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MPAA Blames BitTorrent for Star Wars Distribution
AI Playground writes "Slyck News reports on
the MPAA's press release (.doc) blaming the BitTorrent protocol for the leak of Episode III. MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman: 'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world.'"
Look, most people I know who have the ability to download the movie chose not to. They want to see it on a big screen, with big sound, with other fans.
from making misleading claims like this. it's already been ruled that copyright infringement is NOT theft
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It's like saying, "Guns don't kill people, the physics of hurtling bodies does."
I'd start taking him seriously if they used proper terminology. It is copyright infringment, not theft.
A case of blaming the highway for the high speed chase. Nothing new here...move alone.
I got in off usenet, not BT....
this thing is not even worth the effort
The MPAA may take the glancing blow approach and blame the whole entire P2P community for spreading just-released movies. But aren't you also blaming those who share legal, non-copyrighted stuff? I mean, BitTorrent is an awsome technology for sharing file in general! You can't blame the technology/community for a single groups actions...
"Maybe the Ethernet ate your baby."
So Bittorent is the source of all evil for MPAA now?
Because it was used to distribute Episode 3?
Why not blame the internet? Without it there would be MUCH less piracy.
[cynism]Or even better blame the George Lucas - if he hadn't made Episode 3 it could not have been pirated [/cynism]
Reality to MPAA - get a grip!
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Bad analogies don't kill conversations, people making useless ones do.
From what I understand of this "bit torrent" protocol, it cuts the file up into little chunks and sends it out to all sorts of people.
I hope they catch the thief and interrogate him so they can find out who has each little piece. And I hope they can put them together again and return the stolen movie to its rightful owner!
The MPAA must be so sad because even though it owns Star Wars it has been stolen from them by a thief and cut up into little pieces and given out everywhere. This is terrible and heartbreaking. I hope when they catch the thief they fine him someone really huge, like what it costs to see the movie times the number of little pieces it's in, so like a thousand dollars!
A thousand dollars is a lot. I could buy a lot of baseball cards with that.
that dimmed the magic of this movie was George Lucas.
Mod me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
For heaven sakes people! Lucas was only able to make $50 million on Thursday! HE HAS CHILDREN TO FEED (I think?)!
It's a shame that this has happened, and that Star Wars Ep. III is hardly taking in any money as a result.
I blame TCP/IP for the distribution of this wonderful film.
I could have swore it was leaked by there own employees. But it's BitTorrent's fault, you say?
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
I blame internet. Lets sue Al Gore!
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
I got it ... and not from BitTorrent or P2P.
I got it from Usenet, you insensitive clods!
Yeah, Bittorrent burgled the studio, encoded a production copy and set up a tracker! Damn software.
It's interesting to note that the copy making rounds on the p2p networks is a workprint and not a cam-copy, suggesting an inside job. Given that everyone knew how high-profile ROTS was going to be, it doesn't seem too improbable that the MPAA purposely leaked the print just so they could make a big deal about it. I mean, ROTS is pretty much review-proof and p2p-proof; anyone who was interested in the film was going to the theater to see it anyhow. So there really wouldn't be a big loss by leaking this copy and it gives them a perfect opportunity to bang on the drum again. If ever they were going to leak a blockbuster, ROTS would be the one to do it for.
GMD
watch this
I downloaded a copy from USENET. That makes me a terrorist. A terr-diddily-errorist! AAARGH
Why is it whenever anyone talks about wanting to ban guns because of the "dangers" they pose, they get laughed out of the spotlight and everyone says "guns don't kill people, people kill people". However, when it comes to piracy these idiots seem to be making progress with their message of trying to ban technology.
Repeat after me.
Technology doesn't pirate IP, people pirate IP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
and there was I thinking it was the crummy script and wooden acting that was 'destroying the magic'...damn you bittorrent!!!!
If anything Bittorrent is the P2P client with the most legitimate uses. It's becoming a favourite method for distribution of MMORPG patches for one.
If Bittorrent is so damaging, then why did the third star wars movie break all box office records for opening day, midnight showings, earnings, etc so far? I say we need more bittorrent leaks.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I admit, i didn't RTFA, but the MPAA and RIAA are so quick to jump on the P2P 'community' about the illegalties of using those networks, and the press is so quick to report it, but, when it comes to these networks being used for legit purposes like linux distros, movie trailers, etc. there's hardly a peep.
The bottom line is that people will find a way to get these 'illegal' movies wether it's P2P, or some other form.
tourettes
I really don't want to pay to see it if I don't have to. I'm a student on a budget.
number one at the box office and what NN million by the end of the weekend is just not enough?
if it was a shitty movie (have not seen the theater nor priated version), then I applaud those that p2p'd it, found out it was crap and saved their money for something else, like shinyfeet.com perhaps (oh wait, that's free)
once again, MPAA just abused the media for some more free advertising for their current blockbuster
do you have shinyfeet?
So, Bittorrent walked into a theater and recorded it? Or did Bittorrent walk in and steal a master and capture it?
I know that people usually give objects personalities and human qualities, but saying that the protocol is responsible for the piracy is silly.
That could just be me though.
I think the $10 price of a ticket is starting to dim the "Magic" of movies more than bootlegs...
The gates in my computer are AND, OR and NOT; they are not Bill.
Thanks to the MPAA announcing the availibility of Episode III on bittorrent, I know now which client to start and search for it. Great service.
Georges
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
the worst part about this is that i didn't first see it on bittorrent i saw it three days before release on Usenet.
If the movie came out pre-release, shouldn't the MPAA kick themselves in the balls for distributing their own content?
Oh right...I forgot. That would make sense. And they can't have that.
The reason the magic was dim this time around had nothing to do with piracy. The problem is entirely due to George Lucas' inability to make a movie with magic in it. And the same goes for most of Hollywood. Really excellent movies are rare and hard to come by any more. Piracy isn't to blame for that.
Tactically speaking the MPAA is making the very obvious but pretty sound decision.
Step 1)Watch the release of a popular movie.
Step 2)Watch as movie gets put online.
Step 3)See blame P2P networks instead of individuals
Obvious plan, but well done. This dovetails on the release of a highly anticipated movie, so automatically gets more attention, and if it reaches some ears that haven't heard this tirade before but are gullible enough to believe that P2P is the cause then they have done well (From there point of view)
Now, I personally don't agree that P2P is the blame. I believe people are to blame.
Said an Actor to a Bishop...
For requiring me to pirate Microsoft Word. OK, so I didn't do that, I just give .docs a miss on my home computer.
Again, how much money did they make with this last one already?
If it hadn't of been bittorent it would have been blah blah blah all the way back to distributing it via various floppys(a slight hyperbole there but oyu get the picture). .Perhaps they would better serve their time by finding out the causes as to why people do it ,not how.
The method of distribution matters not
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Who's downloaded Episode 3 has gone - or is planning to go - to the theatre to see this movie.
If it was some drama or romantic comedy, then no, they wouldn't go to the theatre, but this is a special efx movie and is best seen either at the theatre, OR on a crazy home system if you have the DVD or DVD-like quality.
There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith.
That's the best example for "dimming the magic"? You've got to be kidding me. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. How does providing users with illegal copies dim their magic, much less anyone else's? When I'm watching the movie tomorrow night, I certainly won't care if somebody downloaded it off the net.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Episode 3 is breaking records for how much money it's already made. Boy, I can really see how BitTorrent is just screwing the movie industry. Just how it screwed Battlestar Galactica on Sci-Fi. What a bunch of whining chumps.
It's a stroke of genius. Add a couple of annoying timestamps and screw the aspect ratio up, and it'll give people even more incentive to see it at the cinema as well.
Has Mr. Glickman actually seen the movie? Revenge of the Sith did a good enough job of dimming the magic of the movies on its own. I urge everyone to pirate this movie so Mr. Lucas is unable to make any more films.
Why blame a medium for transfering data? Blame the tranferer. Which..since the release on the internet right now is a VHS Workprint.. it had to have come from the studio.. Blame them.. I don't use P2P's anyway..and I got the movie..
Yes, Bittorrent was at fault, and the economic impact was so huge, that Star Wars didn't make a single penny this weekend. And George Lucas is broke! John Williams is selling pencils on the street corner! Hayden Christensen... well let's not even talk about what he's doing to make ends meet!
Thanks a lot Bittorrent, you killed Star Wars!
Revenge of the Sith only had a record $50 million opening day. This is a travesty! I will personally donate my yearly salary of $40,000 to George Lucas to help keep him from starving.
Ok, I was once the rabid type who would say this immediately. English can be an ambiguous language. But we can talk in a nonambiguous way by choosing the correct words. We can also use our capacity to disambiguate. "Drinking" sometimes means "drinking ethanol". "Animal" sometimes means "non-human animal".
This use of animal has religious connetations. This use of theft has political connetations. Get over it. English won't be around forever. We'll get to an unambiguous binary language soon enough (see lojban for a preview).
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Isn't electricity, or at an even deeper level, electrons to blame for this catastrophe?
Shock horror, the MPAA is using the same P2P network used by murderers and child abusers to organize their evil deeds worldwide ... the lowly phone.
Clearly telephony should be banned unless it is routed through a central communications vetting service.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I can't get that .doc file. Can somebody post a torrent?
Okay so.. How does a film being on P2P network ruin my fun? I plan to see ep 3 in a weeks time when it's all calmed down. I could download it but I'd rather go and see it at the cinema. Sitting infront of my PC for 2-3 hours to watch a film isn't as fun as watching it on the big screen. But how does some kid in another country downloading it make it less fun for me?
Why can't the MPAA/RIAA just fuck off. When the revolution comes they will get premier tickets for being up against the wall
I like muppets.
The work print was floating Usenet _long_ before it hit BT. Not that I'd know. I saw it in the theater yesterday. Almost made up for the first two.
Clearly the caveman who discovered copper and the man who invented electricity are also at fault.
The MPAA should not go after P2P networks, every time you kill of one another will appear. That game of whac-a-mole gets tedious. They should go after the root of all this evil - that is - go after the internet itself. All this piracy is going on on the internet, so no internet no problem!
The more you tighten your grip, the more torrents will slip through your fingers.
So let me get this straight. The guy who actually uploaded the file to the Internet isn't the person to blame? Isn't blaming BitTorrent sort of like shooting the messenger? Maybe we should blame the whole internet then, because without the internet we wouldn't have bittorrent.. Hell, while we're at it, let's blame the discovery and subsequent harnessing of electricity, the invention of transistors, and just for fun, the element Carbon.
How arrogant. Look, I realize that there are many negatives about going to a theatre - the assholes with their cell phones, kids whose parents won't shut them up, etc. - but I still will not settle for a BitTorrent rip if given the option of going to the theatre. A 50+-foot diagonal screen (that's a guess; I'm not sure about their actual dimensions) that dwarfs my 55" Mitsu 16:9 TV, a full sound system that dwarfs my 5.1 system, and popcorn that just doesn't come out that good from a microwave, depending on the theatre since some theatres' popcorn sucks while others' are fantastic - a positive theatrical experience is often far better than a positive home theatre experience.
The MPAA is being absolutely ridiculous with this charge, particularly since the BitTorrent version is a work print, not necessarily the final theatrical version. Quite frankly, I question whether or not anyone who would settle for the BitTorrent version as a replacement really had any desire to see the movie theatrically anyway.
The ethically-holier-than-thou "infringement is infringement is infringement is infringement is infringement" people be damned. This is just another excuse for the **AA to try to shut down what they fear rather than adjust their marketing strategies to take advantage of using the Internet for legitimate distribution.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
How the heck does it dim the magic? LOL
As I stood in line at midnight, surrounded by fellow geeks, the only thing I could think of was: "Wow, BitTorrent has dimmed the magic right out of this."
