Research Shows "Three Strikes" Anti-piracy Laws Don't Work 133
Bismillah writes "Graduated response regimes that warn and then penalize users for infringing file sharing do not appear to work, new research from Monash University in Australia has found. The paper studied 'three strikes' laws (abstract, freely downloadable as a PDF from there) in France, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and the UK, as well as other anti-filesharing regimes in the U.S. and Ireland, but found scant evidence that they're effective."
Three Strikes Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably the worst idea ever.
Do they prevent any sort of crime?
I've heard of pot smoking vets getting locked up for 10+ years under such stupid laws for nothing more than possession.
Did people (more specifically, politicians) really think they'd work or were reasonable for copyright infringement?
Re:Three Strikes Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
It goes further than that. Even without the three-strikes laws, no one takes copyright law very seriously, for several reasons:
Re:Three Strikes Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
The chance of getting caught pirating anything is statistically insignificant.
Well, that's why they're going for automated systems, alerts, etc., crammed down the ISPs throats with the promise of reducing business costs by lowering the amount of bandwidth. Comcast, Time Warner, etc., in the US fell in line, and their counterparts in Europe are doing the same. They can only prosecute a tiny fraction; Which is why they have to rely on fear. If you're caught, $100,000 fines, years in prison, etc. -- overkill so massive it'll scare the population into quitting.
Unfortunately for them, this tactic isn't working very well. And the technology is not really effective either. For example, I regularly download the newest movies, which are well-known to be the most watched and hit by automated systems. The only thing I've done to defeat this... is to enable encryption.
There will always be a way around it. They'll keep upping the odds. Soon it'll be one strike. Then it'll be no strike. Then it'll be just talking about piracy.
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good points, but just because you're downloading does not mean you're not being monitored. all the metadata from every phone call since the mid 80s is being stored by at&t. with all their fancy tools most of the dmca shutdowns are used to disconnect legitimate but vocal people, who only tried to share their information, and they got falsely identified. not to mention there are laws in the usa that supposedly protect us citizens from digital wiretapping, without a court even if it's kinda a bad court tha
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There will always be a way around it. They'll keep upping the odds. Soon it'll be one strike. Then it'll be no strike. Then it'll be just talking about piracy.
I disagree with this for the sole reason that it has become harder to obtain content online. If you don't have access to a private tracker it is difficult to obtain quality content that is trust worthy. The technology to monitor and control traffic is becoming more affordable and technically advanced. My ISP already throttles only my Torrents (which are encrypted) at 100kb/s but opens up the pipe after midnight.
Re:Three Strikes Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's worry about following the Constitution as it is, first. Then we can talk about your fantasy version.
Re:Three Strikes Laws (Score:5, Funny)
Of course. It works in baseball.
And if you don't like baseball, you are a commie pinko.
USA USA USA USA
Re:Three Strikes Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if the copyright holders could manage to get within an order of magnitude of a baseball umpire's ball and strike call accuracy.
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You might be onto something.
Umpires are sent to umpire school, no matter what kind of prior experience they have, in the words of the school to "break bad habits"
Then they are sent to the minor leagues and get trained with experience and then drafted for positions into the majors.
Now, if copyright holders were given similiar training to earn the privilege of holding a corporate copyright it would help too wouldn't it?
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The sad thing is that law school is supposed to take care of that. It looks like the law schools could learn a lot from the umpire schools. Perhaps a bit longer in the minor leagues for the lawyers would help.
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What if you're a Communist who also likes baseball?
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What if you're a Communist who also likes baseball?
Then you're Cuban?
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Re:Three Strikes Laws (Score:4, Insightful)
I call BS on this ridiculous "study" (Score:5, Interesting)
I downloaded the PDF and actually read some of it. It is not a statistical-based "study". It is an advocacy piece studded with high-falutin legalese to make it sound more weighty.
It was written by a lawyer who opposed the anti-piracy laws from the get go, and wrote a briefing to advocate her case in the typical adverserial fashion. Here's an example: to demonstrate that the "three strikes" law didn't work in France, the author notes that while millions of first infringement notices had been sent out by copyright holders, very few third infringement notices were sent, and even the number of first infringement notices had declined sharply after three years. The author implies that these facts convincingly demonstrate that the law was a failure! I'm glad she pointed that out, because naively I might have looked at those facts as evidence that the law was a big success!
