[LordMelvin]

If I'm making backups anyway, why not just make them local? I have almost 2 Tb of random crap that's all backed up in triple redundancy and my main PC has a RAID 6 config (yeah, I'm a bit paranoid, but still).

Leaving aside all your on-topic points, this is still unsuitable for a secure backup for anything you'll need after a long period of time. Just for one example of an event that could, despite your local storage triple-redundancy, my neighbors' house burned to the ground a couple years ago. (there was noone home, and they weren't tech people, but it could happen to you too...) If that happened at your place of residence, any non-offsite backups would be lost. Any data that you had in your house would be reduced to randomized bits of charcoal. Paranoid? You're heinously underprepared. (That said, anything even marginally sensitive backed up on someone else's servers should be reasonably encrypted. Your definition of reasonable, I leave to your paranoia...)

[TwentyPercentCooler]

If I'm making backups anyway, why not just make them local? I have almost 2 Tb of random crap that's all backed up in triple redundancy and my main PC has a RAID 6 config (yeah, I'm a bit paranoid, but still).

Leaving aside all your on-topic points, this is still unsuitable for a secure backup for anything you'll need after a long period of time. Just for one example of an event that could, despite your local storage triple-redundancy, my neighbors' house burned to the ground a couple years ago. (there was noone home, and they weren't tech people, but it could happen to you too...) If that happened at your place of residence, any non-offsite backups would be lost. Any data that you had in your house would be reduced to randomized bits of charcoal. Paranoid? You're heinously underprepared. (That said, anything even marginally sensitive backed up on someone else's servers should be reasonably encrypted. Your definition of reasonable, I leave to your paranoia...)

In most cases, you would be right and I actually do agree with you that redundancy doesn't always equal safety. But offsite backups are always about trading security for convenience. Sure, having the "cloud" servers automatically back up your data is convenient, but you could have your privacy compromised. Even home encryption programs are capable of encryption that would defeat brute force attempts by supercomputers these days. But the problem I see is that as it stands, the "cloud" is touted mostly as a solution for small businesses that don't have the resources to run their own clusters. I'm not saying I think small business owners are idiots, but business savvy doesn't necessarily include technological savvy and there will be a lot of them who won't know about encryption or won't bother with it (our society needs more technological education for the common person, but that's a whole different can of worms).

People like me that have one backup in a fireproof safe in a structure not attached to the main house and another backup at a completely different property with everything under tight encryption weren't the intended targets of the cloud anyway. 

Dear wonderful mod(s): thinking the cloud discussion should probably be split.

[Nuke]

yea i do offsite backup, i keep a drive over at my sisters house. if you dont have a relative you could always get a safe deposit box in a bank or perhaps a climate controlled storage unit (based on level of paranoia) and keep a hard drive in there as well would be pretty secure, go in and swap it every couple weeks. id trust those methods over the cloud any day.

[Aardwolf]

**** that, it's a crime and should be combated.  I don't give two ****s about supply and demand in this context, but stealing is still stealing.

I can argue this on either moral or economic grounds. You seem to want to go the moral route, but I think you ought to at least know what the economic argument is before you dismiss it.

Consider...

(1) Not every pirated copy would have ever been paid for—but if it's a good game, they'll tell their friends about it.
(2) Not every pirated copy wasn't paid for—some people get pirated copies of games that they also bought—either to try the game out or to bypass ****ty DRM which decreases the value of the product

If you piss off the the group of people for whom (1) applies, you deny yourself free word-of-mouth advertising. And if you piss off the people for whom (2) applies, people either don't buy it because they couldn't try it, or they don't buy it because they know how ****ty the DRM is.

[The E]

Consider...

(1) Not every pirated copy would have ever been paid for—but if it's a good game, they'll tell their friends about it.
(2) Not every pirated copy wasn't paid for—some people get pirated copies of games that they also bought—either to try the game out or to bypass ****ty DRM which decreases the value of the product

Consider...