No, wait, it didn't. The simple fact is, those who were going to see it in theatre did, and those who never were (or who were just going to borrow the DVD from a friend when it came out) didn't. Nothing new here.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
The fact is that George Lucas and company have made billions from Star Wars fans. These same fans are the ones doing the downloading. I fail to see how suing your own customers can be considered to be good business.
In truth, the MPAA is clearly just motivated by greed and is clearly incompetent. The movie and music industries have perverted the law and are simply practicing profiteers. The real crime here is in how the affluent have corrupted the system in order to generate excessive profits in order to fund lavish lifestyles.
Words to men, as air to birds.
Aside from politicials that they bribe^H^H^H^H^H lobby, does anyone care what the *IAA says? They have been claiming that the sky is falling for years meanwhile they also report recort profits.
The only thing I'de care to hear from them is "We are sorry, we were wrong, free advertising is great."
We need a law that makes it a federal felony to "Dim the magic of the movies, with intention or accidentally, through the distribution of any electronic media."
No longer will Ebert be able to safely sit there sending salvo after salvo at the movie industry, safe behind ill-concieved first ammendment rights!
Please, help save the magic of the movies from dimming, think of the children!
My experience with BT tells me that a download of the Sith would be at least a week if not a two week deal. I think he jumped the gun a bit.
Those damn thieves really put the dimmer on that magic! (great source,eh?). Yep, I just don't know how the industry is going to survive all this thievery. Just how much worse does it have to get before people get off their butts and do something?
What?
OK a lot of this evil is perpetrated by botterent but all internet piracy uses TCP/IP, this is clearly the real danger.
I call for a per packet blank media tax, and filtering of every packet at every node, and a linking of IP adress to a national DNA database.
In other news the MPAA charges Al Gore with inducing all digital piracy in the first place.
I only pay $3. I wait until it is second run, and see it at the local discount theatre. The popcorn is even reasonable - no reason to sneak in your own.
So, since Episode 3 just broke the box office opening day revenue record are they saying that Bittorrent is a good thing?
Many people would rather see such a version than spend $10 on a version shown on a big screen with THX authorized sound and the correct colors. Given that this market is so large it's ridiculous to complain of piracy because these people don't care about the quality and trying to force them to pay for a fancy version is doomed to failure. Give them what they want and let the people who want something more expensive pay for it. Many of these complaints of so-called piracy are really about suppliers failing to get off their fat asses and look at what is actually being demanded.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
My thoughts exactly... But I also add that if you can keep the geeks away from the first week of theatre showings because they are all at home watching thier favorite bit torrent client slowly rise to 999.99999 full versions avaliable , you open up a bunch of seats for non-geek people and are assured that once the geeks have their copy they will hit the theatre during the not as profitable second or third week of showing, thereby streaching the number of days you fill theatres.
flinging poop since 1969
Fine here (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050513 Firefox/1.0.4).
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone
True, so true. Better to have never seen it at all. Mr. Lucus, I want my childhood dreams back.
Typically I see a copy of a recent movie posted to usenet before torrent sites start carrying it. And sure enough, the day of the release someone posted a pre-screener of SWE3.
When I heard about this BitTorrent program delivering non-released movies, new top-40 albums and great warez software I (being cheap and lazy) immediatelly downloaded, installed and opened it. Then I waited for the goods to start pouring into my disk. So far nothing has happened. Does anyone knows what I am doing wrong?
don't blame OJ, Blame the knife
don't blame a drunk driver, blame the car
don't blame the RIAA for shitty music, its the pirates faults, there isnt enough money to go around.
Same BS different P2P app de-jeur
CNYCOMPGUY
Isn't the version being circulated a works copy? Sounds like they just want to take the heat off their own industry security issues by simply blaming someone else.
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
How does this "dim the magic" for anyone? If you *didn't* download it, does your experience in the theater suffer somehow? You do actually have a choice about whether or not to download it... Also, didn't the movie leak from the studio itself originally?
Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
You're splitting hairs to justify doing something that is clearly ethically wrong, that is pirating movies, music, and software.
It's more than splitting hairs. Piracy is not a synonym for copyright infringement. Piracy and theft are charged words designed to generate a strong emotional response. Unconsciously, the word 'piracy' conjures up images of barbarians who murder and rape without remorse. 'Theft' is used to dig at the fear that everyone has of having their material items stolen from their house. Yes, consciously, we know that a 13-year old 'pirate' is not a raping, murdering, theiving monster but the MPAA wants to generate fear, anger, and other emotions in the public. Using 'copyright infringement' -- the correct term -- just won't do that for them. So they continue to use incorrect terminology. We're not being grammar nazis by insisting that they use less-neutral terms. Yes, copyright infringement is wrong. But it's a different class of wrong from the actions of pirates and thieves.
GMD
watch this
MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman: 'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith.'
There is no better example of the MPAA's distortions than grousing about the great harm caused by Bittorrent the same weekend that 'Revenge of the Sith' is breaking box office records worldwide. Nothing could illustrate with greater clarity what a bunch of deceitful weasels these cretins are. Thank you MPAA, for undermining any iota of credibility you might have by being so stupid.
I like the abbreviation for that law:
"The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (FECA)."
It's definitely bullshit, and what better abbreviation than something that resembles fecal.
They have corporate "malefactors of great wealth", (to quote Teddy Roosevelt), and as such, they should be indicted for treason for their manipulation of our government. Once convicted, they should be sentenced as harshly as possible, i.e., strapped to Old Sparky.
Any volunteers to pull the switch?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
How much mileage do you think they'll really get out of this, though? The general public knows that some people download movies, just as they know some percentage of people driving their cars to see the movie at theaters were speeding. It doesn't make it OK, but it's just not interesting to hear about anymore.
Did anyone else's Firefox crash when visiting the parent's link, or is it just me? (Try refreshing a couple of times.)
;)
Nah, didn't crash on mine. Try using a computer that DOESN'T suck
Join the TWIT army now!
BitTorrent didn't provide "users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith", other users did. BitTorrent is just an internet protocol, it can't automatically pirate movies...
English has ambiguity. Sometimes the ambiguity has political or religious connetation. Get over it! One day we'll be transhumans talking machine code.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
From TFA:
and now, from a syndicated article in the Herald Sun (among MANY other papers): I guess the most revenue ever just isn't enough magic for Glickman.... he really does care about us after all!Guys and gals, it's only a matter of time. We can't keep pushing back the flood waters for long. The movie has too much money invested in politics and our polititions. Sooner or later, a bill will get wormed in to have the FCC or some other three letter orginization have total control over internet protocols in order to prevent and punish those involved in cyber crime.
I suggest we WiMAX nodes up and running ASAP so we can have a free and totally unregulated public-net.
Life is not for the lazy.
without magic is the MPAA's lame announcement.
Summary:
1. As many people have already pointed out sharing movies online is not theft, it's copyright infringement.
2. BitTorrent didn't do it. Some person did it. Put the blame where it belongs.
3. A lot of the magic has gone out of the movies due to high boxoffice prices, unbelievable concession stand prices and last, but definitely not least, lame movies. None of that loss is due to any file sharing of any kind.
4. Besides, why would I forgo the experience of seeing something like Star Wars, as I did this afternoon, on the BIG screen, as opposed to watching it in lower resolution on a small screen?
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
If there was a legal way to download and pay a fair amout of money for a movie I'm sure 90% of the torrent users would prefer it. People want quick and easy access to what they want when they want it.
I prefer seeing films at home. When I want to see a movie one night, it's much easier to turn to the internet than driving around on different gaz stations looking for the movie I want to see.
Instead of innovating and trying to turn internet into something good, they are trying to stop something they cant control.
"Boo hoo, we only made $50 million and set a box office record on the first day! Let's go blame a protocol for all the losses we are suffering!"
Buckethead
I'm all for this, quite frankly we should rebuild TCP/IP with an easily-managed layer of security. RFC1149 provides an excellent example of an easily secured network, all the MPAA would needs is a suitably-qualified group of packet "hunters" to dispose of unwanted traffic.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
So BitTorrent is to blame for this one? Just out of curiosity I looked at Emule and it had roughly 900 sources sharing or downloading. I did not download it (i'm not a SF fan), I just wanted to test my recently installed PeerGuardian, which indeed showed a highly increased activity.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
We now see those commercials before movies that explain that by pirating movies, we're taking food off the plates of blue collar workers. This may be true, but I don't see Lucas, with his estimates $3 billion ( Forbes )doing much to comfort them. Lucas and many others are capitalizing from the masses by taking in insane amounts of money (not necessarily a bad thing). The funny part is it is those that are making all the money that are making the biggest fuss.
Sure, this is just capitalism working in an unfair way, but so is pirating movies, right?
Do you see now that by paying money to go see their movies, you just make them more powerful? The more money you give them, the more money they will have to control our government and thus own your ass....
STOP FEEDING THE BEAST!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
BitTorrent doesn't commit "IP" theft. It is a tool. If we ban all tools that can be used for something illegal, then everything must be banned.
If there was no bittorrent, they wouldn't have the means to distribute it!!!
Windows existed long before Bit Torrent, and is, by an astronomically vast margin, the preferred platform upon which to run Bit Torrent, mostly because it makes it so easy for anyone to use by the most simple point and click graphical interface, in essence "facilitating" the casual user to be able to steal movies, therefore the theft of all these movies is *clearly* Mircosoft's fault more than anyone else's because they have made it so easy to break the law. Windows doesn't even really need Bit Torrent at all to be used to pirate these movies, since it has built-in filesharing already that makes it trivially easy to host files on the Internet for free download by whoever viosits that computer over a network.
Has anyone at the MPAA heard about recent happenings on BT HELPING the SCI-FI Channel?
and one more thing: let me preface it by saying that I plan to see the movie in the theaters and do not plan on DLing it, but if robbery is what the MPAA is so conserned about, why have ticket prices raised (in my area anyhow) by at least 150% in the last ~7 years, beating the hell out of inflation...can you say MONOPOLY?
So it's not "theft" you agree, so you just substitute another emotionally loaded (and legally incorrect) term in place of it?
I don't know where you went to law school, but on my planet, piracy involves the high seas, ships, and usually a lot of pillaging and murder. Sometimes rape.
Making a copy of a work created for entertainment, no matter how "unauthorized" it is by the corrupt people who control the distribution information, is nothing like theft.
And calling it "piracy" isn't any more truthful.
See, what we need to do is to start to evangelize the mantra, 'P2P doesn't pirate movies, pirates do'. Then, the NRA will junp in the battle since it is so similar to their ongoing struggle to arm little old ladies with napalm launchers ('little old ladies with napalm don't kill people, texas governers kill people' or something like that). Then, The NRA and the MPAA will testify in a congressional hearning on the subject. When this happens, all the stupid in the room from the MPAA, the NRA, and congress critters will reach critical mass and explode, obliterating the lot. I see it as a definite 'win-win' outcome...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
There are other factors to consider, of course. The movie grossed $50 million in the first day - a record, apparently. Clearly, piracy wasn't so widespread as to create a measurable impact. After all, this year has seen dismal sales all round on movies (and just about everything else), so the record rake-in should be measured against not what would have been expected on other years, but measured against what has been - so far - a rather poor year all round.
Now, of course, there is a moral side to all of this. Theft is certainly wrong, that is (I believe) accepted widely enough to justify the use of the "certainly" in there. That cuts all ways, though. If theft against the movie studios is wrong, then so is theft by the movie studios. What was the original actor for Darth Vader paid, again? I seem to remember seeing that the guy who was in the suit (not the guy who later did the voice-over) was paid something like $500 with no royalties. Now, would someone mind telling me how this is NOT every bit as immoral?
Oh, and you might also like to tell me how Madame Fleise managed to get quite so many names of famous Hollywood celebrities in her black book. Hey, like it or not, agree with it or not, her ring was involved in a crime. How is it that only certain crimes are bad, but other crimes are good? It's not a unique situation, either - it is well-established that Hollywood is very closely linked to both prostitution and the drug trade.
