MPAA to Sue BitTorrent Tracker Servers

Mirkon writes "The Register and Reuters report that the Motion Picture Association of America is planning to begin a legal assault on websites that host BitTorrent trackers for copyrighted movie files. An announcement is supposed to be made by the MPAA President/CEO today, along with help from CEO of private P2P network developer Red Swoosh, and the CEO of BayTSP, 'which offers file-branding and -tracking applications.' Not that they have any vested interests in this of course. Though the articles take care to mention that this action is not against standard users, how long is it until BitTorrent itself is targeted?" Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie. I can't imagine why people would want to download movies when they have that great theater experience to compare against.

Comments

Vote with dollars

[BWJones]

Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie.

Then why did you include it in your post? Say this in a comment instead. Anyhow, I will respond: I agree that it is silly and frustrating to have to sit through tons of ads before a movie, the length of time by the way standard so you cannot say "I will simply come ten minutes later". Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies which works for nationally known companies but not so well for smaller local companies which I am sure is one of the biggest reasons behind the push of On Demand. Namely the ability to sell localized content ads for an "at home audience". We are going to be faced with a deluge of ads (even intimately targeted ads) no matter what. The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.

Re:Vote with dollars

[wo1verin3]

The only ad that pissed me off is the one about copying movies, getting really tired of seeing it, and I see it several times a month. I don't copy movies, I go to see them in theatres. Yet after giving my money to the theatre I need to learn a lesson about how stealing is wrong.

ugh. /rant

Re:Vote with dollars

[glwtta]

The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.

I thought I was!

But apparently suprnova is now going to get sued because of it.

Re:Vote with dollars

[hackstraw]

The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.

Unfortunately, this will not work. If that were the case, then only cars that don't need to advertise are the only viable ones to buy (Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Bentley, etc) And even those may advertise in higher dollar markets that I'm simply not a member of.

However, money protests may work if people demand their money back after watching an advertiser supported movie. I simply refuse to pay a rental fee for any rented movie that has ads that are blocked out by the remote. That has got to be one of the most annoying things out there. I hear that Disney does that with thier store bought DVDs.

I believe that there are simply too many mouths to feed and not enough real jobs to fill them. Its getting to the point that I feel like I'm being accosted by a begger everywhere I go, but the people begging are typically people that have more money than I do. Salesmen lying to me and badgering me all the time. Telemarketers. SPAM. Billboards. Ads are _everywhere_. Baseball has greenscreened the infield to overlay different ads, because one was not enough. Tickmaster shoves more ads down my throat and these people are a monopoly in providing different random (I love those 2 terms together) numbers to people, and asking me to PAY MORE for printing the damn tickets on my own printer and paper. Ads have been integrated into movies for some time as called "product placement" ads. I only see people drinking Dunken Doughnuts coffee in movies. Sometimes they are downright distracting to the point that I think I can hear the marketing dweebie from the paying company in the background yelling "Please keep the product label visable at all times!"

Oh, and with the MPAA. Go for it. What are you going to sue for? What are you going to get? I've never downloaded a movie off of the net because I consider it a waste of time. If I really want a movie that bad, I'll pay the $20 at a store for it.

It is about time that the members of the ??AA groups start thinking about what they are going to do about their stupid antiquated business model. Its not that difficult, but I guess these people are simply that stupid. There is supply and demand and cost is relative to that supply and demand. The demand appears to be there. I mean people spend a great amount of time downloading low quality crap all the time where the downloads don't finish, the quality is worse than they thought, the movie just sucks, and so on. If these people can't figure out a way to entice people to pay something for their product, then they deserve to go out of business like all other businesses that can't make it.

Re:Vote with dollars

[SoSueMe]

If everyone did, this crap would stop.

Naa, they'd just blame it on piracy.

Re:Vote with dollars

[TopShelf]

The DVD ads are particularly frustrating for those of us with small kids. Picture the following scenario. You've just gotten the 2.5 year-old twins and their 1.5 year old younger brother buckled into the minivan for that long drive, and you're lucky enough to have them all clamoring for, say, a Wiggles video. You fire up the DVD player and here come the ads...

"No, I don't want to see Barney, I wanted the Wiggles"
"No, let's watch Barney"
"No, Wiggles!"
"Barney!"
"Wiggles"
A great wailing and gnashing of teeth commences. In the back, the kids are also upset as they ads roll on.
"Wait - where'd Barney go?"
"Look, it's Blue's Clues. I want to watch Blue's Clues."
"No, where'd Barney go? AAAAaaaahhhhhh!"

I've had good luck with Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer videos letting you get right to the content, but that's the exception, not the norm...

Re:Vote with dollars

[jschottm]

Um, no, that's not voting with your dollars, that's taking someones work without their permission. Voting with your dollars is supporting theatres that don't bury you in ads, supporting things such as the Indepedent Film Channel (or whatever it's called - I don't have TV so I'm not sure what it's called these days).

Don't pretend you're on some kind of moral high ground. Ghandi didn't take British salt, he made his own.

Re:Vote with dollars

[The Snowman]

The only ad that pissed me off is the one about copying movies, getting really tired of seeing it, and I see it several times a month. I don't copy movies, I go to see them in theatres. Yet after giving my money to the theatre I need to learn a lesson about how stealing is wrong.

