Originally posted by schmidtbag
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Law enforcement is easily defeated in the world of computers
Originally posted by araxth View PostDepends where you live, in Germany for instance the clear conscience doesn't save you from the fine you will have to pay for media stuff illegal downloading. And I assume it's the case for the civilized world.
Refuse to pay fines, refuse to pay judgements-be ruthless in dealing with the copythug mafia! Dispose of any equipment or services requiring offical permission to own or operate. Here in the US, the RIAA was reported to have been unable to collect one thin dime from all those high-profile filesharing lawsuits and gave up. So many people stopped buying CD's because of the music lawsuits that the music industry suffered a huge economic punishment for the lawsuits. As for fines, the FCC has had almost zero success in collecting fines from individuals (not corporations) accused of running pirate radio stations, surely a bigger deal than filesharing. The fines for radio violations are collected by suspending radio licenses-but pirates are not licensed and have nothing to lose, like a cyclist refusing to pay a red light ticket because he has no driver license to hold hostage.
You are going to need Tor anyway because European governments are getting so interested in Internet censorship, and because the TTIP trade deal, if it goes through, will clamp US patent and copyright laws around your throat. Tor and similar tools can poke out the Eye of Sauron and keep your activity concealed from the greedheads in Hollywood. I'd like to see the entire paid media industry bankrupt, so all the independent musicians, news reporters (like myself) and filmmakers would finally be able to operate on a level playing field. The Big bosses are the enemy, so roll up your sleeves for a good fight!
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Originally posted by schmidtbag View PostIt is legal to do that, but it doesn't matter if it requires the Steam client in order to play them.
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Originally posted by CrystalGamma View PostI think somewhere in the terms of use it says that if ever Valve were to be unable to provide Steam service (because they went bankrupt or whatever), they would allow everyone to play their games without Steam activation. IIRC.
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Originally posted by randomizer View PostI think Valve employees have talked about this as an act of goodwill, but the Steam Subscriber Agreement (the document that actually matters, not an employee's hearsay) does not say anything of the sort.
So, there's not a "binding legal contract" end of it, but if you believe Gabe then you don't have to worry TOO much.All opinions are my own not those of my employer if you know who they are.
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Originally posted by CrystalGamma View PostI think somewhere in the terms of use it says that if ever Valve were to be unable to provide Steam service (because they went bankrupt or whatever), they would allow everyone to play their games without Steam activation. IIRC.
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Originally posted by Luke View PostThe risk of something like this is close to zero in the US, the very nation behind all the copyright and patent maximalization. My advice is this: refuse to pay for any content due to the behavior of the paid content authors. If you can't get it free, reject it. Use Tor for website work, and peer to peer darknets for torrenting that work like Tor but unlike Bittorrent over Tor don't broadcast your true IP address to fellow uploaders/downloaders . Even if exploits exist capable of bypassing these measures, your government won't admit to having them over filesharing, for fear of tipping off bigger fish.
Refuse to pay fines, refuse to pay judgements-be ruthless in dealing with the copythug mafia! Dispose of any equipment or services requiring offical permission to own or operate. Here in the US, the RIAA was reported to have been unable to collect one thin dime from all those high-profile filesharing lawsuits and gave up. So many people stopped buying CD's because of the music lawsuits that the music industry suffered a huge economic punishment for the lawsuits. As for fines, the FCC has had almost zero success in collecting fines from individuals (not corporations) accused of running pirate radio stations, surely a bigger deal than filesharing. The fines for radio violations are collected by suspending radio licenses-but pirates are not licensed and have nothing to lose, like a cyclist refusing to pay a red light ticket because he has no driver license to hold hostage.
You are going to need Tor anyway because European governments are getting so interested in Internet censorship, and because the TTIP trade deal, if it goes through, will clamp US patent and copyright laws around your throat. Tor and similar tools can poke out the Eye of Sauron and keep your activity concealed from the greedheads in Hollywood. I'd like to see the entire paid media industry bankrupt, so all the independent musicians, news reporters (like myself) and filmmakers would finally be able to operate on a level playing field. The Big bosses are the enemy, so roll up your sleeves for a good fight!
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At my income/asset level you are "judgment proof"
Originally posted by Michael_S View PostThat's fine advice for people tech-savvy enough to visit Phoronix forums, but your average person can't manage that. Relatives of mine who were not as good at internet anonymity got hit with lawsuits over a pirated film and settled out of court for $1500 because it was cheaper than hiring an intellectual property lawyer. I'm not even supposed to know about the settlement, one of the conditions for paying $1500 is that they not disclose the settlement terms with anyone.
Refusing to pay only works if you can afford the legal team to back you up when it goes to court. For the 80+% of the population with an annual household income under $100,000, that's not likely. The people most able to take a stand against the RIAA and MPAA are the ones who can most easily just buy the content outright and be done with it.
The other factor is this: Even if I see a DVD of something I like sold for $3.99 in a discount bin I refuse to buy it as a matter of principle, of not giving money to the pigs who have been suing for filesharing. If you don't want to pirate paid media, then DO WITHOUT IT. I ignore movie content as I do not have the bandwidth to download it and refuse to pay for it, for example. It is people not buying content that is choking the life out of the Hollywood copythugs. Whether people torrent or boycott the content has exactly zero effect on that, and nobody can be sued for refusing to posess copyrighted content.
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