https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/movie-industry-demands-us-law-requiring-isps-to-block-piracy-websites/
Opponents say SOPA-like proposal would block plenty of legitimate websites.
Cool. Now all of Google Drive is blocked because one guy hosted a movie there for a few days.
All it would take is someone getting AWS blacklisted for an hour, that law would disappear like it never existed.
Hahahahaha
Unintended consequences - what are they going to do once 90% of connections are encrypted, include use of VPNs and encrypted DNS?
This is what they're promoting.
Host your own encrypted DNS on a VPS in a non-compliant location, use a VPN to connect to it.
So many ways these idiots are cutting their own throats.
Also, let's list the companies rather than say "Movie Industry". Or let that be a link to a Wiki article listing all the companies and their holdings.
Fuck em all at this point. I go to maybe 2 movies a year, at most. And I'm cutting subscription services, down to 2 at this point.
As a guy from Russia, I must admit that vpns are not a big problem for censors. They can be easily blocked, including self-hosted ones by protocol detection. And DNS would not do much with IP and clienthello-based blocks. And most users are not enough tech-savvy to constantly switch to new protocols as old ones get blocked.
You have no rights in Russia.
VPNs can't be categorically banned in the US without major first amendment issues. It's not a huge technical issue, but unless the courts just throw out the Constitution (a risk that we're seeing too much of, but still a meaningful bar to cross), there are huge legal barriers to doing so.
Your government doesn't need to care about legal barriers because you have a dictator who can act unilaterally.
VPNs are not categorically banned in Russia either. Just 95% of them. Categorical ban is not actually required here. Government can just create licensing procedure and license only those VPNs, which follow "rules". I do not see how this is different from ISP bans.
Entirely unconstitutional restriction of speech.
The government can shut down specific illegal acts, such as sharing other people's intellectual property. They can't ban tools or protocols, or do things that are functionally bans. There's plenty of precedent of the government trying to restrict encryption and being shut down. Removing the ability to communicate securely is a first amendment violation.
By the same logic they should not be able to force ISPs to ban sites, but here we are. If they can enforce bans with ISPs, why can't they do the same with VPN providers?
They may or may not be able to require ISPs to block specific sites. Piracy isn't protected speech. It's going to be a moot point because it's not something that can get actually passed.
They cannot require ISPs to block VPNs. General tools for/access to the internet are protected speech. They could require VPNs that have physical servers in the US to block exits to specific sites (if the first part is valid), but that doesn't do anything when it's trivial to have exit nodes elsewhere and structure your service/corporate structure so the exit nodes are not subject to US jurisdiction.
CBaaS
Censorship Bypass as a Service, where your new updates are your [unique user ID].com
Let us manage your bypass for you! Payable in crypto or cash.
Https does not actually make difference here. You can still detect VPN usage by unencrypted clienthello, encryption-inside-encryption, active probing, obscure libraries that vpn protocol depends on, etc.
WTF? How are you going to look inside HTTPS?
Or is the word "encapsulation" (misspelled it first) unfamiliar to you in the network context? Maybe shouldn't argue then?
obscure libraries that vpn protocol depends on
What? Are you an LLM bot? Answer honestly.
At first, please, be a little bit more patient and no, I am not a LLM.
All https traffic is https-encapsulated by definition. And you can look inside https just fine. The problem is that most of data is TLS-encripted. However, there is so-called "clienthello" that is not encripted and can be used to identity the resource you are trying to reach.
And if you are going to https-encapsulate it again (like some VPN and proxy protocols do) data will have TLS-encription on top of TLS-encription, which can be identified as well.
And about libraries: VPN protocol Openconnect, for example uses library gnutls (which almost no one else uses) instead of more common openssl. So in China it is blocked using dpi by this "marker".
However, there is so-called “clienthello” that is not encripted and can be used to identity the resource you are trying to reach.
Yes, so how is it going to inform you that this is a VPN server and not anything else? You put your little website with kitties and family photos behind nginx on a hosting somewhere, and some resource there, like /oldphotos, you proxy to a VPN server, with basic auth before that maybe.
And about libraries: VPN protocol Openconnect, for example uses library gnutls (which almost no one else uses) instead of more common openssl. So in China it is blocked using dpi by this “marker”.
Ah. You meant fingerprinting of clients.
