Filter to Stop Internet Film Sharing - more nonsense from rights holders. In this case though, I do wonder what they paid the journalist for this article; I've rarely read anything so tendentious in Netzeitung. Anyway, it's bollocks all the same - whoever wants to share files will do it. Without any filters or signatures on the files preventing anything. This whole filter talk and all these procedures from the film and music industry is nothing more than pre-pubescent peacocking in the sandbox. Look at my muscles, wow how cool am I. Behind it all is just a little boy who has no idea what he's doing.
A solution? I don't have one. It's not my job anyway. I'm just sitting on the sidelines laughing myself silly over all these great approaches, whose childlike optimism is only surpassed by faith in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. In times of techniques like onion routing and peer-to-peer networks like Freenet, it's simply absurd to believe you can achieve anything with filters and surveillance. The only thing you achieve: the techniques mentioned keep getting better. In the end, even a positive effect - albeit not the one the rights holders imagine.
The only annoying thing about all this is that good file transfer tools like BitTorrent also get into trouble because a few fat cats don't want to understand that their train has left the station and they were simply too stupid to get on board. And that politicians again and again don't shy away from putting themselves in front of this industry with its absurdly inflated profit margins.
The artists? Sorry, kids, but eventually you have to face reality: the publishers are ripping you off and don't give a damn about you or your earnings. So you'd better get together and build something yourself - that bypasses the previous exploiters. Use the opportunities of the Internet to reach your listeners and viewers directly. Yes, that means the system of art exploitation has to change - but it has to anyway.
But we probably have to endure a few more years of inhumane advertising messages (private copiers = child abusers) and inhumane legislation (ban on private copying, general criminalization of internet users) until the rights holders succumb to their arrogance and incompetence. Then maybe there's a chance for a fresh start.