Is blocking sites the right way to tackle illegal downloads?

Not everyone knows how to encrypt (me too), so surely education should be a tool but are new tools universal esp as the rogue is nearly — just ahead! So hey for now at least use a combo of tools and effective education. Not everyone is as the late r. Fenyman and able to think with complete understanding “on their feet”!

[Hello Wild Thing, please try not to write in all caps – it sounds like you’re shouting. Check out our Commenting Guidelines if you’re unsure. Thanks, mods.]

I know what you mean. I absolutely hate those illegal download ads. It talks about supporting the film industry but doesn’t say what that means, which is useless. I think it means giving more budding film makers opportunities but that’s not clear, instead they appear to be saying, support the film industry, please line our executives pockets. I work in marketing, so I’m particularly enraged by this useless communications exercise. I also think it’s the wrong argument. Let’s find some filmmakers and do something better.

The real point about rip of DVDs for me is that they are funding crime, so when you buy Toy Story to entertain your kids at the weekend you’re probably funding a dealer who’ll get them into trouble when they get to their early teens. That’s the point, what kind of person/enterprise are you funding.

Do you understand the technical implications of what you are suggesting? – in addition the loss of all internet connection because of accessing a site is well on the way to censorship in general.

What happens if a child accesses a site – does everyone in the house get punished?

What if another legitimate website is hosted on the same IP as the problem site?

What if you access the site by accident or have your wireless connection used by your neighbour/AN other?

This kind of over the top reaction is what leads to poorly thought out and impractical legislation. Understand the problem before offering an opinion on how to solve it.

Sorry I understand the technical implications of what I suggest – I get tired of the lack of responsibility shown by so many “it’s never my fault” – it IS your fault.

If it is your child that downloads – it is your fault for lack of supervision – If your connection is at fault – it is your responsibility. That’s what all the safeguards are for – You cannot download a film “by accident”.

Frankly I understand the problem – but I doubt if you understand or accept YOUR responsibility/

Wow – You make the assumption that I am guilty when in fact I am just interested and well informed on the subject – Well done for clarifying that you are both uninformed and an over-reactionary though, it is appreciated.

If you did understand the implications then you would have understood the point about the same IP hosting multiple sites or for example the ease with which a connection to a site can be masked via a VPN. (there are many more examples)

Blocking sites will not work – full stop.

However, educating people to the implications of what they are doing, backed up, as the more sensible people in this convo have suggested, with well thought out legal downloads will get much more of a result for the media owners. The sooner they realise this and stop listening to their lawyers or people like you the better.

You can’t educate people into not using illegal sites. People ‘steal’ in this way because it’s easy and there are no consequences. If it were harder to do, or if there were actual penalties, like stealing from a shop, then people would still do it but much, much less. All the ‘education’ about supporting the film industry you see inserted in the front of DVDs hasn’t done a thing to halt the spread of people buying cheap rip offs. I’m not counting myself as morally superior. I’d probably steal from supermarkets if I were less well off, or if it were easier. Imagine going into Sainsbury’s and having people pay on trust. The store would be empty within hours. It’s just not in our nature.

I’m confused about the argument justifies stealing because cinemas are too expensive or that a few musicians make millions. They don’t exist just to entertain you. If I can’t afford something I don’t buy it, I don’t steal Gucci handbags because I think they’re overpriced but I deserve one. Part of what’s wrong with society is people thinking they deserve everything without having to work or wait for it.

And there’s another consequence, for every artist that makes it big, there’s hundreds of others the music industry had a go on that didn’t get anywhere. They need mega profits in some areas to give others a chance. It’s the same for cinema. A low-budget film can still cost about 10 million, a massive gamble to take if it doesn’t make the box office numbers it needs to. It’s a huge investment of time, energy and resources and people still think they should enjoy it for free. I don’t imagine you’d be happy to work all day on something, then find someone had walked off with what you’ve done without paying you. Piracy is less personal but the principle is the same. Piracy means less revenue, which ultimately means less investment in anything which isn’t completely mainstream and that impoverishes our culture and wastes a lot of talent that will never get a chance all because people think they deserve to be entertained for free.

All these people saying blocking sites will never work are just hoping the idea won’t catch on, so they can do on getting something for nothing. If people aren’t able to police themselves, then it’s very clear they need someone to do it for them.

Good answer on many levels and yes educating that downloading is bad people will not prevent many from doing it – I want to get the companies to educate people differently…..

However, the point about the messages in DVDs illustrates the point very well – putting anti-piracy flyers in a purchased DVD is preaching to the converted and the same penalising of legitimate customers is rife in media protection activities – Ubisofts DRM program for example.

