BF2S Forums Piracy (not argumentative, k)

nukchebi0 wrote:

I was thinking about this, and wondering why the RIAA, MPAA, as well as game studios, don't sue the companies running Bit Torrent or Limewire. It seems that this would be an easy way to solve their problem, since they have a very convincing argument against the P2P companies. Assumably, though, they have already considered this option. So why don't the corporations and organizations affected by intellectual piracy sue those enabling it to occur?

they are likely aware of the fact that people who pirate were not very likely to purchase the product if it was not available for download.  They would lose money during the legal process, but would see no increase in sales if the sites are shut down, resulting in a net loss.

File sharing is also a great marketing tool for new bands who could not otherwise sell albums to get name recognition, which will result in greater ticket sales and an increase in legal purchases.

It's all about economics.

nukchebi0 wrote:

I was thinking about this, and wondering why the RIAA, MPAA, as well as game studios, don't sue the companies running Bit Torrent or Limewire. It seems that this would be an easy way to solve their problem, since they have a very convincing argument against the P2P companies. Assumably, though, they have already considered this option. So why don't the corporations and organizations affected by intellectual piracy sue those enabling it to occur?

BitTorrent and other P2P services have demonstrable legal uses, and they were designed for those. 

Also, if the *IAA/BSA lose, they have a legal precedent working against them.  It's cheaper to sue the shit out of people/businesses who violate their copyrights and licenses.

nukchebi0 wrote:

I was operating under the assumption Bit Torrent and other P2P companies can influence what is transferred through their services.

Was that wrong?

BitTorrent is not centralized nor is it managed by a single company.  Some other ones might be, but I am not familiar with LimeWire, BearShare, etc...

The thing about BitTorrent is that the technology is open-source so there are dozens of different clients. Only ones who can monitor the content being distributed are the owners of the servers hosting the "trackers". But the thing is, the trackers are not infringing any copyright by them selves, so technically even those server owners are not doing anything illegal. Thats why the RIAA and MPAA are having so much trouble with cases against those people. BitTorrent sites can also monitor the content but they are infringing copyright even less (they are linking to sites linking to torrents that are not illegal).   

S.Lythberg wrote:

they are likely aware of the fact that people who pirate were not very likely to purchase the product if it was not available for download.  They would lose money during the legal process, but would see no increase in sales if the sites are shut down, resulting in a net loss.

Actually they are not aware of that and they spend incredible amount of money on fighting piracy and in their statistics they always assume that anyone who downloads would have bought it. They have even been financing European politicians lately to increase their support.

nukchebi0 wrote:

I was operating under the assumption Bit Torrent and other P2P companies can influence what is transferred through their services.

Was that wrong?

P2P by its very definition means no centralized monitoring. The software sets up connections between two clients, with no master server (ie, monitor) in the middle. I suppose the client software could be written to send reports on what it had transmitted or received to some central service, but then that doesn't prove that piracy occurred...only that data was transferred. They wouldn't be able to prove that the content hadn't been paid for separately.