New Bill Would Require U.S. ISPs to Block Pirate Sites

madtownidiot said:

A vast majority of people are basically honest, and have a conscience that prevents them from stealing the first place.

People who pirate software and music are not honest people. Many of them probably don't have the money to afford whatever it is they're pirating, and except for a small minority of borderline characters, the rest of them would probably never pay for some things under any circumstance.. so where's the loss?

I work with a bunch of honest people and I have friends that are honest people...but I've seen them all pirate software and music and they have asked me about places to get some of this software for free. And I have to admit to them that although I am an IT guy...I honestly don't know where to get this stuff.

There are lots of basically honest people who pirate software simply because it's so easy to do. So, for some of these people, they would pirate less if things were a bit more difficult.

The difference between these honest people and me being honest...is that I more or less follow a principal that says
1). there is probably a free alternative for what I want and I search for it
2). and if I find the free solution doesn't meet my needs, paying for a software package that does is considered
3). So, i compare the value of my need against the cost basis of the software and if my needs outweigh the cost, I buy the software.

Not everybody sticks to principals like this. I do realize this. And I work for a software company currently and have always worked for software companies...so I have a basic need for software to not be stolen. Obviously this sways my viewpoint.

I see both points to this.

I have many times tried a demo of something and decided I liked it enough, and felt it was worth the price they were asking, I made the purchase.

On the other hand, Ive tried things I felt simplt were not as advertised or not worth the asking price.

But I think there is a difference. in this case its a "potential" customer.


But I would also agree with madtownidiot to a certain extent.

Meaning, in our cases, we tried said software and were potential customers at that point, who then turned to a paying customer.


Sadly, most Pirates do not have that mindset. They never were, or ever will be a "potential" customer, at any point.

They are just after whatever they can get at no cost to themselves.
So in a sense, for some of them, there was nothing lost as they would never have considered the purchase in the 1st place.

Still, this doesnt account for all that pirate software. Some would potentally buy the product.
But once they have a "free" copy thats working 1/2 decent, , why spend the cash?
In this case, it is indeed a lost sale.

Vertex said:

Will they block sites like Piratebay?? Oh well I guess if they really cared about legal software, they should have done this long ago. Piracy has been going on for many years. But this won't stop people from trying to get illegal software anyway. Some of them may even see this as a challenge.

They theoretically can't because by iteself, Pirate Bay isn't a pirate site and simply a collection of torrents. Torrents, by itself, are also completely legal.

Plus, for the both of us (I mean you, Vertex, and me), our ISPs and goverment couldn't care any less for piracy

Tews said:

The problem with setting this type of precedent is that once it is established, then it becomes easy to censor other "suspect" content.. say websites that offer political dissent... and it all started out with the best of intentions... to curb piracy ... but the road to he*l is paved with good intentions...

++1

The biggest problem with this is once you sensor one part of the internet then it becomes much easier for the Government to censor other parts of the internet. So if the Government does not agree with someone’s ideas or a groups ideas (something gaining momentum against the Government) then the Government will censor it and we begin to lose the freedoms we fought so hard for.

One must remember once you give Government and inch they will take 100,000 miles.

BCXtreme said:

24c said:

Tews said:

The problem with setting this type of precedent is that once it is established, then it becomes easy to censor other "suspect" content.. say websites that offer political dissent... and it all started out with the best of intentions... to curb piracy ... but the road to he*l is paved with good intentions...

Web sites that offer illegal software/activities for sale/distribution are not the same as websites that offer opinions. Opinions are not illegal, although I think many should be.

And who's going to watchdog everything to make sure only true piracy sites are being blocked?

Exactly the Government cannot be the one that decides what should be a censored site, that is like putting the wolf in charge of the gate at the hen house.

BCXtreme said:

kodi said:

Ho. Hum. Here we go again.
To an Australian this has been done to death, we have been talking about this for a very long time when the Government tried to implement a filter to stop these sights.
Bottom line, it won't work because any ten year old will know how to circumvent it.
Just Google Australian filter and you will find everything that is going to be posted here.

Exactly. Which is why the only real effect of this bill, would be to give government more power.

+1 Exactly!

Layback Bear said:

Most of us know what torrents are used for and why. What a law like this will do if used properly is stop know illegal web sits. What legal program would one get on line that a torrent would be needed. Why would one need a torrent site to down load legal copies of movies or music. You can buy such things and down load them from one legal web site with no problems. Stopping these kinds of sites just might slow down all the bad things that come from these sites like virus, Trojans, ect. You can fill a 1 Tig hard drive with music and movies all you have to do is pay for the ones that are not free. Why would that be a problem?

Nope, I don’t think that everyone knows what torrenting is about. Most think it is about illegal software. It is a protocol and can be used for very good things. We have used it many times to distribute OS loads to many sites in your company efficiently over slow WAN lines (including over Internet connections), this way once one machine has the image all the other machines could now start getting it from the LAN and the WAN, once many machines on the LAN had the image then all machines quickly get it off the LAN. The torrent protocol saved us thousands of man hours and with extremely tight budgets and an extremely small IT staff supporting thousands of machines this is an amazing technology.

pparks1 said:

Layback Bear said:

Why would one need a torrent site to down load legal copies of movies or music. You can buy such things and down load them from one legal web site with no problems.

I download most of my Linux distros from torrent downloads. These downloads are posted right on the official vendors website. The reason I use them is that with something like Ubuntu or Fedora...on the day (or week) of release, the official HTTP site is so overwhelmed with traffic that you might download at most 20KB/sec from these sites. But if you go with the torrent link, you might get 800-1500KB/sec and get the download finished far more quickly.

+1 for the right use of torrenting. :)

pparks1 said:

geekfreak said:

the isp has no idea when you do or don't use a ip chsanger, so the are s*** out of luck.

But how do you get to the site used to change your IP address?

At the end of the day, if the request for data leaves your computer and arrives back at your computer...your ISP knows about it. It's possible to put the pieces back together if need be. It would involve the cooperation of various parties, but it's entirely possible. It just really cracks me up when people go through these anonymizers, proxies and IP changers fully believing that they have positively hidden their identity.

You have no idea, I have been in some major classified sites and Government can type your name into the computer and not only does it tell them everything about you, but who your neighbors are and all about your family in a family tree format. This system is now being used by law enforcement and is coming to an area near you soon.

When it comes to the internet the above system is on steroids and would blow your mind. I ran a check on myself and it knew everything and I mean everything.

If we keep giving the Government control we will lose our all freedoms.