Some developers have gotten to understand that piracy has led them to publicize their products to a market that they wouldn't have reached otherwise. Many try and never buy, but others try, get convinced, and buy. Of course, if you expect to get into someone's pants and squeeze hundreds or even thousands of dollars out of their pockets, it ain't happening. But serious developers with great products have started to appear; people that understand that the marketplace is different from the old glorious days of yesteryear. They are small operations that bust their butts to cater the poor musician. These people listen to you and provide quality product. They are to be supported and respected for what they do. Developers like HorNet, Tokyo Dawm Labs or Klangheim, the guys at Meldaproduction work to provide quality products for reasonable-to-ridiculous amounts of money.

 

As long as the "Internet" remains "International", countries such as Russia, China, etc., will always turn a blind eye to their own "pirates" leaving the doors open and making all sorts of content available to anyone who has an Internet connection. Politically speaking, there is no upside for these foreign countries to cooperate with the RIAA, SOPA, etc. As a matter of fact, it is no surprise that these countries actually encourage piracy against American companies to undermine their bottom lines. That being said, if you've been around the horn for a spell, you know exactly where those foreign "open doors" are. In spite of the massive exercise in futility of Sony, MPAA, et al, "piracy" will continue to exist in ways that veer off sharply from the "old ways" of obtaining unpaid-for online content. That's becoming more and more of the 'new' reality in today's Internet world. Lastly, I remember that when Napster bit the dust, I signed on to several paid USENET companies and was able to quickly download just about any song that I wanted. These days, I no longer feel the need to resort to my former habits. Just a few thoughts... The 'War On Piracy' reminds me of the Government's interminable (failed) 'War On Drugs'. If you keep throwing more money at the issue, maybe one day it will all just go away. Good luck with that.

 

@NYCGRIFF
Things are changing in Russia as SOPA,RIAA,holywood,sony are pressing on Russia to change its policy and it looks like Russian government is already pressing on these internet sites to shut their servers down.

 

Guys, is there maybe a different way or place to search internet not as google who blocks searches?

 

I remember when some of the earliest DVD protections were cracked by some Swedish teenager.. who was subsequently
asked how he did it.. and replied... "it was easy" and commenced to produce t-shirts displaying his code for doing so..
about 5 lines !

 

I have no doubt about that. However, it's virtually impossible for any government body (no matter how committed) to inspect billions upon billions (possibly trillions) of data packets from millions upon millions of connections. Remember the NSA attempted to do this and found themselves overwhelmed with the sheer volume. Not to mention the elephantine costs associated with this type of surveillance. For heaven' sake, they can't even crack an iPhone to get the data. Not to mention the scads and scads of money spent on Internet terrorist activities. And, don't forget about data encryption, "spoofing"; to name just a few obstacles the "Government" faces... etc., etc...

 

Ofcourse they cant.But what they can do is target a few individuals and make an example for others(long prison sentences + many $$$ fines) and at the same tame scare/trick people into thinking that they are capable of controlling "internet".

 

No more games perhaps, but piracy will live on.

Piracy of academic articles is now more common than ever with the likes of http://sci-hub.io/ and restricting it will restrict the development of science and technology in poorer/developing countries and ultimately cost the world economy many billions of dollars.

 

@Zenarcist so mind to tell a little how traffic analysis could be used against little ol' us? not denying it.. just don't know much about it, other than some companies using traffic shaping... ?

@Von_Steyr

didn't they try that at the beginning? and got reviled for going after grannies.. and
fining 12 y.o.s thousands of $$ .. it seems they are geared more towards bigfish
enabling the piracy these days... no ?

 

Yea,kids,adults and server owners of the internet sites in question.
Its ridiculous really,they are earning more money than ever.
Its the greed.They dont see profits they see "loses".

 

"Traffic Analysis" notwithstanding, unless you're an individual who has created a pattern of daily, heavy volume data transfer (red-flagged yourself) chances are you're not going to set of any ISP bells & whistles. But, as I mentioned, I no longer engage in activities that would raise a red flag.

 

I'm very critical & skeptic when it comes to sentences like these: " It's really hard to make money from..."
I suggest people to try to call it into question, look behind the veils... Why media and public "opinions"
are full of such limitations? WHO decides what to write, publish, spread and WHY?
What are their intentions? Of course the *masterminds* behind all this have their INTERESTS!
They want to tame and control the business = our effective incomes! They try to push us down whenever
they can by generating loops in the economical systems they control. Have you ever wondered why certain
people have access to success or fame and others not? Even if they work & fight much more?

Viewed from this angle PIRACY can have liberating effects, because the *masterminds* fear the loss of
total control over cash, people, society, people's decisions. They created their rigid system of classes
and want to perpetuate it forever, condemn people to submission, slavery, mental & economic slavery!
But slaves cannot get wealthy because they continue to feed their masters, also in a mental way.

It´s really hard to make money from your Music
It´s really hard to make money from your Art
It´s really hard to make money from what you LOVE to do

 

This is quite interesting to hear everyone's thoughts. I spent the last few years living in Los Angeles, and was presented by a new music format that would 1000 percentage stop piracy of music. It was insane what they had developed, from what I remember it was like a .RAW format but its not downloadable like your typical formats, it was played, streamed instantly and involved licensing to your devices.

It also had a way to categorize bits and pieces, the sound quality was uncompressed and sounded like a .wav if not better. They have been into meetings to share this technology and nobody so far has decided to take it on, which I thought was quite odd.

Literally if the record labels had this new format, they could force everyone to buy music, yet none of the meetings resulted in anything from it.

 

But couldn't someone just make a tool to transcode this format into .wav or .mp3 or whatever? Then whoever had access could just transcode it anyway.

Yes, it would force everyone to buy. Including themselves, and if they happen to listen music from competitors, I'm sure they don't want to support the competition.

Also, business wise, isn't it a fact that artists and thus their labels make more money from live shows then album sales? so as an artist, i would rather all my fans pirate my album, share it with all their friends, then use the money saved to come to my concerts as a group. Wouldn't you?

 

Im trying to find the info, it was mind blowing. I know one of the original developers from Real Player was involved, this guy from Van Halen, and a few other companies.

They also had a new social media tracking device that you could track analytics all the way down to the source of who the influencers really are. What i mean by that is, say i share a song to 1,000 people and got 50,000 shares/downloads on Facebook, etc.

Right now currently, we can see that I got 1,000 views and 50,000 shares/downloads. But what exactly happens when those 1,000 people share it on their profile? It basically tracks the entire process, so I see ok I sent it to this person and they got me 5,000 shares, but this next person didnt get any, so next time, why bother every sending it to them.

 

Sorry for spelling errors I was typing in a rush. You guys have a good day, i got to run for now!

 

And, I appreciate where you're coming from. However, I know more than a few things that you're talking about, and based on my own understanding, it's not all black or white. There are variables in all equations. No need for you to convince me of anything. Have a good day.

 

Last edited: Feb 27, 2016

LOL!! I remember DL'ing games from BBS's at 300baud too! I used to go to sleep then wake up and hope its done.

 

What was that saying from the old TV series, "Hill Street Blues"? "Be careful out there?" There's little doubt that folks have to exercise a great deal of caution these days. Shit. It's a war out there; and yes, there will be casualties! <lol>

 

Such "protection" is worthless. Don't you remember the cassette tape? It is no protection at all.