Toronto Passions

Mega Upload Shut Down!

Steve~

Banned
Mar 3, 2011
541
0
0
RIAA Record Nazis have been hard at work removing many stereo quality sounding videos to prevent this. RIAA may leave the crappy sounding songs on YouTube. Some artists have been completely removed from YouTube to keep you from saving any of their tunes.

Years ago YouTube was just as good as Napster, Kazaa, WinMX, Limewire, et al. Found a couple good quality tunes on YouTube I couldn't find anywhere else. Today many on those songs have been removed and sound quality of many of those remaining is not as good as it used to be...:frown:
Ha!! there is a way around that bullshit. All you have to do is add '&fmt=18' or '&fmt=22' at the end of any YouTube Url to get stereo quality.
 

luckyjackson

Active member
Aug 19, 2001
1,505
2
38
Everyone likes to get paid for the work that they do, and so from that perspective I'm sympathetic towards efforts to stop piracy. It is no excuse that movies/music/etc. are "too expensive" etc... if you don't want to pay, you don't have the right to watch/listen to it (I can't say I'm a saint in this area.. but I know I shouldn't be doing it, and don't try to justify it).

Imagine "piracy" in this industry.. this SP charges too much for FS.. so I'm going to have sex with her, and then not pay!! Would anyone find that acceptable? Of course not - it's rape. Same principle applies..
Yes, I agree. Not a very good analogy. If I download a copy of something I've already paid for, is that stealing? If I download a tv show I missed recording, is that stealing? Same with Youtube...it's apparently ok to listen to music on YT and make your own playlists, so if I do this on my phone, how is it different from having downloaded it? I'm still listening without paying.

The solution is to charge a yearly subscription fee that gives you access to a wide library of content, like Apple and Netflix are doing. Why should I have to pay Rogers or Bell for content I don't want and never watch? They want to shove that shit down your throat and make you pay $100.00 a month or more + $$ for movies etc. A sustainable solution has to offer more and better content for less money, otherwise people will continue to go the illegal route...and frankly, more power to 'em until the studios etc come to their senses.
 

simon482

internets icon
Feb 8, 2009
9,966
175
63
from what i am seeing around the places i go to all the sites that hate each other and some of the neutrals are all getting their shit together. 4chan and 9gag working together, reddit getting in on it and imgur is plotting. they are all backing anonymous. seems like the internet has declared war.
 

DigitallyYours

Off TERB indefinitely
Oct 31, 2010
1,540
0
0
Interesting guy.

(Reuters) - Among the roll-call of hip-hop artists and other celebrities plugging Megaupload.com's digital storage services in an online promotional video, a cameo from the website's founder would have gone unnoticed by many.

As the voiceover boasts of the site's billion users and four percent share of all Internet traffic, a colossal figure clad in black appears in a music studio.

"Bit by bit, it's a hit, it's a hit!" founder Kim Dotcom booms in a slight accent that hints at his German roots.

The hits may have just run out for Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Investor, who spent his 38th birthday on Saturday in a New Zealand jail after 70 police raided his country estate and cut him out of a safe room he had barricaded himself in.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which requested the raid, says Dotcom masterminded a scheme that made more than $175 million in a few short years by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization.

Megaupload's U.S. lawyer said the company merely offered online storage, would "vigorously defend itself" and was trying to recover its servers and get back online.

The arrest marks the latest twist in the checkered story of Dotcom, a former hacker who got his first computer at nine before going on to build an Internet fortune and friendships with music stars including Alicia Keys, Will.i.am and P.Diddy who appeared on the Megaupload.com promo video.

EARLY STARTER

Born in the German city of Kiel, Dotcom -- who was then known as Schmitz -- grew up in northern Germany.

As a child, he made copies of computer games to sell to his friends, and in the early days of the Internet, began hacking into computers via telephones, according to reputed German daily Die Welt.

Schmitz has made no secret of his controversial past as a cyber-raider, hacking into computer networks at NASA, the Pentagon and at least one major bank.

As the hacker pioneer generation came of age, so did Schmitz. After being convicted of computer hacking in 1998, he made a fortune providing computer security consulting and venture capital investment via the firm Kimvestor.

According to German magazine Der Spiegel, Schmitz once boasted he would become one of the richest men in the world. How was he so sure? "I'm smarter than Bill Gates," he said.

Schmitz, who also called himself Kimble after the wrongly convicted doctor-on-the-run in the film "The Fugitive," became well known for his lavish lifestyle as much as his computer skills.

He briefly became a fixture in Germany's nouveau riche party scene and made his own film, shot with a hand-held camera, Kimble Goes Monaco. The hulking Schmitz -- reportedly two meters tall and weighing more than 130 kg -- was often shown in Germany's tabloid press with fast cars and a model on his arm.

