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MPAA Targets TV Download Sites
KenDaMan writes "ZDNet.com is reporting that the MPAA is targeting websites that serve as traffic directors for BitTorrent swaps. From the article: 'Continuing its war on Internet file-swapping sites, the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it has filed lawsuits against a half-dozen hubs for TV show trading.' Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it."
I don't own a TiVo, but using BitTorrent I've been watching HDTV quality shows on my PC for about 3 months. Man is it sweet. I hope those **AA bastards lose. When are they gonna learn to adopt a new distribution system rather than beat it with fancy lawyers.
They should be thanking us for taking their garbage out. How many quality TV shows are there? How many really? One in every hundred?
Most TV Shows these days are advertisements anyway. They don't want us to distribute ads?
Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it.
uhmmm... Yeah. That is what the whole debate over fair use, and backup copies is about.
It's okay for me to use it for my own personal pleasure, but it isn't alright to rebroadcast it to the world.
And we wonder why every mass-market electronic media outlet is DRM'ed to the gills.
Clearly there is rampant downloading of TV shows. Although the big companies are having a hissy fit about it, to me it is a sign that there is a huge untapped market, much in the same way as the napster phenomenon was indicative of a market for legal downloading mp3's (which iTunes took advantage of). All they have to do is this:
1: Offer fast TV downloads for free, or offer legal torrents.
2: Include the advertisements in the shows, and track how many people download them.
3: Profit!!!
"They DO want people to watch their shows, right?"
No, they want people to watch the adverts that come with the show, buy the associated lunchboxes, CD singles, T-shirts and beer holding hats.
TV shows are really becoming vehicles for product launches. Just take a look at MTV and the Xbox unveiling.
Hell, maybe it's always been that way and I'm only now old enough to appreciate it. When I think back to some of the cartoons I would watch as a small child, they were obviously just 30 minute advertisments for a toy line, same thing we're seeing these days with Pokemon and whatever card collecting cartoon series is big this week.
Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it.
Duh? Television shows are still copyrighted material. Distribution is not your right after recording it. Fair use only applies to personal use of the recorded show.
Recording is fair use. Distributing is not fair use (even if you are not profiting from it). MPAA is well within their right to go after these sites that take part in distributing their stuff. Still, I would be more than willing to pay for a decent quality download straight from the horse's mouth instead of some shitty divx rip that some numbnuts fucked up. Sometimes the lag from broadcast to DVD is just too fucking long. It also sucks if you're in another country and have to wait a couple of months (or even years) until it is broadcast.
If you find this post offensive, don't read it! THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING! I am what I am because of how apes behave.
Sadly, btefnet is on the list. Where will I get The Daily Show and Dr. Who if they go down?
EXACTLY!! I live in the US, I mean how the hell am I supposed to watch Dr. Who? Wait 5 or 6 years for the DVD box set to come out here? I'll lose interest by then!
This was the last straw. As soon as all the shows I'm watching are over for this season, I'm done. No movies, no DVD purchases, no more TV. Not even downloads. I'm no longer a part of this society.
The BFAA (Burger Flipper Association of America) served me with a lawsuit for $2500 last week, due to my "refrigeration of as many as three pounds of copyrighted food". Apparently their business model is based on consumers consuming consumables immediately. "If you don't eat it while it's hot, it's like stealing from us," they said. What can I do? I don't like sitting in their restaurant because it smells like hot grease. They insist I have to because the advertisements in the joint are being delivered bundled with the food.
I'm tired of this shit. Really fucking tired of it. Just leave things as is. People watch it first-run when it airs, you sell your fucking commercials.
Holy shit I can't even formulate fucking words to express how goddamn angry I am right now.
You fucking short-sighted asshole. By that logic selling series sets of shows on DVD must 'hurt syndication sales'. Bullshit. A set of 20+ HDTV Divx rips of a show taking up precious space on my hard drive isn't going to beat having a neat box DVD set of my favorite show with commentary and extras.
And international sales? Bitch, if it wasn't for TV rips I wouldn't be watching getting into the seventh episode of the new Doctor Who. There's already a 2005 series DVD box set sale in me when it comes out, thanks to people making copies of the show for us to enjoy. I'm sure I'm not alone.