Ok, how is this for a proposal. I am sure that those who pirate movies and then never pay to see them could be talked into stopping, if Hollywood agreed to completely eliminate vice, immoral contracts, the infamous "casting couch" mindset and all other corruption for which it is infamous.
Hey, it is possible. Terrorist groups have called ceasefires over less, so I don't see why geeks shouldn't. Now, is Hollywood willing to clean IT'S side of the street? Because if not, I don't see that anybody else has any incentive to do much about theirs.
My guess is that Hollywood studios would never agree to terms that involved them agreeing to give up a life of crime and vice, even if it could be absolutely guaranteed that pirates would stop the very same moment. In that case, then Hollywood is tacitly agreeing to that piracy, as they are saying that it is preferable to acceptable behaviour all around.
I hope Hollywood has the guts to prove me wrong on that, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So is anyone going to post the torrent to go with this article? :-)
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Completely correct.
The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world.
It's even more unfortunate that the industry can't seem to face the fact that its business model is evaporating in the face of modern distribution technology. Their grip on the channels that distribute entertainment is slipping. What they should do is accept the fact that their business model is becoming obsolete.
The gun industry was yet again responible for countless murders throughout the United States! I mean they made the guns didn't they? It has to be there fault, let's blame them and sue them! Hurrah!
I don't think BitTorrent "hurts" the movie industry like the MPAA claims. I saw Episode III at 12:01, and I just watched if again via the magic-killing evil that is BitTorrent. If anything, seeing such a low quality version makes me feel like paying the $8 and seeing it again with REAL surround sound in a comfortable chair and on a screen a few hundred times larger than my own. MrToast
Clearly ethically wrong? That's begging the question to assume it's unethical from the start.
This is why debates over changes in copyright law never get anywhere. Because BOTH sides agree to start the debate assuming it is unethical to make copies without express written permission.
And it's bullshit.
If you're going to tell me it's ethically wrong with such righteous indignation, you'd better damn well be able to back it up with some philosophical as well as scientific grounding.
Otherwise I'll continue to believe information ought to remain Free.
You want to know what really dims the magic of movies? A Darth Vader Slurpee.
I'm sorry folks but it's no longer high art when you get a slurpee named for it. I'll recant on this if they launch the new Van Gogh flavored slurpee.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I'll admit that it was one of the best movies i've seen in the past couple of years, but frankly, if you look at the movies i've seen in the past couple of years, that really isn't saying much. Dimmed the magic, right. Ok, I'm done complaining now.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
And my spelling errors are my pencil's fault.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't it been ruled that BitTorrent is not liable for any illegal purposes it might be used in (ie, Copyright Infringement)? If that's the case, wouldn't BitTorrent be clear of fault? I just love how everyone looks past every possible legal use of BitTorrent and just assumes that it is the greater evil in the world of IP.
I can see it coming:
'Pirates war: Return of the pirates'
'Pirates war: MIAA strikes back'
'Pirates war: New hope'
(oh well my memory is rusty on the star war titles.. meh.. I am shames to say that.)
Don't click belowe n
http://images.google.com/images?q=darth+tater&hl=
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
So are they saying that the release started on a BitTorrent site? Wow. Too bad that's not how it works, at ALL. And I thought the MPAA at least knew how their movies get pirated.
Of course, BitTorrent is responsible.
No, no, no! Not only that! I got mine via FTP, so FTP is responsible as well! And I found the FTP-link by the web, so I guess that makes HTTP responsible as well.
Oh.. and they all use IP. Which would make IP the one mainly responsible for the IP-theft! Yup. Sounds like double-A logic to me.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
i blame microsoft because most of the computers that were used to pirate the movie were running windows. actually scratch that, i blame apple, intel, and AMD. no wait... i blame frys best buy and compusa... fuck it dude i blame thomas edison! no wait... i blame... what were we talking about again?
Plus, it's not BitTorrent's fault that the movie was released. The fault of the release is due to TCP/IP itself! I think we should lobby the government to ban the TCP/IP protocol, which makes all copyright infringement possible.
...who think that TCP/IP is required to break copyright. Ban CDs, DVDs, floppies, USB drives, iPods. I even had pirated games on casette tapes for my Commodore 64. Oh and don't forget to ban dial-ups and BBSs too, I seem to remember they didn't use TCP/IP. And IPX networks. Hell, let's just ban computers to end it all.
The truth is that information is out of control, and spinning more out of control every moment. Right now you are "only" dealing with a population that doesn't respect copyright. In theory, you could put most of the younger generation behind bars. That drive is also fueling a massive effort to create a system to share information anonymously. And then you have completely lost the ability to control anything.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
didn't this movie premiere with *double* the number of midnight box-office sales as LOTR: Return of the King? oh the pathos!
It's more than the ticket price, it's the postage stamp sized "big" screens and snacks priced so high, you'd think they where gold plated, not to mention being forced to watch commercials for 20 minutes before the movie starts. The product that theater owners are pushing just isn't worth it anymore.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Piracy is like spam. If people didn't download (buy) what was being offered (pills), there wouldn't be a problem.
Quote of the hour:
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Tell that to the recordholder for opening day proceeds (more than $50 million)... Like those that downloaded it aren't going to go see it anyways...
Pirate movies are bad, but I would not call them ethically wrong. International Talking Like a Pirate Day, however is pretty much immoral.
Oh wait, you are telling me that copyright law is ethical. I dissagree. Copyright "protection" exists to enrich the public domain and encourage the arts and science. "Protection" that lasts longer than the life of the media fails most of it's public obligation. Firms that take your talent and call it their own then keep all of their films in a vault until they rot are robbing all of us of our cultural heritage. A great example of this is the Disney film, "Song of the South". It's owners are embarrassed of it and refuse to release it. Every bit of talent that went into that film is doomed to oblivion and you won't ever see it outside of a "pirated" version.
Note that no ships were stolen and no sailors were killed to bring you these bits or those of those of the leaked copy of ROTS. The only pirates are those idiots trying to shut down the internet because it threatens their 100 year old business model.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Dim the magic? What's this Harry Potter crap? They could have at least said that Bittorrent was dimming the FORCE! Star Wars fans might have at least paid attention to this news then. "My God, Bittorrent can dim THE FORCE!"
Hmmm, I think I just stumbled across the plot of Star Wars VII: Attack of the Force Dimming Sithtorrents!
Cleaning the net one sed at a time! s/sex/sermons/; s/hot/holy/; s/goats/thebible/; www.holysermonswiththebible.com
From the Doc: "Less than one in ten movies re-coup their original investment from the domestic box office and six in ten never recoup their investment . "
This was in addition to the statement that the average movie takes $98 MILLION dollars to make. Wow, so what they are saying is "We intentionally give people more money knowing full well that there is a better than half chance we won't EVER get enough back to recoup costs"
I'd be much more concerned that they need to hire a good economist to show them that 'if you spend more than you make, you are in trouble in business'...
And yet they continue to drive this witch-hunt in the hope that someone will take pity on them and eliminate the pesky "Internet" once and for all..
If people think a movie's "cool" and worth going out for the day it's released, then people will pay for it the day it's released.
If people don't think it's worth the trip, they won't pony up the price.
Movie producers should release their product in every media (online, theater, DVD, etc.) at once (the Deleted Scenes specials can wait), or the producers will continue to suffer from what is now inevitable.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
We must shut down this TCP/IP thing immediately. TCP/IP connects millions of computers, and some of them are doing bad things.
You had to see this coming, blame the app/protocol, even thought this one has so many non-infringing uses. Maybe Brame can enlist the help of Charlton Heston. He'd understand.
-J
Silly Rabbit: tricks are for kids.
The first posting of the files by ViSA was on a newsgroup. It wasnt even posted on bitorrent yet.
In part, and in whole, what MPAA claims is TRUE. You could argue that kazaa, bt, and the rest, have legit uses, but don't hide with your head in the sand denying that 99.9% of the traffic is totally, irrefutably, undeniably -- ILLEGAL. It _IS_.
So what exactly is their beef?
Maybe a hunderd people worldwide have actually managed to fully download some garbage grade, tiny fuzzy avi of ROTS.
A few hundred is probably optomistic.
The MPAA needs to move on, and do something constructive, like preventing the STUDIOS from making me pay to sit thru COMMERCIALS.
I no longer "do" theatres, nor do my 3 kids, or 7 grandkids. That's why they make bigscreen TVs.
The popcorns better anyway, there is usually no line for the bathroom, and there is this thing called "pause"...
What the hell are they worried about theft for?? .. the damn movie will probably make over $100 million this weekend IN THE BOX OFFICE.....
The notion of movies requiring $xx Million to produce is a farce as well, mainly because various countries are involved in nefarious tax schemes where the cost of movie production is wildly exagerated in order to generate additional revenue for the studio.
Ironically, this is the reason why it's easier to produce a $60 million flop, than it is a $2 million indy/artistic "sideways-type" movie that the public would probably appreciate more.
Usually that is the normal path.
This was a non-scene release.
The initial release was on Bittorrent this time around.
I dub thee... Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, Beater of Ass.
And as soon as we catch this Mr. Torrent fellow, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind!
"It's a shame that this has happened, and that Star Wars Ep. III is hardly taking in any money as a result."
10 points for Ari
Pay particular attention to the third one: subpoint one.
Did anyone ever think for a moment that the MPAA would release this torrent themselves on a high profile movie such as this, just to find something to whine about?
Who has more resources to get pre-release movies than the rest of us? Hmm... The MPAA?
I can assure you we got a copy without using BT ;-)
there, i said it.
I just never saw what people liked about it. It's crap. Moreover it's sooo boring!!!!!
(no, i'm not a girl)
If a DVD is a product which provides the service of displaying a movie, then stealing that movie is a theft of service.
im wiping a tear from my eye. HahahhahhaHahhhahhha
How exactly does it affect everyone?
I think it only affects your wallet, and that you are wrongly blaming the protocol instead of those infringing copyright in order to provoke the ignorant (i. e. the media) into slandering BitTorrent.
Considering the MPAA's constant and exceptional ignorance and hostility towards the world, I'm not surprised people don't care about the consequences of illegally downloading copyrighted films.
I could have bought it from the guy in a pub last night. Or I could have downloaded it. I decided instead to go to the cinema and watch it. I wanted to see it on the big screen.
Piracy didn't ruin it for me. Didn't ruin it for all the other people in the cinema. The film is going to make vast profits even with the ruthless copyright infringement. I find it hard to find a lot of sympthy for the alleged victims here. I'm not even totally convinced that they're losing ticket sales from people downloading it.
Please can the movie industry be sure that there is actually a problem before wasting time and money to solve it. Aristotelian logic isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Thats like blaming my hand for all the wanking I do.
You probably have misconfigured plugins.
It's more than splitting hairs. Piracy is not a synonym for copyright infringement. Piracy and theft are charged words designed to generate a strong emotional response. Unconsciously, the word 'piracy' conjures up images of barbarians who murder and rape without remorse.
...when that term was first coined (centuries ago), people actually feared pirates. Nowadays pirates are characters in cartoons and adventure films for the family with very little resemblance to actual pirates. Quite a few are anti-heroes (ie. on the bad side, but still "cool") or in some way redeem themselves, and not least of which act a lot less brutal and more honorable than the real thing. When children get old enough that they want to be scared, they don't go see a pirate vid about how it really was, they see "Alien" or the like. I think the effect is overrated at best.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'd be more inclined to believe that they made a tactical mistake if they did leak it. It undermined their credibility (Like any help was needed) when it became the #1 opener.
I had a sucky sig.
thats like blaming my pipe for all the crack I smoke
Highest opening day gross EVER?? And they have the nerve to talk about "losing magic" or whatever BS? Who are these people and what do they have between their ears?
Why do they keep pushing this "OMG pirates" story anyway? I saw it three times on CNN yesterday. Anybody with half a brain can see these two stories ("piracy" vs. "50 MILLION DOLLARS ON DAY ONE") and realize that the MPAA is just drowning in their own shit.