I find that ad funny. It shows some cameraman or keygrip talking about how movie pirating makes his family starve. Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves made over $10,000,000 to jump around against a green background with cables and pullies to make The Matrix movies, and the suits who run the entertainment companies have personal jets, yachts, and other luxury items.

Piracy is not killing the entertainment industry, corporate greed is. Although much like BSD, rumors of the industry's death are greatly exaggerated.

Re:Vote with dollars

[The Snowman]

Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies

Why should I pay $20 or more (I usually get the super-hyper-extended ultimate editions) for a DVD movie, only to be bombarded with outdated advertisements EVERY fucking time I watch it? If I wanted advertisements, I would wait for it to appear on TNT or USA. That and if I wanted analog audio, low-definition, and a castrated (narrowscreen?) image.

After years of saving up and buying components, I finally have a HDTV, digital 5.1 surround sound, progressive scan DVD, etc. so I can have the ultimate home theater experience. What kind of home theater is it if I am forced to watch something other than the movie I put into my DVD player?

Re:Vote with dollars

[lowrydr310]

Charging $12 for a movie is stealing.

Re:Vote with dollars

[jschottm]

Even the law refers to the act under discussion as "copying" rather than "stealing" for a reason--so it would be conducive to the discussion if you would stick to the more accurate terms already in use

This would be a whole lot more interesting if I'd used a word such as "steal" anywhere in my message.

the loaded terms that a small group of corporations are attempting to push into use

Actually, the majority of my music industry clients are small independent groups who are either completely independent or on small, specialized labels such as Sugar Hill. And they tend to use words such as "steal" and "pirate" to describe those that make unauthorized copies of music. Some of them choose to make their entire catalogs available for anyone to download, copy, or share. Some do select songs, and some don't want anything they do copied. That's their choice. But they're certainly not getting rich or part of any giant media corporation.

show me one moral code in all of recorded history that even took a stance on this intellectual fraud known as "intellectual property".

How about the golden rule, which you'll find in most major religions in one phrasing or the other?

If you want to look at recorded history as your guide of how humans should behave, you'll see that generally we've been rather poor in our treatment to each other and that someone powerful has kept other people in abject poverty in order that they might benefit. There are problems now, but I'd certainly rather be alive now than 500, 1000, or 2000 years ago.

Most of the composers that are now considered great from years past lived on the whim of rich patrons. Mozart died in abject poverty. Is that the standard you'd like to return to, that great artists have to choose between finding some rich person to kiss up to, die young and pennyless, or give up their dream of creating great works and work a day job?

Next, there isn't much of a history on the concept of intellectual property because technology has been enough of a limiting factor until recently that it's not been a major factor in lives. Most people's jobs consisted of dealing with physical objects and most methods of duplicating text, books, etc. were so prohibitively difficult, lossy, or expensive that there was little incentive to do so.

A very large portion of this country's economy is now based on non-physical objects, including your work, from the look of it. There's no actual difference in the bits that make up a wave file to your documents that hold your database analysis to your ruby programs - it's all just a string of 1s and 0s. The difference between what puts food on musicians' tables and your table is that virtually no one cares about what you produce (this isn't a judgement on your work, just saying that it's only meaningful to your clients) whereas music is appealing to a [comparatively] wide number of people. Lucky you. It's easy to cast slings and arrows at others when you have nothing to loose, isn't it?

You proudly support the FSF and even have a few bits of code posted under what I'm guessing is the GPL, but the GPL is just another form of intellectual property, albeit a very liberal one. If you view intellectual property as a "fraud," you should support placing all code completely in the public domain without any restriction, right? Think your clients would object to adding that clause to your contract?

The spread of large digital media and bandwidth have also changed the game. As a teenager, taped copies of music were passed around by my friends, but no one viewed them as a long term thing - they didn't sound great, they degraded over time, and they weren't convenient when you wanted to hear the 4th song on them. And importantly, each copy took a fairly good amount of time to create and the copies were given to a very select few. MP3s have changed all of that. (They don't sound great to me, but I'm pickier than most.)

Because without the act n

Re:Vote with dollars

[Atario]

Your analysis is stark and lucid.

Add to that the Dvorak op-ed piece in the issue of PC Mag I got in the mail this week, wherein he points out that the MPAA is going down the same stupid road the RIAA took -- publicising something the mainstream public heretofore knew little-to-nothing of. "Hmm, $38... $27... $12... Hey, you can download movies on the Intarweb? Neato!"

Good going, MPAA.

Re:Vote with dollars

[Lehk228]

Don't pretend you're on some kind of moral high ground. Ghandi didn't take British salt, he made his own.

and i didn't take anyone else's copy of any movies, i made my own.

Re:Vote with dollars

[Agrippa]

Theaters charge that much because the studios take most of the first week's revenue of movies. It is on a sliding scale payout (starting at ~95% to studios) and only after like 4 weeks of being out does a theatre realize any decent revenue on ticket sales alone. Since most movies are played out after 4 weeks, that's not a lot of profit. Therefore theaters charge 700% margins on the snack bar to turn a profit.

Essentially, theaters exist almost exclusively to sell you popcorn and candy and soda at ridiculous prices and use the movies they are playing to lure you in.

.agrippa.