Schmitz's website at one point featured photographs of him racing cars, shooting an assault rifle and flying around the world in his private jet on lavish vacations.

"I have a different attitude towards money than those who rather hoard it," he said during an appearance on the Harald Schmidt Show, a popular late-night talk show in Germany. "I would rather spend it and have a lot of fun."

A documentary about the outlaw Gumball 3000 road race of 2001 by German TV station RTL filmed Schmitz driving the Russian leg of the rally in excess of 240 kph (150 mph) in a 480-horsepower Mercedes sedan, and then laughing when an opponent is pulled over by police in Finland. "Our competition is out of the way!" he says in jubilation.

Schmitz liked promoting himself through stunts such as offering up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of Osama bin Laden in the wake of terror attacks against the United States.

THE NAME'S DOTCOM. KIM DOTCOM

But in 2002, he was convicted in what was then the largest insider-trading case in German history.

Prosecutors said Schmitz bought shares in an online business and drove up the share price by announcing plans to invest millions to rescue the company from insolvency. After selling his shares for a profit, he fled to Thailand, was arrested and deported.

A Munich court sentenced the then 28-year-old to 20 months probation and a 100,000-euro fine.

After his conviction, Schmitz disappeared from public view, reappearing a couple of years ago in New Zealand, having legally changed his name to Dotcom.

He and his family moved into a multimillion dollar mansion outside Auckland and were granted residency after promising to invest at least NZ$10 million ($8 million) in New Zealand.

The leased 20-hectare property, set in rolling hills northwest of Auckland, is one of the largest and most expensive in the country, featuring manicured lawns, fountains, pools, palm-lined paths and extensive security.

In an interview with the New Zealand Herald Newspaper last year, Dotcom said residency would allow him, his wife, Mona, and their three children to live in a country that would become a "rare paradise on Earth."

"I might be one of the most flamboyant characters New Zealand has ever seen but my intentions are good and I would like to see New Zealand flourish to its fullest potential," he said.

Dotcom reportedly paid $500,000 for a massive New Year's Eve fireworks display over Auckland which he and Mona watched from their private helicopter.

The FBI estimates that Dotcom personally made around $115,000 a day during 2010 from his empire. The list of property to be forfeited, including almost 20 luxury cars, one of them a pink Cadillac, hints at a lavish lifestyle which may be about to be put on hold.
 

groggy

Banned
Mar 21, 2011
15,262
0
0
There was a study done in Sweden that showed that the top downloaders were also in the top as purchasers of entertainment media.
So Sweden decided not to inflict harsh copyright laws.
 

kaempferrand

Member
Sep 2, 2004
303
0
16
MONTREAL!!!
And today Filesonic went tits up as well. Now you can only upload and download materials from your own account only. You can't share stuff with others anymore.
 

GG2

Mr. Debonair
Apr 8, 2011
3,183
0
0
Filesonic is going to lose all its traffic now that they've eliminated filesharing.
 

fuji

Banned
Jan 31, 2005
80,011
7
0
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
is.gd
i am still under the opinion that netflix was on the right path, but fucked it up horribly.
Next time you are in the US, give Netflix a try there. You will be shocked how much better it is. They have a heck of a lot more content, and a lot more recent content. The problem in Canada is that they haven't got licenses for enough of the content. Either they just haven't tried hard enough here, or alternately I've heard that Bell/Rogers specifically negotiated content licenses that shut netflix out of many titles. Either way, the Canadian netflix is a poor substitute for the US one.

To me it's unreasonable to expect the latest hollywood blockbuster for $8/month. I see netflix as a replacement for cable TV. Think about it this way, I pay $40/month or so for my physical connection, and then subscribe to a bunch of packages, like netflix, for $8/month, and a few other things. All in the total price for my connection and my subscriptions is similar to the price for cable TV, just better. You don't expect to find the latest hollywood blockbuster playing on City TV the day after it hits the theater. You expect it to hit City a year or so later. I see netflix as a "make your own TV station playlist" kind of deal, with that level of content--and that's a great thing.

I would be quite happy with a model where I could pay a reasonable "pay per view" rental rate to watch a new release movie and get everything that's a year or two older via an all-in cheap monthly subscription like Netflix.
 

oldjones

CanBarelyRe Member
Aug 18, 2001
24,489
11
38
As a general rule people don't steal what they can buy at what they think of as the appropriate price. The trouble with the SOPA/PIPA model is that it leaves setting that price and even whether the thing can be bought at all (as fuji alludes to above) entirely up to one side of the commercial deal. With the full penalty of criminal law behind their demands. That would be quite appropriate if the 'piracy' actually robbed them of the goods in question, like stealing a car off the dealer's lot, so they no longer had them as business assets, but it does not. All it 'robs' them of is the entirely notional profit they might have made if they had managed to persuade that person to pay their non-negociable price. It's as if Avis wanted the cops to prevent your friend from lending you his car so you had to rent theirs.

