Well durghhhhhhh.

Welcome to the internet, where people are more intelligent than the politicians and government agencies that try to censor it.

According to research…..

What a waste of money. Everyone with half a braincell told them it would be ineffective AND WHY, the moment they announced blocking.

Biscuit
Well durghhhhhhh.

Welcome to the internet, where people are more intelligent than the politicians and government agencies that try to censor it.

Quite.

It is something akin to an announcement from the Ministry of the Flipping Obvious, innit?

Saracen
Quite.

It is something akin to an announcement from the Ministry of the Flipping Obvious, innit?

Sorry, but this has been referred to the Ministry of Pedantry who wish to point out that it was the Ministry of the Bleeding Obvious. ;)

article
Policy is set by those who shout loudest.

Yeah right! Like the Iraq war you mean? As if! Policy is set by those with the most influence - and that usually means deepest pockets.

Surely they should just abandon all of these futile efforts and focus on other things.

Unless there was some ulterior motive for the Governments to do these things.

But only the media company benefits from them and that would be ridiculous.

How could a company that that deals in information make a Government do something it wants….

*slowly reaches for tinfoil roll*

Oh.

*applies tinfoil to head*


But seriously, agreed to all the above. Futile and wasteful. Please deploy the people involved in this activity to more important (yet, less critical) tasks.

There's 3 sites I haven't yet visited…

The movie studios should just flood the torrents with with cat videos labelled as the movies involved, use the same tactics, as each gets labeled as a fake add 3 more.

As this study shows finding other/proxy sites isn't a huge problem but if it was hard to find anything good on the sites it would change things.

Well they were fighting human nature of…..something for nothing, mind you it would be interesting to know if any rich people bothered with a pirate site.

As far a movies go I just pay, with that I am a very patient man and wait for them to be £3.00 on bluray in.

ik9000
Sorry, but this has been referred to the Ministry of Pedantry who wish to point out that it was the Ministry of the Bleeding Obvious. ;)

…

Yes, but that in turn needs to be referred to the Mnistry of the Forum Rules, which say No Bleeding Swearing.


Oh, wait …. :D

Technical Point - Bleeding could be considered a very mild form of swearing, or not, dependent on context. I sought a clear ruling from one of the arbiters of acceptable language (me) and was informed that “flipping” wasn't swearing, and hence was safer and set a better example than …some alternatives. :D

While i agree with all the above statements about it being futile and counterproductive i also wonder what other choice they had/have, I mean it's not like they can turn a blind eye to illegal activity that would like admitting defeat, it would force them to actual address why people do these things.

Much easier to replicate what they've done in the past (war on drugs) and play whack-a-mole instead of asking the hard questions, like why people pirate and what can be done to make it less attractive.

As John Gilmore said, “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

While it does seem futile, as the more they attempt to shut down and censor these people the harder they push back, I do think there are significantly less arguable reasons for people to pirate than there have been in the past.

The entertainment industries seem to be getting on board with digital releases and downloads, they are also seemingly relentless in their pursuit of those that fund/create these piracy sites, I think eventually they'll drag enough people through the courts and these “pirates” will learn to fear the possible consequences and piracy will decrease.

Bit of packet inspection, ‘chubb master key’, piracy solved issue solved.

I like the EU. The “bleeding obvious” isn't at all obvious to corporations. Concrete proof is good.

it sounds like they'd be better off keeping the large most popular sites up and get some value from it. i.e. Market research, what are people watching, from where, is the number downloaded >/< broadcast figures…

If legal download/streaming services were cheaper and had access to the content after a shorter period from cinema/tv release and there weren't any exclusive content between services then I believe less piracy would take place. Which will probably never happen. I imagine a lot of TV episodes get pirated by people living in the UK because we often have to wait months for content that's already been screened in the states for it to be shown over here. It's just silly. Another silly example is that until Netflix picked up breaking bad the only way to go beyond season 2 was to pirate the episodes…

I download various US shows that don't air in the UK. Or UK shows that are either old and no longer on catchup, or current but are on during the times I can't view them live.

I have come to the conclusion that the current business model that broadcasters follow has become unsustainable.

They are paying way too much for rights and (rightly) expecting subscribers to pay for those rights. The problem is that you end up paying for a LOT of things you do not watch, nor want to watch. You also get adverts to further subsidise the costs.

These rights need to get cheaper for legit services to flourish. The problem is that for years the various broadcasters keep out-bidding each other and the broadcasting rights are just going up faster than ever.

TBH, I honestly think that the sooner more people abstain from premium services like Sky, the sooner this will be resolved and the constant rapid escalation of prices will end and the legit services will become attractive again.

I have lost count of the number of people I have spoken to recently who are NOT technically savvy but have set up their PC (or purchased a cheap android streaming box) to use XBMC/Kodi and various plugins to stream live TV and torrents….looking at the amount of such devices being sold on eBay shows how big a business this is becoming.