Re:Vote with dollars

[bleckywelcky]

Actually, with the morons running some of these theaters nowadays, it isn't that hard to beat the sound and video quality of a theater. The sound is the worst, with bass cracking , tweeters screeching, mid ranges washed out, and their respective volumes all inconsistent. If you properly analyze a room in your house, setup the speakers accordingly, and then fine tune them, you'll have a 10x better experience. And what is more, you can add in an infinite baffle (IB) subwoofer system for the same price as a good quality box sub and you will hear bass like you've never heard before (if you have an attic or similar). As far as the video, half the time the screen hasn't been cleaned in ages (simply because it doesn't need to be done every day or week, so the theaters don't think about it much) and you end up with gradients of clarity all over the place. On a freshly cleaned or new screen, a properly calibrated picture will jump off the screen at you. Picture quality can be kinda bad sometimes as well ... at the very worst some parts of the picture may even be out of focus!

And that's just the technical details. You also have all of these dumbasses talking on their phones and letting their kids run around screaming like apes. Take control of your freaking brats you negligent morons. And the floor is sticky, and the seats are ANYTHING but comfortable. And if you don't get there early enough to get the sweet spot, then you'll be watching the whole movie with your head tilted up or to the side 45 degrees.

Yeh, home theater is the way to go. For about $1k you can have a pretty nice setup with a projector, few speakers, screen, and you'll have a blast with it every weekend - parties with friends over, etc. Sure, if you're struggling don't get one, but then why spend money at the theater anyhow? If you've got a steady job with a decent income, it's pretty easy to set aside $1k over the course of a year to invest in a theater system.

Re:Vote with dollars

[bit01]

Wow. It's kind of like reading the Communist Manifesto, if Karl Marx had been dropped on his head a lot as a baby.

I love the way that right-wingers love to tar anybody who doesn't agree with their particular narrow brand of capitalism as (ominous background music) A COMMUNIST. A hint: McCarthyism went out in the 60's and it just makes you look silly. Economics and markets are complex subjects and what we have in law right now is just one of a multitude of possibilities.

To summarize, you feel that it's economically unfair for some people to get paid more than others,

No, some people work harder or smarter than others and contribute more to the community and so should be be rewarded more. Unless their contribution is extreme they should not be paid so much that it endangers the democratic process.

so the solution is for unrelated people to screw over everyone in the industry,

No, the solution is that government should take back part of the privilege (copyright) they've bestowed on the industry because it's no longer in the best interests of the public. Note that I did not say all of the privilege so stop implying I did.

never mind that the people on the lower rung are the ones who suffer, not the people at the top.

That will happen in any system but it is usually possible to create a more fair and just society.

It is simply not reasonable that that a small number of people (in particular, the actors) should get millions of dollars for a few hours of at best semi-skilled work.

Why not? That's dictated by the public, not by the studios.

Partly. It's mainly dictated by mindshare advertising where the studio oligopoly simply crowd out alternatives by the sheer quantity of advertising they put out. Remember that free speech can be compromised by too much noise as well as too little message. Duplicate advertising is noise.

They certainly don't want to pay $BIGNAME $20 Mil. per movie, but the public shows time and time again that they'll go to any piece of drek with said $BIGNAME in it. That's a failure of public taste, not of the industry. I'd say there are actually more quality movies being created now compared to anytime in the past. It's easy to look at the past and think that their movies were better, but that's because the bad ones have faded from history and use and only the decent to good ones remain. Cable, the internet, and high quality, low cost video equipment actually mean that film makers can do more with less and get better exposure than anytime before.

In theory. In practice the market is completely saturated and when one player wins another player must lose. The major studios simply crowd out alternatives. People have only a limited number of hours in the day (hollywood is producing more than two movies a day now, let alone TV and foreign movies) and go with what they know.

Most actors don't get paid anywhere near that though, and given that an actor might get one good part every two or three years, getting $150,000 for a part isn't that unreasonable if they're a good actor. And trust me, a good (or great) actor spends far more than "a few hours" on the part.

That's my whole point. A small number of players, actors or otherwise, control a huge percentage of the market. Market failure. It happens, you know.

There is no such thing as a pure "free" market. If it existed it would be warlordism, might makes right, those with the biggest stick get all the rewards. Instead we have a complex legal and economic framework that discourages negative competitive behaviour (protection rackets, anti-trust, fraud, false advertising, stock manipulation, manipulation of minors etc.) and allowing positive competitive behaviour (improvement in product, lowering of price etc.). Even copyright law itself is a response to the negative competitive behaviour of simply copying a competitor's work rather than creating so

Advertising

[Dan East]

Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie.

How many of you remember MTV, Nickelodeon, and other cable-only channels were originally commercial-free back in the early 80's?

Just because these media conglomerates are making money off of you directly doesn't mean they won't try to make it indirectly as well.

Dan East

Re:Advertising

[nurb432]

Not only were they commercial free, that was part of the advertising plan to get people to switch to cable ' its commercial free'..

That lasted a long time didnt..

Re:Advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

MTV was originally advertised as being "24hour music commercial free"

ha! they fooled you! back then the music was the commercial! mtv was basically a 24hour long commercial for the bands that it played.

They have a point.

[CrkHead]

I can see that the tracker sites are providing information that can only be used for getting copyrighted materials.

I do not see this as a threat to bit torrent as it is not removing the arguement of having other, valid uses.

Guess You'd

[The Dobber]

rather pay even higher ticket prices. See, the advertisers defer some of the cost of the movie, be it at the production level, distribution or showing.

