BitTorrent Gives Hollywood a Headache

fudgefactor7 writes "Although the MPAA and the RIAA, and practically anyone else who has an interest in protecting their intellectual property rights online, are fighting against P2P programs like EDonkey, Morpheus, and Napster, BitTorrent is coming under even greater scrutiny, albeit with less actual success so far, and that is giving Hollywood a headache, since they really don't know what to do about it and they can't go to Cohen and moan. Once he let the genie out of the bottle there was no way to put it back in. And with the likes of PeerGuardian, et. al., it only gets harder for the corporations to put the virtual, and legal, smackdown on file sharing."

Comments

Legally

[Omkar]

Are BitTorrent users more vulnerable legally (not practically) since they automatically upload? I'd think that makes them distributors, which presumably brings higher penalties than consumption.

Re:Legally

[Porn Whitelist]

There is only one way to accurately track the use of a file on BitTorrent, and that is to have a complete block of data sent from your BT client to the intellectual property tracking company's BT client. As you start uploading straight away, there is a high probability that your client could send data to the "wrong person".

Since they're also uploading, they'd have a hard time arguing that you're breaking their copyright - they're helping distribute their copyright material ...

That's the real problem with going after torrent users. Unless the accuser actually downloads the file from the same torrent, they have no proof that the file is actually what it says. Once they do this, though, they are distributing their material knowingly.

So,

1. Movie studio downloads file using bittorrent
2. Accuses other torrent users of copyright violation.
3. Defendants show that accuser was sharing the file with them via bittorrent
4. Judgment for the Defendant

Re:Legally

[ichimunki]

Copyright law does not have any language regarding intent that I'm aware of. Anyway, if you are using BitTorrent to download copyright restricted works, I can't imagine how that's going to engender any sympathy on the part of your local judge or jury. There is already a prevailing feeling (among the people I talk to, anyway) that even downloading is not morally acceptable.

In this case, it would be wise to simply not use BitTorrent for sharing copyright restricted works without permission from the person or organization that has the copyright for the work. BT was never intended to anonymize users or be a one-way stream. The BT application works best when users share data and client and tracker software can accurately detect which IP is doing what. If no one shared while using BT, the whole process would be no more efficient than a simple HTTP or FTP transfer. Anonymity would interfere with the tit-for-tat algorithm that throttles upload and download to different clients depending on their own sharing practices.

Personally I'm done using BT for "sharing" copyrighted works. Too bad for the MPAA and RIAA, really. My latest discovery via P2P was "Penn and Teller's Bullshit!" After viewing several episodes downloaded via BT, I went out and bought the DVD set of the first season. A $45 purchase I would have never made otherwise. Oh well, there's still USENET. :)

Or for the same price I could just get cable and subscribe to a few premium channels and record all this stuff directly to digital (for now). You'd think the MPAA would learn from the RIAA and move quickly to get direct digital distribution going. I'd pay $2 for a commercial-free 1/2 hour show and $4 for hour shows. $5 or $6 for a movie. Skip all the useless DVD packaging. Of course, the files will need to be at least as good quality as the rips out there, and playable on GNU/Linux.

What's the problem?

[tesmako]

I really don't see the problem here, other P2P apps are tricky since the users themselves make the content available, but with BitTorrent it should be very clear-cut who to complain to if content you own show up as a download; the tracker.

The tracker is what facilitates the download, the person who runs the tracker has set it up with the intent to share the specific file being shared. The tracker site is typically also the root of all the sharing through being a base seeder as well. So, basicly this brings things back to the days of piracy over public FTP and HTTP download sites, just attack the one facilitating the downloads. While foreign hosting and such might make this trickier it sure is way simpler than trying to attack the typical P2P network where the users are also the ones bringing the content to the table.

Re:What's the problem?

