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MPAA Files Lawsuits Targeting Major Torrent Sites 579

Posted by CowboyNeal from the not-so-fast dept.
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."'"
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MPAA Files Lawsuits Targeting Major Torrent Sites More

MPAA Files Lawsuits Targeting Major Torrent Sites

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  • Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I've bought about 200GBP of DVDs this year as a direct result of downloads from bittorrent. Just thought I'd mention.

    • Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:5, Funny)

      by PorkNutz ( 730601 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:49AM (#14791357) Homepage
      Blanks don't count!

      • Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:5, Interesting)

        by laughingcoyote ( 762272 ) * <barghesthowl.excite@com> on Friday February 24, 2006 @06:03AM (#14791405) Journal

        I know your comment was a joke, but actually in many countries there's a tax on blank media that goes to content providers. So...in many cases, blanks DO count.

        • In France for instance it is the case :) At the same moment the government is about to vote the controversial DADVSI law (that some nickname not without reason the "Vivendi-Unversal Studio" law). One of the goal of this law is to suppress the right French ppl have had so far to make a private copy for personal usage of DVDs (they don't suppress for audio CDs though... go figure.. :). So far you have had the right to transfer the videos from the DVD you bought into your iPod (even though you have to hack t

    • Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:4, Interesting)

      by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @08:58AM (#14791880) Homepage Journal

      The problem I see is that they take down legal content in the pursuit of pirated DVDs. Why should the BT community that isn't pirating DVDs be paying for the abuse of a few?

      With the approach the MPAA applies, bars, clubs, etc. would be shut down when a couple patrons are arrested for drug dealing or prostitution because they're "enabling" the illegal activity. For some reason, there doesn't seem to be a lot of precedence for the *AA approach of shutting down entire businesses when pursuing a few criminals.

      • Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dwandy ( 907337 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @09:07AM (#14791910) Homepage Journal
        The problem I see is that they take down legal content in the pursuit of pirated DVDs. Why should the BT community that isn't pirating DVDs be paying for the abuse of a few?
        Because the *AA's have done such a good job of convincing everyone that copy==pirate [timesonline.co.uk] that there is no such thing as legal content...

      • 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 file

      • With the approach the MPAA applies, bars, clubs, etc. would be shut down when a couple patrons are arrested for drug dealing or prostitution because they're "enabling" the illegal activity. For some reason, there doesn't seem to be a lot of precedence for the *AA approach of shutting down entire businesses when pursuing a few criminals.

        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

  • But noone told the sites be sued? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sandstorming ( 850026 ) <<moc.gnimrotsdnas> <ta> <eesnhoj>> on Friday February 24, 2006 @04:44AM (#14791176)
    From the article: The operators of these indexing sites appear surprised at the MPAA's decision to sue, as they have yet to receive any notification. "Funny, they didn't email me," Gary from ISOHunt said. "I'm not too concerned because we deal with copyright requests everyday, some of them from studios MPAA represents." "Justin" from TorrentSpy echoed Gary's skepticism. "I guess I will learn more when I see what they have filed exactly. [I'm] not sure why they are suing when we comply with DMCA requests but I guess we will learn more down the road."

  • FYI (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kawahee ( 901497 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @04:44AM (#14791178) Homepage Journal
    A quick glance at TorrentSpy [torrentspy.com] shows that they haven't given up, they're still dishing out torrents. They have a news story about it, but they don't seem to be too concerned.

    I remember when the MPAA did this last time and the torrent sites shut down completely because it was in their subpoena (sp?) thing, so does this mean that TorrentSpy is defying the MPAA and (potentially) putting themselves up for harsher penalties?

    • Re:FYI (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:09AM (#14791235) Homepage
      I remember when the MPAA did this last time and the torrent sites shut down completely because it was in their subpoena (sp?) thing, so does this mean that TorrentSpy is defying the MPAA and (potentially) putting themselves up for harsher penalties?