Also, I re-iterate I am not condoning these activities! – I am merely stating that blocking websites will not work – not through self interest but from a technical and logistical point of view. Any work done by an ISP to stop a website will be circumvented, within hours. The way bittorrent works is based on a an un-centralised data model – it is designed to perpetuate beyond a single server or website. Newsbin is just a list pointing to where the data is hosted – it is very easy to set up another list or have the list migrated to areas that are unenforceable – for example social networks could very quickly be adapted to a similar role and how do you block that?!?

Any attempt to do this will fail miserably like most government initiatives directed at digital media- they just don’t understand it and by the time they do things have moved on.

The media rights owners are only marginally better and that is where the problem will be beaten. Innovators in this field understand – for example online games distribution is starting to understand people will pay for something if it is cheap, easily accessible and has added value – Steam or other similar services are having a huge success in this arena and are teaching the traditional distributors a lesson. There is growing evidence that if you don’t use DRM but release something for free with an option to pay afterwards you get more revenue than if you had protected it in the first place.

Basically the traditional distribution models don’t work very well for digital and the quicker we stop trying to enforce the will of the big corporates through governmental legislation the better

There will always be people who steal – giving people better options to buy will reap far more dividends than DRM which only penalises those who have already been a loyal customer

I agree there should be better ways to distribute I was reacting to all this let’s throw our hands in the air and give up from people. Although that said, I have gone back to buying CDs recently as I find itunes very unsatisfactory (easy to loose, or delete, tedious to authorise and deauthorise on different machines, although buying individual tracks is great). I’ve heard of Steam but I’m not a gamer. I’ve heard lots of positive things about online gaming. I suppose for me, things like music and films, I want to own, that’s what’s frustrating with itunes etc. I don’t have enough tech expertise to give advice on what should be done about piracy sites, I just assume as an uninitiate that there must be clever people with equally devious solutions, although high-tech is not a term I associate with government interventions (and frankly shame on them that it isn’t). I agree better communication and better distribution is an important part of the solution. The thing I said about Cannabis is not because I’m a smoker, I had a chat with a policeman mate about the money and time wasted on small personal users. I won’t bore you with the details but he made a convincing case for better targeting of resources.

The drug discussion is a perfect analogy for this debate really – all the huge amount of money, time and lives wasted on enforcement could have been far better channelled into education in a legalised system – and I guess the big drink and tobacco manufacturers are the equivalent of the MPA in trying to prevent a sensible solution to the issue.

You can probably rely on the deviousness of evaders overcoming that of enforcers for the forseeable in both these cases 😉

Agreed. Nor would they expect telephone service providers (BT) to be responsible for blocking unsolicited calls, obscene calls, ‘dead’ calls, terrorist calls, etc.

The only possible reason is corruption.

Agreed. And if they put in half the effort to ‘get’ spammers, the Internet would be twice as fast and so much safer!

Over 75% of spam originates in North America, which sort of illustrates that it is industry money that is having an unhealthy influence with lawmakers.

So cannabis is OK but heroin isn’t?!?! – I thought you were sticking up for the law here?

Your earlier comment made sense but you just jumped the shark with that one.

Public information broadcasts on the evils of piracy may not work but educating people that buying from a legitimate online store has benefits may well do.

And while we are at it the assumption that people download things only because they are lazy and cheap is again somewhat ignorant of the motivators.

Maybe it is easier?
Maybe if there was a quick easy way to get some music or film people would use it?.
Maybe the person who downloads a film would never have bought it but after seeing it they go out and buy a legitimate copy?
Maybe they download TV programmes because they are not in to see it when scheduled?
Maybe their favourite artists album is out in the states now but not out in the UK for another three months?

All of these do not justify stealing but are failings of the distributors in understanding their customer base and result in lost sales – understand your customer and provide them with the correct tools to buy and you can easily prevent them turning to alternate means – That is education and the way to beat piracy.

@ Lombear

You are correct. Downloading movies, TV series, whatever, has nothing to do with being lazy. I can order a DVD on line for next day delivery cheaper than the shops and as simple as can be. And as I stated previously, I don’t want a shelf full of DVDs or CDs gathering dust either.

I won’t pay £15 for a DVD: it is that simple. If the industry provided legal downloads of movies using quality compression in 720p/DTS, then I would willing pay a reasonable sum for this. And a reasonable is not £15 either. Eliminating the DVD production, packaging, distribution and middle man & end sellers margins would suggest that a fiver would be reasonable – probably better profit than they get now.

There is also the delay in release of movies and the delay in broadcasting TV series. The industry needs to understand that communications – and in particular the Internet – has shrunk the world in the last 10 years. The days of broadcasting House Series 7 in the USA a year before it is shown in the UK are long gone.

I quite happily pay for my music downloads – all legal and usually good value – with more providers now using lossless compression such as FLAC. But what are the movie industry doing! They’re lobbying Parliament to make it the ISPs’ responsibility to enforce the industry’s belligerent stance.

Well I can be belligerent too.They will lose and we will win.