TSI Gabe
Premium,VIP
join:2007-01-03
Chatham, ON | The only true way to block piracy
Is to cut the cable. Which obviously defeats the point of having access to the Internet. |
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nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
 ·Comcast
| judges aren't technologists
well, what do you expect when a judge makes a ruling based on his knowledge of technology
Although most people familiar with the technical hurdles recognized that this was a massive if not impossible task, the judge in the case ruled that ISPs are indeed capable of blocking infringing content and gave Scarlet six months to comply.
in addition to his lack of technical knowledge, he probably also believed whatever crap the copyright group told him (you know, those groups that insist DRM "enhances" the customer experience). |
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dnoyeB
Ferrous Phallus
join:2000-10-09
Southfield, MI
|  Sure thing
What if they simply said "we are blocking piracy." If they have purchased and implemented a product that claims to block piracy, and the judge is as clueless as he appears, that should be sufficient.
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dnoyeB
"Then said I, Wisdom [is] better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom [is] despised, and his words are not heard. " Ecclesiastes 9:16
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hawk82
join:2001-04-26
Oakland, ME | 2,500 Euros doesn't seem like much of a fine
I wonder if Scarlet makes more money per day than that, so they can afford to pay the fine and keep happy customers vs. keep messing with the network and annoying customers till they leave. |
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DrModem
Premium
join:2006-10-19
USA | reply to TSI Gabe
Re: The only true way to block piracy
You can't stop it that way. There's always SneakerNet(TM) |
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Edge1
Workin' Ta Live
Premium
join:2006-03-01 | reply to dnoyeB
Re: Sure thing
Actually, as simple as it sounds, I think you're absolutely right. Its not really about checking to make sure "piracy" is being filtered (because it is indeed impossible), its simply having a mechanism in place which purports to do so. |
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major marco
Res Firma Mitescere Nescit
Premium
join:2003-02-13
Stepford, CA
clubs:
| reply to hawk82
Re: 2,500 Euros doesn't seem like much of a fine
said by hawk82  :I wonder if Scarlet makes more money per day than that, so they can afford to pay the fine and keep happy customers vs. keep messing with the network and annoying customers till they leave. Whatever the ISPs profit margins are, $3,681/day is nothing to sneeze at. |
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maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| It is impossible.....
In this case, the judge ordered to filter out "pirated content", but allow legal traffic using the same protocol. And that is simply impossible. You can't block an illegal torrent, and at the same time still allow linux torrents to pass through.
Either way, blocking piracy in general is impossible. I don't know how old many of you were, but I was in a test case in the Netherlands for cable internet, back in 1996 when the technology was just launched. This was pre-P2P programs, and we simply shared our "stuff" by having personal FTP servers, and allowing friends to log on, grab stuff, and spread it. We had FTP servers on obscure ports so that the ISP wouldn't find them, and it wasn't uncommon to have 30 FTP sites in your bookmarks from all the friends you made on the local IRC channel. And this was 12 years ago.
Around the same time, the "warez cd" was really popular. CD Burners just got in the "affordable" range, and for roughly $10 one could buy a CD from colleagues, classmates, and other friends, filled with releases from known release groups. Those CD's would contain 10, 15 of the latests games (which were no more then 30, 50 Mb a piece back then), applications, etc.
P2P slowly took over, as it was much easier just to search on the internet and download what you needed. But with these days of cheap DVD burning, even IF ISP's succesfully manage to weed out P2P, Piracy will simply continue using physical media.
What the industry should do is adjust to the current situation instead of trying to fight it. iTunes has been a HUGE success, and similar online shops could be setup for TV series, movies, etc. As long as you keep it affordable, say $5 for a TV episode, $10 for a DVD length movie, it will probably be a success. But the industry wants to make more money and does not want TV episodes to leak to other countries where they haven't aired yet.
The next move in Piracy? Go completely encrypted. It has already proven its success in trying to circumvent throttling by ISP's on torrent files, because the packet headers can't be inspected. And blocking packets that can't be inspected is impossible, as that would stop people from doing online banking, or even ordering something online with a credit card, as that traffic is encrypted and secured, let alone having a VPN link to your work, using SSH, etc.
Piracy cannot be stopped. Period. Not even by dissolving the entire internet.
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Obama 2008 - Because McCain is more of the same! |
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maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to TSI Gabe
Re: The only true way to block piracy
said by TSI Gabe :Is to cut the cable. Which obviously defeats the point of having access to the Internet. You may be too young to remember.... or too old that you passed it  - But in the early nineties, when the CD burner was invented, but the internet wasn't quite there yet.... spreading stuff around on "warez CD's" in schools, offices, etc was immensely popular.
Since a single CD-R cost something like $5 by then, and burning one on 1x or 2x speed took 30 or 60 minutes, people were often selling these CD's, full of the latest apps and games, for like $10.
Paper lists used to go around, what each release of a CD contained. Often the CD's and its contents were released by known release groups, some of which are still known today, complete with cracks, etc. Often, games were "ripped" so that the videos were taken out, which reduced the game size significantly.
These kind of distributions were very popular in 90ties, but slowly died out after 2002 or so, with the rise of broadband, and the low price of a CD Burner and CD Discs. Disc copies were still made of course, but people just started copying individual games and software packages. By then, a game release contained a FULL CD, sometimes more then one.
If the Internet were re-designed in such a way that would make piracy impossible.... I will guarantee you that CD/DVD release mechanisms and illegal trade in schools and offices will leap and take off.