I wish copying movies actually DID take revenue from these bastards, I'd download their shit and hit command-A, command-D all day long until my hard drive filled up.
But unfortunately, it seems that having ROTS out on BitTorrent actually BOOSTED their revenue, doesn't it? (Hey, if they can spew BS about lost revenue, I can spew "correlation implies causation", can't I?)
I personally downloaded and watched the movie without seeing it in the theatre...because I DID pay to Episodes 1 and 2. I kinda figured that George owes me a freebie by now.
...a cracked FTP site, a newsgroup, LimeWire, and IRC. But apparently BitTorrent is the "worst" of all of them? It's the one protocol I couldn't find a complete copy on!
thats like blaming my ass for me not getting up off it.
"It's more than splitting hairs. Piracy is not a synonym for copyright infringement. Piracy and theft are charged words designed to generate a strong emotional response"
News at eleven: Language Luddites take Slashdot hostage.
Up next: Law Luddites want in on the action.
(1) Illegal file-sharing crowd points and says "We don't do anything like that. Just them."
I blame Vandevar Bush
I blame the Hut
They run it and are complaining about BT being a device that can be used for theft. Yet, they back NRA in the argument that a pistol has multiple uses (which is does). So they wish to allow a device to doing murder, but not one that allows copyright infringement?
BTW, for the kooks that will come out of the wood works claiming that I back gun control, I am opposed to it as much as control of BT. I am just opposed to hypocrisy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Would the MPAA complain if someone archived all the MPAA press releases and set up a torrent to distribute them? Would they write a press release condemning BitTorrent for the theft of copyrighted press releases?
Hmm, I think I've got a project to waste time this evening.
Or perhaps could it be that putting the blame on computers whould not be popular and would show there people for what they really are, but that they feel they can get away with putting blame on a somewhat lesser known technology (at least lesser known to members of Congress) and maybe help get laws passed against it, even if it isn't the real problem?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
(not that I'm with the mpaa or anything) If we blamed guns for killing people, we'd have large jails for convicted guns. A murderer would not be punished. It's not the knive's fault your bleeding all over the floor. It was your own fault for not knowing how to properly use it. It's not the hammer's fault for bending when its half-sunk and requires removal. It's OI (Operator Incompetance) When a car spins out of controll on a wet highway, don't blame the rain. Blame the idiot behind the wheel for not knowing how to safely drive his/her vehicle. (speed is ALWAYS a factor) It's not bittorrents fault it is used to pirate movies. Its just a more effecient way to do it. VHS Tapes were never blamed for pirated movie copies when internet wans't mainstream were they? Stop blaming the tool used for causing damage and start blaming people. (Just get ready to open jails for the 10's of millions who support pirating) I'm sick of hearing that napster is the problem, kazaa is the problem, bittorrent is the problem, et cetera! Start hiring people with brains, who can figure out the problem.
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
I blame Bill Gates, if there were no OSes there would be no piracy.
the private FTP clubs have had this for almost two weeks. the one on bit-torrent is shit in comparison ...
"Getaway cars cause bank robberies!"
Stupid MPAA.
Nobody goes "Whoa score! Now i don't have to drag myself to the theater and watch this movie which i've been waiting 3 years for! I can just sit at home and wait 36.. no! 35 hours and 59 more minutes to watch it alone in my room on my 15" Magview monitor!!!!"
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
It will happen.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
To shut up and grow up.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
From what I've seen, BitTorrent has primarily been a way to relieve the burden of multiple downloads from a single webserver, which is important for things like Linux distro installation disks and LiveCDs.
Doesn't someone have to actually provide a link to a ".torrent" file on a webpage in order for it to function? That doesn't sound like traditional music and movie downloading P2P that tries to mask the source of the downloading, and is a lousy way to do any piracy, because it can be traced back to a user's web page.
I bet the movie is proliferating much more in the real P2P applications that people use to download music and video, but are just blindly picking on BitTorrent. The conspiracy theorist in me says that the RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft are all together in this one to try and give BitTorrent a bad name since it is Linux's primary method of distribution.
"Fans have been lined up for days to see Revenge of the Sith. To preserve the quality of movies for fans like these and so many others, we must stop these Internet thieves from illegally trading valuable copyrighted materials on-line." In this version, these "Internet thieves" are dseparate from the "fans". That's the essential thing that they don't understand. Likely a good number of the thieves are the self same people who queued up and will pre-order the DVD and the re-issued DVD, and the re-re-issued DVD with R2D2 statuette and wipe-clean photo of Natalie Portman.
If it weren't for them, the data would never get from the computer to the person (which is the same noble goal of DRM).
Clearly, we need some regulations on 400-800nm photons!
bitTorrent goes against everything said in the bible!
:)
You do love Jesus dont you?!
bitTorrent is just as responsible for the distro of EP3, as is the internet itself.
A communications protocol is nothing more than a communications protocol.
You're all guilty for having used the internet! Lets make it illegal and have it entirely corperate controlled. You may not upload, you may not contribute, you may not steal from the rich... they can only steal from you
"Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" took in a whopping $50 million in its first 24 hours in North American theaters, shattering the previous single-day record of $44.8 million set by "Shrek 2"" With record breaking ticket sales...why is anybody whining about the bit torrent leak? Movies have always been leaked by cam versions sold on the street, albiet on a much smaller scale. Movies will probably always continue to be leaked. However it does not matter a single bit, because movie goers will still go to the theater to get the theater experience, except for those who are lucky enough to have a theatre quality screen and sound setup at home.
If the MPAA gave a fuck about the general public, they wouldn't make such shitty movies. As long as they have this example to point to in court, they will have gained something from the leak. I think it's more than a bit of stretch to think the leak was on purpose, but I can at least envision ways it could benefit them.
Blaming bittorrent instead of the people who actually made it into a format the average shmo's computer could read should be blamed.
1. Film + audio
2. Some guy copies and compresses <-AT FAULT
3. AVI/mkv/etc.
4. Bittorrent <- innocent
5. Shmos.
Its like blaming BMW and Cadilac instead of drugdealers. which is a pointless war. let me try again..
Its like blameing Magnum and Colt for all the murders each year. Which is another war which will never be won..
It's like blaming Sony for flipping through the channels, and the batteries dieing just as Barney comes on.
it doesn't seem too improbable that the MPAA purposely leaked the print just so they could make a big deal about it.
Actually, it's very improbable. The slight benefit they'd gain from having the ROTS leak as lobbying ammo would be minute, and far outweighed by the damage that would occur if they were caught doing it.
These guys are basically corporate types. They tend not to care about the issue as much as all you reading this do. They do their job, then they go home. It just wouldn't be worth the hassle for them to come up with convoluted plans like that.
'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world.'
Who exactly has had the magic of the movies spoilt for them by this particular movie leak? Someone tell me which poor child accidently clicked on the download button, watched the poor quality release against their will and is now unhappy? Perhaps a die-hard fan just couldn't help themselves and was unable to resist the urge to watch this crap version, and now has come away wishing they hadn't spoilt the experience just like they wish they handn't spoilt the experience of loosing their virginity with that goat from the frat party?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world.'"
Quit Whining.
Ok actuall Let me elaborate with a sentance.
The MPAA and RIAA needs to get off there ass and start making something happen instead of blaming the technology. You look like fools everytime you whine about P2P software effecting your business model. You cant make P2P software go away by taping your slippers togeather and chanting "There's no place like home" over and over again. Get into reality, if you dont start makeing content cheap and avaiable,with minimal restrictions, you are to go create a siutation where people are going find other ways to get what they want.
The ticket may cost that much, but that's just the beginning...
Add the overpriced junk food, and in many cases, cost of transportation (30$ cab ride for me), babysitters, or tickets (and junk food) for other family members... And that's assuming all you'll do is go watch a movie in your night out (no supper with a date or whatever). I don't recall going to see a movie without it costing me at least 70$.
And that's just the monetary side. There's far more inconvenients like waiting in line for a long time, idiots with cell phones, can't pause the movie, etc. I got friends that prefer watching movies home because they can have some alcoholized beverages while watching the movie.
You and me both. I've had my fill of wannabe Slashdot lawyers. I want the real thing.*
*Not that anyone around her would listen to a real lawyer either.
Heh, data transfer is stealing because every second you're not paying a CEO, it's robbery.
Hey, I should make it 'murder' when people don't worship me as God. I'll start a huge corporation and tell the school system to teach this to kids. Ten years from now, people will be saying "I don't really like worshipping Zareste as God, but murder is wrong. So while we'd all like to be free from Zareste, it's just plain immoral and disgusting. Life is not supposed to be a free-ride, damn hippies."
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
I got mine off of a newsgroup.
Sorry, what the fuck are you talking about?
The *ENTIRE* point of the MPAA's anti-P2P witch hunt is "it's costing us money".
Obviously, it's *NOT* costing them money.
I didn't know that you could download the new Star Wars until the MPAA told me. So they're really to blame for me downloading it right now.
The official movie distribution involves a sytem trucks driving the celluloid rolls to chosen addresses. It involves people driving their cars or use public transport to reach same addresses. It involves big and expensive buildings and a lot of expensive employees, reservation of tickets and standing in line (sometimes twice)
/picz
It is a part of your experience. So are 200-300 other people sweating, eating smelly foods, taking their smelly shoes of, eating candy out of noisy plastic bags, having their mobile phones ringing, etc.. All that for $10 pr. seat.
The distribution is both expensive and the movie theatre experience does not please the modern consumer, who would like to enjoy the magic of movies without getting p*ssed off.
Bittorrent delivers right to the computer in your living room through an established network. It's fast and cheap and gives you home cinema system something to do. You can even pause the movie and go get a snack or a cop of coffee. Now, that's magic.
All people believing in capitalism should hail the BT for it's efficiency and low costs. The old and rusty movie distribution system can not compete with the smooth functionality of the modern computer networks and comfort of home cinema (even if it's just a 28'' TV).
MPAA should start to think about improving their product. If I could download a legal copy of Star Wars today, I would do it.
At this moment the only competition to the distribution monopoly of movie theatres are the P2P networks.
------- Look mum! I have posted another Slashdot comment! --------
I for one waited two days for that BT download. It was worth it. Sorry GL but im too cheapo to go watch the movie in the theatre now!
--Torrent Thief
But if you can't make it to the theater you might find the torrent. If that's too slow (it will be), it's in a newsgroup in about 1500 RARs with every number .rxx divisible by 13 missing. If you can't get it there after the reposts next week, your buddy in college has it. If he's too drunk to drag the massive ZIP of a RAR of an ARJ of an LZH of an ISO to your IM screen name on his buddy list, that guy at work can run by the bootlegger's and pick it up already for $5. There are lots of illegal avenues you can travel to find the film. As for me, I'll go see it in the theater. Their surround sound setup is a little better than mine and I can leave my trash on the floor there.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
Isn't bittorrent just a protocol? Doesn't it use (for example) another protocol called tcp-ip to transport it's data? So I guess tcp-ip is also to blame. Why not just pull the plug on the entire internet as it used tcp-ip as well? Ow, and ofcourse, people don't kill people ... guns kill people :S
They'd be using something else. The purpose of every Internet protocol is to transfer information. Some just do it better than others.
If you're not blaming the criminals then you're blaming freedom.
...I didn't get to buy ABC (Atomic, Biological, Chemical) weapons, jet fighters, tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, assault rifles, sniper rifles or any other kind of heavy weaponry on the free market. The content industry is worried because we have a WMI (Weapon of mass infringement) in every home. Or well, slashdotters have an arsenal. If everyone had WMDs, I'd be heading for the nearest bunker real quick.
Their real problem is that there's no specific purpose. If you were building a large enough arsenal to start WWIII, well chances are pretty good that's what you're planning. If I build a means to quickly distribute large amounts of information, it doesn't imply anything at all. Sending streams of 0s and 1s is as general-purpose as you can get.