Banning everything using gnutls (which, eh, is not only used by openconnect) is kinda similar to whitelists.
Both applicable to situations like China or something Middle-Eastern, but not most of Europe or Northern America.
It is going to show the censor that you are trying to reach different banned websites (and, probably, google, facebook, etc), all hosted on your server. Your beautiful website is all fine, but in clienthello there is still google.
It is not necessary fingerprinting of clients, you can fingerprint the server as well. GnuTLS for this particular purpose is used only by Openconnect and that is just an example. This tactic is very effective in China and Russia and collateral damage is insignificant.
And various western anti-censorship organizations wrote articles, that such methods are not possible in Russia as well, but here we are. China's yesterday is Russia's today, American tomorrow and European next week. Here it all started in the exact same manner, by requiring ISPs to block pirate websites. And between this and blocking whatever you want for the sake of National Security (for example, against Russian hackers) is not such a long road as you think it is.
an industry which throws away finished movies because they don't want to spend the money to release it?
yeah nah, you're disqualified from an opinion on piracy.
It is obvious profit is not their concern.
Instead of releasing a film that by all accounts would have been profitable, so that they can create a loss for tax purposes.
Why not maximize.profits, even if it means more taxes?
The shareholders should have a legal case.
I think the shareholders with enough shares to have influence are the ones who encourage this sort of behavior - if it's a long-term profit at the expense of short term, they aren't interested
That's my gut feeling on it anyways
Yeah! Like, just because you make something, doesn't mean you get to decide what to do with it.
Movies are made by a lot of people.
Many people pouring time, effort, and creativity into a difficult art form.
You really think any of the people who actually made the movie had a say in the decision to shelf it?
Those people were paid for their efforts. Sure it might be disappointing for that effort to not see the light it day, but at the same time I'll bet many are relieved their name won't be attached to a poor product.
No, of course not.
If I commission an artist to make me a painting, and I then decide to throw it in a storage bin (or the trash) rather than put it in a gallery - that's my decision. Neither the artist or the general public gets a say in it. Claiming otherwise (especially in case of the public) is pure entitlement.
If you commission the artist to make you a painting, with some portion of the price being a cut of the revenue generated by displaying the painting, you absolutely should not be permitted to just throw it in the trash.
There should be an inherent obligation to make a good faith effort to make the revenue you're required to share.
From the article...
He also told the audience that pirate-site operators "aren't teenagers playing an elaborate prank. The perpetrators are real-life mobsters, organized crime syndicates—many of whom engage in child pornography, prostitution, drug trafficking, and other societal ills.
I'm honestly surprised they didn't throw the word 'terrorist' into that description as well.
...Many of whom engage in child pornography, prostitution, drug trafficking, murder, terrorism, poisonings, Hentai, bad DIY, unsolicited advice, telling women to smile, wearing JNKOs, hacking banks, and NOT FLOSSING!
There are vegans that were dictators. Therefore veganism should be illegal. Also some people who breath air have been known to be murderers.
Especially eye-roll-inducing considering the pedophile problem in Hollywood hasn't really gotten better, let alone been solved. Many of the exec types demanding things change are likely to be either perpetrators themselves, or sympathisers with the perpetrators of this behavior, and they tell us what we should believe is right or wrong based on the almighty dollar? Fuck Hollywood in general, but especially fuck the movie industry executives in charge. Greedy bastards.
Aren’t those things already illegal? Wouldn’t the solution be to just go after the pirate-site owners for those reasons? Then the only pirate-site owners remaining will be regular people—the vast minority, they would have you believe.
Are we surprised that the people that make up fantastical scenarios are selling a fantastical scenario? The people pirating are every day people that don't want to pay so much for entertainment. You inept dolt.
Are we surprised that the people that make up fantastical scenarios are selling a fantastical scenario? The people pirating are every day people that don’t want to pay so much for entertainment. You inept dolt.
I’m upset at the movie executive that is inept. Not you.
The way you bolted that on to a comment that was directed at me, and have it meant for someone else, seems a little unusual, but fair enough.
Thanks for the clarification.
Yea. I was definitely talking to the exec. But I see the confusion. I should have quoted him or something.
Piracy does not hurt revenue and, in fact, may actually help it:
https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-22-eu-suppressed-study-piracy-no-sales-impact.html
I have found and become a big fan of tv shows that I would have never had the chance to see because of piracy, one of my favourite shows 'Corner Gas' never once aired in my home country. Thank you piracy for helping me find good entertainment.
