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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 thought the MPAA only dealt with movies? Are they just going after TV sharers for the hell of it?
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TFA has a list.
"The six sites sued Thursday include ShunTV, Zonatracker, Btefnet, Scifi-Classics, CDDVDHeaven and Bragginrights."
Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it. Think you could loosen your grip on the obvious just a little? It's starting to turn a little blue in the face...
pooptruck
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.
To see Piratebay.org's response to their letter!!
It is technically legal to download anime that's copyrighted in Japan but not yet licensed in the USA.
However, if the sites in question are not holding the actual torrents, then they should be able to claim to be news organizations. Being a 'News Organization" is open to massive abuses. Look at Jeff Gannon. Still I wish them luck.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I hope they don't find out I'm a fan of the Gilmore Girls
So, my mom calls me in a panic the other day. My dad forgot to record one of her favorite shows, and it was the series finale, and she really wanted to watch it.
What are her options? Hope they repeat it in a few months, buy it on DVD in a few years, or maybe locate someone who has a copy? All of these options are pretty iffy.
I have another choice, though: Break the law downloading it to make my mom happy. Why can't the TV people sell it for download themselves so my mom can be happy legally?
(Insert the "your mom" jokes below.)
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?
I downloaded the latest Apprentice because I missed it. I'm in Korea with no VCR and I was out of town that night. How the hell else am I going to watch their show? They DO want people to watch their shows, right?
Just another example of these people dropping the ball and trying to fight technology. Hell, if they were smart, they'd offer their own shows with commercials for download. If they came up with a system that was as fast and easy as bt which had commercials, and maybe even more reliable, I'd probably get that version and watch the damn commercials anyway, or at least, pay as much attention to the commercials as I would if it was a regular broadcast.
But instead, these guys are like creationists, dragging us kicking and screaming back into technologically backwards times when we've already gotten a taste of enlightenment. Good luck with that. Idiots.
This stuff happens all the time. I'm sure that people are still using VHS tapes to record their favorite shows and loaning the tape out to their friends. Heck, if I knew that I was going to miss **insert random TV show here** on a given night and my wife wanted to record something that aired on the same night at the same time on a different channel, heck, I'd find a friend of mine who would either record onto tape or DVR the show and give me the copy on tape or DVD. When will the **AA farknuts learn?
Sadly, btefnet is on the list. Where will I get The Daily Show and Dr. Who if they go down?
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I'm an American citizen and what you say is true. Our founding fathers like John Wayne and Gary Cooper who tought civilization to the savage red indians and who made this country great would turn in their graves if they knew people were sharing TV content.
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.
And just before the series finale of "Lost" too ;)
We're not even halfway through the first season screening down under, and I have a crack-like addiction to the series. It's shameful, I know, but some primal part of me really digs the idea of being stuck on an island with Maggie Grace
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!!!
I share. That cool guy over there shares. That hot chick, she shares too! Doctors share. Artists share. Judges share. Priests, milkmaids, garbagemen, executives, teachers, uncles, mailmen -- they all share. Old and young, smart and dumb (dumb, but nice!), people with good taste and people with conventional likes and dislikes; Chinese and Amsterdamish, Black, Brown, Yelllow and Red, Whites too; young girls (giggling), pippled-faced boys, pregnant women, bearded professors -- they ALL share!
:)
Isn't it about time you shared too?
Have a nice day -- AND SHARE!!!
Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it.
:rolleyes:
Yeah, that would be the whole "for private home exhibitation only" clause you saw scroll by when watching rented movies.
Really, would the fact you are distributing the program for free interfere with the studio's business of selling the series on DVD? I wonder...
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.
The poster gave up his opportunity to receive positive moderation when he descended into juvenile insult. If you genuinely believe that he had a point, then restate it in a nonabrasive manner and see if the mods "want to hear it"
Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it
Well, to be fair, that is the law.
