The Two Towers Hits the Net

tfreport writes "The Drudge Report is reporting that The Two Towers has already began to be file swapped online. This is four months before the movie is set to debut! An executive in New York promised if this is indeed part of the film that they would be punishing anyone and everyone that downloads the film or distributes it to the full extent of the law."

Comments

Useless

[koh]

We already know such declarations are not to be taken seriously. What will they do ? Sue 4,500,500 gnutella nodes ?

Well...

[echophase]

Why don't they focus their efforts on finding who leaked it rather than going after the people too anxious to wait till the release (who are likely to go see it when it comes out anyways)?

This is just pathetic...

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

And we wonder why the RIAA and MPAA are screaming at their senators to kill P2P systems? Movies have always partially made it into the Internet before they were released, but only now with the relative ease of file-swapping have they been so readily pirated. If we want to convince *anyone* of the legitimacy of P2P networks bull**** like this has to stop, now.

Re:Why is it....

[LMCBoy]

Two points:

1. Can you point to one positively-moderated comment here that's "cheered" the theft of the movie? Maybe I missed it, but the closest I saw was someone calling the studios morons for saying they were going after downloaders instead of trying to plug the leak. And that's not close at all.

2. Despite what you may have heard, the people who post on slashdot do not share a mind. They may therefore have a wide range of conflicting views on any number of topics, including copyright law. That is not hypocrisy.

Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal?

[slashnot007]

Why is this not theft. why do so many slashdotters think it okay to steal. just because it's easy and all they have to do is push a button does not make it honest or legal. If you knowingly receive stolen goods that is a crime. And you know you are --there is no reasonable defense. and No not it's not sticking it to the "man" or an act of noble protest.

Why has this anrachaic "free love" notion got perverted in to greedy self absorbed and self justifed crimminal behavior.

Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal?

[Rogerborg]

1. Your response has nothing to do with the parent post.
2. A copy of a thing is not the thing. This is not "stolen goods" but "copied information". Stealing a physical item is a criminal act. Making a copy is (perhaps) a breach of copyright, leading to the possibility being sued as a civil action. The DMCA criminalises breaking copy prevention mechanisms to allow copying, but once it's out there as a divx, it's civil.
3. Some - not all, but some - of us really truly believe that copyright law has been reversed so that it now punishes creators and consumers for the benefit of the very publishers that it was intended to restrict. Given that, and given that it's getting worse rather than better, the only response is civil disobedience. Sticking it to the man, if you like.

Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal?

[Chasuk]

Your reply is so disingenuous as to be laughable.

Let us assume, for the moment, that copyright infringement is a perfectly moral thing to do. It isn't theft (and I personally believe that it is, but I am suspending that opinion for this hypothetical example), so the law takes no steps to prevent it occurring. In this hypothetical world, Blockbuster rents you the DVD burner along with The Two Towers. You get the blank DVD media for free if you rent TWO films. They are making money, you are happily making your copies, and no one suffers at all.

Erm, except for perhaps Peter Jackson, and the hundreds of cast and crew members who spent years laboring to make the film that you didn't pay for. Of course, I'm sure that Ian McKellen and Sean Astin and John Rhys-Davies and Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett and Christopher Lee are all philanthropists: they don't care that you deprive them of a sizeable percentage of their livelihood.

If you really don't care that such films are made again, download and copy away. All of the rest of us will be so happy that you are "sticking it to the man" that we won't lynch you in the streets as our own act of civil disobedience when your actions cause such films to no longer be made. Really, we won't.

If you take something from me without my permission, and against my will, then you are a thief, pure and simple. That "something" doesn't have to be tangible. However, what we are talking about here IS tangible: the profits that you are depriving me of. Or Christopher Lee of. Or Peter Jackson of.

Any other argument is pure bullshit, even if the perpetrators have lied to themselves, self-brainwashed, I would call it, to justify their theft. Remember, it is possible to justify almost anything if you lack morals and you feel that your need is greater than that of your victims.

Just my .02 cents.

Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal?

[joss]

In the short run, [say, next 30 years or so], you have a point.

Property itself is an invention of society. IP is a more recent invention. Property rights are enforced for the good of society.

Property is an essential part of capitalism, one cannot have a functioning capitalist society without strong property rights.

