While its ok to try to protect your property against pirates its insane that they can think that they can control the internet..

While sony is already losing a 100 million dollar trying to fix the server mess the damage to their reputation will cost them way more.. Negative remarks about Angelina Jolie, Obama, female superstars like jennifer lawerence getting paid less then her male co stars.. and yes why the f do they still make Adam Sandler movies
Sony Japan should axe the top of the pictures division and fast.. Goodwill of being hacked is almost gone now that a part is in the open

After the SOPA debacle, they are still at it! I inderstand that everyone stands for their business but fascism is never a good way.

Attacking basic liberties doesn't sit well with the people neither sould this way of thinking be pursued. I love my conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but with all the various Governments leaks the last few years, now this coming from companies that give you a big smile on the front while hidding a kinfe in the back, ploting the best way to gut you... it's really scary.

I hope both Governments & the people in general fight back these conspiracies, but 1st they have to be aware such things exist & understand the issues hiding behind such tactics!

Spread the word!!!

In all honesty, and if we are to be really sincere and honest about all this. This will only affect people copying and sharing copyrighted content. Which for all intents and purposes is 'ILLEGAL".

I think the lines have been blurred so much that the general populace seems to forget that these companies do have a right to protect their copyrighted content. They know they can't stop people from making those copies and they can't stop sites from hosting them, but they can at least stop or track people from getting on those sites. Or prevent that content from being distributed.

Its easy to do the whole power to the people and freedom stuff, but lets not forget that these companies are well within their rights to protect their investments. Dont get me wrong, I can't remember when last I purchased a movie or song outside of going to a cinema for movies I am not willing to wait 3-4 months to be able to pirate a blu-ray copy of. But I at least admit that I am part of the problem, and I know what I am doing is not right. But why do it? cause its so bloody easy to just go online and get a blu-ray rip of a movie and watch it. Lets not all pretend that anything these companies feel will prevent them from bleeding money on their content is somehow a bad thing.

I feel there are better ways they can go around this issue of piracy, but whatever way they choose to employ is really their prerogative. And anyone complaining about their methods, are really only bitching about the possibility of no longer being able to get stuff without paying for it.

So really, who is the angel here and who is the demon.

Also I think the OP is twisting this to be something it isn't

Trye, they will. Its an easy case to be made though. I doubt anyone can say with a straight face that the only reason they are against this is cause it means someone is telling them which or what sites to go to or tracking tehir activity on certain sites. Thats what the people against this wil be championing, but thats not really their problem though.

I also don't know why sony is being singled out, this is probably something that every single movie studio is in on too.

The key is to think of it this way: "Would i have bought this if it wasn't available to pirate?"

If the answer is "no," then you really haven't done anything wrong. Property rights are only as good as their benefit to society, and people who would not give money for something might as well enjoy it anyway, because the pricing structure has made it inaccessible for them.

The answer to stopping piracy is more accessible pricing and access. I watch Justice League legitimately because its on netflix streaming. I stream Darkwing Duck illegitimately because it's not on any service that i know of and i'm not going to shell out for the DVDs. If Disney wants my viewership, they have to put it back on cable or put it on netflix.

It's like all of those pharma companies who bitch about knock-off drugs in the developing world. Those knock-offs are made because your pricing system is fucked to hell and you'd rather freeze out billions of low-income customers in the developing world than embrace the market price for your products.

Free markets are only embraced by these corporations when it's to their advantage to do so. Otherwise they howl for government intervention, as in this case.

I completely agree with you, and couldn't have said it better myself. But we ar kinda going round in circles and only looking at it from one persons perspective.

Yes, the way these things are priced means I will not buy them. Like seriously, I will not spend $10-$20 for a movie that lasts all of 120mins and that I will probably only watch once. Just not gonna happen. Especially when I can pay $10 every month and watch an unlimited amount of such movies. Or when for whatever it cost me to pay for an internet conection every month I can just go and download those movies and even stuff they don't have in circulation anymore for free. Thats just the simple truth of it. 

