Realy, how can you defeat that? Forget net neutrality, who will stop them? the FCC already went after Comcast for throttling, and now it’s suddenly the industry standard! Without real competition for broadband (why can’t this work the way dial-up did, with lots of companies buying acccess?) this story will end soon.

The best solution is user education; anything else is a band-aid at best. Lesson one: put a hardware firewall between yourself and the Internet, typically in the form of a cheap NAT router. Lesson two: use Firefox instead of IE. Lesson three: porn doesn’t end in .exe or .js or .vbs or .doc, and TURN OFF HIDING OF FILE EXTENSIONS SO YOU CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE! Lesson four: stop listening to Kim Komando; she’s sponsored by the crappiest software ever (PC Tools junk and Spy Sweeper), and actively endorses it.

As for MySpace and Facebook, if you’re actually putting personal information or pictures up and not marking it “private,” you need a serious wake-up call.

The guy who wrote that list needs to do some more research though…why in the blazing hell was LimeWire left off the list, and why are legitimate tools like torrent clients being listed? Surfer, man, I don’t know where you get your info, but you’ve missed the mark terribly with that list.

The funny thing is, I used to believe there COULD be a “balance” — a legitimate place for coercive monopolies such as copyright and patents. Ironically, it’s folks like “Sam” that disabused me of that notion. (That, and the fact that — unlike them — I can actually read.)

What the hell does “Sam” design, anyway? Sex-toys? Or does he do web-design?
It’s odd that you don’t hear more web-designers bitching about the emergence of blogging software, or trying to get it banned because it potentially threatens their “bidness model”.

Pardon me if I completely fail to shed even ONE tear for the poor, beleaguered RIAA/MPAA/IFPI and their various apologists.

Where he and his arguments are equally, (to quote Henry Emrich) “dismemeberd, drawn, quartered, eviscerated, boiled, burned, snorted,
and shot into yet another steaming heap.”

stw

“Sam” does this pretty often, actually:
1. He shows up here (or on Torrentfreak, or over on Ezee.se), issues some vacuous RIAA-sanctioned gibberish mixed with a good dose of condescension/blustering, all the while frantically denying that he’s trolling.

2. If I happen to spot him, I usually make it a point to troll-smash him pretty severely. Partly this is because I genuinely enjoy making him look even more ignorant than he already does, and party it’s because he tends to mention me. Primarily, however, it’s because I have a damn near eidetic memory, and a zero-tolerance policy toward corporate weasels.
See, “Sam’s” theory seems to be that if he dissapears for a few days/weeks/months, people will forget what a lying, ignorant, mindless little RIAA fanboy he really is. I’m not like that. Jon keeps saying that I should get “Sam” out of my mind, but I don’t — primarily because it’s HIS type who give the RIAA/MPAA/scumbags whatever air of moral legitimacy they manage to retain.

So whenever he shows up here or on another blog, I let him spew his idiotic nonsense for a while, and then challenge him — yet again — to actually defend his viewpoint as opposed to sermonizing about how p2p is a “temporary moral lapse” etc.

It’s not that the guy’s a coward, so much as completely, stubbornly, willfully ignorant.

So that’s how it works: he pops up, I methodically (obsessively) pick up exactly where we left off last time, and he retreats.

How many times have I done this, now? Six?

P.S.: a “coalition” containing the RIAA is about as useful as a “vegetarian cookbook” put out by the beef industry.

piracy is stealing an object for profit.

p2p is stealing nothing and no profit is made – except perhaps by the lokis and other scum who charge admission to their so-called private websites.

many people here are still referring to something called “illegal filesharing”. what’s that? there’s no such animal. there’s no such law anywhere afaik which mentions it. there might be some obscure trial judgment that gives it (p2p) a similar label (and might be in the process of a successful appeal), but no law has been sanctioned against so-called “illegal filesharing”.

because it isn’t illegal and one has the right to copy and/or share what they’ve legally purchased. trading 1’s and 0’s is not illegal.

someone above – probably sam – said jon (and others here) have never talked to the performers or others in the entertainment industry.

that’s a lie.

a couple of years ago (i think) jon attended some kind of seminar in the UK and met with a BBC programmer. jon can remind us all of what took place.

i’ve also met with world famous musicians (and no-so-famous ones). they all agree with what i’ve said above and encourage it.

The Commitments (one of the most famous, recognizable, and approachable bands on the globe) who i interviewed in person for p2pnet are absolutely not against p2p, and encourage their fans to share their stuff. in fact, they even let us post a song of their’s here for anyone to have. they know that the record companies get the lion’s share of any profits and the performers are the last to see a dime – if anything.

they also do not receive a cent from sales or rentals of their movie – which has been seen by over a billion people, named the best Irish film of all time, and has secured a slot in the UK’s 100 best films of all time.

The Commitment, like all right-thinking people, know that p2p cannot be stopped. and that any endeavor to stop it creates hatred for the industry’s unions, besides being a waste of time, effort and money.

Peter Jackson has still to receive his full share of royalties for King Kong.

also, as i’ve written here before, Monty Python is giving their stuff away for free on gootube. in just a few months, sales of their works have skyrocketed to a whopping 23,000% increase.

sharing – or downloading absolutely does not equal a lost sale. it can, and does, increase sales, as has been proved time and again. it increases awareness of a film, tv show, record, which translates into sales of tickets and merchandise.

