MPAA Files Lawsuits Targeting Major Torrent Sites 579
diverge_s writes "Slyck news reports on a new wave of lawsuits the MPAA has filed against major Bit Torrent search sites including: Torrentspy, Isohunt, Torrentbox, Niteshadow and Bthub. From the article: '"Website operators who abuse technology to facilitate infringements of copyrighted works by millions of people are not anonymous - they can and will be stopped," said John G. Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA. "Disabling these powerful networks of illegal file distribution is a significant step in stemming the tide of piracy on the Internet."'"
searching is not illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
new addition to pirate bay legal threats page ? (Score:5, Insightful)
P2P, torrents etc. are simply like having the best radio station and film channel in the world. It lets me try out stuff without spending my hard earned cash (an ever decreasing amount of which I have to spend on "non essentials" such as entertainment) so I know that I like something before I buy it.
Oh how the *AA dinosaurs futiley roared as the small furry mamalls took over their world
Freedom for the Culture! (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom [wikipedia.org] for [gnu.org] the [ucla.edu] Culture [wikipedia.org]!!!
Absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, we must also consider what "illegitimate" means in context. A nuclear bomb has the potential to cause thousands, if not millions, of deaths, as well as render the land uninhabitable for decades to come. A BitTorrent site, on the other hand, merely has the potential to give thousands or millions of people access to free movies, music, TV shows, software, and porn, and the only threat it poses is to the business models that are founded on restricting free speech. Which one is the real threat?
Up-side-down People! (Score:3, Insightful)
MPAA and RIAA are spending billions to make headlines such as "MPAA sues grandpa without computer", "RIAA sues 13-year old girl for sharing mp3", "DRM technology in audio CD-s installs without a warning and opens your PC-s to hackers", "don't use the uninstaller, it leaves your PC even MORE open to hackers", "MPAA and RIAA join together to sue Earth and be done with it".
If I could separate myself from this twisted reality we live in, where this is supposed strategy to drive up sales, I'd say they are doing everything possible to make people hate them.
And the same old tired misnomers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all people consider sharing of information and media to be "illegitimate". The idea that culture can be controlled and bottled up by powerful media companies is a quaint 20th century notion.
You are quite correct in questioning the effect of any ban. Bit-torrent networks and other types of filesharing are rooted in basic human behaviour and desires. That's not going to change any time soon.
Re:I'll get modded troll (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at the success of the Muslims protesting the Cartoons of the profet Mohammad. USA Newspapers and TV are scared shitless to air the offending cartoons, in fact, you have to hunt real hard to find out what the hoopla is all about.
Imagine if every lawyer working for the RIAA suddenly had to fear for his life every time he issued a supeona against a website. Imagine if every spammer thought that his family could be in danger when he sends out the 6 billion emails for Penis Enlargement.
They'd think twice about doing such things if it meant their car would have flats, their house could be burnt and their family kidnapped and beheaded.
There's an old saying that freedom must be taken. If we want to be free of these gangsters, then we need to take action, and it's very likely going to have be violent action because these days nobody understands anything else.
The terrorists have won. They have taught us that terrorism can get people to change their ways. Look how much they have changed the USA. We need to take that lesson and apply it to other areas that need change.
So, yes, while I don't want to agree with you, I admit that that only way I see real change happening is after some people die. It's not a nice thing to say; but it's an awful reality that we may have to come to accept.
And please don't send the FBI to my house, I'm not a lunatic about to commit these crimes, I'm simply pointing out that this is likely to happen sooner or later.
Thanks!
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:3, Insightful)
A BitTorrent site, on the other hand, merely has the potential to give thousands or millions of people access to free movies, music, TV shows, software, and porn, and the only threat it poses is to the business models that are founded on restricting free speech. Which one is the real threat?
If those business models that are 'founded on restricting free speech' stop paying for production of the content that goes to make up the main core of all these torrent sites, what will the sites offer? The content isnt free, you just arent paying the asking price for it. The real threat is that the content may stopped being produced because the people paying for the production arent seeing a return on investment.
You have no inherent entitlement to the content.
Re:searching is not illegal (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, no, I don't see a pattern. No because what you said is completely and utterly untrue. The vast majority of guns used (at least in the US) are used legally. I am going to go ahead and go out on a limb here and guess that you have never lived in rural America. Hicks and red necks shoot off more ammunition for the purpose of killing innocent bottles and deer then the fucking army does. Hell, I bet the private populace of the US legally owns more guns then the army does.
Please do! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:new addition to pirate bay legal threats page ? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not stealing. Breaking in to a store and taking merchandise without paying is stealing.
This is copyright violation. Please, please...PLEASE understand the difference. thanks.