I absolutely love it, it's the perfect show in my opinion, I'm so glad I stumbled across it.
I was sold on it by the first episode entirely because of Oscar, he kills me with every line.
Another non-Canadian who found the show by happenstance and think it's great! Also watched the animated seasons when they came out (although not quite the same).
Legally guaranteed corporate profits, with enforcement funded by taxpayers.
We should abolish this practice.
Yeah. This is socialism.. if there’s one group that hates socialism. Meh. We know they support this.
Imagine how much money the movie industry would have if it stopped wasting time and effort on the false idea that 1 download = 1 lost sale.
But remember, when it comes to doing a public good/service/education/etc, the government is perpetually broke and can afford nothing.
150M $? This sounds like with such money entire city's Public Transport can run for 10 years. Without fees.
How about they start making good movies that are actually worth to go to cinema for instead of whatever they are doing
Yup, I go to movies when they look good. But movies are so expensive these days that the bar is raised enough that I rarely go. If you're going to ask $10-15 for a single viewing, you need to make a really good movie.
I'm happy to spend £10 to watch a movie at the cinema, but I refuse to spend £10 AND have to buy the movie to watch it again. I will watch it then pirate it. I don't think that's such a big deal.
And adjust the fucking business model so that theatres can make money from people just buying tickets at reasonable prices and don't have to try to gouge them at the concession stand or treat them like criminals for bringing their own food.
I've been to one movie in the theatre since the pandemic and the main thing it did was remind me that seeing movies in a theatre just wasn't really worth it anymore.
Isn’t it fucking crazy that “industry demands ____” is likely to come to fruition, but “group of individuals demands XYZ” isn’t likely to change shit?
I demand better living conditions. We all demand an economy that doesn’t favor the rich. Not shit will change.
Companies “demand” shit and then just literally write the laws and hand them to legislators who pass them.
literally write the laws and hand them to legislators who pass them
Remember, they pass them without reading them.
No, but they do read their bank account statement before passing to see if the bribe campaign donation was paid in time.
Companies “demand” shit and then just literally write the laws and hand them to legislators who pass them.
Well, Congress only hears one side, they don't read Lemmy to get the other side.
They have no respect for their constituency, because they think their constituency doesn't care enough to engage them about it, and are 'dumb' enough to vote them back in the office again.
There was a study recently that showed legislators’ votes are affected by like .3% by input from constituents. I’ll try to find it again, but I can’t say I’m surprised.
There was a study recently that showed legislators’ votes are affected by like .3% by input from constituents. I’ll try to find it again, but I can’t say I’m surprised.
I've seen it (there's always one person who shares the link whenever I make this kind of argument), but that study doesn't take into account what would happen if a large percentage of the electorate that actually participated in the system were to start communicating with their elected legislators.
Right now there is so little interaction done by the electorate with their representatives.
I guarantee you that if a large amount of the voting electorate all started contacting their senators and house reps often, on different various issues, things would matter/change.
So my point still stands.
If you just sit at home reading Lemmy, they're not going to take you seriously, and they're not going to look out for your best interests, but instead they're going to look out for their own best interests, which is usually getting money from corporations that they use to win elections, because they know they can still get re-elected even when they disrespect their electorate.
Fundamentally, they do what they do because they can get away with it, they are not policed by their voters.
TL;DR: If you don't engage, nothing will change.
But during the trump years, those figures spiked big time. Especially with services like resistbot. The amount of form letters and shitty Republican legislators using my contact as some sort of consent on my part to join their fucking mailing lists?
Not to mention, these legislators are insulated from their constituents pretty effectively. If you do manage to get someone on the phone (I never did. Ever.), it’ll be an aide that might summarize the general tone of the calls and e-mails in a couple seconds worth of walk n’ talk. I mean…the system is rigged for people with money.
I get the feeling of wanting to change that. But I don’t think the system that has been further and further adulterated to those ends will ever just hand us the tools to upend that system. It was built this way.
I mean, how many times and how many ways do they have to display their wholehearted willingness to watch us all starve and slaughter countless of us in service of capitalism? They’ve made it abundantly clear.
But during the trump years, those figures spiked big time.
[Citation required.] [And define 'big time'.]
