Don't Worry About Copy Write Protection!

[Atrocities]

I have spent over $10,000.00 on music since 1990. Easily. I just bought two new CD's the other day, well used via Amazon, but still new to me.

The appeal of downloading music is a simple one, availablity. You can often find the songs, albums, or whatever it is that you are specifically looking for without having to endure all the crap that you don't want to hear.

But nothing compares to having it on CD, authentic real Music CD from the stores.

[Azselendor]

DEG's method would go a long way to help curb piracy. But it won't stop, as fyron said, people with virtual drives. However, if you tax media duplication devices, office theft of blank cd's would rise and shoplifting as pirates aren't detered by taxation.

Here's what I'd do.

1.) Have ISP's block ports used by peer-to-peer systems and ones that can be used.
2.) Require all servers to have a domain name if it is accessable to the web. This allows pirates to be hunted down and found. Domains can only be registered to valid mail addresses, no po boxes (but I'd allow an exemption for rural locations by means of a special application).
3.) Sites containing porn must use a .XXX extention as proposed. Many warez sites have prono advertisers and we can force them into the .xxx domain type and then use ISP's to lock them out.
4.) Levy taxes against companies that manufacture recordable media software, hardware, and media. Individuals that make the software can be made liable for infringment suits if their software is involved in piracy.
5.) Create a system of financial rewards for the successful capture and conviction of pirates. This will seriously harm flea-market pirates.
6.) Make piracy penalties involve a mandatory prison sentance and fine, not one or the other and up to limits.
7.) Require pirates to register in a national database distributed to computer companies and retailers when caught. Much like how sex offenders can't work or live near children, we want to make sure pirates are run out of computing for good.

Now that won't stop pirates, just really give them a bad day. We need to combat this on the industry level as piracy is rampant in price-senstive nations and areas where $50+ price tags on software is insane.

[Atrocities]

Lets fill up the jails with people who make illegal copies of software and music instead of the creal criminals. The only way to stop piracy is to simply outlaw the technology.

[Suicide Junkie]

1) You mean block *all* ports? That's the only way its gonna happen.

2) IOW, destroy load balancing, and put every PC in the DMZ? No routers or NAT or serious firewalls?

3) Who's definition? Who enforces it? Take this simplified version, and see if you still think it will be possible:
You don't even need the ISP part. Just have them all change their names to "something.not-a-TLD" so they don't resolve.

4) That makes zero difference from today. The costs all get passed on to the consumer in the same way.

5) If police aren't going to take up free tips, why would they pay for them? And who is going to pay for that; You, in taxes.

6&7) Cranking penalties beyond reason dosen't help the issue. It may reduce some copyright infringement, but it certainly dosen't anywhere near fit the crime.
At what point does murdering the witness become less of a crime than getting caught copying something?


The REAL SOLUTION
- Stop screwing around, and parent your kids properly. Take responsibility.

[Alneyan]

Suicide Junkie said:
1) You mean block *all* ports? That's the only way its gonna happen.

[Sarcasm] Don't be silly. It may be possible to allow some ports from trusted sources. So, you could still bask in the glory of port 53or port 137 , so long as you stick with approved servers. There are probably a few other such services, where all traffic can be routed to a few, trusted servers.

Yeah, so perhaps you will lose access to a handful of ports. Well, it's not as if they were actually important. I mean, who uses port 25, port 80 or port 110? And don't start complaining about ports 22 and 23: only crackers and hackers (them are the same exact thing) have any use for them. [/Sarcasm]

Yup, ain't gonna happen, unless you really want to be stuck with DNS, NTP and their ilk (in a best case scenario; closing down everything ought to be faster and easier). And you should really close down port 80 to begin with: it's probably the one most used for downloads of all sorts. It also happens to be used by the HTTP protocol, but hey, who cares about that? Well, perhaps you would.

[Suicide Junkie]

I do.

After the servers for FTP, HTTP, and etc, I've got lots and lots for games.

Besides, you can always use any port for any purpose you like.
Limiting them just means more hassle for users who have to turn X off inorder to free up a port for Y.

[Alneyan]

Sorry if that wasn't clear. The sarcasm was not intended at yourself, but at the idea of closing down ports.

[Azselendor]

Well, the thing about US law is that it doesn't effect foreign nations. Clearly anything the Us does won't exceed it's borders.

Atrocities, outlawing the technology will only slightly curb future use. What's to stop someone from making their own software and obtaining/maintaining old equipment. Y2K clearly showed that despite end-of-life expectations, software and hardware lives on for years after it was supposed to die.

As for filling up jails, no. Prisons. If there is no current sentance, send them for a minimum of 367 days. By default, they must go to prision if it is a year plus a day. 367 covers leap years.

Renegegade13, my point with #4 is against individuals who make programs and distribute them as freeware that is designed to bypass protections and copy software/movies/music. They should be held responsible because a person who makes a program that rips DVD's with a commercial film on it does so for only that purpose. If a person makes a program to copy home DVD's of his cats playing and lends it to a friend who uses to pirate his movie collection wouldn't be held responsible. But if you make software thats only purpose is to pirate software and cover yourself by saying "Well, I made it for backup puposes only and distributed it so others could make their backups too" doesn't excuse guilt.

#5 is geared as an effort the industry has to make and sponser with the federal government, local authority and most state authorities won't do anything.

