Uk Govt Targets Google and Facebook in Piracy Crackdown - Polidicks

[quote]“A number of companies do have procedures in place and they are taking some action. I’m not saying they’ve been wholly effective. Some are not doing as much as they could,” Lynch says. In recent months the UK Government has hosted talks with tech companies and entertainment industry players, hoping to reach voluntary agreements. Thus far these meetings have been without result. Google, one of the primary targets of the movie and music industry companies, maintains that the current takedown system is both effective and efficient enough to deal with infringing content. However, UK music group BPI would like to see a more pro-active anti-piracy stance from various intermediaries. Search engines, for example, should make sure that content doesn’t re-appear under a new URL once it’s been removed.[/quote] [url]https://torrentfreak.com/uk-govt-targets-google-and-facebook-in-piracy-crackdown-160516/[/url]

[quote]Search engines, for example, should make sure that content doesn’t re-appear under a new URL once it’s been removed.[/quote] Looks like someone's mad their Pirate Bay block didn't work at all and just spawned a ton of proxies. Hilarious how these groups have no idea how the Internet works so they ask Google and shit to do the impossible to fight piracy, they keep up with these threats of legislative action for years yet don't go ahead with them because, again, they have no idea how shit works.

Our current government are dicks

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;50331206]Looks like someone's mad their Pirate Bay block didn't work at all and just spawned a ton of proxies. Hilarious how these groups have no idea how the Internet works so they ask Google and shit to do the impossible to fight piracy, they keep up with these threats of legislative action for years yet don't go ahead with them because, again, they have no idea how shit works.[/QUOTE] This comment is on every single thread about piracy. What people don't get is that it is actually working, if you consider that their goals. Their goal is not to stop us from accessing torrents, it's to deter us. They can do this by causing massive inconvenience. The first step is to consistently shut down as many of the popular torrent sites as they can. This causes inconvenience, as people then either have to find a new site, or use a VPN to access the old one. The new site may have viruses, might not work, or might be filled with dodgy ads. The next step is to inject bad content into the circulation. A 'friend' of mine has had this happen to him a few times. Namely a Game of Thrones episode that was perfect up to the last minute, when it played a song over the most important part. This causes massive frustration and again, deters people from using piracy to access content. They can never completely shut down piracy. But they can make it a much bigger ballache to do it. You might say, 'oh you can just to x, y or z to bypass that' or 'well that's not really a problem because you can do a or b', but you have to remember a majority of internet users are not that into computers.

It's one thing pirating. Its another complaining on a government cracking down on theft in completely non-appalling ways. It isn't like they're saying they will chuck random people into prison for pirating a couple of songs.

[QUOTE=Shadow801;50331241]This comment is on every single thread about piracy. What people don't get is that it is actually working, if you consider that their goals. Their goal is not to stop us from accessing torrents, it's to deter us. They can do this by causing massive inconvenience. The first step is to consistently shut down as many of the popular torrent sites as they can. This causes inconvenience, as people then either have to find a new site, or use a VPN to access the old one. The new site may have viruses, might not work, or might be filled with dodgy ads. The next step is to inject bad content into the circulation. A 'friend' of mine has had this happen to him a few times. Namely a Game of Thrones episode that was perfect up to the last minute, when it played a song over the most important part. This causes massive frustration and again, deters people from using piracy to access content. They can never completely shut down piracy. But they can make it a much bigger ballache to do it. You might say, 'oh you can just to x, y or z to bypass that' or 'well that's not really a problem because you can do a or b', but you have to remember a majority of internet users are not that into computers.[/QUOTE] Are you seriously accusing the government of seeding troll GoT episodes as part of some grand scheme?

When the end result is shit for free(or shit that otherwise isn't available in their country) you'll need a lot more than inconveniences to stop people from pirating honestly.

