Blockchain: Pirate Killer ?

[williamcll]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

It doesn't.

It won't.

 

It just makes it absolutely transparent from an investigation and evidence position. 

How would you know where the pirated video is from if the video is ripped with the link to the blockchain missing?

[mr moose]

36 minutes ago, williamcll said:

How would you know where the pirated video is from if the video is ripped with the link to the blockchain missing?

Why would you need to know that?  If I read the proposition right, they are claiming the only way to get the content is through this new blockchain method, which instantly makes all other copies (regardless of their origin) clear violations of copyright.

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, djmartrix said:

i just read this artical about blockchain would be able to stop pirating, providing the whole world changed to this system. 

 

https://finance.nine.com.au/2019/03/08/10/45/news-business-aussie-company-shares-anti-piracy-breakthrough?ocid=Social-Nine

 

can someone please tell me wtf a "virtual video file" is and how it works? lol

 

cheers

Having games rely on a thing that keeps "crashing". No thanks. I'll stick with DRM-less GOG.

[strajk-]

So their "solution" is Steganography over the blockchain?

Ehhh...I don't know about that...don't know many blockchains that would be able to provide enough speed and block size to realize this on a large scale if we consider how much the Bitcoin and Ethereum network shit themselves once they got overloaded because currently both scale terribly, one that comes to mind that might be able to do this is Neblio with their 8MB block size and 30 second block time but even here I'm incredibly skeptical about this...

 

I don't see how Steganography would prevent me from pirating software, theoretically it would also be possible to fork the blockchain in case they're using something specifically from it...just like there have been offline "online activations" for products from vmware, sony and adobe.

[WereCatf]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

We are constantly undergoing law changes in Australia because the legal system does not cater for digital crimes.  Under current law the industry would not only have to prove you had the infringing content but that you didn't buy it legitimately.   Under this system it would appear they no longer have to worry about legitimacy because being in possession of the content means you are already guilty.  The only battle left for them is with judges who oversee such cases (In Australia that is a hard battle). 

Um, you've massively misunderstood something and everything you said is wrong. Even if someone did buy a movie or something legitimately, it doesn't give them the right to share it, so that is entirely fucking irrelevant. You need to have bought a license to share the works or have bought the actual copyrights themselves to do it, and in either of those cases there would be a massive papertrail to prove it, so no, it wouldn't be difficult to prove. Proving you don't have a license to share the copyrighted works or have bought the actual copyrights to the works itself is fucking trivial.

[mr moose]

18 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Um, you've massively misunderstood something and everything you said is wrong. Even if someone did buy a movie or something legitimately, it doesn't give them the right to share it, so that is entirely fucking irrelevant. You need to have bought a license to share the works or have bought the actual copyrights themselves to do it, and in either of those cases there would be a massive papertrail to prove it, so no, it wouldn't be difficult to prove. Proving you don't have a license to share the copyrighted works or have bought the actual copyrights to the works itself is fucking trivial.

I guess you haven't been keeping up with any of the recent lawsuits over movie piracy in Australia then.   Paper trail or not that's not entirely the problem.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Why would you need to know that?  If I read the proposition right, they are claiming the only way to get the content is through this new blockchain method, which instantly makes all other copies (regardless of their origin) clear violations of copyright. 

I don't see how that's any different from what we got today.

I don't think there are many movies or series distributed today which are DRM-free, which means that anyone with a DRM-free file has obtained it through stripping the DRM in some way, or obtained it from someone else.

 

So then the question becomes.

Is it legal to strip DRM from content you have purchased? If yes, then the addition of the blockchain element doesn't make a difference since it is allowed to remove that aspect.

If it's illegal to strip DRM then all DRM-free files which are only distributed with DRM-protection is already indisputably illegal.

 

For example if Netflix made one of their original series only watchable on Netflix, with DRM, then from a legal perspective it would be exactly as clear cut as this blockchain thing.

[mr moose]

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I don't see how that's any different from what we got today.

I don't think there are many movies or series distributed today which are DRM-free, which means that anyone with a DRM-free file has obtained it through stripping the DRM in some way, or obtained it from someone else.

 

So then the question becomes.

Is it legal to strip DRM from content you have purchased? If yes, then the addition of the blockchain element doesn't make a difference since it is allowed to remove that aspect.

If it's illegal to strip DRM then all DRM-free files which are only distributed with DRM-protection is already indisputably illegal.

 

For example if Netflix made one of their original series only watchable on Netflix, with DRM, then from a legal perspective it would be exactly as clear cut as this blockchain thing.

As far as I know netflix let you download to watch offline and haven't tried suing anyone for copyright.

 

The question is not will this stop people from making copies, but will this effect the current law given it neatly sidesteps issues surrounding the legality of owning copies of certain content.

 

 

[LAwLz]

41 minutes ago, mr moose said:

As far as I know netflix let you download to watch offline and haven't tried suing anyone for copyright. 

Netflix doesn't really allow you to download in that way.

What happens when you "download" from Netflix is that the it caches the video inside the app. You don't get a DRM free file which you can play. It gets stored encrypted in a way which can only be accessed and viewed from within the Netflix app.

 

I just don't see what difference the addition of the blockchain stuff makes.

[LinusOnLine]

Will not work in Sweden. We have a right by law to do copies for personal use.

[Thaldor]

I don't really see what this could achieve. Already if you find a movie from someones PC without DRM of some kind, it's quite probably pirated. The legal systems problems come mostly from that the real pirates can hide themselves with VPNs and seedboxes and usually know what they are doing and hunting the "downloaders" had been beating a dead horse from the beginning because all they can achieve with that is bad reputation, growing legal fees and doubtful fear factor (at least currently when the "biggest" players: Maverickeye/Guardaley/Texipio (all are same company or more like letterbox companies run by same persons) are just after quick buck and more or less make things even harder for those few organizations that try to do the things right because people now know about VPNs and encrypting their disks).

 

But either way. Just another shitty DRM that would fuck up paying consumers if implemented and pirates would still laugh at everything and keep seeding.

[yian88]

The most stupid anti-piracy measure i hjave ever seen or heard of, these people are completely tech inapt and dont understand a goddamn thing, sounds more like a basis for something else to steal money from people or something.

Anything that i can play on a screen regardless of how the source got there i can record with screen capture, capture cards or quality 4K camera and then reupload to internet, for music its even easier, just plug a jack output into a jack input and let audacity or any other software do the work.

This will delay piracy of new releases by a few hours at its best... even a highschooler can figure that out.

[porina]

What about fair use? While I think there is a lot of misunderstanding of what constitutes fair use, it does allow some reproduction of copyrighted works in a limited scenario. Any move towards tighter content control would hinder that right.

[Fasterthannothing]

Haha is this a joke this has got to be a joke right? I mean come on do they even understand how technology works and what a screen recorder is? Also it wouldn't make it any easier to identify copyrighted stuff taken from the stream why because disk still exists people can buy those and rip those therefore you can't explicitly prove its from the block chain stream. Goodness what moron thought this would do anything except make it harder for people to watch stuff no thanks to DRM crap like this. Everyone knows to get rid of pirating all you need to do is make a service with everything on it and downloadable for offline viewing at a reasonable price without ads. 

[mr moose]

9 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Netflix doesn't really allow you to download in that way.

What happens when you "download" from Netflix is that the it caches the video inside the app. You don't get a DRM free file which you can play. It gets stored encrypted in a way which can only be accessed and viewed from within the Netflix app.

 

I just don't see what difference the addition of the blockchain stuff makes.

 

Because Australian law is still evolving digitally,  the judge nearly always sides with the common good of the people, and companies need absolute indisputable evidence of piracy.  That's why we have had major changes in Digital laws over the last few years and why the movie industry has given up claims even when it made it past the major hurdle of evidence. 

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, porina said:

What about fair use? While I think there is a lot of misunderstanding of what constitutes fair use, it does allow some reproduction of copyrighted works in a limited scenario. Any move towards tighter content control would hinder that right.

Fair use is a defense, not a right.  I'm not sure how this will pan out (to be honest i can't see it taking of for many other reasons), but I imagine if it works as they intend it will be nigh on impossible to take anyone to court to force them to give you some other copy of the content for uses currently covered by fair use policy.

[Thaldor]

16 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

Because Australian law is still evolving digitally,  the judge nearly always sides with the common good of the people, and companies need absolute indisputable evidence of piracy.  That's why we have had major changes in Digital laws over the last few years and why the movie industry has given up claims even when it made it past the major hurdle of evidence. 