The concept of IP [copyrights, patents, trademarks] is enforced to bring IP into capitalist framework. It works fairly well, however the fact that IP can be copied for free makes a big difference to the optimal balance that can be achieved.

Capitalism is successful principally because it is a good mechanism for optimal distribution and use of scarce resources. If the resources aren't intrinsically scarce, introducing artificial scarcity [through IP laws] might not be the best option.

As the world advances virtually the entire output of society becomes IP. With nanotech and replicators the IP content of material goods will be even more significant component. In such a world, allowing everybody access to all IP would make everybody massively richer.

Then one is left with the problem of incentive. Without IP laws what incentive is there for people to create new stuff. However, in post scarcity society, one would function in a gift economy anyway. Once basic needs are taken care of people do stuff for sense of worth and status, creative types are not just going to sit on their asses even if IP is abolished.

For the moment this just seems a bit far out, but in a 100 years it will be obvious [probably]. It helps to understand that this is a desirable direction to move in, even though we're not quite ready for it yet.

Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal?

[Eil]

Not that hackneyed old BS again. The Money that you would have paid for the services that were performed in creating the media has a very real aspect to it. when you take the media without paying for it, it's theft of services, and no different than an employer that refuses to hand out a paycheck to a programmer after a month of coding because it's just ones and zeros on a hard drive.

Sometimes I really wish there were a -1, Dumb Analogy moderation. I could use up a lifetime's worth of mod points in a single thread with that one.

Here's the deal. Try to follow along as best you can, please. I personally own quite a few legally purchased movies and music albums. I also openly admit that I own quite a few "illegaly" obtained [1] movies and MP3s.

Lets start with the "legal" copies. These are movies and music that I purchased (albiet at a fairly high price) because I believe that everyone involved in the production process of this content--from writers to editors--put a lot of hard work and dedication into the creation of the content and deserve to see the results of their work in terms of sales and royalties.

Now on to the "illegal" copies. These are copies of music and movies and whatnot that, 99% of the time, I have not watched or listened yet to but am at least curious enough to try it out. How many people in this slashdot discussion are seriously wealthy enough to go to a movie or CD store and pay $20-$30 for a single title that only might be worth it? Please. That's ridiculous. I choose to download "illegal" content not because I'm some sort of cheapass, but because I want to be able to sample what's out there without completely breaking the bank.

How about this factual scenario:

A friend on mine on IRC offered to send me a mix tape of Tori Amos music, an artist who I previously had no knowledge of. Under current US copyright law, this is a completely illegal act. I listened to the tape, decided that she was a brilliant artist, and now have well over $100 worth of her albums in my "legal" music collection. That one "illegal" copied tape earned the record compay a decent chunk of change and ended up getting me the kind of music that I wanted... the very cornerstone of a capitalist economy.

This is not an isolated incident. It happens all the time, and continues to happen for me. So before you all you moral holier-than-thous start screaming "piracy!", you might well consider the nearly direct correlation the past few years between the increase of online file trading and the increase of the record and movie studio profits.

(And, btw, I do have a bone to pick about the relationship between content distributors and artists, but that's a different thread altogether.)

----
1. Yep, obtained from The Devil Himself!

We would love to see this one

[Pac]

We have been waiting for years now for the music and movie industries to completely lose their evil minds and follow the path you suggest.

Up to now, public awareness of the privacy and freedom problems posed by these two sectors of society is close to inexistent. The general public does not care much about this or that law, as long as some Britney has a new CD every six to nine months and the theaters have some new movies every summer.

Now, if you start jailing their sons and daughters, confiscating their properties and suing them into poverty for the sake of Disney, Sony and such other oh so poor companies, I believe we will see a backslash these guys won't forget for generations.

Some suggested the public reaction to the war on drugs should be seem as a sign that nothing will happen yet again. But I think these are two very different issues. Drugs and its criminal status are linked to issues like poverty, racism, mental illness and heavy health hazards. Britney is the opposite of it, as is Mickey Mouse. Jailing people for not paying a few bucks to very rich artists and companies will not be easily sold as a "Save the children" issue. Whose children, will ask John Doe, Hillary's? The Emperor's clothes will get pretty invisible here.

After that we will probably see the tide that will finnaly make some young executives sit back and start thinking about a new business model capable of keeping the money flowing instead of new laws.