Don't want to sit through some commercials, tough tittie, still doesn't give you the right to steal it.

Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought the Shrek 2 DVD, and Disney forces you (at least on my non-modded DVD player) to sit through several minutes of adversting under the guise of previews/trailers before the movie starts. Skipping the previews is a prohibited operation. I can understand how they might do this on a $89 rental copy, but not on MY (MY) personal $19.99 copy. I should NEVER be forced to watch previews.

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[parvenu74]

And they wonder why users clamor for a tool that will allow them to rip DVD's for backup and conveniently drop all the mandatory commercials from the "backup" copies...

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Attar81]

Shrek 2 is not a Disney movie!

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Ours]

Yeah sure Disney. Shrek 2 is a DreamWorks picture distributed by DreamWorks, Universal or United (depending on the country).

Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298148/companycredits

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations! This is the kind of garbage YOU bought into when you went out and supported the DVD standard! And now that it IS the defacto standard, there is no way out unless you "mod" your DVD player, which is arguably illegal under the DMCA.

Really, stop bitching. Every one of you that bought a DVD player guaranteed that this stupidity would triumph.

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Erpo]

I should NEVER be forced to watch previews.

Well, from a techincal perspective, you're not forced to watch the previews and commercials. If you were tech-savvy enough and you valued the time it would take to create a back-up of the dvd without the prohibited user operations less than you valued the pleasure of watching a dvd without opening commercials, then you could rip them out. Nobody can ever stop you from doing anything you want to content on a medium that is physically in your posession if you have sufficient time, technical skill, desire, and resources.

From a more realistic perspective, though, that is a lot of work (and added expense) that not a lot of people are willing to go through, and personally the practice offends my sensibilities as well as yours. I think the statement, "I should NEVER be forced to ..." is an interesting one. I'm sure there are people who believed that they should never be forced to watch commercials on tv. These people are still around, of course, but I'm talking about way before TiVo back when subscription tv with commercials was first invented.

This is all just part of the larger push to make more and more money off of consumers. If publishers could get away with it, they would stick commercials in the middle of DVDs or add those branding logos/advertizements to the content like TV stations do. Maybe they will eventually do this once people are comfortable with the idea of commercials at the beginning (and end) of the feature.

I guess the stock advice of, "If you don't like it, don't buy it," applies here, although just boycotting something in order to make it go away is about as stupid as just voting in order to change who gets elected. You have to go way further in order to make a real difference. Start by not buying so you have some credibility when you speak, and then convince others to join you. I'm not slamming you here. I empathize with your problem. It's just that I'd very much like it to be solved.

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the stock advice of, "If you don't like it, don't buy it," applies here

It's a glib answer, but it doesn't solve anything. Boycotting is a valid reaction for a generic commodity - that is, if you don't like Wal*Mart's practices, it's easy to buy your groceries from some other store - a potato is a potato. But if your kids are clamoring for Shrek 2 on DVD, there's only one version you can buy them, and they aren't going to be too happy if you come home with some other movie instead "because it doesn't have as many ads".

It's easy for someone who doesn't want to own Shrek 2 to suggest boycotting it. But if you do want to own Shrek 2, and you don't want to own unskippable ads, you DO face a genuine dilemma. "Suck it up or don't buy it" is NOT a helpful response, and it's rarely intended as one.

You seem to recognise that, which is a refreshing change. I just wish you'd gone far enough not to think of mentioning the unhelpful response at all. ;)

Choices...

[lucabrasi999]

...followed by a 100-minute movie.

Of course, the 100-minute movie was filled with dozens of product placements (actor A holding a can of "Pepsi" while actress B says "I have to check my AOL account").

Michael, quite your whining. You chose to go to the movie. No one forced you to do this.

Trailers?

[Folmer]

When i go to the theater i like watching the trailers, and judging by the download count of the big movie trailers i'm not alone. I really dont see any problems with that, and if you have a problem you can always arrive late and miss them. When i was in the states a couple of years i could swear that they showed at least 15 minutes of commercials on tv. Every hour!

We should applaud this...

[which way is up]

The fact that the RIAA and MPAA are now going after the people breaking copyright law instead of writing legislation aimed at crippling technology and suing service providers is a good thing.

Now, of course there are still some stupid hybrid technological/legal measures they're pushing like 5C encryption and the broadcast flag. But if unlawful uses of file sharing/copying/archiving diminish due to fear of individual suits, then legitimate fair use will become a significant part of what is being prevented by these measures and they'll hopefully stop or be forced to stop them. Hopefully.

Bram Cohen

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sources say the MPAA is not necessarily going after BitTorrent's developer, Bram Cohen, only the server operators."

Why don't they go after the creators of ftp and http too while they're at it...
He hasn't done anything wrong.

Re:What if...

[TellarHK]

What they're going to argue is that the tracker sites are designed and operated specifically for the distribution of copyrighted materials. We might like to think they're on shaky ground with that kind of argument, but legally they have a pretty good chance of winning if certain things are evident.

1: Jurisdiction.

2: Intent.

Jurisdiction is something the MPAA has been good at manipulating for years. They'll find a way to get jurisdiction over anyone they actually sue, or mirrors, etcetera. Intent will be really easy in case of sites like Suprnova that have entire sections named off for things like Movies, Comics, Music, Games, etcetera. The sub-grouping of categories, show titles and other such breakdowns within those areas I listed above will be the most presentable evidence used to show "Hey, these people knew they were distributing copies of X TV show or music by this specific artist - they have a section with X's name on it.".

