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TorrentBits.org and SuprNova.org Go Dark
Numerous people wrote in with similar stories: "Without providing a reason, both of these sites have shut down: SuprNova.org and TorrentBits.org." We mentioned a few days ago that the MPAA was going after Bittorrent sites.
A big point many people miss -- trackers are what keep the torrents together. Indexers like SuprNova, although highly popular, do nothing but point people where to go.
It's like asking a bartender about the street corners where the girls hang out late at night. If he responsible for how you use the information; ie, if you engage in prostition?
It's a sad, sad day when information is made the scapegoat. If anything, they should be applauded, and kept as a means for getting to the real criminals.
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
People, please stop posting links to your favorite torrent site that is still up and kicking. They are already under tremendous pressure right now, and I don't want them to have any more attension brought to them. Those that are interested can find the sites themselves, so please, help save the few that are left and stop posting links.
this is the same sort of thing that happened with the original Napster. Any sort of centralization is going to become an immediate target for MPAA/RIAA legal action. At least with BitTorrent there can be other sources for .torrent files, but so long as they can shut down any large repositories like suprnova.org, finding files will be too cumbersome for all but the most determined users.
DC++ seems to have the same weakness, with the hosts, but as long as host lists are legal, it will remain pretty easy to find new hosts. Gnutella seems pretty safe, but they've managed to pollute the network enough to make it almost unusable.
alas, it is only a matter of time before something comes along that perfects this problem and leaves the MPAA/RIAA with no option but to come up with a new business model. Free music seems to me to be a fine way to advertise a touring artist who is making money off of the shows. Movies may have to resort to product placement, or something.
How's this for a solution to film piracy?
...wait a few weeks
.... wait some more
1. Forget chasing 'pirates'. This will save a lot of expensive legal bills. Cut back drastically on advertising too, as you don't need to whip people up into a frenzy to get them to theatres in the first week.
2. Make film (Citizen Kane: starring Adam Sandler or something).
3. Make a VCD cut and make unlabelled cheapo vcd's. Using the economies of scale, sell these so cheap that the guys selling pirate vcd will buy from you rather than burn their own copies. Your margin is the difference between a bulk pressed cd and a small scale burned copy.
4. Simultaneously sell the film as a download for the same price as you get for the vcd.
5. Make a nicer, longer dvd cut of the film and, again, sell these so cheap that the guys selling pirate dvd will buy from you rather than burn their own copies.
6. Sell the dvd cut of the film online at the same price as the DVD wholesale price.
7. Theatre release of film in lovely THX/35mm
8. Boxed set dvd release with extra everything.
By doing this you make money from the guys currently selling 'pirated copies' of films and money from people who can't be bothered to find a torrent of your film. The money saved on lawyers and advertising would probably pay for setting up the servers.
At stage 3 you are the sole supplier of vcd of your film, it is uneconomic to burn copies so you own the market. People may share your film over the internet but the hassle of finding a torrent and/or running P2P software is competing against the paid download (4) which is priced as low as a blank cdr.
This is simple economics. Cut back on expensive things like lawyers and advertising, then put out bargain bin priced product to soak up the sales to misers and the poor. You can still make bigger margins on the nicely packaged versions to people who want to buy them.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
How can posting a list of files possibly be illegal?
That is all that Suprnova ever did. Now, if its illegal to post a list of files, it must also be illegal to print one in a newspaper, or write one on a piece of paper with a pencil anad photocopy it.
If you go a google search for "index of" apache *.dmg* "port 80" you get lots and lots of links to copyrighted software. By your flawed logic, Google "is just plain illegal" because it provides lists of files just as Supernova did.
Printing a list can never be an illegal act. At least not in a free country it cant.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Well, I dunno about the "insightful" either, but I for one would never use a closed-source p2p client.
:)) is nothing I'll trust on...
It's really just a matter of safety (and paranoia): only with opensource clients I can be relatively sure that the client won't rat out on me or install malware of various sorts. Honor among thieves (or pirates
The portability is an added (very nice) bonus.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
the MPAA is co-operating in criminal investigations with police in Finland, the Netherlands and France, so it is reasonable to infer that reports of raids in more European countries are likely to surface shortly.
Yes, the MPAA is acting on behalf of its members and copyright holders, ensuring that intellectual property is not distributed for free. They have the law on their side, and can probably buy or lobby anyone of importance that disagrees with them.
That said, I think the MPAA is fighting a losing battle. People like to share, to spread what little wealth and happiness they have around.
BitTorrent enables a system where people of like interests and hobbies can reward one another as they are connected to the same torrent. And yes, this includes both legitimate and illegitimate uses.
Sharing is part of human nature and any organization that throws its weight around in an attempt to circumvent our instinct to share will ultimately prove to be futile.
Or, to use a probably more accurate analogy... when my friend wanted to shoot spit wads during english class, I lent him a pen to bore out for a spit-tube... and damn! We both totally got busted for detention!!
bittorrent != murder
"If someone drugged you, raped you, took pictures of the rape, do they automatically have the right to put distribute those photos on the Internet? What about your rights?"
You're conflating two unrelated ideas. If someone drugged me and raped me, they've already broken the law, and ought to be arrested, tried, and put into prison. The photos are a non-issue.
People are allowed to take photographs, even of bad things. Photojournalists are allowed to take photos of people comitting crimes. It's important to not confuse the issue of what the real crime in your example is. The crime is the drugging and the rape, not taking a photo.
A photograph is a record of an event, just like a written story, or even an orally told story. If you're suggesting that photographing crimes is wrong, you're also strongly suggesting that writing about them or even talking about them is wrong. Is that really the position you want to take?