      Well, from the interview it seems they haven't recieved anything from the court, only been informed that a lawsuit has been filed. Once they do get a court order (I believe subpoenas are only request for information), and have something like 24-72 hours to comply (I don't remember exactly), we'll see if they're going to stick to their guns.
    • A quick glance at TorrentSpy shows that they haven't given up, they're still dishing out torrents. They have a news story about it, but they don't seem to be too concerned.


      Isn't TorrentSpy based in the Netherlands? Can't remember what the Dutch equivalent of the MPAA is. (BREIN?) Either way, I suspect that they're going to have a hell of a harder time targetting search engines than trackers.

      --Ng

  • searching is not illegal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mrshowtime ( 562809 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @04:44AM (#14791180)
    Search engines are not illegal in the USA. You can use a search engine to search for anything. You can use a search engine to find a prostitute or drugs and other forms of illegal "entertainment" so why does copyright infringement the ipso-facto crime of the century? There are a lot of illegal bitorrent files and there are a lot of legal files. I hope someone challenges the MPAA on this.
    • I could use the banana I am going to eat for dinner to choke you. On the other hand, I could use a suit-case nuclear bomb as a doorstop.

      Now given that both of these items have both legitimate and illegitimate uses, should they be treated the same under the law? Of course not, and the reason why should be obvious - the banana has few illegitimate or dangerous uses, and is overwhelmingly used legitimately. The nuclear bomb has few legitimate uses, while its illegitimate uses are many and extreme. Also,
      • As illustrated in the above example, having some legitimate uses is not enough to avoid a ban, nor is having some illegitimate uses enough to justify one. Instead, we must weigh the legitimate and illegitimate uses against one another.

        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

        • 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

          • ...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?

            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. The

            • Re:Same tired old argument (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Casualposter ( 572489 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @09:26AM (#14791976) Journal
              Does it occur to anyone that by restricting the torrent sites and trying to destroy file sharing and music sharing that the real target of this is not piracy, but an attempt to destroy the growing ability of independent artists to make a name for themselves without the big labels? It looks to me like piracy is not the issue, but rather market dominance. Once the MPAA, RIAA have destroyed this upstart internet thing, they will then embrace the technology to distribute the content that they want on the terms that they want. Think about pay per view for EVERYTHING.
            • "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."

              This seems to be the ongoing line of thought around here - that after CDs are produced no more because no one can sell them, artists will make their livings through live performances.

              I wonde
          • "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."

            I claim bullshit on this every time it is put forward by industry ludites. You show me one mo

      • And the same old tired misnomers. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Rocketship Underpant ( 804162 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:51AM (#14791366)
        "most BT traffic is illegitimate"

        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:Same tired old argument (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Haeleth ( 414428 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @06:50AM (#14791518) Journal
        BitTorrent and the like score quite badly on the first two points - most BT traffic is illegitimate, and there are plenty of legal ways to distribute files.

        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. :P
      • How does one tell a "legitimate" BitTorrent tracker from an "illegitimate" tracker? Does someone go through the tracker and calculate the ratio of copyrighted material to free/copylefted material?

        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 fin
        1. What is the ratio of legitimate to illegitimate uses?
        2. What alternatives exist to the legitimate uses?
        3. How effectively could a ban be enforced?

        BitTorrent and the like score quite badly on the first two points - most BT traffic is illegitimate, and there are plenty of legal ways to distribute files. The only question is how effective would any sort of regulation of BT really be.