[Idimmu Xul]

The tracker is what facilitates the download, the person who runs the tracker has set it up with the intent to share the specific file being shared. The tracker site is typically also the root of all the sharing through being a base seeder as well. So, basicly this brings things back to the days of piracy over public FTP and HTTP download sites, just attack the one facilitating the downloads.

Man, you're so wrong. The tracker only hosts the .torrent files, if that! It's primary roll is to just keep a database of who is sharing what as that is the information the bittorrent client's request from it. This is why it's so hard for the MPAA to crack down on them, as it basically does the job of google but for a specific audience. It doesn't host or upload or share any copyright material, it just tracks those that do.

Re:What's the problem?

[tesmako]

Trackers typically have some initial seed locally arranged, needed to get the whole thing going. On most sites the seed also stays around to make sure that no fragment ends up lost.

Either way I can't say that I think it is obvious in any way that it should be legal to keep a tracker just because it does not actually hold the file. Its only purpose in existance is to provide access to the file, and also, the hashes that it keeps are generated from the file. While some people are tempted to compare the trackers information to plain linking I think it is a flawed argument. While the tracker only points out where each file fragment is available from the pointed to hosts are not there for any other purpose than to be pointed out by the tracker. They are if you will not really practically reachable in any other way. In that sense one can just as well see the tracker as an integral component in a system that as a whole is illegal.

Re:What's the problem?

[Ath]

Nice try, but that's essentially the same as what Napster was doing. Providing a central "database" where the material was linked.

The only defense here for such a website is that DMCA-style laws and even old copyright laws provide a safe haven clause. This means that the copyright holder must inform them that the content is copyrighted and unauthorized for sharing. If you check most sites that host Bittorrent links to copyrighted content, they always have some clear language saying "if you are the copyyright holder and this is your stuff, tell us and we will remove the link". Until that kicks in and the copyright holder informs them, there is no liability.

That all being said, the newer laws (like the one just passed in Australia) lets anyone notify the site and force a reaction. No longer is only the copyright holder themself required.

Re:What's the problem?

[EpsCylonB]

Fucking AC and ./ grammar Nazis... If you understand the message, what else does it matter?

This isn't nam, this is slashdot, there are rules.

What's the difference?

[pen]

Kazaa:

1. Run a modified client on a standard ISP address
2. Record IP addresses of everyone allegedly sharing your copyrighted material
3. Send out the DMCA notices to ISPs

BitTorrent:

1. Run a modified client on a standard ISP address
2. Record IP addresses of everyone allegedly sharing your copyrighted material
3. Send out the DMCA notices to ISPs

(The effectiveness and ethics of this method are a different story.)

So many legit uses

[Zorilla]

Perhaps the difficulty in battling BitTorrent is because it's harder to argue that its only purpose is to pirate material? We've seen plenty of good uses for it, such as alleviating the bandwidth pains of downloading Windows XP SP2, high demand game patches (Take THAT, Gamespy and your system of waiting behind 400 people in line!), etc.

Re:So many legit uses

[legirons]

Pretty interesting article, and it seems to show quite clearly that some people will stop at nothing to destroy large sections of the internet.

The article is full of quotes about film-industry people bitching about how difficult it will be to destroy bittorrent. "It's very difficult for an interdiction company to get in the middle of that system" ... "BitTorrent has proven to be resistant to some of the countermeasures the entertainment industry has taken to sabotage file-sharing"

Uh-huh. Yes, the internet is resistant to people attempting to destroy it, that's part of the design. The worrying thing is how many people are completely open about wanting to do so.

" [John] Malcolm of the MPAA declined to say whether the trade group intends to sue Cohen" - I think that says it all really, that such options are even being considered. You may as well sue the founding fathers for allowing people to speak in public.

As long as there is a legitimate use...

[darnok]

of Bittorrent (e.g. downloading Linux distros), the RIAA and MPAA have no legal way of killing it off. Bittorrent is outstandingly useful for downloading all sorts of large files, and not all large files are copy-disallowed material.

As the article said, the genii is now out of the bottle, and there's no way it can be captured and contained again.

