The senators do. Hence the commotion. :hmm:

(I've corrected your metphor.)
A very long time indeed, because extraditions over international borders are an incredible pain. Not to mention it being nigh-impossible to show lost value.

Last time I checked, digital information wasn't generally considered "real." You can't steal memory, or magnetic fields, or voltages; you can only clone them. You can't own numbers, or air pressure, or computations.

You can own movies, songs, and games, though. The fact that they are trivially convertible to each other can now never be avoided, and the law must adapt around it or just be ignored. Morality has already adapted. ;)

The problem is, IMO, wasting time and effort sustaining an obsolete business model instead of evolving in light of new technology. The assembly workers didn't ban any sort of mechanical machine because it'd put them out of jobs. The scribes couldn't ban the printing press on the same justification. Why do we treat this case any differently?

So you expect companies to make games, movies and artists to make music for free?

We really moving with that year slowly into very Dark Times.

Its not really Sopa/Pipa related.. but to speak about censorship... Megaupload was taken down...

Seriously, do governments do not think for one moment that not everyone uses services for illegal reasons?

But well, i guess it does not need long time until some company buys that domain and tries then to make big business with file storage only against payment... Because what can be used also for free is not healthy for the money addicted system.... *sarcasm*

Really Dark Times...

I think there's something to the argument I've come across before that piracy HELPS media sales. People download a piece of music, for example, and might later buy the album, or might tell others about the piece, who might later go on to buy the album themselves. In other words, it's self-sustained advertising.

What does everyone think of this?

http://i.imgur.com/pPDak.jpg

I'm up for this :)

Sounds like a good idea. I'm in. The end result could be interesting if there are enough people backing this.

Hmm, I sense that there is more to the megaupload takedown than simple copyright infringment. One of the aims of SOPA is to make site owners responsible for the content the site's users upload. Megaupload is made of user-submitted content. The bastards know that SOPA most likely won't pass, so they took down megaupload to force the court system to become involved. If the owner of megaupload gets any kind of a guilty verdict it will set an important legal precedent because the judicial branch would be ruling indirectly that a site owner can indeed be held responsible for user content.

In response to the poster (picture poster, not person ;)) I wouldn't do something like that. I'm more than happy to buy music from the little-known artists and small one-man record companies where I find most of my favourite artists, simply because without that flow of money, they wouldn't exist.

With regards to the "Piracy = profit" idea, where people may illegally download a number of tracks and lead on to buying a full album, that is actually a case in point for myself. I often listen to full and illegally uploaded versions of the latest tracks on youtube, then, if I like them enough, go on to buy the vinyl version of them (and trust me, new vinyl these days is expensive - it comes out at around £5 per track). However, with regards to the artists themselves, they will often release free music - single tracks that they can't get a release for, or that they feel are too 'experimental' to release on hard copy. Alternatively, they start up a podcast series which has some of their most cutting-edge work contained within, but imited to either 3 minutes' worth or even just a prototype version of the track. This - I think - encourages people to buy their fully published tracks from them as you begin to feel much more of a rapport with the artist and appreciate their fan service.

Rather than acknowleding that stealing hard work from these people is fine, perhaps it would be better for them to release some of their lesser known works for free, and for you to go out and buy them as and when they do get a release.

(This method is of course relatively easy for electronic music as it lends itself well to mixing, but i'm sure it is not impossible to adapt it for all types of music.)

No; I expect people to stop trying to use obsolete business models. There are other ways to be compensated.

I think I can survive for a month without new entertainment. March is going to be so bland, with my super na'vi diet and now this :xD:

Is right.

I agree, but at the end of the day the majority won't be able to help themselves.

I feel it's necessary to alert you all of yet ANOTHER bill that seems to have gone public, the bill is ACTA.. (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)

I suggest people watch this video:

Personally, I'd say that's fine as long as no big media companies make any money off it :)

I do something similar, I buy quite a lot of music from small bands on their tours at local gigs, not only are their albums far more reasonably priced, but you know the money is going to the band and not to record companies when they are selling them out of a cardboard box at the side of the venue :), plus a lot of those bands often give out free tracks or EPs as well.

The latter part doesn't really happen elsewhere, but I have quite a lot of music from bands that they either posted for free, or on a donation basis, or just albums/EPs sold at their gigs which cost a LOT less than most, and goes to the actual band, a well as many bands I've seen and/or bought stuff after finding via youtube (or when recommended them, youtube is the first place I go to hear them). It makes me a lot more likely to spend more money, particularly to see them live, but also merchandise and albums.

I'm up for the whole black march thing. No music is easy. I've been listening to the same 6 bands for about 2 years now. No movies, I'll just wait to see into the wild till spring break. No video games? Well, Idk if my TOR subscription counts, but I was thinking bout cancelling anyway cause of school.

You could always make sure you're paid in advance to not have to renew during the month. Even though a company gets the same money, if it's less distributed trough the year, financial problems are still likely.

^^^^^^^THAT IS SO TRUE^^^^^^^^^

We need to fight with every last breath every possible curtailment of our rights!!!!!!:war::war::war: