Slashdot Mirror
LokiTorrent vs. MPAA
ravenspear writes "It seems that the attack on torrent sites is continuing strong. This time Lokitorrent is being sued by the MPAA. Unlike Suprnova and most of the previous sites however, they aren't planning to just roll over and die. It will no doubt be a dificult fight, but they plan to stay up for the time being. Also, they are asking for donations to cover their legal expenses. So far they have raised $8,755 out of a needed $30,000. "
Loki is the god of mischief, so the names says it all. Now if it was Odintorrent, I'd side with them.
Since I submitted this they updated the site and have now have received $9,940 in donations.
Also, they posted an image of the of the complaint they were served with here.
What'll that cover? A week?
They've got $9940 now. How much do you think the slashdot attention will help them out? Personally I'd rather see people donate to help out with the Tsunami relief.
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
Dear AIMUser304921, It has come to our attention that on December 12th, 2004, you had an AOL Instant Messenger conversation with AIMUser201192 about how some of your buddies have a bootleg copy of Spiderman 2. To avoid legal action, you must cease and desist communicating with anybody ever again about anything possibly illegal. That, or be ready for us to sue your pants off.
Instead of donating money to people violating the law, why not just buy the software/product in the first place?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
how is hosting links to illegal files illegal? all torrents files are, are links which tell users with bittorrent where they are able to download illegal files (obviously many torrents are for legal files too). since the torrents sites aren't hosting any actual files how is this any different from google linking to a webpage that hosts pirated music or movies or images?
-mr silver
What are the odds that people who won't pay for movies or software will stick their hands in their pockets and fund a legal fight ? Not very high methinks ...
1) pay russian/chinese/etc criminals to post floods of warez on linux torrent sites ...
2) "complain" to the feds about warez on linux torrent sites
3)
4) profit!
Basically, i don't see how their legal defense would go. "we only provide links to the torrents" would be suprnovas, but isn't loki a tracker?
"we're not the ones downloading, we're just facilitating."
thats like saying "i didn't make him shoot his younger brother, i just gave him the gun, and then told his brother to stand there for a few seconds, and i'd give him a cookie.
Anywho, someone enlighten me on a legal strategy
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
Now that it's on slashdot, I'm sure they'll need that $30,000 for bandwidth bills :(
Just FYI, their paypal address appears to be support@lokitorrent.com. If you're going to post a story about a site taking donations to fight a lawsuit, at least include a way to donate AFTER you Slashdot their site to hell and back.
I just wonder what hippies got to do with this?
Is it some sort of a political statement from you? If you don't like hippies, well.. That is your problem, but I don't think you find many hippies among filesharers. To bad you don't have contact with the real world.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
It's not an illegal website. The website does not host any copyrighted material.
First five listings:
Half Life 2
The Grudge
White Chicks
Blade 3
Exorcist, The Beginning
Whatever, man. Boo hoo. They're getting sued. Maybe they should have thought about that before they started riding the legal fence like that.
They will not get a dime from me, and this has nothing to do with my rights.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I don't know about the people that are donating, but it seems a little silly to just hand over money and actually expect them to get a lawyer. If anything I'd just as likely expect them to take the 30K and run. Thanks for the donations!
Hire a lawyer? To defend something that's blatenly illegal? People are buying this? The Internet is a great place.
Oh sorry, I meant to say "criminals".
Maybe they should just stop tracking movies but leave everything else. After all, movies are what the MPAA are concerned about. All the other content is someone else's problem.
Explain how they are criminals? Are you a lawyer or a judge maybe?
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
So far they have raised $8,755 out of a needed $30,000.
Actually, since they're attempting to take on the MPAA in court that really means that they've raised $8,755 out of a needed $infinity.
Good luck nonetheless, guys.
Alledgedly.
Finally, I can donate money to a REAL cause and not some made-up disaster in south-east asia.
http://www.commaecho.com
If this is a site that is using BitTorrent as a method for downloading 100% legit material like public domain movies, linux distributions, creative commons licensed songs, etc., I'd be pretty sympathetic and probably throw in some financial support.
But I've never heard of Lokitorrent. Is this an example of the MPAA attacking the BitTorrent PROTOCOL, or is this as the MPAA unfairly letter suggests, an attempt to stop someone from illegally distributing copyrighted material? If it's the former, I think it's bullshit. If it's the latter, then, well... I'm not sure this the kind of test case I want to see setting precedent for BitTorrent's future or reputation.
Remember, copyright law, as flawed as it is (in terms of duration and other areas), is what currently gives the GPL its teeth.
I don't think the bittorrent site is distributing copyrighted material unless you claim that someone has a copyright on the torrent's themselves
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
That's a post with spot on truth but will get modded down by a Slashbot who thinks stealing is legal.
Alleged criminals.
He's certainly a potential juror, anyway. Or do you think they don't count, any more? I think OJ would say otherwise.
If you'd bother to read my original post, my hippies remark was targeted at those who used the site. You then said "What does hippies have to do this" so I said "I meant criminals" which leads us to here.
Now, I know that it may be sacreligious to say this here, but doesn't the MPAA have a point?
.torrents, indeed, point to copies of the files, and I don't think that that's illegal. But, the .torrents do have something else that is (probably) illegal: a derived work of the movie. The .torrents contain hashes of the encoded version of the movie. Regardless of whether the movie can be reconstructed from the hashes or not (and if it's a good hash, it can't be), a derived work is a derived work. If we allow violation of their copyright to take place in this form, we might as well say "Go ahead and steal the Linux kernel - as long as you compile it, it's OK." Is that what we want to be saying?
These
This is how copyright law works (I think). Or am I totally off base?
joshua
All the sudden they want to stand up for our rights? Why didn't they do so when MS contacted them and demanded they stop tracking MS related torrents?
Any and all Microsoft software and XBOX games are "banned" from the site. Check their upload page.
http://www.lokitorrent.com/torrents-upload.php
The fact that they've raised so much money I think will help them in their case. Why? It shows that what they're doing can be seen as a fight for freedom, whether it is or not. The donations show that people are willing to pay money, but the quality of films (and music?) is not worth paying for.
Of course, on the other hand, the MPAA can say "You fools, if you had money you should have bought the films and saved the legal expense!".
I'm sure that this case will be followed very closely by the Slashdot crowd (and definitely me). I'm really interested to see how this will turn out.
- dshaw
P.S.: Bold of them to keep the site online during the issues...
And you still don't make any sense at all....
I have never used bittorent but as far as I understand, the sites only hosts the torrent file and no contents, so you can continue to explain why that is illegal...
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Distributing copyrighted materials without a license is not a criminal offense. It is a violation of a civil right that gives rise to a civil cause of action. And, as others have pointed out, these sites are not distributing copyrighted content, but links to information detailing ways to obtain copyrighted content, subtle difference, but nothing worse than what Grokster is doing and that has already been ruled not to be contributory infringement.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
1. Create a torrent+tracker site 2. Get a C&D from MPAA 3. Post request for legal aid to slashdot 4. Get far in excess of what you need to settle 5. Settle on the side for far less than you received 6. Profit!!!
I don't make any sense? No, you're reading wrong. I didn't say the site was doing anything illegal. I said the users were.
"Anywho, someone enlighten me on a legal strategy"'
I think the more important point is that LokiTorrent should be the proverbial "Putting one's money, were one's mouth is". There's been a certain group here who's been complaining about how they believe in principle this, and principle that. And how no one will listen, and they were Robin Hood in a previous life. In other words "Put up, or Shut up".*
*Yes mod to (-1) Troll, but I'll still be right down their, as well as up here.
they're up to $9940 (or 33%) now according to their site.
The only possible legal avenue is the fact that they are only providing means to access copyrighted material and not the material itself. INAL, but but that could possibly be considered illegal under the DMCA. I know IP is diffrent, but its like providing a key to a car someone else is going to steal. Generally that would make you an accomplice.
I think bittorrent(as well as other P2P) has the power to subvert the coporate hold on media and provide an avenue for indie media to get thier art out in the public space. But its been given a bad name when its used in copyright infringment.
Im not exactly a fan of the MPAA or DMCA but I dont think copyright infringment is the way to change the landscape of art. It sends the wrong message.
[plug]
You can help give bittorrent a better name by clicking the link in my sig.
[/plug]
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
Jury?
Only if the site in question is located in the US. Other countries don't drag in jury-people for things like this. Another flaw in the antiquated judicial system here in the US.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Why sue the index? Going after the actual credit card thief would be more effective, and having an index on which they can be found actually helps track them down.
Driving them underground and making them harder to find would be several distinct varieties of stupid.
What proof this is not a Niggerian who told Loki how to make some major bucks quickly then disapear ?
.PDF format.
Show the legal papers and everything scanned in
Some users are, just because the MPAA claims copyright over something doesn't totally validate their copyright. If I tape a movie or television show off of broadcast TV and redistribute it without profitting from it, in many countries that's perfectly legal.
And, as others have pointed out, these sites are not distributing copyrighted content, but links to information detailing ways to obtain copyrighted content, subtle difference.
1. What jurisdiction did the court have that made this decision?
2. Isn't this extremely close to what Napster 1.0 was doing?
Well lets see.. Distributing copyrighted material without permission, for starters.
I don't know everything about LokiTorrent but if they are like other tracker sites, explain to me how they distribute the copyrighted material first hand? The point here is not the pirating - it is shutting down services that have legitimate uses simply because a huge organization of corporations is threatened by it.
The individuals who knowingly give away copyrighted material to unlicensed recipients are the "damned hippies" or damned criminals. The tracker sites that provide a way for a legitimate p2p network to operate are not.
"This is Zombo Com, and welcome to you who have come to Zombo Com" - www.zombo.com
What kind of "sanctions" can they bring against lokitorrent for destroying evidence? (Oohhh no, we, the MPAA, refuse to sell you DVDs! HAHA, take that, lokitorrent!)
IAAL, and darned proud of the modern justice system...
1. Everyone accused of anything in court has a right to defend themselves and make the accuser prove it. This system protects every other right you have.
2. The folks at LokiTorrent want to exercise that right. In order to do so they need financial assistancec.
3. We all benefit from NOT having a system whereby a well funded organization cannot assume it will win because it can afford lawyers, a system where the big money always wins.
4. Ergo we all benefit from LokiTorrent exercisisng its rights. Why then should we not help them out if we are able?
All your base are imagining an ad-hoc beowulf cluster of old korean overlords welcoming YOU!
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
On the left side of their site you can see:
To All Commercial Software Companies If you are the author of some commercial software that was posted on this site and want it removed Please click here for easy directions on how to get it removed only after reading our Terms and Conditions. Anyone who posts a torrent listed in the banned torrents list (located on the upload page) will be banned forever from this site without warning
Have they always had this, or are they trying to appease the MPAA?
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
So that is irrelevant in Copyright infringement cases such as this.
Sure they blurred the printed name in the pictureg e=lawsuit 5mg.jpg
http://img68.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img68&ima
but look at the signature and tell me its not him.
You said:
So now you're paying to keep an illegal site online?
And then you said:
I didn't say the site was doing anything illegal.
So which bit is illegal?
It was the 9th Circuit and, if the Supreme Court sticks to its prior jurisprudence it will uphold the decision. As for Napster 1.0, they had means to discontinue user accounts when they became aware of infringing content. If these sites allow anonymous posting or find a way to distribute the data store they can avoid the very narrow A&M v. Napster holding.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
It's worth standing up and fighting it, if you have legitimate purposes behind your software. Identified copyrighted material should obviously be taken down. What would you say if they showed up to taken down all of the PoP's for your local ISP's. Obviously, they are facilitating copyright infringement. They are willfully participating in it. What would you say if they started taking computers away? What would you say if they started taking away copy machines? They are targetting a particular type of software that has highly legitmate uses. I think someone should stand up and get a court case to establish what the boundaries are for what a copyright holder can accomplish against someone whom they feel is infringing. It'd be wonderful to establish boundaries. The MPAA as far as I personally know, hasn't done the willfully stupid things that the RIAA has (recently at least, Jack Valentti was an idiot about technology as nearly as I can tell).
It is appearent that some of these sites need to have fairly stringent policies about posting copyrighted material. LokiTorrent might be one that has nothing to do but distribute copyright material. However, I'd guess that there are Torrent sites out there that act as seeds/mirrors/whatever they are called in the lingo, for legitimate purposes. If Loki feels it is one of those, they should stand up and fight for themselves. Bully for them. If they aren't, I hope they get smacked around legally before any really stupid legal precedence get set. A quick perusal of their site leads me to believe, they are an obvious copyright infringer and the MPAA has a legitimate beef. At least the MPAA appears to be targetting the proper people, unlike the RIAA.
Kirby
2600.com had a similar case where they were ordered not to link to any site that had decss. Never mind the fact that google and pletny of other sites did and still do.
They lost the case.
Over all, what can **IA do about ultimately? I would fall on a free press defense. They don't hold the files, or even parts of the files. They 'Report' on where they are and that's sort of news.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
"I suppose one could make the argument that the fact that Lokitorrent is a tracker makes them very much different, but since Trackers only facilitate the exchange of information [they don't actually contain any pieces of any of the infringing works themselves], it's difficult to sue *them* for copyright infringement (since they aren't distributing or in illegal possession of any of these copyrighted works)."
Psst, Leshan. Here's some insider trading information. I'm not actually taking any money from anyone. I'm just passing along some information I thought you should hear.
I believe our judicial system should be a factor of government, and not economy.
Currently, if you have an unlimited budget you are usually on higher ground in the legal world, you can hire better lawyers, drag the case out longer, and generally spend your opponent to their bankruptcy if you chose to.
Why is this?
All your base are belong to Google.
"Distributing copyrighted materials without a license is not a criminal offense. It is a violation of a civil right that gives rise to a civil cause of action."
It carries both civil and criminal penalties. Here's where one can learn about criminal copyright infringement.
"And, as others have pointed out, these sites are not distributing copyrighted content, but links to information detailing ways to obtain copyrighted content, subtle difference, but nothing worse than what Grokster is doing and that has already been ruled not to be contributory infringement."
The thing about the law is that those subtle differences can make all the difference. "A is kind of like B, so if A is legal/illegal, so must B" should not be assumed to be true. Torrents are derived from the works in question; they contain hashes of the file and other data. They're more than just an HTML link.
