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Feds Seize Korean Movie Download Portals 215
SharkLaser writes "Homeland Security's ICE unit has just started another phase of Operation In Our Sites. Last week the seized sites were selling counterfeit goods, but this time the list consists solely of movie download sites. ICE has now seized the domains of 11 Korean movie download portals. This is first time Operation In Our Sites has been expanded to include sites targeting non-U.S. nationals and non-English sites. ICE has since added a message in Korean to the seized sites. Interestingly, while the sites were in Korean, the domain names are all connected to a Seattle-based company World Multimedia Group, Inc."
First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly this is getting kind of ridiculous, though. Doesn't the US government have more pressing issues on its hands right now?
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Re:First (I think) (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong, wrong, and wrong.
You talk of products and of counterfeiting. You are once again conflating the material with the immaterial. Although the term "product" does apply to a movie, there are better terms, such as "data". Nor is piracy is the same as counterfeiting. Counterfeiting also means that the origin of a product is being misrepresented, similar to plagiarism. Pirates aren't claiming to be the authors of a Beatles' song.
You speak of "allowing", as if the default is that copying is hard, and as if some human agency has the power to grant people the ability to make copies, and can take that privilege away anytime. And as if the US has authority over Korea.
Nor do you know what effect it all has on jobs. For all you know, your way would kill jobs, not create them. Your way certainly would hurt the economy, benefiting a few monopolies a little in exchange for a lot of expense for everyone.
Badly moderated (Score:5, Informative)
1. Read the article. They are counterfeiting in some cases. In other cases, they're charging a fee for access to the pirated movies. Most people here on Slashdot, even if they support piracy, argue that charging for the pirated goods is wrong.
2. What would you suggest instead of "allowing"? As far as your comment about the US having authority over Korea, again, you should read the article.
So despite the fact that the sites were targeted at Korean speaking visitors, the websites appear to belong to a Seattle-based company.
3. I suppose the poster doesn't know for sure what effect it has on jobs, but I posit that you don't either. I could just as easily say for all you know, not doing this and instead allowing the U.S. based piracy that is aimed at Korean audiences will kill jobs.
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There is one very good reason to complain about the takedown. The way it was done. USA shouldn't be able to close a Korean site down without the help of Korean officials and it should be based on Korean law, now US law. Otherwise I am all for closing down every site that wants money for pirated stuff.
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Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Informative)
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blatant violation of copyrights was how Holywood got its power and industry where it is to begin with.
fixed.
Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, if we're not careful, illegal copies of movies will... do... something.
Look man, I don't know. The only thing that comes to mind is translating Glitter into Arabic and air-dropping it over our enemies.
Re:First (I think) (Score:4, Funny)
Aren't you lot supposed to be against cruel and unusual punishment?
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I dunno, there are some small titles like Harry Potter and James Bond that might be worth copyrighting, but am from EU so what do I know...
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Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
elections are coming up, maybe?
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elections are coming up, maybe?
The Democrat party wants more "donations" from the Hollywood corporate entites, sorry, "people".
Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
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...a Democrat, their natural enemy...
Yeah, in the same way that Curly was Moe's 'natural enemy.
Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
The GOP arn't attacking Obama because he is black - they are attacking him because he is a Democrat, their natural enemy.
I suspect you are thinking of the 20th century. This is the new millennium. The GOP is attacking Obama because the political theater script specifies it. The unwritten charter clearly states that the one political party (commonly known as The Lobbyist Party) shall be split roughly evenly along pretentious wedge-issue lines, that no substantive change will be made on any wedge issues unless it increases the vitriol on the lips of the 80% of citizens who are not really paying attention, that all office-holders will work in earnest to prevent anyone who is not a member of the lobbyist party from winning any election, and that all actual bill passage must be coordinated in closed-door sessions to be attended by representatives of not less than 10% of the major lobbying firms.
