Originally Posted by DamianJ (Post 18544501)

Not sure of your point. I said they weren't going after usenet end users.

Originally Posted by Phoenix (Post 18544594)

funny how the same people always come out in threads revolving around theft...does anyone know why that is?

Originally Posted by DamianJ (Post 18544517)

The drugs would make more money if legalised through taxation. Currently there is no tax collected on illegal drugs. The additional revenue would come from saving the tax payer the billions being wasted on a war that has been lost. This is fairly basic obvious stuff. So no, legalising piracy would not increase porn revenues. I didn't suggest it would. The point, and I am sorry I am not making this clear enough, is that the government has spent BILLIONS on fighting drugs and they HAVE LOST. Similarly, the MPAA, RIAA etc have spent BILLIONS fighting piracy. And have lost. There comes a time when you have to realise you've lost.

Originally Posted by Nautilus (Post 18544614)

When something is not working, just give up. Do not try to regroup, to try a different approach, to think out of the box. Just give up, all is lost. Criminals are invincible and unstoppable. Just throw the white flag and try to adapt.

Originally Posted by Redrob (Post 18544696)

Pirates are just thieves that want to steal the "gold".

Originally Posted by DamianJ (Post 18544517)

The drugs would make more money if legalised through taxation. Currently there is no tax collected on illegal drugs. The additional revenue would come from saving the tax payer the billions being wasted on a war that has been lost. This is fairly basic obvious stuff. So no, legalising piracy would not increase porn revenues. I didn't suggest it would. The point, and I am sorry I am not making this clear enough, is that the government has spent BILLIONS on fighting drugs and they HAVE LOST. Similarly, the MPAA, RIAA etc have spent BILLIONS fighting piracy. And have lost. There comes a time when you have to realise you've lost.

Originally Posted by DamianJ (Post 18544517)

Where did I say that? I said the PR generated through the fighting increased traffic to tpb because it did. More people because aware of it.

Originally Posted by Jel (Post 18544773)

HAVE LOST? In what way, purely monetary?

Originally Posted by Jel (Post 18544773)

We are getting waaaaaay off topic here, but money isn't the be all and end all - let's legalise something that brings misery to fucking millions, so we can make a profit?

Originally Posted by Jel (Post 18544773)

So the fighting explicitly increased it's popularity, not the give-me-it-for-free culture, the huge rise in social networking, the amount of new internet users? Got a citation for that?

Originally Posted by DamianJ (Post 18544718)

If I told you that if you give me 50k a month I will make your sites 1 million, and after 40 years of doing this I have not once made you a million would you keep paying me? If so, where can I send the invoice?

Originally Posted by DamianJ (Post 18544078)

Who has been saying that?

People have been saying that suing downloaders will have no impact on piracy. The MPAA and RIAA tried it, spent billions, failed, gave up.

What do you know that the MPAA and RIAA don't?

Also, ask the lawyer how much the kid settled for. I think it was 1 cent per dollar.

Originally Posted by Nautilus (Post 18544614)

When something is not working, just give up. Do not try to regroup, to try a different approach, to think out of the box. Just give up, all is lost. Criminals are invincible and unstoppable. Just throw the white flag and try to adapt.

Originally Posted by Paul Markham (Post 18544810)

= Please don't send the pictures I know you have to the police. :1orglaugh

Originally Posted by Paul Markham (Post 18544831)

The effect on piracy today isn't great. Doing nothing as Damian wants, means it will be 10 times worse.

Originally Posted by blackmonsters (Post 18545014)

A lot of "off the wall" post were made in this thread.

People can argue whatever they want on this board but the bottom line will be this :

In the end money will win!

The people losing money will eventually get their way because the government
is not getting the tax revenue anymore.

Anybody believing it will end differently is just dumb.

People are simply being lulled into thinking illegal uploading will be ok because the
law is moving very slow.

Comparing the war on drugs to the war on piracy is insane because drug dealers
don't have ISPs, IP addresses and don't leave electronic evidence.

The following video is of an illegal downloader getting what the rest have coming.

:1orglaugh

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o

Originally Posted by Nautilus (Post 18544524)

I understand what you're saying, but are you sure they're loosing ticket sales because of your buddy downloading illegally? Maybe they're loosing DVD/digital sales, if he has simply lost interest in visiting theaters, the same way you did. DVD and digital sales are nowhere near the amounts they should be because of piracy, there's no argument about it. It's ticket sales where I'm not so sure.

We're all changing habits as the time goes by, that's natural, do you think that wouldn't have happened with both you and your buddy if not for piracy?

With those piracy charts, I'm also not so sure if they're directly connected to the box office. People have limited amount of time and can only visit movie theaters so much times/month or year. No matter what they're showing there and how interesting it is, I cannot go to see 10 new releases when I only have time for 5 because I have other things in life to do too. But I may wait for a DVD release and buy it when it comes. So those charts may once again reflect lost DVD/digital sales rather than ticket sales.

But those are all theories of course based mostly on personal perception. My main assumption is that people go to movie theaters ONLY because it is an event, which isn't based on anything but speculations. If there's a substantial amount of movie goers that are actually interested to see some particular movie, then of course piracy would have at least some effect on ticket sales too.

Originally Posted by kane (Post 18545458)

With my buddy I am sure they are losing ticket sales. There was a time a few years ago when he lived in a place where the only internet access he could get was dial-up and it sucked. At that point he and his wife went to the movies at least once per month (sometimes more depending on what was out etc). They then moved to where he got broadband, a friend showed him how the torrent sites work and he has rarely gone since.

There is no way of knowing exactly if or by how much piracy has effected sales of movie tickets. I am just assuming it is. Logic tells me that is plays a part in the whole puzzle, the question is how big of a part.