Feds shut down $$$$$$$$$$

[tgill]

usenet

[Gnomes]

The US government turned thousands of MU and other file sharer babies into usenet terrorists

A week ago most normal joes had no idea how to do anything but torrents and direct downloads. A negligible percentage actually did any of the uploading and packaging for distribution, or the kind of 'pirating' the government actually cares about.

Now everyone's learning to fend for themselves and taking the steps no one thought necessary before all this. Joining private torrent trackers and learning to set-up and use Usenet is becoming the norm, opening themselves to even more contents.

Good job America.

[TurtMcDirt]

lol... onguardonline.gov owned by antisec do you really want to step to this? is hacked up

[Manic!]

Just the main paragraph. not the illegal stuff.

#op$$$$$$$$$$ #antisec #anonymous
#ANTISEC SEZ ITS SOPA/PIPA/ACTA RETALIATION TIME.
PASS THAT TRASH AND WE WILL RM HALF THE CORPORATE INTERNET

"OnGuardOnline.gov, a partnership of fourteen federal agencies managed by the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC)" ... "the bad guys constantly develop new ways to attack your computer, so your security software must be
up-to-date to protect against the latest threats." ... etc etc you got rooted and rm'd. umad? don't like
it when your site is wiped of the internet do you?

If SOPA/PIPA/ACTA passes we will wage a relentless war against the corporate internet, destroying dozens upon
dozens of government and company websites. As you are reading this we are amassing our allied armies of
darkness, preparing boatloads of stolen booty for our next raid. We are sitting on hundreds of rooted servers
getting ready to drop all your mysql dumps and mail spools. Your passwords? Your precious bank accounts? Even
your online dating details?! You ain't even trying to step to this.

[Soundy]

Jonathan Coulton Destroys The Rationale Behind The $$$$$$$$$$ Seizure With A Single Tweet; Follows Up With Epic Blog Post | Techdirt http://bit.ly/xdJbUo

[RRxtar]

^best quote from that article

"Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There's your anti-piracy plan."



Ya, you can buy songs on Iturns or Beatport or places like that now but IMO, they are still charging too much.

Im not going to pay up to $4 for one song that I probably wont listen to in 3 months. Realistically tho, if I could easily download songs (without fucking Iturns) for 50c a piece in a high quality format, I would do it in a heartbeat. You can say 50c is too cheap buy hey guess what, 50c is better than 0c.

if 100 people want a song:
if its $2 and hard to get, maybe 5 people will purchase, and 95 will pirate
if its 50c and EASY to get, im talking so easy you don't even have to think about how to do it, maybe one day 50 people will purchase and 50 will pirate.

There needs to be an overhaul of the availability of purchasing music. It needs to be integrated into us culturally. I dont know how, and I dont think the people who make money from it care enough to try. Right now its easier to download pirated music than it is to find it legally to purchase and pay for.

[Lomac]

Originally Posted by RRxtar

^best quote from that article

"Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There's your anti-piracy plan."



Ya, you can buy songs on Iturns or Beatport or places like that now but IMO, they are still charging too much.

Im not going to pay up to $4 for one song that I probably wont listen to in 3 months. Realistically tho, if I could easily download songs (without fucking Iturns) for 50c a piece in a high quality format, I would do it in a heartbeat. You can say 50c is too cheap buy hey guess what, 50c is better than 0c.

if 100 people want a song:
if its $2 and hard to get, maybe 5 people will purchase, and 95 will pirate
if its 50c and EASY to get, im talking so easy you don't even have to think about how to do it, maybe one day 50 people will purchase and 50 will pirate.

There needs to be an overhaul of the availability of purchasing music. It needs to be integrated into us culturally. I dont know how, and I dont think the people who make money from it care enough to try. Right now its easier to download pirated music than it is to find it legally to purchase and pay for.

I've actually been buying a lot of music lately online lately, and not because of SOPA or anything like that.

Personally, I don't find $.99 or $1.29 per song that expensive. I'd rather spend $4 for three or four songs I enjoy rather than $12-15 for a CD that I only bought because of those three songs. And, really, as much as I despise iTunes, buying a song through my old iPhone (which is now solely used as an iPod) is super freakin' easy. It's more difficult to get into my car, drive the ten minutes into town, spend fifteen minutes looking for the CD and stand in line. Sure, there are a few bands that still aren't on iTunes, but the majority of them are, as well as a bunch of obscure ones that I'm fans of.