The GOP's greatest ally in keeping their share (of political seats and of the lobbying cashflow) at 45% - 55% is the Democrats. And visa versa. The parties are not stupid, and they most certainly are not honorable. The one party exists either by evolution or by intelligent design, depending on your perspective, but that it exists is as obvious as a pumpkin in a pea patch.
Look at it this way: Nobody would believe in God if it weren't for Satan. Put either party in either role, the other is the other. 'round about the 80's or so, the parties smacked their collective forehead and said, "Ohhhhh, that's how we keep ourselves in power without having to actually figure out a healthy path forward for all citizens (that would be hard)."
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Clinton basically imposed many of the same tactics for his presidential promises and did not get near the backlash from the GOP that Obama is still getting.
You must have slept through the whole impeachment thing
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Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
Like what? Jailing bankers, economy advisors, rating agencies CEO's for fraud, extortion, betting against their clients lying to congress (ahem...), getting 7 trillion with virtually 0%tax then selling it back to the government and the people at interests rate to pay for their bonuses, their credit default swaps, and the damage themselves created and extorted from both public and private (AIG's etc) entities? Oh yes the US government has allot of issues not only right now, but right years ago. See how well they'v been busy at pretending to care while fund raising more bribes...err financial support..incentives...America needs you! god bless America, 999!
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Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone PLEASE tell me what in the hell Immigration and Customs has to do with movie piracy...?
It is likely a simple distraction method to make them look like they are doing something. Business 101: If you aren't able to do your given job well, find something else that is visible and do a great job at it. People will then not focus so much on the fact that you aren't doing your job because you have done such a great job elsewhere.
Can't stop drugs crossing the border? Can't stem the flow of illegal immigrants across the fence? Easy, take down a few shitty websites, do a "great job" of it, get in some news articles, maybe get into TV and do a nice show and tell about how much money this is saving the US (it doesn't matter if everything you say is garbage) just say "millions of dollars" and "American Taxpayers", maybe throw in a few "terrorits groups" and button it with "Jobs for hard working Americans!" and you have a wonderful media distraction while drugs keep flowing, people keep jumping the fence.
Sadly, I think that there will be a lot more of your type (Americans who are disgusted with the state of your nation) long before anything positive happens. From what I see, there are three types of political views in America at the moment.
1) Happy becuase I am making buckets of money through any means (Small but very connected and powerful group this lot).
2) Disgusted with the state of America (Slowly growing middle class, and generally older or middle aged sensible folks. Remembers the days when America was really something special - and wants it to happen again).
3) I don't give a fuck about anything, or I don't know enough about politics to make an informed stance (This is the real killer. There are so many Americans who seem to be totally and utterly living in a fairytale land of unicorns, fluffy clouds and the "Red, white and blue", getting all their information from Fox News or other similar sources who would likely be totally stunned if they knew what the rest of the world thought of America and it's longer term prospects.
While the media and big business/big government is doing all it possibly can to ensure that group three totally outnumbers group two, I think that it is a slow war of attrition. The glory days of America are fading fast, and while there are still of course bright sparks in otherwise doom and gloom, America needs to learn to compete truly on a global scale again. Not just in small high tech niches, but in day to day manufacturing, tools, construction and really try to force home a concept of getting back to business, not importing anything and everything from some third world country with cheap labour.
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Now that I've edited out the extraneous words do you see the contradiction you just proposed? You can't "compete globally" when your competitors can use the cheap labour (yes, I'm using your spelling of the word) you describe. The only option is to use the same cheap labour. As long as you have people who are willing to work for 20 cents a day this prob
Re:First (I think) (Score:4, Informative)
Until there is some form of international minimum wage established...
