Online pirates could face jail terms of up to 10 years under plans being considered by the government.
It was heard that a comprehensive law enforcement action targeted scene release group “SPARKS” and its associates earlier this month.
A company that sold Kodi-based software which accessed infringing TV, movie and sports streams has lost an interesting case featuring Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN. MovieStreamer claimed that it only provided a referral service to third-party content through a series of links but the court found that despite the convoluted process, it still communicated copyrighted works to the public.
Back in 2014, the European Commission paid the Dutch consulting firm Ecorys 360,000 euros (about $428,000) to research the effect piracy had on sales of copyrighted content.
They spent almost half a million dollars just to be proven wrong! Lol, I guess I'd be embarrassed enough to hide those findings as well.
But seriously, it's pretty screwed up that the EU would try to hide this information.
It doesn't gel with the dominant narrative. It removes the justification for the state to destroy lives in the name of stopping piracy. Screwed up, you bet. Surprising, no.
I meant surprising to *them*.
They were hoping to find piracy would be harmful. Rational people like us already knew it wasn't harmful.
"Main conclusions
"In 2014, on average 51 per cent of the adults and 72 per cent of the minors
in the EU have illegally downloaded or streamed any form of creative content,
with higher piracy rates in Poland and Spain than in the other four countries
of this study. In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of
displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not
necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis
does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect. An exception is
the displacement of recent top films. The results show a displacement rate of
40 per cent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally,
four fewer films are consumed legally. People do not watch many recent top
films a second time but if it happens, displacement is lower: two legal
consumptions are displaced by every ten illegal second views. This suggests
that the displacement rate for older films is lower than the 40 per cent for
recent top films. All in all, the estimated loss for recent top films is 5 per cent
of current sales volumes."
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org...
So the worst effect is to new movies, and even that is just 5% overall--just a *little* bit lower than the 100% effect the industry claims (i.e., every illegal download is a lost sale).
The game and media distributors have been hammering into the collective consciousness that piracy is the same thing as theft. This study suggests a very different reality, one that does not surprise me at all. While still clearly wrong, piracy in no way rises to the level of outright theft. That lie has been outed now.
I will pay only for a good movie in the cinema, but for a basic/normal movie that doesn't deserve to be in the cinemas I will not pay just to watch it.
10 years jail time? I've seen rapists get off with less.
As a former pirate from back when I was a teenager, it just seems unnecessary to pirate movies now. A combination of my sky subscription and netflix pretty much has all my movie needs covered.
The government is f'ed up all around the world. This right here is really messed if it happed cause Pirating isn't hurting anyone physically so it shouldn't be 10 years definitely because of a $20 movie. I don't care what country it is I do not agree with this and I'm pretty sure 80% of usa and UK citizen don't agree with it.
Introduce Netflix quality services around the world, then you fight piracy legitimately.
Media companies are still around, still moving forward still producing the goods and still growing and still making millionaires.
When they talk about taking it from 2 to 10 years sentence, they are talking about these people who host and distribute piracy, because it would mean thousands of people behind bars, because they cant afford these shiney things the system keeps throwing at them.
A 1000 people behind bars for years or out in the world paying taxes on the other pruducts like food and cloths etc? Do the math, and thats why this can not go ahead.