Sony pick on the little guy and the German courts uphold their absurd demands; I find this outrageous.
The problem is that the internet is incredibly open to abuse.
You make some valid points, with which I totally agree. Mainly, Sony went after the little guy, why? why didn't they take on the big players? Cost them too much?My problem is I totally understand Sony's concerns - and I totally agree with those concerns. The site Sony wants blocked is commonly used to host pirated music, movies, apps and other "IP" (intellectual property) content. The piracy scourge costs $billions annually. It is exactly like how shoplifting from the local grocery cost all consumers as the merchants must raise the prices of all good to avoid going into the red. It is the same with music and video piracy. So EVERY legitimate and practical avenue available to stop it MUST be employed because no one solution will ever work.
But I also agree with the Quad9 and Naomi Brockwell that forcing a DNS resolver to block such sites is not the correct way. They don't store or host IP data. So IMO, Sony needs to go after the registrar (the "GoDaddy" or domain registrar), the company that issued the pirate site's domain name. Or go after the hosting company - the company supplying the servers these pirated tunes sit on. That said, the hosting sites are likely to be in some untouchable country like Russia, China, N. Korea, Iran, etc.
Sony (like all the big recording companies) is in a pickle. If they insert code to prevent copying, legitimate owners will revolt (as we have in the past) since we will be prevented from making legal copies for our own personal use.
It does make one wonder why Sony didn't go after the bigger resolvers like Google, OpenDNS, or Cloudflare, as examples. It also makes one wonder why the German courts didn't order all resolvers to block those sites.
I personally think (at least I hope) the German courts might be smarter than we think and by making this ruling, will illustrate and illuminate the issue, and make the entire EU, UN and the rest of the world take notice and act on the bigger more immediate issue - IP piracy.
I agree with the Quad9 exec and I believe they will win the appeal - especially if the Swiss government steps in to help (as they should) to tell the German courts to stay out of the Swiss government's business.
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Can we keep the US RESTRICT Act out of and from derailing this discussion? It is a totally different off topic issue from a "company" telling the rest of the world what to do. I note it is NOT intended to do what the poster above claims.
The RESTRICT Act (AKA the TikTok ban) is a "bipartisan" bill intended to "review" transactions between US companies (NOT individuals) and foreign adversaries. Are there some flaws and controversaries in the "proposed" law? Yes. But "both" sides are working on it.
But that is totally different than this Sony vs Quad9 issue and for a different discussion!
No. I don't see it that way - at least not control in the greedy sense of the word.
I would like to see the conclusion this leads to. I'm pro piracy, and specifically for Sony because they have a lot of anti consumer practices, and I still agree -- it's a topic that needs to be brought forward.
That's pretty sad. How is stealing ever justified - I don't get it.
Anyone before the digital era knows media is usually lowered in price as their appeal diminishes with the passing of eras. Due to the digitalisation of things, however, Sony does not lower the price of non mainstream titles creating a barrier to poor people the longer it happens, and the only protest is piracy. Especially, because Sony censors discussion or stablised prices that should be 90% less on 10 year old games,. without corporatism.
Do you not realize how many 1000s of small, independent developers went under because their creations were stolen to the point they didn't have enough income to feed and shelter their families?
Sony (and many, if not most others) has what you call anti-consumer practices primarily because so many people were copying their products, then selling them, by 10s of 1000s!!! to others without paying Sony (and their developers) a penny.
Definitely. As increases of games, movies, music and other that are "online only" aka you never actually own, and the demand for indie games is always too small to pirate them.
Most research? Bullfeathers! Please show us any research that shows piracy is good, or even not bad.
Non of those examples involve are legally considered piracy! Non of those examples involve making copies, then giving away (or worse, selling) to others outside your households.
What does that have to do with the price of rice in China in the summertime when it rains? Nothing! Just as is has nothing to do with making illegal copies for personal gains, or for others who have not purchased it legally.