Either way, a quick look at their torrent page makes it pretty darn obvious they know what they're doing. Compare their operation to one of the dozens of legitimate sites like legaltorrents.com.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
You mean letting the people be the ultimate deciders ?
If both sides of a case feel that a jury is not needed they don't use one, but in the USA we decided that a judge does not have the power to decide a case where there is any disputed facts. This way a rebel judge cannot silence someone unchecked.
If there are no disputed facts (guilty plea or the plaintif after presenting their case has noted nothing that would count for the applicable law, or noone tells a different accounting of events) or both parties agree to allow a judge to act as a finder of facts (one of our largest anti-trust cases ever for example) then a judge can make a desicion (either summery judgement, dismiss a case, find the facts ect.)
How is a system that garentees the right to have a consensus of independant people be deamed inferior to one that lets an employee of the state make the choice?
IANAL but I have sat in on around a dozen cases (all civil) of variing sizes to be decied by jury or judge, and this is how I understand it to work.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Why not just contact these guys for legal counsel. Apparently they are a sucker for hopeless legal causes and will work for a sliding scale of percentages of any settlement when suing multi-billion dollar adversaries if your own funds don't quite cover the costs...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Yeah, there are only 15 or so major bittorrent warez/movies distribution sites left.
Unlike SuprNova, Loki's registration required a valid email address. I know they have one of the gmail accounts I use. I hope they will at least be kind and purge their logs before they get raided.
Is this a serious abridgement of your right to free speech? You betcha. But so far they're getting away with it.
Doesn't this seem just a little suspicious to ANYONE? They were already collecting donations BEFORE they were 'sued', just in CASE they were to get sued. And then, a few days after they put up the PayPal bar, like magic, it suddenly happens. (Yes, I've seen the 'legal paper', gee, it's not like that could be easily forged or anything.)
Consider this scenario: Donations reach a certain point, less than $30k, where it doesn't look like they'll increase anymore, then the admin runs off with a nice chunk of pocket money, whining 'my users didn't support us enough! It's all their fault!'
I'm not saying I'm certain it's a fraud, but I'm sceptical. I'll believe it when it's reported on by a major news agency, complete with quotes from the MPAA.
~ Aero
BT is a protocol, a way of communicating. You can distribute any files via BT. There are plenty of legal uses.
I believe one of the largest legal trackers is bt.etree.org. A wonderful way to get great, live, legal lossless music for free.
(I use legal tracker in a loose sense.)
post links because I am getting angered by having my favorite site go downn
Um, you are doing the same thing they are dumbass, pointing people to where they can get copyrighted materials. Lets hope the MPAA comes after you next.
Maybe they're going to raise the $30K and then roll over and die.
I wouldn't mind going out with some cash.
The parent has hit the nail on the head.
In the 2600 case, the court effectively ruled that linking to something illegal is illegal. In a way, like the Bush doctrine (ie "if you harbor a terrorist, you are a terrorist"). Under this ruling, places like Google and Yahoo are conceivably liable for what you can find on them (warez, child porn, etc), however as yet, they have not been taken to court over such large things... just small issues here and there.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Are there any good sites out there similar to SuprNova, but which have *legal*, or at least not-quite-so-blatantly-infringing torrents?
For example, I found the recent Jon Stewart on CNN video via SuprNova. That's a bit different than, say, downloading every Daily Show. There are also lots of just plain interesting video clips and entire out-of-copyright or otherwise unprotected movies that are simply hard to find.
Any suggestions?
Torrents are not "derivative works" under the definition of copyright because they are not "works." Works include:
17 U.S.C. 102(a).A Cliff's Note is a derivative work. A card in a library's card catalog telling how many pages are in a book, etc. is not a derivative work. A torrent file is much more like a library card than a Cliff's Note. As for criminal copyright violation, that requires willful violation which can be very difficult to prove, especially when the violation may occur before the site owner knows that they may be facilitating a violation.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
Thanks for the info =)
http://www.amazon.com/ is collecting donations for Red Cross Disaster Relief.
Hosting Half Life? Nah, sorry... I can't support this. I have nothing against bittorrent, I use it to download OSS all the time. But they are supporting pirates, and MAYBE profiting from it through advertisements.
Weren't we just discussing a guy earlier today that had a hard time getting a site off the net that was linking to illegal downloads of his software? The MPAA is not being a bad guy just because they are taking similar stepps to his to protect their content.
So what it really comes down to is: Do they have a right to link to illegal downloads, even though they aren't hosting themselves? Technically no... But how many things do we know of that aren't technically illegal, but are still unjust?
This is one of those grey areas of the law that does need to be clearly defined. If the purpose of said link is clearly to facilitate piracy; then yes, it should not be legal.
I would rather they make such things that have a clear and visible intent of piracy illegal than to make things like file sharing and bittorrent illegal all together. Bittorrent has legitimate purposes, linking to a spiderman 2 download has only 1 purpose.
If they were hosting a DeCSS gallary I'd support them.
...You could make the argument that since Google indexes everything and since they know people distribute infringing materials on the web, they are knowingly linking to infringing materials themselves.
Here are some I found: http://www.legaltorrents.com/ http://www.filesoup.com/ http://bt.etree.org/
"It is appearent that some of these sites need to have fairly stringent policies about posting copyrighted material."
Many, many of them do. Check out legaltorrents.com. That's the way to run a torrent site. Sites like these -- that show that BitTorrent can be used in a way that respects both creator and consumer -- aren't the ones that are being menanced by the MPAA.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
There's something really weird in the FAQ. In the part that tells copyright owners what to do if material that they own is being traded and they want the post removed, they say:
I sympathize with their desire to get people to talk to them first, in a civil tone, before sending take-down notices to their ISPs, but this is perfect nonsense. Reading the FAQ doesn't bind anybody to anything. This is the kind of garbage we expect from Microsoft. What is it doing on a torrent site?1) Start a torrent sharing site
2) After a few months, close it
3) Scan a false letter that sues you
4) Ask for donations
5) ???????
6) Profit!
You just told me that if I want those files I can find links to them over there. You have now committed contributory infringement
If you want some extra cash, there's a bunch in the register at the Circle K.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
But with all the lawsuits occuring, I have an itch to become a lawyer. In the USA, more and more as time progresses, Everything is being solved with lawsuits, or the class action variety. Shit, in the next few years, it'll probably be the highest grossing profession. I hate to sell out, but finding IT work is getting harder and harder.
You're correct; I was not using "dervied" in the legal sense. I will choose my words more carefully next time.
"As for criminal copyright violation, that requires willful violation which can be very difficult to prove, especially when the violation may occur before the site owner knows that they may be facilitating a violation."
True. In this case, however, it's pretty obvious that they know what's going on. Check out the torrents page and take a look at the most popular torrents. They'll have to convince people that they had no clue that these might be copyrighted files, and that they lack the technical expertise to take them off the site. They're liable to be laughed out of court.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Not only that, but he republished someone else's content without permission.
On that note, when you post "copyright infringer!", don't you feel like you've swung over to the dark side?
Kudos to Lokitorrent! It's nice to see at least someone has the guts to stand up to this nonsense.
I will also point out that it's probably in your best interest to donate to their fund. This case will set a precendent regarding the key concepts of bitorrent and whether or not certain things contribute to copyright infringement.
There are other ways to actually fight the MPAA and RIAA, including those silly lawsuits against children and grandmothers which get "settled" for $2,000. The single best way is to introduce filesharing to as many people as possible. Get it widespread as possible. Get people aware of it, and used to it. Since Congress has been bought off by the big companies, Cival Disobediance is the only recourse to the stupid, inane copyright laws which are on the books.
Give us laws which are reasonable, please. The current crop have gone way beyond reasonable, and in some cases, stifle creativity.
Once people see how easy it is to download lots of their favorite music, movies and TV shows, they'll never go back.
My personal breakeven point is 2000 songs. With the RIAA's "settlement" fees, that's the same price as I could get things for on iTunes. And any more songs than that undercuts the iTunes price. One ought to be able to that within a month easily. Just start several bittorrents before you go to bed, and you'll have your CD's/DVD's ready when you wake up.
I checked their site. MPAA movie torrents are hosted there.
Been through this already. They don't have the right to be the middle man for this type of activity. They're the digitial equivalent of a middleman. They point people in the correct direction for illegal material.
Hey, Loki if you don't like the law, change it. Feeling the need to promote copying of crappy hollywood movies is not that inspiring to the "cause".
I hope not only that Loki loses the court battle but that the supporters realize that the "pledged money" would probably be better spent buying movies or taking your spouse, girl/boy friend, friends, kids out for ice cream or something.
Instead of pledging your money to strangers who are just helping the bottom feeders of the arts why not do something constructive with it.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Dear Operator of lokitorrent.com
We don't know why we call you Dear because we are ready to ruin your life.
We are counsel to the Motion.... lot of big names to try to scary you off.
We still don't know who you are after our first failled advisory(too bad it did'nt work) so we will be refering to you by the only IPs we have been able to find. We will sue you for real as soon you tell me your names.
In the interim, we demand that you stop doing what we don't want to do(online distribution), even if it's what the people want and that they are ready to pay us to do it.
We also request if you are some big idiots that you make the most evidences that you can to put you in some serious troubles and log it if you can. Faillure to maintain this evidence could result in severe sanction even if we don't tell you why, because we don't know either.
Because this is about defending the right to say "There's a guy over there in that place illegally distributing software", not about getting access to said software.
I know of someone who did time for a similar situation. Short version - When asked, she answered "I don't sell drugs, the guy in that apartment over there is the one selling crack." That is when she found out the skinny guy with a crack pipe was an undercover policeman, and pointing out that apartment as a source made her an accessory/accomplice(?).
Possibly a case of entrapment, and a better lawyer than hers could probably clarify a lot of the issues involved, but I believe this demonstrates a parallel as far as Free Speech is concerned.
I realise that others already had a project in gear to build something like this right into BitTorrent; however, we already have something up and running that can do the job.
sue google for providing links to warez/mp3 site
o...they won't since google are way richer than those torrent tracker hosts
I am harvesting funny/good quotes. Please help by putting them in your sigs
Well there's IRC, 0-day FTP sites, 0-day hacked webservers, Kazaa, eDonkey / Kad network, yahoo groups, gmail accounts, hotmail accounts and binary newsgroups for a start...
That makes it an entirely different ballgame in my book; while I found the RIAAs actions to be particulary loathesome, even if they did have the legal upperhand, the MPAA is being much better behaved. Sure Suprnova, LokiTorrent, et al may have carried the odd Linux ISO in their time, but the majority of their Torrents are for commercial apps, music, movies and TV shows. Last I checked, without explicit permission, the distribution of any of those was copyright infringement, which is a civil crime. What would be interesting would be the reaction to a site deleting all of its dodgy torrents and leaving just the truly free stuff before the nastygram arrives. Until we see that, or someone like LinuxISO.org getting sued, the MPAA is entirely within its rights as far as I am concerned.
Not that I think either the RIAA or the MPAA is going to have any more luck in their endeavors than the BSA did with cracking down on the Warez sites back in the day. Still, having clamped down on the MP3 sites, at least the RIAA somewhat reluctantly got behind legitimate alternatives like iTunes, the revived Napster and so on. Hopefully the MPAA will do the same PDQ; a subscription or per-view based system where I can get the latest TV episodes over P2P would be something I'd *seriously* consider.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
People....
... "...MPAA members studios' copyrighted works..." They never said to shut down all of the torrents or even the site. People who pledge money are just retarded.
Read the C&D letter. They are VERY SPECIFIC as to what their gripe is
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The US Constitution says, IIRC, that any civil case with $20 or more at stake is entitled to trial by jury...
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
> What if you created a big listing of everyone in your town, and asked people to come to you if they wanted information on anyone's profession?
>Hundreds of times a day, you'd get questions like, "Where can I find flowers?", and you'd say, "Mary, Beth, Suzie, etc".
>Suppose ten people ask, "Where can I find drugs?", and you give out the names?
>Are you doing something illegal *then*?
>> Yes.
So Google, then?
I can't even find recent Simpsons or Arrested Development episodes there! You'd think after suprnova shut down people would be migrating there, but the lack of updated content is the real problem!
He didn't republish anybody's content, at least not in a manner which could be construed as copyright infringement. I am not sure of the exact wording, but for literary works a substantial amount of content must be copied word for word to be considered plaigarism. A "substantial amount" is, unfortunately, not defined. I don't think any reasonable person would say that the five lines of text taken from LokiTorrent.com would constitute any kind of infringement. Nice try, though.
Because you are making the mistake of thinking that anyone who uses BitTorrent is a filthy leecher who just wants to get something for nothing. That isn't remotely the case. I know plenty of people who have bought DVDs of movies they liked after they downloaded them.
OK, what AOL could do (which they are not doing now) is monitor a supposedly private communication using a facility which is not a "common carrier". This would be legally equivalent to someone listening to you talk on an elevator. No expectation of privacy. So, I don't think you could even say they are violating your privacy.
You better believe they are going to continue to "get away" with it. Don't be silly.
It's been a long time since my college philosophy course, but your position is a fallacy. It does great harm to focus on a single problem, or even a single category.
For instance, does the suffering in Thailand justify ignoring the people in Florida still struggling to recover from those storms? Or the people in California and Arizona who have just been hit with record rainfall?
Does the suffering in Florida justify ignoring the homeless in my own town?
Should the suffering of the homeless justify ignoring the poor (financially), scared local women needing medical care? (Planned Parenthood performs abortions, but it's also the only medical resource for many women.)
The list goes on and on. Helping the local animal shelter or helping to stop the corporatization of American civil life might seem "less important" than helping these victims, but that doesn't mean they should be ignored entirely until there's nothing more pressing.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I mean the MPAA will probably go after all the donors to the legal fund too.
AOL already logs all IM conversations. These logs are available to US law enforcement on request (i.e. without a court order).
Use OTR and encourage your friends to do the same:
http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/
Did anyone ask Lokitorrent to remove a link? What was the answer?
Let's face it, for personal uses, most people don't need more than a 20GB harddrive for installing an OS, word processor, browser, etc. When will the MPAA/RIAA start going after Western Digital and Maxtor for creating 300GB hard drives where they specifically target the people that want to store massive amounts of music and video???s .asp?DriveID=42
This page on Western Digital's site says that their products are great for file servers.