Haven't these people heard of NetFlix?

[physicsphairy]

Quite frankly, BitTorrent is the less convenient way to 'steal' movies. I think there have been advertisements here on slashdot for it, but NetFlix is a business where you pay a monthly fee and they mail you movies, and you mail them back and pick new ones as often as you like. If I had the harddrive space, I could easily rip a hundred dvds with much less hastle than downloading them.

What I can't get is TV episodes. If I knew where to buy them, I would (Invader Zim, anyone?) but I can't find any.

So it's really a shame to have the tracker services shutdown.

I call BS...

[meanfriend]

>14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by
>13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by
>a few minutes of junk

30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it (no pun intended). I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.

While I admit that the trailers and ads are getting more pervasive, I think I'd notice if there were *28* consecutive 30-second spots, and a dozen 1-minute trailers shown before a movie.

Re:I call BS...

[Scrameustache]

30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it

Including the trailers, I second the observation.

I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.

In what timewarped, backwards place do you see these movies?
All the newfnagled cinemas have a metric ton of ads. Around here it's more than 30 minutes, because they have ads running on screen before the lights dim, intermingled with movie trivia to keep our eyes pointed at the screen (if I go alone I bring a book and an iPod to ignore them, in groups you can chat).

While I admit that the trailers and ads are getting more pervasive, I think I'd notice if there were *28* consecutive 30-second spots, and a dozen 1-minute trailers shown before a movie.

That's why then. They have the 2 minute ads and 3 to 5 minutes trailers. They sneak in 5 ads when you expect 28.

Re:30 minutes of pre-movie crap...

[kryogen1x]

See, even coming a few minutes late to miss the commercials will not stop the advertising. Nowadays, the advertising is embedded within the movies. Some do it pretty seamlessly, but I would hate to watch a good movie ruined because the producers had to go out of the way to mention Nike shoes.

Re:What if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, since the people at Microsoft have provided the O.S. to facilitate storage/creation/manipulation of these illeagal files they also are liable. Furthermore, Segate and Western Digital (sorry if I didn't name your brand) are also liable because they are actually providing medium to hold illeagal files. You know, if we really get down to it, they need to be suing all the energy companies for providing the electricity to allow the pirating of these files. We wouldn't have digital piracy without electricity now would we?

If someone shoots somebody with a pistol.... does the pistol maker get sued?

What this is about

[frovingslosh]

This is not about lawsuits against someone who is only publishing information about files, rather than publishing any (potentially) copyrighted information themselves. What it is about is someone with a lot of money filing lawsuits against someone who can't aford to fight them.

Re:What if...

[Anonymous Coward]

But the sites themselves do not carry the files. They only have information about the trackers, and are not involved in the actual distribution or sharing of the files.

But they do host the torrents, don't they? And the torrents are specific to a certain file? So specific that they even have a cryptographic hash to prove that they are talking about the right file?

It seems to me that they are as liable for the copyright infringement as somebody who posts an encrypted tarball full of MP3s to usenet and hosts the decryption key on their own server. In short - they aren't specifically doing the copying, but they are deliberately helping specific cases of copyright infringement.

This isn't an analogue of Napster - they were simply running an indexing service and didn't promote specific copyrighted files.

This doesn't mean the developers of BitTorrent are next - they aren't promoting specific instances of copyright infringement either.

The copyright goons are suing the right people for once.

Re:Reform

[C.Batt]

So, is there a way to reform that indusrty? Or, are we just screwed.

Are they forcing you to watch their shite? No. Yet you cannot, for whatever reason, seem to look away.

The key: look away.

Don't consume mass media, either free or for a fee. Just look the heck away. They will then reform themselves, or die.

Write your own stories. Make your own movies. Who cares if they're "crap"; share them with friends and give em to strangers. Do anything you can, just don't feed the established media industry.

Start creating. Stop consuming.

I know. Unrealistic hippie talk. Lay off the crack pipe. Blah blah blah...

Re:You apparently don't understand BT

[which way is up]

Apparently neither do you...

Yes the tracker will direct me to each pieces, but those pieces all belong to a SPECIFIC file, be it an illegal game or movie. That torrent tracker becomes tied to that illegal activity by aiding the distribution of that specific illegal download.

So to user your analogy... the person who sets me up with johnny breakayoulegs(hitman), knowing that he's a hit man and knowing what i want him for, is also guilty of a crime under U.S. law.

I don't understand this.

[StarKruzr]

Why should it be surprising to ANYONE that a PAID EDITOR OF SLASHDOT gets a certain amount of leeway in editorializing in articles?

Guess what? This website doesn't just have editors around to pick and choose which articles are allowed to go to the front page. A well-written script could do that.

Jesus Fucking Christ. If you don't like it, LEAVE. Slashdot is NOT a part of the commons.

Re:I don't understand this.

[daniil]

The job of an editor is not only editorializing, but also (and more importantly) editing the articles submitted. Unfortunately, they seem to be lacking in both departments.

Jesus Fucking Christ. If you don't like it, LEAVE.

Noone's asking the editors to stop doing their work -- i personally would only like them to get some training. How about them taking a few short courses in journalism? Hey, i bet they could even find one online, so that they wouldn't even have to leave their comfy chairs!