I don't see what the big deal is.

[bloodmack]

pfft. the artists still get their money even if we don't "buy" it. Last physical piece of music i bought was in the late 90's..

[Sky_2000]

https://plus.google.com/u/0/11131408...ts/HQJxDRiwAWq

Why was $$$$$$$$$$ really shut down?

In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #$$$$$$$$$$ were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (http://goo.gl/A7wUZ)

I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.

"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," $$$$$$$$$$ founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak

Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.

"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/perm...111221airvinyl

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by Lomac

I've actually been buying a lot of music lately online lately, and not because of SOPA or anything like that.

Personally, I don't find $.99 or $1.29 per song that expensive. I'd rather spend $4 for three or four songs I enjoy rather than $12-15 for a CD that I only bought because of those three songs. And, really, as much as I despise iTunes, buying a song through my old iPhone (which is now solely used as an iPod) is super freakin' easy. It's more difficult to get into my car, drive the ten minutes into town, spend fifteen minutes looking for the CD and stand in line. Sure, there are a few bands that still aren't on iTunes, but the majority of them are, as well as a bunch of obscure ones that I'm fans of.

I don't see what the big deal is.

This goes back to the days of the famous Napster battles, where the Record Industry was focusing all their bile on Napster, which only let to the proliferation of other sharing systems like Limewire, Usenet, Bittorrent, etc.

At the time, I was using IRC to get music and video - go to the appropriate channel, send a message to a bot, get the bot's list of files, request file from bot. Worked pretty well... but wasn't particularly user-friendly.

I've always said, Napster wasn't popular because it was free... it was popular because it was EASY. Launch the program, type in the name of the song you're looking for, click the download button, and a little while later, you have it. Free is a bonus, but people used it because it was EASY for the n00bs.

Apple recognized this with iTunes and the iTunes Store, and thus it's the most successful music store ever. Love it or hate it, Apple got the ease-of-use thing down pat: buy an iPod, install the software, sign up for the store... now you can just type in your search, download your music, and it automatically appears on your iPod (default operation of iTunes sync for years). With few exceptions, you pay 99 cents for your song, and you can load it onto "X" number of iPods, no fuss, no muss.

After Napster was taken down, Microsoft tried to roll them (or the name at least) into Windows Media Player in a similar concept... problem was, they never figured out to make it EASY. It was a pain in the ass to use, and the licensing was all over the place: some songs, you still had to buy and download the full album... some, you were allowed to put on your music player, but not burn to a CD... some you could burn twice but only load on one player, others you could load to five different players and burn up to five times... and so on. Nothing like downloading a couple dozen songs and wanting to make a mix CD for the car, and finding WMP would only allow you to actually put a handful of them on the CD.

"Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There's your anti-piracy plan."

BANG FUCKING ON.

[Gridlock]

Originally Posted by Sky_2000

https://plus.google.com/u/0/11131408...ts/HQJxDRiwAWq



Digital Music News - $$$$$$$$$$ Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox...

Well, that explains how you get will.i.am and others to make a video extolling the virtues of mega.

That part in this whole story had confused me.

[thumper]

i haven't been able to read all the posts here so sorry in advance if this has already been discussed.

there is a lot of talk about going to other sites that are either still up or are new in the wake of what is happening... is that not safe? i tried to search online but could only find this old article:

Streaming Movie Sites May Be Traps to Catch Illegal Viewers

[RRxtar]

my issue with Itunes is that Im not an Iphone user and while I do use an Ipod, i wouldnt call myself an Ipod user.

so having to use a proprietary program like Itunes to download an Itunes song that I have to play with Itunes drives me nuts.

It sorta goes back to the whole drag and drop issue/argument with Itunes/Ipods. I want to have a song and be able to freely move it around between my phone, portable music device, computer, different folders, etc, without using someones program.

Apple absolutely has the market in their hands, but its not an ideal configuration, imo.

[Meowjin]

you should see how successful steam is.

