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LokiTorrent Shut Down
wan-fu writes "LokiTorrent, a popular torrent site, has officially been shut down. After asking for donations from users for the past couple of months to fight the MPAA's lawsuit. LokiTorrent succumbed today and the MPAA took over the website with a stern warning, stating, "You can click, but you can't hide." A variety of outlets are carrying the story."
Regardless of the legality of the site, it is down now simply because they didn't have the money to fight a lawsuit. This is a dangerous trend which has been going on for far too long.
DeviantArt Page
NSFW...by a court order or something, but how can the MPAA take it over and put their own blurb on it short of an actual court decision in their favor?
They always tell you, when you are jumping into the job search fray, to Network, Network, Network. For the flip among us, it is taken to mean that one needs to get greasy and slimy and be generally fake with a bunch of people. These are typically network engineers, which is pretty ironic.
But the same holds true here. You need to be able to get onto networks that are private and trustworthy. The last thing anyone needs is to join a torrent network and have the RIAA or MPAA come in and seize personal hardware. You want to find the torrents that use GUIDs for URIs. You want to find the torrents that are so underground that only the people who are on it know of it. The way to do that is to Network Network Network.
Posting at Slashdot is one good way of Networking. Getting to know people, learning the habits of some posters, and generally being attentive and friendly and discrete is the way to become trustworthy yourself. Once you are seen as someone who can be trusted, you can then approach people about joining their underground torrents.
Hold on, the MPAA can tell me what to do when I'm not even American?
I know what they are trying to do is proper, and cutting the supply off at the central source is tonnes better than the underhanded suing kids and grannies, but I'm not even American.
We need copyright to protect Linux and Open Source in general, but surely only where laws are in place?
side note, can American filesharers use proxies in remote countries to protect themselves from **AA lawsuits?
liqbase
This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures. The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity. Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop.
Am I the only one who is absolutely repulsed by that message? A friend just said, after reading it, "wow... how come I feel that i was just glared at by the SS?". This kind of brainwashing is the same bullshit that got Bush re-elected. Our society requires an informed populace to function properly. All the powers that be are manipulating public perception to suite their own needs and it really, really, needs to stop.
~Lake
That's good for you and all, but I think there's a larger point that needs to be made...
What, really, is the difference between downloading a TV show you missed of LokiTorrent and recording it with your VCR? I've done it a few times, I'm guilty. Did I really hurt anyone? My VCR skips commercials (mostly), so that can't be an argument. It's not like the stuff I'm downloading is even available for me to purchase (or in some cases, to even see again)... but I suppose to the MPAA, I'm still some sort of terrorist.
When you take something from someone else, and they no longer have it, that's stealing.
When you go over to someones house (after they invite you in, of course) examine an object of theirs, and go home and make your own... That's copyright infringement. Assuming, of course, that object was in fact under copyright and not public domain or anything.
Quit buying into their shit.
The "Insert Quote Here" line is almost as predictable as inserting an actual quote.
well, that's a pretty broad definition.
is someone parks in my driveway without giving me five bucks, is that theft? no. it's trespass which is a totally different crime, even though it meets your definition of theft.
they key component of theft is that the owner is denied the use of the property. if someone boosts my car i am denied the use of it. that's theft. if someone violates copyright, the original holders still have property.
bottom line: loss of alleged, potential, future revenue is not theft of a tangible, existing asset. copyright infringement is not theft.
2 1337 4 u!
This is really troubling. What ever happened to the first amendment? LokiTorrent didn't host any of the illegal contact. How is this different from...?
- Hosting a list of banned books
- A library that contains books on how to pick locks
It seems like the courts often times are fast food restaurants for big corporations. I thought the courts were supposed to be object and ensure the rights of the little guy weren't trampled on??
The real troubling thing is now from new stories the movie mafia wants to "review log files" and go after people who viewed the site. That's rediculous.
