Damn it... ;-(

son of a bitch,first mu,not btj?

A smart move. Seems they already made a few million bucks and now they get to keep it.

If a government, or judge, eventually decides they broke the law. Rather in a couple months, years, or even decades. They can still face charges. This is just a sad attempt to hide their criminal activities and try to dodge justice.

Justice my ass.

You can't host stolen property and think the law doesn't apply to you.

That's like someone just stole a brand new car and you let them keep it in your garage. Your going to jail too.

There is a difference between stealing and SHARING... same shit as if you share your CDs, same shit as if you SHARE your DVDs, same shit as if you SHARE your console games.

One down, yes... but they can stop file sharing completely.

Fire sharing isnt theft by even the loosest definition of the word.

There's a difference between sharing content, and hosting stolen software/entertainment. One you (or someone else) actually bought it. The other, someone stole a copy from somewhere and uploaded it to the internet.

Most things hosted on torrent sites is stolen. (Torrent's aren't bad themselves, I use it all the time, it's just the "stolen" games, movies, etc. where the problems arise.)

It's like someone stole a car, and he "shares" it with you. If your in the car when the police pull you over, your going to jail.

These guys hosted stolen content, instead of actively removing it, they let it stay on their servers. Any judge or government can easily throw them in jail. They own the site, thus all responsibly comes back on them.

Your argument fails at the fact that its not stealing.

Someone had to steal the movies/games hosted on these sites, days, or even weeks before release from somewhere in order to upload them.

They don't just magically show up.

Stealing implies that the original copy was removed from the owners possession however this is not the case as it is just a copy, its no different then taking a photo of a painting and then printing it out for display in your home, the only place where I see legal implication is if you sell or otherwise profit from the sale or distribution of said copies.

This is why I dont really support these websites, if they did not profit from this then I would find no quarrel with it but they are getting filthy rich from providing copies of others work and there is nothing noble or righteous about that.

Ultimately piracy is a moral choice, while I dont really have issue with people copying the material of companies that treat their customers like cattle for the slaughter and use the legal system as a source of income, profiting from destroying the lives and homes of innocent people and which treat their developers like garbage, stealing the studios rights to their own product. I do take issue with people copying the work of indie developers who own and directly benefit from the sale on the games and are actually fighting the same fight against these greedy companies and trying to bring back a pure, no nonsense gaming experience.

File sharing has done nothing but benefit many forms of media, it re-invigorated the dieing music industry, its kept millions interested in forms of media like gaming and film and served to diversify and further every medium it has become apart of. The problem is that some of these mega corporations are just dinosaurs, afraid of change and refuse to move their service to a model that the public seeks, in effect they themselves are the problem and the cause of the piracy.

Ultimately its about convenience, accessibility and price, after years of fighting it the music industry is the only industry that made the change, with services like iTunes music piracy is negligible because you no longer have to spend 20$ for a cd that you only want one or two songs from and you can actually listen to the music before you download, plus you can easily download it to your computer and devices.

For movies and television the future is services like netflix and hulu, no one wants to spend 20-30$ on a dvd for a movie they will watch once or twice, no one is going to wait 3 months for the episode of their favorite TV show which they missed or cannot watch to be re-run. If the industry embraced services like netflix and removed all the beurocracy and red tape surrounding them then they would significantly reduce piracy, I would gladly pay 15$ a month for netflix if it had all the movies and tv shows I wanted to see and thats not to say they cant add some commercials in there to further improve returns.

For gaming steam has been making progress but the game industry is the worst of them all, where other industries are beginning to adapt their business model to better suit the wants and needs of todays customers the games industry is going backwards. They release games which own you, you cant just play a game anymore you have to deal with abusive and intrusive drms which in some cases break the game you paid for, you have to constantly enter asinine codes to progress, games are being released unfinished and then later charging for DLC's to make the game what it should have been from the start. To add insult to injury they try to remove peoples right to sell something which they paid for, its no different then me selling a book or a painting, I buy a game, I own it and I have the right to sell it, period. The games industry has a very long way to go before they gain any sympathy from me.

Will you ever abolish file sharing? no, its not possible, the more you fight it the worse it will get and people will rally behind it and indeed I think its existence is important to keep companies in check and to maintain the diversity of the market. However it can be significantly mitigated by adapting business models to make your product more convenient, accessible and affordable, once your service is more convenient then piracy people will stop pirating.

You really think that some masked guy wearing black spandex bypass security systems and guards, then hack in to the "MAIN FRAME", download copy of the movie to some fancy flashing pen drive , then He gets home and upload it ?

While torrents did allow people to share things they paid for(and not steal...herp derp...Thunder350...derp) digital things do seem to have special rules applied to them. Sharing with your friends isn't the same as making something be available for thousands of people. Media companies were created by us, and have grown. Like grown people, they need more "food" to go on. If people could not share, there would be more sales. The best way is to simply vote with our money. Just do not mess with things that do not belong to you. As is often the case, the (relatively) few idiots ruin things for the masses. Legal file sharing can be very useful...

Steal a copy off the production line, or in the case of Star Wars Episode 3, have a editor steal a copy while he was working on it and upload it to the internet.

It's very simple.


That's different, a painting is free to be seen by anyone at a museum, or on the museum's website.

Its free to be seen but not free to be owned, there is no difference, copying something is not stealing.

So a movie editor taking a copy of Star Wars Episode 3, and putting it on the internet months before it even came out in theaters wasn't stealing?

You fools, information WANTS, nay, DEMANDS to be free. It has no free will, conscious mind nor can it be seen as even the slightest form of intelligence, but CDs, DVDs and all other types of media just die for the opportunity to be copied.

Digital data is just that, digital. If it's easy to copy that doesn't make it right.

The way we as consumers are treated by some of these large corps isnt right either and Ive no desire to give them my money untill things change.

Well, don't buy into their crap, that's the only language they understand. "sharing" and "not buying" is not the same thing. GTAIV is the last "AAA tile" I purchased at release date. It's at the same time the last AAA title I played, piracy is just plain ugly, it gives an appearance somebody wants their shit.

Imagine a world where shit would be treated as shit, where (i.e.) EA would have shitty sales and torrents of their spouting would have 0 leechers. Then they would stop and consider. Well, maybe.

Oh you dint get my sarcasm, But i see that is common of You.

I agree, people need to grow backbones and stand up for their rights by not purchasing or even pirating the products from companies that trea them like shit, but that will never happen because people are weak willed and easily give in, how many claimed to support all the boycotts only to just go out and buy the games anyways? Its a great ideal but its just not going to happen.

Oh there's a reason why people use /Sarcasm on the internet.

So hard to tell by reading words..