        1. I guess I'm an anomoly, but I've never downloaded an illegal torrent. I use it for Linux ISO's, and used to run a busines
    • Search engines are indeed a-okay in the US and are shielded for the most part for the content that they help you find. However, as the Supreme Court case against Gorkster showed, there it isn't an absolute protection. If it can be shown that piracy is a significant portion of the traffic, they can be shut down. Sure, these torrent sights might have legit torrents, but what portion of them are legit? I am not saying I have an opinion one way or the other, just that the law is almost certainly not on thei
      • I think there is a reson to believe that more guns are used in robberies, murders and other unlawful cases compared to the gun usage for self-defense and shooting practice. Guns have legitimate uses, but most times they are used, the use is illegal. See a pattern here?
        • I think there is a reson to believe that more guns are used in robberies, murders and other unlawful cases compared to the gun usage for self-defense and shooting practice. Guns have legitimate uses, but most times they are used, the use is illegal. See a pattern here?

          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 li
    • Search engines are not illegal in the USA. You can use a search engine to search for anything.

      Napster was a search engine, it was shut down. There are tons more illegal BitTorrent files than there are legal files, and the sites mentioned in the articles concentrate on helping you find the illegal files. I don't see anything wrong with getting rid of the bad seeds (no pun intended) in order to promote the legal uses of BitTorrent for downloading your ISO image of Linux, for example. Pirates much of the

    • I hope someone challenges the MPAA on this.

      I used to hope the same thing. I'm beyond that now. I now hope everybody who works for the MPAA dies of cancer. Of the pecker. Sans painkillers.

    • Search engines are not illegal in the USA.

      Trust me, you would not want to be an "Information Location Tool" which include "a directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link" without complying with 512 d) of US copyright law. It might not be illegal but otherwise you're liable for anything "referring or linking users to an online location containing infringing material or infringing activity". These torrent sites would have to be blind, deaf and dumb to not know they're pointing to lots of illegal co

  • Gracias (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24, 2006 @04:45AM (#14791182)
    Thank you MPAA, I didn't know about a couple of those!

  • There is some more info here... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24, 2006 @04:47AM (#14791186)
    1. Boing Boing [boingboing.net]
    2. Slyck Forums [slyck.com]
    3. Another blogger with some good quotes [hishamrana.com]
    4. Normality Net with more info [normalitynet.com]
    5. Amit's Page with even more commentary [blogspot.com]

    Drive by linkings!
  • If they'd put half the effort into actually making quality films as they do with these worthless lawsuits, I'd gladly pay $30 for theatre admission and snacks for my girlfriend and I. Until then, I'm paying what it's worth to see these movies.

    Without piracy, it's doubtful ANYBODY saw Stealth or The Island. Even for free, I couldn't sit through all of Stealth.

  • new addition to pirate bay legal threats page ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TractorBarry ( 788340 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:01AM (#14791215) Homepage
    Ho ho ho. So can I look forward to an addition to the a href="http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php">Pirate Bays legal threats page ?.

    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 :)

    • Well, yes, except that you're stealing the music and films. Not to mention demonstrating why the movie and music industries need to implement DRM technologies that Slashdotters tend to loathe.
      • for the love of.....OK. I will calmly explain this one....more....time.
        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.

      • Yes. "Try before you buy" is such a horrible concept. I hope they get those pesky CD players out of the music stores soon. Personally I blame the music stores for bringing this absolutely irrefutable need for DRM.

        Here's a hint: DRM only hastles legitemate customers, while the pirates get the full freedom. Leak once, pirate infinitely. And that's why DRM will never work.

        Plus its called copyright infringement, not stealing. Tool.

  • They're going after NZB sites too (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grubbymitts ( 903312 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:05AM (#14791228)
    NZB-Zone has been targetted along with binnews and a couple of others. It is interesting to note that they have only gone for nzb sites and not the actual usenet providers - they appear to have the same rights as ISPs when it comes to common carrier status, but I'm no lawyer.

    • Re:They're going after NZB sites too (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @07:15AM (#14791577) Homepage
      The common carrier idea has never really flown that well in the ISP world. The real safe harbor here is the 512 exception, and it more or less treats search engines and providers of material placed there by users the same. Of course, it also requires that the ISPs in question take affirmative steps to be protected, and that they honor takedown requests by copyright holders.