But then, I'm not a "Senior Visiting Scholar, U.C. Berkeley School of Law, 2013; Faculty member, Monash University Law School; member, Monash Commercial Law Group. It took a global village to help raise this paper." (end quote) Wow. Excuse me.
Think about any controversial issue with economic implications - immigration reform, climate change, the Keystone pipeline, educational subsidies, health care reform. Anybody with a college degree and a lot of time on their hands could assemble a "study" as convincing as this one that would confirm the correctness of their opinion while trashing the other side. That's what this one is.
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I'm glad she pointed that out, because naively I might have looked at those facts as evidence that the law was a big success!
That would be naive because, for your logic -- rather than hers -- to hold would require the industry to admit a decline in piracy.
Wait, but they're claiming it's increasing. So either they're lying about needing the laws, or they're lying about...uh... needing the laws.
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Except that it does address his.
In order for *his* conclusion to hold true, it requires that the number of notifications to go down with a corresponding decrease in piracy rate. If the piracy rate has not decreased, then his conclusion is in error, as it only means a lower percentage of offenders are receiving notifications. The only source we have for piracy numbers says that it's still increasing, in spite of 3-strikes laws.
So, based on available information, his conclusion is inconsistent with the data,
Interesting data (Score:5, Interesting)
France: 2million strike ones, 200,000 strike twos, and 710 strike threes, of which only 4 actually went to trial (only one had internet suspended, and only for 15 days).
New Zealand: A lot of data is missing, but so far there have been 13 final cases (with fines of $100NZ per song, maxing out at $600).
South Korea: 500,000 notices issued, of which 99% resulted in suspension of some kind of service (not internet service, but other services such as file hosting accounts).
Taiwan: No enforcement seems to have happened at all.
United Kingdom: Still not in effect, coming soon.
Ireland: 100 customers lost access for a week (cut off by a private agreement with an ISP, not the law), and 4 are close to getting it cut off completely.
United States: (once again, from private agreements with ISPs, not the law) no public data is available.
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MMO accounts? Battle.net?
That's... the worst thing that could possibly happen in South Korea
lol. "it reduced piracy, but we'll ignore that" (Score:3)
TLA says:
"suggests some ongoing shift in user behavior, and likely some net reduction in infringement," Giblin said. However, the research noted that [when everyone e found out the NSA was watching their traffic] encrypted HTTPS increased.
They are assuming that all / most https traffic is piracy. Much more likely, as sites like Google start using https more, and people find out the NSA is watching, people have been using https for routine web traffic.
You can legitimately say that you don't like copyright. Fine. You could almost make a coherent argument that programmers, record producers, and videographers should all work two jobs, one to eat and one (for free) to give you free shit. Kinda silly, but that's at least cogent. When you start saying "it doesn't reduce infringement, and here's the evidence - our study shows that it does, but we wish it didn't, therefore it doesn't" - at that point you've just gone off the deep end and are making yourself look like a complete nutjob.
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However, the research noted that [when everyone e found out the NSA was watching their traffic] encrypted HTTPS increased.
Has anyone started using HTTPS more because of the NSA? I haven't, in most of my own personal use cases it wouldn't help anyway, because the other side is likely compromised.
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slower internet if you KEEP stealing. Draco? (Score:2)
Look up Draco sometime. You just said that slower internet for the third offense is the same as the death penalty on the first offence. Or did you mean that having your internet service turned off for a few months is equalivent to having your eye removed?
You could, you know, stop stealing after you get caught twice.
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Look up Draco sometime.
Hmmm...
Draconian laws, Draco (law giver) ? ctrl-f law (Score:2)
Maybe when someone is talking about "draconian laws", draco (law giver) would be appropriate. Or just look up draconian.
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Selling that book you download is theft
No, it's not. It's not legally theft (as far as I know), and calling it that just confuses the matter.
because the money you received should have gone to the copyright holder.
I think the customer who bought the downloaded copy of the book can decide that for themselves, since it was their money and they decided to hand it over to someone selling a book they downloaded.