[QUOTE=Killuah;50331267]Are you seriously accusing the government of seeding troll GoT episodes as part of some grand scheme?[/QUOTE] Well somebody did it. [QUOTE=Electrocuter;50331274]When the end result is shit for free(or shit that otherwise isn't available in their country) you'll need a lot more than inconveniences to stop people from pirating honestly.[/QUOTE] Not when you have to find thenewestbestestvirusfreepiratebayproxyavailablema-y2016.ly and access it behind 7 proxies Do you really expect your nan to do that

[QUOTE=Shadow801;50331288]Not when you have to find thenewestbestestvirusfreepiratebayproxyavailablema-y2016.ly and access it behind 7 proxies Do you really expect your nan to do that[/QUOTE] I expect people that don't know to ask people that do know, my "nan" would ask me how to pirate something.

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;50331274]When the end result is shit for free(or shit that otherwise isn't available in their country) you'll need a lot more than inconveniences to stop people from pirating honestly.[/QUOTE] People are lazy. If you provide a service that offers everything that pirating does then a lot less people will pirate, most people don't do it because it's free. TV piracy in the UK is a big issue because everything is delayed by at least a day and usually a week or so, it also has adverts on TV, and you can't watch it when you want. I think this will have a very minor impact on the amount of people that pirate things. [QUOTE=FlashMarsh;50331254]It's one thing pirating. Its another complaining on a government cracking down on theft in completely non-appalling ways. It isn't like they're saying they will chuck random people into prison for pirating a couple of songs.[/QUOTE] Piracy isn't theft.

Piracy cannot be stopped,because if you pluck one,hundred will rise

[QUOTE=Morgen;50331329]Piracy isn't theft.[/QUOTE] Said as if that makes it ok.

[QUOTE=David29;50331471]Said as if that makes it ok.[/QUOTE] Most of the piracy is caused by the companies themselves so it's their own fault. GoT can only be watched on sky Atlantic, so if you're on another cable service you can't get it, so no shit people are going to pirate it rather than switch their entire cable service (particularly when sky broadband sucks cock) It might be illegal but I see no moral issue with it when the companies themselves are being ridiculous, it's a pretty grey area really.

[QUOTE=David29;50331471]Said as if that makes it ok.[/QUOTE] It's not a good thing, I didn't mean to imply that. When it comes to TV piracy a lot of people that do it also have legal access to it but chose to pirate it instead. Take Game of Thrones for example, it doesn't air until tonight here. If I have time to watch it in the morning or during the day then why would I wait to have to watch it at a specific time of day on a service I have to pay for? The paid service simply doesn't compete. Streaming services like Netflix that make episodes available at the same time internationally are the way to beat TV piracy.

[QUOTE=Doozle;50331226]Our current government are dicks[/QUOTE] Piracy is kinda morally grey, but it is true that our government are corporations first and people second. He says in a thread in which the government is targeting corporations about piracy. I'm not really sure piracy is the government's problem full stop, tbh I think if a company's product is being pirated they should probably quit making a product that people are pirating. Look at Game of Thrones, most pirated show ever, people would watch it legally, but they fucking can't because HBO literally won't let them.

Good to see our government is targetting the real issues in this pirate-ridden country. (sigh)

[QUOTE=Shadow801;50331288]Well somebody did it. Not when you have to find thenewestbestestvirusfreepiratebayproxyavailablema-y2016.ly and access it behind 7 proxies Do you really expect your nan to do that[/QUOTE] If it's the one I'm thinking of [sp]Jaime Lannister getting his hand chopped off when suddenly rock/punk music blares over the dialog?[/sp] that wasn't a government plant, just an error with the audio synchronization. The audio from the end credits played too soon. Nothing sinister about it. Not that I'm doubting that there are bad uploads out there, just that the biggest ones with the most downloads and seeders are generally pretty reliable, especially since uploaders on the bigger torrent sites have profiles with reviews and ratings of their uploads.

[QUOTE=Rossy167;50331839]Piracy is kinda morally grey, but it is true that our government are corporations first and people second. He says in a thread in which the government is targeting corporations about piracy. I'm not really sure piracy is the government's problem full stop, tbh I think if a company's product is being pirated they should probably quit making a product that people are pirating. Look at Game of Thrones, most pirated show ever, people would watch it legally, but they fucking can't because HBO literally won't let them.[/QUOTE] Honestly true. HBO's only alternative to having HBO through your cable provider is to subscribe to their noncompetitively priced streaming service, HBO Now. They're asking twice Netflix and Amazon Prime's monthly rates, which many people simply find unreasonable if they're only interested in a single show.

