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Live from Iran, Film88
MemFun writes "The now defunct Movie88.com has became Film88.com. These are the guys that are streaming a ton of movies for $1 a piece (but not allowing you to save the movie). Of course, to avoid all the Tinsel Town Club baddies (mpaa) from shutting them down, they are now based in Iran of all places. We just finished watching the free Harry Potter movie they are offering. Question: Does this make me a criminal? I really like the selection of movies they have and stream or not, it's still pretty cool to have the ability to watch some those movies that are never on TV any more."
We just finished watching the free Harry Potter movie they are offering. Question: Does this make me a criminal?
<SARCASM>
I just robbed this bank and killed this girl. Does this make me a criminal?
</SARCASM>
Seriously, aren't you asking that question a little late? If its what you want to do, may as well do it until you're satisfied. What's the point of stopping in the middle for a change-of-heart?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I know that my opinion will probably be in the minority here, but I believe it's only fair that the MPAA tries to shut down such a site. This is quite simply stealing on a large scale of their property.
Tom>br>Otherwise, I am against other media regulations such as DVD regions.
I can't help but wonder, will this service be available in Iran itself? How many of the movies offered online are illegal to watch in Iran (for promoting "sex," "immorality," and being "anti-Islamic?") Will local religious fundementalists shut down the service before the MPAA can?
Fundamentally, it's up to the provider of the materials to verify that they have the proper licensing, not the consumer. However, if you definitively know that the provider does not have the appropriate permissions, this may not apply.
As always, IANALAIHWAMcB*
(*Although I Have Watched Ally McBeal)
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
The MPAA is bad. I'd wager most of the technology-literate world has figured that out by now. They're moneygrubbing monopolists, no doubt about it.
The current system of copyright and distribution is broken - no doubt about it.
But when you steal something, you're still stealing it. No amount of arguments about how the Iranians don't subscribe to international patent law, or about the fact that Film88 bought the movies and are just renting them, will change that.
So through some miracle of legal justification, you may in fact not be breaking the law. That's for the courts (or politics) to decide. You're buying from a thief. That might not make you a thief by legal definition, but what does it make you by moral definition?
Oh, wait. I forgot. We're all geeks here, so the only moral imperatives are: 1) information wants to be free, and 2) anyone trying to impede my freedom in any way is evil.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
How are they preventing you from saving it?
As you mentioned, they're doing streaming HTTP, which Real won't save, and they have some very good techs who have made it as difficult as possible to connect with a non-Real client.. (I'm sure it's possible, but I gave up on that route)
it wouldn't be that hard to record the stream on a network level. As I understand it, you can rig squid to cache realplayer
Yes, this would work, but it would be kind of like using a sledgehammer to swat a mosquito..
A better solution is epoxy, which I used on Movie88 with great success.
Actually, you're wrong. But that's okay. You're also a coward.
Put aside your lame "intellectual property" bias for two seconds, and you'll realize that the viewer in this case committed no crime. Copyright law restricts the transmission of works, not the reception thereof. You might argue, in this case, that the viewer is making an unauthorized duplication, but if the bits are streamed then no duplication is made... this is essentially a broadcast. If I set up a radio station and play only infringing materials over the air, the listeners are not guilty of a crime.
I do not have a signature
What if YOUR dollar went to buy a ticket for a terrorist.
t m for more info) Or some other way?
You mean the way all that US tax money given to Afghanistan over the years may have gone to terrrorists? (see http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2001/tst110501.h
I do not have a signature
Thievery is when you take something from someone and they don't have it anymore, since you stole it. This is clearly morally and legally wrong. The taking of information is a much more grey area though. If I download Eminem's latest CD, rather than buy it at the store, is it stealing? Maybe--Eminem is out (a potential) $15. What if I download his CD, and can honestly say I wouldn't buy it, even if it wasn't on p2p? Well, in that case, he lost nothing and gained a listener. What if I've got $15 to spend and I pirate 3 different CDs, and buy the one I like the best? How about after hearing those CDs, I decide I just have to own 2 of them, and I scrounge up $30?
It's not a clear cut moral issue. What it really comes down to is this: are the labels and movie studios losing money due to piracy? All available evidence points to the notion that they're profiting from it. So far, that is. I figure the *AAs are working so hard to prevent piracy out of a (reasonable) fear that it will get out of hand and later on they will lose a lot of money from it. But until I see any evidence that piracy hurts the content distributers, I'll "pirate" with a clear conscience. And even after that, I'll buy from the musician-owned labels first.
