The Internet Police are Coming!!

[gbeenie]

I heard that it will be harder to prosecute for people who download TV shows becuase after qa show has "aired" it belongs to the audience.

Don't believe it. I once torrented an episode of Law & Order: SVU because my DVR screwed up (this was back when there was NO WAY to stream old L & O episodes), and Comcast sent me a DMCA letter.

[Variety of Cells]

Because they aren't looking for the files on your computer, they are keeping track of if you downloaded a specific file from a file sharing service or a torrent.  I can see it working one of two ways, or a combination of both is more likely:

1. People are hired to download as much potentially pirated material as they can.  Then they flag the downloads that turn out to indeed be pirated.  The program then monitors what ip addresses download those flagged files from those specific sites or torrents or what have you.

2. A program is created to search for specific key words.  When those pop up those files are flagged.  If the content is deemed to be pirated then the ip addresses downloading those files will be contacted.

So it seems that if you still feel like pirating stuff, you have a better chance pirating new content before they flag it.  But who's to say they can't retroactively go back and see who has downloaded a file once a file is flagged?  In any case, it doesn't matter if the file is renamed or chopped up or even if you still have that file on your computer.  It only matters that you downloaded it.

What about proxy IP addresses and VPNs?  Can the technology get around them? 

Also you mentioned specific programs designed to catch keywords.  But a lot of pirates won't call a title by its specific name.  Just for the sake of argument, let's say someone does a camera rip of The Hunger Games from theaters.  They won't necessarily name the file The Hunger Games or Hunger Games.  They might call it THGrip or The_hUngr_g@mes or H_g@mesrip or something totally different like Katnissfilm.  Wouldn't people have to manually sift through hundreds of thousands of names to find the right ones?

And isn't downloading the pirated material in the first place illegal?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but to enforce the law doesn't that mean they have to first break the law?  Or are they allowed to keep it for a short time to help them find pirates or is there some other exception?  Not to mention how many millions of sites have pirated content on the internet, with new ones popping up all the time. 

Yes, they change the names of files, which is why it would make sense for the company to higher a few people to try and download as much pirated stuff as they can.

If the company is downloading copyrighted material in order to stop piracy, I don't think anyone is going to sue them for copyright infringement.  Technically I guess it's against the law, but the holder of the copyright would have to choose to sue them, which no one is going to do.  It's like if I were to kill a few children in order to catch a serial killer. 
















Oh wait, that's a horrible example.

[MrTorso]

I heard that it will be harder to prosecute for people who download TV shows becuase after qa show has "aired" it belongs to the audience.

Don't believe it. I once torrented an episode of Law & Order: SVU because my DVR screwed up (this was back when there was NO WAY to stream old L & O episodes), and Comcast sent me a DMCA letter.

I got one from HBO once too.

[Rodneyiren]

I completely agree. There are so many ways to obtain free music and movies online, that it's the creators that are suffering. We as consumers should take the responsibility to support these independent artists with royalties. The problem is that there are many people who approach their interests superficially by the standards placed upon them by popular culture, more so than there are people who will be willing to support an independent artist. Its Sites like The Pirate Bay that have become an outlet for exponentially contributing to the bastardization of the independent market.

[Smith Dr John Smith]

The thing I want to know is how is trade TV shows on the internet different from what I did when I was a kid?  When I was a kid the kids who had cable would tape the shows the rest of us wanted to see and then I would hook the old VCR that only kind of worked up to the new working VCR and copy the shows onto tapes.  That is how most of us saw Spiderman and Star Trek and shows like that.  How is using the internet to do that worse?  I mean far from hurting the companies it made some of use life long fans of the franchises and we buy their products.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

The thing I want to know is how is trade TV shows on the internet different from what I did when I was a kid?  When I was a kid the kids who had cable would tape the shows the rest of us wanted to see and then I would hook the old VCR that only kind of worked up to the new working VCR and copy the shows onto tapes.  That is how most of us saw Spiderman and Star Trek and shows like that.  How is using the internet to do that worse?  I mean far from hurting the companies it made some of use life long fans of the franchises and we buy their products.

The difference is sharing on the internet is traceable, and so easy to do...

It was still illegal to make a copy of a tape that someone else made, and technically it's illegal to send a tape you made to someone else.  Fair use only covers your own personal copy of something you had/have legal access to, not distribution.  But it wasn't easily traceable and hard/expensive to distribute to lots of people so it got ignored for the most part (they went after the big time bootleggers).  You can now share your digital copy of a show with a practically unlimited number of people using the internet, it was way more expensive to buy, copy, and distribute clunky VHS tapes.

[Raefire]

Here we go again... http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cispa-legislation-seen-by-many-as-sopa-20-20120409,0,259413.story

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 This is the problem with how laws are drafted now.  This particular one could easily be worded to avoid being turned into a new version of SOPA, but they feel the need to make it as broad as possible.

 There is a need to track cyber attacks coming from other countries, so just make the darn bill specific to that threat.  There was a report on the BBC last week that just about every large company has been hacked from China and product information and designs stolen, then those products show up in China a few months later.  So I guess that's why they put the IP wording in, if they had put language in to limit the IP theft to foreign sources it would have been better.

 Of course IP theft has been going on forever, it's just easier now, instead of getting a product and reverse engineering it, all you have to do is hack into the company and steal the design plans.

[Smith Dr John Smith]

Here we go again... http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cispa-legislation-seen-by-many-as-sopa-20-20120409,0,259413.story

You know the more I look at our country the more I think that there is one thing the republicans and democrats agree on and it's that they both seem to think we need a police state and to get rid of free speech.  I tell you I don't think I will be voting in the fall because it seems everyone in Washington supports these attacks on free speech.

[D.B. Barnes]

Here we go again... http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cispa-legislation-seen-by-many-as-sopa-20-20120409,0,259413.story

You know the more I look at our country the more I think that there is one thing the republicans and democrats agree on and it's that they both seem to think we need a police state and to get rid of free speech.  I tell you I don't think I will be voting in the fall because it seems everyone in Washington supports these attacks on free speech.

You know, Doc, every year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful. If we’ll just take the time to look at it.

[Darth Geek]

Here we go again... http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cispa-legislation-seen-by-many-as-sopa-20-20120409,0,259413.story

You know the more I look at our country the more I think that there is one thing the republicans and democrats agree on and it's that they both seem to think we need a police state and to get rid of free speech.  I tell you I don't think I will be voting in the fall because it seems everyone in Washington supports these attacks on free speech.

You know, Doc, every year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful. If we’ll just take the time to look at it.

The good and the beautiful...you mean porn?

[Lembach]

Here we go again... http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cispa-legislation-seen-by-many-as-sopa-20-20120409,0,259413.story

You know the more I look at our country the more I think that there is one thing the republicans and democrats agree on and it's that they both seem to think we need a police state and to get rid of free speech.  I tell you I don't think I will be voting in the fall because it seems everyone in Washington supports these attacks on free speech.

You know, Doc, every year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful. If we’ll just take the time to look at it.

The good and the beautiful...you mean porn?

No, a picture of Tawny Kitaen and a plate of Sauerbraten. Duh.