The Two Towers Hits the Net

Useless by koh · 2002-09-02 00:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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Karma cannot be described by words alone.

Re:Useless by FrostedWheat · 2002-09-02 01:18 · Score: 5, Funny

Judge: Node 152.67.122.97, you have been found guilty of copyright theft ... hey get back here .. where'd you go?

Executive: Look! There's another one...

Judge: *sigh* .. Node 80.225.52.101, you have ... what's that you say? Ping Timeout??

Executive: I dunno who this 'Peer' guy is, but he's good at covering up his tracks.
Re:Useless by squiggleslash · 2002-09-02 04:31 · Score: 5, Informative

This is a misunderstanding of where Ghandi was coming from.
Imprisoning Indians would have made little difference, the numbers involved in the protests were still a minority (certainly nowhere near 10M) and the vast majority of Indians were living in poverty anyway. Imprisoning would have made no difference, and the British could, arguably, have done it.
Ghandi's intent wasn't simple civil disobedience in order to make it difficult to rule. It was to provoke a reaction in front of a society that would not stand that reaction. He knew that peaceful resistance would be met with violent resistance, and regardless of what British authorities believed about the rights and wrongs of a violent approach, Britons back home (and countries that were friendly to Britain) would be horrified by the acts committed in their name. When Ghandi visited Britain, he was treated as a hero, even by groups - such as textile workers whose jobs relied on a government back monopoly on supply to the Indian subcontinent - who had the most to lose from India achieving independence. That reputation came from fact that no matter how despicable the acts committed in India by the British was, he continued to fight Britain, and continued to do it peacably. If all it was was a question of getting Indians into prisons, nobody would have cared.
Martin Luther King employed a similar strategy. He knew that ordinary voters across the country would not stand for peaceful protest and the ability to vote and get a decent education being met with violence, violence which a government answerable to them was unwilling to stop. Had it just been a matter of prisons, well, the South had, for the previous 75 years, been making it as easy as possible to arrest blacks and lock them away for ten years at a time so that prison farms and other types of labour-prison could have the labour. The South's prisons were profitable.
The drug war continues not because it's cheap to imprison millions of people (at the last count it was over 1M from what I remember), but because ordinary voting Americans are prepared to stand for it. They're prepared to see violence and punishment meeted out on non-violent drugs offenders, for whatever reason. Couple the lack of outrage (and indeed the active public support) to the number of fingers in pies and you have a policy that will not disappear any time soon.
A war on IP piracy seems unlikely, to me, to be likely to generate widespread outrage. From the point of view of most Americans, the cost of it will never enter the picture. Instead, people who are expecting something for nothing, people who are denying the creators of wonderful things a living, etc, will be being justly punished. And hey, who cares if the punishments are way over the top, everyone knows that liberal fines and slaps on the wrists aren't enough to deter these evildoers, don't they?
The war on inane wars on the people needs to be fought. But civil disobedience is unlikely to be the way forward.

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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.

Well... by echophase · 2002-09-02 00:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

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... by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · 2002-09-02 00:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------

Re:This is just pathetic... by technix4beos · 2002-09-02 00:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

The real question is this: "Where did the material come from in the first place?"

If this is legit material, than perhaps the movie industry should worry more about security than howling after the fact.

It's been said countless times, that the internet as broadcast medium could do far more positive things for the movie industry than harmful, if handled correctly. We all know how dense the people at the top are though...

I don't know what is more tragic. The fact that someone has the balls to smuggle this out, or the fact that the movie industry is too stupid to not capitilize on a medium that obviously their fans use daily.

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user@host$ diff /dev/urandom /dev/uspto

You'll only screw yourselves... by bushboy · 2002-09-02 00:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

Well, if you want to see a really shoddy quality movie on a small computer monitor with more than likely bad quality sound and some stupid warez logo covering part of the screen, your screwing yourself.

I'd rather wait 4 months and pay my money to see it the way it is intended ! - BIG SCREEN, dolby surround sound, comfy chair, popcorn etc.

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A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !

Heh... by NeuroManson · 2002-09-02 00:42 · Score: 5, Informative

They're going after everyone who *downloads* it? That's going to take some doing...

Either way, plainly put, the quality is going to suck, the movie is worth seeing no matter what, I'll just consider the alleged posting (if I find it) as an appetizer before watching it on a massive movie screen with full Dolby Digital surround...

If one followed the logic of the idiots in Hollyweird, anyone who ever read Tolkein is already in violation of their hush hush rules...

I mean come ON now, who here hasn't actually read the books by Tolkein? Bueller? Bueller? We know how the story goes, the movie is just a way to see how well the books can be fleshed out... Kind of like Cameron's Titanic (spoiler alert: The ship sinks)...

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Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!

Scary stuff... by Jugalator · 2002-09-02 00:43 · Score: 5, Funny

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

*shivers in fear*

Hopefully, no executives from New York dressed in black will come into my innocent house in northern Sweden to punish me to the maximum extent of the law. :-O

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!

Attributing blame. by FyRE666 · 2002-09-02 00:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

Shouldn't the movie studios/recording industry pour all their efforts into finding the source of these leaked files rather than blaming everyone else on the 'net for their lack of basic security?

You know, simply NOT allowing their staff to send emails full of huge mpg files, or carry out CDRWs full of company assets would seem to be a good idea, would it not? It'd certainly be easier to stop this sort of thing at the source.

Imagine if the mints (places that "make" money - not the sweets) had security this lax? Everyone in the country would be a potential criminal. Mind you, the RIAA already think this, so...

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Code, Hardware, stuff like that.