[QUOTE=Rossy167;50331839]Piracy is kinda morally grey, but it is true that our government are corporations first and people second. He says in a thread in which the government is targeting corporations about piracy. I'm not really sure piracy is the government's problem full stop, tbh I think if a company's product is being pirated they should probably quit making a product that people are pirating. Look at Game of Thrones, most pirated show ever, people would watch it legally, but they fucking can't because HBO literally won't let them.[/QUOTE] HBO has a streaming service now so that's not really a good excuse anymore.

[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;50332143]HBO has a streaming service now so that's not really a good excuse anymore.[/QUOTE] Their streaming service isn't competitively priced, especially given the limited content. Piracy is a matter of both convenience [U]and[/U] price. While a streaming service is a step in the right direction for convenience, HBO is still charging Cable TV prices in a world where Netflix has allowed millions to permanently kick cable providers for less than ten bucks a month. They need to bring some serious value to the table if they actually want to deter piracy.

[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;50332143]HBO has a streaming service now so that's not really a good excuse anymore.[/QUOTE] Last time I checked it was only available in the US, and the morons in management were doing everything in their power to ban people who were trying to pay for it and view it on a proxy

The best way to greatly reduce piracy is to provide a more convenient method for accessing such content. Netflix and similar services have the right idea, but at the moment every company seems to have their own special service for their own stuff which is just going to put people off.

[QUOTE=Coffee;50332215]The best way to greatly reduce piracy is to provide a more convenient method for accessing such content. Netflix and similar services have the right idea, but at the moment every company seems to have their own special service for their own stuff which is just going to put people off.[/QUOTE] Agreed. Convenience and price. It isn't convenient to have five or six different streaming services to keep track of. Even when all I had were Netflix, Hulu, and Prime, I was constantly saying, "okay, which one of these had that show I wanted?" It's silly seeing networks like HBO pushing their own streaming services when their small library of shows just don't merit it. Netflix can offer an incredible array of diverse content for less than ten bucks a month, so why would I want to subscribe to yours when it's twice the price and only offers a fraction of the content? I would happily pay three or four times what I'm currently paying for Netflix for a single streaming service that had a library with every show from every network available to stream, including up to date episodes on currently airing shows. This is something that cable providers could accomplish if they weren't so adamant on sticking to outmoded business models and pricing strategies. Cable companies need to recognise that their business model is outdated. It's failing. Millions are metaphorically cutting the cords and switching to streaming services as their primary "providers" out of the sheer convenience of it. DVR and scheduled programming is a ridiculous concept by comparison, even more so when you consider the price tags of cable TV next to these competing streaming services.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;50332264]DVR and scheduled programming is a ridiculous concept by comparison, even more so when you consider the price tags of cable TV next to these competing streaming services.[/QUOTE] It's really amazing how primitive TV feels now. I started watching it again in the mornings when I moved into my house at school, and it felt so weird that I had to sit through so many comercials for such a small amount of content. Not to mention I couldn't pause anything or select what I wanted to watch.

