[cashewchoo]

Where does the article mention a website-blocking system? I'm curious as to the technical details. I'm sure it'll work this time.

"For Canada to have an innovative and flourishing digital economy, we must protect copyright online"

Hrmph. Citation required.

Anyway, I'm not sure why businesses are so concerned about copyright still. Maybe this is specific to Canada? But country-specific things aside:

* The DMCA already makes it easy enough to keep things like KickAssTorrents offline, which was honestly the closest I've seen to a good tracker going mainstream.

* Steam has already shown how to "best" piracy to the extent that a business can. It's not via copyright laws. Everyone thought rampant piracy would mean Steam won't work in Russia. That aged well.

* Actually combating piracy on a technical level suffers greatly from the 80/20 rule. You can eliminate 80% of the piracy with 20% of the effort. But getting that last 20% is going to take 1000% of the remaining 80% of the work. (Sorry, yes, that was an attempt at a joke). It's basically not going to happen. Look at how well things like optical media DRM have gone. Look at how streaming DRM is going. Look at how hard it is for even *China* to stop its people from accessing free information online, much less normal countries with normal amounts of human rights abuses stop people from getting downloads of whatever Disney's latest remake is.

Dunno. As much as I hate copyright, and as much as I love free culture, it's hard for me to get too interested or worried about stuff like this nowadays, from a legal realism standpoint.

[FractalParadigm]

> * Steam has already shown how to "best" piracy to the extent that a business can. It's not via copyright laws. Everyone thought rampant piracy would mean Steam won't work in Russia. That aged well.

What's ironic to me is that, movie piracy was steadily falling and effectively dead after Netflix launched their streaming-video platform, very similar to how video game piracy started to taper off as Steam gained traction. For a single low monthly fee you got access to movies from all the major networks, and a good selection of TV shows as a bonus. The networks started getting greedy - HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+, Peacock, Discovery+, the list goes on - all wanting their own $5-$15/month cut on the action. It's a wonder why piracy has been back on the rise[0].

I agree that the quasi-monopolies of early Netflix or Steam through most of it's history are arguably bad, but the irony is that they're the most consumer-friendly ways to distribute media while effectively curbing piracy. The fragmentation of services; managing potentially a dozen subscriptions and the apps the accompany them, gets tiring for users who just want to sit down and watch Star Trek without hunting for it.

I'll throw in my two cents, that my personal experiences line up with this 100%. Before ~2010 when I was introduced to Steam I pirated virtually every game I played, but since then have only done so in very extreme circumstances. Similarly with music, as soon as Spotify, then Tidal were introduced to Canada, I haven't pirated a song since. Movies on the other hand, there was a several-year period where I didn't pirate a single movie- nobody I knew did anymore. In the past ~2-3 years I've been having people ask me about torrenting movies again, and I've caught myself doing it a lot more often than I would like to, but I just can't bring myself to spend $15/month on Netflix, $12/month for Disney+, $10/month for Crave, $6/month for Paramount+... While you can setup Radarr/Sonarr and Emby to accomplish the same for $0 (you could argue the cost of storage, but the $43/month saved on services gets you 3 brand new 4TB hard drives each year with money to spare).

[0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/piracy-is-back.html

[AnthonyMouse]

The problem is that Hollywood doesn't understand "commoditize your complement."

Having more than one streaming service isn't a big problem, assuming they're priced reasonably. Going from one service with everything for $15 to ten services with a tenth of everything for $15 each isn't really that, but that's not the root of it.

Their problem is that people are going to want a single interface to view everything through. If you actually subscribe to three different services, you want to turn on your TV and see everything available to you.

The companies in the best position to do this are the likes of Google, Apple, Sony, Microsoft. Hollywood isn't too stupid to realize the dangers of that, but they're missing the obvious solution to it.

Publish a standard streaming API, so that anybody can make a streaming client, the same as anybody could make a VCR. Then the dominant consumer of the API won't be a big monopolistic corporation that will then be able to use its power against the movie producers, it will be a zillion different companies selling dirt cheap HDMI dongles with WiFi who each individually has no power at all. They'll all end up running whatever open source software somebody publishes to consolidate all the different services into one interface, which Hollywood could then improve themselves the same as any other open source project. It competitively atomizes a third party middle man that they don't want.

But it's basically the opposite of DRM. Security through clarity -- make everything open so nobody powerful can insert themselves between you and the viewer. Because big tech companies are more of a threat to them than The Pirate Bay. And they have to realize that before they're willing to do it.