7 674351&skuId=6843552&productCategoryId=pcmcat33200 050002&type=product
This page on Best Buy's site advertises an external Maxtor harddrive that reads as follows:
"Holds up to 21 hours of DV video, 230,000 digital photos (JPEG-normal) or 5,000 hours of high-quality MP3 digital music"
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Product
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=109346
Face it, how many people are going to use this kind of storage for legal personal use? What about these USB pendrives and DVD+/-RW drives?
That the name is actually Loke and not Loki?
Wait. I don't know LokiTorrents at all, but I'm assuming that it's probably a site with lists to get stuff for free, both legally and illegally. Mostly the latter, a reason the MPAA is after their ass.
So... If these people can afford to donate money to this site, then why the hell can they just go out and buy the stuff they are purportedly downloading illegally?
Rent it, even.
The basic argument that they are only providing access or links is not entirely a weak argument. There is already case precedent with the Grokster vs RIAA case that Kazaa or whatever can not be held responsible for the actions of its users. If they show that they offer disclaimers and show that there site exists on other reasons as to distribute OSS or Linux or whatever they may get a ruling in there favor. Plus this case based on the letter looks like will be filed in Texas. Not the *AA controlled ninth circuit. It will be a tough case but hey no one knows until they try. they will have fresh judges and maybe they will side with the rights of the user. I think they maybe able to say that people are downloading because they are trying to obtain an archival copy. Since we cant legally copy them to backup why cant we download and get a backup. The user is entitled to that. And Bit torrent is designed to share until you finish the download unless you host the tracker. Bit torrent wasn't intended to be a infringing network. I think some one should stand up just to keep the **AA. If we don't do anything they will just role all over things. Realistically i think there chances are slim to none. But there are arguments to make and case precedent that does side with them a little.
Let's hope this doesn't affect http://www.mufftorrent.com/...
hosting .torrent files is in no way illegal and therefor neither is lokitorrent, we are glad to see Lowkee standing up for torrent sites everywhere that are crumbling due to the MPAA interference, we[radiofusion.org] will be helping Loki with the donation drive as well, don't let the MPAA take down another great site.
ImagePut - Free, Simple, Fast Image Hosting
Man, you are higher than I am if you mod that post insightful, it most certainly wasn't a troll, but the equality sign throws the whole thing off.
:P.
Spend your points on someone who doesn't accidentally hit the submit button so quickly
If you are stingy and/or broke it might help if you click on the ads on lokitorrent's site. If they get paid per click every little should help.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
the people that are pledging money aren't doing it soley for the torrents, its a wonderful community that no one wants to see die.
ImagePut - Free, Simple, Fast Image Hosting
They will not get a dime from me, and this has nothing to do with my rights.
I always think it's funny when sites designed to help people get around paying for things start whining for money. If you'll donate to a pirate site - if you have the money to waste donating to a pirate site - but won't pay the legitimate creators (or donate any amount to them, ever), you have one seriously messed up set of ethics.
How is this ironic? The guy wants a free ipod. How is that even remotely related to his suggestion to donate to the disaster relief fund?
Personally, I think it's pretty lame to berate someone for suggesting everyone help out because of his sig.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
desitorrents and torrentreactor are also down.
If LokiTorrent is getting donations from individuals to support their legal team, is there any way that the MPAA can ask for that list of individuals in the discovery phase of the trial?
If so, does that open the individuals who support LokiTorrent to potential legal action from the MPAA? For example, the MPAA gets the list of supporters and IP addresses... or that information is then passes to the feds who use a wiretap to watch their behavior as it relates to piracy?
Dangerous link as sibling post has already warned.
Why don't they ask if someone is ready to take the case in justice for them ?
There are so many here hammering the "it's illegal - it's piracy - " meme injection that I strongly suspect the MPAA has hired astroturfing agents to dominate the thread. Holy Scientology, Batman.
Answers for their contentions, all at once:
It's not "piracy"; it's copying without permission. If you sell copied films, then you're a pirate.
Copying without permission wasn't a criminal matter until the content producers bought such laws. It was a civil matter, and conviction required evidence of monetary loss on the complaintant's part.
Copyright was a compromise in U.S. law. One faction in the constitutional convention wanted NO copyrights, another was more of the current IP ilk's way of thinking. Compromise: copyrights were to exist for a limited time, to get the best of both worlds -- enticement to produce new works, and the graduation to public domain of old works for the common good.
With the Sonny Bono Law, the deal was destroyed. No compromise. Copyright for life of author plus 75 years for an author, a HUNDRED years for a corporation. And no guarantee at all that future congresses would keep extending the terms for ever and ever and ever...
The deal is over. And we didn't break it, the "intellectual property owners" broke it - savagely, permanently. Now works are owned for all time. No public good. Just private. No derivative works allowed. And corporate "owners" can use their profits to buy larger and larger blocks of "property" indefinitely. We may see a small handful of chummy corporations eventually owning all the published works of mankind - science, art, literature -- everything.
The law broke the deal. The corporations wanted anarchy. They got it. They have guns on their side. The Scientologists are peeing themselves with glee.
What we have here is more than downloading copies of movies or music. If copyright lasted only 20 years, I would honestly be fighting alongside the owners so that they could make a profit from their works. That is, if the artists actually owned the copyrights, rather than the corporations they signed rights over to.
But this is not what copyrights is about. It isn't about property. That's a 20th century legal fiction. Music and images are not "property"; items are property. Copyright was about licensing copies.
Fair Use law mandated that the public could copy even without paying, within limits. THAT'S out the window. If it's illegal to break encryption, you can't copy within those rights.
I will not accept the shutdown of the Constitution's purpose of copyright. I will not accept the death of Fair Use. I will not countenance the elimination of the Deal. I will not watch the works of man fall under the eternal control of immortal corporations. Science and art as we know it cannot survive the imprisonment-with-conditional parole of human endeavor. If copying files annoys them and shakes their control, then let it be so. I want this regime of control shaken and stirred until such day we can install real limits on copyright once more.
It seems to me that if they want to fight this, they should ask the EFF for some assistance. I feel more comfortable giving money to the EFF who is better equipped to fight a battle like this.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The same hash can be calculated via a systematic method from an infinite number of other byte sequences of various lengths.
Can you show us one of those byte sequences?
Remember that the standard of proof in a civil case is a mere preponderance of evidence, which is legalese for 51 percent certainty. Until somebody finds a weakness in a particular digest algorithm, such as the weakness found in MD5, it's doubtful that you'll be able to compute any of a countable infinity of uncopyrighted strings that result in a particular digest value.
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that people will donate money to help their favorite website that hosts .torrent files to illegal material, but won't pay for the material itself...??
Cmdr.Taco must have doubled the crack allotment for the mods today for that to get slammed down like that, should be ~3-4 Funny or so.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Go to a local bar, grab a drink, and enjoy some music.
A lot of the people in the United States downloading files through BitTorrent are too young to enter any bar in the United States.
I just took a quick look at what they list...and didn't see anything legit. Why would I want to even consider sending them money?
You're right, the MPAA won't go after them, the RIAA will. Trust me, the RIAA will find something illegal about it.
Okay, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get something here. The last three movies I went to see in the theater over the past few years are the Lord of the Rings movies (yes, I even skipped Attack of the Clones). Granted, (and this is purely my opinion) there are a (very) few other decent movies out there, but why on earth are people going to all the trouble and risk of pirating them? I mean come on, the vast majority of Hollywood's annual releases for the past few years have been complete garbage. Not only wouldn't I pirate them, I wouldn't even tape or otherwise capture them when they showed on cable! This raises another point: if people are pirating movies, I have to assume that they aren't filling their hard drives ad infinitum with them, but are either watching and deleting them or are burning them to CD or DVD. You know, if a movie is too sucky to buy or rent but is worth keeping for that one time in your life that you might feel like watching it (like on those Sunday nights at 1am when it's either that sucky movie or what stands for TV fare), a WinTV capture card does wonders. Don't these people have cable or satellite? It might not be letterbox, but we are talking about unmitigated garbage, after all. Warning to Hollywood: I, for one, have stopped attending and renting your movies (unless Peter Jackson makes The Hobbit, for which I shall make it the sole exception -- and I thank God that LotR wasn't made in California). As far as I'm concerned, nothing else I've seen for many years now has been worth my eight bucks, and I'm no longer interested in sending good money after bad. I no longer have any confidence in you when it comes to contributing to our culture and I've started creating my own (one 600-page book writen, several more to go).
Don't be fooled, they'll easily accept our donations and shut down in accordance to the MPAA's request. That's Loki.
I only know the tiniest bit about the way the whole torrent system works. So, this may be ignorant as hell, apologies if so, or if it's already been said (I didn't see it).
Why hasn't anyone created a freenet-like system for p2p-ing the torrent links? Making a system which could be queried without easily revealing who is querying, could be persistent by publishing/keeping alive highly requested link destinations (making more servers know where those are), etc. (And my reference to freenet isn't meant to suggest this should be like that, freenet isn't for searching, only that you'd have the same basic security goals. I always thought it could be neat if you could take something like freenet as a medium for shared access to a resource, like a read-only distributed database (which could be periodically updated), etc.)
Anyway, there probably is already something like this for bit torrent...
Don't vote for Eugene Papansanovich for Congress!
Defend freedom or help tsunami victims.
Damn choices.
People wont pay for movies and music, but they will donate money to LAWYERS so they can do ... whatever satanic things lawyers do... while they rip off movies and music.
Hahahahahahhahaha AWESOME!
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Why? Again, why?
I don't understand. Seriously.
If something CAN be used illegally, I am responsible that it is not?
Ok, so, I decide to go into the steak knife business. Do I have to go to everyone's house and ensure that they don't stab someone with it?
And I don't get the argument that "you can assume some people will do illegal things"... I assume that if I make steak knives, someone, somewhere is going to stab someone. So, now, I am responsible?
Where and HOW do we draw the line?
. . . they could get someone to take the case pro Bono . . . wait, that doesn't sound right!
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
I can grow a tree and pick my own food.
Not necessarily. Local authorities with guns can tell you to stop farming on your land, citing zoning regulations.
I can collect rain water.
Not necessarily. In Colorado, authorities with guns can tell you to enforce the rights of downstream property owners to receive the rainwater in the form of river water.
I can stand on a street corner and yell at the top of my voice.
Not necessarily. Local authorities with guns can enforce a noise ordinance.
I can pick up a rock and throw it.
Not necessarily. Guns beat rocks.
"Copywritten" appears to have something to do with writing the text of advertisements, which also happens to be copyrighted. But in the general case, anybody who habitually uses "copywritten" to mean "subject to copyright with all rights reserved" probably knows little about copyright law.
your example shows absolutely no understanding of the law, and i'm willing to bet you made it up. it's a nice urban legend, i wish you luck in getting it on Snopes.
Lokitorrent actually has a good argument:
The courts in the US ruled that p2p software makers were not responsible for what went on with their software, that included the networks themselves. I took this to mean that even though kazaa may have had something illegal on it, they can't be held responsible for what their users do with it, i.e. transfer that illegal item.
That means to me anything within that program is protected under that ruling and the program can continue to exist and operate. BT is just another program and the tracker should be protected by that ruling. The tracker is like the server, and the server cannot be held responsible for the actions of their users.
If the tracker was simply a page similar to say an emule search where you could search ofr keywords and grab whatever torrent you want.. would this not fall under that ruling? THe mpaa would have to start tyring to sue individual users?
with the bittorrents and other P2P softwares being sued, a lot others are popping up too. recently i saw www.warezclient.com advertising thier 'Kazaa like' P2P software...
pick your battles.
Who cares about lokitorrent? We'll always have alternate torrent sites like pirate bay.
http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/
If some random BitTorrent site just out of the blew put up links to donate money and produced a letter from the MPAA threatening a lawsuit, then yes you might be justified in calling BS.
However, consider that in the last month the MPAA has succeeded in suing/shutting down just about every other major BitTorrent site on the net, and this becomes quite believable. Regarding your "major news agency" those actions was reported on by several.
For both sides this time.
On LokiTorrent and it's community's behalf, they seem to actually be standing up for themselves, which at least hints at a sense of them sincerely thinking there is legitimacy in what thay are doing. I disagree with them on their apparent stance in defending distribution of copyrighted works, but they seem to be playing by the rules in trying to stand up and defend and believe in what they do. Other sites just kind of rolled over, pretty much acknowledging that they were illegitimate and were just going until they get called on it. Ok, maybe that is a tad harsh as the cost of defending oneself is unwieldy, but it is at least the impression given.
On MPAA's behalf, this is probably one of the more sane ways of going against copyright infringement, *if* I'm understanding the cease and desist right. Seems they are only requesting removal of copyrighted material torrents, not shutdown of the site. Certainly not dismantling of BitTorrent technology. Of course, this is a *very* specific circumstance, and on other fronts they push for more fair-use violations in the name of protecting IP (DRM, attempts to essentially destroy/outlaw good technologies with fair use applications). This is about as fair and 'nice' as these companies have played to date (only other major thing which might have been construed as 'fair' was certainly not nice, the RIAA pursuing individual file sharer's seeking actual monetary damages). One can nitpick about whether distributing mere torrents is 'technically' violating copyright, but rather a sort of map to where the actual content is, but these specific torrents are certainly against the spirit of copyright when utilized against the wishes of the copyright holders.
Badmouth the MPAA/RIAA all we want about their price fixing, scamming the artists, overpriced crap, and their attempts to royally screw over technology for their benefit, but we can't meet their wrongs with wrongs of our own. If you think really nasty and slimy people run a store or chain of stores, you shouldn't feel you are then entitled to shoplift. I disagree with their strategies and pricing levels, and I express this via my purchasing decisions. If I think a price is too high for a crappy experience, I decline to pay. My standards for what is justified is highly increased knowing what they want to do to fair use, and I actively seek non MPAA, non RIAA entertainment over MPAA/RIAA content.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The costs on either side have absolutely nothing to do with the provision of balanced justice. Even with the typical blind amorality of a lawyer, surely you must be able to see that the money issue merely distorts the delivery of justice.
It's pretty disgusting how you can proudly proclaim IAAL and in the same breath defend the concept of justice only for those who can afford it.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
1) Keep their trackers on authorized-upload-only mode 2) Play some video games or something, I dunno 3) Not get sued!
You know, there's the thing called "radio". It's how you get to listen to songs for free.
