[AusNOG] DR access for civil litigants, here it comes

[Ross Wheeler]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2016, Andrew McN wrote:

> To what extent are the copyright holders civil litigants who would be
> excluded under this new rule?  To the extent that the move to
> criminalise abuse of IP is thwarted, this may reduce the shift to
> encryption, which will help keep the spooks happy.

Not wanting to start a religious war, but do you really think that the 
majority of people accessing these sites give a damn if it's a criminal 
offence or not?.

Personally, I've never even watched an episode of GoT, so I've no idea 
what the appeal is - but many of my friends are passionate about it. When 
it's released in the USA and all their friends are talking about it on 
social media it affects them. When they simply CAN NOT currently access it 
legally in this country, who is seriously surprised that they seek other 
means? And I'm pretty sure they all know full well that this is "theft", 
but when you create a demand and then refuse a supply, I guess many of 
them consider (right or wrong) that they're "morally justified". Most 
probably think they're too small for the big studios to take to court. 
Again, that may or may not be the case... but I bet it's the overwhelming 
view.

The way the internet is constructed, and the desire of people to get what 
they want, I believe is going to (eventually) thwart every attempt made to 
block the "pirate sites". Everyones time and money would be better spent 
if the rights holders simply overcame the problem - by giving people what 
they want - timely, cost-effective and easy access to their product.

Yes, there will always be a few who won't want to pay for it.
They would never have bought it anyway - and while that doesn't diminish 
the fact that it's IP THEFT, it isn't actually income forgone, because 
they wouldn't have made the sale at any price! (Out of interest, how many 
people lend their "legitimate and paid for" book/CD/DVD/Blueray to a 
friend to enjoy? Is that any less "theft"?)

Seriously - distribution of online material is largely an insignificant 
cost to the rightsholders. Depending on how they set up their sales 
channel, the cost of taxes etc should be no more (and in many cases less 
than or much less than) they pay for their own domestic market, the end 
user is paying for most of the "delivery" component, why should there be 
ANY difference? Scrap region coding, scrap zone/country artificial 
restrictions and consumer gouging, devise a fair, fast, simple 
distribution method and the demand for sites like pirate bay will largely 
disappear overnight.

Of course, I could be totally wrong... but the current "dumb, 
fat, slow schoolyard bully and his legal-eze mates vs the nimble geek 
playing whack-a-mole for fun" game just isn't working.

R.