Re:ATTENTION

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember to place disclaimers on your sites to limit liability. It is unfortunate that in such a open and powerful media, that litigation can be so invasive merely by threats.

Re:What if...

[Relic of the Future]

Mod Parent Up! (Actually, it's already at four... so nevermind.)

The Law(tm) isn't like source code; slashdotters seem to have trouble understanding that. It is open to interpretation, and it can ask questions about intent (what you MEANT instead of what you DID). And it's pretty clear that suprnova's INTENT is to contribute to copyright infringement.

Re:SWAP in person!

[siskbc]

that this site is of no use whatsoever to anyone who has the good luck not to live in the USA,

So, what, he shouldn't have mentioned it unless he can solve the problem for the entire freaking world?

nor is it actually P2P

Actually, it is the most P2P method of sharing imaginable. It's Person 2 Person without the computers in the way.

Re:Okay, guys, let's hear it

[AndrossUT]

Well, there are just some movies out there I never planned to buy or rent or even have anything to do with that I downloaded, then actually liked and bought. Also, I'm a cheap bastard and would gladly screw over a faceless conglomerate of corporations by downloading a movie, rather than giving my hard earned $7.50 to watch it in a crappy movie theatre, only to be interrupted by that jackass with the cell phone three rows ahead.

Re:What if...

[Tibor the Hun]

Considering that they're a member of the EU, they probably need to watch what they're doing, as opposed to their Balcan neighbors, or the remnants of the USSR.

get back at them

[macshune]

I detest those ads too. Here's what I do to get back at them:

Caption:Movies. They're worth it.

Me [yelling]: YEAH! WORTH DOWNLOADING!!!

Always gets a laugh and makes me feel better.

Re:ATTENTION - Hate About Suprnova

[Nom du Keyboard]

Bittorrent sites here on Slashdot, such as suprnova.org.

What I hate about sites like suprnova.org is the trapping code that attempts to disable your back button when you try to leave the site.

What I wish search engines like Google would do is, when they scan the site, flag all those with trapping code, viruses, attempts to download known adware/spyware/garbage-ware, as well as list how many pop-ups to expect from the page linked to. Now that would be a useful search engine.

Re:You don't understand Slashdot

[zod1025]

My concerns lie with the enforcement of overly-restrictive legislation It is my belief that I have the freedom to do as I please with my digital data, so long as I do not attempt personal financial gain from someone else's work.

Surely everyone can agree that downloading a DVD rip of, say, Shrek 2 and selling copies of it on ebay for "cheEp" is horrendously immoral and wrong. In line with that, no one would rightly complain about copyright legislation that prevents such scenarios *through civil remedies, not criminal!*

I see no reasonable argument for preventing my from copying CDs/DVDs/etc for my own personal uses (whatever those might be - stripping off forced commercials, the stupid FBI warning, editing out graphical sex scenes, etc).

Further, I see no reason why I should be prevented from obtaining a work online that is not available through other means (old roms, old movies, etc), especially if I already own a copy in another format already.

I think we all agree that "w00, free movies!" is not the point. Today's reality has brought us criminal punishments for civil crimes, the inability to legally watch movies in Linux, inability to legally even talk about bypassing encryption schemes, and other ridiculous craziness with the DMCA that frankly pisses me off.

The *AA's have made themselves representatives of all of the least-sensible aspects of current copyright legislations, and so it's not surprise that people hate them. If the legislation made sense, and we didn't have to worry that we might face criminal charges or ridiculously huge fines for doing something that used to be Fair Use - well, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Re:ATTENTION - Hate About Suprnova

[lessthanjakejohn]

your saying suprnova.com?

if not WTF are you talking about?

Suprnova.org is pretty clean.

Re:ATTENTION

[cpt kangarooski]

What exactly makes you think that those work?

Re:My opinion

[Antony-Kyre]

Boycotting based on one day of the week doesn't do much. It just shifts the gas need to the other six days. I guess an extreme and unlikely result could be having less employees work on Mondays, and hiring more workers during the rest of the week.

Re:Ok, Michael

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Absolutely and unequivocally. Anyone - *anyone* - can go to school, amass a certain amount of technical knowledge, and become a perfectly serviceable doctor or teacher or what have you. Yes, it's a long, hard road to get there, and I don't mean to diminish the contributions that doctors and teachers make, but there's really no barrier to getting there other than "do they know the material?" Can you take a test to be an actor? Where do you go to apply for a position as a matinee idol? At any point in an actor's life there are dozens of people who can instantly end their job that day (or that week, or their career as a whole) because of a reason no more substantial than "I don't like his eyebrows" or "her tits are too small." If Miss Bliss' first-grade class turns out to be a bunch of simpletons and half of them fail then Miss Bliss won't find herself blackballed from the entire teaching industry for life, but do you think Halle Berry will get the same break after "Catwoman?" You can coast on your past record for a while in Hollywood, but eventually it all comes down to putting asses in seats. If you're not a box-office draw then you don't work - period. Now how many of you can name *horrible* teachers that you had who just keep going year after year because of tenure? Or doctors who are heartless, arrogant assholes who keep working because they can get the job done? Yeah, there are terrible actors (and writers and producers...) who keep bringing in an enormous paycheck, but can you name one who's been doing it for more than a few years? Sharon Stone? Stallone?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the day 20 million people will spend their weeknight in front of the TV watching Polly Perky teach algebra, *then* I'll believe that Tom Cruise (or Barry Bonds) is overpaid.