SJ, Renegade, bear in mind 6 & 7 would make these pirates known and make sure that they recieve a punishment that hurts. There is no national registry for released murders, I should point out. However, the punishment does fit the crime when you take into the amount of money lost and direct income those losses have on individuals and their lifestyles. Yet under current laws, a software pirate can get out of jail and pay their fine by simply going back to pirating.

#7 is specially designed to hurt them by denying them access to technology-based jobs that could enable them to further pirate software. I'd put it on par with bank fraud. Surely you wouldn't want person that defrauded a bank working in your back, just as you would want a pirate in your IT deptartment, or rev. fred phelps as your lawyer (he was disbarred after extorting thousands out of people by demanding $1500 retainer fees every month from his clients, when that failed he threatened to sue people for the $1500 retainer.) What the database does is alert retailers and companies that a person who is a known computer pirate is applying for a job. Now that won't tell the company to not hire that pirate or not, but it will alert them.

I'm not talking about blocking all ports, but many of the uneeded ones. Nearly all larger ISP's currently block port 25 because of spammers, for example.

[Renegade 13]

Oh man, where to start!??

First off, David and KlvinoHRGA, I respect both your opinions but I am forced to disagree with you both, adamently.

I'll start of with David

Taxing/increasing the price of recording software, hardware and media will not stop piracy. Most piracy does not require those things at all, as others have mentioned. The only thing this might stop is the people on the streetcorners selling bootlegged material. Might. At the cost of every single person who wants to back up information from their computer to a safe location.

Lets say I have a couple kids, and I love videotaping them. Or even my cats. I love cats, maybe I have a lot of video of them. This video quickly eats up hard drive space, so I want to back it up. But why should I have to pay $200-250 for the burner plus the expenses of the media to record it on? Because it's assumed that if I use those things, that I'm a pirate? Do I deserve that? Do we in a free society assume guilt before innocence? No, that is not the solution. People making legitimate backups should not be punished, when those people are in the vast majority over the people who use such devices to pirate. It'd be like hugely increasing the price of electricity, just to try and cut down on the marijuana grow-ops!!

Anything that I wanted to pirate would not require burners, blank media, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm no pirate. I earn the money to buy the things I want. But there's no need for all the hardware.


Now, KlvinoHRGA My opinion.

On your point #1, I have no opinion.
Point #2, well you'd be excluding a lot of Canada right there. Huge areas of Canada only have PO boxes. Not to mention the fact that you'd have to get international cooperation on things like this, which, practically, would not happpen.
Point #3, no opinion.
Point #4....here's where I vehemently disagree with you. Holding people liable for the way their products are used is, in my own opinion, the worst thing that could possibly be done. Think of what it would open the door to. People would want to hold Ford responsible for making the car that someone ran down and killed someone in. Gun manufacturers could be held responsible if one of their guns was used in a crime. The software that is used in piracy has many legit uses. Our legal systems are not predicated on the "guilty until proven innocent" idea. People can not be held responsible for the actions of others, that would be just another extension of the rampant feeling nowadays that it's someone elses fault that I did something wrong. There's already too much of that.
Point #5, go for it. Don't think it'd work, but it wouldn't hurt legitimate consumers.
Point #6, sure. But you'd have to define the term "piracy" much better. People who download the pirated copies, or people who crack and create and distribute the illegal copies? But if you mean the people who 'just' download the illegal copies...well if you don't even go to prison for multiple car thefts, why would you go to prison for a $40 theft? You sure don't if you shoplift that much!
Point #7, seems a little overboard. If you already implemented #6 and that didn't stop them, no database will stop them.

That's about it for me. My main point is this; just don't punish the multiple legitimate users that exist for every one illegit user. Don't presume everyone is guilty, or make everyone suffer monetarily.

[Fyron]

DEG's method would go a long way to help curb piracy.

Actual piracy where physical media are sold, marginally. p2p usage? Not in the slightest.

1.) Have ISP's block ports used by peer-to-peer systems and ones that can be used.

Impossible. You would have to block literally every port, since p2p apps (as well as the vast majority of TCP/IP capable apps) can be reconfigured to use arbitrary ports... This is of course never going to be a workable solution.

2.) Require all servers to have a domain name if it is accessable to the web. This allows pirates to be hunted down and found. Domains can only be registered to valid mail addresses, no po boxes (but I'd allow an exemption for rural locations by means of a special application).

Totally the wrong solution. What happens to free dynamic domain services then? Have to pay for them? Not a good solution at all for people that just want to host a photo gallery or whatever from home. Why should I have to pay extra money above and beyond the cost of my Internet connection (and electricity) to run a little server? And don't tell me I can just give out IP addresses, since that is unfeasible.

4.) Levy taxes against companies that manufacture recordable media software, hardware, and media.

Good idea, tax legitimate users of recordable media for the small fraction of illegal users. Wait... that's a terrible idea.

Individuals that make the software can be made liable for infringment suits if their software is involved in piracy.

So... lets sue Microsoft. They let me copy CDs as a default feature of XP. And lets sue all CD drive manufacturers, since all CD drives can be used to create CD images, thus spreading piracy. And of course sue MS for providing CD driver software in Windows, since they are used for piracy all the time. Now let's sue every maker of a CD burning application. So what if they let you do all sorts of legal things like make mix CDs and backups and burn whatever non-copyrighted materials you want onto a CD to give to friends and family (photo CDs, anyone?)? They can be used to create distributable copies of games, movies, music, whatever!

Even if you create some sort of DRM solutions to allow authorized makers of software and hardware, you can not touch people in most foreign nations that choose to make software that circumvents all of it. It will never work.