Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Pirate Bay...Now what am i suppose to do?!!

It could have been....but it was not. It was a group of 3 early 20 something jocks that called him 'fag, queer, butt pirate' and some other insults as they beat him.

I raise an eyebrow at any suggestion there is not a profitable market for game developers with or without pirating.

I don't agree with pirating, with buts. First, huge corporations are counting "downloads" as "lost revenue" which is absolute bullshit on a humongous scale. Secondly, huge corporations are also charging over £40 for some games that, and please let's not argue here, are often LITERALLY unfinished. Some are finished piles of garbage.

If you're pissed off with small games developers and individual programmers going hungry, the blame really isn't at the door of the pirates, and at the very least ground needs to be given on both sides. In the same way as every industry and every individual is getting hit in the wallet and struggling to manage, you can put that particular blame on the system we're using which encourages raising profit at all costs. If you stiff a bunch of people long enough they're gonna find a way to get value for money.

Any for evidence, i point you in the direction of the many one-man games that have taken the indie scene by storm and made some people a lot of money. People WILL pay reasonable prices for a GOOD product.

TiAMO arrested by Thai border police -- free donuts at the MPAA HQ today.

This made me actually wanting to watch this.. Decided that i won't even pirate this one but hey.. If it's this bad, i need to see it.

Brokep's father died. With 50 days left at a maximum security prison for his non-violent copyright offenses, they'll allow him to attend the funeral, yet force him to wear handcuffs while carrying the coffin.

Bleh.

https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-will-wear-handcuffs-to-carry-fathers-coffin-140917/

I think I'd have to see it in actual printed form to judge the readability accurately.

BUT, in terms of readability on a display, like the 40" 1920x1080 LCD I'm watching on ... it is quite poor in my opinion. I have a feeling that it would work much better in ink on paper.

33% ink savings sounds pretty good, assuming that the readability on paper is better than a display. That being said, encouraging printer manufacturers to have a more sane approach to refillable ink/toner reservoirs would have a better/bigger impact.

Here in Thailand, where respect for patents / IP is low, (SE Asia is notorious for fake manufactured goods, pirated "soft" media, and hardware hacks / bypasses) I'd guess that around 90% of inkjet printers sold have a tank system glued onto the side with ink lines running into the cartridges from big CYMK reservoirs. I never buy new cartridges unless the print head gets damaged/worn out -- instead, I just buy cheap LARGE bottles of the different ink colors and refill the reservoirs. (Image link of such a setup HERE)

That kind of mod would be a gray or black-market item in the West, but here the laissez-faire attitude about such things has some positive effects. At least, for a consumer (like me), or someone concerned about the environmental impact of all the waste packaging for ink carts (like the dude in this video).

Meh, I'm just waiting for them to release a Star Destroyer capital ship. Then I'm going to hire some minions in a fleets of scythes (sweet looking ship) and begin my career as a space pirate in style!

@Stormsinger, then why can't I buy the music or tv shows I want from Amazon?

How come hulu or netflix aren't available in my country? I've said it before, I am happy to spend money on the content I want, just make it available to me for a reasonable price (i.e. not nearly double what people in the US are paying for it http://www.steamprices.com/au/topripoffs)

At what point is it my fault that there is literally no legal way for me to purchase the content I want due to an arbitrary geographical restriction?

So if the entire internet is an experiment in alternative monetization, it's a dismal fucking failure.

You want some examples that work?

Steam Sales
Louis CK selling his entire show for $5
Kickstarter (hell Star Citizen alone)

Some people will always choose free. Fine, maybe they just can't afford it, and telling them to just not watch it is never going to work. Forget those people. Focus on the ones who believe that good content deserves rewarding. Make it easy for them to access your content (reasonable price, no drm or arbitrary restrictions) and they will pay.

Trying to stop piracy is pointless. It's out there and as I said, someone people genuinely have a moral issue with paying for content (the OSS zealots for example). Just assume it's going to be pirated (it already is!) and make it easy for those of us who want to pay for it to get it.

Oh good, that's the one I use I was hoping I wasn't missing out on anything. I used to use Pirate Bays free one but after it went away this one was suggested to take it's place so I signed up for a year. I think it's been a year and a few months now, it's been worth it.

@Jerykk

I'll address by paragraph.

(1)

Wait, so I'm confused. Not enough research on my claim yet the death penalty apparently offers guaranteed results despite evidence to the contrary that I suggested?

Firstly I think you might be trying to make a bit of a straw man. I'm not saying that there should be no penalty. Some penalty obviously discourages some crime. But the argument is more over whether harsher sentences and mandatory minimums as this video discusses are helping, which I would argue they are not for the reasons outlined previously.

As for evidence of rehabilitation reducing recidivism, take for example:

http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/12/1/9.refs (see PDF)

Page 1
Finland, Norway and Sweden all have ~50-70 locked up per 100K, among the lowest. US has 716.

Page 2-3
Norway recidivism - 20%
US recidivism - 52%

I await your evidence to the contrary.

(2)

I'm talking per capita. Per capita the US certainly does have the highest among first world countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

Sort by per capita and find me a developed country higher than the US please.

