Canada Prepares For Crackdown On BitTorrent Movie Pirates 292
New submitter dreamstateseven tips this Postmedia News report:
"A forensic software company has collected files on a million Canadians who it says have downloaded pirated content. The company, which works for the motion picture and recording industries, says a recent court decision forcing Internet providers to release subscriber names and details is only the first step in a bid to crack down on illegal downloads. 'The door is closing. People should think twice about downloading content they know isn't proper,' said Barry Logan, managing director of Canipre, the Montreal-based forensic software company."
Brilliant (Score:4, Insightful)
Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Your litigation campain advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante (x) legal
approach to fighting piracy. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
(x) Torrent sites will change to a new protocol
(x) They don't have the money to settle or pay damages
(x) Open wi-fi access points
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(x) Litigation is not actually a deterrent to teenagers
(x) Your evidence collection methods are open to attack in court
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from judges
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many ISPs cannot afford to lose business
( ) Pirates don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
(x) Bad press when you sue a grandmother for what a 10 year old does
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for the net
(x) Open proxies in foreign countries
(x) Tor and darknets
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of piracy
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business you
( ) Dishonesty on the part of pirates themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
(x) Any scheme based on mass lawsuits and prosecution is unacceptable
( ) IP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending data should be free
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) I don't want the government reading my packets
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
*facepalms* (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, the door is closing, on the entertainment industry employing these types. They've seen how ineffective these firms are, how they've pissed off their customers, how they've gotten nothing but bad PR, how piracy actually increased their bottom line (sans lawsuits), and generally idiotic the entire enterprise has been.
The MPAA (and friends) looks the other way, their wallet is fatter. They do not, and it's thinner. So, why would they pay money for someone to make them poorer? Dumb.
Re:People should think twice... (Score:5, Insightful)
(in other words: what incentive do I have to move my ass in a movie theater chair or buy it on disk?)
Large civil fines ensure you'll always be bankrupt. Anything over $10,000 can't be discharged in the US; Not sure about Canada, but I suspect a similar limitation. Any significant assets you own will be seized. You won't be able to own a car worth more than a few grand, you'll never own a house; You'll be renting forever. Your wages will be garnished to ensure you are never able to acquire anything of value, or pay for your own health insurance (thank god you live in canada!). You will never receive another tax refund. Certain career choices will be unavailable to you, including anything in the government that requires a security clearance, work in the finance industry, or anything involving the handling of money or "crimes of trust." You may be denied a passport or visa, and will likely be unable to immigrate to any other country due to your debt (believe it or not, your credit report does matter when it comes to naturalization, just like any trouble with the law, even civil law). You will be summoned to court on a very regular basis to detail your financial situation to your debtors (the entertainment companies), and should you fail to show for any reason including being in a coma in a hospital, a bench warrant will be issued for your arrest. You will stay in jail for weeks to months until a hearing can be rescheduled. You will likely lose your job many times over the course of your life, and custody of your kids (if you have any).
So there's your incentive.
No, those are disincentives. Since I've done nothing wrong, however you can't just wait to punish me, I'll tell you what I do: completely ignore your merchandise and never do any business with you.
Think twice: a significant number of others may start thinking like me.
Re:*facepalms* (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, i've said it a million times, making your customers angry is not good business. ever.
look at companies like steam, Happy customers=$
Suing customers = your fucking your own ass.
it's not a hard concept.
A bit of advice for our friends to the North (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how big you get, how healthy your economy, how great your health care and how happy your people, you will never ever be free of your servitude to multinational corporations.
If you get that through your thick bohunk skulls you'll save yourself a lot of grief later. The USA circa 1980-2012 wants you to know that the more you resist, the more it will hurt.
Your borders, your sovereignty, don't mean shit.
And for the people of Canada, you can congratulate yourselves all you want for creating a wonderful progressive paradise, but when the guys with big money say "Jump" your politicians are still going to get on their knees and start sucking. Or something.
Re:People should think twice... (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA says that the statutory limit for damages for non-commercial infringement is $5000, and that they're going to go after habitual downloaders. $5000 is less than the limit for small claims court, meaning that if you decide to challenge it, they will have to take it to small claims court where "expert witnesses" won't be allowed. Just their lawyer, your lawyer, and about 15 minutes a side to make your case because there's 30 other cases on the docket that day. (yes, I have been in a Canadian small claims court).
There's well over $5000 worth of DVD's in my collection. Physical media, most of which was bought at full retail price (and in some cases, well over retail price because it was a "special edition" box set). If those idiots decide to try to sue me because I downloaded a copy of True Lies (disc was scratched and I couldn't rip it when I was digitizing my physical copy), I'll be quite amused to see what the courts say about it. The reason there's nothing new in the collection isn't that I'm downloading movies, it's because the movies that they're making these days are crap.
So, Give me Options. (Score:5, Insightful)
I now discover that because I'm in Canada I can only choose from one quarter of the movies and shows available in the US. [blogspot.ca]
The total number of entries for Canada is currently 2687 movies/shows . The total number of entries for USA is currently 10407 movies/shows. Same price, one quarter the movies.
When I can get the same choice, at the same price, I'll be more than happy to pay my $8 a month. Until then the media corps can suck eggs.
Re:Lucky for them bittorrent is uploading (Score:2, Insightful)
They make distinction between a buffer and long-term storage. Unfortunately this whole bullshit exists in the first place where we even need to fathom the idea that digital piracy is illegal, it's beyond me and all my Canadian counterparts how this could have passed. In no way, shape, or form will the passing of the C-11 bill change my tendency to pirate and I believe this is a common theme among Canadians.
Re:No, the CRIA won't sue. (Score:5, Insightful)