Be careful what you wish for. Many western countries have a minimum wage substantially higher than the US, e.g UK at about USD 9.50/hr, Australia at about USD 15, and US around USD 7.25, and most developing countries have a minimum wage that is essentially zero. Which way do you want to move your US minimum wage, who will oppose it, and what will happen when the bean counters see? If you raise it, US businesses will oppose in force and the bean counters will lay people off to keep the profit margin the same. If you drop it everybody's wage will follow. Which political party will back either option overtly? Ultimately the US doesn't want to move their minimum wage, or even obtain a uniform one, just raise the lower ones to the same level for US benefit.
Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
MPAA, RIAA, and the other alphabet soup organizations OWN the US government. Said government does NOT represent the American people, anymore. That government represents only the wealth "rights holders". A mere citizen is unworthy of congress' attention, or concern.
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Law enforcement multi-tasks. (Score:3)
Honestly this is getting kind of ridiculous, though. Doesn't the US government have more pressing issues on its hands right now?
This is the same question the cop is asked by every white collar criminal he collars.
No matter how small the crime or how big.
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The only thing America manufactures any more is Intellectual Property. They needed to act to save Americas only remaining industry.
And we're damn good at it too. We make tons of IP all across the quality scale.
Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny because they probably actually think they're saving it by seizing a domain name. Or that the website was actually a threat to anything.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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No, this falls under the category of "doing something" rather than doing nothing. The doing something will please those who have been contributing heavily to legislators and those in the executive and even judicial branches.
Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Interesting)
The great American companies complaining about IP problems are happily headquarted in tax safe havens. They get the protections of American law and Washington policymakers while paying a minimal amount of tax to the American government.
Re:First (I think) (Score:5, Funny)
And why should they pay tax? tax money can be used to help other people! How dare they!
Helping people other than me, and without my consent, sounds too much like socialism. Dirty, dirty socialism.
And every God fearing American knows that socialism is a sin, and therefore is the work of the DEVIL!!
And prey tell, who exactly should good American Citizens put their trust in? GOD, that's who, ( the Christian one ), just as it says in the constitution, the courts, and more importantly, on American currency.
So companies are doing America a favour by not committing the sin of paying taxes. Amen!
( If you have read this far, and still cannot see the sarcasm dripping from the gaps between these sentences, then this is not the right website for you )
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
It is only a matter of time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It is only a matter of time... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It is only a matter of time... (Score:4, Informative)
However, it was originally administered by the US DoD and is currently run by Verisign, whom you will note is a US based company and is therefore required to obey US laws. And TFS points out that the domains were "connected" (whatever the hell that means) to another US based company. So, everything about this was entirely US based, despite the sites being in Korean.
Not that that justifies ICE in any way shape or form, but they do have legal authority, or so it would appear.
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Nobody "invents" TLDs, they are simply registered.
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Wrong. .com, .net, .org, .mil, .edu are all US domains. That's one of the perks of coming up with the Internet.
Yup, pretty cool. Here's Neil Tyson talking about naming rights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oxTMUTOz0w [youtube.com]
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Anybody have a link to the full lecture?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti3mtDC2fQo [youtube.com]
Re:It is only a matter of time... (Score:5, Informative)
RFC 1591 [ietf.org]:
Each of the generic TLDs was created for a general category of
organizations. The country code domains (for example, FR, NL, KR,
US) are each organized by an administrator for that country. These
administrators may further delegate the management of portions of the
naming tree. These administrators are performing a public service on
behalf of the Internet community. Descriptions of the generic
domains and the US country domain follow.
Of these generic domains, five are international in nature, and two
are restricted to use by entities in the United States.
World Wide Generic Domains:
COM - This domain is intended for commercial entities, that is
companies. This domain has grown very large and there is
concern about the administrative load and system performance if
the current growth pattern is continued. Consideration is
being taken to subdivide the COM domain and only allow future
commercial registrations in the subdomains.
EDU - This domain was originally intended for all educational
institutions. Many Universities, colleges, schools,
educational service organizations, and educational consortia
have registered here. More recently a decision has been taken
to limit further registrations to 4 year colleges and
universities. Schools and 2-year colleges will be registered
in the country domains (see US Domain, especially K12 and CC,
below).