Commercial FM radio is thoroughly owned by Clear Channel Communications and the other major broadcasters, and getting a song added to Clear Channel playlists is cost prohibitive for independent artists and smaller labels. Therefore, all one hears on commercial radio is ads for major label records and ads for other products.
Oh, there's this new-fangled thing called "internet radio" too. It's free too!
No it isn't; you have to lose your allowance to get your parents to upgrade from dial-up to broadband, and you have to be sitting at a computer to listen, as mobile wireless Internet access is still cost prohibitive.
Ok, if it will make you feel any better I will host a mirror of it on my server. Get it here.
i don't find it suspicious that a bittorrent site thought it was going to be sued before they actually were.
come on, really now. they don't have to be psychic.
*cough*
seriously, this guy was trying to be funny, and imho, succedded. And he's right. There aren't any current simpsons or arrested develpment episodes listed.
If bittorrent wasn't such a bandwidth killer, I would probably chip in. But when my customers turn it on to download movies it totally stops everything else from working. None of my other customers can even get a IP from DHCP. This is with just one user. I do everything I can just to block P2P application and tell customer to go to SBC if they want to steal music and movies.
I know my network is totally setup wrong. I should be limiting bandwidth to customers. But I don't have the $1000's to buy the hardware and I don't have the time to figure out IPTables.
The above is not worth reading.
The parent is an idiot. I didn't get any kind of popup in Firefox, not even a blocked popup. IIRC the site the image is hosted on is one of those free web image hosting providers that people usually use to host their forum avatars or signatures.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
enough said
I don't know about you, but I don't have thousands of dollars to spend on movies and software, therefore it would be impossible for movie and software companies to lose thousands of my dollars.
:::cough cough wink wink::: and people get to 'own' :::cough cough wink wink::: DVD's for a short amount of time for a net of 50 cents a pop.
If I go down to the local Chevy dealer and take a new Corvette in the middle of the night, they have lost actual property they could have sold to someone else and I would have an actual Corvette. If because of all their advertising I want a Corvette really bad but can not afford one so I take a picture of the Corvette down at the local dealer, print it out life size, and tape it to a cardboard box I put over my Chevette then they can still sell that Corvette to someone who can afford it, they certainly didn't lose the money I didn't have to spend in the first place, and I don't really have a Corvette.
Just as Chevy sells cars and not licenses to drive Corvette shaped vehicles, when you buy a movie on DVD you are not buying a license to watch that movie. You can't go to a theatre and present your DVD to gain enterence, nor can you present your movie stub at Walmart to pick up a copy on DVD. If your DVD breaks, so does your ability to watch the movie. You buy a DVD with a movie on it, you can sell the DVD with the movie on it. You can even sell the DVD for more than you paid for it, which then not only did you watch the movie for free, you got paid to watch the movie for free, completely legal. Yet if you download some fuzzy, jumpy, blurry copy of that DVD to watch on your 17" monitor with 1" speakers you're a thief, even though nobody has lost anything.
Personally, I subscribe to Netflix. It's easy, affordable, and I can watch movies just as fast as my mailman can drive. But if Netflix didn't exist, I sure as hell wouldn't buy DVD's for 20-30 bucks a pop. I also wouldn't rent from Blockbuster anymore after they sent a collection agency after me over a 10 dollar late fee. I hate going to the movies, I don't want to spend 20 bucks on a small Coke to stare at the back of someone's head while the person next to them explains every part of the movie. If it weren't for Netflix I'm sure I would get my movie fix on HBO and P2P.
In that case, if Kill Bill Vol. 3 were 'Coming next month to HBO...', and I downloaded it tonight, would I be a thief forever, for a few weeks, or not at all? How about this, Kill Bill was on last Thursday but I missed it, am I a thief if I download it off the net?
What really pisses me off is that Hollywood makes so much damn money off every piece of crap they put out yet they aren't content so they spend millions suing people.
If you really want to stick it to the MPAA, instead of file trading you should be DVD trading with everyone in your family, office, and neighborhood.
Or how about this, open used DVD stores across America, where you sell DVD's for 20 bucks and buy them back for $19.50. Completely legal, the store makes 50 cents on every 'sale'
we didn't pay for it then, why should we pay for it now?
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
I nominate you to be the defending lawyer for Lowkee .
Not to forget the vulgar CD-R.
Just a few things I want to note:
1. Apparently people has established the notion that Lokitorrent is already "illegal" even before any sort of court ruling. If you are going to argue about this issue with regards to the law behind it, at least do so after there has been any sort of decision, instead of proclaiming that LokiTorrent is illegal before any court ruling.
I don't like to muddle the boundary between law and ethics. LokiTorrent is NOT illegal. Not until the court says so. What happened to innocent until proven gilty?
2. I personally don't see how this can kill bittorrent; basically people will migrate from "weak" trackers such as LokiTorrent and Suprnova ("weak" because of their location) to "stronger" trackers such as PirateBay. That's basically what's going to happen. And when BT becomes untenable (something which I doubt highly), people will go to completely decentralized networks, and will hasten the development and maturity of such networks (which are still relatively immature atm). I think the main point I am trying to make here is that regardless of what MPAA or RIAA does, P2P will continue to exist. I think MPAA and RIAA are stuck in the past; there are many ways to change their business model (ex. focusing on merchandise instead of the intellectual property) to cooperate with P2P rather then against it. I see that as almost a no-brainer: what's the point of going against them when you'll never completely get rid of them anyway? Sure BT traffic might wane for a few months, but it will eventually go back to what it was very soon... that is, if another P2P protocol hasn't already replaced it then.
Someone in their IRC said they had received over $4,000 since this story had been posted, so I'm sure that will be revised higher.
Over at suprnova.org, they have a message stating that they'll be making an announcement tomorrow, 30 December, at 21:00 GMT. Does anyone have any insight about what it might be? Exeem, perhaps?
For me any claim of plausible deniability would go out the window when you see thay have categories like "Movies - CAM TS" or "Games - Console".
There is no credible reason for having those categories unless you are knowingly intending to help distribute content which you have no right to do. There simply isn't any legitimate content that would make those categories necessary.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
well.. here's an idea... let's all get some free movies now that this has been advertised so well... while it's still unknown whether it is legal or illegal... all this excitement... how can we all stand it? Meanwhile important stuff is going on in the world...
Since when can hippies afford computers? And enough bandwidth to handle 500k users?
Damn rednecks.
Whether or not you personally don't accept it, our legal system isn't based on a Mr. Catbeller's personal opinions. It isn't entirely based on what slave-owners from 200 years ago believed, either. So ranting in such a way is off-topic.
Claiming the conspiracy theory that anybody who disagrees with you is an agent of the RIAA or MPAA is just odd - about on level with wearing tinfoil hats.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
30,000 bounty on the lawyers who wrote the letter. how hard would it be to find someone to take it? why fight in court when we could pay some muslims to blow themselves up or something
If I should be supposed to donate the amount I have spent on DVDs and movie tickets to this legal defense of my freedom, I will have to donate quite a bit.
I guess I had better tighten my belt as freedom is priceless.
It is too bad this is not a lawsuit to have the MPAA disbanded as an evil cabal seeking to destroy the First Amendment.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
However, while the RIAA went after the entire P2P network, despite the legal uses that is could, and to some extent was being put to, the MPAA is just going after copyright infringers. So far at least.
That makes it an entirely different ballgame in my book
Well, my book has a simple explaination: The reason why they are not fighting the entire network is simply that they can't. There is no company behind the bittorrent network they can shut down in order to destroy it.
Hopefully the MPAA will do the same PDQ; a subscription or per-view based system where I can get the latest TV episodes over P2P would be something I'd *seriously* consider.
I would like to kick your ass. But you will have to pay for it. Either a subscription or per-kick based system. Interested ?
It's the one next to the Evil bit. RFC 3514.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Torrents are not derivative works, nor are they copyrighted by the MPAA. Therefore all files actually hosted by lokitorrent are not infringing works.
I know this isn't the issue per se, but the MPAA can't just demand that lokitorrent take down works that do not fall under the aegis of MPAA et al. They need to prove many more things before they have any kind of a case. This will be taken care of in the discovery, but I think that lokitorrent could pull it off.
"It's not "piracy"; it's copying without permission. If you sell copied films, then you're a pirate."
Incorrect, but you're not the first person to try to claim this.
If you're using Firefox, type "dict pirate" or "dict piracy" into the browser bar. You'll see that the relevant meanings refer to copying without permission. No selling is required. There are plenty of folks older than you around here, many of whom were pirating software before you were born. We know what the word means.
Your post otherwise had several very good and accurate points. Drop the "it's only piracy if you sell it" nonsense and you'll have a much better case.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Something I don't understand:why don't these torrent and emule sites just rent servers in Canada or similar P2P friendly countries?
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Well, if that works, then what the hell...
Dear MPAA
By reading this you are hereby granting me full permission to share any of your members works over any electronic or other media in any way I see fit without paying you a single cent.
Thank you.
-
Unlike Suprnova and most of the previous sites however, they aren't planning to just roll over and die.
I know ShareConnector (eD2k) is not a bittorrent site, but ShareConnector is not planning to just roll over and die either.
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Have you been paying attention to court cases recently? Obviously there's a legal precedent that what Lokitorrent is doing is illegal.
Really? Last I checked the RIAA lost its suits against Grokster and whoever else was involved in that one. Kazaa was found legal in its original country of origin, the new trial is underway and we have no way of knowing how it will end yet.If things like Grokster and Kazaa can be legal, exactly HOW would Lokitorrents be illegal? It's even less in control over the content than Grokster and Kazaa are.
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Claiming the conspiracy theory that anybody who disagrees with you is an agent of the RIAA or MPAA is just odd - about on level with wearing tinfoil hats.
Actually he didn't say that, he said all the posts in support of this move seemed rather odd for Slashdot, that it looked like the MPAA might have decided to astroturf the site. I agree, normally those against anything the MPAA/RIAA does far outweights those in favor of it here, this whole discussion seems like it's from another site to be honest.And besides, he forgot one nice point, the MPAA is breaking the DMCA. They are supposed to send cease & desist letters, in the proper format, to the specified DMCA contact address, listing every link/item they find is infringing prior to suing under the common carrier provisions. They failed to do this, and even in the notice of suit have failed to specifiy exactly WHAT was infriging? "[O]ur copyrighted works" could be most anything, they are supposed to enumerate each item. Go search for Scientology on Google and go to the link about stuff removed, you'll see those letters do exactly what they're supposed to, listing every URL they find infringing and want removed.
Maybe Lokitorrents is breaking the law, maybe they aren't, but the MPAA isn't following their own laws they bought from Congress, and that is a true outrage on many fronts.
1. Sue Google. ...
2. Get all the press you can doing so.
3. Lose. big time.
4. Use above as precedent.
5. ???
6. Don't even think about it. Do that and they'll eat your balls in court.
-
So you were selling it many moons ago chief? Because it wasn't until the NET Act of 1997 that distribution without profit became an illegal act. Spare us the older/wiser routine and read your DOJ FAQ:
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However, while the RIAA went after the entire P2P network, despite the legal uses that is could, and to some extent was being put to, the MPAA is just going after copyright infringers. So far at least.
Too late, the way Bittorrent works the actual files are not hosted on the trackers, the tracker contains only info on peers who are participating in the torrent and a hash of the file/file segments so users can verify parts downloaded. If the MPAA wanted to go after the actual infringers, they would be suing the people on the torrent, not the trackers, or the sites that are basically torrent trackers (like Suprnova was, it didn't run any tracker, just linked to the torrent files on whatever tracker they were on).I think the problem here is not everyone understands fully how Bittorrent works, or they'd be just as pissed as they were about suits against Napster, Kazaa, Grokster, etc. since they trackers are similar to those. The tracker only provides info to find the copyrighted matierial, it does not reside on the server.
It's interesting to note that Lokitorrents keeps a blacklist and rejected torrents (and banned users uploading them) for items on it. They had a policy of adding anything to the blacklist if asked to by the rights holders, most of the stuff on it was from Microsoft since they actually bothered to ask. The MPAA didn't, they just sued instead. Not everyday you can say something is more evil than Microsoft. :)
Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure how it relates. The grandparent wrote that "it's only piracy if you sell it." That's incorrect. The word has had its relevant meaning -- unauthorized copying (not copying and selling) of copyrighted work -- since before any of us were born (its origins are a bit more than a hundred years old).
Your interpretation of the NET act is correct, but its enactment did not change the meaning of the word "piracy" so that it now refers only to unauthorized copying and selling. I'm genuinely interested in how you drew that conclusion, so if you want to explain it, that would be great -- but please take the hostility down a few notches.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Back666Back: Two-backed Beast
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
So people would rather donate money to a site that knowingly serves them pirated software (Or links to pirated software through BitTorrent), than instead spend that money on the software that they are pirating. That's great.
I hate the MPAA and RIAA as much as anybody but I hope they pound the fuck out of the guys at LokiTorrent. Yes, BitTorrent is a useful service, but the only useful service LokiTorrent was providing (utilizing BitTorrent because they ignorantly thought that they were safe, maybe they should have put that "delete after 24 hours, this is only for educational purposes!" EULA on their index page) was for pirated software, which they knowingly did, they weren't oblivious.
Thanks Slashdot - you've managed to destroy suprnova by posting direct links and having millions of otherwise uninterested individuals give useless hits to a site that catered to a community that wasn't bothering you ...
And you're doing it again with Lokitorrent. By posting the link, you're destroying a technology, ala Napster, which works fine until fools like you decide it's time to kill it.
There is no better alternative to Bit Torrent. But when that alternative does come along, rest assured Slashdot will inform everyone how to destroy it, rather then post how the RIAA can take advantage of the technology to show how money can be generated through high-quality downloads, rather than the crap we're forced to watch when we download.
Thanks, really. Idiots.
Wow, you guys are sure doing the job here!! Shutiing down those torrent sites, sure is slowing them up!!
But there is the thing, now normally you would hire some consultant that would cost you thousands, but I will give it to you gratis. You are in the same position that your cousin the RIAA was with Napster. See they cut the head off the dragon too - but then they found out, that it was no dragon, indeed it was a Hydra. For every head they cut off 2 more rose in its place. Now mp3's are everywhere. You may slay this beast yet, but expect encrypted clients, trackers and hosters in countries that don't care about you, and other things which I can only imagine. You have an oppertunity here like your cousin did, it seems that you are going down the same path. I have something to tell you, you are not going to like it, expect failure.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
to give money to a torrent site? If you're generous enough to give out money, don't waste it. just go buy legit copies.