You don't have to control every fucking little inch of your property with an iron fist. Sometimes the fans (remember what fans are?) can help bring in the cash better than whatever half-baked bullshit excuses you try to serve up to the media.
ADAPT OR DIE.
BytesTemplar.com
The tv/movie industry is facing the same problem that the music industry has faced/is facing. They see that thier stranglehold on distribution is in trouble. If it got to the point where people could download any syndicated show from the people who make it for a small fee, then companies like Time/Warner/AOL/etc. couldn't sell their air time for profit. Companies that base their business on being middle men are never going to be for a way to do business without them.
My PC full of shows off the TiVo seems to prove you wrong. Granted it sucks that playback of .TiVo files only works on Windows at the moment, but I have a gaming box so it's not a big deal. Next step is decoding them to normal mpeg2 and throwing them on a RAID array in my basement. That will allow me to share the storage and play back the shows on any of the machines on my network, including a box hooked up to the tv.
I'm actually using Firefox to download shows, since TiVoToGo doesn't support the TiVo and PC being on different subnets. The TiVos have a built-in web server that lets you access the now playing list.
You can also fast forward through commercials at up to triple speed (yes the same as on a VCR), or edit them out once the files are on the PC. Pausing live tv shows is also a bonus.
Also, a VCR won't automatically track when a show is on and record episodes you haven't already recorded. I'm currently collecting a number of series by recording them then archiving them on my PC. Because it's a subscription and it tracks what it's recorded in that subscription, it only tapes an episode once, even if I delete that episode off the TiVo.
I'll give one more example of why TiVo sucks. I was going to work late one friday night, and called a friend of mine to record a show. He said he only had a TiVo, but would record it. He was leaving saturday morning to go home for the weekend. If he had a tape, I could have stopped to pick it up. But TiVo requires I be in his house to see it.
You can burn archived shows from the PC to a DVD using Sonic MyDVD. So if your friend had a network and some software he could have given you a DVD to take home and watch.
.technomancer
Ah... see... the problem is the mis-use of the word 'share'. People who copy like using the word 'share' for their activities because it lessens the illegal impact of their activities. "It's just sharing... and sharing can't be wrong, can it?"
And people against copying like to misuse the word 'steal' because it overstates the illegal impact of said activities.
Both sides play the same game here.
First, the process you're trying to elucidate is called disintermediation.
Second, there will always be a place for "middle men" if they provide sufficient value.
Do I want to deal with every publisher on the planet... or buy from Amazon? Do I want to comb every newspaper for stories and deals... or check Yahoo and eBay? Do I want an acount with every movie studio or NetFlix?
Do I want to try browsing every site on the web for the information I need... or do I do a Google search.
They are all "middle men" and they all provide a useful service.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Private businesses which dont generate huge profits/growth, dont survive.
Your argument sounds awefully like the classic humans eat food argument. If you like it or you don't, it doesn't matter. Businesses don't have to generate huge profits or grow to survive. Most small businesses that are 5 years or older will never become a large profit generator. They will also probably never grow more than a few times their size. That is because they are small businesses.
It is surprising I have to remind you that small businesses exist. Typically someone with your claims would be trolling around bragging about how good small business is for our economy. How we need to give them tax breaks, and how we need to subsidize them with grants to get them on their feet.. etc etc...
But you already though of this and didn't bring it up because it is against your above argument.
But they survive for only 1 of 2 reasons. They are state operated or subsidized (either openly or quietly)
Well lets see, Microsoft is subsidized by government contracts. Boeing is subsidized by government contracts. IBM is subsidized by government contracts. Dell is subsidized by government contracts. But then what is a subsidary? The MPAA is subsidized by movie ticket buyers. The RIAA is subsidized by people who purchase albums and singles.
The money all comes from one place (the consumers) and all ends up in one place (the business or "providers"). The providers then divvy up the money back to the consumers how they see fit through payroll. The cycle continues.
The same exact cycle happens with government subsidary. The consumers get together, appoint leaders, and decide as a group which businesses a percentage of their money should go to. The difference is that (hopefully) it is for a cause that is for the greater good, rather than for the greed of the business executives.
Of course there is a lot unsaid here. But I hope you get the general idea. There isn't much difference either way except that government subsidary has a tendancy to be looked at negatively by the "conservative" economist and the coporate greed has a tendancy to be looked at negatively by the "liberal" economist. If you can call them that.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.