Umm by ChrisJones · 2002-09-02 00:51 · Score: 5, Informative

I just looked on KaZaA, and tbh I don't see squat that could be TTT. Sure there are lots of dickheads pretending to have it, but you only have to hover the mouse over the file and it'll pop up with some meta information about the film, which in most cases says "Eight Legged Freaks" or "Spiderman".
I kinda get the feeling that Matt Drudge has been taken on a leeeeetle wild goose chase.
That is, unless anyone can reliably confirm that they have downloaded it and it is the real thing (something I seriously doubt, I would expect it to still be in post production at 4 months from release).

--
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net

Maybe the movie industry really *isn't* worried... by SimplyCosmic · 2002-09-02 00:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

... maybe they deliberately leaked it, knowing full well that the extra hype would only help the movie, the fanatics would still go to the movie theater to see it ten times and would buy all six versions of the DVD, even after seeing it from a downloaded P2P copy.

[ conspiracy mode ]

Additionally, intentionally releasing a relatively clean copy of a movie that they know will be heavily traded provides them a great bullet point in presentations to Congress about how those eterrorist hackers are trading complete movies online and legislation needs to be immediately enacted to give them full search-and-seizure rights to your computer.

[ /conspiracy mode ]

Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-09-02 00:54 · Score: 5, Informative

This comment has been pirated.
It appears orinally on bbspot.com

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/05/spiderman2.ht ml

P2P is just technology, not good or bad... by 3seas · 2002-09-02 01:04 · Score: 4, Informative

But the real criminals are those responsible for initially putting it on the web.

And the fact of the matter is.....Most people won't download it and t ones that do
will only cause a spreading oif the word as to whether or not it's a good movie.

Hmmmm, how much money could be saved in mass marketing if replaced with the word of
mouth die hard big file swapers?

In order to combat the effects of piracy... by altgrr · 2002-09-02 01:11 · Score: 5, Funny

...the release of "The Two Towers" was brought forward to September 11.

</tasteless>

--

Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.

The security cannot exist by fuxoft · 2002-09-02 01:51 · Score: 5, Informative

The kind of security you are talking about is just not possible. Consider that if there are dubbed versions to be made (as i the case with LOTR2), several dozen countries all over the world have to receive the movie several months in advance. Of course, it's probably not with finished special effects and music but I presume this is the case with LOTR2 - I think it's not yet finished. The videotape is sitting in the dubbing studio where anyone from dozen employees can copy it. Multiply this by the number of countries and you have hundreds of people, most of which are movie fans and many of which have internet access.

I translated Episodes I and II for local release and I had them on tape several months before the U.S. release. Imagine the pressure when you cannot tell anyone. :)

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--- Frantisek Fuka (Yes, that's my real name and you have no idea how it's pronounced)

Re:Why is it.... by LMCBoy · 2002-09-02 01:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

--
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.

COOL! ITS THE DVD! I'M DOWNLOADING IT NOW! by tlambert · 2002-09-02 02:09 · Score: 5, Funny

Saving TWOTOW~1.DVD...
69,914,794 of 6,442,450,944 bytes
1% Complete
2,214,592 seconds remaining...

If it's 4 months before the release now, I'm going to be able to see it a full *3 months* before the rest of you suckers!

Laugh all you want, but I know whose door *you'll* be knocking on, come September 28th, once the download is complete!

-- Terry

Re:"The Two Towers" by bourne · 2002-09-02 02:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

Please expand on this. Who is "they", and what are your sources?

Following the attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, and because of the similarity between the buildings' nickname, "The Twin Towers", and the movie's title, "The Two Towers", the director and producers briefly considered renaming the second movie in the trilogy. They eventually decided against it, Peter Jackson's main reason being that, "fans would kill me".

From IMDB, the Internet Movie DataBase.

It's real. by ltwally · 2002-09-02 02:35 · Score: 5, Informative

It's available via KaZaA and dal.net (and proabably other services). It is broken up in to three seperate DiVX parts, each one ~180meg. I've already received the first two of three... and am watching even as i write this.

And, yes, they filmed them all at the same time... though they didn't do the production work (touch-ups, choose which scenes, special-effects, etc.) on all three at once. It appears that they have just recently either finished production on TTT, or have come near enough to have a darn good movie available to us leechers!

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/dev/random

Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal? by slashnot007 · 2002-09-02 02:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

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? by Rogerborg · 2002-09-02 03:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
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.
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If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal? by NMerriam · 2002-09-02 05:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

Anonymous civil disobedience (even in commercial ventures) is hardly a new thing to the United States. The Boston Tea Party is the most famous example.

There is no requirement in American law than a crowd of protesters sign in at the beginning of their march.

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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal? by Chasuk · 2002-09-02 06:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Neopets - the best free game on the Int
Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal? by joss · 2002-09-02 06:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal? by Eil · 2002-09-02 07:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.)

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1. Yep, obtained from The Devil Himself!

Salivating Thieves: Stealing A Movie Not Fair Use by reallocate · 2002-09-02 03:07 · Score: 5, Interesting

For all you who imagine that electronic shoplifting is somehow different than walking into a local shop and pocketing a DVD, here's the text of the fair use clause from the U.S. copyright law. You will notice that "wanting to see a movie prior to release" is not listed as an example of fair use.

...the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include- (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

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-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"

We would love to see this one by Pac · 2002-09-02 03:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

"Rumour That TTT is on the Internet Appears False" by Drogo+Knotwise · 2002-09-02 03:55 · Score: 4, Informative

TORN reports:

The Drudge Report has reported a rumour that The Two Towers is already available on the internet. WinMX and Kazaa carry several files purporting to be some version of the film, however they all appear to be fakes. Thanks to Sir Mordred, Moses and several other Barliman's chatters for helping me check these files out.

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