Not to mention, these legislators are insulated from their constituents pretty effectively.
No, they are not. You can contact them directly.
But moreso, they are not policed. If they started losing elections because the electorate actually participated in the system, with more than just sometimes voting, that would change. It truly comes back to them being able to get away with doing their jobs poorly because they are not held responsible for their (bad) work.
But I don’t think the system that has been further and further adulterated to those ends will ever just hand us the tools to upend that system.
The whole point of my argument is that we have those tools today, we're just too lazy/not-caring to use them.
Umm…have you ever tried contacting your representatives? You seem to think it’s so easy to get them on the phone. Why. How can you possibly think that? Those numbers don’t ring in their pockets. Their aides are the only people receiving and sorting through those calls and emails and letters.
There are a great many ways to petition the government, including with actual petitions, but, short of showing up in person, the one reputed to be the most effective is picking up the phone and calling your congressional representatives. In the weeks following the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump, so many people started doing so that, in short order, voice mail filled up and landlines began blurting out busy signals. Pretty soon, even e-mails were bouncing back, with the information that the target in-box was full and the suggestion that senders “contact the recipient directly.” That being impractical, motivated constituents turned to other means. The thwarted and outraged took to Facebook or Twitter or the streets. The thwarted and determined dug up direct contact information for specific congressional staffers. The thwarted and clever remembered that it was still possible, several technological generations later, to send faxes; one Republican senator received, from a single Web-based faxing service, seven thousand two hundred and seventy-six of them in twenty-four hours. The thwarted and creative phoned up a local pizza joint, ordered a pie, and had it delivered, with a side of political opinion, to the Senate.
Americans vote, if we vote at all, roughly once every two years. But even in a slow season, when no one is resorting to faxes or protests or pizza-grams, we participate in the political life of our nation vastly more often by reaching out to our members of Congress. When we do so, however, we almost never get to speak to them directly. Instead, we wind up dealing with one of the thousands of people, many of them too young to rent a car, who collectively constitute the customer-service workforce of democracy.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/what-calling-congress-achieves
That doesn’t offer cold data, but it’s a pretty well known fact that this was an explosion of sudden political participation. And I don’t remember things going particularly well. Do you.
Umm…have you ever tried contacting your representatives?
I did it just a few days ago, actually.
You seem to think it’s so easy to get them on the phone.
You contact them, not call them. I never said call, I said contact.
Let them know you're watching, let them know your opinions on issues, let them know you're engaged, and you're not just mindless cattle that they can manipulate in whatever way they want. If we all do it, if they feel the 'Eye of Sauron' on them, they act differently.
All you have to do is use one of their online email forms. They even respond back, letting you know they registered your email on what subject you're talking about. They track this stuff internally.
From the article that you linked...
Unlike call volume, the data on mail sent to Congress is public, and it suggests that, at least among the politically active, the U.S. Postal Service remains popular; the Senate alone received more than 6.4 million letters last year. Contrary to popular opinion, those written communications are an effective way of communicating with Congress, >>>as are their electronic kin<<<. “Everything is read, every call and voice mail is listened to,” Isaiah Akin, the deputy legislative director for Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden, told me. “We don’t discriminate when it comes to phone versus e-mail versus letter.
So, even in the article you linked, even the aides of Representatives state that contacting them is effective in making them aware that they're being seen by their constituency.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/what-calling-congress-achieves
There's a volume/ratio problem of citizens to a single representative, so of course theyir aides are going to triage the calls coming in.
If you have a serious problem, some legal or administrative issue with the government, you actually are able to get elevated past the aides and talk to your actual representative. That happens all the time to citizens here.
But again, what I'm advocating is contacting them, you don't call, you email (which is actually easier for us citizens to do anyways). They usually even have a link on their website where you can just web email them directly.
Their aides are the only people receiving and sorting through those calls and emails and letters.
And what, the aides never talk to their senators or their representatives? They never track why people are calling? B.S., they do both.
You're not being intellectually honest. No one ever said you get personal one-on-one meetings whenever you want, and it's weird how you're purposely trying to motivate people not to engage in the political system they live in. Almost like you have an agenda/motives of your own.
Edit: Have you actually read through that whole article you linked? It really makes my point.
This is just two of the many examples that the article documents...