NET - This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the
administrative computers, and the network node computers. The
customers of the network provider would have domain names of
their own (not in the NET TLD).
ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for
organizations that didn't fit anywhere else. Some non-
government organizations may fit here.
INT - This domain is for organizations established by international
treaties, or international databases.
United States Only Generic Domains:
GOV - This domain was originally intended for any kind of government
office or agency. More recently a decision was taken to
register only agencies of the US Federal government in this
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Of these generic domains, five are international in nature
"International in nature" is so vague as to be virtually meaningless. .com, .org, .net are run by companies under the jurisdiction of the US Government?
And what does that have to do with the plain fact that that
and
Re:It is only a matter of time... (Score:5, Insightful)
"International in nature" is so vague as to be virtually meaningless.
international
Adjective:
Existing, occurring, or carried on between two or more nations.
And what does that have to do with the plain fact that that .com, .org, and .net are run by companies under the jurisdiction of the US Government?
It means that U.S. government is abusing its historical jurisdiction over those domains in a way that was not intended by the designers of the system.
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Of those 5 extensions only .mil and .edu are US domains.
You know you're wrong otherwise you wouldn't need to comment anonymously.
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...until the United States loses this power.[...]
Sorry, but nops.
There's no way a so well armed country goes downhill without dragging the rest of the world too.
We can argue that China would be a long term threat, but while USA have control of an fine working army, it will be on the top of the food chain - someone must buy China's products or it will not manage to fund their army.
USA can loose control on some minor, punctual issues - but never on what really matters.
(And no, I'm not happy with that)
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Rome was the best armed group (countries didn't really exist then) of its time. It fell, just like all empires before it.
There's a lot more to holding influence and power than a large army. Most of the influence America has is economic and social rather than military.
A few reasons for this:
1) We won the cold war. Previous areas of Soviet influence look to democratic countries as a model, and the U.S. pushes its pro-democracy stance pretty hard.
2) The English language. Yeah, the U.K. and various other
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My argument was that There's no way a so well armed country goes downhill without dragging the rest of the world too., and your post seems to enforce my argument.
Rome was, at its time, THE economic, social and cultural lighthouse of the world. But all that just came AFTER Rome became THE military power of that time. Just like USA.
The Nukes, as you correctly stated, assures mutually destruction - and that's the reason Russia is loosing political relevance - they just can't use it.
Money just have value for yo
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Generally I agree with the content of your post, save for this:
The residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima would probably disagree with you rather strongly.
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That was my initial reaction, but then I realised that the intended interpretation was that the US has never gone to war against a nuclear power.
Selling copyrighted material (Score:5, Insightful)
On first inspection, the majority of the sites offered access to downloads of the latest Hollywood blockbusters for a small charge.
Okay, so they were selling and profiting off of someone else's IP. Doesn't matter who they were "marketing" it to, if the copyright violation crosses into the jurisdiction of the US government then of course they will act.
Re:Selling copyrighted material (Score:5, Interesting)
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Isn't there some kind of international thing that should be handling this?
Don't think so, I believe that is what ACTA is for.
If that is the other option, ICE doesn't seem so bad.
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The moment I knew that Homeland security was out of control happened a few months ago. I was in the City Heights section of San Diego buying beer. Some little Mexican kid jaywalked and ran across El Cajon Blvd in front of an SUV. The SUV, along with another SUV and an unmarked car, pulled into the parking lot the kid ran into and then no less than 6 fully armed ICE agents jumped out of all 3 vehicles and had the kid sitting on the ground with
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The two are Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill, and Sam Farr, D-Ca.
The last time I posted that here, years ago, It was met with a bunch of "but those two are liberal pinko" comments. Now you have Immigration and Customs enforcement going after kids downloading music, under the umbrella of "Homeland Security."
