They ARE watching what you download.

[jonneymendoza]

They did it to me and i phoned them and denied it was me.The person on the phone diddnt sound to bothered at all lol.

[fisnik]

Yea I suppose they wouldn't be, lol. I suppose it's all because of RIAA/BSA bullying everybody around, like always.

[dangel]

afaik the companies involved are doing nothing as clever as packet sniffing. they're getting a torrent from a website, and loading it into their client. they are then recording the ip address of anyone who they download from, resolving that address and sending a letter to your isp (who sends it onto you). encrypted clients wouldnt help an iota.

I'd like to see that hold water in court - there's so many holes in that case!

i believe they can prosicute based soley on this, in the same way that the police can do you for your car speeding - if you refuse to say who was driving you get nailed for a different (and often more serious) offence

No, they can't - that's utter rubbish - you get sent a NIP (Notice of Intent to Prosecute) asking you ID the driver - if you reply with a PACE statement you're protected under the Human Rights Act (sec. 6) - self incrimination is not in any way in the spirit of the law or the letter of it (innocent until PROVEN guilty, not the other way around). The police may well send you a fixed penalty offer afterwards but you can ignore that - and usually nothing happens. If they do press court on you via summons either pleade guilty by post (and recieve the same fixed penalty as you would have) or go for it and see if they can prove their case. Ever wonder why they want speed cameras to take the driver's photo now? Ah-ha..

You MUST provide reasonable evidence of actual wrongdoing - connecting to a P2P tracker is not a criminal offence AFAIK - but downloading illegal-obtained media/software is. You'd need to demonstrate evidence of exactly what was downloaded, how much of it, how much was distributed etc etc on top of that it was _actually the individual you named in your case_. It's more likely that you'll be bullied into an out of court settlement as successful prosecution of individuals downloading for personal use without the intent to distribute for profit would be tricky at best. All the big 'busts' are people actively involved in making money from other people's work or circumventing copy protection systems (i.e. cracking) OR in the commericial sector (talking software) where the big profits are to be had and the return on legal costs is well justified.

[5lab]

not quite true..

"You have a legal responsibility to provide information as to who was driving when an offence was committed. But if you say who was driving you could receive a summons for dangerous driving. And you could be in jeopardy of a Crown Court trial, a potential custodial sentence, a mandatory ban of 12 months and compulsory re-test. If you don't say it was you driving, and ignore the notice, you'll then get a reminder; ignore that and you'll get a summons for the lesser offence of failing to furnish. It's important to get the right advice on how to deal with them from the off."

so if you ignore it you get done for 'failing to furnish', which is a greater offence than a straight 3 points/£60 fine..

[dangel]

not quite true..



so if you ignore it you get done for 'failing to furnish', which is a greater offence than a straight 3 points/£60 fine..

I didn't say ignore it

[5lab]

http://www.abd.org.uk/defence.htm

you're not protected under human rights laws, that was a potential loophole that was closed

[dangel]

http://www.abd.org.uk/defence.htm

you're not protected under human rights laws, that was a potential loophole that was closed

Pending European intervention - as well maybe. In any case this is completely inapplicable to the matter in hand unless you also have information on another change in the law regarding copyright violation and prosecution for said.

[Whiternoise]

If you're happy to play on your own then that's fine - I personally can't see the point in buying an MMORPG and playing it on a pirate (ie unsupported, hardly populated, no frequent updates) server.

That's sort of what i was getting at, most people will play on a pirate server and then realise how bad it is and so buy the real game - unless they are really stubborn. In the end, the companies will still get their profit..

Is it possible with WoW to buy the CD or whatever and then play on private servers (so not really pirating, just not paying to use the official ones)?

[kalniel]

Hehe, but the thing is the correct response to something being perceived as poor value for money (MMOs in this instance) isn't to pirate it, but simply not buy it in the first place. Act with your wallet rather than encourage criminal activity

People must be subscribing to WoW because they think it really is worth the money they're paying for it. If you don't, then surely you can live without it? If people like something so much they are going to the effort to pirate it then it's only more encouragement for them to ask more money for it

[dangel]

Hehe, but the thing is the correct response to something being perceived as poor value for money (MMOs in this instance) isn't to pirate it, but simply not buy it in the first place. Act with your wallet rather than encourage criminal activity

People must be subscribing to WoW because they think it really is worth the money they're paying for it. If you don't, then surely you can live without it? If people like something so much they are going to the effort to pirate it then it's only more encouragement for them to ask more money for it

WOW is like gaming crack to many tho isn't it?

[kalniel]

WOW is like gaming crack to many tho isn't it?

Heh, I heard the same thing about everquest at the time as well

I personally avoid subscription-based games and instead chose to support Guild Wars' way of doing things, but that's a discussion for another thread probably

[Splash]

That's sort of what i was getting at, most people will play on a pirate server and then realise how bad it is and so buy the real game - unless they are really stubborn. In the end, the companies will still get their profit..

Is it possible with WoW to buy the CD or whatever and then play on private servers (so not really pirating, just not paying to use the official ones)?

I believe it is possible to hack the WoW install to play on a cracked server, but I suspect that the people who are doing so probably didn't pay for the client.

I personally think that the subs based MMORPG model is a great business model - so long as people continue to be interested they continue to make money, which they can plough into developing more stuff, which keeps people paying etc.

Anyways, I digress.

[Mike Fishcake]

With regard to the "pirating hit CDs / DVDs is ok because the artist is rich" argument, I'd just like to make an observation...

The main artist might be rich, but don't forget all the people that are involved in the production in some way that get a % of the sales. You're taking off those as well.

For example - a mate of mine had a small part in one episode of Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights (co-written by Dave Spikey and Neil Fitzmaurice). As part of his contract, he got an appearance fee, and also a fraction of a percentage of sales. Obviously it's going to be absolutely miniscule compared to the big picture, but the point I'm making is that if you're buying Phoenix Nights on DVD, you're not just giving money to Peter Kay, or any of the other main characters, your money is going towards all the rest of the people involved in the creation of it.

I'm not wanting to take part in any "but i wouldn't buy the DVD anyway" arguments, I just wanted to point out a fact that some people may not have thought about.

[Lord_Itchybum]

The main point I was trying to make earlier is that if you think no-one will ever find out what you are doing you are extremely naive. Maybe an ISP will not take the time to find out what you are doing, but if you are downloading 50GB a month and uploading the same they will know something is going on, private tracker, VPN or not.

All data can be un-encrypted and if someone wants to know what you are downloading they will find out eventually.

That's why I let my friends do all the downloading and I just RIP what I want from them locally.

[fisnik]

That's very nice "friends" you have there. Have you warned them too?

[dangel]

The main point I was trying to make earlier is that if you think no-one will ever find out what you are doing you are extremely naive. Maybe an ISP will not take the time to find out what you are doing, but if you are downloading 50GB a month and uploading the same they will know something is going on, private tracker, VPN or not.

Naive is thinking that people who work in ISPs spend the whole day wondering what your downloading - they have plenty to do already