To pull a real geeky analogy, it is as if we invented the Star Trek replicator, and it was banned because it could replicate anything, even weapons and controlled substances. Or the holodeck was banned because it can simulate anything, and then someone could simulate their pedo fantasy in there.
Trying to turn the attention towards people is pointless, because anyone who isn't completely blind can see that people don't care about IP. It's like saying the same about guns when everyone is going around slaughtering eachother. If you want a better analogy, copyright is the "modern prohibition" and piracy the massive moonshine production. Banning P2P is like banning grain and potatoes to stop moonshine liqour.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
i am a pirateARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
let me rape leah and watch starwars from my INTERWEBBB
Apparently Sinead O'Connor impersonations.
The general public knows that some people download movies, just as they know some percentage of people driving their cars to see the movie at theaters were speeding.
Aha, I did both!
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Lets outlaw TCP/IP while were at it.
There's something to that, actually. They're slandering Bram (among others) by implying he's doing something illegal and/or immoral. And it wasn't an innocent slip, either--these people are actively trying to build policymakers' opposition to the technology. There might be the basis for a lawsuit there, at least to force a public apology and retraction.
FWIW, I do NOT think it's okay to breach copyright or distribute/download this stuff. Fair is fair; either pay your share or don't watch the movie. The studios have every right to sue illegal distributors. I also expect people to honor the GPL. But attacking BitTorrent, which is a terrific technology with a lot of legal uses (I use it to download isos and legal content all the time), is nasty and wrong.
MPAA President Dan Glickman has an excellent point. In light of the fact that Revenge of the Sith just pulled in $50 million dollars in one day, an all-time record for an opening day film, we must view the illegal copies of Sith floating around on Bittorrent as an abject failure. Bittorrent distribution, in this case, failed to make even a tangible dent in the viewership of Sith.
Hollywood's stars shine just a little dimmer this evening in the face of this crushing development.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Well, not counting virus-propogated piracy.
Apologies to the Gun Lobby.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Would that mean these boneheads would go after the Postal Service for delivering said copy?
The torrent of the movie was available before release.
When the movie was released it made more money in the first day than any movie EVER.
Therefore IF bit torrent had an impact on the sales of the movie THEN it was a positive one.
Must be an interesting definition of 'theft' where they can still make 50 mil selling it even after its been 'stolen.'
Not BitTorrent, not TCP/IP, and not Computers either. They should blame Life, the Universe, and Everything! If not that, it's God's fault, which some people would take to mean "Lucas's fault".
Ummmm...how is this news and why is Slashdot giving a voice to this organisation's constant bullshit (that we've all heard before) by quoting the MPAA all the time. I must admit that the nonsense being spouted by the MPAA today does make a lot more sense than some of their previous crazy claims. Maybe they are running out of cash to buy their spokespeople the the normal stuff that they are under the influence of.
FTR, I think that unlawful copying--which the MPAA and members of its protection racket have also been involved in on numerous occasions--is wrong and don't do it myself, but I don't think this is the MPAA's core problem with their `bussiness'.
I'm bored, so let's analyse this shit:
Oh, the irony of the MPAA using a file format on their WWW site which it is unlawful for users of its site to read or interpret in many jurisdictions (due to the MPAA's own `copyright circumvention device' legislation, as well as, arguably, various patents).
Since when did protocols have moral responsibility. Can one put them in jail?
Another oft used (also P2P) networking protocol known as TCP/IP could be in even bigger problem. As the core protocol of the Internet it has been responsible for not only the distribution of all unauthorised copies of anything on the Internet, but, no doubt, exabytes of pornographic images, communications between criminals including what Bush calls `terrorists', &c. Why has this protocol not been brought before a caught of law?
In fact, an even older real-life protocol called trade (i.e.: buying and selling) has been responsible for the exchange of trillions of dollars worth of pornography, drugs, laundered money and many other illicit or unlawful materials. Another one, the spoken word, dates back even further...
Where shall I begin on this quote. Let's take it word by word:
The MPAA would probably argue that theft, in their vocabulary, means "doing something that results in someone [e.g.: the MPAA] having less money". Of course, as well as being untrue, this is an invalid argumentu
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
This is like blamming Ford for all the traffic accidents. What a bunch of BS.... Next time I get a ticket, its Ford's fault, not mine...
By this logic pencils are hereby banned for all eternity. If we are banning tools for the crimes of people then we must get rid of anything sharp and we will still have new crimes being commited when the new tool comes out.
Computers Facilitating Illegal
Swapping of Star Wars On Day of Opening
Statement by MPAA President Dan Glickman
Washington, D.C. - - Responding to news reports today that the invention of the personal computer is already facilitating the illegal file sharing of the final Star Wars episode, Revenge of the Sith which opens in theaters today, Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) President and CEO Dan Glickman made the following statement:
"There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding usage of personal computers providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on shoestring networks all over the world.
"Fans have been lined up for days to see Revenge of the Sith. To preserve the quality of movies for fans like these and so many others, we must stop these Internet thieves from illegally trading valuable copyrighted materials by methods such as floppy toting.
"If piracy and those who profit from it are allowed to flourish, they will erode an engine of economic growth and job creation; undermine legitimate businesses that strive to unite technology and content in innovative and legal ways and limit quality and consumer choice."
Glickman said that the average movie costs $98 million to make and market. Less than one in ten movies re-coup their original investment from the domestic box office and six in ten never recoup their investment . The average personal computer can copy movies at a rapid rate. The movie industry is the only industry with a positive balance of trade in countries with which it does business. Copyrighted industries are responsible for an estimated $626 billion of the total gross domestic product.
"My message to illegal users everywhere is plain and simple: You are stealing, it is wrong and you are not anonymous," said Glickman. "In short, you can click, but you only might be able to hide.
The Motion Picture Association is engaged in an all out effort to root out Internet movie thieves and make them pay the consequences of illegally watching bad movies. It has hundreds of investigators looking into these kinds of cases worldwide and has already been successful in shutting down several computer users hopes.. As part of its anti-piracy effort, the MPAA and its member companies have brought lawsuits against many poor, underpriveledged, and elderly across the United States and plan to continue such action.
About the MPAA: The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) serves as the voice and advocate of the American motion picture, home video and television industries from its offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. These members include: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.; Paramount Pictures; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Universal Studios from Universal City Studios; and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
# # #
MPAA Los Angeles
Kori Bernards
Anne Caliguiri
(818) 995-6600
MPAA Washington, DC
John Feehery
Gayle Osterberg
(202) 293-1966
Now, not that I condone stealing, but the massive generalizations they make are just terrible.
Sorry, asshole. Try again. For those interested in the "magic" of movies, a shitty rough cut with timecodes a-blazin' on it won't suffice.
'Magic' is TXH, a cushy rocking theater seat and a fargin' huge screen. Possibly an overpriced beverage or popcorn or two, as well.
No, people who are stealing this aren't into the magic. But the more you make dumbass statements like this, the more I'm convinced people do steal copies (like the one that was released on BT) for the sole purpose of pissing off wanks like you.
You know what?
It was on usenet many hours before it was bittorrent, not to mention that the warez groups use ftp servers to spreed their releases.
Oh no, the death star plans are on bittorrent. Now every R2-D2 in the galaxy can download it.
The magic of the movies is ruined because we saw it at home and not in the cinema!!! This movie completely sucked because we saw it at home!
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
I just returned from "paying" to see Episode III in the theatre.
"You too will believe a Muppet can fly."
It certainly fills in the missing piece, but that's the best I can say for it.
Save yourself the bandwidth, it's not worth downloading, and I'm a Star Wars fan.
I suspect the biggest impact Bittorent will have is that far more people will find out just how bad the movie is before spending their money.
Why? Because I'm glad to know it was bittorrent that ruined the magic of Star Wars for me.
You see, for a few nasty moments there I thought it was the shitty dialogue, the obscene toy commercialism, and the crude racial sterotyping that was doing it, but now I know it is BitTorrent, so I can uninstall Azereus and get my childhood back...
I still remember my Dad deciding I should go and see Star Wars despite the pain in
my bad leg, and I still love him so much for it, and it's good to know that a easy to uninstall protocol is what tried (and failed!) to piss on that memory.
What makes it a really noble announcement by the MPAA is the fact that, since I have bought DVDs of every single non-shite film I ever downloaded via Bittorrent, removing Azereus will decrease MPAA member revenue.
You have to salute people who are willing to make a stand for what they belive in!
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
If BitTorrent is to blame, I hope Lucas is thanking that piece of softare. I can only hope that if I ever make a movie the magic gets sucked out of it like this too! Heck, if BitTorrent is the bad news here, maybe all movies should be "dimmed" before they're released!
Don't mistake politics for stupidity.
They know Bittorrent didn't steal the movie but they are creating headlines to manipulate public opinion so that Senate can ass[sic[ their laws without an outcry.
The Answer is not to preach to this choir splitting hairs but how to oppose their propaganda.
We need High profile substantial non infringinging uses.
Promote Bittorrent use.
The New Trackerless Bittorrent Links make using BT a doddle and it'll stop people exceeding their bandwidth limits.
It'll mean people run big downloads offof their home servers.
Lobby archives of Legal Stuff to use Bittorrent.
Such as the archive.org - they have loads of legal movies and cartoons and music download - lets lobby them to use BT.
If you want BT to stay legal promote its legitimate use.
Of course civil disobedience has its place in destroying unjust laws.
On that note I wonder if if ROTS would have been released worldwide without Mucho downloading, EP1 took 3 weeks to get to the UK, it was hell avoiding spoilers.
Software doesn't share movies, people do.
"The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world."
The unfortunate fact, for you, you moron, is that the internet is nothing BUT a big P2P network, and you're too ignorant to realize that even using an IM client, or visiting a webpage, is peer-to-peer transfer of information. Trying to ban BitTorrent is like trying to ban the internet - it's not going to happen, at all.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Pretty much your typical response from the MPAA, really. The sad part is that bittorrent is actually one of the most beneficial p2p technologies to hit the net, yet here they are just trying to villify the whole thing just over its ability to transfer movies.
Basically, if bittorrent didn't exist, the movie would have circulated via gnutella and kazaa, and the MPAA would be blaming them instead. It makes no difference how it was distributed.
Besides, with all the media attention surrounding the release of this particular movie on the net, you'd be pretty crazy to try and download it right now anyway, cause you know they're gonna have their lawsuit tentacles out in full force.
obviously the problem lies in the leak itself. who ever filmed it at the theatre or leaked the "early" release of it? look at those things before staring at the problems that ensue afterwards.
...
it always seems that these types of things spawn straight off the hip responses to things like BT, when in fact the problem was initiated long before BT got ahold of the file
even if I could download the best quality rip of this movie, I'm still going to the cinema to see it. :)
You just can't download the theater experience
Privacy is terrorism.
Well, not all of you. Just those of you that are actually trying to justify the illegal act.
Fortunetly, the magic was restored eleven fold by granting R2D2 the ability to fly, emit oil slicks, light said oil slicks on fire, catch communicators thrown at him, jump 3 feet out of space ships, and leave audiances baffled as to why these superpowers aren't used in the next movies.
And he makes fries in seconds!
SAILING MISHAP
.... you should be blaming the people responsible for recording this in the theater? How many people were in that FIRST premiere? I'm sure they had a personal invite to screen the movie before it's release date. Why not find out who did it, and get them, instead of blaming a program for the problem?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Oh yes, the magic of that movie that I might bother to add to my netflix queue is like sooo gone because there's a shitty repro floating around.
The paranioa Nazis, uh, the MPAA and RIAA, should lobby congress to put an end to those pesky power stations.
I mean that's at the root of all the problems.
We can all go back to a simpler life; back to the eighteenth century.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Bullshit.
And the Bittorrent rebellion has been foiled... And the remaining Bittorrent users will be hunted down and defeated! *CLAPS*
The attempt on my life has left me scared and deformed... But I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger!