Do you not see a problem with that blatant and inappropriate mission-creep?
They're US sites, not Korean sites (Score:2)
From the article:
So despite the fact that the sites were targeted at Korean speaking visitors, the websites appear to belong to a Seattle-based company.
So while I'm not going to comment on whether ICE is the right group, it's certainly a U.S. group that should be doing it, not "some kind of international thing".
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Okay, so they were selling and profiting off of someone else's IP
Since I assume you are spreading the "intellectual property" lie and not talking about the Internet Protocol, allow me to say this: there is no such thing as intellectual property. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets are not even in the same category of law as property rights. Property rights do not expire the way copyrights and patents do. You do not have to actively defend your property to retain your property rights, the way you do with trademarks. Copyrights, patents, trademarks an
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Copyrights expire???? Not since 1927
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You do not have to actively defend your property to retain your property rights, the way you do with trademarks.
You do, actually, in common law countries (including the USA), or you can lose them via adverse possession.
Money making (Score:2)
Koreans are making money hand over fist from latest Hollywood "blockbuster" and people are obviously paying them yet this give the customers what they want idea seems to escape every single Hollywood CEO.
Re:Selling copyrighted material (Score:4, Insightful)
On the surface that seems like a reasonable argument. However it ignores the fundamental principles our justice system is founded upon, on several points. We supposedly believe in innocent until proven guilty, and due process of law, for example. Yet these actions are being taken without a trial. Furthermore, the offenses you mention are not criminal offenses, but civil offenses, which in our system of justice are supposed to be handled in a very different way from this.
Without in any way defending the sites in question, the actions being taken by ICE in this case do not seem at all consistent with the principles of american justice.
Ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
Further proof that the US Govt/ICE is a police whore for the Entertainment Industry.
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They were profiting off of the work of other people
Hm...profiting off the work of other people is a bad thing...I think I see where you are going with this:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm [marxists.org]
Lets see the US gov take down YouTube (Score:2)
Lets see how brave the ICE fags are.
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That's ok. At the rate they take down (or let others take down) videos and their audio tracks, and with how easily comments there yield silly one-on-one arguments (when they're not "%dislike_count% people %snarky_comment_about_dislikers%", outright spam, or simply dumb), YouTube is taking down YouTube just fine.
Fun while it lasted, I guess. Can't have so many GBs of homemade videos on a website forever...
How P2P died and corporations won (Score:2)
Then wave after wave of lawsuits hit P2P network users. Although people were more li
Constitutional protections for non-Americans? (Score:2)
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By the letter of the law this is not true. The fifth amendment, for example, begins "No person shall be held to answer..." NOT 'no citizen.'
The founders made clear their belief in *human rights* which emanate from natural law and are common to all people, given by our creator and common to all human beings regardless of nationality.
However unfortunately we have been doing a very poor job of living up to the ideals of the founders or even the letter of our own laws, so what you say seems to be defacto correc
All the Images (Score:4, Interesting)
I gathered all 10 of the banners used in the 377 seized domains, and uploaded them here: DOJ Seized Domain Notices - Paul Nickerson - Picasa Web Albums [google.com]
Is there a list of TLDs? (Score:2)
So ICE only "captures" domains in US-controlled TLDs. What's exactly the rule to decide that? For example, what about geographic but not country specific TLDs like .eu? Are they safe?
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They "capture" any they can. .edu is controlled by the U.S., so yes, they could certainly take a .edu domain. I couldn't see that happening, since .edu domains are only alloted to colleges and universities, and you can get at the people responsible in easier (and less controversial) ways.
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My question was about .eu (Europe/EU), not .edu ;)
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Ah, my bad, I misread.
Media Companies Need To Change or Die (Score:5, Insightful)
I am in Australia. I would like to play several movies and TV shows on my mobile. How can I do this legally?
I have a stack of CDs at home. Went through them last night to organise what I'll be watching for the next month or so (in regards to watching from physical medium). While annoying to have to change the disks each time, it's something I can put up with.