Of course it's legally OK to record TV for your own consumption - that's a fair use of the copy you were given by the copyright holder. It will be good news when the copyright holders associations (primarily the MPAA and RIAA) acknowledge that fact explicitly. Especially now that their (MGM's, really) lawyers have acknowledged it in their Supreme Court arguments.
And it's not legal to make a copy beyond that use. The right to copy is what "copyright" restricts to its owner. However, there are other fair uses of personal copies that should be protected in some online sharing that is exactly like in-person sharing. Our right to bring a record to a party, and listen to it with friends (and friends of friends), is protected. As is our right to loan our copy to a friend. If one of those friends makes a copy while they have temporary access during a protected sharing transaction, that copy is illegal - the unauthorized copier is breaking copyright law.
Those scenarios are fair not because of any feature of the physical copy, or the physical proximity of the friends. Rather, their recognized fairness is in recognition of the ancient tradition of friends sharing music, which the recent "temporary" artificial monopoly created by copyright didn't dare infringe. So our right to share music that way, in a shared simultaneous experience with friends, should be protected. If we're both tuned into a simultaneous stream of my music, that's fair use that's new only in the "space-shifting" feature, which doesn't define the sharing experience. The sooner we get the traditional fair use boundaries defined in terms of new technologies, the sooner we'll all be enjoying those familiar scenarios using the newer, freer media. And the sooner copyright owners will be reaching modern markets which want to use their material fairly.
--
make install -not war
Actually, I thought "you're all dumbasses" was the most insightful bit.
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.
... I wouldnt be watching Lost now. It's a densely packed storyline and I missed a couple episodes a while back. When I finally got back to it, someone who I thought was dead was alive and I didnt know what the f**k was going on.
I was able to catch up on BT, and now I can follow it when it broadcasts. Otherwise I would have said to hell with it, and they would have lost a viewer (no pun intended).
If past episodes were made available for download at a reasonable price, I would have paid for a handful of previous shows. I wouldnt even care if it was full commercials and DRM'd up the wazoo. For $2-$3 per episode, I would consider it just like a rental or buying a movie ticket. ie. a disposable purchase.
Though I wonder how many people would download torrents instead of buying the inevitable DVD release. The quality of the episodes I saw was so poor that if I was really such a big fan of the show, a 300 MB divx would be no substitute for the proper DVD boxset. For many people though, if the downloaded episodes are 'good enough', then I could see how it could potentially impact DVD sales.
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Anyways, I wonder how the hell these fuckers are able to stick their dicks in the air agianst powerful studios and lobby groups.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
What's funny is the MPAA and other companies scream up a storm of how it's illegal and wrong, have they ever stopped to consider how much of a fucking monopoloy tv is?
Case in point, I'm a huge sci fi fan. Take Trek as a main example. Sure if I'm at home during the day around 1pm I can catch TNG/DS9 reruns on "Spike" TV but most people with day jobs aren't home at that hour. Sure I could Tivo/DVR/VHS tape it but then again you have to deal with the inconsistances of stuff being prempted, etc Not to mention you're paying to record the stuff, those VHS tapes and blank DVD's aren't free, if you record it yer at least spending X amount of money on blank media.
So as most people are unlucky to not be able to tape shows, such as my example, what options do we have?;
- Wait till reruns begin/occur. Some shows are already in rerun syndication on other networks. Take Stargate. It has new episodes of SG-1 on the Sci Fi channel. but if you turn on say, the WB at 3 am some nights you catch old reruns of it. This falls into the above example of being able to record such things, as such times, in an affordable manner. And that doesn't take into account the current season of a show. Smallville just ended it's season (I think), so if you missed the last few episodes of the season you gotta wait till the end of Summer when the reruns of that season "catch up".