Why don't they use it instead

[tero]

I'd be willing to pay for legal (non-DRM:ed) downloads of movies and tv-shows. Subscription or just per download, take you pick, I don't care.

I fail to see why Hollywood won't learn from RIAA's mistakes (and Apple's success) and start a service like this, the audience is global, there's tons of cash to make!

I live in a small nordic country (Sweden) where you have to wait 1-2 years for most "cool" shows (and even then they might get a timeslot around midnight) or get passed altogether (example, they just started running Angel Season 1, 01:00), so downloading series and buying them in DVD formats is more of a norm for me and many of my friends.

Now, a legal torrent.. that I'd pay for (and they'd even get my upload bandwidth for free).

Re:Why don't they use it instead

[alwsn]

Rather than fight BitTorrent, the networks need to realize the powere behind online distribution. Here is what a successful TV distribution system needs.

Light DRM

While DRM is disliked by end users, a DRM free system will never be launched. The networks wouldn't allow a DRM free system as it could, and would, be used to distribute shows to people who didn't pay. DRM should be in a similar style to iTunes, allowing a reasonable amount of use, while still making it very difficult for the casual user to instant message or upload a song over P2P to someone. Ability to play the show should remain for at least the length of the show's season.

Reasonable and Flexible Cost

Although many users enjoy shows, 'my cable bill' divided by 'number of shows I watch' will drive end user logic about perceived value of a show. $3 dollars per show is low enough to be reasonable, and hopefully high enough to generate revenue. Offer package deals, if someone is a fan of the show, offer the season at a 25% of 33% discount of all episodes are bought up front.

Marketed Well

DRM distribution of files would allow the networks to promote their shows. Sign up for the service, and get one free episode from each show on the upcoming fall lineup. This would help get potential new viewers to generate more income. Tie online season pack sales in with significant discounts on eventual DVD releases. This will help people feel they're actually getting something tangible for their money. Market internationally, as many countries don't have new shows promptly available.

Acknowledge the Inevitable

Thousdands, if not millions, of people are already downloading episodes. Many of these people would be happy to pay for these episodes and would enjoy the convenience and reliability of a legal option. Younger people are watching less TV and are spending an increasing amount of time on computers. Move the media to where people want to view it.

Re:I don't think BitTorrent will be much of a prob

[mowler2]

In some countries, like sweden, bittorrent trackers are legal. Since they do not spread copyrighted material but just link to where one can find copyrighted material.

Also there is a court ruling from the BBS-time that says that the BBS administrators is NOT responsible for what the users do on the BBS (such as trading warez). It is argued that the same reasoning can be done for a torrent tracker. However if there are copyrighted material transferred without the copyrightholders approval, people that USE the tracker is still doing something illegal.

The industry has tried to remove torrents from piratebay.org, which is the biggest torrent tracker in sweden, with limited success. (they have even gotten calls from Microsoft when Halo 2 was up for downloading) :)

Re:Simple solution.

[julesh]

Encrypt the file (breaking it would violate their own laws, should they pass)

No it wouldn't. It's only illegal to break encryption if it forms an effective copyright protection measure (I forget the exact terminology, but that's close enough). In this case, it wouldn't actually be protecting anyone's copyright, so they would be legally entitled to break it.

and give out the key in a special license, so that anyone/anycorporation/anyorganization that uses the key in any way forfeits all ability to punish anyone/anocorporation/anyorganization for it's contents.

The legality of such a license is questionable, at best. First of all, can an encryption key (a purely functional item, usually automatically designed) be considered copyrightable? If not, then you do not need a license to use it. Secondly, can a license take away a person's rights to their own IP? I wouldn't have thought so.

IANAL, etc.

Re:PeerGuardian

[TheRealJFM]

happily:

PeerGuardian is based around the idea of an open list of blocklists collected from known fake files/scaners etc.

The **AAs are not very sophisticated in their searching - man scans come from a very small number of ranges.

