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Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

... and its important to say, as experience shows, at this point its sadly irrelevant what average americans say.

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.

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> 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.

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.

Contracts with regional exclusivity give the content producers something a subscription model never will: a lump sum of risk free, up-front cash. People calling for global Netflix kumba ya with all content available are simply asking for producers to take a haircut.

I am honestly not aware of what Netflix contracts look like.

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.

These contracts are seldom made public.

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 is not correct anymore. At least in Germany, House of Cards is indeed on Netflix.

It's important to emphasize that it's science that says this, not just experience: http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...

> to serve a few multinational corporations that feel their profits are severely cut due to copyright infringement, meanwhile posting record earnings.

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.

> I will never fault HBO, Adobe or Microsoft going after those who are pirating

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.

>But using the force and authority of the United States government (Homeland Security involved in enforcing IP infringement? Really?)

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.

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