- Buy the seasonal DVD's. Ok this is my main deterent. I'm a huge Trek fan, have been for 15 years. I own not one season or movie of Trek on DVD. Why? Walk into the cheapest department store there is. Seriously, go to Walmart or K-Mart or Target. See those prices? $80-100 for ONE season of basically any Trek. $80 fucking dollars. I don't need 20 extra DVD's, sure their nice but I just want the series, in DVD format in DVD quality all in one nice little package. I honestly cannont justify paying more than $30-40 per season of a TV show. If you want all 7 seasons of a Trek series, it's almost $800......I can buy a god damn CAR for that (or at least put a downpayment on a nice one). Now some DVD's have become more, economical. This past Christmas when Buffy season 7 came out, they released a holiday package deal, all 7 seasons for around $200-250. That is reasonable. I can justify that purchase for the cost. And you still can find a deal here there, Amazon.com knocks off a couple hundred bucks on big series like Trek, but still not much... Now remember when I said go to a department store? Try a large chain store like Best Buy, EB, Suncoast, Media Play, etc..Double those prices.
- Avaiblility. Remeber how I mentioned the cheap stores and big expensive chain stores? What do you see most of in the dvd sections at Walmart or Kmart? New Releases. Sure they have a handful of tv seasonal dvd's but most likely the last that was released (i.e. you'll find Stargate Season 7 but not Season 1...). So what are you left with? Going to a store that specializes in electronics and shit like Best Buy or Samgoodie, whom have a nice HUGE selection of DVDs and such but charge INSANE prices. ($1200 for all of DS9 last time I checked...)
The quality of tv just doesn't justify things in the end. I mean, for every Trek dvd or Scape DVD that's fairly expensive you'll find CRAP like American Idol or the latest incarnation of Survivor selling like hot-fucking-cakes for half the price. Hell I haven't watched anything on the Fox network in years (except 24) cause every night it's their prime time lineup of "Reality TV" shit. ABC, CBS etc follow either in the same suit or throwing out the 14th different spinoff of CSI or Law & Order o_O
When prices are reasonable or tv schedules become more flexible in correlation with recording media prices then maybe I won't use BT for my source of entertainment.
Aw Frell this
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
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I think these lawsuits will simply speed up the migration away from P2P to anonymous P2P. Many individuals believe strongly in the freedom of uncensorable speech and many also think that copyright (a monopoly on the free flow of information and a an barrier to promote artificial scarcity of knowledge erected by government enforced through threats of violence) needs to be reformed at best and removed totally at worse.
The more promising anonymous p2p applications is I2P, its Wikipedia article here. It is a network layer and has a variety of tools including anonymous bittorrent [ducktorrent], [i2pbt], [azeureus plugin] (Azureus 2.3.0.0 has I2P code in its core as seen from their release notes), anonymous p2p search [i2phex], anonymous IRC [core], anonymous http [core], anonymous distributed content store like Freenet [Quartermaster or 'Q']. All it really needs is people to share their content (just put it in your files in automatic webpage directory) and anonymous newsgroups.
There is also Freenet which is a useful backup to I2P until I2P develops a well working distributed content store (currently Quartermaster or the defunct Stasher fufill these rolls and are in the I2P core CVS). If you get Frost for Freenet there are a few distribution organisations there as well.
The FCC said it was okay for Tivo users to record and share tv shows with 9 friends.
LOL, drop the dumbasses part and you're exactly right. I mean WTF????
If Disney up for it and wanted to try something new. Slap together some old but interesting IP, flash 10 second ad of a new burger (or in how to ask for a particular burger a certain way to save 50 cents), for say Burger King and see what happens.
Release it on one of these sites and swear up and down not to prosecute anyone so long as the ad stays intact. The trickle effect should be noticeable for weeks...Conditions include for distribution and private viewing only, not for public display (perhaps roll that across the screen every 10 minutes)
Break up that conditioning set by commercials every 12 minutes. Producers get the audience they're aiming at (instead of the welfare system today). There's room for more advertising in less intrusive methods, but the audience needs to be acclimatized to it (though there will have to be a cut off point between quality and spam).