_This_ is just plain stupid: "The law changed... but I want to follow the old laws, so I'll break the new ones". Seriously, if you disagree with the law, leave the country, or, better yet, try to get it changed. But don't complain when someone comes and chases you for breaking the law everyone else is living by.
Dude check it out!
Timecop on DVD, three copies for 18 bucks.
Why the hell would you want three copies of the same movie?
Because one copy is $9.98, but this way you save like 20 bucks!
You only need one copy ar-tard.
Okay, fine dumbass, you go ahead and buy one copy for $9.98.
Okay fine I will . . . wait a minute, I don't even want one copy of Timecop.
Dude, you can't shop for crap.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Please have pity.
... but now ... I will have to extend my personal protest to films and movies. ... your slow death :)
By not buying original DVDs of a film you are just midly interested in - you selfishly taking away the rights of all those actors and cinema directors of from building more mansions in Malibu.
Some may find themselves not able to afford their pure-grade cocaine anymore.
Others will have to opt for for second-rate massage parlours instead of reputable and secretive (member-only) escort agencies only known to the richest of Sheikhs.
Some will find it very difficult to have pay their personal trainer, a shrink, a coach, a driver, dozens of sports car, a couple of butlers, dozens of servants, chefs for each specific cuisine, spiritual guru and their own fashion designer.
Have a heart!
PS: I was seriously going to buy the DVD : Lord of the Rings III
just like I've (unwillingly) boycotted buying music CDs ever again (after a 12 year old was sued)
I never used to purchase or download pirate DVDs - but I think I will now (that Korean only charges $1 per DVD)
MPAA enjoy
Enough of the South Park gnome's faulty "PROFIT!!!" business models with a missing step, I've solved the equation.
1) Create web site that garners wrath of RIAA (etc.), and becomes beholden to Slashdot.
2) Attract attention of said IP protection agency, get sued.
3) Appeal to Slashdot crowd for donations to legal defense fund.
4) Shut down site, take the money and run.
5) PROFIT!!!!!
Does anyone remember hello.jpg and torrentse.cx? They got served with C&D letter. They asked for donations, received them, and promptly shut the tracker down.
9 /3 890
http://www.infoanarchy.org/story/2003/7/17/3442
a slut did tulsa
And I don't, and I probably should. Please enlighten me.
What if their site shows torrents, but does not have a tracker? I wrote my torrentsniffing stuff so I didn't have to like look around for stuff, I wanted lots of torrents on a page so I wrote some extremely simple stuff that basically looks for torrents, checks if their are valid, lists whatever files they claim to be in them and volla spits it out on web pages (about 40 lines of BASH, actually..).
Am I in violation of this DMCA thing with very unclear and hard language? I figure it like this: Google has this bot thing that puts stuff into Google, I got this Extremely-Simple-Google-Like thing that basically does the same as they do (perhaps more like the news service, though, since it puts all on a page, kind of like the early start / home pages from the 90s).
Note that I never ever actually got any kind of legal letter or complaint or anything close to it ever (and I actually do assume my page is legal, so please tell me if I am wrong).
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
It's about faith. Odd enough to thing that a warez community would work on such a thing, but that's about it
My hopes would be that if they don't get sued or decide that there's not enough $$$ to mount a defence they would pass the money on to some other body (or a fund for such) in need of legal assistance. It's what I would do anyhow...
for breaking the law everyone else is living by.
Umm, by EVERYONE else, you mean everyone else, minus several million, right?
We're not talking about laws that say "don't stab your sister" or "drinking and driving are bad" or "pay for that candy bar @%$***dammit!".
We're talking about laws that say information released to the public must be kept secret in the face of ridiculous penalties.
Theres an economy of reality that a few thousand people want to pave over with some demented fantasy that says duplicating 10,000 crap songs is massively worse than stealing 10,000 cheap candy bars. If they truely manage to drag major powers into this fantasy, reality will smack the shit out of them to no good effect.
It is plain stupid, and don't complain when people start to rise against people who chase people around for sharing that which has no material value. Unless they can convert the blood of copyright infringers into gas and ammo, its totally unsustainable.
Frankly I think people on both sides need to get a f***ing life, plant some corn or do something else that is actually useful to human beings. We can't feed off of 2-D images of some magic wielding dork in a black helmet, or keep the next generation warm and dry under a roof made of mmmm-bop.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Doing well so far.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Unless they can convert the blood of copyright infringers into gas and ammo, its totally unsustainable.
I'm sorry.
Gas, ammo, and donuts.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Can we count this one as astroturfing?
"Yes. It is my fantasy that one day, the judges sitting on the court will actually read the law and rule impartially, rather than make up their minds before even hearing the arguments and go back later and have some clerk find points of law to back up their opinion."
Similiar to what happens here.
FORGET about BitTorrent.
BitTorrent, Direct Connect and those like them are LAST GENERATIONS things, soon to be dead.
FreeNet and things like it (now small and slow) will the next few years grow, and they will grow more rapidly the harder **AA attacks people.
It is just a matter of time before ALL MOVIES, all songs, all books and everything else that can be put on a computer IS ON FREENET (or something like it).
COPYRIGHT DIEAD the moment someone got the IDEA to create Freenet. It is that simple. Perhaps the concept remains, but the ability to control it is gone.
THIS IS A HUGE CHANGE and a first in the digital evolution because freenet allows you to anonymously post or download what ever you want. There is no stopping, or suing, or anything to do about it!
THE REAL TRIAL was COPYRIGHT v.s. FREE SPEECH. Copyright was the winner every round UNTIL FREENET appeared and killed it. (Yes, you will have it on paper, but there is no longer any controlling it).
1. Modem, upload warez to bbses. Could be stopped. Replaced by
2. Napster, Gnutella and others, could also be stopped. Replaced by
3. Direct Connet / BitTorrent / E-Donkey. Not encrypted, you can find out who is using these. YESTERDAYS PROTOCOLS. BitTorrent is 4 years old. Shortly (already, people are using them..) replaced by
4. Freenet / Metanet - CAN NOT BE STOPPED, CAN NOT BE CONTROLLED, COPYRIGHT *IS* DEAD. This is the current situation.
**AA are still stuck at #3. They are suing based on a reality from years ago. The Judges of Evolution and Time already ruled Free Speech Won on Free Speech vs Copyright, this trial is mere a joke and all this does is push forth step #4. Thanks, **AA, shortly everything you hold copyright on can be downloaded anonymously (this would have happened anyway, though, you are just making it happen faster)
What you can and should do instead if to provide a simple interface where people could buy the right to view a movie for $5 or $15 or whatever. Just the rights that would have come with the DVD, and you do not even have to produce the DVD or do anything active at all! Think of the profit.
WHAT I AM SAYING IS that the movie industry can charge the price of a DVD minus the cost of the garbage (the DVD disc and package) and trust me on this, people WILL BUY because the reasons people download is not to steal, but because the media is better and much more practical.
Would YOU not use a interface if it were Legal, at the MPAA site, and said Buy the _right_ to any movie, fixed price $?? ($? would be excellent), just type the movie name (or file name) and Done!
I would go from looking at them as evil persons who sued the person who made it possible for me to use the DVD discs I legally bought on my own entertainment system to looking at them as smart people.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
"There are so many here hammering the "it's illegal - it's piracy - " meme injection that I strongly suspect the MPAA has hired astroturfing agents to dominate the thread. Holy Scientology, Batman."
If an overwelming dissenting presence is proof of anything. Then what does the promenance of the "Piracy is good" meme here for the past few months mean? Pirates formed a union, took over Slashdot, and are holding Rob hostage?
"Answers for their contentions, all at once"
Nice to see them brown bagged. Doesn't make them right just because you compiled them.
"I can't stand up in court and know that I will get a fair hearing. It SHOULD cost nothing to defend myself in court as I SHOULD be able to just get up, tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth and be sure of getting justice. As it is I have to hire a professional liar to counteract the other side's professional liar."
Public Defender, or a Lawyer working Pro Bono.
The thing is that due to recent changes to the copyright laws of the US, the ??AA's now OWN our culture for however long they want.
Wether (uncommercial) piracy is ok or not can be discussed, but allowing a few large corporations to control our culture, freedom of speach, kill the public domain etc is NOT OK.
Check out Lawrence Lessigs Free Culture, or look for a presentation he did on the subject...
This signature available under the Creative Commons
The problem with this kind of thinking is, what happens when stupied, even evil, laws are passed that are criminal themselves? I'll graciosly lose this argument by mentioning Nazi Germany and ask you if you would have supported the Enabling Law. This law made it illegal to try to change it, by the way!
This is when Option A: Leave the country is a good choice.
Don't forget:
668: Neighbor of the Beast
... for illegally refering to links that refer to links that point to Harry Potter torrent files !
That second one is the money.
Try
filetype:torrent hellboy
or whatever you are looking for, in google.
Hmmm dosent seem fair.
I can buy a tape recorder to copy music --> taxes are included on tapes to compensate the music industry
I can Buy a DAT recorder to copy music --> taxes are included on tapes to compensate the music industry
I can buy a CD-recorder, DVD recorder to copy anything --> taxes are included on CD's to compensate the music industry
I can get an ADSL connection to the internet, buy a harddrive etc. to copy music and the rest. Now please tell me WHY all of a sudden this is a problem???
FACT:
- downloading music has increased in 2004
- CD and DVD sales have increased in 2004
Conclusions:
dowloading music has no negative effect on sales of CD and DVD, maby even increases it.
Prices are Too high: i.e. a regular audio CD in the Netherlands is 23-25 euro. That is about the price of the cheapest adsl connection....you do the math
It is a losing battle if record companies keeps the prices up.
I am off to allofmp3, latersss
Message from god, Please logoff, rebooting the Universe
now here's what might happen:
when the loki donations hit $29,000, the account suddenly gets suspended and owners get letter from paypal saying their account has been suspended because they're doing something against paypal AUP
not quite same thing, but this has happended before
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
It's not "piracy"; it's copying without permission. If you sell copied films, then you're a pirate.
When it was just a case of downloading a file from an ftp server, then it was copying without permission. However, with bittorrent as well as copying the file, you are automatically offering it to others to download from you. You are no longer just a recreational user; you are now a dealer as we;;!
Yeah, you heard me. Mod him up.
sorry but the TV shows are silly to fight. many people find it valuable to be able to catch a show they missed because the local station thought that basketball was more important than that tv show (note: it isn't. sports belong on the musclehead network)
And do not try to bitch about it, most I seen still havethe commercials in them and I simply do what I do at my PVR... SKIP THEM.
at least I can watch a tiny version and not be lost as to what happened in the plotline in the one show I missed.
but the greedy bastards that think they lose anything by the torrent of that show being out there think they lost trillions of dollars for every second of video in that torrent.. "OMG! we lost 9000 trillion billion dollars!"
they lost nothing, they know that. but the same as companiesthat were "hacked" they use the inflate the real value to insane levels trick to make it look like they were the victim.
note: you are hacked? why does the regular salary of yout IT staff that you would be paying ANYWAYS get added to the "costs"? is it because of fraud your company is trying to pull?
As it happened with lots of other sites, MPAA is just the best opportunity to make ppl pay without thinking and just abusing ppls anger against MPAA to raise funds and then buy a new car.
This is perhaps the best explanation of what is wrong with the current copyright laws I have seen to date. I'm going to show this text to several people I argue with about this issue, and I have faith that I may finally make the point.
The one thing that I would add is that in these modern times, when information is global, copyright lengths should be getting shorter, not longer. In ~1790 they thought 14 years with a renewable 14 years was enough time to extract value from a copyrighted work for the author.
Today, 5 years is probably too much, but I would gladly settle for 20. 75/100 years doesn't "promote the Progress". It's only about building profit. There is no "balance of rights" here. The current system gives no rights to the public.
Every month, I pull up with about 100-150 euros (exchange yourself) and I've done this for a while and yes, my dvd collection is getting respectable. I buy almost all movies that I think is worth something, but you know what, I hardly EVER buy anything that I haven't seen, because the last thing I want is crappy movies in my collection that I will never see again (they will not be worth their price, simply put).
I download movies on the internet for "previews" (in lack of a better word) and tho you might say "buy hey, why don't you go to the video store?". Well, I'd like to see new material as everybody else, and the video store doesn't have the movies until they are released on dvd/vhs, and by then they are enough popular to rent out every copy the store has, but most immportant of all, it's my lazyness that counts in, I rather sit at home and download some version off the internet.
And you see, I cannot afford to buy more dvd's than I do, so I have to be selective, and you know what, I rather buy good dvd's when I'm at it, and be sure of it.
On the internet, I never even bother with crappy versions of a movie, I always wait for the real deal. If movie studios would make it easy for us to stream a movie (like the quicktime trailers on apple.com) and make it safe for us to use (as in buffering etc) I would happily pay ~3-5 USD to see it. However, that is an utopia. As soon as that will happen the same day of the release some people rip the movie and put it up on torrent sites and the greater masses (teenagers or students who live on a tight budget I suppose) will just download it.
The last part was a bit of a side step to my message, but you know, I don't feel bad for copying files off the internet, I don't even think it should be illegal, I know I buy my share of the movie biz imperium each month or so.
Albert
Nope. The couple of sites I used to frequent to d/l TV shows sans commercials are now offline for a week or two. And I haven't turned on my TV once except to watch DVDs. Downloading the shows was a convenience thing for me as I'm simply unwilling to sit through 15-18 minutes of commercials to watch one hour of television.
:-)
Making it hard/impossible for me to view the shows without the fluff isn't going to make me "see the light" and succumb to the worthless advertising time vacuum. I wish more shows would move to venues like HBO where you can just sit down and watch an hour of content without the interruptions.
The more the MPAA tightens its grip, the more viewers will slip through their fingers...
Cheers,
why this kind of site is not hosted outside america?
oh god
i can't get what's wrong with these people...
Sometime I am amazed by the people who post on here, many of which I'm sure work for software companies who make their money by selling software - hell, I do!
If I was one of the developers of Half Life 2, I'd be pretty riled to see scummy monkey-hangers downloading my hard work for free. Let's be honest, *anyone* can afford the £30 it costs to buy Half Life 2, especially if they have already invested several hundred quid on a PC to run it on! And if you can't afford, that *does not* automatically give you the right to take it.
