It takes some twisted logic to think thats a valid analogy. Dropbox is a perfectly valid filehosting service because they take reasonable measures to prevent copyright infringement. Megaupload(and mega) is not, because it's run by a person who has no real interest in preventing copyright infringement, and has shown that he's more than willing to profit off it, while he pretends that he doesn't know it's occurring or can't prevent it.
Define 'reasonable measures'. People use Dropbox to share copyrighted material all the time. Ditto S3, gmail, external hard drives, and any file storage method in existence.
Enforcement of the standard you're promoting would require pervasive surveillance of every data storage and transfer method in the world, and backdoor access for all forms of encryption.
Freedom of information and communication is orders of magnitude more important for a healthy and free society than copyright of digital goods, and you can't have both--they are fundamentally incompatible.
Arguing against piracy on the internet is a giant waste of my time because if you have it in your head that piracy is "good" or "ok" then you will rationalize bad arguments all day defending an incorrect position.
To address your latest spurious post, dropbox, gmail, etc. Facilitate file sharing on a small scale. Public links to megaupload listed on public aggregating websites that list the latest 'releases' are an entirely different matter. You obviously know that but are willfully blind to it to make stupid arguments.
No, you are taking a childish view of the defenders of piracy.
Let's say you are right. Explain to me how you would justify the pricing scheme we have for digital media to the average person on this planet, who most likely is Indian/Chinese/Nigerian and makes less that $5 a day.
How much should we charge this individual? Do you think they have the same right as westerners to challenging themselves and experiencing other cultures?
No, you assume that piracy is only white people that don't have a large allowance, which is a childish view perpetuated by the media. Most people don't have a computer, and if they are lucky enough to get one they should be able to have access to a large variety of the same digital goods.
Arguing against piracy on the internet is a giant waste of my time because if you have it in your head that piracy is "good" or "ok" then you will rationalize bad arguments all day defending an incorrect position.
Don't you have it in your head that danenania's position is incorrect and it's therefore a waste of time to argue the subject with you? It certainly seems so, specially since danenania isn't actually arguing for piracy, just that (s)he considers the steps of eliminating piracy to go against more important values.
As an analogy, the fact that I defend almost absolute free speech doesn't mean I'm in favor of all speech, it just means that eliminating said speech is worse than allowing it to exist freely.
First of all, MegaUpload did take preventative measures, at least that is what they argue. It's clear you don't understand how dangerous it is to take down the provider for a users actions.