The ranges are found by:

1) Whois searching, If we know the name of the company we can easily find them by scanning whois databases. They *have* to give their company name (eg BayTSP) so they are easy to find.

2) Log comparison. PG collects a log of every ip you connect to against the time. If someone gets a letter we get them to cross-reference the time the infringement is said to be on the letter (this must legally be included) with the ips in their log. 9/10 it is an obvious IP doing the scanning that can be found.

see our forum on this topic here:
http://methlabs.org/forums/forumdisplay.php ?f=41

PeerGuardian is simply a low level firewall that blocks these ips. PeerGuardian 2 will be open source, and will update automatically.

We're also trying to make the database more open, by adding a system where all the ranges can be viewed on a webpage, and users can comment, report bad ranges, and vote on how useful a range is.

See the reviews of PG2 *closed beta* here:

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/peerguar di an_2_review.cfm
http://www.p2private.org/review/

I expect PG2 to be out before the new year, but it will be out when its ready, not beforehand.

Thanks :)

Joseph Farthing
Administrator & News Editor
Methlabs.org

Re:Peerguardian

[TheRealJFM]

This is very simple:

collecting the IP addresses of people connected to a tracker does not ammount to proof of infringement. You have to actually recieve some data from them to prove they are illegally transmitting copyrighted material. :)

Joseph Farthing
Administrator & News Editor
Methlabs.org

Confusion on the tracing.

[Fussen]

I was explained to that torrents are not easily traced because all the data is sent in small packet chunks.. I think it might be in 256k chunks.
And that since all these data packets are being sent randomly from various sources, it would be much more difficult to actually point a finger at a source or destination.

It was described that sure you might be able to intercept the transmition of data, but you are not witnessing the transfer of a in-tact file.

So you could see that maybe it's some sort of mpeg stream or maybe part of a larger compressed archive, but it's just a piece of it. And once the next version of the torrent system comes along with the ability to transfer without use of trackers or servers, it becomes here-say on any legal action.

So does this packet chunk bit torrent stuff actually hold true? And if not, Why?

:)

Re:Peerguardian

[TheRealJFM]

to hold up a case in court they have to actually *prove* the person is sharing the file.

getting a list of ips just won't be good enough without some sort of evidence

then again we have seen some stupid occasions where stupid takedown notices have been given:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/20/ 23 51242&tid=188&tid=123&tid=17&tid=1 06

I think BitTorrent users are harder to sue

[swilver]

"Anyone who uses BitTorrent and is under the illusion that they are anonymous are sorely mistaken," Malcolm said. "There is no reason why those lawsuits wouldn't include BitTorrent" users.

Actually, there is a reason why the lawsuits wouldn't include BitTorrent users. It is much harder to sue BitTorrent users for multiple infringements at once, which (I think) is what makes the current lawsuit approach cost effective.

When you find a BitTorrent user participating in a big swarm, you can only sue them for that single infringement, not for sharing hundreds of movies or music files via programs like Kazaa. In order to make it cost effective they would have to keep track of your online BitTorrent activity for quite a while to collect multiple infringements.

Re:I think BitTorrent users are harder to sue

[snark42]

they would have to keep track of your online BitTorrent activity for quite a while to collect multiple infringements.

They also need to:

• Make sure your dynamic IP doesn't change.
• Monitor a LARGE number of torrents without being blacklisted for being with the RIAA/MPAA/etc.
• Not engage in sharing the said copyrighted material themselves which would make the download a legal one.

I think many of these are the same reasons IRC and Usenet can go along without being bothered too much, plus the critial mass of people aren't there, but that's how a lot of the files get out to FastTrack or BitTorrent I'm sure.