In order to insure the security and continuing stability, the MPAA and the RIAA will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire! For a safe and secure society! *CLAPS*
but really, this stuff is an inside job.. the problem is that the MPAA orginazions can't be bothered to do their own leg work.. or allow things to travel in a "normal" fashion. They want to make all their money at once.. That means that a movie like SW has been in the "pipe" for several months..those reels have passed thru litterally dozens of hands.. mostly minimum wage "grunt" workers at shipping companies, movie houses, and film printers. The real trouble isn't that it gets out, but rather that the "surprise" is spoiled... and people will just wait for it to be "free" and they won't make any money.
The real problem is that Hollywood is a "pyramid" scheme... the idea is to have hundreds of "hungry" workers for any given part... actors, set builders, directors, etc.. other than "IP" the big "studios" have nothing to offer anymore but the contractual deals they already have.. and that's really easy to "steal". Frankly, I think it's wrong to happen this soon, but we're not talking about people with cameras at the theater... these releases are inside jobs... that's pretty clear... They've got to update their business model from here.
Of course it's going to cost money to do that... Lucas has it exactly right with "digital" film. That would give the studio 99% control over where and when the movie was shown... His ideas call for satillite based distribution and "camera level" caching of the film.. or even no caching at all!! Then the camera would "dial home" to get authorization for the film. It's not perfect, but it's "live" and the bandwidth is huge. They could rewrite the encryption "on the fly" if they wanted... somebody eventually will get the movie, but it won't be easy. This means fronting the money for digital theaters! of course if you're cutting out your middlemen, they won't continue to make product while you cut them out... so if they kill the channel too soon, they'll get cut off... remember the pyramid scheme. They don't actually PAY for the films to be made, the theaters do, the theater owners expect to "rent" the movies and do what they want.. if they want to show it a half day early to their pals it should be their right... so are the theaters going to pay to have their profit model taken away???
Back in 1985 a man named Dowling was prosecuted for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property for selling infringing copies of Elvis records. U.S. Supreme Court in DOWLING v. UNITED STATES, 473 U.S. 207 (1985) http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=search&court=US&case=/us/473/207.html struck this down because copyright infringement is not theft.
You have to deprive your victim of the item in order to steal it from them. Making copies doesn't deprive anyone of what it being copied, therefore its not theft.
LOL those MPAA folks are such dunderheads. Blaming the bit torrent protocol is like blaming the gun for killing people..... never mind the idiot that pulled the trigger or made the torrent available.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Let's blame trucks for bringing illegal immigrants across borders, hyperdermic needles for heroin use, beer cans for alcohol abuse, cameras for pornography, voice boxes for the rise in bad language and linear time for people getting older and dying.
Just like it's the gun company's fault for making the gun.
Seriously, though, fingerpointing is going to get the MPAA nowhere. How about stricter security in the theatres so that the content doesn't even get on the Internet in the first place? They know they can't attack P2P programs (mainly due to the RIAA's actions), so they go after another similar client: Torrents.
INACTIVE ACCOUNT
"You have to salute people who are willing to make a stand for what they belive in!"
Or at least mod them down enough were you're not "forced" to read them.
You mean to say that "it's morally wrong", not "it's ethically wrong".
Ethics have to do with personal principles; morals have to do with societal principles.
Morals: Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character.
Ethics: the principles of conduct governing an individual or a profession.
People get confused about this because they hear terms like "medical ethics" or "legal ethics", which really refer to the morals espoused by a specific subset of society, a profession.
It's pretty much impossible to act against one's own ethics: they rule how you act.
Morals are pretty much enforced by society: individuals act morally either because their personal ethical system is in alignment with the general idea of what constitutes moral behaviour, or they do so out of fear of punishment by the society in which a given act would be (a) perceived to be immoral, and (b) the extent to which that society is able to enforce its morals by punishment of those who do not act in accordance with them.
Now that we have that out of the way, lets look and see if it's really "morally wrong", or if you're just expressing your opinion.
The answer to that question, as to whether or not the larger society, in fact, views the act as immoral, ultimately depends on whether or not your opinion represents a majority.
The issue here is whether or not the existing laws were paid for by special interests, or were enacted to impose the will of the majority on the rest of society. If the latter, then yes, it was immoral. But if the former... then the law will not be upheld in court (jury nullification), or awarded damages will be token rather than punative (e.g. $1), and the act is not in fact immoral.
I think if you were to take a poll here, you would find that the majority of *this* society, Slashdot, do not find the act immoral.
I also think that if you investigate further, neither does the larger society believe the act immoral, particularly given the inflation of ticket prices.
-- Terry
The internet is one big p2p network you asshat technophile wannabe. Stop spewing any bullshit that you think makes your point and maybe people will start to listen.
I never downloaded anything before all the news about the MPAA and RIAA, infact I didnt even own a computer. But when I heard how frickin gutty it is to download and share on the net... i went out and bought myself a 300,000 doller server just so I could download and share all my downloaded media. I feel like such a rebal now. Its the biggest rush. I tell ya. Everyone that downloads/ uploads stolen stuff on net (especialy via bit torrent) feels the same as I do. If the MPAA/RIAA would use there computers to start distributing stolen stuff then everyone would stop. Its basic economics... flood the market and no one will try to get any of it.
I downloaded III just the other day and there's nothing the MPAA can do it about. Up here in Canada, copies for personal use is legal. The MPAA can cry all they want but they should shut up because III was the highest first day opener in history - even when P2P is at it's peak. I think P2P allows the movie industry more exposure. Because I downloaded the movie, when the movie is released on DVD, I'll buy it. Btw, why is the MPAA bitching about losing money when a $120M budget film grosses probably over 500M. That's GOUGING! Also, the movie industry wants us to pay at the theatre and then wants us to buy the movie? I think if you go to the theatre, you should get the movie free since you've already paid your share.
'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world.'"
Will someone please take all this man's air away.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman: 'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith.'"
That's a slanderous lie! I downloaded it from an FTP site.
"Magic of movies"? You mean watching half an hour of commercials beforehand, missing parts of the movie because of people who won't shut the fuck up, and dealing with ear-splitting volumes that distort on the movie theater's speakers? Or maybe he means paying upwards of $4 for 5 cents worth (according to an insider) of popcorn? Perhaps it's the sticky floors that makes the experience magical. Whatever it is, I'm glad I missed it.
Hey, MPAA: your movies are released to the internet whether you like it or not. Instead of lobbying for stricter laws (which, in case you missed it, DON'T WORK), maybe you should re-evaluate your business model and release lower-quality first runs (say, Realmedia format) with subtitles, charging more for the convenience. Sure, people will copy and share them, but they're doing that anyway. At least you'd make some money off of it...likely as much as you would have made if anyone who actually wanted to pay for it had gone to the theater in the first place. And people who have trouble hearing will thank you.
But I know that's just a pipe dream. You'd rather lobby and try to scare people than admit that your own people are the worst offenders when it comes to media piracy.
Without Bit Torrent.. You would have had to sit in line longer... Waited longer to watch the movie and most of all watch it with a million other people.... I think an apology is needed....
Their whole argument is self-defeating. They say in one breath that people are lined up around the block to see the movie, then in the next breath they tell us how BitTorrent is killing them. If BitTorrent was really killing them, there wouldn't be any lines, and they wouldn't have record sales.
The MPAA needs to go eff itself.
"There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith."
Somehow, I don't think BitTorrent, Inc. supplied anyone with a copy of Revenge of the Sith. It would be nice to see them sue the MPAA for slander/libel/defamation/whatever though.
"Whoop de fucking doo, one court used theft and mixed it in with copyright infringement. I can think of two or three that don't and clearly distinguish the two crimes at the same time. Just because the term "intellectual property theft" is used more often, that does not make it a correct term, in fact, it is still wrong as a large misnomer, since no real "theft" but instead violation of rights involved with the "IP" took place."
And the above by Travelsonic is why you will never win a debate with an illegal file-trader. Oh not because you can't support your arguments. But because whatever you come up with will be dismissed out of hand. What they say gets modded up, so true believers will not miss it, and your "proof" will get modded so far down, it'll show up on fark.
There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone Good luck proving the existence of movie "magic" in court.
This signature is being generated randomly.
Why would the MPAA list their physical address, but not have any actual email address for contacting them on their website?
I guess they just want us to march up there and personally tell.show them how stupid they really are?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I want to view this at home in my home theater without all the trouble that is involved in going to the movie theater. I would pay a price comparable to the movie theater for this.
You're forcing me to take your goods in a way that is inconvenient to me, and then complaining "my poor lost revenue" because I don't want your goods in the single way you're distributing them.
You've married yourself to the movie theater with your exclusive distribution deals. Well, here is the result. You customers don't like your exclusive deals and they work around it. Don't complain to us about it.
Want to fix it? I don't care what your method of delivery is. Video over IP to my cable company's DVR. Pay Per View. Firewire from PC to TV. PC download and viewing. A high def Akimbo type box. Picking up a DVD rental.
Give us a freaking choice that works for us, and we'll give you the money.
I got mine off of USENET.
"I wonder if the copyrights holders associations would have less of a problem with Peer to Peer networking if the source and destination of the files (and who placed the files in the p2p network in the first place) were clearly recorded.
.torrent file repositories did they get results, and it's easy to find those regardless of what records they keep.
After all, If you "only read Playboy for the articles", you should not object to getting a copy with all of the pictures removed.
If you want to protect BitTorrent and other kinds of P2P, Make them be responsible citizens."You assume innocent people should
That's idiotic. Additional records would make no difference because BitTorrent makes no attempt to conceal the participants now. When you connect to the tracker, you request a list of IP addresses and it gives them to you. That's as transparent as you can get.
The only reason that hasn't stopped people from using it is that the RIAA and MPAA can't sue people fast enough. They already have the identities of more people than they can sue. Only when they started suing the trackers and
That whole "if you're innocent you have nothing to hide" attitude is offensive anywhere it happens. It is not the responsibility of the individual to record their activities in order to later prove that they didn't do anything wrong. It never has been.
The only reason the RIAA and the MPAA have a problem with BitTorrent is that it's so mind-bogglingly efficient. It's capable of distributing multi-gigabyte files to an arbitrary number of people with nothing more than broadband Internet access. It's completely content agnostic, it just happens to be a lot better at what it does than any of the alternatives.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
"For heaven sakes people! Lucas was only able to make $50 million on Thursday! HE HAS CHILDREN TO FEED (I think?)!"
.com bubble I hear calling?
*ears twitch*
Is that the
"The MPA was formed in 1945 in the aftermath of World War II to reestablish Americanfilms in the world market, and to respond to the rising tide of protectionism resulting in barriers aimed at restricting the importation of American films."
Wait.. aren't the films already made in America? How do we import our own films to ourselves?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Stars Wars sucked anyway....
No substance at all....
My understanding about the copy of ROTS available via BT, FTP and US Mail for those with friends nice enough is that its a studio work copy, not a shaky cam or a midnight theatre transfer but a copy from luc@Sarts, obviously the people who did this knew it was wrong but the MPAA is really trying to control distribution chains, PTP isn't Pay per Play friendly, I read earlier in this post that TCP/IP is to blame, really by this logic it is, really if given the choice the media folks would put a DRM chip on each hard drive, network interface, CPU, Burner, ETC. Welcome to the new world.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
The movie made $50 fucking million dollars on its opening day! Give me a fucking break.
The MPAA are anti-everything which is sharable. One suspects that if their suck-buddy Microsoft decided to use Bittorrent and got Orrin Hatch et al. to pass a law allowing MS to steal it, the MPAA would get told to shut up by Bill.
Who stands to gain by outlawing all sharing of information aside from MPAA & RIAA? What's next? Books? Books can be shared. Next venue for MS and the BSA: Book-Burning!?
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
I don't give a damn. ...and just because they decided to open their big mouths, I'm gonna make copies for everyone I know.
