EU to Ban Pirates from the Internet?

Published on July 8, 2008 By kryo In Personal Computing

Some of you may be aware of the "three strikes" plan recently approved in France, where suspected copyright infringers are liable to be banned from the internet for up to a year if they persist after two warnings, and failed efforts to push similar laws across the entire EU a few months back.

Not content to be rebuffed, proponents of the laws have put them back on the table in Brussels, where they were set to be voted on yesterday. No news seems to be available online yet about how it went (any Europeans visitors have details on that?).

Is banning pirates from the internet going too far, or is it justified? It seems that no amount of DRM ever deters them for long, so perhaps cutting them off from their sources entirely would be the solution to large-scale piracy. Or maybe it just might drive them underground, and result in innocent users being banned on suspicions only. What do you guys think? Could this possibly work, or will it only make matters worse?

Comments (Page 26)

376

Alstein

on Jul 27, 2008

1. After getting the rather new and much larger bill for using up the bandwith, he's going to think twice since its going to cost him money now.2. My connection speed goes upNot so much--TWC is tying the transfer quotas to the speed tiers. So you can get fast and (comparably, but still low by any sane standard) high cap, or slow and low cap. It rather annoys me since if they take it national, it means my prices are liable to go up. Hopefully the backlash is enough in Texas that they don't.I expect, as do many, that file sharing is just a scapegoat in that particular case. They're likely just doing it to try and make a bit of extra cash while not having to bother building up their network any. Plus there's the added benefit of strangling online streaming video (it was recently found that Youtube and similar are using more bandwidth than P2P overall) so people have to keep using cable TV.

It's believed the real reason is to discourage people from dropping cable TV due to them downloading movies instead. DSL companies aren't bothering with bandwidth caps.

As for the seizing of computers- simple workaround, which I know some people do, is to use the old computer for downloading/virus-canary. Also, most people are smart enough to not get caught three times.

Honestly, that last market is the one situation where I feel piracy is justified. With a true lack of honest demos for games, and very iffy quality on many games- I am VERY reluctant to buy things site unseen, unless it's a sequel of something I enjoyed before. This is one reason you don't see many new original games. I'd say of the last two years of PC games I bought, I ended up regretting more then half of the purchases, and can safely say the only games I've bought that have been worth my money in the past two years were Galciv 2 and Twilight (DA was close but no cigar), Team Fortress 2, EUIII:IN, and Civ 4 (which barely made it) On the console side: I have only bought 2 games: VF5 and Soul Calibur 4- both are excellent (Yes, I have SC4 before the street date, I had a hook-up. If you're wondering, the online play is good on 360 and horrid on PS3. No slowdown on 360 either) Overall, I'd say I've spent about $600 on PC games over the past two years, and gotten about $600 of utility, but about $550 of it from the games I mentioned above.

Yes, I am a VERY picky consumer. It takes a lot to get my dollar, and Stardock does it for me. Not many others do.

377

Shadow_of_Light

on Jul 27, 2008

Yes, I am a VERY picky consumer. It takes a lot to get my dollar, and Stardock does it for me. Not many others do.

heh

i usualy thought it took alot to get my dollar, it's just that you dont know theyre trying to get you in buying a product via Demo's etc.. ever looked @ some? some have cool sounds and imrpoved stuff added in demo, then when you buy the real one and you pass that demo-part thingy things startto go downhill
story usualy get's vague and sucky, the guy saying, "ofcourse right now only a small part of the missions are avaible due to the Demo version" was actualy lieing ?!?!? and after buying the real game 1 / 2 more missions show up

after around my 10th year i stopped buying stuff cuase i like the demo, already lost over 500 euros(thats 10 50$ games) ..... all becuase they make stuff to try and make you buy stuff....

literally feels like guys r trying to stick their hand into my trousers and squeeze for my wallet.......... annoying and it hurts

378

Skyjack

on Jul 27, 2008

Yarrrrr! Don't be banning Pirates or I'll make ye walk the plank. Yarrrrrrrr!

Unenforcable idiocy, unfortunately.

379

Alstein

on Jul 27, 2008

Yes, I am a VERY picky consumer. It takes a lot to get my dollar, and Stardock does it for me. Not many others do.heh i usualy thought it took alot to get my dollar, it's just that you dont know theyre trying to get you in buying a product via Demo's etc.. ever looked @ some? some have cool sounds and imrpoved stuff added in demo, then when you buy the real one and you pass that demo-part thingy things startto go downhillstory usualy get's vague and sucky, the guy saying, "ofcourse right now only a small part of the missions are avaible due to the Demo version" was actualy lieing ?!?!? and after buying the real game 1 / 2 more missions show upafter around my 10th year i stopped buying stuff cuase i like the demo, already lost over 500 euros(thats 10 50$ games) ..... all becuase they make stuff to try and make you buy stuff....literally feels like guys r trying to stick their hand into my trousers and squeeze for my wallet.......... annoying and it hurts

Simply put, demos don't do it.

One bizarre thing I noticed- I think Stardock's beta policy increases the enjoyment you get out of games. Some of the enjoyment comes from updating for the sake of updating in some cases. seeing a new feature added in bit by bit gives you a reason to keep playing. This is one reason why I like Stardock's pre-order= public beta policy. Getting goodies weekly does a lot to keep a game fresh. I usually lose interest in GC about a month after official release of expansion, to pick up when something is added again.

I must sound like the perfect candidate for a microtransaction model of gaming, but I tend to dislike feeling nickel and dimed, so that doesn't work too well.

Curiousity, which model is better

The current $40/$30/$30 model Stardock used for GC2, or

a $20/$20/$20/$20/$20 model?

380

ProzacMann

on Jul 28, 2008

@ProzacMannIn Toronto, we can take out game software from the library. I am not sure how up to date the list is from our local library. And why don't students take out books from the library. Well..they do. But as far as textbook goes, you can only take a book out 2 weeks at a time, and you need the book for the entire semester and at times the entire year. And every other student in your course needs to use the book too. Soo everyone figured it is cheaper to just xerox the entire text. I were in courses where the prof told us in the case where the book is ridculously expensive to just photocopy the book. Here at Illinois State University, we do it somewhat differently. First, there is a thriving second-hand market. Second, for instances like you mentioned the local Kinkos is set up to print off copies of books (or parts of books, no sense copying the whole thing if you only need 3 chapters) and either "bind" them or punch them for a 3 ring binder. Far cheaper, but still legal and the author gets *some* royalties. As for "banning from the internet", it does seem somewhat impractical. But for a third offense, I think it would be far more enforcable - and a greater deterrent - to simply sieze the offending computer. Someone who would scoff at a joke "banning" would think twice about risking their custom gaming computer.

No both of you are correct I was just speaking in general terms. As for software I have never seen a library in the states have it for checkout. Textbooks in a way are their own animal, in the sense that in most cases you could claim educational use which is protected under copyright. Most likely why the professor told people just to copy. Not to mention textbooks would be the only ones you really need for longer than a 2 week checkout period or maybe 2.

381

dwood15

on Jul 28, 2008

Reply #142
.....is because we tax, at most, about 40% of a worker's income. And you can blame liberals for that.

33% I believe is the Cap on Income tax

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