Look - the representative democratic system is flawed as fuck and blaming the voter is wrong, blame the system instead. The democratic system is pinned down by a general conservative "if it barley works it's good enough" attitude. For example, when was the last time media discussed how the ratio of [policies signed in to law compared to policies that the population majority agrees with] can be improved? Never. Whenever unpopular policies gets signed into law the circumstances are blamed instead of the actual system.

The actual problem is that non-commercial file distribution is regulated*

Once again, this issue is not about legal technicalities or technical workarounds... If you put up a service like the pirate bay it's laughable to claim that more than 1% of the usage is for non copyright infringement purposes. The "but you can use torrent to share Linux ISOs too" argument won't go very far in court (or with business relations like this case). Neither does the "Google can also be used to index torrents" argument. While technically correct the society is rigged to avoid technicalities in rules and take decisions based on intent. The intent of this service was clearly to profit from copyright violating distribution.

The actual problem is that non-commercial file distribution is not regulated. This is counter intuitive to the Internet as an invention and needs to be changed. The Internet has made such regulation incompatible with fundamental human rights. File sharing is not theft - it's how people will discover new information and consume culture from now and in the future. Business models will have to evolve from utilizing physical scarcity to utilizing distribution-as-a-service. When people finally start to see beyond the "file sharing is theft" and "allowing file sharing means artist shouldn't get paid" arguments/distractions we can have sensible debate and lawmaking. What would change if non-commercial file distribution would be legal/unregulated tomorrow? Think about that. The file sharers are already file sharing. Pandora's box has already been opened.

What makes this case so interesting is that he clearly broke the military rules and also clearly helped humanity through his actions and he never gained anything by doing it. He wasn't paid for doing it and he knew people would hate him and that he would be punished hard but he followed his ideals rather than doing what gains him the most personally. He believed in the right of the public to know what their country is actually doing and where their tax money goes.

I see that some of you are angry with him and want him punished but when asked what he actually did wrong you can't argue further than him "breaking the rules" and "acting irresponsible". That he caused or will cause deaths is pure speculation. Maybe you are angry with him because deep inside you know you would never have the balls to pull this off by yourself? Because you know that you are that kind of person that curls into a ball when the authority beats you with a stick and tells you what to do and think. Because being told what to do and think follows naturally when you argue that the government has the right to censor and keep information secret from the public it serves.

What makes this case so interesting is the reactions from people. It tells you a lot of what kind of person you are deep inside.

You can make the comparison even simpler. Stopping a bullet with the clipboard takes just as much energy as resisting the recoil from the gun you fired with, so with a steady grip on the clipboard you can take the bullet with no problem.

In other words the competition is pushing innovation just as it should. I'd never use bing but I'm happy they exist so google has someone to fight with. Move along....

> Come up with crazy suggestion inside your head. Explain to people how crazy that suggestion is and imply that this suggestion was the original suggestion.

Also know as a strawman argument.

Are you working on dropbox btw?

For the copyright identification to work the author must upload their content. It won't work otherwise. I doubt all copyrighted material in existence is uploaded to youtube although I'd guess it's probably a lot. I'd recommend seeing the TED Talk the guy below linked to for more info.

Doesn't work. YouTube has automated copyright infringement detection. Basically the music/movie company uploads all their shit and YouTube will scan trough all uploaded content and match it. Then they can choose to take it down, add advertising etc. This is probably how the copyright claimer was notified of the video in the first place. No YouTube staff where probably ever involved in taking it down.

Yes, but it's not YouTubes fault. They have to take it down by law. Blame your politicians and ridiculous copyright laws - not YouTube.

Great points. Mod parent up.

This.

Yes.. your argument applies to literally everything though... so dismissing anything as "just a chain reaction" is basically saying that "this is just a subset of the universe." In other words your argument is true but pointless. Disclaimer: I assume that the universe is a deterministic state machine.

We've had 4G here now for over a year. (Real 4G, not the 3G+ that I heard some providers in the US has been marketing as "4G") I'm running it on my laptop right now. Works like a charm... 20-80 mbit wireless is sweet. Now if only they'd remove the monthly 40GB cap... also the proprietary windows only mobile internet client is utter and total crap. Hopefully they'll build it into all operating systems soon so I can connect just like Wi-Fi.