Slashdot Mirror
Round Two for MPAA Lawsuits
An anonymous reader writes "CNET is reporting that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed a second round of lawsuits against individuals trading movie files. This follows the lobby's legal attacks on BitTorrent servers a few weeks back. A couple of commentaries on this latest legal barrage can already be found here and here."
Don't worry this software is purely to help parents ensure their little kids are not growing up to be criminals...it won't be used by the MPAA at all to track those computers and send the info to the MPAA.
Between that and the fact the parents may not know how to utilize the software I am sure it will be great SuckCess.
I am waiting for the time comes when i purchase a movie, place it in my dvd player (flash upgrade) or in my computer and it will auto-install tracking software.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
What don't they get?
Do you think the MPAA and RIAA should stand idly by and not care when people download and enjoy (or hate) for free all of their products?
I'd say they understand it pretty well, there is a % of DLers who get for free what they would ordinarily buy, and they want that % paying them for the same thing (music, video, etc). If they stand around picking their rears, many will see it as an endorsement of DLing.
No, they must protect their copyrights and interests, like it or not, nice or not. It is the only way.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Until the MPAA starts cracking down people actually selling their wares instead of people downloading them for free they will not get a tear of sympathy from me. Seriously, I don't understand it. When I was NYC, street vendors make no attempt to hide the fact they are selling pirated goods. Why isn't the MPAA cracking down on them instead of college kids that have nothing better to do with their bandwidth than download DiVX ripped movies?
-Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn
If the media industries only took the time in the late 90's to understand and serve this group - I believe they call it marketing - rather than fight against them their revenues would be significantly more. Of all industries that should know this it should be the movie industry.
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Today, the film industry generates more income from video/DVD sales and rentals than from theater runs. Had they won their case 20 years ago against Sony and the Supreme Court ruled VCR's were illegal (it was a close 5 to 4 decision) the film industry would have less than HALF the revenues it does today.</i>
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I hardly see movies in theaters anymore anyway. I don't really enjoy them as much, probably since a lot of movies anymore are crap put out for the sole purpose of making money. (which all movies are to an extent)
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I save the money for video rentals, I get about 4 movies for the same price for my wife and I. We can then watch them whenever, and not pay $3 for a popcorn and $4 for a soda.
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Much more enjoyable, and no kids around to bother me while I watch.
...would be the parents monitor what software little Johnny is installing on the computer and to ask what that software does (with demonstration of course). I know if I see icons pop up on the family computer desktop or start menu, I tend to ask the family who installed it and what it does.
If I can't download a movie I want, I definitely will not be buying it. I can't afford it.
The MPAA does not lose money because I never had any plans to buy in the first place.
And that justifies you being able to get it for free? Setting aside your idiotic logic, you are stealing you fucking fucktard.
That their software download site is called respectcopyrights.org, when they don't respect them themselves when they're about to run out...
you wouldn't get free movies anymore because there would be no more movies for you to download
There is this thing called a 'camera' that can be used to capture video, and word on the street is that not only independent studios, but even individuals can use these to create movies.
And I also hear that they make movies in other countries besides America...
Why would we want these to stop? Seriously. If they were saying "Bittorrent must be completely shut down", I'd be completely against it. But they're only suing people to stop trading pirated movies, which they have every right to do. I would think most of the Slashdot community wouldn't care about that -- if they take away my ability to get a Linux distro, though, that's another story.
And that justifies you being able to get it for free?
There's no justification needed. The only "justification" involved in this issue is the "justification" for copyright protection in the first place: the Constitutionally-mandated purpose of encouraging the arts and sciences. Actions that don't run afoul of this goal don't require "justification"; they are allowed by definition as a form of free exchange of ideas and information protected by the First Amendment. The Founders were pretty explicit about this: information and ideas were protected from government interference except for certain narrowly-defined purposes. A loophole, perhaps, but a relevant one that goes to the heart of the matter.
I'm sorry, but this simply doesn't qualify as "stealing", no matter how much you might like to think otherwise. To steal something, someone must be deprived of property that they would otherwise have had. And if there was no chance said someone would have received payment (i.e. the person allegedly doing the "stealing" could not have paid), then again by definition, no one has been deprived of anything. QED.
