Warner Brothers Hiring Undercover Anti-Pirates 443
An anonymous reader writes "TorrentFreak reports that Warner Brothers UK is hiring college students with an IT background to participate in an internship that will pit them against pirates on the Web in an effort to crack down on illegal digital distribution. The intern will literally be on the front-lines of the epic battle against pirated content, ensnaring users in incriminating transactions, issuing takedown requests, and causing general frustration amongst the file-sharing population on the Internet."
It's A Fight To The Death ... (Score:3, Informative)
I'd say "let the best pirate win", but I'm afraid it's going to be anti-climactic. The real pirates will swab the decks with these amateur wanna-be's.
Re:Shit job, Shit Pay. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I expect the pirates to be at the head of the line. At least, if I was in the business of stealing content, what better way to get to know the enemy?
And, for the icing on the cake, I get a paycheck for it! Yippee! Where do I sign up?
Re:A fools errand (Score:2, Informative)
That's what collector's editions and in-box premiums are for. People who bought Ultima IV got a nifty little ankh in the box to keep with them while playing the game. Ultima V had awesome box cover art (Denis Loubet rocks) and a coin with the symbol of the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom on it.
Also, in a more sane universe, legally-owned copies of software are generally more convenient and easy-to-use than pirated copies. Someone pass that memo along the Ubisoft, please.
Re:What a bunch of pussies (Score:3, Informative)
Additionally they are essentially working as unlicensed private investigators. This is illegal in many jurisdictions and any evidence they may gather is likely to be inadmissible. The RIAA has already been sanctioned for exactly this.
Re:Won't work (Score:5, Informative)
The Invention of Lying had *Literally* 20 minutes of previews.
You could not skip them.
You could not reach the title screen through top, or menu.
You could not scan through them (at the end of the first trailer, it would simply repeat.)
Ultimately had to use a title/chapter search feature of my dvd player to get to the title.
20 minutes of unskippable bullshit? seriously, it made me want to crack the disk before sending it back to netflix.
Re:A fools errand (Score:2, Informative)
Inform yourself.
Canadian survey and study, which shows a direct positive influence on purchases due to downloading.
http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/eng/h_ip01456.html [ic.gc.ca]
The key findings of above study
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9086/canadian_govt_study_p2p_increases_cd_sales/ [zeropaid.com]
A Harvard Business School study with clear proof that sales are affected by downloads, for the positive.
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf [unc.edu]
A recent Norweigen school of management study, which shows not only are filesharers increasing sales they themselves are the largest purchasers of that media.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86009/study-pirates-buy-10-times-more-music-than-they-steal/ [zeropaid.com]
This may sound in your head as something quite insightful, however when its broken down its clear it has very little meaning at all. Are you suggesting that the initial profit increase is somehow not an increase in sales? Or are you suggesting that a higher initial profit has nothing to do with sales? Or is it a preemptive statement and you are hoping to deflect arguments about current profit increases by the big media houses? Furthermore how does this statement help your case? You are agreeing and disagreeing with yourself in the same sentence.
Re:Could be worse (Score:3, Informative)
Two words: Agency Theory.
If you find out who sent that overzealous intern after you, good ole Respondeat Superior will take care of the big dog.
Narcs (Score:3, Informative)
That's what we called 'em when I was in college - exact same principles - exact same ensnarements.
The intern will literally be on the front-lines of the epic battle against pirated content, ensnaring users in incriminating transactions, issuing takedown requests, and causing general frustration amongst the file-sharing population on the Internet.
Exact same cluelessness, all the way around.
Re:My only question is... (Score:3, Informative)
UK rushing through law to disconnect filesharers (Score:4, Informative)
The UK government is rushing through a law on filesharing in the last week of parliamentary business before the general election. It's bypassing the normal line by line debate in committees etc.
The proposed law, which will become law shortly after April 6th on current plans, will essentially enable the copyright holder to get warning letters sent to those who are believed to be illegally sharing files - these go to the broadband account holder, and if the incidents continue, they can be disconnected (or other unspecified "technical measures" may be taken). It doesn't matter if a family member or guest did the file sharing, or someone freeloading on your WiFi.
See http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/disconnection/why-care [openrightsgroup.org] for more details and what to do about this.
The relevance to this story is that the UK students that Warner is recruiting might well uncover the "filesharing incidents" that would feed into this heavy handed enforcement mechanism.