My SO is currently travelling. Good news is that the primary communications device she has, a Samsung Galaxy S, is well capable of video playback and could store several movies and quite a few TV episodes.. so how can this be done legally?
The answer of 'rip the DVDs, compress, and encode to AVI, then upload the files to the phone' is not the answer I am looking for.
Big Media is currently looking to sue downloaders, and by extension any related illegal activity in Australia.
So let's drive in the white lane. Let's do The Right Thing. Here is a list of movies and TV shows to put on this phone. How can this be done legally?
(and not all at once, obviously, due to the amount of content. Although, with enough memory sticks space should not be an issue)
(this is her 'for start' list.. just the things she'd like to watch now.. and yes, already have the DVDs for all of these
* Easy A
* Gilmore Girls
* Life on Mars
* JAG
* Serenity
* Firefly
* Brothers and Sisters
* Morning Glory
* The Good Witch
* Modern Family
* Castle
Now, for a good old fashioned rant regarding the story..
Some time ago we purchased the Gilmore Girls DVDs. Local store, all 10 seasons. All good, right? .. but the online version just works.. some issues with loading sometimes, but generally works without issue.. )
Well, no. The sound was bad. Terrible actually. So, we put up with it thinking that it was our TV / System.
Had a few issues with a few disks. Long story really short is that a kind soul purchased the series online (and yes, the whole 10 seasons) as a boxed set which "patched the holes" from the 'store bought' disks. Excellent.
The 'online version' of the Gilmore Girls DVDs is of superior quality for the sound, the DVD menus and DVD functions. (I am not sure how to explain this. The 'store bought DVDs always seem to have issues loading / reading
Cost comparison:
Store bought: We between $15 and $20 per season for Gilmore Girls at the local Kmart / BigW stores. For the 10 seasons I estimate that we spent ~170 in total for 10 seasons.
Online version: The boxed set of 10 seasons on DVD online apparently was just under $100 delivered (along with other stuff.. so, possibly $80).
Difference: Around $50 to $90 depending on local price vs online price
Quality: I would never purchase this DVD boxed set, either locally or online. The sound is terrible.
So, here the 'pirates' are producing a superior product, selling it for cheaper than the local retailers, have a 'disk replacement' policy with (what amounts to) DRM free and no UOP (which are highly irritating).
It's a pity that they don't have a service to buy properly encoded and tagged AVI's.
So far as I am concerned, Big Media are shooting themselves in the foot right now. Who doesn't have a smart phone capable of playing movies an TV shows? How many of us would watch shows on our phone if we could?
Here is my money. Will you take it?
No.
*sigh*
Yes, I know, it's been said before. Now it's just biting, kicking and screaming. Personally, I wish the 'pirates' all the best. They are providing a service that Big Media won't.
and nothing of value was lost (Score:3)
These sites are nothing. There are tons of major, and apparently legal download sites in Korea. You can download the latest blockbuster for 10 cents. They're advertised everywhere, they sponsor stuff, you get coupons for them when you order stuff, etc.
They're most run off Korean servers though. Very few Koreans would be going to overseas sites to download this kind of stuff. The current state of the underseas cable to the US is still very bad after the earthquake/tsunami and speeds continue to get slower.
It's an incredible victory to announce though
not what my taxes should be used for (Score:2)
It's the same as with drugs (Score:3)
It's the same stupidity as with drugs counterfeit. The US government will spend millions to fight copyright violations, with will have no effect on the quality and availability on sites. But it will make the organizations more criminal and will put more people in jail for minor offends.
Here is a forecast how this will end (just replace drugs with copyright infringement)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsk8R_j5zzg [youtube.com]
""It pains me to know that there is a solution for preventing tragedy and nothing is being done because of ignorance, stubbornness, unsubstantiated fear and greed."