I wouldn't have done it before, but I will now.
They're only shooting themselves in the foot by making statements like this.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
You know, I never really thought of it that way...why are we paying for a movie twice? I think it's time this Galactic Empire got taken down...
>> No, it shouldn't - because that would be a case of trademark infringement, not copyright infringement, unless you used Nintendo's actual artwork or level layouts.
> Any what if I do use Nintendo's actual artwork? That would be copyright infringement, which is drastically different than using the term "copyright infringement" to denote the act of the unauthorized copying and distribution of an entire piece of work.
And even in the situation as you ammend it, one would probably be doing *both* copyright infringement as well as trademark infringement, and it would still be useful to distinguish which activities were which. To suggest that the legal terms should be used in situations other than where they actually apply and NOT used in situations where they DO apply is disingenious, at best. Clearly, you were not able to form whatever notion you had into something coherent and you appear to be compensating for your muddled notions of where the divisions exist in law with bluster, but that's immaterial now.
> Theft: The act or an instance of stealing.
> Steal: To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
> Property: Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title: properties such as copyrights and trademarks.
You skipped over the definition of "take" -- as used in "theft" it clearly implies that one no longer has it. I mean, would you say that X stole Y's book if X had actually photocopied it and left them with the original? That goes counter to the word's usage, even if you can attempt to justify it as above. You see, it doesn't matter if the word *can* mean something. Just look at the word "can" in the last sentence--it could, in isolation, refer to a tin can, like you might find tuna fish in, but to suggest that it actually meant that when I wrote it in that sentence is to render what I just said insensible. Can can mean a lot of things, but not all of them at once, nor can can magically morph into a different word also spelled "can" when constrained by context. So in the context they use it in, the word theft is improper because it implies things that are incorrect. It cannot drop those implications merely because they are inconvenient. And I do remember that bash.org quote of the fellow who thought he had to "get his file back" when someone downloaded it from him. I'm not suggesting you're that dumb, however, only that some are apparently influenced by the implications you seem to be trying to deny that the word 'theft' has.
It is also a concious attempt to stilt public perception against it, as though it were somehow illegitimate to think that the government could never someday, at the behest of the people, reconsider whether those monopolies so styled as intellectual property were really in the public interest, advancing the arts and sciences, or whether they were not, and could be ammended or abolished as appropriate.
But in the end, here's the part where we really disagree: I don't think that people should be able to have legal title to "own" ideas. I don't think that "intellectual property" is a useful concept for society. I don't think that it encourages the creation of new works, instead I think it merely forces us to constantly reinvent wheels and do things half-assed because the only proper way of doing it was patented by the first guy who came along with a lawyer, not necessarily even the first guy to discover it.
So you know what the really funny thing is? I'm really not big on downloading things. I do, however, like to release the software I have made to the world for free. In other words, I've put my creative works where my mouth is. You know, for the *public* good--that odd thing these IP laws were supposed to benefit.
I'd say if "Sith" was found on any p2p network on the day it was released to theatres then MPAA has bigger problems than file sharing. Obviously there's a problem inhouse, with the distributers, or with the theatres, someboby is making those illegal copies.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why isn't it an anti-trust or restraint of trade issue that the only way you can watch a movie that has been released is in a movie theater?
I mean, is this legal, or has nobody really tried to force the door open to other means of legal distribution? I believe a great deal of the P2P activity is due to the exclusive distribution deals forcing a choice on some consumers, and no choice on other )non-US) consumers.
The ONLY reason the MPAA et al. don't argue that is because the internet is useful to them, and BitTorrent isn't (well, it *could* be, but I don't think they know how to deal with such things yet).
Jack Valenti compared the VCR to the Boston Strangler. And now the MPAA members have made billions off of it. And they are *still* trying to effectively neuter PVRs with the broadcast flag.
Obviously not the MPAA, but you are correct. The bittorent distribution of the Star Wars workprint was a sanctioned marketing effort. The screener DVD was purposefully down-sampled to reduce it's value on home theatre systems, while maintaining a reasonable resolution to stir excitement about the product.
BTW, the studios are not technologically stupid - the real screeners that get sent to individuals and organizations generally have watermarking and timing tricks to allow any real leak to be traced. I wouldn't be surprised to see more of this underground marketing with other films at release, but expect the same heavy-handed tactics to bring down the torrents after the first few weeks of release.
*Sigh*
This is getting utterly ridiculous. How long before people, including the government, start ignoring the MPAA/RIAA when they make such claims?
Blaming BitTorrent on copyright infringement is like trying to blame air for murder because that is what a bullet traveled through to strike its victim. Just about any technology can be used for evil or good, so why blame a protocol as a whole?
SIGFAULT
Maybe that says something about a) the insane money spent to make a movie- do top stars really need 20 million? and b) the quality of what's being made.
How many movies each year have an original idea?
ya people run over other people every year so lets outlaw cars and call them evil.
what a moron
or people use hammers to kill other people lets outlaw hammers and call them evil
what a moron
people use swimming pools to drown other people lets outlaw swimming pools and call them evil.
what a moron
how much money did star wars make? I don't think anybody is going broke over this distribution of the movie - I am not justifying theft but these guys are telling the world there is a problem when there really isn't - they are just greedy. I don't think anybody who stoled the movie won't go and see it even though they have an illegal copy.
Instead of trying to hang people why don't they work on their product and try to get people to want to come to the theatres. How about not charging 10 fricken bucks for a bucket of pop corn. These people are just greedy - from the directors to the actors - I personally think they are all overpaid - just like baseball,football, basketball players - would the world end if all of them went away - I don't think so they are just our entertainment and we are their bosses - so why don't they shut the fuck up and start to make something worthwhile stealing. Otherwise they won't get a dime of my money. I am sick of their fucking snobery - you are fucking actors/directors/agents whatever - you aren't teachers, doctors, astronauts etc etc. -
Sorry but movie theatres have become along with malls just a place parents dump their kids. Hell some probably encourage them to theater hop so they stay there longer.
I have yet been to a movie lately where there is not several groups of kids or teens cutting up during the movie, showing off their cool laser beams and other disruptive behavior. And as a result of the lack of action on the theaters part to enforce movie ratings and control the kids I've just begun to wait out things for dvd.
The wait will be much better when HD Dvd's come to the market.
If piracy and those who profit from it are allowed to flourish, they will erode an engine of economic growth and job creation; undermine legitimate businesses that strive to unite technology and content in innovative and legal ways and limit quality and consumer choice.
I would say less than 5% of people who pirate and download movies actually profit from it.
Did you watch it ? Perhaps it is the Swartz episode 69 ! Space Balls ! Geesh if I name a video nasty ( XXX ) star wars then I am liable for releasing to the public a copyrighted product but hey MPAA if you watch my video "Revenge of the Sith" you owe me billions because mine was prior to yours and mine has the " Swartz " ! With guests Dabney Coleman, Bruce Willis ( What you talking 'bout ? ), and Freddy they Freeloader, and the lovely Anna Nicole.
I'd rather talk about what Nathalie Portman is doing to make ends meet! :)
Nooooooooooooo!
It's so bad, that they've beaten Shrek 2 at the box office setting a new world record in sales (something like 50M$? someone can correct me), c'mon.. instead of bashing on the technology because you're an elephant that can't move fast enough to adapt and rely on unenforcable practices, how about embracing it and actually make people pay 10$ to download an HTDV version to view at home...
you could have added an extra 50M$ to that record, plus, it wouldn't have costed you so much in bandwidth since everyone would have chipped in.
I just don't get it. they've should have learned from RIAA's mistake, they had YEARS to prepare, yet, nothing has been done on a large scale basis to profit from this.
People downloading it and watching it NOW are people who wouldn't go to the theatre to watch it in the first place (c'mon this is something to see on a big screen full resolution to enjoy), ok maybe SOME idiots that would do this instead of going and then find out they ruined their experience, which can be translated in loss of revenues, but then again those idiots stay home and don't go up to piss every 30 minutes or talk out loud during the film making the experience to everyone else a better one.
Seriously though... someone out there that has a voice to make them listen to reason, tell them to invest in geeks/programmers/good distribution ideas instead of investing in lawyers, both sides will profit from this. Because right now, their tactics will end up pissing everyone off and teens (and others actually) will "fight the powah" to look cool (or take a stand) and go exactly the opposite way, just like with the MP3s. In this case, almost everyone loses.
Use brains, not lawyers.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
And it will also show, as this movie rakes in the dough, that such downloading has no measurable effect on a film's financial success.
Cheers.
I'd like to read up on the case where this was decided, so any links you can point me to will be appreciated.
The horror.
However, the answer to bad laws is to get them changed. If a population in a country that claims to be democratic can't even work out how to do that, then it has far greater problems than abuse of the law to extend copyright.
The problem is that the apathetic "I vote for whom I see on TV" voter bloc is much larger than the pro-commons voter bloc and that the movie studios own all the commercial TV news channels (MSNBC -> Universal; CNN -> Warner; Fox News -> 20c Fox; CBS -> Paramount; ABC -> Disney). Therefore, any candidate that wants support from the apathetics will have to support the agenda of the movie studios in order to get favorable mentions on TV.
As for stifling creation, well, we don't have a control group
The music publishers in NMPA and foreign counterparts are your "control" group. They control copyright in just about every possible melody. So if I'm writing a song, what steps should I take to avoid getting hit with lawsuits alleging subconscious infringement?
You chose to (and continue to) live in the country and abide by its laws
Two words: Berne Convention. Therefore emigration won't help me escape copyright that by definition lasts longer than a human lifetime.
this is fu^*^*#$ ridiculous, ya ya sure sure..
Cthulhu Saves -- in case He's hungry later.
Just in case you miss this reply.
Wages for cast and crew have gone up in parallel with the price of food and the price of oil. Therefore, though the cost of distribution may have gone down, the cost of development has gone up.
I was going to watch the workprint, then go see it in the theatre next weekend when I could get good seats at a good theatre without standing in line for an hour. But having seen the workprint, I don't think I want to see that bunch of shit ever again.
True!
Your TV has Firewire?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
By enabling pernicious technologies such as BitTorrent and AOL Instant Messenger, the Internet serves as a vehicle for thieves to steal from the starving executives of RIAA/MPAA. We must litigate and legislate until the owners of the Internet are forced to shut it down. Now all we have to do is pin these villains down...maybe we should start with Al Gore?
Being a experienced video game player I am an expert on the art of fragging. In my past exploits I have found video games that allow fragging of practically everything, and most always there are non-human targets as well as human ones.
Emphisize People instead of Kill, and you understand the NRA's logic. Be wary of those who say power is bad. Why should they take it from you if it is bad?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Steal: To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
And if you take something from someone, they don't have it anymore. Whatever the item is, it's now soley in your possession and not in the owners. With copyright infringment, you have an (unathorized) copy, but the owner still has the origional item.
I would posit that you are the one that is confused.
Wrong again.
There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith.
No, what dims the magic of movies is the asshole behind me who thinks everyone else wants his narration. Also the assholes who makes phone calls and the ones who bring babies and small children to movies that are obviously inappropriate for them.
"He playin' possum!" -- the asshole behind me during sith.
I just finishing downloaded and burning a copy about an hour ago; it took about 5 hours to download the whole thing using Shareaza, 15 minutes to burn it, plus $0.50 or so for the blank DVD. It's heavily compressed in some parts, and it's anamorphic (squeezed horizontally), not to mention the timecode windows across the top of the screen.
When my 11 year old son (who's been looking forward to this movie) heard the sound track, he came into the room, watched a minute or so, asked me where I found it, etc. After a few minutes he said, "Mom's taking us to see it in a theatre later this week. I'll wait till then; I don't want to spoil the suprise", and went back to whatever he had previously been doing.
Even 11 year olds still want to have the experience of seeing it on a big screen with a tub of popcorn.
"Focus on stuff where you're right like "hey, it's illegal!""