And how many had to record it on a dvr only to find out that the movie went 5 minutes past what all schedules published for the movie. My tivo missed the end and I had to download it off the net and view the end on my PC.
Personally I consider it fair use if I already have a copy of the content I obtained legaly but I'm using the internet to get it in a different format instead of paying for utilities to do it I just basically leech off someone elses work.
Course back in the real napster days I had a lot of cd's of mine stolen so I used napster to restore my muisc collection. Subsequently the drive carrying all that music died a year later. Which lacking napster I just quit buying cd's.
And a warning to the MPAA and RIAA in the last few years I have severly cut back my cd/dvd purchases. You have put out nothing but crap lately. Hell last night I made the mistake of renting that damn steve zizou life aquatic movie. If there was any part of that that was interesting it must of been after the first 45 minutes I suffered and gave up on it being anything..
I guess if I want to be entertained I'll just pirate your movie trailers. All the good parts are usually in there anyways.
A VCR lets you keep the tapes, you can't take any content off a TiVo. Once you run out of room, you have to delete the show. And you can't record and skip commercials. With a VCR you can pause during commercials.
A) you absolutely can skip commercials with tivo, and I'll bet you head-to-head I can skip my commercials faster and more acurrately. B) you can transfer files off your tivo to your computer/portable media device C) you can burn them to a DVD if you so choose D) your friend could give you said DVD as easily as a tape if he didn't think you were such a know-it-all dick.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
Huh? I'm a smart person with a TiVo. Video extraction is no problem. My 120 GB drive is only ever half full. I'm working out of the country right now, so every trip home means dumping my TiVo into my PowerBook so I can take it on the road.
Additionally, I can access my TiVo from my job site. I haven't installed the spooler yet, but I can, and get my TiVo down in Mexico. This is bandwidth prohibitive though. If I had more time, I could have my PowerMac serve as an intermediary, get the TiVo video, and stream it to me in Mexico in a compressed format. But as I'm not home long enough to get it working, it's my fault (not Tivo's) that it's not doing it yet.
Also, being in Mexico, I've started to download some things that I don't get down here. Battlestar Galactica comes to mind. I've always avoided the SciFi channel because every time I turn it on its about those damn big worms (Tremors the series). If I'd NOT pirated Battlestar Galactica, then SciFi'd never get a chance from me. Now they have a viewer (once I'm back home, that is).
Finally, I look for Good Eats as soon as it's out. Can't wait to copy that one off the TiVo -- I want it right away.
--Jim (me)
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
Somthing fishy is going on:
....
... ...
Site says:
This domain has just been registered for one of our customers!
Domain registration and webhosting at best prices.
Registry says:
Registrant:
oblivionx btefnet
Domain servers in listed order:
NS0.DEMANDRED.NET
NS1.DEMANDRED.NET
NS2.DEMANDRED.NET
Registry for Demandred.net
Registrant:
Huntington Beach, California 92648
United States
Domain servers in listed order:
NS0.DEMANDRED.NET
NS1.DEMANDRED.NET
NS2.DEMANDRED.NET
But most telling...
Subject of #bt on efnet
* Now talking in #bt
* Topic is 'BE PATIENT WHILE WE WORK THINGS OUT'
Looks like server hop perhaps to avoid there ISP shutting them down.
"The truth and the problem is that copyrights are not free market. If the government gave Ford a monopoly on making cars, because they don't have an "incentive" to make them unless they could lock out everyone else - most people would see this as interference in free markets and overbearing government regulation."
See, this is the problem slashbots have understanding copyright. It's not locking up an idea for ever, it's granting the sole right of copying, distribution, performance, public display, and/or making derivatives or an original expression of an idea. To correct your automobile analogy, well not really correct it, just point out where you are wring, Ford is not granted the sole right to make cars. However, they are granted the sole right to make Ford Mustangs. Chevy is still going to make, and well within their right, to make the Corvette and Ford can just go stuff themselves if they want to make their own Corvette. They compete in the sports car market, NOT the Ford Mustang or Chevrolet Corvette markets.