Create. Don't Consume.

[runamok1]

That is a beautiful sentiment. I completely agree. This isn't much but a "me too" post but I think your premise can extend to every area of your life.

I kind of realize how much help and enjoyment I gather from the internet and all of it's multitudes. So I decided I needed to start writing down my own knowledge (in my case, running, computers, books, etc.) to sort of give back.

I would gladly pay more for all the information I find on the net than the I would for the latest movie.

And yet the information is freely given while the 2 hours of enertainment sold by hollywood continues to go up in price.

FREE MOVIES

[Aggrazel]

There's this place I found in my neighborhood that has a LOT of movies, books, and CDs, and they let me take them for absolutely nothing... and keep them for a week, sometimes more.

Sure, sometimes I have to wait for things, but hey, the price is right. All I had to do was sign up for a little card that said I promise to bring it back before its due.

FREE!

They call it a "Public Library" ... apparently they've been in business for years, but I don't see how. What a funny business model, letting your customers take your stuff home for free... HA HA!

The difference between copying and theft

[laughingcoyote]

Actually, despite all this "piracy", the RIAA's sales continue to increase, as shown. The November 11, 2004 press release from the MPAA shows similarly for the MPAA:

"The movie industry's share of the American economy is growing--faster than the rest of the economy. And the copyright industries are creating jobs at twice the rate of the rest of the economy." (excerpted from above)

I fail to see how you can call something "theft" when someone is seeing greater sales happen while the "theft" is occurring. Theft would presume a model in which, for every download which occurs, one sale is lost. This is quite simply not true, as many, many people download things to preview them and see if they are worth the money. Given the large amount of garbage put out by the **AA's and the inflated prices they charge for it, this does not seem an unreasonable precaution.

The true solution for the **AA's is one which is known to all businesses which don't have a virtual monopoly and routinely have to deal with competition: Improve your product, LOWER YOUR PRICES, and find innovative ways to market and deliver the product.

Don't put ads on something people have paid money for, it will turn them off very quickly. (A trailer or two generally won't turn a consumer off if placed on their DVD, but a non-skippable Pepsi commercial most certainly will.) There is NO quicker way to turn off a consumer than making it so that the product they purchased (their DVD and DVD player) do not do what they expect it to (fast-forward when they hit the fast-forward button.)

Imagine your car not starting for 5 minutes after you turned the key so that it could play ads over the car's stereo. If you wouldn't be extremely frustrated by this, and very unlikely to purchase that brand of car again, well then, you are the definition of corporate whore. But the reason car manufacturers -don't- do this is because other manufacturers exist, and would refrain from doing this and take away their business. However, the MPAA has no competition, at least not on anything even remotely approaching their scale. If it takes suprnova and Kazaa to create the competition, then I'm not sorry to see it, whether or not there's a technical violation of law.

If these companies are not willing to address the fact that CUSTOMERS ARE NOT SATISFIED, and the ONLY reason that they have stayed in business is a lack of real competition, they deserve to die off and I don't care if people do pirate the stuff.

Re:Ok, Michael

[Snaller]

Easy enough we pass a law that only says a movie can only make back what it cost to make it plus a fair salery to all involved and the rest must be donated to charities. Instead of this imoral greed.

sleeping with government

[kardar]

I suppose (or maybe wonder is a better word) with some of the "Hong Kong movies", now that HK is no longer with England, to what extent do the people who make the movies there "tune in" to what is acceptable and what is not -- what morals are being put forth, are there tighter limits on the types of issues that can be addressed in the creative realm than there were before - are the producers, writers, etc... more paranoid of having the government give them a hard time? I am not an expert in this, perhaps it's just a cultural thing - but there is probably some kind of attention paid to these things in a policital environment such as Hong Kong. Really, not that HK movies are bad, I like them very much - "Breaking News" was one I saw that was cool, and that was very recent. It's just in terms of creative freedom that I pose this question, and any limitations real or perceived, of that creative freedom.

But here in the states, where we normally shouldn't be as concerned about what our government may or may not think about what concepts or ideas we are using our freedoms to express - provided it's not for TV - it strikes me as odd that the entertainment / multimedia arts community would be attempting to forge stronger bonds with the government, bonds that are strange - bonds that appear to be advanced in part by lobbying money, in part by a shameless appeal to the merits of harsh punishment that would cross the interests of tens of millions of Americans. In any case, point being that if the *AA's don't think the government is going to "want something in return" for this request for VIP status from the *AAs, they are smoking something that is messing with their ability to think clearly.

Isn't it better for the movie industry to present a counterpoint to the "goody goody two shoes" mentality? Isn't there something "cool" about a good movie? Not to be completely rebellious, but to just kind of stand out there on its own, make its voice heard, and exhibit a "coolness" that would be inappropriate and out of place in a government agency.

It's just something that has never made sense to me. One decade, fighting to not get warning labels on CD's, another, trying to earn massive brownie points by shamelessly appealing to government regulation in the worst way. Showing a wanton willingness to sacrifice any and all artistic or creative freedom in exchange for strict, broad, governmental control over any and all creative multimedia, with massive profits acting as a light at the end of a tunnel of inaccurate information and a lack of understanding of the "end-users" of the movie industry's artistic efforts. Who ARE these people? Human beings are multi-faceted creatures; there is more to human existence - and this is what the multimedia arts ought to address.