It amounts to enlisting the police as sales-staff in an extortionate version of the marketplace. Lost in all of the yapping is the fact that this stuff is not baubles or toys, or cars. It's communication of ideas, as essential to human existence as food, and it's as much in everyone's interest to ensure that it flows throughout the community as it is to ensure no one hoards the food we depend on or has to starve without it. Also lost is the truth of just who created the stuff: it isn't the artists lobbying the pols, it's the businesses that feed on the artists (and for which the artists had no alternative until the internet made self-publishing a real possibility) Ever since the first copyright protected the first printers and publishers artists have had to fight for their share. And we haven't even touched on the knowledge-costs to humanity of letting stuff stay out of print forever, or of keeping it out of certain markets because no-one's yet bid for a continent or country-wide license.

Here's a small thought: Let's call this a Copyright Law: Let the 'owners' of works decide what their fair per-copy take is, then as long as you send that few cents off via PayPal, you can download it or copy it wherever you find it. If you want their fancy packaging in their store with the muzak and coffee bar, by all means you can pay for that. One other thing: no right to that payment is enforceable without a share of it going to the author.

And why should any of those rights outlive the original author? Thanks to Mickey Mouse, those 'rights' now outlive their grandkids. Not that they didn't long ago fall into the hands of a corporation. Corporations are immortal y'know, no grandkids necessary.

Disclosure: I spent close to thirty years collectively creating movies and TV shows, works that SOPA and PIPA would protect. In spite of trailers with SFX techs begging you not to take the bread from his children's mouths by copying movies, I can assure you that only by continuous union pressure have writers and directors at least—but not production designers like me, nor any SFX techs—finally managed to extract a grudging share of the proceeds of their creativity over the strong resistance of those these laws would protect.

And it's those same powerful folks who have ensured you don't have Hulu and NetFlix access on this side of the lake. And who are trying to garner public support with words like 'piracy'. Let's start looking at them as the pirates, sitting on their hoard of treasure, and concentrate on keeping that good stuff circulating.
 

red

you must be fk'n kid'g me
Nov 13, 2001
17,572
8
38
As a general rule people don't steal what they can buy at what they think of as the appropriate price. The trouble with the SOPA/PIPA model is that it leaves setting that price and even whether the thing can be bought at all (as fuji alludes to above) entirely up to one side of the commercial deal. With the full penalty of criminal law behind their demands. That would be quite appropriate if the 'piracy' actually robbed them of the goods in question, like stealing a car off the dealer's lot, so they no longer had them as business assets, but it does not. All it 'robs' them of is the entirely notional profit they might have made if they had managed to persuade that person to pay their non-negociable price. It's as if Avis wanted the cops to prevent your friend from lending you his car so you had to rent theirs.

It amounts to enlisting the police as sales-staff in an extortionate version of the marketplace. Lost in all of the yapping is the fact that this stuff is not baubles or toys, or cars. It's communication of ideas, as essential to human existence as food, and it's as much in everyone's interest to ensure that it flows throughout the community as it is to ensure no one hoards the food we depend on or has to starve without it. Also lost is the truth of just who created the stuff: it isn't the artists lobbying the pols, it's the businesses that feed on the artists (and for which the artists had no alternative until the internet made self-publishing a real possibility) Ever since the first copyright protected the first printers and publishers artists have had to fight for their share. And we haven't even touched on the knowledge-costs to humanity of letting stuff stay out of print forever, or of keeping it out of certain markets because no-one's yet bid for a continent or country-wide license.

Here's a small thought: Let's call this a Copyright Law: Let the 'owners' of works decide what their fair per-copy take is, then as long as you send that few cents off via PayPal, you can download it or copy it wherever you find it. If you want their fancy packaging in their store with the muzak and coffee bar, by all means you can pay for that. One other thing: no right to that payment is enforceable without a share of it going to the author.

And why should any of those rights outlive the original author? Thanks to Mickey Mouse, those 'rights' now outlive their grandkids. Not that they didn't long ago fall into the hands of a corporation. Corporations are immortal y'know, no grandkids necessary.

Disclosure: I spent close to thirty years collectively creating movies and TV shows, works that SOPA and PIPA would protect. In spite of trailers with SFX techs begging you not to take the bread from his children's mouths by copying movies, I can assure you that only by continuous union pressure have writers and directors at least—but not production designers like me, nor any SFX techs—finally managed to extract a grudging share of the proceeds of their creativity over the strong resistance of those these laws would protect.

And it's those same powerful folks who have ensured you don't have Hulu and NetFlix access on this side of the lake. And who are trying to garner public support with words like 'piracy'. Let's start looking at them as the pirates, sitting on their hoard of treasure, and concentrate on keeping that good stuff circulating.
translation- i don't get anything out of copyright laws so i should be able to steal
 
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