Blocking Pirating Sites Deemed to be Ineffective
New research coming out of Boston's Northeastern University suggests that the strategies of the music and music industry that target the blocking of websites that host copyrighted material is not an effective anti-piracy measure.
Content that may be shut down in one location is likely to spring up somewhere else at a rapid pace, creating a cat and mouse game that cannot be won. They mentioned Megaupload, which, for example, was asked by Warner Bros. to remove more than 2,500 infringing links every day in September 2009. Yet even the seizure and shutdown of the site did little to slow piracy as this event is likely to have encouraged other "one-click hosters" (OCHs) to pick up Megaupload's traffic volume.
"Currently, this game seems to be in favor of the many pirates who provide far more content than what the copyright owners are taking down," the researchers said. "This imbalance of powers, together with the size and diversity of the One-Click Hosting ecosystem, suggest that anti-piracy laws to reduce the availability and reachability of pirated content may be less successful than what their proponents might expect."
The researchers said that there are currently more than 10,000 domains that are hosting pirated content. They said that copyright holders should not focus on the seizure of domains, but on blocking their ability to process payments from users, which could prove to be much more effective.
"On the other hand, strategies against economically motivated actors may effectively target certain parts of the ecosystem," the study concluded. "Together with increased legal proceedings, we expect them to render many OCHs more diligent, and maybe even proactive, in their own anti-piracy efforts."

Perhaps the funds spent on chasing the pirate website could be reinvested to reduce the price of the songs.
That plus entrusting lets say Sony with my cc details is a risk, if you can recall what happed to the PS account sometime ago *Oops*
So i cant help but think, overpriced music with unsecure transactions = overpriced risk.
Perhaps the funds spent on chasing the pirate website could be reinvested to reduce the price of the songs.
That plus entrusting lets say Sony with my cc details is a risk, if you can recall what happed to the PS account sometime ago *Oops*
So i cant help but think, overpriced music with unsecure transactions = overpriced risk.
It cannot be said enough times. Especially for the guys at the media industry.
Games are offering less and less content. Some games are offering a 6 hour campaign for $60. Back in the day, games were more expensive at $70 or more (I paid $90 for Neverwinter Nights), but they offered long hours of play. 80 hours I got out of NWN, which is little more than $1 per hour.
Games are now $10 per hour or more. If I were to buy two copies at $60 per game for my wife to play as well, we'd be paying $20 per hour, which is probably more money than most people make at their full time jobs.
If the MPAA and RIAA want us to stop pirating they would provide us with what we want, rather than what they want.
Yes, Jimmy, you can.
There is NO EXCUSE for downloading illegal material.
After saying that I, along with, probably, everyone posting here today, has sampled the world of 'free' material. If it all suddenly vanished overnight then I would buy all of the stuff that i wanted. On the other hand it takes months for certain television shows to appear, if they even ever do, over here in the UK. Same for films.
If you want to stop all of this pirating stuff then target the newsgroups and THEN the web pages. After newsgroups go for the big players that have the crazy silly pipes out there in the world. ANY law enforcement department should be able to eventually stop all of this at the larger sources and I'm confused as to why they haven't yet done so? Oh yeah, there's more important stuff to do like stopping armed robbery, domestic violence, drugs etc.
If YOU made the material... would you like someone to steal it from you? No... yet we all download.
P.s. If the price of a Blu-ray is too much for you then wait for the price to fall. It is not as if your LIFE depends on it! We're so stupidly self entitled at times
First thing that came to my mind.
i love bringing this up, but photoshop.
its only a major product because of piracy.
the only reason it got big was everyone used it, and because of that businesses went with what everyone knew.
photoshop costs 700$ new and 250$ for student.
cs5 = 650$
cs4 = 683$
cs3 = 550$
cs2 = 400$
cs = 380$ 180 if you are ok with open box
photoshop 7 = 440$ 144 open box
photoshop 6 = 500$ 65 open box
and i cant even find anything older than that on amazon
for home use, the only one that is priced reasonably is 6
but 6 is so old that im seriously doubting if it could even work on a modern computer.
some things will never be reasonably priced...
Should be pretty obvious where this line of thought is headed... Not only does the media industry want hegemony over the outside Kim Dotcom's of the world, they also want predatory financial policies in place for users of services that don't have an official blessing. eg: You didn't download pirated content, but you used an unsanctioned service legally that hosts pirated content, so you get to pay too.
Everyone would be better off if content/software creators went for the embrace-and-extend mindset rather than exploring every litigation option possible to repress people who would not have bothered with their content/software otherwise. So much effort and productivity wasted on something that benefits nobody and most often hurt legitimate customers worst.