When the *AA's get closely involved with government, the profits of maintaining a stranglehold on an ineffective and antiquated distribution model become more important than the expression of ideas and concepts, and the artistic creativity of the people making the films.

This is not good - going to a movie becomes more like flying on an airplane - checking for camcorders, people with night vision goggles spying on you, being forced to watch "educational" materials.

Of course, they can argue that their morals are correct, that file sharing does have some negative consequences, or "piracy", as they put it (and piracy does have negative consequences, it's just that filesharing is not exactly piracy) - but in any case, I can understand the point of view that if everyone fileshares for free there may be problems from that... but here's my point...

You have all this freedom of expression in America. You have this big Hollywood industry. Isn't it a waste of the artistic and creative freedoms that we all enjoy here in the US to go hop in bed with the government? Isn't it almost like a self-inflicted censorship? Can Hollywood simultaneously expect to retain its creative freedoms while trying to forge a tighter, closer, more intima

Re:Here's the great irony

[SiliconEntity]

Thanks to the DMCA, if they sue you, they obviously illegally broke encryption somewhere along the line and would be liable themselves (as well as nullifying their evidence).

Sorry, this won't work. The DMCA makes it illegal to decrypt without the copyright owner's permission. In this case, it would be the copyright owner himself who is suing. He has his own permission to do the decryption. The DMCA will not stop this.

Not quite that simple...

[godivx]

Hollywood is, in essence, a huge artificially inflated market; quite possibly, the biggest scam in the free world. Ironically, some of the world's most celebrated leftists are worshipped in an industry that resembles a third-world country. In Hollywood, we can always witness a handful of rich elites juxtaposed with masses of impoverished starving artists and a rather nominally sized middle class who do whatever they have to do to remain in good standing with the elites.

Strange situation, when you consider how these guys are so famous for "caring" about the less fortunate, and so infamous for demeaning the "greed" of OTHER industries.

But just consider this: How irreplacable are the extras in those fast food commercials? How about the boom operators or the production assistants on those movie sets? Have you ever witnessed a Hollywood set in action? Can you believe the number of people who are, half the time, doing essentially nothing?

And no, it's not necessarily because the work they do requires the most unique skills.

If the culture of Hollywood weren't so fundamentally wasteful and profuse, more movies would get made, more people would get hired, and consumers overall would have more venues to enjoy a more robust selection of movies. Hell, just take a silly union like SAG out of the picture, and we'd see a difference overnight.

The central problem here, from Hollywood's point of view, is that the instantaneous "what you want, when you want" free market environment of the Web is intrinsically antagonistic to their culture. After all how many Hollywood productions would survive in a free market environment like the Internet? Far fewer than what we see today. I can guarantee that.

Hollywood isn't interested in free markets or anything similar. They want to continue producing as little as possible for as much money as possible. And the nature of the Internet threatens them at the most fundamental level.

If they have to sell the public and/or the governments a bill of goods like "Piracy is harming artists at all levels" or whatever, they will do so. If they have to sue everybody and their mother throughout the world, they'll do that, too. They'll do anything OTHER THAN adjust to the new environment.

Which is another way of saying that Hollywood's days could be numbered. Hollywood could easily become a shell of itself in a few generations if they don't wake up.

Which would suit me just fine. =)

Re:Woo!

[0111 1110]

Don't forget all those caring folks putting their feet up on the seats in front of them, kicking the seats, talking on their cell phones and talking loudly to each other to comment on the movie. Also those lovely people (usually women) who laugh loudly whenever a character speaks. If I stayed away from the theater I would also miss out on the loud crunching of popcorn and slurping sounds 6 inches from my ear. Unforgettable.

I do admit that, at least until digital projection takes over (at which time there will be [i]no[/i] reason to go to the theatre), it is the only way to actually see the film on film. Video is a poor substitute, which is why the MPAA should have nothing to worry about.

I made my own

[guet]

and i didn't take anyone else's copy of any movies, i made my own

Oh, and that copy took so much effort, and now you feel you have the moral high ground? Whilst the comparison with salt can be stretched too far, someone claiming that copying a file is some form of civil disobedience shouldn't claim so unless they're willing to stand up for what they believe and go to jail for those beliefs.

Being an anonymous thief on P2P networks is not heroic. If there was a *real* world-wide clampdown on this kind of thing 90% of the users would drop it and stop copying, because it would actually involve the credible possibility of punishment.

If you don't like Hollywood, make your own films (not copies) or watch independent films. If you do like Hollywood films and choose to steal them, please don't try to convince people it's something other than opportunism. You're stealing because it's convenient, free, and there's little chance of being caught. When ISP networks are locked down and searched for this material and the distributors routinely punished, will you still be copying?

Re:Ok, Michael

[miskatonic alumnus]

Anyone - *anyone* - can go to school, amass a certain amount of technical knowledge, and become a perfectly serviceable doctor or teacher or what have you.

It's amazing that such tripe gets modded up as "Insightful". So you are saying that the only thing different between Joe the Janitor and Ed the Engineer is the type of work they like to do? Unbelievable.

The fact is, some people are better at some things than others. At the extreme ends, a few are talented in many areas, and some have no talents at all.