Grumble, grumble.
... Lokitorrent seems to have been /.ed out of existence.
It's not "piracy"; it's copying without permission. If you sell copied films, then you're a pirate.
No. If you sell copied films, then you're a thief of intellectual property. If you raid ships at sea; plunder, rape and murder, then you're a pirate.
Laugh, but it's also sad - unknowingly, you are using loaded language chosen for you.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
That's a lot of money! Imagine if those donators spent that money on actually buying the shit they swipe!
The Free desktop that Just Works
Funny that you blame it on Hippies. Most hippies that I have known in the 60's would be buying. It is your conservative type running windows that tend to copy and/or download these things.
I've found quite a few torrent files for copyright-infringing torrents via Google/Google cache. When are they going to shut Google down?
I can't afford a sig!
The easiest solution is to get rid of the movies section in order to save the entire site. The MPAA has succeeded in blasting entire sites for just ONE section on each site. Lokitorrent could save itself by removing that section, but if they don't, then they're toast, and I personally think it's tragic to see an entire site go for one section. I had better uses for places like suprnova and the like. I could find unlicensed anime posted there that wasn't posted on either animesuki or downloadanime.
"Not the Earth!!! That's where I keep all my stuff!!!" - The Tick
Generally Suprnova had 20 or so different Linux distribution torrent files available at any given time. I used to use it as my primary source for Fedora Core DVD images, I guess Linuxiso.org will be my new primary source for Linux distros from now on.
On the other hand, at least one Suprnova mirror that was taken down must have had charges dropped b/c it is back online and running after being down for a few days. This is ray of light amongst the general doom and gloom that currently prevails in the Bittorrent world.
I can't afford a sig!
You could have saved yourself some trouble and just said it was a humorless Cartman impression.
A couple of hundred years back, copying could only be done using expensive equipment, much labour and not-exactly-cheap materials. I doubt anyone would have *needed* to create a law prohibiting distribution without payment - it would have been its own punishment. Are there any online references to the relevant laws?
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Copyright is a ring fence around knowledge. Those in less developed coutries or the poor in developed coutries should not be denied access to information.
Science, Math, research, learning tools - Yes.
And also Human Culture.
Stop thinking entertainment is a luxury, it is part of the meme set that shapes society and thinking without knowing culture there are many conversations you can't participate in, many references you can't get, may ideas you won't have.
People should have a human right to knowledge.
Artists do not derive culture from thin air, it stems from the flow of human history and with current IP Laws, an artist/ corporation preventing others from using that in their work and thought.
It is slowing human progress.
Copyright was mean to encourage artists to release into the public domain, that is why we gave up some rights to copy. That no longer applies.
People who risk Federal Jail to let others have access to stuff for free are heroes.
Bring on the Free Market - End Information Ring Fencing, destroy the economy of scarcity gravy training Feudal Overlords.
Mash it Up Big Time
Isn't anyone reading their "legal threats" section?
1) Loki is based in Sweden.
2) By swedish law, Loki is not doing anything illegal (the law might change, but right now it isn't)
3) Therefore: There is *nothing* the RIAA/MPAA can do about it.
You may or may not like this, and there is certainly gnashing of teeth at MPAA, but the fact remains: this is not illegal.
Very good point. This site has a mechanism for requesting stuff to be removed.
All I've heard from the pro-**AA and the pro-DRM crowd is that it's about protecting their 'rights'. Nothing can be further from the truth! It's not about rights, it's about control, and all this talk about 'piracy' and 'intellectual property' is all a bunch of mindfuck bullshit to further advance their iron fist agenda. If anyone thinks that the Sonny Bono Copyright Act and the DMCA is really all about protecting their rights is either a dumbass, or a mindless, parroting shill.
There are two historically opposing concepts at work here....
1. Information wants to be free.
2. Content creators want financial incentive to keep creating.
Copyright is supposed to strike a fair balance between the two, but when you have corporate content providers buying creative works like property, deciding who 'makes it or breaks' it in the business, spoonfeeding what's hot and what's not to the public with payola and etc., and buying laws that chill free speech and the free flow of information as well as further obstruct people's rights, then it's only a matter of time until people start fighting back.
It's too bad that the creators are caught in the middle of this mess, but as long as people consider ideas as transferable property, and not as what they're supposed to be, then the creators will always be caught in the middle between the likes of the RIAA and such, and the filesharing public. Therefore, either the law is broken and needs to change, or that the p2p war will continue until either the big content providers die off, or else there'll be a Big Brother type policeman stationed at every internet connected computer in the world, just waiting to beat your ass with his/her nightstick just in case you might do sonething 'questionable'.
Here's hoping that level headed, rational people will step in and actually fix the problem, but I won't hold my breath. This 'war' is going to stay bloody for a long, long time and it will probably still rage on by the time I'm old, gray, and no longer give a damn.
Actually according to the NET act of 1997 it is a cirminal offense if the value of the material is over $5000 I think, maybe $8,000. I can't remember for sure. Either way you are incorrect in stating the common piece of misinformation that copyright is onyl a civil offense. It is a criminal act int he US. Sorry, I don't think it is right but that is the way it is.
1) open mouth
2) insert foot
piratebay is swedish... dont know about loki...
From the front page of the site: "Anyone who posts a torrent listed in the banned torrents list (located on the upload page) will be banned forever from this site without warning"
They've established that they can control what's posted, and they've established that they do control what's posted. That puts them in a much weaker defensive position compared to Grokster and Kazaa. There's a very good chance that they're going to get nailed to the wall in court.
The only problem with your argument ( and the *AA's ) is that these sites that are currently under attack are not infringing on anyone's copyrights ( beyond using the name of the product/show ).
They are only hosting links to places that may or may not be infringing ( depending on where they are located, there may be no infringement anyway, remember laws are different in different countries ). None of these sites actually host any of the files in question. ( well I suppose some might host the trackers locally as well, but that's beside my point )
In this case the linked TO site would be the one that should be under suit, again depending on their local laws.
Suing a link site, would be no worse then suing Slashdot for an offensive ( to you ) comment post..
Another problem is that even when actual distribution of files does take place, they are split up and only parts of the files are being distributed.. There may be a legal problem calling it 'distribution of content with out permission' since no one is sharing the entire content.. That would be like distributing a paragraph of a book.. but not the whole thing.. is that improper? What about a single word.. there is a line somewhere to be crossed... But that is for another discussion..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: piracy _does_ harm business and the economy. In fact, it harms it in the most insidious way: by helping those corporations stay the monopolies that they are.
My favourite example of how the economy _could_ work, is the Via C3. Precisely _because_ you can't download a CPU on P2P.
The C3 is, to put it mildly, a dog. It's not only low MHz, it's also low IPC (Instructions Per Cycle.) It doesn't even start to compete with an AMD or Intel CPU. It makes the Celeron look fast.
But Via still sells a lot of them in China. Why? Because the same Chinese who'll gladly pirate software, can't possibly pirate a CPU. So when they can't afford an Athlon 64 or Pentium 4, they either go buy a C3 or they won't have a computer at all.
So _because_ there is no piracy in that market, a smaller company and a less powerful product can find their niche. Which in turn provides jobs and taxes.
And the same _could_ apply to software, music or movies. People who can't afford MS Office, _could_ have went and bought Star Office instead. It wasn't as powerful, but it was good enough to write a resume and cost a tenth of what MS Office costs. That company could have found a good niche _and_ prevented MS from having a monopoly on file formats.
Except it didn't because of piracy. All those small companies _could_ have competed in a scenario like "do I buy MS Office for 500$ or Star Office for 50$". But they couldn't compete with "do I buy Star Office for 50$ or download MS Office for 0$". Guess which option has won? Guess why the MS Office wantonly-changing file formats are now a de-facto "standard"?
So Star was only saved by Sun, and an independent competitor basically disappeared: now it's a battle between two equally soulless corporations instead. Others weren't that lucky. There were a lot of good products that didn't get bought by a Sun or IBM, and just disappeared.
The same applies to music or movies. Everyone bemoans about how independent labels and artists are better, and how the MPAA and RIAA just rehash the exact same crap that sold before. But everyone goes and downloads Britney Spears and N'Sync and Eminem and god knows what other corporate-blessed crap on P2P. So instead of giving those independents a chance to make _some_ living, and maybe help supply us with new stuff instead of the corporate rehashes... we're all just helping reinforce the status quo where everyone listens to what RIAA wants us to listen to.
Sad.
And to go in a full circle and return to China, Russia and other countries which actively support piracy: that all goes double for them. They could have a thriving local market in locally-produced software, music and movies. A Russian or Chinese family who can't pay 50$ on HL2 or Doom3, could have paid 5$ for a locally produced game with cheap local programmers and artists. Providing jobs and taxes to their own country. But instead they all pirate Doom 3 and HL2, and that market never even started.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I've noticed that no matter which side of the debate you are on (supporting/ not-supporting the debated "illegal" downloads) most everybody thinks that copyright law is currently over-restrictive. Does anybody think that these cases are a possible tool for bringing the copyright issues to the forefront and gaining concessions? On the same subject: What are fair copyright rules? How should "fair use" be defined? What are the respective rights of the artists, distributors, and audiences?
The same applies to music or movies. Everyone bemoans about how independent labels and artists are better, and how the MPAA and RIAA just rehash the exact same crap that sold before. But everyone goes and downloads Britney Spears and N'Sync and Eminem and god knows what other corporate-blessed crap on P2P
You fit exactly my statement from before... You've even begun thinking like a corporation: how does downloading Spears (which I certainly don't do) harm my 'consuming' other more palatable music? Are you going by the square and mathematical thinking that every household buys 4.7 albums a month, and that my downloading Britney Spears somehow is reducing my actual amount of purchases, and this in turn hurts RIAA? Bullshit. We don't owe you any percentage from our houseold income as you imply we do. You don't realize how fucked up your little point of view is, do you?
And don't spread your horeseshit about how China and Russia could have an actively thriving community, the economy in Russia is in a state of disarray at the moment, some people are barely making end's meet. Russia is *not* a market, if the RIAA could somehow enforce russians to buy, they would problably get $50 of sales total out of that country... How can you not see the absurdity!!? It's like if starbucks opened up shop in Mogadishu, Somalia with starving people on the street, and somehow _expected_ there to be sales. You can't except there to be anything. So don't expect that Russia OWES YOU FUCKING MONEY. Get off your little corporate high horse that makes you think you have a fantastic product, and that the market MUST buy it.
For a minute there I thought "wahey, someone is finally suing that bunch of criminals" then I realised it was just another boring MPAA lawsuit against a suspected copyright violator...news@11.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
who the hell would disagree with that.
just because saving lives > file trading doesnt mean we should all drop everything and become tsunami relief workers.
It's really simple, I never went to LokiTorrent before but just scanned their list of torrents; There are several recently released movies being linked to from the site. Unlike Napster or other P2P networks all Torrent sites are just lists of Torrent seed locations. The Torrent websites just make it easy to find what you are looking for as BitTorrent doesn't have a search mechanism.
Right at the top of the list, I saw 'White Chicks' available for download. Although, I wouldn't rent nor buy that movie, it is indeed being served up for download. There were also pirated games, etc.
Sorry, but distributing commercial content for free is THEFT! This hasn't changed. I remember warez sites for Commodore 64 games, etc. It's the same thing except, it's on a much larger worldwide network using a file distribution tool that allows for fast downloads of popular content. It's no different then the DVD pirates in Hong Kong who duplicate DVD's offshore in international waters and then smuggle them to Hong Kong and distribute to the black market, it's just being accomplished in a completely digital way.
Movies cost a lot to produce and distribute, they also can make a heck of a lot of money. Sure, most people are not going to download a movie via BT. However, the young digital generation definitely will. The primary target audience of Movies and Music is the age 12->30 group and it's this group that is increasing Internet and technology savvy. When this group grows up their kids will be even more savvy. This is what scares the hell out of the MPAA and RIAA! Their market may not be shrinking yet, but in 10 years it will implode.
Networks are getting faster and faster, storage mediums are increasing in capacity, computers are getting more and more powerful. The law of the wild is now in effect, adapt or go extinct.
1. Stealing music, movies, games, or books is WRONG.
2. Suing your customers and trying to plug the hole in the dike is not going to work in the long term.
3. The MPAA & RIAA need to embrace the change that is coming and use their money to work with the members to come up with a new way of doing business that operates in parallel with existing distribution and sales strategies. Traditional sales, over time, will decline and the new digital sales and distribution will take over.
I would like to see a way to buy a digital movie much the same way I buy mp4p AAC files from Apple. Download it using BitTorrent technology (ideal for new popular releases). Don't restrict it too heavily with DRM or I will just rent it and rip my own copy. Make it cheaper then buying the actual DVD. How about $15 for a new release? Let me burn it to DVD-R as many times as I want. Let me stream it locally on my own subnet. Let me copy it all I want. Just embed encrypted ownership information inside the file. i.e. my information! That way, if you see it getting distributed, you go after the one who allowed it to be distributed as well as those doing the actual distribution. The only downside to this is hackers stealing your media and distributing it.
So there are many problems... There were problems before the media went digital too. Movie and Music piracy is nothing new. DRM is not the answer, it will just piss people off and it will be circumvented. A new way of doing business is needed for the old media. Movies, Music, and Books are going digital and new ways of thinking need to occur. Either these industries will adapt or they will be wiped out by the rising tide of change.
Tsunami waves have a way of bypassing any obstacle much the same way electricity will always find the easiest path to ground. Either the industry will change or it will be destroyed by the technology. If the media industry continues to price gouge the public and they keep attacking the P2P networks that are operating in the open; it will force the P2P networks to develop advanced encryption and stealth techniques. It will force them underground. What's to stop them from b
Lawyer: You hate black people!
Cartman: No I don't, I hate hippies!
Just to show that there are like minded others. http://www.corante.com/vision/digitalmedia/tim_wu. php
hippies... they say they want to save the world... but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.
Your assessment of the situation is completely flawed: the problem in Russia is not that people are downloading software for free, it's that organized crime mobs are reselling the software for NOT free. Why do you think Microsoft has the whole "Authentic Logo" program? It's not because end users feel 'dirty' when they use software that doesn't have a hologram on it, it's because they want everyone to be able to identify whether or not a CD they're buying actually came from Microsoft, or from some joint in bulgaria where they actually stamp CDs (as opposed to burning them).