[novok]

> Their problem is that people are going to want a single interface to view everything through. If you actually subscribe to three different services, you want to turn on your TV and see everything available to you.

Google's & Apple's TV interfaces do that now. Search for a show, it tells you which streaming apps have it, including a CTA to maybe buy / subscribe one you don't have. There is a recommended show stream on the front page for google that is service agnostic too.

Yes you still have to download and login to an app, but people are used to downloading and logging into an app for their phones already and it's only a 15 minute procedure every 5 years you buy a TV, if that.

[andy_ppp]

I mean once Google or Apple own the customer why even need to login, you can just use your Google or Apple account. They promise not to take 15% :-/

[egeozcan]

Instead, they are fighting against windmills - adding more layers of DRM, incompatible clients, weird limitations...

99% (thin air statistics irrelevant) of the people won't save a copy of your stream and share it unless there's a dedicated GUI for it. The remaining, well, pirates gonna pirate.

As you said in more detail, they are fighting totally the wrong battle. It feels like an even dumber version of the war on drugs.

[Panino]

> Their problem is that people are going to want a single interface to view everything through.

I mostly agree with this. I know you're talking about a single streaming service, but just to expand your point, for me, my single interface is Roku. From it I can access Netflix, HBO, Amazon, Hulu, and a ton of others - all with the same remote on the same TV. One of my favorite permaculture Youtubers even has his own Roku app/channel. I've been looking into creating my own Roku app and the process doesn't seem overly burdensome. You need video content, an HLS or MPEG-DASH streaming webserver (I'll use nginx and HLS), some json, and maybe something minor I can't remember now.

But I like your idea of a standard streaming API. If it actually happened the resulting ecosystem would be awesome.

[DylanDmitri]

This is what Roku is attempting -- to control the point of contact (physical TV in living room) and commoditize streaming services. They've been able to squeeze some concessions out of streaming companies in exchange for customer access.

[jhgb]

> Going from one service with everything (*) for $15

(*) Regional restrictions may apply

[II2II]

> I agree that the quasi-monopolies of early Netflix or Steam through most of it's history are arguably bad, but the irony is that they're the most consumer-friendly ways to distribute media while effectively curbing piracy.

I doubt that would remain the case indefinitely. There would be too much temptation to increase revenues once they were established.

Perhaps the question should be: what would the market look like if there were multiple providers, each of which had equal access to license content they felt best fit their customer base?

[bthazos]

This is where government could perform a useful function. Content creators selling to the government and the government reselling full access of all that content to distributors is a realtopian dream of mine. It seems win-win all around to me. Consumers could go with the provider that has their favorite interface/content/price, creators would have a choice to sell to the govt and receive full draconian protection or sell on the open market and forgo legal protection of their works, and govt could feel good about running such a snappy program that serves all its citizens.

[salawat]

This isn't a case of we need providers to license. The issue is providers thimking of all money not collected as left on the table, leading to the jacking up of prices, for ever diminishing quality of product.

[itsoktocry]

>For a single low monthly fee you got access to movies from all the major networks, and a good selection of TV shows as a bonus. The networks started getting greedy - HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+, Peacock, Discovery+, the list goes on - all wanting their own $5-$15/month cut on the action.

It's funny to think that the platform, which is pretty easily replicable, is nearly as valuable as the content.

Why should the content creators hand over all over the margins to Netflix?

[paxys]

Sony just signed a massive content licensing deal with Netflix. Funny thing is, if you asked me which companies should have their own streaming service, Sony would be towards the top of the list. They have the content and very relevant tech expertise for it. Yet they ran the numbers and realised that there probably isn't room in the market for yet another ground-up service. Paramount, NBC, Showtime, Shudder, Epix, Discovery, CBS, Starz, AMC all apparently didn't.

Amazon has the best compromise for this IMO. Users have a single account and payment method, and can subscribe to different "channels" from the Prime Video app itself. Content owners don't need to license stuff to Amazon, just pay them a cut of the add-on fee.

[gpm]

> Where does the article mention a website-blocking system?

Read the longer version rather than the press release: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/693.nsf/eng/00191.html

d. clarify or strengthen rights holders' enforcement tools against intermediaries, including by way of a statutory "website-blocking" and "de-indexing" regime.

[cashewchoo]

Ah, so nothing technical.

[katbyte]

That was my response when I heard about it “ok... how?” Not gonna ban VPN and everyone’s see about a million ads for them on YouTube now

[jwalton]

> The DMCA already makes it easy enough to keep things like KickAssTorrents offline, which was honestly the closest I've seen to a good tracker going mainstream.