Let's apply this to television since analogies, especially car analogies, are often just plain wrong. fox is welcome to make The Simpson's (I know they don't make it, they have the rights to distribute it, work with me here a bit) and any other station that wants to air or create their own episodes of The Simpson's has to deal with Fox. NBC is welcome to start their own cartoon about a dysfunctional family, they just have to start from scratch and hope they can garner enough ratings to make it popular and compete against The Simpson's. Again, the market is not episodes of The Simpson's it's cartoons or sitcoms about dysfunctional families.
This, in my opinion, is an acceptable "monopoly". FOX and NBC cannot have a monopoly on television though if their shows are popular enough they may obtain more of the television audience than other stations. If you want to compete you have to make a better, more original show than the other studios. If a studio spends the time, money, and effort developing and producing a hot show why should they have to compete with other studios for the same show? If you want to distribute the show across the internet you have to obtain the same rights and if the studio say no you are more than welcome to develop and produce your own internet based cartoon or sitcom and share it however you like. If it's good you might even get a studio interested but don't count your chickens.
Grandparent was litterally asking for it.
Australian here. Looks like I've watched my last Daily Show for a while.
I rarely use the Internet distribution channel as a backup to my P/DVR. Occasionally I'll forget to check settings and recordings won't have proper padding, so front/back may be clipped. Also, the VCR tape may break and cause the loss of the entire night. The Internet is also useful for the rare instance that an affiliate refuses to carry content and/or has technical issues.
For example, the show Family Guy recently went back on the air. The local Fox affiliate had technical issues that blocked analog transmission. DirecTV was also out since they were forced into only keeping the local feed (they should carry local and national feeds to the networks). Through Internet distribution, I was able to watch the show (the local affiliate eventually re-broadcast with network approval).
The networks need to allow free or cheap downloads of aired shows. At least until a DVD set is released. Start offering free or cheap downloads and it will shut down some of these channels. The offerings will also bring greater validity to legal cases (because what is so wrong with distributing aired shows to others that may enjoy it?).
Surely there's a way for "channels" to sell themselves on their website as well as part of a cable package?
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Seriously, I don't think these guys get it. Anyone remember the latest Harry Potter book? Remember that part where Fred and George set off a multitude of fireworks in the school and Umbridge was forced to run around extingiushing them all? I believe what she tried to do at one time was stun one out of existence and it just ended up multiplying.
So, imagine. MPAA and RIAA executives, whose collective IQ is about half that of a kid with Down Syndrome. They're Umbridge.
Their goal: make torrent download sites obsolete.
Take the RIAA . They succeeded in shutting down Napster and they rejoiced that it was the end of music swapping... or not. Napster died, Morpheus, Kazaa, WinMX, Gnutella, and Bittorrent rose to prominence and actually made the problem worse.
So, the MPAA seems intent on killing Bittorrent. They managed to get to suprnova, Lokitorrents, and few other sites. The result? A plethora of suprnova clones that are alive and thriving.
Do these organizations remind you of a dog that chases his own tail?
It almost makes me want to stop teaching and go into business because if these executives have IQs of -4 and still manage to make millions, imagine what me with my IQ could accomplish.
If it's not on cable (i.e. broadcast via normal radio waves OR sattelite) and it's being broadcast in an area near ME, then you have nothing to worry about... I own the rights already, and I feely allow you to redistribute the content.
You see my body has an EULA. In order to pass radio waves through it, you must agree to the EULA. This EULA states that you transfer the intellectual property rights to all your content (radio & teleivion are specified) to me for a perior of 347 years from the date of using my body as a transport medium.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
alt.binaries.drwho and/or alt.binaries.multimedia.scifi for the good doctor. alt.binaries.multimedia.comedy for your fake news. (Attn **AA, please continue to ignore the existence of the Usenet.)