Re:By that logic... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:3, Insightful)
After that happen, you'd be surprised how much of artists you liked are in fact are indies and has no relation to the RI/MA Ass. of America. What's more they'd be happy to know that you have downloaded their song/movie - and thus learned about their existence. And if you liked them payed visit to concert or show.
MP/RI Ass. of America is in fact a show business cortel. They control (or own) production, promotion and resales channels of content. Indies exists in your U.S. only thanks to few remnants of common sense and new lobby for indies on capitol hill. Your beloved Ass'es of America tried not once to "stamp" on "rampant" "threat" to their "business model" coming from the hippies who do nothing useful but distract people with their money from "show business" of USA. Business as usual, one would say.
I always tried to explain (unsuccessfully) you Americans what really at stake and what is the true problem of the RI/MP Ass of America. But they have already won your minds over - and you hardly hear the words. Forst word you have to memorize is "CULTURE". Second is "SOCIETY". Think of them. Write them on a wall and look at them hour a day. Probably then you would understand that commercializing what actually makes the bone of society leads you nowhere. (*)
P.S. That's the explanation why USA has such high crime rate. That's explains why you Americans at large has no understanding what's going outside: since you have no culture (but show business) one can hardly expect you to understand way others are living. The way people are living is formed by the culture and society exists at large as a way to preserve the culture. From the global prospective, RI/MP Ass. of America has found a way to sell you what you owned to begin with. They are "free riders". They've made you beleive that "culture" can be property. And it seems you already lost it...
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you serious?! BitTorrent is frequently used for distributing large, legitimate files - in fact, I use it on a weekly basis, and I do not infringe copyright with it. BitTorrent is now the standard way of distributing many files that it is legal to distribute, from Linux distributions through to demos of commercial games, and banning it would therefore affect a huge range of legitimate activities.
Sorry, but while there ARE systems it would make sense to ban, based on your argument - such as other P2P systems like Kazaa and ED2K - I'm afraid BitTorrent is actually the one example of a P2P system that has been embraced by legitimate users and is widely used for legal purposes. It is the one P2P system that it would be MOST stupid to ban.
Incidentally, you win today's prize for the most careless use of language. "There are plenty of legal ways to distribute files", you said. There sure are - and BitTorrent is one of them.
By the way, if you think bananas are normally used for peaceful purposes, you can't have watched many cartoons. A banana skin is a very common weapon.
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:2, Insightful)
If that happens, I imagine the sites will offer content created under other business models, content that was produced in the past, and content from the public domain. Or maybe they'll dry up. Who knows, but more importantly, who cares?
The question you posed contains a huge "if", and as such it only pertains to a fantasy world where everyone stops making music, movies, and other works that people enjoy. But in the real world, people have been making music, writing, and painting for thousands of years, copyright or not. They aren't going to stop just because it becomes hard to make money by selling copies of information; they'll just switch to a model where they get paid more directly for the work they do.
The content isnt free, you just arent paying the asking price for it. [...] You have no inherent entitlement to the content.
That's one way to look at it, but not a very accurate way. The string of bits that makes up a movie or song file is free once it's been created in the first place, and while I don't think I'd use the word "entitlement", I would definitely say that we have the moral right to share those strings of bits with one another, just as we have the right to share sports scores or our thoughts on the weather.
It's a plain and simple fact that the string of bits I've attached to this message(*) will make "Hit Me Baby One More Time" come out of your MP3 player, just like it's a fact that it was 23 degrees outside today. Some people think it should be illegal to share one of those facts, not because it would lead to fraud, loss of life, or a breach of national security (some legitimate reasons for restricting information flow), but simply because it would mean a few large businesses had to be restructured. I, on the other hand, think the freedom to speak and write freely, as well as to share one's cherished experiences with friends and strangers, is important enough that we should demand a damn good reason for limiting it - and putting a buck in Sony's pocket doesn't exactly qualify.
Now, the effort that went into producing that string of bits for the first time is what isn't free, and that effort is what no one has an entitlement to. An artist is free to charge whatever he wants for recording a song, writing a book, etc., and to refuse to do any of it until his conditions have been met. But once he has agreed to do it, the fruits of his labor are free for all of humanity to use, just like any other numbers.
(* not really attached)
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:5, Insightful)
You cannot buy culture. You learn about it, you appriciate it, you emulate it.
You have just proven his point - you have no culture, and apparently no idea how to debate.
Re:They're going after NZB sites too (Score:4, Insightful)
The actual reason for suing them is probably because there are fewer NZB sites than there are news providers, and it's strategically best to go for the head of the snake. If you go after a search site, you impair all their users on many different news providers (and may be able to identify a lot of them too). If you go after a news provider, you impair their users (etc.), but not any from other providers. If you go after uploaders, you impair all their downloaders. If you go after downloaders, you only get them. So start at the head of the snake, and you'll get the most bang for your buck.