The DMCA is an American law, which does not apply in Canada or much of the rest of the world.

[jkaplowitz]

It's an American law which implements a certain part of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which is indeed in force in Canada (since 2014) with a local implementing law, as well as in the European Union and many other countries worldwide:

https://wipolex.wipo.int/en/treaties/ShowResults?start_year=...

With all of that said, Canada's legal analogue to the DMCA is a "notice and notice" regime, not a "notice and takedown" regime. The rights holder or their agent notifies the ISP, and the ISP notifies the user without necessarily taking down the content. A court order can be sought to force it offline, and I'd guess (but don't know) that some ISPs will voluntarily cooperate to some degree beyond the legal requirement.

[grecy]

Tell that to the founders of the Pirate Bay who were continuously raided and eventually wound up in jail, despite not being American, and not being in America.

[jkaplowitz]

Oh, copyright law in general is present worldwide through multiple international agreements. Going after the Pirate Bay didn't have to rely on the DMCA.

Even if it had needed to rely on DMCA-like concerns, over a hundred countries worldwide are party to the treaty which mandates a law addressing the scope of the DMCA, so enough other countries have such a law. (The details vary and not all such laws mandate a quick takedown of the allegedly infringing content.)

[zshrdlu]

Don't mind me, just big fan of yours! Can't wait to get your book!

[misterkrabs]

Yeah, in practice.

[avz]

> But country-specific things aside: * The DMCA already makes it easy enough to...

DMCA is a country-specific thing. Moreover, it is specific to a country the article is not about.

[derefr]

The DMCA is like the EU's GDPR: a law specific to affected countries, that nevertheless affects the entire world.

In the GDPR's case, that's because every company wants to be able to have European customers.

But in the US's case, it's because Internet commerce and ad-tech companies mostly exist within the US, and so you can't have a profitable torrent tracker / pirate-TV streaming site / etc. because — if the DMCA says you're not to be traded with — then you won't be able to get these US businesses to place ads on your site, or engage with US payment processors, etc.

And sure, anyone could run a perfectly robust torrent tracker over Tor, that nobody could take down through DMCAing the DNS provider et al. But, without a large accessible market of people visiting to show ads, there'd be no economic incentive to do so — so nobody bothers.

[jkaplowitz]

> But in the US's case, it's because Internet commerce and ad-tech companies mostly exist within the US, and so you can't have a profitable torrent tracker / pirate-TV streaming site / etc. because — if the DMCA says you're not to be traded with — then you won't be able to get these US businesses to place ads on your site, or engage with US payment processors, etc.

The DMCA doesn't talk about who can be traded with, in general. It mainly places obligations on companies which host third-party content if they want to receive liability protections beyond what the law previously provided. The payment processors may not want to participate to avoid secondary copyright infringement liability, but that's entirely unrelated to the DMCA.

Similarly, the ad tech companies have their own separate reasons for not wanting to piss off the media companies, and the DMCA would not be triggered if the infringing content is not handled through those companies' services.

[ArkanExplorer]

PC piracy has been neutered by Denuvo, which is the most effective DRM the platform has ever seen, and has been embraced by almost all major publishers.

Ubisoft embraced Denuvo for all PC product in 2017. Thereafter their PC sales revenue and PC's share of their total revenue has hit record levels.

The other factor is that with the rise of Crypto, PC torrents are now filled with miners and other malware.

The other factor is the largest games being online-only or having exclusive online functionality.

Digital distribution (Steam) is an aged and established concept now. What Steam provides is not and has never been unique - they just had the best exclusives (Valve games).

[dannyw]

Denuvo is being cracked by Empress, who is pretty legendary considering all scene groups gave up. Interestingly she has a habit of making controversial comments on gender identity on reddit.

[drummer]

Who is Empress? Have a link?

[thinkloop]

The reason things like steam can "best" piracy is because piracy is so crippled by anti-piracy. Between sites disappearing, spotty content, abusive ads, viruses, malware, and risk of prosecution, it's not hard being better. Imagine if that weren't the case and the free experience were seamless.

[scaladev]

If your definition of "piracy" are crappy streaming websites and shoddy warez dumps full of links to rapidshare, they are the same they were 15 years ago: full of malware and questionable ads.