(3) There are people who will pirate something without any intention whatsoever to pay for it, even if it is good.
(4) There are groups of people who will pirate something, and market it as a legit product to make a profit.

The groups I mention are the ones who cause actual damage, even if the damage caused by members of group 3 is hard to quantify. It is these latter, very definitely criminal groups that need to be targeted. The other 2 in your list are people who wouldn't normally consider doing illegal stuff, but for whom the benefits of pirating outweigh the negative aspects at the moment they do the pirating.

[Aardwolf]

Your (3) sounds equivalent to my (1)

And your (4) is plagiarism, which I dislike as much as anybody else.

[Nuke]

Your (3) sounds equivalent to my (1)

And your (4) is plagiarism, which I dislike as much as anybody else.

(4) is organized crime pirating titles and selling them as legit copies. this harms both the rights holders and the customers. it robs the rights holders of actual sales to people who were willing to pay for it. it also robs the customer of a valid license which they though was what they paid for. this is the most damaging for of piracy. it is also not easily circumvented by drm, as the criminal organizations have access to resources to break it (hackers, hardware resources, places to operate, media duplication equipment, etc). this is also the only kind of piracy that law enforcement seems to target (megaupload was treated as such an organization in this case) because of its direct impact on the economy. all other non-profit piracy is up to the rights holders to enforce through civil suits.

[Scotty]

No, it is not plagiarism.  Not even close.

And you're ignoring that regardless of economic reasons a crime should never be considered acceptable simply because the alternative only mildly inconveniences someone.  There's a big difference between actively hunting down pirates and giving whoever feels like it carte blanche pirate anything.

[yuezhi]

(4) is organized crime pirating titles and selling them as legit copies. this harms both the rights holders and the customers. it robs the rights holders of actual sales to people who were willing to pay for it. it also robs the customer of a valid license which they though was what they paid for. this is the most damaging for of piracy. it is also not easily circumvented by drm, as the criminal organizations have access to resources to break it (hackers, hardware resources, places to operate, media duplication equipment, etc). this is also the only kind of piracy that law enforcement seems to target (megaupload was treated as such an organization in this case) because of its direct impact on the economy. all other non-profit piracy is up to the rights holders to enforce through civil suits.

when you put it that way, it reminds me of those fake apple stores. not sure if they sold valid licenses though.

[Klaustrophobia]

Your (3) sounds equivalent to my (1)

And your (4) is plagiarism, which I dislike as much as anybody else.

(4) is organized crime pirating titles and selling them as legit copies. this harms both the rights holders and the customers. it robs the rights holders of actual sales to people who were willing to pay for it. it also robs the customer of a valid license which they though was what they paid for. this is the most damaging for of piracy. it is also not easily circumvented by drm, as the criminal organizations have access to resources to break it (hackers, hardware resources, places to operate, media duplication equipment, etc). this is also the only kind of piracy that law enforcement seems to target (megaupload was treated as such an organization in this case) because of its direct impact on the economy. all other non-profit piracy is up to the rights holders to enforce through civil suits.

megaupload wasn't representing its downloads as legitimate distribution AT ALL. 

[Nuke]

Your (3) sounds equivalent to my (1)

And your (4) is plagiarism, which I dislike as much as anybody else.

(4) is organized crime pirating titles and selling them as legit copies. this harms both the rights holders and the customers. it robs the rights holders of actual sales to people who were willing to pay for it. it also robs the customer of a valid license which they though was what they paid for. this is the most damaging for of piracy. it is also not easily circumvented by drm, as the criminal organizations have access to resources to break it (hackers, hardware resources, places to operate, media duplication equipment, etc). this is also the only kind of piracy that law enforcement seems to target (megaupload was treated as such an organization in this case) because of its direct impact on the economy. all other non-profit piracy is up to the rights holders to enforce through civil suits.

megaupload wasn't representing its downloads as legitimate distribution AT ALL. 

no what we have here is something new. law enforcement is getting more power and resources to fight piracy than it used to. megaupload is still (supposidly) turning a profit from illegal activities, which makes them a target.

