Well, Americans have been saying that about drug war, civil forfeiture, surveillance and many others things for a long long time.
while OP is right -- this doesn't seem to serve majority, the truth is that the system is rigged and this supposed to serve a few multinational corporations that feel their profits are severely cut due to copyright infringement, meanwhile posting record earnings.
it is still mind-boggling to me that this non-US human being doing allegedly non-violent crime will probably end up serving 25 years in american prison (wire fraud is a magic word in LE indictments) for a bunch of bits being configured the way to organize in magnet links that sharing of - as far as I know, similarly to URLs, had been found in courts around the world as a non-infringing act.
Ignore that the system is rigged for the moment. I think it is safe to say these companies really like making more money. I have always wondered why then, they spend so much effort enforcing copyright laws rather than trying alternative methods to solve the problem and make more money.
E.g I know a lot of people who have some unblocking service and Netflix. Now they could increase prices for Netflix, so we wouldn't need the unblocking, but that's not on the cards. They would rather spend their efforts blocking me.
Is this purely to satisfy contractual obligations? I'd assume that any existing contracts must be in place for such a long time that making changes can't be done for quite a few years into the future and there is no realistic way to amend existing contracts. The contracts would have to cover new productions too.
Otherwise, this whole thing makes no sense to me. They appear to be giving up revenue, for no benefit to themselves.
I'd have thought they also pay lump sums to get the streaming rights per territory.
Also I am proposing the subscription increases to get access, possibly per territory you want access to.
For one example of what we do know: House of Cards is not available on Netflix in Europe [1]. I'm sure Netflix is not happy with the situation but we can only guess as to what it would have cost them for the rights.
[1] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/netflix-subscribers-eu...
That almost sounds like a Bernie Sanders level paranoia of words profits and corporations. Honestly share-worthy content exists because of these entities in first and I will never fault HBO, Adobe or Microsoft going after those who are pirating their software. I think it is government who is going after someone who cant defend himself and just pretending to have done something.
That can mean very different things depending on your definition of 'going after'. If they chose to engage someone in a civil suit and could prove realistic damages, then in principle I wouldn't have a problem with them attempting to protect their IP.
But using the force and authority of the United States government (Homeland Security involved in enforcing IP infringement? Really?) to extradite a foreign national on criminal charges? That is in no way proportional to any of their perceived damages, and it goes to show just how bluntly the government is used as a tool by those with money and influence.
Homeland Security is in the copyright infringement business now. They've been added to the standard FBI warning at the beginning of all movies, probably as a way to make themselves feel better after all those mean TSA groping memes made people laugh at them.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...
An unthinkable amount of money has been spent and made from the drug war for highly questionable ROI to the public.
What type of reduction in police work would take place if the drug war was ended today? 20%? 30%?
The war on drugs is a job machine. DEA agents fly around like international playboys from the books I've read. Plus international governments get tons of money from the US to run their own interdiction programs.
There has to be some level of influence to keep the 'war' going from these perverse incentives.
Only if you exclude people working for the public sector from you know, the public.
Those things create jobs for voting constituents. That's the main ROI here. Reduction in crime, drug use and increased security are just beneficial, but not necessary side effects of these initiatives.
How about the fire, police, schools, environmental protections, consumer protections, and court system? How big is the military defending your patch of land?
I admit there are problems, but I'm always amazed when people say the government doesn't do anything, then take a car to work on public roads, listen to the radio (FCC), eat food (FDA), etc.
he did make those roads... he paid taxes in gas, insurance, purchase of a car tax, license plate tax... all that do indeed sponsor roads he drives on!
as of military defending his patch of land, hard to argue. Africa is much bigger than USA -- how much they spent as a continent on defense? Bet 1000th of what US does. Other than that, he might choose to protect his own land with the second Amendment and keep military out of it, no?
I was saying the government does lots of work. It doesn't always function great, but it does a lot right too.