Different? Yes. Big difference? No. Stealing? YES!!! And it certainly is a crime.
Ummm, no. From Sony's viewpoint, it is not about censorship at all. You are right that they are not seeking legal reimbursement. But censorship involves stopping someone from publishing or stating something - typically for political or propaganda purposes. DNS resolvers are not publishing anything. They doing little more than converting C° into F°, or miles into kilometers.
Here are two quick studies with their research papers attached.
www.pcgamesn.com
Websites are published content, the act on placing a website online is generally called "publishing". You can not claim that it is not censorship as it doesn't fit into political or propaganda genres. You yourself stated that DNS servers do not publish content, so how can a lawsuit deem? The public content is illegal if they do not publish it?
The problem with these numbers are that they are the theoretical jobs and profit that would be gained if all the pirated content was pursed at full price, not actually recorded loses. And that is not a realistic equation at all as you can easily pirate $500k of music, but most people would never even come close to buying that amount even with zero piracy in the world.
Quad9 is not placing any website on line.
No it doesn't. Do you not understand what a DNS resolver does? They are simply "resolving" or converting domain names into IP addresses. As I noted, it is like converting miles to kilometers. They are not providing any published content. In fact, they are not "providing" any "content" at all.
Oh come on! And all your statistics are actual numbers?
Yes, that is what they do. They are a service to allow a website to utilize a domain name so users can find that website's content.... Or as most would call it ... A service to help provide published content to users. Google would be pretty awful if it was actually called 64.233.164.84 Search.
True, but I'm pretty sure this makes them getting sued for a torrent website even more confusing. And therefore the lawsuit is even less practical.
I don't really have a defense to this as I don't believe I posted any statistics or numbers. I did use the word "most" in a probably exaggerated manner, so I guess this is true.
The service does NOT help provide any content whatsoever.Huh? I'm not even sure what that says. But nowhere did I say or even imply that Sony is justified in going after Quad9. IMO, they are not. And I said that above. Why? Because for the last time, Quad9 does not provide, or even help provide (contrary to your claims) any content!
I mean the Chinese are even making counterfeit Boeing 737 MAX jets! And that is especially true when so many people are willing to turn a blind eye and use illegal copies instead of buying a legitimate license. Well said. Sony, aided and abetted by the German courts, used a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Well, clearly is was a "starter" as it made it to and even through the courts. But Sony has not prevailed - yet. There is still the appeal process.
Yeah, it was a "starter" unfortunately, but let's hope it'll hit the buffers.Well, clearly is was a "starter" as it made it to and even through the courts. But Sony has not prevailed - yet. There is still the appeal process.
My hope is Google, and as you said, the Swiss government and some of the other big DNS resolvers will rally behind Quad9 and provide them the resources they need to properly defend against this.
The sad part is, it won't resolve the root problem. Rampant illegal counterfeiting and filesharing will continue on.
We (consumers and private citizens) are in our own way here. We demand absolute privacy and unrestricted freedoms on the Internet. And then we raise a HUGE stink should anyone try to stifle that. But that privacy and those freedoms are impossible to allow without allowing that same privacy and unrestricted freedoms to the bad guys.
At some point, we, the masses, need to accept what the 2nd line in my signature really means. Sacrifices (ceding some freedoms) must be made to be free.
That's why I said we (the consumers) must accept and make the sacrifices. In other words, the "honor system" must prevail. Just because something can be had for free, or for some "too good to be true" price, that does not mean we should, or that it is right to take advantage of those offers.
I suspect Sony knows exactly what they are doing too. Their lawyers aren't dumb.
So it seems clear to me, Sony is just trying bring the problem to the forefront. And the problem is not just Sony and the other big studios losing money. It is also what Mars noted - lots of pirated software is riddled with malware.
My "guess" is if they went after Google, Google's fancy dancy, high-priced shysters... err... lawyers would have had it thrown out before it even went before a judge - and then it never would have received any publicity or shed any light on the real problem of illegal filesharing/pirating.
