This article can also be read in IT-Lah blog.
For those who’s a frequent P2P leecher, or downloader, you might have come to realize the increasing number of mislabeled files. This is not limited to video files, but all matter of downloadable files, such as programs, music files, PDFs, and others. This, I believe, is being used by organizations that lost profits from file sharing activities, to curb piracies and intellectual rigts infringement. The organizations may include distributors, Government agencies, and intellectual rights activists
A torrent under the filename “PIRATES.OF.CARIBBEAN.2.ENG.SUB.TELECINE.DIVX.avi” may turn out to be a porn movies, or another B-grade movie, such as Alien Hunter or such. For the lucky ones, it would be another A-grade movie, but of a different title.
Most P2P softwares nowadays have capabilities to preview the still downloading video, for users to make sure that the file is of quality and is the right content.
Program files, on the other hands, was used to spread malwares. This, has declined in popularity since most of P2P users have pretty decent antivirus and firewall capability on their machine. They also have their own ‘trusted’ source where minimal chance of malwares getting through. But again, they have no control over the content sent to them.
A torrent link to download “Windows Vista SP2 Cracked” (no, it’s not out yet at this moment.) may result in you downloading The Sims House Party Expansion Packs, or Nude Mahjong game. The former would mean you would have to have the original The Sims CD (by original I meant the original game, not the copy. IT-Lah do not condone intellectual rights infringement.), and the latter, would mean you have just downloaded something you may not want at all.
If one lists down all downloadable file for a certain file, one may see that the one with the most leechers is most probably being hosted by the said organizations. This is, however, not confirmed by anybody yet, and still inconclusive. It is, if it’s done by the organizations, one of the best, unintrusive ways to curb piracies, without invoking any user rights and limiting what we could do with what we have.
It is true, that we do not own the file content of a media (CD, VCD, DVD, Program CD/DVD, streaming files, downloadable files), although we have bought the media. It’s semantics, really. We don’t go around and buy songs, but we buy the CDs, right? And that’s all we do own. We can do anything to the CD, but not to the songs in it.
With the impending doom of DRM (Digital Rights Management), this is said to change. We’ll be given limited rights on how to handle the CDs as well. This has caused tension amongst users, but the content provider has the upper hand. Piracy had struck them hard, and they’re striking back harder. Users, on the other hand, falls victim on both. It’s a kind of how 2 government in a war, and the civillian becomes the victim.
It’s not certain how long will this lasts. The content provider cannot lose, as they will cause the pirates to lose their own source as well. The pirates don’t seem to be that dumb to lose, either. they’re always just one step behind the content providers, working around any obstacles thrown to them by the content providers.
Users, loves the pirates for the savings they make. They don’t have to pay full price for a movie or a VCD/DVD and find out how crappy the story was. And if they’re from a third world country, they don’t have to pay in USD for a DVD. However, pirates are also killing themselves, by selling low quality products, but claims it otherwise. This had led to some users being disappointed but could not do nothing. It’s pirated, you had taken the risks. But the pirates couldn’t care less. They lose 100 customers, they still have 1000 more.
What I personally hoped is, that piracy would stop, and content providers would start listening and providing us with what they want. If they think it’s fair for pirates to steal from them, it’s also unfair for them to steal from users by providing a gwailo content. At this time, that seems impossible, and things will be getting messy.
So don’t throw off that 24x/10x/4x CD burner yet, it may be saving you a lot later…
Comments
5 responses to “Pirates of the Digital Rights”
lizzam,
aku beli pirate movie pasal censorship je. (tipulah kalau tak add harga murah tu penyebab factor aku membeli)
btw, ko ingat bila kedai kedai kat sg.wang tu nak bukak balik like normal ah? dah masuk 3 bulan aku tak beli dvd!
one of the key reasons for piracy in malaysia has to do with people’s purchasing power. going into economics a little bit, if you were to apply purchasing power parity, you’ll notice that certain things are more affordable to some. an average american probably earns around usd 2,500 could very well purchase a couple of cds at the cost of usd 12 each. here, we have the average malaysian earning myr 2,500 (usd 680) while the cost of a cd still remains at usd 12 (myr 45). after taking out the amount for typical monthly expenditures, you can bet there’s little left for anything else. still, knowing that there’s little left, due to exposure, people have accustomed themselves to the supposed “good stuff” and want to have them. hence, what other avenues other than resorting to the pirated stuff as it makes economic sense to them. the same goes for dvds and most particularly computer software. there may already be calls to generate quality products from within but call me a pessimist, i think at the rate we’re going with our culture, mindset and education, that day could still be far off.
pirate cd and all stuff… hahaha can’t live without it. believe it…
kaki cucuk langit : Censorship…betul gak. Ntah apa2,kan? adegan bogel2 pun nak potong. bukannya best pun,kan? (:p)
Sungai Wang demam jugak ke?BTS pun demam, tapi kat shah alam, kat pasar malam, masih sihat. mungkin kat sini jerebu, PBT tak nampak.
dJ phuturecybersonique : I totally agree with you. Here’s an article by me posted in Utusan citing the same problem.
zulkaplye : kalau yang original cuma mahal 5,10 ringgit dari yang pirate, dan tak kena potong byk2 , aku ok je beli ori. DVD Blade aku tu Ori,tau!
dude wheres the klcc makan pics?
nak download reservoir dogs dapat alexander, nak download mr and mrs smith dapat jane smith (dont even try to pretend you dont know who she is)
snort. we wants those piccies!!