Another aspect of this is hiring 3rd party companies to collect evidence. For example all these P2P so called monitoring services. Of course they are going to find evidence in favor of the movie mafia since that is what they are being paid to do. Can you imagine Microsoft doing an objective Linux story and revealing that Linux is in fact better? The government needs to collect the evidence and everything else needs to be thrown out.
Why doesn't he move his website to some other country (except Christmas Island of course, although lokitorrent.cx would be a good url ;) where nobody gives a crap about MPAA? Then he can accept donations to keep the website running and have extra to buy candy and ice-cream instead of paying for legal fees, which is a lot more expensive.
MPAA is fighting a loosing battle and are wasting their money. If a significat ammount of people don't think trading media is wrong then they'll find a way to do that. It is just like police and society, if everyone decided all of the sudden to go out to kill and pillage, there just won't be enough policemen around to stop them. But most people don't think that killing and pillaging is not right, that keeps the order not the fear or force of the police.
And I like MPAA's little adds in the movie theatres how they show this poor set designer who claims the pimply-faced hackers stole his money. Why don't they show the billionaire owners and executives of the studios? I can almost see the add:
[Sad marimba music in the background...]
"Because of the wide-spread piracy the poor CEO of [insert name] studio won't be able to afford a Ferrari for his 16 year old daughter. Look what piracy has done! His daughter will be forced to drive a BMW now. How does that make you feel?"
i shouldn't really reply to this but
"...C'mon, grow up! It's not a speeding ticket or a parking fine, it's copyright violation."
are you suggesting that file sharing is worse than speeding or parking in dangerous places, both which can be strongly argued as a risk to peoples lives? Compared to these, screwing major corporations out of a few dollars is absolutely meaningless, sort your analogies out. And from what i believe is having a more objective view than most americans of their political system, the government is heavily influenced by the corporations, you can't have a go at people for trying to stand up against them.
"all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
The popularity of sites like Lokitorrent are an expression of the will of the people. The fact that something illegal (but not clearly immoral) is so popular is a demonstration of how disconnected our political/legislative system is from the will of the people.
~Lake
Yes, it was distributing copyrighted content without the permission of the copyright holders, but it was also useful for finding perfectly legel content. I'm sorry to see it go, I'm just not sorry to see copyrighted content taken down.
"I'm not sorry to see this site go, we need to concentrate more on having LEGAL torrent sites."
The MPAA needs to concentrate on setting these up themselves. People want the content and will most probably pay (a reduced) fee to download it. If the MPAA set up an iTunes type service they'd probably make a lot of money without p***ing everybody off. Their current behaviour makes me want to go download a mass of stuff just to spite them.
Silly rabbit
The US Supreme Court came to a different conclusion in Dowling vs. United States.
From the decision :
I like to think there are three broad categories of people that we are talking about here.
1- People who will never buy the movie or go see it. These people can download all they want (or not) they will simply not pay the money for it.
2- People that would go buy the movie or go to the theatre unless they found a copy of it they could download, then they will be less likely to pay for it.
3- People who will go buy and see movies very often regardless if they have access to the downloads or are even offered free copies of them from their friends.
MPAA has nothing to worry about category 1, since they shouldn't expect any profit from them anyway. I am in that category. Same for software. Sure, I use Photoshop, but I could never afford to pay for it, even if I had the money I wouldn't buy it.
Some people fall in category 3. My brother, a film enthusiast is in that category. He will go buy the DVD to have it in his collection. This is the category what MPAA also doesn't have to worry about.
Now category 2 is what they raise all the fuss about. They represent the expected loss from piracy, and I don't think this category is that large compared to the other two categories.
Of course, this is an oversimplification, but it gives a general idea. Over time individuals will move between categories and change their behavior.
So I agree it is not theft, but because these studios expect such and such ammount from the movie and if they don't get it they say the pirates came and 'stole' it from them. If a director or producer did a lousy job and movie is a flop - blame the pirates. If people are sick of the same boring stuff and don't want to pay for it - blame the pirates. In other words they are an easy scape-goat. And they will get the law (makers/enforcers) to be on their side since they have all the money.