I expect that Film88 buys DVDs, rips them, then streams them. So they have stolen nothing. What they are doing is circumventing the MPAA's business model, which may or may not be morally wrong, but it falls quite outside of "theft." We need new terms and new legislation to appropriately deal with this sort of thing.
c-hack.com |
They wouldn't need that money for their plane tickets. All the money they make from the gasoline you buy for your SUV will be more than enough, thank you very much.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
There are other places around the world to get visa credit cards. You just fill out paperwork, and transfer money. And you get a debit card that works everywhere visa is accepted. Maybe you want to have some money laid away that nobody can touch? How about moving money around that doesnt have to be reported to the state and federal agencies?
Maybe you just want some privacy? Why does every american think they cant have privacy, and must report every action to some big brother agency. Privacy is not Illegal, and its not a damn terrorist act to have privacy.
Actually, USA have put Iran on their list because they support:
- Hezbollah
- Hamas
- other palestinians groups deemed as 'terrorists' by USA
Now...
Hezbollah only launches attacks on israeli soldiers on occupied land, this can hardly be described as terrorist acts. They don't attack israeli civilians, except when Israel attacks lebanese civilians(like they did at Canaa, killing 100 civilians in a UN camp, and the investigation found that Israel perfectly knew what it was doing)
Hamas,... have some really horrible actions on their hands, but they are not more horrible than what the state of Israel is doing to the palestinian population since 30 years(namely: human rights violation, deportation, united nations resolutions violations, geneva conventions violations, legalization of torture, houses destruction, Sabra and Chatila massacres,...)
Killing people with a human bomb, or shooting at them with an F16, Apache helicopter or Merkava tank gives the same result.
So the notion of 'terrorism' is not the same for everybody. The european union does not consider these groups as being terrorist groups, Israel consider every palestinian to be a terrorist who must be killed, USA considers every arab group who's opposed to his friend Israel to be a terrorist group.
The reality is that the US government is nothing but a bunch of hypocrits who don't care at all about justice, freedom and all these word they spit out all the day long on TV, it's just political play. Otherwise, they would avoid talking with Ariel Sharon, who has been found to be responsible for the Sabra and Chatila massacres(>1000 palestinians civilians deads) by a comission of his OWN country.
Ummmm, in the days of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven they didn't have recording media and the world's largest distribution network. Kind of an apples to oranges comparison, bro...
Not an original argument so I'll post my own words (originally from January of this year.)
m )
They may not have had legal copyrights, but they had methods to protect their music.
Before copyright there were other ways to protect work. Mozart had a patron, Baroness von Waldstätten, who underwrote his needs so that he could spend the day doing whatever he wanted.
Because Mozart's patron allowed his music to be freely performed does not mean that it was always that way. Kings and princes always had court composers and they jealously guarded their music.
Handel's patron (George I, the first of the Hanoverian kings) jealously guarded "water music."
Please remember at the time you couldn't "copy" music unless you could sit in the audience with a quill pen and follow along! Actually Mozart could do this, but not many others.
It was easy to protect music back then and hard to steal it. Don't think people wouldn't have if they could. The technology didn't exist.
Jump ahead to the 1890's where the rampant bootleging of sheet music was a huge business (please refer to http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/mann.ht
From the above article a reference to Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame:
"The irate Sullivan filed lawsuit after lawsuit in U.S. courts, but only dented the trade. To prevent the pirating of The Pirates of Penzance, he long refused to publish the score; bouncers prowled every show to stop music thieves from writing down the melodies."
Let's face it, in U.S. society you are not going to do much with out being paid for it. So change the law, but until then buy what you use, or move to Canada where it is apparently legal now. (Yes, I know the original author lives there, I'm speaking to everyone else.)
Society values artistic works and society (Through the govenment) grants the creators a limited license to profit from their works in order to better society. That's the theory anyway. Maybe it's gotten out of hand, but the "music and information want to be free" approach doesn't really motivate humans to create great things.
Even throughout history people like Mozart have been motivated by "compensation" to produce new creative works.