      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.

  • Freedom for the Culture! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rvalles ( 649635 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:09AM (#14791236)
    Millions of people, they say. Maybe it's time to start listening to the will of those millions instead of listening to just a few industry-paid lobbysts.

    Freedom [wikipedia.org] for [gnu.org] the [ucla.edu] Culture [wikipedia.org]!!!

    • Re:Freedom for the Culture! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jb.hl.com ( 782137 ) <joe@[ ]-baldwin.net ['joe' in gap]> on Friday February 24, 2006 @07:24AM (#14791604) Homepage Journal
      TorrentSpy etc and the people who use them don't give two shits about "free culture" or "info anarchism" or other terms which sound much nicer than "leeching albums from the Internet". TorrentSpy links to torrents, which 99.9% of the time are for copyrighted works. That's it. Nothing to do with lofty ideals or going against The Man (unless going against The Man gets you free shit).

      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.

  • Absurd (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kumachan1983 ( 956909 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:18AM (#14791269)
    I had to make an account just to respond to this. Im a long time reader so it was about time anyway. Listen this is just history repeating itself. We saw it First with Napster and music. Then Kazaa came up and all of its clones. Then they attacked the few major torrent sites in existance with lawsuits. What happened everytime? Pirating evolved, its like the MPAA and other such organizations serve as nature in the darwinism that is file sharing. Every time they strike down one site or technology it just evolves and gets better. I remember the days before bittorrent and how much of a pain it could be to find a specific file, now because they have forced us to we have a much more efficiant and anonomous system to distribute illegal software. I say bring them on because I'm excited to see what new and improved ways will come forward to share files. Not to mention the fact that if they quit trying to stop it (amplifying the problem) and started trying to profit off of it they would be doing much better. Look at the advertising oppertunities....
  • Hmmm, lets see. The math says that there are several dozen solid BT sites out there, and 7 have been threatened. If they all go away today, there are only a few dozen left to choose from, and there are 20 or so added a week.

    Yup, this will show those little shits, they'll have to run to #8 on thier bookmark list now. Ha, take that.

    YAWN. Stupid MPAA, no cookie. You are making the same mistake the US military is, fighting the wrong war, and losing both because of it.

                -Charlie

  • Thanks, didn't know half of these (Score:5, Funny)

    by Werrismys ( 764601 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:29AM (#14791306)
    slashdot is educational.

  • Up-side-down People! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by suv4x4 ( 956391 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:41AM (#14791335)
    Most companies try the best to look great to their customers, to appeal to young people. Microsoft is spending billions to make itself look smaller and more open.

    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.

    • Re:Up-side-down People! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @09:43AM (#14792053)
      It's one advantage to being a cartel^H^H^H^H^H^H assosciation. It's always "the RIAA" or "the MPAA" doing the suing. The individual companies aren't being assosciated with the bad publicity. If you started seeing "Sony sues grandpa without computer" or "Vivendi sues 13 year old girl", then you might start getting some reaction to the bad press. As it is, the MPAA is sort of like a meta-corporation. Corporations exist to limit the risk to individuals involved in the corporation. The MPAA exists to limit the risk to the companies involved in it.

  • The Pirate Bay loves these guys (Score:4, Informative)

    by feyhunde ( 700477 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @05:43AM (#14791341)
    Go read http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php [thepiratebay.org]

    Most of these sites aren't hosted in the US, or in countries that recognize torrents as being pirated material.

  • Please do! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Per Wigren ( 5315 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @06:01AM (#14791395) Homepage
    Please help boosting the development of the anonymous networks... Because that's what's going to happen if you keep on doing this.