[Aardwolf]

And you're ignoring that regardless of economic reasons a crime should never be considered acceptable simply because the alternative only mildly inconveniences someone.  There's a big difference between actively hunting down pirates and giving whoever feels like it carte blanche pirate anything.

I'm not ignoring anything; I don't think "piracy" should be illegal, except in the sort of case Nuke described.

Piracy is not stealing.

[Nuke]

of course, the only thing people who download things do is a mere copyright violation. legally speaking piracy is not theft.

[S-99]

Yeah, and department stores shouldn't have those stupid security tags that keep you from walking out with them real casually.

That's just plain old stealing. That is not making illegal knock offs.

[JCDNWarrior]

Adding to all of this is the angle of the RIAA lawyers appointed by the Obama administration, copyright trolling as they go.

Also the following list (copypaste):

MegaUpload - Closed.
FileServe - Closing, does not sell premium.
FileJungle - Deleting files. Locked in the U.S..
UploadStation - Locked in the U.S..
FileSonic - the news is arbitrary (under FBI investigation).
VideoBB - Closed! Will disappear soon.
Uploaded - Banned in the U.S. and the FBI went after the owners who are gone.
FilePost - Deleting all material (will leave executables, pdfs, txts)
Videoz - Closed and locked in the countries affiliated with the USA.
4shared - Deleting files with copyright and waits in line at the FBI.
MediaFire - Called to testify in the next 90 days and it will open doors. Pro FBI
Org Torrent - Could vanish with everything within 30 days "he is under criminal investigation"
Network Share mIRC - Awaiting the decision of the case to continue or terminate Torrent everything.
Koshiki - Operating 100% Japan will not join the SOPA / PIPA
Shienko Box - 100% working China / Korea will not join the SOPA / PIPA
ShareX BR - group UOL / BOL / iG say they will join the SOPA / PIPA

The Chilling Effect seems in play.

[Nuke]

if there is one thing that you really got to hate about the democratic party, its how much they suck on the entertainment industry's collective cock. one of my main reasons for not voting for obama was his running mate's stance on intellectual property rights.

[JCDNWarrior]

Nuke, sadly it's on both sides, left and right. There are only individuals within the left and right that speak out about real issues. I look at their voting records to get a good idea.

One more link, interesting background:

http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-swizz-beatz-120120/

Has to do with MegaBox, which would have caused the entertainment industry much grief and artists much joy, if i read it right.

[Nuke]

Nuke, sadly it's on both sides, left and right. There are only individuals within the left and right that speak out about real issues. I look at their voting records to get a good idea.

not all of the entertainment industry is pro-democratic. you still have country music, fox news, sports networks, various radio networks, etc. but as a general rule of thumb pro democrat sectors of the industry lobby to democrats and pro republican sectors lobby to republicans. pro democrat sectors usually outnumber the pro republican ones though.

One more link, interesting background:

http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-swizz-beatz-120120/

Has to do with MegaBox, which would have caused the entertainment industry much grief and artists much joy, if i read it right.

that article makes it sounds to me like the entertainment industry is trying to crush a potential competitor that has the potential of completely undermining their archaic buisness model.

[deathfun]

Wait, Mediafire has been called in to testify?

[rev_posix]

Another article on Megabox:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/24/was-megaupload-targeted-because-of-its-upcoming-megabox-digital-jukebox-service/

Not that I'm seeing a conspiracy, but I'm not sure that I would be surprised if it was one of the main reasons for all of this.

After all, AT&T tried to do the 'kill off the competition and give a flimsy reason for it' thing when they tried to buy T-Mobile claiming that they needed it to improve their network, why couldn't a group that has even more pet politicians at it's disposal try the same thing?