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But no one is stealing anything to begin with.
we're screwed (Score:2)
Draconian means cruelly severe, after Draco, who specified death and dismemberment for minor offenses we'd have fines for.
Are you really SO spoiled, SO entitled, that you think EVENTUALLY slowing down your high speed internet because you refuse to respect the rights of others is the same as someone having their head chopped off? I didn't know such spoiled brats actually existed, not THAT spoiled.
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They don't get payed by the big media companies, they get ripped off. they work two jobs, and we are getting a fucked society as a result of a few execs getting payed out big time for the work of a few....
yes, content creators should get payed, but either once, or a small honest royalty from us. and the public domain should be strictly enforced and protected. with a short duration on copywright, and no 're-addition' of derrivative works (see multiple versions of movies via disney in regard: Pirates of the C
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You can legitimately say that you don't like copyright. Fine. You could almost make a coherent argument that programmers, record producers, and videographers should all work two jobs, one to eat and one (for free) to give you free shit. Kinda silly, but that's at least cogent. When you start saying "it doesn't reduce infringement, and here's the evidence - our study shows that it does, but we wish it didn't, therefore it doesn't" - at that point you've just gone off the deep end and are making yourself look like a complete nutjob.
We don't like copyright in its current form. That is different than saying we don't like copyright at all.
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Your are correct. There is always going to be that subset of people who are either anarchists or nihilists that don't want any regulation.
I personally view those groups as fringe at best. But again you are correct that there are some people that do not want any regulation at all.
You know what curbs piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Availability.
Transferability.
Convenience.
This is what curbs piracy. You're not going to stop broke fourteen year-olds from downloading movies with hollow rhetoric and invented damages. However, you can quite easily get a family of four on a modest income to pay $10 a month for Netflix. Why this makes Hollywood brains explode I'll never know.
Re:You know what curbs piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, you can quite easily get a family of four on a modest income to pay $10 a month for Netflix. Why this makes Hollywood brains explode I'll never know.
Hollywood brains explode because they cannot understand why you would give away so much content for so little! I mean, movies for a whole month for $10? Are you crazy!?! They sell a single DVD for like three times that! Lets say two movies are watched per night, that's a rate of $1,800 per month for goodness sake, not this measly $10...
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Netflix is a reseller of sorts, and you bet your bottom dollar they are paying licensing fees to the producers that allow them to commercially show them to the end user, and those fees are likely being based on viewership. Part of Netflix DRM probably includes information gathering for Netflix's beancounters.
Hollywood is definitely getting its cut already.
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Which, of course, leads us to the fundamental problem with the MPAA. They assume consumption will not be rationed relative to price. Without Netflix, I'd probably only turn on my TV for Grand Theft Auto games.
Re:You know what curbs piracy? (Score:5, Informative)
Why this makes Hollywood brains explode I'll never know.
Over the past 30 years, the sale and rental of content on video cassettes has generated somewhere in the neighborhood of $150-200 Billion. And yet the MPAA took a lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court trying to outlaw the VCR.
These are the geniuses you're dealing with.
Re:You know what curbs piracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
They would rather burn the cake than share it.
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Pray tell, is there a coherent argument as to why I must 'share' my cake instead of enjoying it myself?
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Pray tell, is there a coherent argument as to why I must 'share' my cake instead of enjoying it myself?
Because you are putting it on the market? You are perfectly free to keep it to yourself and never show anyone. Unfortunately it's pretty hard to make money that way.
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(not a fan of watching sweaty people chase balls)
Guess I better "purchase" a download.
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However, you can quite easily get a family of four on a modest income to pay $10 a month for Netflix.
Which is a good idea, but it assumes that you live in a country that has access to Netflix or an equivalent service. Most of us living outside of the US don't.
For the rest of us, there's the local cable TV monopoly (who abuse that monopoly [delimiter.com.au] to stop legal download services competing with them) ... or Bittorrent.