Last I have heard about CR "owners" getting fucked in Australia was when Patrick Achache tried to start their global scamming process in there and got laughed out of your island. I don't know about other cases but with that one you should be quite proud of your juridical system, because those Maverick Eye/Guardaley/Texcipio shits are hard to get out if you once let them in and their only aim is to make money out of their very limited P2P-licences. Their "evidences" are mostly a PDF file collected by the lawfirm representing the company that has the licences (usually Crystalis Entertainment, which is a shell company working under some German movie theater) with IP addresses collected from a torrent node network they run in Germany and then how many times that IP address have been seen in a node with some torrent during randomly selected timespan. They do say that that PDF is collected from data that is stored on verificated tapes in their database, too bad those tapes have some magical properties to disappear or get lost when some judge deems it needful to see the original data and quite often the whole case is dropped if someone asks for those tapes. If they ever get as far as suing someone over piracy their "evidences" don't get any better, mostly they go through your social media and either look from Wigle or send a private detective to meter your WiFi and try to prove how you are responsible for things happening with your IP. Fightcopyrighttrolls.com has more info, but in short Australia was saved from a shit pile so high mt. Everest would be left behind it's shadow.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Last I have heard about CR "owners" getting fucked in Australia was when Patrick Achache tried to start their global scamming process in there and got laughed out of your island. I don't know about other cases but with that one you should be quite proud of your juridical system, because those Maverick Eye/Guardaley/Texcipio shits are hard to get out if you once let them in and their only aim is to make money out of their very limited P2P-licences. Their "evidences" are mostly a PDF file collected by the lawfirm representing the company that has the licences (usually Crystalis Entertainment, which is a shell company working under some German movie theater) with IP addresses collected from a torrent node network they run in Germany and then how many times that IP address have been seen in a node with some torrent during randomly selected timespan. They do say that that PDF is collected from data that is stored on verificated tapes in their database, too bad those tapes have some magical properties to disappear or get lost when some judge deems it needful to see the original data and quite often the whole case is dropped if someone asks for those tapes. If they ever get as far as suing someone over piracy their "evidences" don't get any better, mostly they go through your social media and either look from Wigle or send a private detective to meter your WiFi and try to prove how you are responsible for things happening with your IP. Fightcopyrighttrolls.com has more info, but in short Australia was saved from a shit pile so high mt. Everest would be left behind it's shadow.

We also had the courts tell the Dallas buyers club to go fuck themselves.  They had successfully argued that copyright infringement had occurred (not easy),  but lost the battle when the judge said speculative invoicing is not permitted in Australia and bully boy tactics would not be tolerated.  Consequently the DBC realized it would cost more to pursue the action (even though they technically won) than to let it go.

[TetraSky]

Nothing can stop pirates. They will always find a way.

[Thaldor]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

We also had the courts tell the Dallas buyers club to go fuck themselves.  They had successfully argued that copyright infringement had occurred (not easy),  but lost the battle when the judge said speculative invoicing is not permitted in Australia and bully boy tactics would not be tolerated.  Consequently the DBC realized it would cost more to pursue the action (even though they technically won) than to let it go.

DBC was basicly the beginning of Patrick Achaches quest for easy money. Technically they are right but their aim isn't in hunting pirates but create enough fear for sues that people who get their letter pay without questions. They don't really care for the copyrights since 99,9% of suspected pirates they "catch" only get settlement letter and a ton of reminders to pay and only very few unlucky (those who have cheaply attainable solid looking proof) get sued (in Finland they have collectively over 200 000 contact infos of suspected pirates but only ~15 has been sued with varying outcomes). At the height there was 2 lawfirms running after porn pirates (never sued anyone), 1 lawfirm from Denmark and then the one representing Crystalis Entertainment and Scanbox in Finland who has sued all of those around 15 people, today only that one lawfirm is up and running and trying to open the floodgates again after a ton of complaints and publicity came from their shady tactics and backgrounds.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Thaldor said:

DBC was basicly the beginning of Patrick Achaches quest for easy money. Technically they are right but their aim isn't in hunting pirates but create enough fear for sues that people who get their letter pay without questions. They don't really care for the copyrights since 99,9% of suspected pirates they "catch" only get settlement letter and a ton of reminders to pay and only very few unlucky (those who have cheaply attainable solid looking proof) get sued (in Finland they have collectively over 200 000 contact infos of suspected pirates but only ~15 has been sued with varying outcomes). At the height there was 2 lawfirms running after porn pirates (never sued anyone), 1 lawfirm from Denmark and then the one representing Crystalis Entertainment and Scanbox in Finland who has sued all of those around 15 people, today only that one lawfirm is up and running and trying to open the floodgates again after a ton of complaints and publicity came from their shady tactics and backgrounds.

The judge in the Australia case was ready to hand over the names and addresses of all people who downloaded the DBC via torrent, he only stopped when the DBC lawyers were going to send everyone a speculative invoice.

[Trik'Stari]

22 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

If you can experience the content, you can steal it

YARRRRRRRRR MATEY