[penfro]

The more savvy users will just sign-up for VPN or Usenet service. One 1TB of SSL encrypted Usenet transfer from NewsgroupDirect for $40 is more than enough for most people. Couple that with SABnzbd and NZBMatrix and you have a very usable service out of the reach of the latest anti-piracy scheme. Amazing how much of our rapid loss of liberties are attributed to the same 4 categories: child pornography, terrorism, file-sharing, and organized crime.

[fierarul]

I don't see how paying for VPN or Usenet helps.

First, you are basically replacing the ISP with the VPN / Usenet provider -- your entire traffic goes through them! If the ISP has to follow some given law, what makes you think the VPN/Usenet company will be above it?

Second, using Usenet to pirate, for example, is even worse than doing it from home. You leave a credit card trail and you have a specific user/password to access the service. So if your user copies something, there's a slim chance it was the neighbor using your free WiFi.

Speaking of NewsgroupDirect it seems to me very expensive. 1000GB (~1TB) isn't $40, it's $100. And the monthly plans are also expensive. I guess it has US prices but I'm paying here about $20/month for a 12MB net/phone/TV package.

[ihsw]

Indeed, the prospect of paying $40 for privacy may previously have seemed absurd, but it is now a viable (and now necessary) expense.

[alttab]

I see those categories more as excuses. I refuse to believe societies decision markers are that blind to basic human civility. There has to be a better way to reduce harm from technology than turning the world into a gulag.

[zanny]

It is easy - digital content has no cost of distribution, replication, or reproduction so charging for individual units is a failing model. So charge elsewhere, such as at the point of creation, or as an inclusion on something with per unit cost.

Basically, fund the creation of infinitely reproducible goods and release them for free, either through ads, through investments or crowd-funding, or through contracts.

We should be embracing how easy and cheap it is to replicate media of all forms, not trying to prevent the physical realities of electric charge and transistors.

[alttab]

Theoretically easy, I agree. We need to dislodge the dinosaur thugs that have made this difficult. Unfortunately it seems as though their moral compass and logic calibration is inversely proportional to their degree of desperation for profit.