All this aside, the companies are still within their rights to protect their content however they see fit. As long as it cost them money to make it, then they have every right to choose how that content is distributed. So yeah, I wouldn't buy their content if i couldn't pirate it, that doesn't mena they should give it to me for free cause you know, it cost them money to make that content to begin with. If teher wasn't money to be made, then we will get less and less of such content as time goes on. Its a lose lose situation.

I feel that both the content providers and consumers have to accept certain things, like we all have to mutually agree on somethings. the content provders have to accept that as long as their is the internet, people will always opt to pirate content. If I were sony or these content providers, my appraoch to the problem would be completely different.

Like netflix, I would make my own service where I host all my content, or basically I will make an app that hosts all my content and the content of anyone that wants their stuff on there. This app will also be a media player. Basically, the app will allow you stream or download any and everything I have ever made. All at zero cost to you. Yup, no subscription fees, no content purchases, but the downloads will be in an encrypted format that can only be played by the app. And then just like the banner adds you see on youtube, everyhing watched will be subjected to similar unobtrusive banner ads. Personally, I think that is the best way to go about piracy. Encourage people to pirate your content, make it easy for them. Hell, they could even have your encrypted files on torrents that can only be played back using your app, so people can still share your stuff. And just capitalize on all the money you make from ads while people are actually watching your stuff. Win win if you ask me. Its like a pirated game on say the PS3/360... you can pirate the game all you want, but you still need a PS360 to play it.

What I find troubling are the tactics at use, the arm-twisting of laws, the bullying & manipulations in the shadows, law are what we, the people want them to be, they are not to be decided by the heads of a couple of big corporations. The money they are willing to spend to use & trick us is quite revealing!

Furthernore, there is more at stake than fighting piracy, like traffic shapping, with these kind of actions, say you are a internet related start-up company competing with any of the companies belonging to these Corporate nebulaes, they can't traffic shape you out of business with a simple click!

Not even starting on the topic of privacy or industrial spying. Theres is way more in this than meets the eye, if we are not aware of these matters & on alert, we let the door open fascism, oligarquy, corruption, mass propaganda etc. we might as well resurect the likes of Adolf & Joseph, this is corporate business trying to rip us of our freedom & free will, well that's my opinion at least, that is why we should spread the world!

I'm really liking the thoughs being shared here, debate is always healthy :)

I get all that, and when looked at from the absolute worst case scenario its easy to arrive at the same conclusions you have arrived at. Lets look at it differently though and you tell me what you think is the best way around this problem.

On one hand we have the content providers:

• spend 10s-100s of millions of $$ making content and sometimes just as much marketing it.
• They are in this to make a profit on their investment which can only happen from sales of said content.
• hundreds of thousands of people make a living from profits made from said content, people go to schools to learn the trade and a lot of talent is basically put on sale with the hope that money can be made.

I think there are lots of angles to attack the problem from:

_a global license yearly fee for music, the same for movies/series, the same for videogames.

_said companies being less greedy & doing much better/affordable prices.

_Governments have to elaborate more & better legislation.

The problem with such powerfull global corporations is that they kill the medium they are supposed to defend, majors kills music & small artists, they kill creativity, all they aim for is uniformisation of tastes & styles, few artists can really negociate contracts on their terms, hence multiplication of small labels & self produced/published artists.

We pay high prices for products (computers, consoles, phones, electronic components, overseas customer service, movies etc.) that cost them a fraction of what they make us pay, using overseas low wage labor, sometimes even slave workers, making huge profits for themselves, most of that money disapearing through tax havens.

I don't want to expand too much because it's a matter that could be discussed ad infinitum, evertyhing is interconected, economy, politics, social policies, sometimes even religion or crime organisations!

The point that I wanted to make is inform people, because I have a feeling that nowadays people don't care that much, they have their lives, their own problems, are too tired or too occupied doing whatever, but I feel these matters are important & need to be known.

When I read these kind of reveletions I feel like a cow being milked dry by these corporations, worse they feed me crap & expect me to do a miracle & produce delicious good milk.

All should be in the open for scrutiny, when you move like that in the shadow, more often than not, something fishy is going on!