BitTorrent trackers are more alive and popular than ever, and you always get what's advertised thanks to relatively high quality moderation (if you visit the right places, of course, sites like TPB don't count)

[katbyte]

Are you kidding? Piracy has never been easier lol, gb internet and torrents for every popular show and movie on public trackers. The pirate bay is still around and going strong. I just don’t want my Goverment to waste money trying to stop the internet stoppable

[thinkloop]

It's a lot simpler than that. If one team has to pay artists, and another team does not, ceterus paribus the second team will win. Only by constraining the second team does the first team have a chance to play. If government didn't "waste" money constraining pirates then pirates will necessarily have an outsized presence in the space given their unfair advantage.

[katbyte]

silly. spotify killed music piracy not any government. Steam killed game piracy not any government. Netflix had killed movie piracy but with all streaming services making it annoying again piracy is back - despite all their efforts. notice how the government fails to move the needle at all?

[salawat]

As soon as you build a business model capable of delivering a quality experience, the necessary logistical entanglements that facilitate your business are now directly targetable by legal systems everywhere.

This is the soft power of the market at work. Short of refusing to create business presence or monetize, you'll never be able to get much of anything done.

If anything is to be done to force providers to raise the bar above a compelling, high quality piracy alternative, it quite literally has to be out of the goodness of contributor's hearts. Which means it must be so easy to build, people don't mind spending leisure time on it.

And assholes would still screw it up and ruin a good thing for everyone else. That won't ever change.

[loceng]

I can't wait until competent leadership who actually understand business, who are actual entrepreneurs, get into positions of power - like Andrew Yang with his policies.

I keep saying this: I believe piracy is a valid counterweight mechanism to the capitalistic for-profit system that would milk society dry/fleece us year round until we die from the elements: charging us more than is reasonable so we'll so FU and pirate, or due to there being so much amazing content that you're competing for our time for entertainment because there's so much amazing entertainment to choose from?

Likewise I believe a UBI lever, where $xxx is allocated/earmarked monthly towards different types of creative/content work (to be defined/determined) will be how you fund the industry and artists (once they reach a level of competency commanding whatever level of pay); they can live off of their general UBI, developing their talents, their health/self-improvement/knowledge and skill development, or raise a family - in the meantime. And then we'll also have content produced that better mirrors the likes/needs/desires of society; Andrew Yang's Democracy Dollars voucher policy, every eligible getting $100/year to contribute to the political candidate of their choice falls is a similar/same mechanism but for different system - to break apart the duopoly - along with Ranked Choice Voting would compound powerfully; he wants to do this for journalism - "Journalism Dollars" - essentially to combat the duopoly (to create more than 2 core narratives that gets pumped out) but also the mainstream media/media industrial complex in general.

Re: "Dunno. As much as I hate copyright, and as much as I love free culture, it's hard for me to get too interested or worried about stuff like this nowadays, from a legal realism standpoint."

Jordan Peterson's Rule 1 of his latest book - "Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life" - goes into this necessary balance in very good detail - I'd recommend reading it; "DO NOT CARELESSLY DENIGRATE SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS OR CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENT"

[misterkrabs]

> they can live off of their general UBI

More like their landlord can live off their general UBI.

Abolish rent!

[noeltrotsky]

I sure didn't expect an Andrew Yang commercial in comments on a Canadian government internet story!

[why_Mr_Anderson]

Translated: I can't afford X so it's OK to steal it, because corporations are evil for being for-profit. Got it.

re UBI: you don't have to wait to see how 'well' would UBI work in practice - ask anyone from any European countries about their Roma population and how effectively they use the 'subsidies' (not the right word, but I can't recall the right one) from government. So many enterpreneurs and artists ... (/s just in case)

[derefr]

Re: Re: UBI — there's a difference in how a person who's in pain but otherwise healthy will use painkillers, and how a person who is in pain but also is addicted to painkillers will use painkillers.

Like an addiction, prolonged poverty — and especially being born into poverty, and having your social circle consist mostly of other people born into poverty — changes many people for the worse, such that they become less able to effectively strategize to lift themselves out of poverty if they do get offered the resources to do so. They never learned how, and/or they have no role-models to mirror, so they don't even try.

UBI certainly isn't a magic fix for poverty. But I've never seen anyone claiming it to be. People in poverty are already usually receiving social assistance, so UBI wouldn't even change anything for them!

Instead, UBI is more likely to serve as a prophylactic to prevent poverty. It's a secure, predictable safety net that's just always there by default; a much-improved version of Unemployment, without stigma (because everyone gets it no matter what) and without restrictions (e.g. you get it even if you were previously self-employed. I mean, you get it even while you're employed, so of course you do.)