Russia is not a first-world country (that's actually a Cold War term, more correctly not a a developed country). I'm Russian, I assure you, I would know

Russia's GDP/capita is $14K USD, versus the US's $52K. Not even a close comparison.

(3)

But do criminals proportionalise justice? Like I asked, do you think anything but a small minority (likely white collar criminals) accurately know the likely sentence of a crime before they commit it? If they don't what's the purpose of making them more severe?

Nobody is proposing there be no penalty. Even Scandanavian prisons are a penalty. The question is, does the threat of 30 over 15 years locked up (should they even be able to decipher legal code to know this) actually make a difference? I would argue not, hence the argument for harsher sentences is illogical.

People are generally good at gauging the likelihood of being caught (ie your pirating example) but that's not what I was talking about (the scale of punishment being a deterrent).

(4)

I don't think what you're proposing is practical or logical. No society is going to accept the death penalty as a punishment for speeding. It's an irrelevant argument to make.

Again, why the need for elaborate ideas never before attempted? Why not just adopt a model that has already worked, such as the Scandinavian one? It seems like you're trying to wrap your mind around a solution that fits your preconceived notion of incentives and no government assistance like I suggested in my first post.

(5)

Venezuela is a developing country. Crime is largely a result of economic mismanagement by Chavez leading to joblessness and civil unrest.

There are plenty of countries with which to compare the US with. Obvious choices would be Australia or the UK. Anglo-Saxon countries, similar culture, comparative income/capita. Or really any European country. Your comparison would suggest tp me you're trying to stretch your argument to fit.

Good points, Redsky.

However, there hasn't been nearly enough research on the effects of rehabilitation to claim that it consistently reduces recidivism. You mention Scandinavian countries in particular. How many of those rehabilitated prisoners were guilty of violent crimes? If you want to reduce recidivism, the death penalty will offer guaranteed results.

As for the U.S.'s murder rates, they aren't the highest among first-world countries. Higher than European countries, sure, but Europe is tiny. Russia is more comparable to the size of the U.S. and it has almost double the murder rate. China claims to have a 1.0 but I'd question the reliability of any data provided by that government.

I'm also pretty sure that most criminals recognize the severity of their crimes. If they aren't insane, they'll know that jaywalking will result in a far lesser penalty than murder. What it comes down to is risk versus reward. If breaking the law is the most convenient way of getting what they want and the likelihood of them getting caught is low, they'll break the law. That's rational behavior. It's the reason why people people slow down when they see a cop on the freeway instead of speeding like they would normally do. It's the reason why people won't hesitate to download a pirated movie but would think twice before trying to steal a movie from Best Buy. If someone wants to rob a liquor store and they see a cop inside, they will most likely not rob that particular liquor store. Not all criminals are psychotic murderers. On the contrary, most criminals are perfectly sane and break the law on a regular basis. They just make sure that the risks are low enough so they don't get caught.

Severe penalties mean nothing if they aren't enforced and increasing surveillance increases the likelihood of enforcement. Increasing surveillance wouldn't be cheap but then, rehabilitating criminals isn't cheap either. Getting rid of the prison system entirely and replacing it with efficient executions (nothing overly elaborate like lethal injections) would cut costs dramatically and allow for greatly expanded surveillance and enforcement, in addition to dramatically increasing the risk for any given crime. If the penalty for speeding was death and there were more cops patrolling the roads and freeways, I guarantee 99.9% of drivers would stop speeding. There's no hard data for this, of course, but that's because no country has ever attempted it.

Venezuela currently has over ten times the murder rate of the U.S. It was the first country in the world to abolish the death penalty. Now, the country is riddled with corruption. Laws have no meaning because they are not enforced so criminals do whatever they want without fear of reprisal.

You should read my complete post before posting reactionary statements. I never said current prison conditions are ideal. I said prison isn't working as a deterrent to criminals. As I said before, there are three potential ways of fixing that: make the punishment more severe, increase surveillance and enforcement or make prison safer and more comfortable in an attempt to rehabilitate criminals. The first two options are practically guaranteed to produce results. People litter, jaywalk, pirate and break traffic laws all the time because they know they can get away with it and even if they get caught, the punishment will be relatively minor. Conversely, it's much harder to get away with major crimes and the punishments are far more severe, which is why major crimes are committed far less often than minor ones. History has proven that fear is a very effective deterrent. Convince people that there are significant consequences for their actions and they'll think twice before doing something stupid.

Rehabilitation is less proven. If prison were comfortable, safe and enlightening, it could reduce crime rates as criminals are taught the error of their ways and spread their new-found wisdom amongst other potential criminals. Or it could increase crime rates as prisons become a refuge where the desperate get free food, shelter, healthcare and other conveniences.

The ideal solution would be to ensure that only qualified parents are allowed to reproduce. The majority of criminals are the result of poor upbringings, with negligent, ignorant and/or abusive parents unwilling or unable to train their children to become productive members of society. In an ideal world, there would actually be prerequisites to parenthood. Aspiring parents would need to meet certain criteria like minimum income, education and a clean record. If these requirements were somehow enforceable, crime rates would drop drastically.

Geez. Even midget pirates are stopping to take pictures of these things in action.