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MPAA Goes After More Bittorrent Site Operators

Posted by michael on from the money-for-nothing dept.

Just another Coward writes "DSL Reports grabbed a copy of the lawsuit threat letters sent by the MPAA to the bittorrent website owners. This latest document was sent to a Torrent site called 'demonoid.com', which is now offline."

8 of 698 comments (clear)

  1. Color me surprised... by SoTuA · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ...it took this long to start.

    Remember the napster trial? Saying "I just post links" doesn't cut much cheese against deep-pocket *AA's lawyers.

  2. And? by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Last I checked piracy was still piracy. What gives you the right to faciliate piracy?

    It's wrong to draw from this that "MPAA is making BitTorrent illegal". That's just stupid /. pandering.

    What the MPAA is doing is cracking down on people who pirate and help people pirate movies. Big whoop.

    Though I have my own ideas on how the movie studios could save money. STOP PAYING THEM SO MUCH. I mean how many studios are there? A dozen at most? If they all colluded and salary capped the stars to say 50,000$ per movie [give or take] we wouldn't have "multi-million dollar movies" where most of the money goes to the actors and not the actual crew behind the scenes WHO ACTUALLY MAKE IT HAPPEN.

    You think Keano made the matrix? No it was 100s if not 1000s of "much lower paid" crew that did the CG, the sets, costumes, makeup, lighting, cameras, editing, etc...

    I'll never understand how they can get off and say things like "oh the Olsen twins are worth 20 million dollars"... um to who? They're a pair of uneducated no-talent actors who ride their "being twins and decently good looks". Let's see what they're upto in 20 years shall we?

    Same goes for all the other little "artistes". They poperzize their music, everything is staged, etc, then think they're worth a couple million per performance...

    Well hate to break the news to ya little gal and guys. Most people work their entire lives and don't see a couple million. They "earn" a million dollars for a day long shoot then blow it on a rave and some diamonds... Then they have the audacity to wonder why people [other than brainwashed puppet teenagers] despise them... Hmmm... .../rant

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    1. Re:And? by Ann+Elk · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Last I checked piracy was still piracy. What gives you the right to faciliate piracy?

      Yes, and murder is still murder, but AT&T is not responsible when someone uses a telephone to conspire to commit murder. IANAL (nor do I want to be), but I would think the "common carrier" laws that protect the phone companies should also protect these sites. But then again, the MPAA has More Money than I, so they are obviously More Right (in the US, at least).

    2. Re:And? by Long-EZ · · Score: 4, Insightful
      First off, piracy is still stealing.

      No. The truth is, in this context, "piracy" is an emotionally charged word used to make copyright infringement sound a lot worse than it is.

      Piracy involves stealing, raping and murdering innocent people when caught in remote locations where society can offer no protection. Copyright infringement is illegal, and should be punished appropriately. But calling it piracy is ridiculous. So are the ridiculous "you're punishing the gaffers and set builders" propaganda commercials.

      At the heart of this is money, like everything else. this is about the MPAA and RIAA executives making a LOT of money for making the stupid executive decicisions that Michael Eisner apparently makes every day.

      When something is stolen, something is missing. When a copyright is enfringed, the original work remains. Does that help clarify the difference?

      If you call it piracy and stealing, you are a tool of the MPAA and RIAA viral marketing campaign.

      We should all insist on the correct term "copyright enfringement" as society deals with these intellectual property issues. The illegal behavior is being made a lot worse by the RIAA and MPAA who cling to outdated distribution methods to try to maintain a profit margin that is normally only seen in organized crime and illegal narcotics. There are laws against what the RIAA does, and the major companies in the recording industry have all been found guilty of collusion and price fixing. The settlement? After consumers fill out forms and other high-hassle jumping through hoops, they get a discount on their next CD purchase. So, who are the REAL criminals here?

      There is plenty of behavior among RIAA executives and those enfringing copyrights that is both illegal and immoral. I say we start calling the record company executives "rapists".

      --
      >> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
  3. Somewhat Misleading Title by TrollBridge · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It should read something like "Bittorent Site Operators Invite Lawsuits". Seriously, who could have predicted that posting so many links to copyrighted works would draw the ire of the MPAA?

    --
    There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
  4. Filesharing to Fair Use? by saterdaies · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it's a bit of a pitty because BitTorrent has/had such potential to revolutionize how the internet worked, but in the end it just became a place for illegal file sharing. Everyone talks about filesharing and the terrible things that the RIAA and MPAA want to do to stop it, but they act like illegal filesharing is a good thing - like it is a pious act. The EFF has kept defending it as if they have a righteous cause. Filesharing technologies do have legitimate uses. At the beginning, the EFF was telling the RIAA/etc. to go after indivivuals who were using it for illegal purposes. Now, the EFF has decided that those illegal actions need to be defended too. I think that someone needs to create a movement around real fair use. Nothing more, nothing less. Not stealing and not totalitarian MPAA/RIAA crap. Something that would allow me to use my music in the ways that I should be able to and for a fair price without resorting to stealing. Something that the majority of people in America (and the world) could agree with.

  5. This really Ircs me by F7F7NoYes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, when mp3's became hip, I downloaded them off sources on IRC. Then napster came out and every moron with an aol account was downloading mp3's. Then napster was shut down. Then connection speeds improved and I started downloading movies and apps from IRC. Then Kazaa/Fastrack came out. Then every moron with an aol accound was on Kazaa. Then they started suing said morons that put their email address in. THEN I started using bittorrent to download Linux ISO's, the pirating started with Bittorrent, and before I knew it, more morons with aol accounts were talking about suprnova. Then it died. Meanwhile I'm still on IRC and still no problems.

  6. Re:p2p torrent by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Peerguardian is a joke. When it comes time to sue you, the MPAA or their BayTSP minions will simply use a consumer broadband account to gather the evidence. Duh.

    If we knew every single employee of both companies, adn we have our spies working at all major ISPs on the lookout for those names (and assuming they don't use other names), we *might* be able to have some level of protection. Maybe. That's assuming that "our guy" isn't out sick the say they sign up, or the day that their cable modem gets a new DHCP lease.

    P2p still sits on the internet, and for that reason, it's no safer than anything else. You have to build your own network, and it has to have moderately strong anonymity. Nothing else will work.