Interview With Suren Ter From 'You Have Downloaded' 366
An anonymous reader writes "Suren Ter discusses privacy, piracy, and the future of filesharing. Suren produced the virally popular YouHaveDownloaded.com, which displays all downloads on the public BitTorrent network associated with an IP address."
When asked about his views on piracy: "Just like I told a French journalist and to the lady at the Washington Post, pirates are thieves and they do steal. Yeah yeah, 'when I steal your DVD, you have no DVD, but when I copy a file, you still have a file' — I get that BS. We all know that it’s BS too. However, SOPAs and PIPAs create tyranny. If given the choice between thieves and tyranny, I’d rather stay with the thieves."
RIAA Acquisition (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm just surprised this service hasn't been acquired by the MAFIAA. It could easily lead to the largest John / Jane Doe lawsuit ever filed; just make a little script to generate a legal document for every IP address matching one that downloaded something they think they own.
Wrong at all counts... Two things: (Score:5, Interesting)
a) NAT
b) dynamic IP ranges
But authors are so full of themselves it hurts :). Good luck for them and maybe-buyers, once they try to litigate with mostly false data.
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:2, Interesting)
Will the bakers and farmers claim they have a copyright to food, and you "stole" their bread and corn?
.
No, it will be Monsanto who makes that claim.
Stop considering the wrong issus please (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah yeah, 'when I steal your DVD, you have no DVD, but when I copy a file, you still have a file'
The real issue here is not that copying is stealing or otherwise a lost sale, the real deal is that the world has changed and the business model for media creation and distribution is DEAD. FULL STOP. No ammount of lobbying, no matter how many laws Hollywood can get of their payed puppets will change that. It's like the railroad owners of 19th century were sen't on destroying that new "invention" called automoviles and trucks that let anybody achieve transportation without giving them their share. Let's face it, I can go to the west coast without needing you, train company. Let's face it, I can get content without needing you, big media company. BUT!!!!! Big media produces the media I want, and the actors, directors producers etc. etc. needs their food too, so... What is needed is a new way to monetize content CREATION, note the word creation, not DISTRIBUTION. Nowadays distribution is FREE, as the roads are "FREE"... you owned the railroads, but you don't own the roads anymore, so for everybody's sake, stop trying to charge me for using the road and go invent some new way to get my money (Sell gas, sell insurance for my car, and so on). Because, like it or not, being fair or not, being legal or not, charging for distributing media is NO LONGER POSIBLE, and trying to "regulate" this is like trying to pass a law that abolishes gravity... it will not work.
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the biggest thing people don't understand about copyright is that, for the most part, the corporations that hold the copyrights on most major works (film, books, music, etc.) STOLE those rights from the creators either through unfair business practices or straight theft. My experience is limited to the movie studios and record industry, but these companies claim copyrights they do not hold all the time. A lot of DMCA takedown notices are invalid on their face because the company making the infringement claim doesn't actually hold the rights.
This beyond the fact that every single modern work is completely derivative of older, non-copyrighted works. Ex. Disney claims they own "Snow White", a story that is hundreds of years old. It is literally impossible to create a new song. There are only so many combinations of notes and they've all been used before, there hasn't been a "new" song for hundreds of years.
One could also talk about the enormous damage copyright does to history and culture. Since nothing goes into the "public domain" anymore, that means that modern works (tv shows, etc.) will simply cease to exist after a few decades since nobody can legally archive them (except the corporate owners WHO NEVER ARCHIVE ANYTHING) and even illegal archiving is technically blocked (DRM, etc.). Most films from the 1930s through 1970s are completely gone for this reason, they only exist in a few private collections (if they exist at all) and they can't legally be shared or distributed to anyone.
Re:Intellectual property has OTHER problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Among other things, my code co-ordinates distributed translations teams that make medicine and medical equipment accessible to the world. The largest drug company on earth uses them exclusively. I wrote the code that handles every step of the process, and integrated everything into their internal infrastructure, and when it needs maintenance, they call me. So, chances are pretty fucking good that someone you know enjoys good health because of work I did sitting in my living room.
What you owe me is to show some respect for the gift I've given you and give some regard for the fact that it's people like me these laws are designed to support.