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by RRxtar

my issue with Itunes is that Im not an Iphone user and while I do use an Ipod, i wouldnt call myself an Ipod user.

so having to use a proprietary program like Itunes to download an Itunes song that I have to play with Itunes drives me nuts.

It sorta goes back to the whole drag and drop issue/argument with Itunes/Ipods. I want to have a song and be able to freely move it around between my phone, portable music device, computer, different folders, etc, without using someones program.

Apple absolutely has the market in their hands, but its not an ideal configuration, imo.

Except you're obviously a power user. It's not supposed to be "ideal" for everyone - it's supposed to be EASY for the n00bs. Since n00bs outnumber power users at least 25:1, it makes for a very attractive market segment.

[tgill]

Originally Posted by MajinHurricane

you should see how successful steam is.

Steam is a great example of make it easy and people will buy it.

Steam was at 30million active users a year ago, and is now at 40million active users. This is a result of easy of use, competitive pricing, the introduction of free2play, and compelling games adopting the steamworks multiplayer framework bundling steam into retail games.

This year steam is introducing "Big Picture Mode" providing a 10foot interface for use with TV's in the home entertainment system another easy of use feature.

[TheNewGirl]

I use Steam, Big Fish Games (for casual games) and Gog.com (Good Old Games) a lot.

All three have proven that people will happily pay to play if prices are kept low and as many barriers as possible are removed between the user and the game.

[Lomac]

Originally Posted by RRxtar

my issue with Itunes is that Im not an Iphone user and while I do use an Ipod, i wouldnt call myself an Ipod user.

so having to use a proprietary program like Itunes to download an Itunes song that I have to play with Itunes drives me nuts.

It sorta goes back to the whole drag and drop issue/argument with Itunes/Ipods. I want to have a song and be able to freely move it around between my phone, portable music device, computer, different folders, etc, without using someones program.

Apple absolutely has the market in their hands, but its not an ideal configuration, imo.

The thing is that you don't need an iPod to get music off of iTunes. I have a GalaxyS and all I do is when I sync my phone in Kies, I import one of my iTunes playlists and voila.

I do agree with the whole drag and drop issue, though. That is one of my major gripes about Apple and their iPods/iPhones. Sure, I've gotten around it but the average user isn't going to be able to learn how, or at least be bothered to do so.

[StylinRed]

what i hate about steam is i cant be playing 2 different games on 2 different computers.... (like cousin plays TF2 and I play M&MH5)


as for Itunes i cant stand the crappy mp3 quality...... why cant these types of sites/programs offer 320kbps MP3s (there are some sites/services that offer it but not for most songs) or even Flac files... i wouldnt have a problem paying $1 a file then

as it is buying cds and ripping them is still the way to go for me (but i dont do this anymore either, i just listen to internet radio off my phone)



oh and netload still works dont know how i forgot about them used to use it

[Eastwood]

These guys made millions off stealing. Can't believe the sympathy for them. If you look at there lavish lifestyles, the cars, the homes, the money, it is all contributed to the success of others.

I can't see how any court in America or New Zealand won't throw the book at them.

Job well done, its time the FED goes after the websites instead of the users.

[Neva]

Happens all day everyday only there's a spotlight on this particular company right now. Using other people's hard work to benefit yourself is pretty much how it's done and it's been like that since the first corporations and it'll be like that until the end of time.

[Speed2K]

Originally Posted by Soundy

Jonathan Coulton Destroys The Rationale Behind The $$$$$$$$$$ Seizure With A Single Tweet; Follows Up With Epic Blog Post | Techdirt Jonathan Coulton Destroys The Rationale Behind The $$$$$$$$$$ Seizure With A Single Tweet; Follows Up With Epic Blog Post | Techdirt

^Brilliant, totally brilliant! Before today I never heard of, nor listened to one song by Jonathan Coulton, after reading his post I actually did, not the type of music I like but I'm sure other people will buy his songs now.

[Firmware]

[RRxtar]

Originally Posted by Speed2K

^Brilliant, totally brilliant! Before today I never heard of, nor listened to one song by Jonathan Coulton, after reading his post I actually did, not the type of music I like but I'm sure other people will illegally download his songs now.

[ilovebacon]

Kim Dotcom - The Interview - YouTube

YouTube