That wanker sold out considerable parts of the warez scene when he narced on them to his copyright lawyer bitch (who later blew his brains out) during the mid/late '90s, just for a quick buck.

the truth is, yes, the guy is a douchebag, he's annoying, he's full of himself. There's very little to like.

But the raid was completely stupid; the investigation a joke; and the claims pathetic;
The mere assumption of "1 person downloading a movie" being equal to "1 less dvd or movie ticket sold" is infantile and moronic.

Yeah, but as someone who makes their living off digital content, it is quite annoying finding out your material has been pirated more times than someone has paid for it.

Worse, is knowing someone who stole your work is now profiting from your stolen work, and they're claiming they're doing a good deed for society. Yet, they're making millions and you're selling your house because you can't keep up with the level of piracy.

You are right to be mad.
However, there's also the question of actual revenue loss.

For example, if I download an mp3 of a song, does that mean if I hadn't had a link or way to download it, would I have actually spent money buying it?

Of course there is actual revenue loss from piracy, but Hollywood and the RIAA have taken the claim to moronic levels.

You are right. They have taken it to a very extreme level. However, I can see their rationale to it. It's essentially a domino effect in that if the first person hadn't leaked it, then the 100k others wouldn't have gotten ahold of it. Does that make each one worth $450k . . . no.

I wouldn't mind seeing massive piraters sued for the monetary value of everything in their playlist (i.e., if it's a buck off iTunes, and they have 100k sounds, then they stole 100k.)

To say that every pirated piece is a lost sale, you are correct to say no. However, it still makes it a theft. While I technically didn't lose money . . . you still stole it. That's why I believe in ad revenue such as iTunes Radio, Pandora, I heart Radio etc. So I get doubly pissed when content providers make a song free via advertising, and then people bitch about that. lol Like, Hulu.

People normally pay $100/mo to watch 14 minutes of commercials per hour, but complain when they pay nothing to watch only 3 minutes worth.

I was all for ad revenue, except, my brother and I sold graphics. Not exactly something we could put ads on. We actually had people who'd buy it from us, and then throw it up on their site for a fraction of the price….

In that regard, if someone is profiting off my work, then the fabled revenue lost is 100% tangible. So for Megaupload et al who made real money (not just legit P2P sharing) I'm all for sticking them with the maximum fine possible. If I make a piece of digital goods and you make $1,000 off it, then that's my grand, not yours.

Which is why there are big stock photo/video sites who basically screw over the little person but are at least legit. They pay their up loaders, albeit small amounts, to generate profit off having tons of content. Way more content than any one individual can create. So the same as Megaupload, only, they're not stealing or encouraging people indirectly to use their service to host any and all files you'd like to share while we knowingly look the other way towards our profit margins.

Anyway, that's mostly a rant at this point. :-p

Moving this video to ant's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.