit from my post - I was acknowledging that there is grey area what the term is. It's still wrong.

You are depriving the owner of revenue.
Click to expand...

Agree.

Piracy is theft and is risking jobs all over the entertainment industry.
 
Rampart piracy is already disastrous for the classic music industry

I am a classic music fan. The particular area which interests me is 20th century Russian/soviet Union composers. Many recordings of the lesser known composers were only available on Russian labels. Russia is a country where piracy is rampant, with very few buying CD's or paying for downloads. As a result most of the specialist classic music labels have gone under in the last few years and the music is no longer available. In a number of cases, I have been told that the masters of some classic recordings from the 1920's to 2000's have been thrown away and/or destroyed. These can never be replaced. Some of my friends are classical musicians in Russia. They are mostly looking to leave what just a few years ago, was a vibrant music scene. Unless you have a full time job at one of the major orchestras, it is close to impossible to make a living in Russia as a classical musician, given that around 50% plus of their income used to come from royalties on media sales.

Please don't think that piracy is a victimless crime - it isn't. If it is not restricted, the same will happen in the west and we will all be losers. Piracy is short term gain for long term loss.
 
I am against censorship when it tries to restrict freedom of expresion but when it comes to piracy i have no sympathy at all. I would quite happily like to see ISPs fine people for downloading pirate material. There is a whole culture being brought up now on the fact that whatever they want they can get online for free and they give no second thought to actually purchasing the material.
 
Last edited:
IntelliUser said:
You're not taking something that does not belong to you. You're making a copy.

That assumes that the owner would have otherwise gotten revenue. That is often not the case.
Click to expand...

Why don't you search out some software developers in your neighbourhood and offer washing their cars, cutting the grass in their garden etc. for free? I mean they wouldn't have paid you anyway, so you are not losing anything.
 
gnasher729 said:
Why don't you search out some software developers in your neighbourhood and offer washing their cars, cutting the grass in their garden etc. for free? I mean they wouldn't have paid you anyway, so you are not losing anything.
Click to expand...

Save your carpal-tunnel.

He's looking for some kind of redemption, and he won't find it here.
 
0dev said:
Censorship systems, such as Cleanfeed for all BT lines, are on 99% of all British ISPs. The list of websites subject to this censorship is currently controlled by the IWF, which is free to basically add whatever it wants to that list without any formal court process. At the moment, they claim to only block peadophile websites, but they have in the past blocked the whole of Wikipedia.
Click to expand...
Source? When was Wikipedia blocked by 99% of British ISPs? I'm sure I would have remembered this happening.
 
RickyB said:
Source? When was Wikipedia blocked by 99% of British ISPs? I'm sure I would have remembered this happening.
Click to expand...

Here ya go.

They didn't block access to Wikipedia full stop, but they attempted to block one article because it contained an album cover they didn't like (which was also available and not blocked on many, many, other websites, including retailers such as Amazon), but the censorship system they used meant all UK traffic looked like it was from one IP address, therefore blocking anyone from editing Wikipedia in the UK.

Of course, when this spread 'round the news, the blocked article became the most popular on Wikipedia's British site (at least these systems are very easy to get around) and the block was eventually lifted because even the IWF themselves had to admit they were being utterly stupid.
 
I believe the process of censorship is pushed faster whenever there are cyber-attacks that expose government/corps, example: LulzSec

OT: about piracy :D

xs3qw_02b4.jpg
 
This is what I HATE about the internet, and that which I treat with utmost contempt...

F. U. D.

Enjoy your panic mongering! :D
 
andyroochoo said:
Another pointless thread.

Looks like the op just wants something pointless to talk about, just like all his other discussions.
Click to expand...

Eh? You can debate the topic of the thread if you like, but there's no need to make it personal...
 
Peterkro said:
Except it's copyright infringement and not theft.Is it killing live music ,I thought not,is it hurting business people who harvest profits and contribute nothing,yes and this is a good thing.
Click to expand...

So what about software and film piracy, where they can't extract a living from "live" performances?
 
Peterkro said:
Except it's copyright infringement and not theft.Is it killing live music ,I thought not,is it hurting business people who harvest profits and contribute nothing,yes and this is a good thing.
Click to expand...

We've already covered this earlier in the thread. It may not be theft, larceny, pilfering, pillaging, swiping, heisting, robbing, burglary, etc.... but piracy of copyright material is still stealing. Piracy deprives the creator of the content of revenue they would have otherwise earned.

If the creator of the content chooses to use big companies to distribute their content, then that is a business decision they have made, and the debate should be about the wisdom of using big companies as their business agents, or not.