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You only need one example - iTunes. Apple did "the impossible" by competing for free. Back in the days of Napster and filesharing, Apple managed to open a
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Except he is not wrong. The only digital content distributers we have in South Africa are iTunes and steam. I do not use iTunes myself, since I found apple to be excessively annoying and their selection to be insanely limited. Steam on the other hand has all but halted my desire to download games from torrents.
piracy doesn't need curbing (Score:5, Insightful)
The point that hasn't been mentioned yet is that copying and sharing are good. Everyone is talking like piracy is some kind of unsolvable problem, and morally wrong, when it isn't a problem or wrong at all. The problem is these rent seeking, anti-social businesses that want to keep our natural rights from us, and which unfortunately, and despite their heavy handed campaigning against piracy, still have most of the public convinced that copying is very naughty. It's all too easy to frame copying as loss-- we seem to be wired to think that way-- and play on the basic human emotion of fear of loss.
Copyright is not holy, and not the one and only way that artists can make a living. Copyright is only a means to pay for work, and a very poor and problem riddled means at that. There are many other ways. Tell a typical author that copyright should be abolished, and most of them will instantly, and with great histrionics, accuse you of wanting a free ride, of wanting to steal, and of wanting to destroy the publication business and authors' means of earning a living. None of that is true, but their knee jerk reaction is to make those unwarranted connections. Point out that there are other ways, such as patronage, and they will refuse to believe any could work. The first thing they think of patronage is that only rich people can be patrons. Guess they've never heard of Kickstarter and indiegogo, to name just two. When I mention that, they make further objections. Those can only work for established names, they say, as if it isn't possible to tweak that model so it would work for anyone, if that is, it doesn't already. The one genre in which I find this attitude particularly inexcusable is Science Fiction. I find it so ridiculous whenever some futuristic society is portrayed as still using intellectual property law. A classic example of this is in the Star Trek episode "I, Mudd" [youtube.com]
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That would be because they are correct. You ALWAYS have the option of not purchasing something with a copyright attached. Instead, you argue that you should have free access and the author should find some means of support ***other than you***.
Lot of words, same shallow message - I don't want to pay for my entertainment.
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Lot of words, same shallow message - I don't want to pay for my entertainment.
You are projecting. You ignore all evidence that doesn't support your bias. You know that the largest pirates also spend the most on media but they must just want a free ride right?
The message is simple. You cannot stop piracy. Most people watch / encounter more media than they could possibly afford to pay "market" rates for. Yet the industry makes money with absolutely no problem. Even with their terrible services. Therefore most of us thinking adults have concluded that it is not a world shatterin
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You've got an interesting idea, but that's not really what curbs the infringement of copyright laws (I object to use of the term "piracy" in this context). What curbs copyright infringement is convincing people that it is wrong to do it, or that following these laws somehow benefits them and society. Copyright infringement may be illegal, but I know basically nobody who considers it immoral or detrimental to society.
Parser error. Cannot enforce. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't enforce strict copyright. I'm saying this as someone who has worked on a lot of commercial software and games, even written copy protection systems of various kinds.
Public: Police services would charge the public far too much for any meaningful enforcement to make it practical - and we're already spending far more than any other nation on rule enforcement systems. It would either be far too spotty to be effective, or be politically impossible for many reasons, at least in a somewhat democratic system.
Private: DRM systems that get invasive enough to be effective (and there haven't been many for very long), will incur a drastic competitive disadvantage to competitors who are less invasive. Longterm strict DRM would not be sustainable for many, many reasons. DRM is in effect asking players to pay a tax in both money (bandwidth/dev costs) and quality (time, inconvenience) that is far, FAR too high for the results. Oh, and it will always break in commercial software to some degree - and be a giant point of failure, the more strict it gets.
Legal: Even with oceans of legal text, and lawsuits constantly popping up - you can't scale anywhere close to the level of "fixing the problem" using the legal system. Physical counterfeiting you can come close - but you can't stop the world from copying music from radio, or any of the thousands of ways copies of stuff can be made with a legal system. Some judges may be accommodating, but to scale to the level you'd need - even the most industry-friendly judge is going to get sick of the game and dance, and the whole thing is going to get shut down just by targeting such a large portion of the populace. Think the drug war is a travesty? A significant war on 'illegal copying' would catch even more in its net.