On January 2nd, House Republicans voted in secret to defang the Office of Congressional Ethics; less than twenty-four hours later, following what seemed at the time like a deluge of calls but later turned out to be just that loud patter you hear on your window before the storm really begins, they reversed their decision.
On January 24th, Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, introduced a proposal to sell off 3.3 million acres of federal land. Barely a week later, on February 1st, he withdrew it, after getting an earful. “Groups I support and care about fear it sends the wrong message,” he explained. “I hear you and H.R. 621 dies tomorrow.”
I still don't understand why they keep going after piracy when it is a symptom of the bigger problem. Movies today are expensive and often made inaccessible through BS digital services that periodically just make films and TV unavailable to save server space or avoid paying for licensing.
I would guess that the vast majority of people are not pirating content. I'd also guess that if digital providers and studios would actually try to change the distribution model that allows customers to buy content that is later turned off on a whim, they would see meaningful change in piracy activity.
Because piracy is the boogieman that allows them to wrestle more power and profit from everyone around them like the parasites they are. They want a cut every time anyone ever watches something, ever. And they want to control if you even have the option of what to watch.
Once Neuralink's installed adn they start selling off our thoughts to information collection bureaus, they're gonna want us to pay a license for everytime we think about someting not in the public domain
I live in the EU, have all major streaming subscribtions within the family, and we couldn’t watch Terminator 2 anywhere. One of the most famous classic action movie, not even available for purchase on Apple TV.
I still don’t understand why they keep going after piracy when it is a symptom of the bigger problem.
It doesn't have to be rational "profit-maximization". Look at comments in threads that pertain to AI training, web scraping, etc. A lot of ordinary people seem to believe that this is how it's supposed to go.
A lot of noisy people here have a very expansive view of intellectual property. They seem to want total control over anything they "own", without any regard for the consequences. There's no room for any kind of fair use. Where they can't own something, they still want to own it.
With some horror, I recall a thread where the mob called for making robots.txt legally binding. That wasn't big tech lobbyists, just some ordinary users here.
What year is this? 2008?!? Now we have Netflix and piracy is not a problem, right? Oooohhhh right they decided to kill the golden egg chicken but they still want the eggs
Streaming services went complete degen mode (exclusives that require you 6 different subscriptions). So people went back to pirating. Old rule - you are less convinient than pirate sites, people will just pirated instead. That and quality of the shows going downhill, especially on Disney and Netflix
I demand laws requiring the movie industries to throw any IPs they don't want to use or any movies they don't give reasonable and simple access straight into the public domain
Just cut out the middleman and get rid of copyright and patent laws altogether.
They are not good for society and only useful idiots think otherwise.
No. Copyright laws originally allowed creators to profit of their work for 28 years, which is perfectly fair and reasonable. Corporate lobbying extended copyright to 70 years past the author's death, which is obviously insane, since creators can't profit off their work after they die. But just because corporations perverted the law in an attempt to retain IP indefinitely, it doesn't mean that copyright law itself is bad, and wanting reasonable protection for an authors IP doesn't make you a useful idiot.
The parasites that keep the money aren't the "movie industry", the people who actually work to make the movies are.
Wage theft and fraud poses a larger threat to the economy. Rather than hiring 20 million dollars of internet policing to save zero dollars of the economy could we get 20 million dollars of police that prosecute fraudsters and shitty employers?
Oh no, now I will have to pay $50/mo to re-watch marvel movie 832 and an action movie where the main character has to go on a 2hr quest for revenge after someone shot their pet.
...I barely watch movies anymore, there's not been a ton of great new stuff imo. I'm so sick of subscriptions, too.
Same. Been watching a lot of film noir actually. The third man, double indemnity, strangers on a train. What happened to story telling?
Yup. I used to watch a lot of movies and TV shows, now I mostly play video games and read books. Movies and TV just aren't that good.
Yeah. I just use free streaming sites.
It really put things into perspective who the useful idiots are in society.
We're surrounded by them.
I would propose a law that states " All companies must keep their data away from the Internet. If the data ends up in the Internet then it's up for grabs by anyone"
Nah, but definitely limit it to 10-15 years. The original term in the US was 14 years, with an optional, one-time extension for another 14 years. I'd be down with that.
The movie industry can't bother to provide and preserve the movies they make, they should shut the fuck up.
USDoJ: How about no.
Oh, right. This isn't 1992 when the DoJ had balls and a constitution.