Share and Enjoy! (tm)
The TV industry is used to being paid by their customers, which are the advertisers. This is a new thing - viewers wanting to buy programming directly. This must seem very painful for them, as if they stuff up then they have to deal with low sales and thus will have to produce quality product at a fair price in order to keep their revenue streaming in.
You can cup my balls. Any good with the shaft?
...expect Betamax to be overturned within the year.
I watch less TV than ever now, and yet it really bothers me the idea of losing the ability to time-shift my viewing. My response will probably be to simply no longer watch anything.
That has been my response to the RIAA. What used to be a 4-6 CD a month habit is now reduced to zero. Going on 3 years now. And no, I don't p2p anything. I simply stopped acquiring new music. I listen to the radio and see live stuff, thats it.
It really was a bit of an adjustment, but after a short time, I realized I simply can't support such behavior and now I'd much rather keep my money.
The same with TV and mainstream movies for the most part. I don't pretend I'm some sort of elitist. It is just that everything is so overtly commercial, and it becomes even more obvious when you step back and stop participating.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
I kinda got used to the new Dr Who! It's pretty good! How am I supposed to get it in America now? I guess eventually DVDs MIGHT go on sale, and they MIGHT be playable in American DVDs...
You'd think the BBC could just open up all its content as bit torrents (I understand they have opened up quite a bit!) and just charge people to be able to decode the videos. Why not?
It's only stealing if you're not paying for it.
Signed
SJ0
Cable TV subscriber
It's been a long time.
RIAA music may be nearly everywhere, but not all labels are aligned with them. You can still buy music from non-RIAA labels with a clean conscience. It's what I do.
I love Sci-Fi, unfortunately I also live in a country where "sci-fi doesn't sell", and therefore suffers from lack of distributers. So in the world according to the MPAA:
-I can't catch on TV, since no distributers are willing to sign it.
-I can't catch it on DVD, since there are no localized releases.
-I can't import it on DVD, since to do so would require me getting a multi-region DVD player, which is illegal according to the MPAA. (I could also buy a Region 1 DVD player, but it would also be illegal, since I'm viewing content not meant for my region).
-I can't download it, due to some wacky reasoning that a non-existent local distributer is going to lose out on profits.
So what's a man to do?
Legally, you are correct. Ethically, I disagree. This isn't like bootlegging DVDs. TV Content is broadcast for free. I fail to see the harm in people downloading something that was broadcast for free anyway.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Businesses exist for several reasons.
True, Businesses exist for several reasons.
But they survive for only 1 of 2 reasons. They are state operated or subsidized (either openly or quietly) or they consistantly rake in profit margins or growth of ohh... 20%.
Private businesses which dont generate huge profits/growth, dont survive. Unless you know of some examples.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
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.
1.5 hours next Wednesday night is the last one for this season.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Instead of spending $500 on hookers,
Bender: What to do, what to do? One three hundred dollar hookerbot, or three hundred one dollar hookerbots?
The recording industries tried to make player piano rolls, cassette tapes, library loans, DAT, video tape, second hand music stores and recordable CD's illegal. They all failed, and now recording content is considered fair use. The various industries over the last hundred years insisted that libraries, VCR's, player pianos, and second-hand book and CD stores would ruin them and put their poor starving children on the street to sell apples. Didn't happen. They are ALL richer than God now. They've no argument.
They now insist that file sharing is illegal; such opinions should be adjudged by their previous legal opinions on the above media. They were wrong then, and they will be wrong again someday when the political axis shifts in a decade or so and new judges and lawmakers dump their player piano roll-hating screeds into the dumper of history.