This system of vaguely increasing 'ISP warnings' followed by inconvenience is about as close to what you can expect to be tolerated. Give the industry the right to issue fines at will, and the backlash (and targeting failures) would be amazing.
Want to make a system that works? Look at Steam. That setup is amazing - promote the games, make it really easy, prioritize a good direct experience, make it easier and better on average than the Pirate Bay experience - and you'll get 70+% of your potential market. I know that 30% you think you're losing hurts in the gut a little - but irritating your customers with DRM will lose you much more over time, and devote a portion of your development setup towards a developer job everyone in the room will hate, taking up large parts of meetings, making everyone uptight about worrying about pirates, making your product worse.
Amazon and and iTunes and such also do a somewhat decent job, and getting into worse areas would be the XBox/Playstation marketplaces and EA's Origin - the sales techniques get more invasive the worse you go, and they get to feel less a good experience than The Pirate Bay as you travel along this road of annoyance.
I like being paid for my work - but I don't find DRM or annoying interfaces (including unnecessary network usage) to be good ways to make a living. People can and most definitely WILL buy software they would otherwise download if it is a good convenient experience, and if the software isn't sabotaged against use. Investing time in sabotaging your sofware is NOT time well spent.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Parser error. Cannot enforce. (Score:4, Insightful)
Steam is a bad example... when I play PC games, I'm at my PC, with a broadband internet connection (which is the only reason Steam's DRM works halfway decently). Ever had a connection problem with Steam? Issues getting into offline mode? It's incredibly frustrating, and would be completely unacceptable for music, TV or movies especially if you wanted to use them on mobile devices.
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Steam is a bad example... when I play PC games, I'm at my PC, with a broadband internet connection (which is the only reason Steam's DRM works halfway decently). Ever had a connection problem with Steam? Issues getting into offline mode? It's incredibly frustrating, and would be completely unacceptable for music, TV or movies especially if you wanted to use them on mobile devices.
I for one disagree with this. Steam is an excellent example. Steam is a gaming platform. Of course it wouldn't be good for TV or Music because.. that's not what it was designed for. (Okay, it's getting into TV.. but so far so good from what I'm seeing). What the previous poster was getting at (I believe) is that the way Steam does DRM in it's own arena is very well done. As for offline mode and connection problems, I think everyone's milage varies. I've been in offline mode for days without issue (I just m
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Baseball analogies don't work in the rest of the world where they don't play baseball
(Hpw about yellow card and red card like in (soccer) football
Not being funny, but even though an American team wins the world series every time the whole world knows what three strikes means.
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even though an American team wins the world series every time
Incorrect. [wikipedia.org]
Oh yeah, I forgot about that! And that whole flag thing [theglobeandmail.com] is so funny now, but it sure wasn't at the time!
Ahhh...good times :)
Of course not (Score:2)
They prevent 2 more chances to sue.
Pirates are good for the economy. (Score:5, Insightful)
few years back RIAA did a research to prove pirates are hurting their bottom lines. The research was finalised and it proved pirates spent more money on music and videos than the non pirate counterparts.
people dont realise that piracy in fact forces people who produce music and videos to give it their BEST to produce something worth while paying money for.
people pirate games, videos and music and when they discover the game is junk they dont buy it. same for movies and music.
if somone made an awesome album or a game then shortly after the free 'preview' alot of 'pirates' end up buying the game or movies for their collection.
Pirates have improved the overall quality of productions across the board because they DO SPEND money on good stuff and avoid the junk outthere.
But that research never made it the mainstream media because its easier to manufacture junk and try and sell it that try and make quality stuff. :)
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few years back RIAA did a research to prove pirates are hurting their bottom lines. The research was finalised and it proved pirates spent more money on music and videos than the non pirate counterparts.
Actually, the RIAA has done several such studies, starting in the 1970's when people were "pirating" music by copying vinyl LPs onto cassettes to share with their friends. And again in the 1908s. And again in the 1990s.
And, funny thing. every study they do ends up saying that the dirty pirates spend more money buying music than the honest non-pirating folks.
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Those wax music cylinders are sure easy to copy these days. No DRM at all.