Joss Whedon created Dr.Horrible and shared it with the world. although he knew it would be recorded and shared, he also knew that his gesture would increase merchandise sales, itunes sales, and dvd sales. which it did.

i’ve personally bought many films and tv shows i’d downloaded. many others can’t be found on dvd anywhere anymore. but even many many more i’d never pay for because they aren’t worth it (to me)

many films and shows where i live are not shown in English. although the technology exists to air it in dual audio, the so-called rights are sometimes too expensive for the stations.

still more don’t reach my country on tv or dvd for sometimes months or years – if ever. one recent film was WALL-E. it was available on US dvd in 2008, but in my country I wasn’t allowed to buy it until the end of january 2009. i wasn’t even allowed to buy the NTSC version until then, either. i didn’t want to wait, and indeed i won’t be forced to wait. so i downloaded a copy in 2008.

but i did eventually buy my own WALL-E dvd in january.

these are situations created by the studios and movie houses who lobbied for this law. yes it’s a law, and a ridiculous one at that. the law states that while a film is still in theatres here, or a show is still (or yet to be aired) on tv, no version of it can be sold until it’s been on tv, or in the case of a film, until the official foreign language version is released here.

so once again, proof that a downloaded file doesn’t equal a lost sale. it increased the sale because i wouldn’t have bought it without first sampling it through p2p. i didn’t steal anything. someone gave me their 1’s and 0’s and put together they made a movie.

Of course create and use things like VPN and encryption and etc. But above all:

1. If you have the resources and time, pick a music blog, do as thorough of a “site-rip” as you can, and make a torrent of it.
2. NEVER pass up an opportunity to make “Sam” and his ilk look stupid.
3. DO NOT under any circumstances, pay “full price” for RIAA/MPAA product. (For my part, going to the movies doesn’t count, because there’s no physical product changing hands to give you the illusion of ‘ownership” like there is with a CD or suchlike.) Besides, the actual experience of going to the movies is still downright fun.

4. Whenever you DO feel the need to buy books/movies/music, ALWAYS make sure to “hide behind” things like the first-sale doctrine:
Remember: the “bargain bin” is your friend!

Realistically, the probability of getting sued/hassled/harassed by one of the “monopoly mafia” organization is vanishingly small, and becoming more remote as the volume of p2p traffic, music blogs, etc. increases

5. NEVER buy into the propaganda line that says IP is about the “sacred right of property”, or “protecting the artists” or whatever else they try to put over on you.

6. Some common “handles” (maybe sockpuppets) of pro-IP types I’ve noticed on various boards/blogs:

Sam I am, “Reasoned mind”, “Freetard”.

Oddly, they all repeat the same mistaken notions and RIAA-sanctioned talking points.
Please be sure to — as thoroughly as possible — refute their claims, and call them on their bullshit.

Rest assured: p2p and everything it represents — innovation, participatory culture, failure to blindly aquiesce to corporate bullying — scares these people shitless.

NOW remember if you want to be part of this army to invade there blogs YOU NEED OT PROTECT YOUR IP
proxy servers ill setup
that’s another thing you need to add for browsing.

We need someone to make a list of all the bogs they use all the sites they have forums and get at it.
IT MADE ME sick to see a scout troop in the local radio station being brain washed.

I REFUSE TO ALLOW THIS TO MY DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY.
I have a printer
I have paper
I will print
YOU will read
we can use media like they do
we speak at corners
we can speak at bus stops
we can drop off miscellaneous cdrs of music everywhere.
we can organize new lan parties that trade stuff at them
YOU CANNOT STOP THAT CAN YOU
And im making a list keeping it tight,
of whose been naughty or nice
Chrono clause is coming to town

they are scared and using all the last cash to buy off all the laws not realizing it will DO NOTHING
WE ARE LEGION in number hundreds of millions and they are as they grow old and die dying off and disappearing.

The longer we last the more free it will be,
In a future i see movies made by people like open source software cause they love to do it.
ART HAS ALWAYS been A HOBBY. WE CANNOT ALLOW MONETIZATION OF CULTURE
its is EVIL TO DO SO.

The quote from sam you are referring to ..

” So Jon. Forget Free Thinker. Why not write an editorial in your own voice that offers an effective and eminently just path forward that provides a financial incentive to create and distribute art, music, movies, books, and still meets with your own view of how the world and the entertainment industry should work. ”

P2P net story 17212.

To sam I am:

Y123456O123456U123456 A123456R123456E123456 A123456 L123456O123456S123456T123456 C123456A123456U123456S123456E123456

signed, common sense.

Somebody do me a favor:
1. Anybody who can nerve themselves up for it, please go digging around in the archives and find the bullshit where Sam was trying to Call Jon out to defend p2p “in his own voice”, and I challeneged him to pony up and actually THINK.
2. If the “against intellectual monopoly” person happens to be reading this: YOU play with him for awhile. I’m bored. Somebody else needs to be the resident troll-smasher for awhile.

Glad you’re on OUR side.

Cheers!