Kythe
I download movies but don't share that many because of hard drive space, I only share what I'm still downloading. Once it's done I typically burn it to CD and delete it from the PC, so while I have (insert large number) movies all they see is maybe the dozen I'm downloading. How successful will this be?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
What is this country coming to?
It's coming to citizens having to personally reclaim their rights from corrupt lawmakers.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
And are all these independent and foreign studios going to expect to be paid? Or do they just live off the adoration of their fans and the smug knowledge that they aren't corporate tools?
I just don't get it, do they really think that they will shut down all P2P networks by suing users? How long have the software companies been trying to shut down warez sites? Did they succeed? No.
As far as I'm concerned, file sharing is here to stay, it is impossible to kill a technology once its out there, they tried to kill VHS and failed, and right now they are making billions from something that they once tried to eliminate, they are better off stopping wasting resources trying to stop file sharing and putting all that money and brain power into trying to find a way to gain from it.
I am not a marketer, so I have no idea just how they can do that, but there must be a way.
There is no "bad" technology, there is only technology that haven't learned to use to its full potential yet.
But, on the bright side, if we're never buying DVD's this will never become a problem.
-Steve G.
And if *I* were the MPAA, I would seriously consider this: no ticket sales, profit-sharing with concessions, Hollywood pays a percentage of the actual theatre buildings, etc. I'm sure they could get their money back and this way they could compete with the other "free" way to make music. I know that Famous Players has reduced their ticket prices (this week, AFAIK) instead of driving them up, which is definitely a reaction to p2p. What's going to happen in the future with the next generation of broadband technology?
I can already download an entire movie in just under an hour, which is sometimes how long it takes to get everybody packed up, in the car, purchase the tickets, get through the concession stand, find a seat, and then wait through 20 minutes worth of commercials. If the MPAA doesn't adapt, and I mean *now*, they're going to lose out on an entire generation of movie-goers. My friend's younger brother (11) hasn't been to the movies in three months, but in that time he's downloaded at least two or three movies a week, simply because it's so easy.
Music CDs are a different argument, because it's much more difficult to see a band live than it is to see a movie in virtually any city in North America, so no, I'm not going in that direction.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
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| The problem is downloaders wouldn't ordinarily buy it.
That's not a problem. Preventing downloaders from downloading copyright material/music
which they would otherwise not purchase is not unreasonable. Just because you would never
buy an item doesn't grant you license to steal it.
In my opinion based on what I've read, and infered.
Wholesale piracy DWARFS bittorrents and the other sources of MPAA movies and RIAA music.
However, college kids in the U.S. are easy targets. Moreover although the financial losses are small, the social implications of "free" movies is huge, so they're trying to avoid that (music, because of a lot of forces already has the image that its free, but I digress).
Moreover, when you're talking about pirated CD's and DVD's... real ones from overseas, you're talking about guys with guns and money that will put holes in your body with lead if you interfere with them. The U.S. has no jurisdiction in those countries, and in this country, if the head of the MPAA started making too much noise, well, perhaps he might end up with "lead poisoning".
I'm being serious here. They're going after easy targets, because the hard ones will get pissed off and cause they physical problems in the real world. Not legal problems or internet problems. Real problems.
What right has been taken away from you?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I would think that if you worked for a company for two weeks and then they chose not to pay you, most people on this forum would consider that a type of theft.
Is that copyrights are finished.
This is not something I'm promoting, or something I desire. It just is.
How can you expect to control a world, to enforce the "right to copy" when anyone can make 100 copies a second of virtually any data only work?
In India, before Ghandi G. came along, it was illegal to make salt. People near the ocean were surrounded by billions of tons of salt but weren't allowed to extract it from the ocean. The british mandated this by law to protect their salt industry.
This is the exact same scenario that is happening with copyright. Some laws were passed 200 years or so ago to make it a civil wrong to do something that is very easy to do nowdays. These laws are unenforceable unless you want to assign the death penalty for possession of a xerox machine, a printing press, a tape recorder, a CD burner or especially a computer.
It's over people.
The current think going around is "how can we make these expensive movies if we can't profit from the copyrights?". My answer is, lower your expenses. The first thing you can do is dump expensive actors whose cost is sometimes 70% of a film.