Having people enjoy what you do is great, but even if they enjoy it how do you make a living if you can't sell it? If you sell one song to a company for a million dollars and that company sells two million copies of the song for one dollar each that is motivation for you to write more songs and for the company to buy more from you. If the company buys the same song and only sells one thousand copies at one dollar each, but later discovers two million copies have been made for free they are motivated to only pay you five hundred dollars for your next song, or to ask society to grant them a limited right to distribute your song, and the protection from counterfeits of your song.
So somebody loses. Either you no longer can make a living writing songs and you find other work, or the company lays off staff because they don't need a big distribution network anymore to deliver one thousand copies of a new song.
While you seem to have "higher ideals" about what is right and wrong it doesn't play in reality. Your carpenter analogy is flawed because I can't easily duplicate the house with little or no effort. If I could then you better believe the carpenter would want $5 for every night you spend in your new house because a new house would only be worth a few thousand dollars! There would also be much fewer carpenters who could make a living building houses (sort of like few musicians who can fully support themselves only selling songs.)
While IP has always been created through time it has always been protected by rule, religion, or force. People didn't share fire - they stole it from each other. The Egyptians didn't give their knowledge of mummification away to anyone that asked. The Library of Alexandria (aka "The Kings Library") wasn't a place you or I could lend a book from. Knowledge really was power. Ptolemy III paid the sum of fifteen talents of silver (a vast amount) to be allowed to copy the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
So while the ancient scholars and composers may not have had our modern day protection of copyright, please don't confuse that with no protection at all.
Uhm... get your countries straight. Afaik no one has made any (official) connection between these terrorists and Iran. I am personally pretty sick of the whole mid east getting the blame for extremists actions just because they share almost the same religion. Would you like if some people in another country with the same religion as you made some bad things, and the next moment everyone were expecting you to blow up stuff or shoot people, just because you are christian/jewish/buddhist/whatever.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
NanoGator is suggesting that becuase he paid somebody for the service, he's morally in the right, particularly because the service isn't available from the 'correct' vendor.
Actually, paying the $1 means he is recieving stolen goods. That's no better than downloading the movie for free from somewhere else. Could be morally worse, because the thief is being funded..
Don't confuse 'fair use' issues (how it's used once it's been purchased in one format) with a complaint about the preferred format not being available. That's entirely the business of the owner of the material.
An interesting note... Arab Muslims and Persian (Iranian) Muslims follow different sects of Islam. They are akin to the Protestant and Catholic sects of Christianity. They don't get along all that great, from what I hear, at least when it comes to religion... much in the way Catholics and Protestants have a distaste for each other. (I know some 7th-Day Adventists that don't even consider Catholics Christian, but that's somewhat extreme). I believe that Arabs are primarily Sunni and that Persians, and many other kinds of non-Arab Muslims, are mostly Shi'a.
The problem with Iran is that it is run by an extremist religious government, just like Afghanistan was with the Taliban. Most Arab nations, such as Lebanon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, are 90% Muslim, but the clergy does not hold absolute political power, as they do in Iran. One thing they ingrain into our minds here in the US is the importance of the seperation of Church and State. I think we grow up knowing that it is important, without necessarily understanding why. When you see what a Church-run-State does to a country (under the Shah, Iran was a much nicer place to live), I think it makes a lot more sense.
I think religious governments do tend to be extremist, and extremist governments are dangrerous, which is why we fear Iran right now. I know several Persians, and I don't know any of them that wanted the Ayatollah Khomeni's revolution, and they certainly don't like the current religious regime. It's just important to seperate the religion and people of a country from the government.
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
Even though it is OT. :)
It'd be nice if people could recognize fringe thinking and radical groups as distinct from the main body of the people in a given area. This kind of muddy thinking could have everyone thinking that anyone from Arkansas in inbred, anyone from the Midwest is some sort of pseudo-skinhead militia nut, or that anyone from the American South must believe in Slavery. Or that all Canadians are polite.
The truth is: Generalizations suck. They are automatically problematic when used to describe humans. And when you start treating everyone who has the same facial geometry and skin tone the same (shades of the bad old days long, we had hoped, gone by), you automatically start tossing out the baby with the bathwater, the bad with the good. You do a disservice to a lot of innocent, hard working folks and at the same time you probably focus on one threat vector or problem group and in so doing make it more liely you'll miss others.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."