I make my living creating photographic images - intellectual property. I am a small company. I don't harvest big profits, and I like to think I do make a contribution. Or are you saying that only some artistic activities should be protected from being stolen? That some artistic efforts are more valuable than others?
 
snberk103 said:
Piracy deprives the creator of the content of revenue they would have otherwise earned.
Click to expand...

But that's a flawed assumption. Just because someone pirates something, doesn't mean they would have paid for it if they had to. Likewise, you don't know if someone pirating some of your works lead them to check the rest out and legitimately buy them, as studies have shown is often the case with music piracy.
 
0dev said:
But that's a flawed assumption. Just because someone pirates something, doesn't mean they would have paid for it if they had to. Likewise, you don't know if someone pirating some of your works lead them to check the rest out and legitimately buy them, as studies have shown is often the case with music piracy.
Click to expand...

It's not a flawed assumption. If someone has pirated some IP (to open it up beyond just music and movies) I know they haven't paid me.

It is only hypothetical that they may end up paying for the content (or other content) later. Also, a culture that accepts piracy as legitimate drives prices down. If everybody is getting their IP for free( illegitimately, but widespread) then why would a consumer pay money for IP? So creators are forced to lower their prices to lower the barrier from "free" to "paid for". Which drives creators out of the business, or they create crap because they can create many many crappy cheap items in the same time it took to create on good item, that they can't sell anymore - but which people are happy steal.

Whether I want to seed the market with "free" stuff, because I think that putting my stuff in front of an audience will generate more sales is a business decision for me to make, not the audience who wants to rationalize their piracy. If you want to debate whether I should put "free" stuff out there, I am happy to debate that (and, by the way - I do some "free" work for the reasons above"), but that is my decision - and I get to decide which of my work I will give away. It's is not up to the pirates to rationalize their actions.

It really boils down to whether someone has permission or not. If the creator has stated that they don't allow copying of their IP, then to copy it is stealing. The creator may be making a stupid decision.... but it is their decision to make and no one else's.
 
snberk103 said:
It's not a flawed assumption. If someone has pirated some IP (to open it up beyond just music and movies) I know they haven't paid me.

It is only hypothetical that they may end up paying for the content (or other content) later. Also, a culture that accepts piracy as legitimate drives prices down. If everybody is getting their IP for free( illegitimately, but widespread) then why would a consumer pay money for IP? So creators are forced to lower their prices to lower the barrier from "free" to "paid for". Which drives creators out of the business, or they create crap because they can create many many crappy cheap items in the same time it took to create on good item, that they can't sell anymore - but which people are happy steal.

Whether I want to seed the market with "free" stuff, because I think that putting my stuff in front of an audience will generate more sales is a business decision for me to make, not the audience who wants to rationalize their piracy. If you want to debate whether I should put "free" stuff out there, I am happy to debate that (and, by the way - I do some "free" work for the reasons above"), but that is my decision - and I get to decide which of my work I will give away. It's is not up to the pirates to rationalize their actions.

It really boils down to whether someone has permission or not. If the creator has stated that they don't allow copying of their IP, then to copy it is stealing. The creator may be making a stupid decision.... but it is their decision to make and no one else's.
Click to expand...

No, if your customers are, en masse, getting your product a different way, it is up to you as a business to provide for those customers. That's why Spotify exists - people think of music differently, so even the record labels have finally realised they need to cater to that. So it is up to you as someone trying to make money from something to move with the times and find new ways to profit from your product. You cannot fight a change in culture.
 
0dev said:
No, if your customers are, en masse, getting your product a different way, it is up to you as a business to provide for those customers. That's why Spotify exists - people think of music differently, so even the record labels have finally realised they need to cater to that. So it is up to you as someone trying to make money from something to move with the times and find new ways to profit from your product. You cannot fight a change in culture.
Click to expand...

Yes. It is up to me to move with the times. Or not. It's my decision, and nobody else's. If my decision is the right one, and I'm lucky, my business thrives, if my decision is the wrong one - then my business doesn't thrive. But it is still my decision, I bear the consequences - good or bad.

Pirates are just stealing, and forcing businesses into decisions that favour the pirates and not customers. Pirates, by definition, are not customers since customers pay for purchases, and pirates don't. [Pirates can of course, also be customers - at other times -, and vice versa. But during the act of piracy they are not customers.] So why should I bend over backwards to make life easy for someone who is stealing from me? Wouldn't my business do better if I concentrated on the people who actually pay for stuff?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back