Aside that point, if the economy has no money in it, creating software is not going to inject anything into the cycle, as you somehow imply. Software is a tertiary sector activity. It can't create wealth out of air, unless they export the software, in which case the fact that software is being pirated locally makes no difference.
Copyrights weren't created so people could selectively deny others from hearing your oh so precious jingle. They were created so that if you came up with a clever jingle, your neighbour couldn't just go ahead and use it to make money behind your back (or in your face).
Now you think it is wrong to steal whether you are an individual or a corporation, that's fine to think. But what is considered to be stealing? That's the critical part where you have been brainwashed, either because you just didn't take time to think for yourself, or because you are siding with the corporations with the capitalist belief that you should be making money off of everything you own.
It comes down to basic human dynamics here, fuck the law, because you know what: back in ancient greece, the equivalent of our times' going bankrupt was becoming a slave. A hardcore real ass slave. That's what their legal system dictated back then. It doesn't anymore.
Stealing is bad, sure, but in my opinion, that term can only be applied when you create an idea, and I go ahead and shout your idea louder than you to make money off of it. Stealing is not related to the people who hear you shout despite what all these corporations want you to believe, and that's the crux of the matter with 'Intellectual Property'.
It doesn't cost Adobe or Microsoft anything (physically) when a copy of their software is pirated over the internet. It only costs them in 'projected' revenues. This is where the capitalist pig slight of hand comes in: would they have bought the software, or would they have not bought the software? Corporations and business men would love to argue it's revenue lost because we would have bought the software. I fundamentally disagree, I say that unless I am a business making profit out of the software, it is completely irrelevant whether I have your software or not, since you're not losing money by my having it and I'm certainly not making money by having it.
You say "let them download GIMP" from your little tower of indifference. Deep down, you don't really care at all about these people, so really, it makes no difference if they use GIMP or Photoshop - I don't think you're even spiteful enough to want them to use substandard software... all you want is the money in your pocket. And your flat logic dictates that if they get Photoshop, you're losing money.
The real sad thing, is that giant corporations fight battles in court over these disputes, with billions at stake. Case in example: AMD and Intel had a court ruling that allows anyone to cleanroom reverse engineer chips. That's tantamount to stealing in my books. But courts ruled it was ok, and now we have AMD making Intel clones perfectly legally. It's not a case of Morals here, as they come from The Bible (which I'm sure deep down is your justification for all of this), it's a case of cut throat business tactics, and guess what: corporations just realized that consumers don't have enough money to fight back.
So either you're a complacent idiot, or you're one of them. Which is it?
america is so so fucked up. But people do not revolt. Must feel so good to live in a fascist state.
For those of you who don't know, Maya is what is used to make CG effects in films like Star Wars.
When are P2P and filesharing users going to get politcal (like Christian Fundementalists do) and start lobbying (or pestering) the allegedly elected representatives, to.. represent their interests?
"Hey politician's, we think the law is wrong and we don't like it.. we think it should be like this.. Why don't you think about how we'll be voting next time?"
Sorry - but people genuinely disagree with the notion that "information wants to be free," and a lot have presented rational arguments in support of such an idea. Categorizing all objections as astroturf is nothing more than a fancy form of ad hominem.
Bravo! Well said.
According to suprnova's irc channel, they went down because they thought they might run into legal trouble. They were never threatened.
Please, won't you donate and give money to these pirates instead of giving your money to the store where you can buy the product instead of pirating it?
These pirates are the victims. We should have the ability to ruin people's lives by downloading their product and not paying them for it. It's our right.
Slashdot's backhanded plea to fund these guys is sickening. I remember back in the day when Slashdot didn't cloud the difference between Free Software and free warez. Now that the readership is mostly high school kiddies and dorm room anti-capitalists, suddenly you're applying the financial principles of free software to the commercial world, just because you don't want to pay for stuff. It's lame and pathetic.
Please, won't you think of...the pirates? Donate to their fund now!
I thought, in the US, it's innocent until proven guilty. Was I wrong? Obiously the case isn't ended yet, technically speaking, it's still legal, right?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If picture worth a thousand words, how many megapixels is it? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Actually.. if I have a choice.. No!
No, it doesn't. Even if they removed a torrent they're tracking, the seeds are still going along with everyone downloading it. Even BEFORE something is posted to loki, it is getting seeded and having trackers. Loki has NO control over a torrent, except to de-list it and hope that people stop using it. Whereas Kazaa has direct control over their network to stop any file they wish as everything is centralized.
Get a clue.
What about an link to some site that link to something being "illegal"? It's illegal too?
What about an link to google?
This is just plain stupid
Is it illegal to download copyrighted content on bittorrent if you already own a copy of said content? For instance, if I purchase the Kill Bill DVD and have it safely tucked away at home but decide I'd like to watch it while I'm vacationing at my summer home... would it be illegal for me to download the DVD-Rip? Or what if my house (containing my entire DVD collection) were to burn to the ground in a horrible accident. Would it then be illegal for me to download copies of the movies that I had purchased? If these actions are legal, wouldn't they pose a perfectly legal use of torrent sites like Loki and Suprnova? And if they are illegal, do I have no inherant rights to use the content of the media I purchase?
I find laziness to be an excellent motivator.
1) Donate it to the Red Cross International Disaster Fund
2) See #1
I mean really, is this important? Is thie right to publish the locaiton of a free copy of LotR more important than people's lives?
Whether or not courts will side with the 'links provider' (Google, etc) or against them (2600) probably has a lot to do with *how* the links on the site are generated.
If there is a human that comes across a link, finds it relevant for the site and its visitors, and then puts it up on the page, that's a very different situation from a search engine or directory that auotamically accepts and lists any link it comes across.
It's just like the Common Carrier clauses. As soon as you get involved in editing/filtering the content that comes across your channels, you can then get proscecuted for selecting the wrong kinds of subjects. But as long as it's a free for all (as long as it's not all illegal) you probably have a good chance of getting away with it.
My point is that Law != justice/moral/ethic. Law is determined by the powers of the time. In our times, the corporations.
Whether or not their revenue projections are inflated (as you point out, a significant portion of the offenders may simply have chosen not to use the software/media if they could not pirate it) is not material. Allow me to turn your argument around: if someone is obtaining an unauthorized copy of a work (be it software, movie, etc.) and not using it for profit, then presumably they suffer no damages if that work is prohibited to them. You do not have a 1st Amendment right to duplicate another person's work (that's why the Constitution explicitely allows for patents and copyrights, and grants Congress [blah blah]...
My point isn't either that it's ethically correct to steal, or that we should condone it. My point is that it's a sharade, a hoax, an illusion that you are buying into to believe that these companies would have been making profit. It's a lie.
Again, right aside the point. You heard of Alias|Wavefront? They make Maya. Maya sells for $7000. You can also download Maya on their site for free. How does that work, have you ever thought? It works because the business unit at Maya isn't lazy. It works because when they project revenues, and plan for expenditures, they don't have an extra line in their spreadsheet that reads "expecting 4 million in revenue from 18-24 year old college students". No, they don't play that sort of wishful thinking, instead, they go and make sound business decisions and realize that in order to be profitable, they need to cut costs, make better software, raise license prices etc. etc.
What's different from the MPAA here? Do you *still* not see?
The MPAA says: "fuck this planning stuff, let's just go and sue". They don't ever think about cutting costs, increasing quality or, god forbid, changing business models (of pay-per-watch). No, that would be crazy talk. How dare we push the idea that maybe the market isn't performing that well after all (what with the world economy being in one of the most severe recessions since the oil crisis of '79). The Market OWES them money. They want THEIR money.
That's the mentality. Sure, go ahead, sue Loki torrent. My question to you is: what are you achieving? What really, are you achieving? Are you squarely saying that someone is going to make *more* money because of it?
I'm saying that no, and I'm saying that supporting actions like these is only making the industry more lazy.
AMD and Intel had a court ruling that allows anyone to cleanroom reverse engineer chips. That's tantamount to stealing in my books.
Again you contradict yourself. Regardless, chip technology is not protected by copyright, it is protected by patents and trade secrets, and therefore is irrelevant to a discussion of copyright.
No, I don't contradict myself. I reinforce the concept that I pointed out in the beginning: laws are made by the ruling class of the times. A perfect proof is that when Corporations decide it's good, stealing becomes legal.
Just to nitpick slightly...
Cliff's Notes are not derivative works because copyright protects expression, not ideas. A plot summary or analysis of a book uses the ideas based in a book, but does not infringe on the actual expression in the book. You might be looking at the "abridgment, condensation" portion of the statute, but that doesn't refer to just plot summaries. At some point, of course, if you're using enough of the actual text of the book, it could be infringement, but Cliff's Notes, etc. are not derivative works.
On the other hand, if you wrote a ballet based on the Star Wars trilogy from Jar Jar's point of view, it would be a derivative work.
Torrent files are actually a whole different ballgame -- no plaintiff lawyer is going to claim that they're infringing as a derivative work.
I was a suprnova user and was sad to see them go. While it doesn't seem to be a popular opinion around here I support the torrent sites. I don't care to get into the ethics of the whole thing, but I'm glad to see someone putting up a figth for what they believe in.
Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try.
Or bootlegging. Take your pick.
Doesn't matter whether you offer it for commercial sale or not. You aren't the definer of words.
You think the copyright law is broken? Me too. Get it changed. That's democracy. Do as thou wilt is anarchy. Anarchy always looks great to those who have nothing to lose, but it doesn't lead to the kind of progress that helps everyone that democracy and capitalism does. Look at it this way. Under anarchy, you wouldn't have a computer or the internet to pirate mp3s from. mp3s wouldn't exist either.
Most of all, stop commiting crimes and then pretending like you're doing the world a favor. You're doing it because it has benefits to you (free content), and that's the end of it. You're a common criminal.
This is obviously a heated debate and I don't think either side is going to argue the other out of their opinions. Talk about beating your dead horses! Every time something gets posted on file sharing, the MPAA, or RIAA, everyone goes nuts.
/. post when a new one comes out!
File sharing is like shoplifting, without the tangible property. Video cameras and the little signs "We prosecute shoplifters to the fullest extent of the law" do not seem to be deterrents. People are still shoplifiting. As long as there is a means of transferring files across an internet connection, there will always be file sharing. If the "AA" orgs feel they are recouping some of their losses, then let them prosecute. If the filesharers believe they are some sort of civil disobedient vigilanties, then let them continue to file share.
But PLEASE, let's quit regurgitating the same posts from the LAST file sharing
There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who know binary, and those who don't.
They don't need to use the DMCA, as prior to that god awful piece of law they had perfectly good protection under standard copyright law, with no need to send C&D letters. They found thes people to be violating their copyright (and for profit too, yes the site obviously creates ad revenue), so they took legal action. Having a mechanism for requesting removal does not take away from the fact that infringement has already occured.
Remember these giant torrent sites are loaded with ads and it is the infringing material that is driving the users to the site. so this is infringment for profit.
Though if I were the MPAA I would also target the advertisers as they too are profiting from the unauthrized exchange of copyrighted material.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Get off your high horse. I code for a living. Copied a lot of games when I was young and poor. These days I can afford the money to play the games more than the time. So I buy all the games I play.
But Warez groups provide two valuable services to me.
1: The ability to try out stuff before buying it, discovering it is actually crap and not being able to return it.
2: "No disc" cracks so I can install my legit game and play it without the friggen disc in the drive.
Fix these and I won't need warez.
s interesting to note that Lokitorrents keeps a blacklist and rejected torrents (and banned users uploading them) for items on it. They had a policy of adding anything to the blacklist if asked to by the rights holders, most of the stuff on it was from Microsoft since they actually bothered to ask. The MPAA didn't, they just sued instead. Not everyday you can say something is more evil than Microsoft. :)
So you are saying that lokitorrents knowingly aidied in the unauthorized trafficking of copyrighted materials. And yes the owner could request that they be removed but still they knew that these files were illegal. How are they not at fault again?
Did they request proof of ownership from microsoft or was a simple email enough? this half hearted attempt to protect themselves does not mitigate the fact that they were and are profiting from other people's copyrighted material. And yes profitting, how many ads do they run on their site, how much ad revenue do they make per day. If this does go to trial (in my belief any lawyer worth his salt would recommend settleing out of court) all their financials will be requested, and any profit they have made through the running of this site will certainly not help their case.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
"We don't screen every file. We're not the copyright police. How do we know that movie is under copyright, or even really a movie? Anyway, we tell people we can't have anything that's copyrighted, so everything here must be in the public domain."
As the author of that comment, I'm surprised. I only posted it to mock the logic in someone else's comment. If the comment I was mocking doesn't make sense, then neither does a rephrased replica of it.
Meanwhile, another one of my comments provides information no-one else has mentioned and backs it up with relevant links. It hasn't been moderated at all.
Maybe I should get an account...
Nobody has ever given a valid legal or ethical justification for pirating music.
I respectfully disagree, but regardless of that, it is up to the those who seek government intervention to justify their position.
If the government makes it illegal for kids to play in the park, do the kids need to justify why they should be able to play? No, it is up to the government to justify the law.
Likewise, it is up to the government and the copyright holders to justify their copyrights. If a copyright holder can not justify holding a copyright until their great-great-grandchildren move into nursing homes, then the government should not grant such a long copyright.
665.95: Retail price of the Beast
If they're aiming for the trackers... they might as well aim for the routers that are routing the bit torrent traffics. I mean, they both "facilitate the distribution of copyrighted works". Hell, they might as well just try to shut down the entire internet. Whats next? --- ATTENTION OWNER OF XXX router, there has been illegal traffic being routed through your routers, cease and desist... -- Also... They're targeting these e-donkey sites because they provide HASHES... well isnt that violating the freedom of speech? say i go on AIM and ask my buddy whats the hash of a "Derived work". is a hash of a derived work considered a derivative of the original work? now if so... wouldn't a review of a movie be a "Derived work" too? Wouldn't spoilers and other fan-sites also infringe upon this? meh, I may be wrong...