Re:Freedom for the Culture! (Score:4, Insightful)
Same goes for those "millions" who you talk of the will of. They probably couldn't give a flying fuck, so long as they can get the latest Hollywood shitfest for free.
Oh, btw, it's cute that you linked to the FSF homepage right after a link to a page on "anti-copyright". Especially when the GPL would fall over without copyright laws in place.
Re:new addition to pirate bay legal threats page ? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'm tired of people assuming that the only possible reason anyone might want to insist on using precise terminology is in the mistaken belief that this might justify morally bankrupt actions.
Where in the post you replied to did it say "it's okay because it's not stealing"?
Where in the post you replied to did it say "copyright infringement is not wrong"?
Nowhere.
Why are you incapable of understanding that people might view copyright infringement as morally wrong, and yet still desire people to use the correct name for it, instead of calling it stealing, which it isn't? Why are you incapable of understanding that there is a reason why we have different laws on different subjects, with different penalties for different crimes?
Copyright infringement and theft are both illegal, but they are illegal under different laws, are judged on different criteria, and are punished in different ways. They affect the victim in different ways and harm the economy in different ways. They are no more the same thing than rape and murder are the same thing.
That is why you should use different names for them. Not because one is any less illegal than the other. Not because one is any more moral than the other. Merely because while both are wrong and both are illegal, they are nevertheless not the same thing.
Extra Taxes/Levy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stemming the tide? (Score:2, Insightful)
And it was on North Truro beach in Cape Cod.
This was actually the first thing I thought of, when I read that phrase.
I was trying to build a safe haven for my castle. The ocean was relentless. The sand was weak. I had to dig and pile as fast as I could to "keep the ocean out" so my castle would be "safe".
I figure they'll be as effective as I was.
But I had way more fun than they ever will
Here's the real trick (Score:3, Insightful)
Since a BT tracker is simply a search engine, are you suggesting that the engine should inspect all of its indexed torrents and filter out the ones that are copyrighted? What about material that's copyrighted but has been posted to the tracker by the copyright owner?
If I were so inclined I could use Google to find illegal materials and services - as mentioned by other posters, but the **AA is not suing Google (yet) probably because they're too big and expensive to sue. (After all, Google is refusing to turn over search records to the government even when handed a subpoena.)
I would argue that a BitTorrent tracker is not an inherently illegal device and that there's no easy way to measure the amount of "illegal" traffic on it. All one can do (if one is the copyright holder) is to request the tracker remove links to infringing material when it's discovered, and that these trackers have been complying with those requests.
Shutting these trackers down will do two things:
1. Annoy a lot of people and generate more animousity towards the **AA
2. Shift the traffic to a number of lesser-known trackers who then become the next TorrentBox and such
Let's face it, the RIAA and MPAA are just playing Whack-a-Mole here and are starting to get frustrated each time the mole pops back up.
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Once upon a time, before the copyright cartels came to dominate, such work was created on a comission basis. There is no intrinsic reason that we can't go back to that business model, and leverage the reach of the internet to allow anyone, anywhere to comission work from anyone and anywhere in the world. Even large productions can be comissioned with a variant of the "group buy" idea that is already very popular in niche communities on the net.
Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:3, Insightful)
I claim bullshit on this every time it is put forward by industry ludites. You show me one movie, book, song, software that WASN'T made for fear of piracy then we can talk about it. You can't and neither can they. You are talking about multi-billion dollar industries here and they can't show one instance where fear of piracy has stopped them from producing one single thing. So shhh about all this "we will starve and the content will disappear" bs.
"You have no inherent entitlement to the content."
And they aren't entitled to perpetual profits either. Copyright is supposed to expire. Think about that one.
B.
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Who modded that up? (Score:3, Insightful)
(The "you" in "you have no culture" may have been either singular or plural, but I'll assume the former. My points would apply in either case.)
There are two related meanings of "culture" at play here: [1] A group's language, religion, art, and customs and [2] familiarity with and sensitivity to the fine points of the culture[1] of your own and other societies.
Saying someone "has no culture" is either a vacuous slap at the entire society in which the person lives ("you have no culture[1]"), or it's a statement that the person lacks culture[2]. The GP was asking about culture[1], not culture[2].
So that means that you, writer of parent, have taken the word "culture" out of its culture[1] context and hurled it as an insult, "no culture[2]". Nothing in GP suggests a lack of civility or learning -- just the opposite, in fact, as he displayed some knowledge of another group's activities. You used that accusation as a springboard to claim he lacked debating technique.
He, at least, dealt with the content of the message to which he was responding. You merely insulted him, while ironically posturing as a debater.
Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:3, Insightful)
I know that BitTorrent was created to solve a distribution problem, and has plenty of legal uses. The cliche example is Linux CDs. Distributors can cut down on bandwidth use by letting the downloaders share among themselves. It's rather unfair that BT is mostly known for its widespread copyright infringement use nowadays.
However, when I think of a "BT community", I don't think of downloading a Linux CD from Redhat's tracker found on Redhat's website. I think of people swapping torrents to lots of huge files they found, almost all infringing. Face it, if I'm going to download a Linux ISO, I'd go to the distro's site and get the distro's official torrent, I don't download it because I happen to spot a link to it on Torrentspy.
So my main question is - is there really a substantial legit "BT community"?
Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:3, Insightful)
Hate to burst your bubble, but this happens all the time. Establishments where illegal activity persists will find that they have a hard time renewing their liquor license or other bureaucratic necessities (occupancy permit, fire/health certificates, etc.).
Re:Same tired old argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Surprisingly, the only thing that makes me more angry about losing my rights online, is knowing its all the morons who download movies causing it. I would love to spit in the face of the MPAA and the RIAA, but only after spitting in the face of the individuals who encourage their actions by abusing their rights , usually in the form of downloading games, music, and movies.
It seems like the RIAA, the MPAA, and the illegal downloaders are all acting immature, and abusing the rights of others. The only person not abusing rights, is the exact person having their rights trampled on. As someone who doesn't steal software, music, or movies, I also won't break the law, so if I can't copy my CD to my computer because of some obscure law thought up by the RIAA, encouraged by the people who distribute music illegaly, that means I won't buy CDs, the RIAA won't make their money, and the people who have already proven to be okay with doing things illegal, will continue to copy their CDs.
Why not go ahead and make iTunes the only legal source of music purchasing, and iPods the only legal source of playing music?
It sounds harsh, but isn't that what you are suggesting? Eliminate the opposing forces, instead of increasing severity of the consequences of abusing rights?
Basically, the MPAA is targeting the wrong audience. Threaten the people doing the illegal downloading, and increase severity there. Don't threaten the rights of an entire country (or everyone in general). Find a way to restrict the rights of the abusers. Making it more difficult to do what I used to have rights to do in the past, only makes it harder to comply and easier to break the law. At the rate we are going, all recording devices will be banned, and we will only have read-only access to MPAA/RIAA provided content, with individual decoders created for each device we own.
Don't encourage the MPAA/RIAA to do this. The best way to discourage it, is to reform laws to revoke the rights of abusers, and leave my rights alone. Another way is to stop downloading content you don't have rights to.
Is this Charlie Brown Syndrome? (Score:1, Insightful)
Apparently, no one understands that I was making fun of him. What he posted was stupid, so I ridiculed him for it.
He said "Why does the rest of the world spend so much of their [money] on American culture if it doesn't exist?". He doesn't understand what culture is (see the other replies for somebody trying to argue with me and proving me right).
He tried to link economy to culture - which is stupid.
He's talking about popular media - but that's not "culture", which is what the post he replied to was about.
Who's Next? Wag that Dog! (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they closed down the P2P centralized servers.
Next they went after the distributed P2P systems and scared them off.
They started suing random P2P users with large share directories, often missing the mark.
Then they went after sites that stored only torrent files, and no actual content.
Now they're after the sites that index the torrents, and have neither actual content, nor torrent files.
Your own personal computer is next on their hit list of infringing devices.
Is anyone aware of just how small these content industries really are compared to the overall economy? They are the tail wagging the dog!
Viscous Cycle (Score:3, Insightful)
Dead business model in a deathgrip (Score:2, Insightful)
Having passed 3.5 million subscribers over six months ago [blizzard.com], conservative estimates of their monthly revenue on the World of Warcraft franchise exceed $41,965,000.00. That translates to over half a billion annually, with long term foreseeable growth.
Why?
Blizzard delivers the game via a streaming model, has absolute control of the content, owns the servers delivering the goods, and can continue adding content to keep it's subscribers coming back as long as it's profitable to do so.
Movie studios could do the same by offering a tiered system of streaming content at increasing resolutions on a subscription basis, i.e. 5 movies monthly/annually @ 640x480 = $X / 5 movies monthly/annually @ 800x600 = $XX / 5 movies monthly/annually @ 1024x768 = $XXX. Increase the frequency, pay more. While a simple concept, the watermarking/security technology to ensure there's no redistribution would hardly be trivial.
This then cuts "piracy" off at the knees, and gives studios control of their content again, without the overhead of egregious legal fees or bad PR. Everybody wins.
But, for this model to be profitable it would mean that studios would have to concentrate on putting out quality instead of quantity, and give up using Fx to coverup nonexistent storylines, and that's a topic for another thread entirely.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....