  • You have stolen enough (Score:5, Funny)

    by tcornelissen ( 897694 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @06:08AM (#14791416) Homepage
    More with your mouse over the bottom of each page in the press release: http://www.mpaa.org/press_releases/2006_02_21_raze r.pdf [mpaa.org]
    You will vind a hidden registration link.
    You guys have now stolen so much, the MPAA cannot afford anymore to pay a $30 registration fee to Iteksoft. http://www.iteksoft.com/modules.php?op=modload&nam e=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=4 [iteksoft.com]

  • Dear MMPAA. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ekran ( 79740 ) *
    Dear MMPAA. It is time for you to sit down and chill a bit (grab a beer or something.) - you should know by now that stopping people from copying digital information is a futile effort. I know this is your job, and I know that you are working very hard on this, but it is not an effort that's going to lead to any regime where pirated movies does not exist. Just ask the guys working against music and software piracy.

    So, while you sit there contemplating on the situation and what you do, you should ask yoursel
  • Which one of the current anonymous methods of p2p is the best at the moment? I know that i2p [i2p.net]does not claim complete anonymity at the moment but at least to me it seems like the best alternative.
  • Have to put those on my favourites list as well then...

  • Extra Taxes/Levy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Greefer ( 779397 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @07:29AM (#14791620)
    Lets just say in a perfect world, everyone stopped downloading. Do you think all the taxes and extra fees on blank media / or iPods (Canada) etc got added due to piracy would get lifted? I highly doubt it. They are getting some love / reimbursment .. I dont feel guilty at all for the stuff I download.
  • This is IH from isoHunt.com. We also run TorrentBox.com. Some clarifications for comments here:

      * Yes, this is MPAA's FUD. The lawsuit included.
      * No, BitTorrent and P2P are not illegal (yet). They are not solely tools of thieves as the MPAA like to portray them as. There are many legal torrents in isoHunt's search index.
      * No, I haven't got anything from MPAA about this lawsuit of theirs, but the press release is real and we are working with other sites, sued or yet to be sued, and the EFF on this.
      * This is significant as they are suing search engines. isoHunt.com is a search engine. It does not discriminate, it index by algorithm. If we can, we'll be pulling in Google and Yahoo to say a few words that search engines are not illegal (yet).
      * No, I'm not a crook. I see P2P as the new VCR, and I intend on proving that P2P can be used to the benefit of content creators, as a cheap and global vehicle for distribution and promotion.

    Read more and comment on my forum announcement if you like:
    http://isohunt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38933 [isohunt.com]

  • Typical kneejerk reaction... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Friday February 24, 2006 @12:16PM (#14793594) Journal
    ... to this story.

    Many rants about how "Search engines aren't illegal", etc. Blah blah blah blah blah.

    The point that I think is being made here is that search engines that end up being used virtually exclusively for the finding of materials that are illegal _OUGHT_ to be illegal, and that's why the MPAA is working at shutting them down.

    You do not, for example, need to use one of the mentioned torrent search sites to find the latest Linux ISO images. I feel fairly confident in saying that the actual number of legal torrent files out there that could be not be found without using a search engine that predominantly indexes to illegal content (that is, copyrighted content which is being shared without the copyright holder's permission) is staggeringly tiny (although I similarly somehow would not doubt that some slashdot readers will take it upon themselves to cite a few examples in response to my remarks that will somehow "prove" this assertion to be incorrect).

    So by the reasoning being proposed by the MPAA here, taken to its natural conclusion, if or when Google indexes substantially more infringing content than it does legitimate, and if and when that is predominantly what the engine is used for, then even Google would be shut down.

  • Who's Next? Wag that Dog! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @12:23PM (#14793672)
    First they closed down the sites hosting content.
    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)

    by jav1231 ( 539129 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @12:26PM (#14793717)
    MPAA/RIAA sues little guys...more people stop buying CD's....sales go down...MPAA/RIAA think, "Wow! Our sales are down! There must be more pirating than we thought! Crank up the lawsuit machine!"...more people get sued...less people buy CD's...sales go down...more lawsuits come....more people are sued....less people buy CD's...sales go down...more lawsuits come....I'm getting dizzy....

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