Megaupload shut down

[APCs r Evil]

SOPA is dead, until the country gets distracted again

[Ded10c]

There are worse things lingering just on the edge of the horizon

[Ded10c]

Filesonic and uploaded.to have closed themselves off for a bit.

[AcneVulgaris]

But ofcourse, the income of Hollywood stars is more important than that of the low income civillian.

I make my living making games that people pirate. I'm not rich. I might be upper middle class if more than 20% of the people that play my games actually paid for them.

The truly pathetic thing is I don't have a game that sells for more than 5 bucks, and people STILL steal them. As for movies, cripes, a rental is 3 bucks, or even less from Netflix. 3 bucks for 2 hours of entertainment, and still they steal.

[Red Spot]

I dont assume this action was to support the small timers, nor did I assume you are Hollywood material.

I agree that its pathetic that -indy-(style) games get pirated though. However, in the same breath I can also state that I do understand why some pirate the crap out of big titles (both movies and games).

[MrTwosheds]

The only way to prevent people stealing is to protect and contain that which they take. If what they are taking is by its nature uncontainable, such as music, then you will not stop them. Laws will not stop them either. An effective way to prevent them being taken is needed, But I suspect that this would be just much too inconvenient for those wishing to sell their good in an easy and profitable manner.

It is not possible to protect music, since the invention of the first recording device, people have been able to "steal" it.
And before then, if people were in earshot of music they heard it, it was not stealing, but maybe if they liked it, they might pay the piper. The best way to protect Music is to not let it be recorded in the first place. oops, wrong answer.

[GSH]

If the founder of a company changes their last name to 'dotcom,' they should be taken in to be put back on medication. Sadly, that's not on the indictment.

-- GSH

[Red Devil]

they should have been based in China, the headquarters of counterfeiting

[Ded10c]

You're right about music, Twosheds; no law will ever be able to prevent music piracy because nobody will ever make 3.5mm audio cables illegal.

[MrTwosheds]

Not quite that simple though, It would seem that some organisations current strategy involves sneaking DRM software onto customers computers, in order to prevent them from playing stuff they have not paid for. This was half the reason for my recent need to reinstall my win XP o/s, the other half was an anti-virus failure.
Got a phone from samsung for xmas, Trustingly I down loaded their software, and a nightmare ensued. May be possible that an undetected infection was already present, but down loading "Samsung keas" seemed to open a door, the back door.
First thing I noticed was the Download seemed to be about 40 mb bigger than they said it was, then my virus checker starts going off as the trojan downloaded more viruses, connection pulled I started investigating.
Something nasty lurks in my boot sector, and weird new entries in my startup lists,
Hello what's this? Something new failing to hide on my c drive, Markany Content safer??? ah that's the extra 40 mb. No uninstall program? how rude! Quick search ,DRM software... can't delete it...logon as Adminisrator. Exterminate!
Sound card stops working...Destroy all Samsung software, reinstall sound card, does not work very well, windows firewall is down! wont come back up...Sound the alarms and run for the escape pods, she's going down!
I don't even have any illegal music downloads! Thanks Samsung, last product I ever buy from you.

[AcneVulgaris]

If the founder of a company changes their last name to 'dotcom,' they should be taken in to be put back on medication. Sadly, that's not on the indictment.

-- GSH

It's acceptable if they also change their first name to "Dingbat".

[Nielk1]

A few things need to be noted. Piracy is not counterfeiting, at least not here, piracy is copying the original exactly. The way to stop piracy is NOT to try to protect your assets as that will only make people not want to buy them, it is not to go after the pirates with laws as invariably the laws become to broad and an enemy to the normal people. The way to stop piracy is to either move to a service model instead of a product model, or to make the pirated version WORSE than the paid one. So far most companies are only pretending to embrace a service model so that they can gain more control (possibly even sell your information for more money) and only actual customers are hurt by DRM and other methods of control. When I buy a game, and I have to go find a crack to play it, I wonder to myself why didn't I just pirate it in the first place. The company clearly doesn't care about the product if they nurf it so badly I need to go do something illegal (DMCA) to get it to work.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Athletes in specific are a stain on society with their outrageously large and undeserved salaries. Regardless if they beacons for advertising.

The demographic I am in is a pure nightmare for professional athletes. If all males were like me, and I'm betting there are several similar on this forum, athletes would have another job in the off season.

[Red Spot]

I never said that, I even disagree with it
Better said, I am in that class that gave up on proffesional sports as I couldnt get the money to keep paying for all expenses and I just wasnt fast enough to make it into our national team (iceskating, long distance). After that I grew old ... you probably know what I mean with that

[S.cavA.rmyG.en]

designing ever more advanced tinfoil hats.

don't forget to make one for you pet becous you can never can be to careful.