The Stuff You Can't Get

[josefek]

I receive tons of hits from various groups sniffing about while I'm d/ling via BitTorrent (I run PeerGuardian) and I often wonder how culpable I am. While not all of my downloads are technically "legal," it's all stuff I'm pulling down because it's the only way I can get it.
My most recent downloads, for instance, have been copies of Sifl & Olly (which hasn't been released on DVD) episodes of the BBC's Spaced (which, while released on DVD, is only available in the UK on region 2 media, and I'm in the states), and the Drive-By Truckers Pizza Deliverance, which is woefully out of print. In the case of the Truckers, I already own a copy of the record, but it's beat to shit. Supposedly they'll be re-releasing it sometime in 2005, and I'll undoubtedly be buying myself a new copy. In the meantime, however, I'd like to be able to listen to it.
I'm one of those folks who would happily purchase the stuff I pull via BitTorrent... if I could. It irritates the shit out of me to be snooped online, and to read article after article about the RIAA and MPAA pissing and moaning over downloading, when they don't really seem to be paying attention to what is being downloaded.
Sure, there's a shit-ton of folks dealing in warez and publicly available media, but there are also tons of sites dealing specifically with stuff people seek that can't currently be purchased legitimately (I don't understand downloading a crappy boot of a movie destined for DVD release, or downloading a movie that can be purchased for a few bucks online or rented. Frankly, it's a waste of my bandwidth). You'd think they'd look at the popularity of, say, Sifl & Olly torrents and say "Well shit, there's a market. Maybe we should release a DVD of that stuff."
And hey; how about not pricing it outlandishly (a la Carnivale or Six Feet Under)? Nothing makes me consider downloading more than knowing that, by purchasing it, I'm voluntarily allowing myself to get screwed.

TV

[nns6561]

Why haven't TV stations decided to offer up torrents of recent shows? By including ads, they should be able to achieve similar levels of profit as broadcast TV. The bandwidth should not be a stumbling block if torrents are used. It might even increase revenues by exposing their product to a larger market.

They cheated the system

[Migraineman]

(with a US bias ...) The file sharing backlash is, IMHO, an example of civil disobedience in response to the **AA organizations cheating the system. Copyright and Patent structures are a *temporary* monopoly granted to the author (and enforced thorough the legal system) in exchange for incentive to expend resources and take risks for the creative process. When the Copyright/Patent period expires, the work is supposed to fall into the public domain for the benefit of society. So, exactly when do the authors make good on their end of the deal? The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension-to-Infinity Act distills down to "effectively, never."

There are two paths to changing the law - pursue it through petition to representatives, or pursue it through civil disobedience. Since the congresscritters appear to be bought and paid for, disobedience seems to be the only reasonable choice that remains. The file sharing folks aren't making a buck doing so. In fact, it costs them time and resources (electricity, disk space, bandwidth, etc.) to participate in the activity. The pirates who sell the materials are a different matter ...

Wrong

[Q2Serpent]

You aren't allowed to upload 1 second of the material, since you don't own the copyright!

Is it that hard to understand? They can distribute as much of it as they want, because they OWN IT. You, however, do NOT.

Hollywood & this article misses the point agai

[OneInEveryCrowd]

Here are some questions I wish the author of this article and some of the people he interviewed would address.

Why can't "Hollywood" adapt to technological change instead of fighting it ? Why can an unemployed programmer sitting in his apartment out-inovate a handful of multi-billion dollar corporations ?

Why do these wealthy CEO and entertainer types think they're immune from change ? I used to be a high paid COBOL guy, I had to adapt. Do any of these people expect me to feel any sympathy or support for them ?

Why would people want to download in the first place ? Is it because ticket prices are too high, and the cost of soda and popcorn is almost offensive ? Do people in one country want to see the movie as soon as people in another country ?

Is the loss of revenue real or imaginary ? Is their existence really threatened ? Are movie industry profits really sliding ? Are American high school kids really going to start staying home instead of going to the theatre ?

Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a rant. I'm really tired of the pro-CEO slant in the mainstream media. If any journalists are reading this I hope you address these questions in your future articles. It would really make me alot more interested in what you do for a living.