I doubt improved access would reduce piracy as much as some people seem to think, I'd guess 2/3 at the very least pirate because it's free rather than for any other reason, particularly in less well off countries like Russia. Also steaming services have two big flaws, you can't get access to everything from one provider and there are still quite a few places with poor internet connections.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;50332375]I doubt improved access would reduce piracy as much as some people seem to think, I'd guess 2/3 at the very least pirate because it's free rather than for any other reason, particularly in less well off countries like Russia. Also steaming services have two big flaws, you can't get access to everything from one provider and there are still quite a few places with poor internet connections.[/QUOTE] Both of the things you addressed as being issues with streaming services (too many providers, poor internet connections) are directly related to "improving access," however, so it's a bit odd to say that improving access wouldn't impact piracy because of those issues. As far as price? Well, yeah. There will always be a certain number of people who pirate simply because they don't want to spend any money. However, if the value and convenience of streaming is high enough, those numbers will shrink dramatically. Why would I want to go download individual episodes of Breaking Bad when the entire series is on Netflix, for example? Netflix has a great price tag and a broad range of content, subscribing to that offers me access to a massive library of shows, movies, and documentaries, so I'm already a subscriber. Going out and pirating all the shit I watch on Netflix, and sampling new shows to see how I feel about them, would be hugely inconvenient if I had to find and downloads torrents for everything. [editline]16th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=SashaWolf;50332314]It's really amazing how primitive TV feels now. I started watching it again in the mornings when I moved into my house at school, and it felt so weird that I had to sit through so many comercials for such a small amount of content. Not to mention I couldn't pause anything or select what I wanted to watch.[/QUOTE] Right? I cancelled my cable subscription over five years ago, and haven't missed it. My girlfriend's parents even offered to pay for our cable subscription entirely if we wanted one when we bought our new house a few weeks ago, and we told them not to worry about it. Even when it's free to us, we don't need it or want it. What's the point? It's barely going to be used.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;50332375]I doubt improved access would reduce piracy as much as some people seem to think, I'd guess 2/3 at the very least pirate because it's free rather than for any other reason, particularly in less well off countries like Russia. Also steaming services have two big flaws, you can't get access to everything from one provider and there are still quite a few places with poor internet connections.[/QUOTE] People who pirate simply because it's free are generally people who couldn't [i]really[/i] afford to buy it otherwise. And if they weren't going to buy it anyway, then it isn't harming anybody. It's a non-issue, so focus on the people who might actually buy your shit if you make your service better.

[QUOTE=Shadow801;50331241]This comment is on every single thread about piracy. What people don't get is that it is actually working, if you consider that their goals. Their goal is not to stop us from accessing torrents, it's to deter us. They can do this by causing massive inconvenience. The first step is to consistently shut down as many of the popular torrent sites as they can. This causes inconvenience, as people then either have to find a new site, or use a VPN to access the old one. The new site may have viruses, might not work, or might be filled with dodgy ads. The next step is to inject bad content into the circulation. A 'friend' of mine has had this happen to him a few times. Namely a Game of Thrones episode that was perfect up to the last minute, when it played a song over the most important part. This causes massive frustration and again, deters people from using piracy to access content. They can never completely shut down piracy. But they can make it a much bigger ballache to do it. You might say, 'oh you can just to x, y or z to bypass that' or 'well that's not really a problem because you can do a or b', but you have to remember a majority of internet users are not that into computers.[/QUOTE] Mate, I don't think you understand. You can go on Google and type "show name + sXXeYY watch online" and you'll get a dozen websites to watch it on. They're dodgy but they work. That's how people pirate. Then one day your friend tells you how to use the pirate bay and how easy it is to find a working mirror. It's so simple.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50331706]Most of the piracy is caused by the companies themselves so it's their own fault. GoT can only be watched on sky Atlantic, so if you're on another cable service you can't get it, so no shit people are going to pirate it rather than switch their entire cable service (particularly when sky broadband sucks cock) It might be illegal but I see no moral issue with it when the companies themselves are being ridiculous, it's a pretty grey area really.[/QUOTE] I honestly don't know why HBO make it so hard to watch. I'd pay good money for just access to GoT, but no, I have to sign up to Now TV, some utterly shit shit service provided by Sky, which doesn't include subtitles, only plays on IE and Firefox, in <720p quality, and costs £16 per month. Ohhhhhh wowwww, I get to watch all those other shows I don't care about. Just let me pay you for the series I actually care about. I'm not surprised GoT gets pirated so much.

I have 3 go-to services: Netflix: Free shit and (some) 4k content. VUDU: All of my TV shows and new releases. You can buy a season pass for (nearly) any show in 1080p, and as the episodes air, they will show up. I buy everything on there. Amazon: 4k content