My response to bad media, movies and music is not to participate. To not contribute to it. I don't think it is a moral justification to infringe copyright to claim that the material sucks anyway. That's really degenerate thinking. Tell it to the judge and see how far you get with that.
I'm not trying to justify my vision. It's just a fact that copyrights are finished. I'm offerring solutions. While the facts may offend some people, all their ranting, lawsuits and legal maneuvers won't change those facts.
The facts are technological. The march of progress is currently consuming another hapless victim. I would suggest not getting in the way of the thrashing beast in its death throes. Wounded animals are the most dangerous of all.
What right has been taken away from you?
The ability to use copyrighted works after their copyright has expired. OK, technically this hasn't been taken away -- just the expiration extended (indefinitely). I should by now be able to use the Mickey Mouse likeness without paying Disney a dime. I should be able to repoduce copies of "The Thin Man" movie. But, I can't.
Copyrights were never intended to provide a monopoly on works forever. See Lawrence Lessig's book for a better explaination than I could ever hope to muster.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
What about the whole realm of fair use?
I am a big bit torrent user myself. I like to download Star Trek. But nothing I'm downloading isn't being broadcasted on the cable TV I pay for. Is it still illegal?
It's not illegal if I record it with a TiVo... same quality (and in many cases better), only the source has changed.
The way I see it, I've paid my dues. I'm legally paying for this content. The **AA shouldn't have a right to tell me exactly how I consume the said content. They're getting paid either way, so they can STFU.
As long as I pay for cable TV, I should have the right to download any TV show or movie that's been broadcasted on any channel on my service.
If I can legally record shows with a TiVo, I should be able to legally download those same shows.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
The fact that we have to sit through commercials before movies begin pisses me off to no end. That's abuse of their customers. Ticket prices continue to go *up* and yet they shove more and more commercials into that timespace before the movie starts. Used to be, you would pay a few bucks for a movie ticket, and see the movie. Now, not only do we have to pay three times that amount to get in, we have to put up with forced marketing messages.
If I've paid for my movie ticket, I don't need to see no damn commercials. If they're going to show us commercials, then don't sell tickets.
Forgive me if I can't seem to muster any tears for those poor movie studio execs who are going hungry because of p2p.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
**I do not download music or movies... but this whole thing frustrates me to no end** The **AA goes after all these college students and kids... what's something they usually have in common? A lack of funds. How about if the going rate for a movie ticket wasn't $8.00 (in my area). I remember when you could see an evening movie for $3.00 and that wasn't too terribly long ago. You could take a freaking date to the movies and get a soda for $8.00 Now, it's $20.00 Lower prices to a reasonable level and maybe people won't resort to downloading to see that movie they've been waiting for. There is absolutely no reason for consumers to have to endure such prices. The theatre that I frequent raised their prices to $8.00 last year from $7.50. Why? There was no noticable change to the theatre or the films in general to justify the price increase. Now they're talking of raising them yet again to $8.50. Oh, wait... forgot that we have to pay those "modest" $20 million dollar salaries to every actor in Hollywood. Not to mention the millions to the producers and directors and everyone else who's name appears in the credits that isn't hurriedly rushed by in a scroll. The same goes for CDs. Lower the prices and put out better MUSIC, not manufactured Barbie and Ken Dolls. Hollywood had a record breaking year in 2004. So, piracy is leading to the demise of Hollywood? Sorry, but you'll get no sympathy from me when you're still making BILLIONS of dollars while some kid in a dorm room makes $5/hr if he even has a job and would just like some entertainment from time to time.
I'm pretty sure even 10 year olds these days can hit uninstall...
"In practice, the software, developed by the DtecNet Software company in Denmark, casts an extremely wide net."
Something tells me we'll be seeing anti-MPAA software soon. And oh yea, im betting $5.00 that DtecNet Software will get defaced :)
But it gets even worse...
"Parent File Scan also uses a very liberal definition of file-swapping software. In a test on a CNET News.com computer, the software identified Mirc--a client for the Internet Relay Chat network, where files can be swapped,"
mIRC?!?! I never knew!!!