It can't be stopped. We used to copy cassette tapes in the 80ties, my parents even had one of those big spool machines and could copy music by connecting it to another one, and we're talking the 60ties here..... |
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b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA
·Comcast Formerly ..
3 edits | said by maartena : my parents even had one of those big spool machines and could copy music by connecting it to another one, "big spool machines" 
It's called a reel to reel tape recorder.
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mrchris
We don't miss you Bush
Premium
join:2002-10-01
North Babylon, NY
 ·Verizon FIOS
·Optimum Online
1 edit | Atop that
Resistance is futile |
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djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
 ·PHONE POWER
·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T CallVantage
·Time Warner VOIP
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to maartena
Re: The only true way to block piracy
Good times, good times.
Back then, software was mostly distributed on floppies. So, you could collect an absolutely massive amount of software on a single CD-R.
The internet wasn't there, but dialup BBSes were. Access to pirated content was granted on a sort of invite/code word system. You generally had to politely ask a sysop for "elite" access, and/or be referred to by another member with access. There were usually up/down ratios that you had to maintain. That's where most of the software on those CDs came from.
My first CD burner was a huge external Philips CDD521, I got it as a hot deal at about $2,000. It was the size of a large AV receiver. The first blank I burned on was around $35 per blank. What was especially sucky about that was buffer underruns and failed burns were really common - made for some REALLY expensive coasters.
The price went down to the $12-ish range for quite a while before it fell to the almost nothing that it is today.
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AT&T U-Hearse
Your funeral. Delivered.
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TSI Gabe
Premium,VIP
join:2007-01-03
Chatham, ON | reply to maartena
Oh I'm old enough to remember the days of sharing files over BBS |
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deadzoned
Premium
join:2005-04-13
Baton Rouge, LA
·Cox HSI
1 edit | No Surprise
Filtering is the type of technology that can be used to slow down unwanted activity some but it will never be the way to completely stop the unwanted activity no matter what method they use.
It's futile. The impossible dream of the Entertainment Industry/Big Content/RIAA/MPAA/etc... I'm starting to feel a little bit sorry for these guys since they oh-so-obviously JUST DON'T GET IT!  They obviously have an unusually large fleet of Fail Boats.
You can only laugh so long about something before it just gets sad I suppose. |
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dadkins
Can you do Blu?
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
·Comcast
| reply to b10010011
Re: The only true way to block piracy
Reel to Reel...
--
Think outside the Fox... Opera |
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SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
1 edit | reply to deadzoned
Re: No Surprise
said by deadzoned :It's futile. The impossible dream of the Entertainment Industry/Big Content/RIAA/MPAA/etc... I'm starting to feel a little bit sorry for these guys since they oh-so-obviously JUST DON'T GET IT! They obviously have an unusually large fleet of Fail Boats. I wouldn't laugh too loud/intensely about the Epic Fail fleet. One way or the other, the *AAs will pay off contribute enough campaign dollars to the whores in Congress politicians to make proof of copyright infrigement so vague, that alleged infringers will be on par with narcotics traffickers sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The U.S. is in the process of passing the PRO-IP Act , which is essentially a secret pact Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement treaty being negotiated to step up cross-border enforcement of copyright and piracy laws.
ACTA could include an agreement for the US, Canada, the European Commission and other nations to enforce each others' IP laws, with residents of each country subject to criminal charges when violating the IP laws of another country, according to a supposed ACTA discussion paper. |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Comcast
| reply to hawk82
Re: 2,500 Euros doesn't seem like much of a fine
said by hawk82 :I wonder if Scarlet makes more money per day than that, so they can afford to pay the fine and keep happy customers vs. keep messing with the network and annoying customers till they leave. It isn't much of a fine. They could raise their rates 1 euro a month and easily cover all the fines.
From their web site:
For the full-year 2007, Scarlet is estimated to record revenues of approximately ¤ 125 million and an operating income before depreciation, amortisation and non-recurring items of at least ¤ 18.5 million. So the fine is 2500 euros a day * 365 days = 912,500 euros
So that comes to .73% of their revenue and
4.9% of their profits.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
Ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk? |
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b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA
·Comcast Formerly ..
1 edit | reply to dadkins
Re: The only true way to block piracy
said by dadkins :Reel to Reel... Doh! Thats what happens when I post before coffee, the spell checker does not question homonyms as long as they are spelled right. |
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deadzoned
Premium
join:2005-04-13
Baton Rouge, LA
·Cox HSI
| reply to SilverSurfer
Re: No Surprise
I hear ya SS! I have read up on that some and it would suck pretty hard for sure if it were passed. If this is passed, I expect that it will face some pretty overwhelming backlash which may end up getting it rolled back. At least I hope, anything can happen.
The bottom line is that even with their most glorious PRO-IP Act, the Entertainment Industry will still fail to stop piracy. Sadly, this is their most cherished of fail-boats, the stop piracy completely one. |
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tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
 ·Hollis Hosting
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..
| reply to maartena
Re: It is impossible.....
said by maartena :judge ordered to filter out "pirated content", but allow legal traffic using the same protocol. And that is simply impossible. Since in effect "everything" is copyrighted there is no way for a third party to: 1) unambiguously identify the specific work, 2) verify with copyright owner what rights they have chosen to reserve to themselves, and 3) verify if there are additional restrictions in force due to contractual obligations between seller and buyer (shrink wrapped software licenses come to mind).
If content industry spent half as much time trying to figure out how to exploit low cost distribution created by the Internet as they do trying to roll back technology their bottom line would be much improved.
/tom |
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