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And, funny thing. every study they do ends up saying that the dirty pirates spend more money buying music than the honest non-pirating folks.
If this is true, what is your conclusion as to why the RI/MPAA don't court the pirates? Free advertising is free advertising after all.
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It's not just about the money. It's also about control.
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If this is true, what is your conclusion as to why the RI/MPAA don't court the pirates? Free advertising is free advertising after all.
Because their competition, the independent artists and labels, rely on P2P and sharing. The RIAA labels have Clear Channel and the TV networks; they don't need file sharing. The indies do. The fight against "piracy" is actually an anticompetitive move against the independents.
The thing that really scares the hell out of them (or should) is that with the internet, publishers
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I suspect you don't know any actual creators. They automatically do the best they can under the circumstances (which often means rushing to meet contracts rather than taking their time to fine-tune their work length), out of a mixture of professional pride and knowing they have to compete with everyone else for sales.
Three Strikes Laws in the US (Score:2)
Fortunately, such legislation will never survive constitutional scrutiny in the United States. Access to the Internet is a First-Amendment right. No law or government action can ban any individual from the Internet with certain very narrow exceptions, these applying to those on parole, probation, or federal supervised release, and even then appeals courts have been very hesitant to uphold such bans. Such restrictions almost never survive and only apply to people who have egregiously abused access to the
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uh - think again.
http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-starts-monday-130223/ [torrentfreak.com]
Time Warner Cable will temporarily interrupt people's ability to browse the Internet.
https://ixquick.com/do/search?q=host%3Atorrentfreak.com+six+strikes+piracy&lui=english [ixquick.com]
Improve it (Score:3)
I am sure it would work better if the decision was made by a secret court. The convicted user and its ISP would be informed by a National Security Letter with a gag order. After all this is about maintaining order, and we know it requires some secrecy. Otherwise pesky journalists brag about government wrongdoing about human rights, while it is just busy protecting the economy (and healthy economy means you may get a job if you apply where it has been off-shored, so this is for your own good).
Some raised issues about the whether it is possible to cut internet access without cutting the phone when the ISP provides both. There is a simple solution to that: instead of cutting internet access, the secret court could decide to abduct the user to a rehabilitation camp, where he could be taught about its wrongdoing using modern techniques such as waterboarding. That could be off-shored to some dictator-led third world country to save money, while still creating jobs opportunities at the same time (see above).
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I am sure it would work better if the decision was made by a secret court. The convicted user and its ISP would be informed by a National Security Letter with a gag order. After all this is about maintaining order, and we know it requires some secrecy. Otherwise pesky journalists brag about government wrongdoing about human rights, while it is just busy protecting the economy (and healthy economy means you may get a job if you apply where it has been off-shored, so this is for your own good).
Some raised issues about the whether it is possible to cut internet access without cutting the phone when the ISP provides both. There is a simple solution to that: instead of cutting internet access, the secret court could decide to abduct the user to a rehabilitation camp, where he could be taught about its wrongdoing using modern techniques such as waterboarding. That could be off-shored to some dictator-led third world country to save money, while still creating jobs opportunities at the same time (see above).
I say good sir. You raise some jolly good ideas you do. However I propose an alternative solution for your consideration. We have a large number of people infringing up on this problem. That represents a sizable force that could be utilized in some manner rather than occupying them for some time with your conditioning. Instead we could use them to shore up economic and militaristic deficits. Rather than wasting time trying to repair the mental facilities of those who are obviously unable to change, we could
Research also shows that drug laws don't work. (Score:1)
It's not about whether they work, but about who wants them.
How is it not effective? (Score:2)
Don't they get cut off from the internet or jail, or fines or something, after the third strike?
It would be pretty hard to continue infringing in jail, or after being bared from the internet.
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and the tradition continues (Score:1)
Death by Tortue (Score:2)
Re:Update (Score:4, Funny)
I just wanted everyone to know that I am enjoying some energetic coitus in front of my living-room window RIGHT NOW.
We already know that.
-- The NSA
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Private networks where you have to pay a monthly subscription? Luls.
(I've never heard of those. They might exist, but the private networks I've heard of just require you to know someone on them, follow the rules, and keep your ratio up.)