Don't Worry About Copy Write Protection!

[Alneyan]

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

[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.

[Suicide Junkie]

And don't tell me I can just give out IP addresses, since that is unfeasible.

Under his system it would be ILLEGAL too.

[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.

[Azselendor]

SJ, it wouldn't be illegal, but many pirates operate via IP adresses. An alternative to this might to ensure some method of locating the person so companies can locate people actually engaged in pirating.

Fryon, I didn't say sue microsoft, what I said is that individuals who make software specifically for the purpose of evading copyright protections for the explicit purpose of duplicating copyrighted material should be held financially responsible and punished.

I'll also point out there are a number of free services that allows the posting of files and images out there. Most domains can be now registered for as little as 3 bucks a year, I don't see how much an inconvient 0.25 cents a month is. I'm sure dynamic url services can compenstate easily as well.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Well, this is about books, but it has lots of relevance: http://www.baen.com/library/

[Fyron]

Making copies of commercial DVDs is _absolutely_ not piracy. _Distribution_ of said DVDs is piracy (when it is for profit; otherwise it is not piracy, but copyright infringement). Making backup copies solely for personal use is perfectly legitimate. Therefore, software designed to create copies of commercial DVDs is not inherently piracy software, it is software designed to let me exercise fair use rights. Some might be made with the intentions of piracy, but not all of it. Same with software that lets me create images and rips. The fact that such software can be used for piracy does not make its purpose to be piracy any more than the fact that I can use the DOS "copy" command to make copies of copyright-protected executables makes "copy" a piracy tool, or even Internet Explorer's save command on copyrighted web pages. Even better is using an alternate browser for which the javascript used on a page to lock out the IE save command has no effect. According to your definition, Mozilla is a piracy tool!

How about a program that bypasses DRM copy protections placed on music CDs? Is that really a piracy tool? It is there so I can continue exercising my fair use rights on these CDs that I have exercised on all the other CDs: make backups of my CDs, make mix CDs, play them on my computer without juggling CDs, etc. Of course, the illegitimate DMCA claims that this is illegal, but it is a wrong law in the first place...

Piracy is a huge ghost. All of these schemes are not about stopping piracy, which the big content providers know can not be stopped, but rather to restrict or eliminate fair use.

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.

There is no such thing as an "unneeded" port. Ports exist so you don't have communications conflicts. So long as you can run another service, you will need more ports. Further, ISPs restricting free ports to a few hundred (or less...) will make malicious attacks _easier_, since the time to scan for available ports on target PCs will be reduced 100 fold (32x to 100s range)! Zombie networks will become vastly more efficient if they can reduce the time spent analyzing target machines... There is no tangible benefit to restricting ports in a draconian manner.

Destroying the anonymity of the Internet is not a good goal to strive towards, especially not for the boogey man of piracy.

Prisons are already overcrowded with non-criminals persecuted in the war on drugs. We don't need to construct dozens of new prisons for petty software pirates too.

And don't forget about foreign, free proxy servers and encrypted transfer protocols that make any sort of tracking difficult...

[Renegade 13]

KlvinoHRGA said:
Renegade13, 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.

Who decides when something is meant for backup purposes or for the purpose of breaching copyright? Who can truly know, unless someone confesses? The courts? Not a good idea. Half the judges wouldn't even know what a CD or DVD burner was, let alone the concept of cracking a game or movie. It'd be a waste of time and, more importantly, taxpayer money. After all, they have to PROVE it was INTENDED to be used to break copyright. An extremely difficult task.

[Azselendor]

Actually, it's pretty easy to determine if someone is pirating or not. All you have to do is obtain a copy of the item in question from the person.

Gryon, please calm yourself before posting. You're overreacting by screaming about how browsers also commit piracy, next thing we'll know you'll be claming I want to outlaw pens because they can be used to copy notes with.

Furthermore, Fair-Use doesn't cover your completely. It only covers the production of a single backup copy. Now this doesn't mean if you misplace your first copy and make a replacement that is also piracy, it becomes piracy when you share it, sell it, or give it away to someone else.

My suggestions may sound extreme, but I'm sure most people realize that while some, like the ports on unfeasable, most aren't nearly as severe as they sound or you portray them to be. So again, I urge you to step away from the computer, go outside and spend some time and calm down.

[Suicide Junkie]

In which case you prosecute using the existing channels.

You don't need to trade your freedoms for percieved security.