Aside from the hubris of their ideas of controlling everyone's actions, the world can't afford another War on a Common Noun. IF we somehow manage to prevent the corporations from hiring their own police forces and forming their own courts/collection agencies, the civil and criminal courts and normal law enforcement do not have the capacity or the funds to arrest and prosecute the entire planet. Half the adult population of the U.S. and Europe would be in prison or a debtor's farm if these laws were to be enforced to their fullest extent.
Unlike the Bill of Rights, which don't change with the whim of the public, civil law about copyright and distribution will change if enough citizens become "criminals". They will change the laws, even if they have to vote every idiot who covers the old corporate bastards out of office. People don't like being sued and sent to jail when they don't think what they are doing is wrong. And make no mistake, they will turn. Their is no moral issue here; copying is not stealing. Lighting a candle with another candle doesn't diminish either, as Tom Jefferson said. We didn't create copyright to make people rich and loaded with "rights" to distribute media and knowledge. We created CR to permit authors to make a living, for a limited time, on new art, and then to let it be free to inspire new art. If CR no longer serves that purpose, it has to go.
As for me, I lost all sympathy for the copyright holders when the Sonny Bono Act made copyrights eternal. There was a 200 year-old deal: we give you a limited time to make money, and a living, then it gets kicked into the public domain. That deal is broken, and it isn't getting fixed. I do not want to see "intellectual property" eternally locked up in the vaults of immortal corporations. Human advancement requires that works of art and science be distribute freely, at some point, but that no longer can happen. The deal is broken. We did not break it. They did. So, war. And we will win, and the copyright gods will lose.
My one gripe with 'stolen' bittorent TV is that they rip the advertisments out. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather watch TV without adverts, but I also understand that making TV is not cheap and that somebody has got to pay for it and until Apple gets it together and start selling TV that means adverts.
I understand that its not a perfect solution. At the moment, advertisers pay networks, networks commission production houses and production houses pay the staff. But whilst they still exist distribution networks should be embracing this as, so long as the adverts are intact, they are getting paid for nothing. Geeks rip the TV using legal software and distibute it at their own expense. Advertisers hit a bigger market, and if the networks are savvy they can charge advertisers more. Where is the problem?
Here is my prediction for a happier TV future
The technology is there already. TV networks need to wake up and start doing this now.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I'm so glad this happened.
See, I've been without cable for probably going on 3-4 years now. And we get crappy reception, so broadcast TV doesn't work well either.
I was pretty happy with my lack of TV until someone told me where I could get full episodes of The Daily Show via bittorrent. So I downloaded Azureus since it has a couple of nifty RSS plugins and started gathering them.
Then I noticed other shows on the list. Wait a minute, is that really the new Battlestar Galactica? I watched the mini-series at a friend's house, this is great! I downloaded them all, and I told my friends who watched it when it finally aired on Sci-Fi in the U.S. I also started to get Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, since those were a couple of weeks ahead of the U.S. (and I was basically getting mega-doses at a TiVo-owning friend's house).
I was renting Smallville through Netflix, but when I hit the end of season 3, I started getting those through bittorrent as well. Then the new Doctor Who showed up, and I was thrilled; the show is good, and I was telling my friends in the hopes that it would eventually hit the U.S. in DVD form.
I was basically starting to reconsider getting cable again -- the downloads are nice, but I have a small hard drive, and I work a swing shift, so they're not always done when I get home -- and perhaps even springing for a TiVo since I can't be home to watch stuff when it normally airs. Then I got home to read this article.
So I have to say, thanks MPAA! With this incredibly fucktarded move on your part, you have lost a potential paying customer, probably for good.
You almost made me forget what short-sighted, greedy fools you were. I'll not make that mistake again.
Jay (=
"war on Internet file-swapping sites"
War on Drugs, War on Terror, War on Internet File-Swapping Sites...
You know, if I was wasting as much time and money as these guys are, my wife would shoot me square in the balls, and I would deserve it.
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
Hmm, german hosting to avoid US laws?...