Hear Neill Franklin, Executive Director of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), speak on the problems and costs of the war on drugs, and the reasons society would be better off if it were ended."
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BTW: there are already movements to make copyright infringement a criminal offence.
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/1907512/uk-opposes-criminal-sanctions-copyright-infringement [computeractive.co.uk]
"A document leaked by French advocacy group La Quadrature du Net shows that EU negotiators want criminal sanctions introduced into the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta)."
I don't know if it's in the current Acta.
Re:But illegals with fake health cards make our fo (Score:5, Insightful)
*That doesn't mean you can pirate them. Consuming them anyway without paying isn't a protest.
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I get so fucking tired of seeing this crap. Just how do you "consume" the intangible (ideas)? Just how is that a "product"? It isn't either yet those who seek eternal payment for it will try and express the intangible in tangible ways.
Like? Most of the CC stuff I have seen is pure and utter crap or is the
Re:But illegals with fake health cards make our fo (Score:5, Insightful)
Vote with your wallet
Sounds like wealthy people get more of a vote than I do.
Buy second hand (Score:3)
Seriously $2 DVD's at pwn shops = money in YOUR pocket. You can get a 50' plasmas now for $799 thats like seeing 16 movies with you and two kids $50. Now you just wait a little longer for the dvd, hot the pawn shop and relax at home while you watch the movie/
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Vote with your wallet. If you're really against big media don't consume their products*. There's tons of high quality CC licensed, and independently produced, media out there. Otherwise quit your bitching.
*That doesn't mean you can pirate them. Consuming them anyway without paying isn't a protest.
Last time I checked, using something and refusing to pay for it was a protest. Whether or not it's effective or moral you can debate. Certainly it is not legal in most countries, but to argue that it's not a protest is childish and being modded up for it is childish too. As is the line "quit your bitching".
While we're at it there's a lot more dross on CC than in commercial and yep that's saying something. The only useful thing the industry does is increase the signal to noise ratio a little.
Finally as someo
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Vote with your wallet. ... There's tons of high quality CC licensed, and independently produced, media out there.
Totally agreed. Here's a source I just recently found: Podiobooks [podiobooks.com].
Otherwise quit your bitching.
Don't be silly. Of course people should bitch when they feel that our GDP or public funds are being misdirected. And they should present the reasons for their position, so that their hypotheses can be tested for merit. How else are we supposed to detect when we are on a flawed path?
That doesn't mean you
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Try cocaine instead of crystal meth next time. Your ramblings will appear far more coherent, trust me ;)
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No. Some of the jackbooted government thugs who used to work for the INS were combined with some of the jackbooted government thugs who used to work for US Customs to form ICE. The others went to the Border Patrol. If ICE did not exist, you'd be hearing about domains being seized by the Customs Service.
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If you had 5% of American citizens up in arms over a single topic, angry with government abuse and ready to take a stand for what they believe in, it would be one of the biggest movements in American history. Not even the broken "democracy" system in the US is broken enough to withstand the combined voice of that many voters.
Forget the million man march, this is fifteen million folks. Just imagine that!
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Where were to people marching in the streets when the court issued an injunction against Napster? That should tell you everything you need to know about the American public's views on these sorts of actions.
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He was agreeing with you, retard. If 5% of Americans knew what this was and were up in arms about it, it would be one of the biggest movements in American history. Since it's not one of the biggest movements in American history...
It's very easy to overlook how many people are involved in large-scale movements like this, both contemporary and historical. The overwhelming satisfaction with the outcome of the American revolution, for example, completely overshadows any doubt which actually occurred at the t
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Let's get this right... DHS is FEMA in drag. I was in FEMA at the time of the changeover. They took an agency that barely had the staff to do its current job and made them do double duty adding in terrorism. I left the agency two years after when I saw it going down the drain.
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The Zetas have actual guns*.
*Courtesy of F&F Guns 'n Ammo [wikipedia.org].