Check out this Wikinews article. It looks like the big confrontation of MPAA and BitTorrent/eDonkey networks is only just starting, so that article is supposed to cover all important developments in the future, such as police raids, lawsuits and the like. Since it's on Wikinews, everyone can contribute by adding information, editing, reediting, deleting, restructuring, etc.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
BitTorrent model is very risky. It's susceptible to attacks against link sites and trackers. Furthermore, a torrent glues together hash data and tracker info. Kill the tracker, you kill the torrent. Also, by storing all hash data in the torrent you make it difficult to distribute torrents without lots of bandwidth and big servers that are easy to shut down.
The perfect model was developed in other P2P networks - the ed2k and magnet links. Calculate the hash of the hashes of all parts, store this hash in the link. Now to distribute a link to the file you don't need to host a 50Kb torrent somewhere, you only need a line of text - 100 bytes. 500 times more efficient (ignoring the need to serve the webpages).
And in more resilient networks you don't need trackers either. eDonkey2000 network upgraded to Kademlia serverless mode allows it to function without servers at all. There is nothing to shut down and you need to sue every user to stop it.
BitTorrent had one great thing - flash crowds, an efficient method of distributing a file very quickly. But the rest was not well suited for file-sharing. When flash crowds are added to eDonkey2000 or when SuprNova operators release the eXeem (if they do it at all, don't know about their current plans now), filesharing will spring back on its feet, even more powerful than it ever was.
Imagine the performance of BitTorrent coupled with ed2k ease of distributing links coupled with serverless network like Kademlia and you have almost a perfect P2P system.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
59% of the needed amount.
It's not "piracy"; it's copying without permission. If you sell copied films, then you're a pirate.
No, if you attack and board ships - then you are a pirate.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
NO....... its not still legal. Just because i murdered someone, and am a suspect, doesn't mean they let me out to roam the streets even though i'm still techincally innocent. Its a matter of controlling damage, and lets be honest, its not legal to begin with. Your suprnova collection isn't legal. My IRC collection isn't legal.
If you want something that isn't going to be shut down, try ircspy (google!) and see how that works out for you.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
On the otherhand, both the recording industry and the movie industry take big risks with new talent/movies/etc. They spend a lot of money up front in promotion and the like, and many of those ventures don't pan out. They use the money they get from the very successful ventures to be able to take those risks. Now, I'm not saying they use all that money or don't take a nice big fat slice of the pie just to line their own profits, but that fact does remain.
Actually, they sent Lokitorrent a cease and desist letter telling them to remove all material covered by copyrights owned by their clients. They aren't suing yet. And the message they are sending? How about "hey, these files are unauthorized copies and you are aiding in their distribution, illegally, so stop it." What does it matter if they make more money or not? That's their problem, I'm not the MPAA's accountant. And I counter that watching/listening to the majority of their stuff is making them more lazy (whether you pay for it or not). If you feel oppressed going to watch a movie or listening to a recording that is not in the public domain, then don't. It's that simple. Why do you feel you have a right to watch whatever movie you want, or run whatever software you want just because you say you're not going to turn a profit from it?Once again: what does turning a profit have to do with the fact that you are coopting someone else's work without permission? I suppose it just lets you sleep at night, but it's time for a reality check. You're a leech. Have some honor and admit it. It's the first step toward recovery.
"Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots." - Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori
without their authorization
Without whose authorization? Read more here.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Without the authorization of the copyright holders. If you tranfer your copyright away, then you are not a copyright holder. If you want to maintain your copyright (which is by default granted to the author), then don't transfer it away. It's that simple.
Just as I feel copyright holders have the right to protect the distribution of their works, I also strongly feel they have a right to choose the terms of transfer and/or licensing of their copyright. It's a two-way street. Just because a lot of artists have underestimated the value of their works before signing away copyright doesn't mean the whole system is broke.
"Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots." - Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori
Just because a lot of artists have underestimated the value of their works before signing away copyright doesn't mean the whole system is broke
Apparently the industry, then, has underestimated the value of investing in a secure distribution medium. Why is their ineptness in business decisions a problem for my tax money to fix?
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you're wasting your time arguing with someone who confuses ethics, morality and legality as if they were all the same entity. You can tell by the way he uses an emotionally charged and disingenuous word such as piracy to describe copyright infringement.
Trying to educate this guy is like trying to educate a block of wood, and just as effective. Sorry you had to waste your time.
Video games makers figured out long ago that it was not worth all the elaborate anti-piracy mechanisms- they just factored in expected piracy by individuals into the price of their goods. Obviously, they're still gonna go after the egregious cases...
At any rate, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to copyright.
"Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots." - Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori
Ladies & Gentlemen, Gentleschemers All,
There is a way around this morass. If the powers that be in the capitalist, runningdog, imperialist, warmongering United States of Amerika wish to exercise their economic and political might-move. Take your business to a soveriegn state that will give them short shrift.
In fact a good example might be the peaceful and most respectful People's Republic of China...
Of course there would be an interview with a government official in which you would explain your reasons for wishing to set up the website in China and the exchange of a suitably sized 'red envelope' Afterwards there would be little or no hinderance on the part of the PRC government and some very effective protection.
Possible scenario
Legal representative: Greetings Minister Chen. I represent the XXX Producers of the USA and we would like to discuss instances of piracy that are taking place on websites based in your country.
Minister Chen: greetings, Mr Feldstein and how may we be of assistance?
LR: We would like you to put a stop to these sites and bring the owners to justice.
MC: Mr Feldergarb...
LR: Feldstein!
Mc: My mistake, sir. That can be done but it would be a most difficult, drawn out and expensive process. In order to accomplish this we would need the following assurances and concessions from the movie industry. (hands over detailed document of aproxmimately 100 pages)
LR: (looks over document quickly) Minister Chen, I can see several possible impediments to our reaching an agreement. For instance this clause requesting a political donation of US$50 million...
MC: On which page is that Mr Krapperstein?
LR: My name is Feldstein!
MC: Oh so sorry we have such problems with foreign names... Oh yes! I see the reference. I'm sorry but this is non negotiable...
(8 hours later and no progress on the LR's part)
MC: These sort of things could go on forever Mr Feldstein. It would be so much easier if you had the respective CEO's of the movie studios come and see me personally for an intimate one on one chat.
It was nice meeting you. Good bye.
Or maybe some of us have some ethics, and find it immoral to download and benefit from other peoples hard work without their permission or compensation. Sharing the original CD/DVD/Book with your friends is fair use, giving everyone on the internet access to digital copies of a CD/DVD/Book/game/etc without permission is not fair use.
Don't like copyrights? Get off you butt and do something about it! But you need to realize that because you don't like them it means that you can just rip off the artists/companies/etc who produce the stuff you enjoy. Also I don't think most people who propose these changes want to be reasonable, most of them are along the lines of "whatever allows me to get their stuff for free."
You are in no way entitled to free entertainment! If you can't pay the price or don't like the conditions, don't make excuses and just make do without it!
Allow me to play Devil's Advocate here. Let's say that copyright lasted strictly 20 years and then the work goes straight to the public domain, no extensions.
How many torrents can you find on lokitorrent for things that would have expired copyright under this scenario? I bet there are some, but the VAST MAJORITY are not. Most things on most torrent sites are current movies (10 years old or newer), current games, current tv episodes, etc. BitTorrent is especially like this because swarms tend to last weeks/months and then die off, as compared to emule or fasttrack where stuff lingers on indefinitely because it uses the "share your whole HD" model.
If you took down the torrents from lokitorrent for things created in the last 20 years, you'd be left with barely a site. So then under this line of reasoning you would still be against the site, since even under your "Best case" copyright scenario the site is still a gigantic infringer.
I just wanted to give everyone an update on Lokitorrents status for donatios. Currently they have rased $20416 out of $30000. So take that NON-BELIVERS!
I am pro-P2P. Anti-Current Copyright Laws.
My personal opinion in the matter is that while copyrights are good in the sense that the "holders" get money, However the current copyright liftimes are way too high (currently I cant download a song for free if it was made in my lifetime) and as far as movies are concerned; The movie should be protected while it is in theaters, however once the movie has made it through the cycle (Theaters -> Video Rental -> PPV -> Movie Channels) it should be "public domain" and free. Heck who here thinks that "The Wizard of Oz" is still making money? What about "Space Jam" or even more recent "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"? All the above movies have "completed the cycle" and can be viewed (and recorded) of cable tv.
Also for TV shows shouldnt there be a *delete within 24hrs* rule. If you miss the show then you should be able to download it (it isnt much different than setting the VCR to record it. Hell they even make VCRs that skip commercials!)
So Here's to Copyright Reform! I made my donation to Loki (and no...I havent even downloaded any movies, software, etc.) I just believe this is a cause worth fighting for!
-pVoid
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They've established that they can control what's posted, and they've established that they do control what's posted. That puts them in a much weaker defensive position compared to Grokster and Kazaa. There's a very good chance that they're going to get nailed to the wall in court.
And they've established through enforcing it that they're trying to stay legal. They check against a list of names of content they have been told no user is authorized to post a torrent for. If the copyright holder hasn't given them a list and asked them to remove and blacklist those items, how is that Lokitorrent's fault? The MPAA could have simply sent them a list of every movie their members have a copyright on and asked they be removed and blacklisted. Since they didn't do so, we'll never know what would have happened. But if they had and Lokitorrents had removed all of them and continued to ban any new uploads according to policy, they'd have not been breaking the law.What you fail to realize here is the copyright owner has a job to do too. They can't expect every soul on this planet to know they own movies x, y & z and studiously make sure they never let anyone do anything with them. When they're made aware of copyright infringement happening, they have to notify the proper people to request it be stopped.
Lokitorrents probably falls into the common carrier clauses of the DMCA, since they do not host the actual content themselves. The DMCA requires a takedown notice to be sent prior to taking legal action. It also sets out how that takedown must be formatted (for one thing it has to list every file/link considered infringing, it cannot say "our copyrighted works" and count since that doesn't provide the needed info for the carrier to act) and it must be sent to the proper address specified by the carrier for DMCA notices. If the carrier doesn't remove the links/files within a certain time frame, then, and ONLY then, can the copyright holder file suit.
In this case the MPAA filed suit first, this case may not make it very far, as unless they've bought the judge out, it very well may get thrown out on the grounds that they failed to comply with the DMCA rules prior to filing suit. At that point the MPAA would have to issue that takedown notice, list every link/file that is infringing, and if Lokitorrents takes them down, they can't sue. If anything new shows up (that wasn't on the site at the time of the previous notice) they send another, and so on.
You don't seem to be trolling, but you either have no clue how the DMCA works, or you have a great love for the MPAA. ISPs are constantly sent DMCA takedown notices because of illegal content hosted on THEIR servers by their users, yet they aren't illegal. I could go stick up some nice illegal Mp3s on my webspace my ISP provides, and the RIAA can't sue my ISP right off and claim they're responsible. Lokitorrents doesn't actually have the illegal content hosted on their servers!
Besides, I can go to Google and do this search and I'm taken to a page where I can now download torrents of illegal content. So by your reasoning (Google can control what's in their search results, they remove links because of DMCA takedown notices regularly, search for Scientology to see, they'll tell you links have been removed), Google is illegal and the MPAA should be filing suit against them ASAP!
"Lokitorrents probably falls into the common carrier clauses of the DMCA, since they do not host the actual content themselves."
I'd suggest that sites like Lokitorrent and Suprnova fall into the category of a magazine like TV Guide, or Soldier of Fortune. They index; they do not carry content. They point out where it is.
TV Guide tells you where and when to tune in to a TV program. Their critics sometimes watch the programs and rate them, as well. If the program was inproperly copyrighted or illegally distributed to a channel is none of their legal concern.
Soldier of Fortune tells you where mercenary markets are, and how to find them. They print articles about the actions in question. Whether or not the merc offers are legal in the jurisdiction of the country in combat matters nothing to them, nor are they held liable.
I am aware of the 2600 linking decison in which the court decided that linking to illegal content was itself illegal. I'd use the Magazine Defense. If that isn't usable, there are a lot of magazines that need closing down.
2 cents worth.
I support Loki torrent, because disney WB and all the other ones have enough money as it is, i will will stop downloading movies the SECOND disney stops employing child labor or increases the standard of living in their sweat shops
I do not support Loki torrent because downloading movies/games does not only harm the major coperations, it also harms the guy down the street trying to keep his rental shop afloat with a family to raise.
I think you're being overly kind to Lokitorrent. To quote from their own FAQ, " I am an author of some commercial software that was posted on your site and I want it removed We have a help page just for you here. Note that, by reading this FAQ, you have already agreed to our terms and conditions and sneding DMCA letters to our hosting providers is in direct violation of those terms and will only result in your requests being ignored. So please save yourself the trouble and follow our simple procudures to have you material removed." So it sounds like they're going out of the way to shoot themselves in the foot. Furthermore, you argue that "What you fail to realize here is the copyright owner has a job to do too. They can't expect every soul on this planet to know they own movies x, y & z and studiously make sure they never let anyone do anything with them." However, if you check Lokitorrent's site, you'll see that they've even set up a category labelled "Movies - CAM-TS" for handheld camera recordings and telesync copies of first-run movies that haven't seen a proper DVD release. Arguing that they might not know whether or not the movies posted in this category is disingenuous at best.
Beyond the Arguments about the trading of so called illegal material, there are other issues which need to be looked at with regard to IP. For example, what if the current copyright laws (which only seem t favour copyright lawyers these days) do not suit the intentions of the original creator of the content to begin with. What if the Artist or Software developer honestly didnt mind certain uses and circumstances to exist legally so their work could be copied and even modified. enter Creative Commons. http://creativecommons.org Check this stuff out, it is a glimmer of hope that at least there are other ways to share IP, if thats what someone wants to do, without All our base belonging to Lawyers and corporations.
No time to say what I want right now but will later. I have an idea that I've been working on called The Runner that will fix the MPAA for good. Sound stupid don't I! Nope, over 10 years experiance with computing ect I have created many kool things and only decided to create The Runner which I will explain in detail later. Cause I don't like the way the MPAA have decided to fight this situation when I know and have a solution I'm suprised the movie companies did'nt think of a long time back. I'll also explain that too later if you guys want the info. 12hrs a day for 10 years working with my computer might give the MPAA an idea of what I can create and what my solutions can solve. But if the MPAA don't watch themselves, they will find me releasing thier worst nightmare. It's not a threat either. I just don't like they way they decided to attack the inoccent as well as the guilty in one considering my solution as I said ealier was'nt realised by these so called proffessionals. Stay tuned for more info