That still might not be enough.
If I were in their shoes, this is what I would do:
1) Generate multiple fake IDs
2) Buy prepaid debit cards online with fake IDs (repeat as necessary.)
3) Buy webhosting in China with disposable debit cards, using fake ID
4) Run a BT-Site/Tracker in China
5) Profit? (from Ads, etc.)
I mean, if people fighting spam can't stop chinese servers from spamming, it's going to be equally impossible to prevent them from hosting torrents...
And even if the MPAA manages to convince a chinese company to shut down the site, you're still protected by hopefully several layers of obscurity.
The latency isn't going to be great, but, if that's what it takes to share my m0vies/tv/pr0n...
It's somehow illegal for me to take the shows that you make available on TV for Free and send them to anyone else for Free?
Huh? How is it hurting you that I'm spreading the popularity of your show at my expense for bandwidth, etc. I mean, if you broadcast a show to 2 million viewers, and then I p2p it to another million, isn't more viewers WHAT YOU WANTED?
Or are you still believing that we're actually sitting and WATCHING the adverts that you slip into the show about every 10 minutes now, rather than using that time to take a leak, talk on the phone, eat, whatever else we need to do?
At *some* point, someone's going to figure out that most advertising is complete bunkum, and we're going to have the biggest economic crash in history, as well-dressed but penniless marketing people beg for spare change to wash your windshield or do a market study.
-Styopa
Television shows are not 'free' - they are to you and me in terms of real cost, but the producers of those shows sells advertising time which pays, in part, for the show. The better the show, the more viewers it attracts, and although the aggregate water pressure drops at every commercial break, the number of potential eyeballs that might stick around to view the ad is what drives the show into repeat seasons, ups available cash for better production values, etc.
In recent years, however, there's been a significant spike in the after-market for such shows. Used to be, they were doomed to be repeated on local UHF television stations or late-night affiliates. Now, there's video where you can buy the show on DVD for your very own! Now, if those shows are made available via the internet (agreeably at a lesser quality), then the incentive to purchase those after market products is reduced.
Well, yes, but what they want is more counted viewers. It would be cool if they could claim that they had a 6% share on the 'live' broadcast, and a 30% of internet interest? If the extra eyeballs could be quantified, they could turn those into advertising dollars which would leave them not only with nothing to complain about, but given them reason to seed the content themselves!
It sucks, but the producers do have a right to protect their markets. The challenge, for everyone involved, is to find a happy middle-ground. The p2p interest is an un-tapped market which the MPAA would rather ignore. Would you pay $1 for a show downloaded off the internet? Is there some way to guarantee that the advertising remain inserted? How can you give the producers their candy, and the downloaders their fix, and have a win-win?
Therein lies the challenge.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
Ok, so I got this news story in my email today. They have to be kidding me - the damn sites they shut down aren't even the ones that the majority of users go to. Have you guys even heard of these sites? Probably not. I have been getting immediately aired tv programs (or even a week in advance) for over a year now, and it hasn't been by going to these sites that combined have less than 100k users. If I didn't use bittorrent, I would never get to watch The Simpsons, Shield, New Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Everybody Loves Raymond... etc. Why? Cuz I work 3-11's thats why!I miss ALL of prime time. Bittorrent tracker sites keep me interested and watching until the day my ass becomes unemployed and watching the boob tube 24 hours a day. I could probably make a million points about fair usage here that a thousand other people have made before me, but there is no need. The point is, the MPAA isn't going after the sites that have 500k or even 300k users, they aren't sending lawsuits to their servers and they aren't doing anything more than trying to scare the big sites into closing their doors... why? Because I think they realize this is one of the grey areas where they actually have a chance of losing in a drawn out court case; most people see television programming as free anyway... you can pick it up on your tv without paying and using some tinfoil right? Its not any different to most people to watch 'CSI' on their rabbbit ears than it is to watch it on their Windows / Linux box.