"But, but. I'm just doing free advertising for the movie industry!"
Tried that. Doesn't work. What next?
Your TV has Firewire?
Sony KD34XBR960. Yes. It has three firewire ports.
It can receive video directly from my Motorola DCT6412 HD DVR via firewire. People with Apples have been able to record a Transport Steram and play it back on the Sony HDTV and some Mitsubishi HDTVs. People in Windows have been able to just do that with the Mitsu HDTVs so far, but I am somewhat close to geting the Sony TVs to be recognized under Windows, but I need just a bit more help from someone who is good with Windows. It just looks like the proper driver is in the AVC class, but it sees the hardware as a 1391 device, so it never picks up a driver that'll work.
A few quick examples of this would be:
Some of the folks I know saw the film at midnight, after standing in line for two hours.
Everyone else I know, including me, took off work to see the film Thursday.
Half of these people saw it twice as the other half were at E3 and everyone wanted to make a 'thing' out of seeing "Sith" as a group.
All of the above mentioned people, some 25 of the best and brightest on the intarweb, have the ability to download any of the numerous versions of "Sith" in about 30 minutes.
These same people will, undoubtedly, purchase the DVD of "Sith" to complete their collections as they have the first two and the last three on DVD already.
And, to the best of my knowledge, all of these people have downloaded at least one of the versions of "Sith" available in the newsgroups as Bittorrent is a bit slow with all the 'kidz' running diode-like versions of the protocol these days.
So, a record opening day, record numbers of geeks taking Thursday off, and what will undoubtedly be record numbers of DVD sales and they're still bitching...
Nice.
I've read through a few postings from fellow slashdotters (Many much more... prominate than I) And I notice I do nothing but agree with the facts... Starwars' final chapter hit a record... yet the MPAA is saying it's not enough... What can we do about this though? It's obvious people (specificaly people whom use bittorrent) are being targeted by this propaganda... I want to do something *active* though, not sit around and complain.. What can I do?
People kill people. The same holds true for ROTS showing up on bittorrent. Blame the software? You've got to be fscking kidding me. Blame the people, not the distribution method.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/05/20/A rts/sith050520.html
"ABC News reported Thursday that its correspondents had found counterfeit DVD copies of Revenge of the Sith selling in a store in New York City's Chinatown for $5 US. "
We better shut down New York City.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?t ype=internetNews&storyID=2005-05-20T032557Z_01_BOW 954575_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-MEDIA-STARWARS-PIRACY.XML
"According to Web site Waxy.org (http://www.waxy.org/ one print of "Revenge of the Sith" was leaked Wednesday before the film was even released in theatres. The movie was time-stamped, suggesting it may have come from within the industry rather than from someone who videotaped an advance screening."
Dear Sir/Madam;
You quoted the script from the major
motion picture
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
We have decided your post infringes on
our intellectual property rights. Please be advised.
Thank You,
MPAA
Get your Unix fortune now!
"Trying to turn the attention towards people is pointless, because anyone who isn't completely blind can see that people don't care about IP."
And as humanity has also demonstrated. They do care when it's them affected directly. It's easy to dehumanize your enemy. The germans demonstrated that. It's easy to take from a faceless institution. Insurance fraud demonstrates that. However when you're taking away (or percieved to) be taking away from the individual, then it's different standards entirely. How many of the "I don't cares" actually have a livelyhood were they depend on others buying the IP* they produce? Yeah they don't care. Need I list all the other historic examples of were people "didn't care" unless it was THEM that other's "didn't care" about?
*And lest all you "sighted" people forget. IP isn't just a game, or a book, or a movie, or even music. It's everything covered by IP law. Patents, trademark, copyright, trade secrets.
Remove half the network at random, and you'll be fine. Remove a handful of important nodes, and the system comes crashing down.
...for the 50 million people who went to see it the first night. Without BitTorrent's hyping it up, none of those people would have seen it. Britney Spear's movie "Crossroads" came out before BitTorrent and didn't have 50 million people watch it the first day, therefore bittorent is responsible for the success of "Return of the Sith"
The MPAA also announces that spoons and forks make people fat.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
This is Slashdot's favorite strawman argument. It goes something like this:
They claim I am stealing, and I am obviously not stealing because I haven't deprived them of anything. Therefore, I am right and they are wrong.
You set up the strawman, "They claim I am stealing", and then you attack it to win the argument. That's pure logical fallacy.
It's true that they often use words that are technically incorrect. That isn't illegal. It's true that you (the proverbial "you") haven't committed "theft". Dandy. However, beneath their wording they are accusing you of copyright infringement, and if you have actually done that then you have broken the law. You are in the wrong.
Yes, I think it's morally wrong to break the law. Yes, this is just one moral factor, and sometimes there are more significant moral factors which make make breaking the law a net gain (fighting an unjust law, for one). Personal gain is not a moral factor you can use to justify breaking the law. I have never seen an organized protest using the downloading of copyrighted content to correct a greater wrong, so I conclude that people are downloading shit simply because they aren't willing to pay (or wait) for it. That is no justification. Therefore, the infringers are wrong.
I thought that if the plot, dialogue, or scenery was such a secret that they would have made sure to release the video game and the book AFTER the theatrical release.
Those who download on Bit Torrent, do so out of choice, and undoubtedly dont care about in-theatre "magic". Those who dont, or who go to the theatre as well downloading the movie get the same experience, regardless of whether their friend downloaded it, or they do later that night. If anything, early downloaders could increase hype by saying it was good before most have seen it (im assuming it was).
So if by magic they mean money, and they always do -- then george lucas is a tiny bit worse off, boo-hoo for the billionare. Id be happier going to the theatres for EVERY movie that comes out if it didnt cost me $10 bloody dollars per seat.
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
To quote Yahoo! news:
"The last of the "Star Wars" movies has done what no movie in history has ever accomplished -- sold $50 million worth of tickets in a single day"
and...
"It's staggering," said Bruce Snyder, president of domestic distribution at Twentieth Century Fox. "It's probably 20 percent more than I thought we could do."
and this is a gem of a quote:
"Fifty million is a good opening weekend, let alone a single day," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. "This is the box office equivalent of a 100-year flood."
And p2p apps like BitTorrent are hurting box-office sales? I don't think so.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
SHHHHH!!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Rush Limbaugh just had a major portion of his inner ear replaced by a machine, and we've started restoring some sight to the blind with bionic implants (popsci.com). It is inevitable that we humans attempt to enhance whatever we can, and with computing power increasing exponentionally it is only a matter of time before we begin augmenting the human brain. Embrace it, because technology is inevitable.
A thought came to mind...by this reasoning, I'd guess that there's no such thing as "identity theft" since a victim is not deprived of his/her identity. I wonder how many other non-tangible forms of theft exist...
...Bla bla bla bla, bla, bla bla.
I just wish everybody in the gov't would see the RIAA / MPAA gibberish for what it really is.
Sith is available on BT and still made a metric ton of money.
I read that it broke all boxoffice records for single-day earnings.
Something like $50 MILLION on Thursday alone. Beating the next closest movie by something like $20 million(?)
Fuck you MPAA. No one's buying your arguement.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
1. I'll be honest I downloaded the movie, and watched it... But in doing that I now want to see it in theatres More then ever, I am actually going on Tuesday.
2. The MPAA can choose one of the many P2P networks for the distributing of Star Wars III, but.. It WASNT bit torrent that started it. IT was released on a select number of FTP Dumpsites that only a few know about, it was then trickled down to various IRC channel bots for general distribution, from there some one set the seed on bit torrent and from there it goes to the rest of the P2Ps.
So if anything it wasn't Bit torrent that can be blamed if so chose to blame a few hundred lines of code, its the people in "the scene" that start the ball rolling... you can blame the curriers , and the people who work in the industry that leak it to the release groups and put it out there.
Bit torrent is a tool like a Gun and a knife (as others have said) Bit torrent doesn't pirate; people do...
~RmG
Lets make a Deal *IAA. You keep your magic i keep my rights, ok?
Dan Glickman of the MPAA didn't choose the word "theft" accidentally. He chose to use it knowing full well that it is not an accurate description of the problem. I'm not trying to defend copyright infringement. It is illegal, wrong, and should be condemned.
But it is also wrong to abuse language to try to make your case stronger than it really is.
This argument has been played out, but can't ever been proven.
How 'bout this? Up until 2004, I never really used p2p for movies due to bandwidth limitations and inferior hardware. Up to that point, I spent $2 in my adult life to watch a few movies at the theater while I was in Iceland: the Matrix and Episode I. Oh and, sometime around 1996 I once rented a some movies for about a grand total of $3-4 in rentals.
But for the last *6 years*, I haven't paid to see any movies, and this is not because of BitTorrent. So, I don't see the harm in (me) downloading a movie from BitTorrent. If I don't get a movie from p2p or somebody I know doesn't rent it, I simply don't see it. Therefore, I would like to think that I am in absolutely no way stealing.
Hell, if I hadn't seen the thread on ep3's leak here on slashdot, I probably wouldn't have seen it for months, assuming someone I know might rent it. Otherwise, I might've never seen it.
You damn downloaders, you straped me in a chair and made me watch a crappy work print with a counter on it, now I can never enjoy the movie I wasn't going to go see from from a franchise I don't give a (@#*! about. Damn you downloaders, damn you all to hell!
Hmm a hotly anticipated movie coming out after serveral weeks of slumping attendance to kickoff the summer period. Illegal download/swapping is occuring but nobody listens. Magically a release with industry insider timecodes comes out the same day. Naw they wouldn't release it themselves to get this issue to the forefront.
First the media went after guns and an attack on the second ammendment. Now we see the same thing happening now. If Sony and all of the billion dollar companies are honestly concerned that bit-torrent is costing them money then they need to do another analysis and see that the root of the problem is Sony ( and the others ) that produce digital cameras. I can't take hearing this crap any more, stop making digital cameras with such a high quality capacity. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Bit torrent does steal movies, people steel movies and Sony gives them the capacity.
Reminds me of Theodore Sturgeon's statement (in, iirc, "Baby is Three" and "More then Human"):
"Morality is society's rule for the individual's survival; ethics is the individual's rules for society's survival."
Or, my condensed version: Morality is "thou shalt"; ethics is "I should".
This is the Constitution.This is the Constitution under the Bush administration. Any questions?
Actually in this particular case George Lucas handed a copy of the movie to someone out there that let it into the wild. I say George specifically, because that nazi control freak claims to have a hand in everything his companies do. I expect the MPAA will be sending him a sternly worded letter from their lawyers, who are probably also his lawyers, but that won't stop them from charging $140 an hour to compose it :)
this is only the mpaa's advance story when everyone realizes ep 3 is really a shitty movie, with shitty dialog, shitty acting, and shitty ass hack for a director and writer.
You are right that the term is misleading. It's not as though people stop recognizing them because their identify is missing. That would be silly.
The theft is really that they steal credit or actual money from the people they pretend to be.
I swore I'd never say this, but...
Mod Parent Up!
+1 Funny? That's it? Come on! That's genius right there! Oh, what I wouldn't give for some mod points right now...
$140 an hour
You mean $340 an hour?
Cant people shut off their s--t and stop talking during movies? These backlit screens nearly blinded me. They think "my little screen" wont disturb anybody....WELL IT DOES. Its like seeing a little flashlight, its okay for a few seconds then it becomes a serious distraction.
Only penguins would stand up against Darth Vader.
*opening shot of penguins on ice*Narrator: J'ai un sentiment très mauvais à ce sujet.
Let's settle this once and for all.
IT'S NOT BITTORRENTS FAULT!!!!!
It's a rogue @#$%#$%#$% employee somewhere. IT'S A WORKPRINT THAT'S CIRCULATING FOR CHRIST SAKES!
For those of you that don't know what a workprint is, it's the movie with timestamps on it so they can edit it, cut out what they don't want, add in what they do and make sure the movie flows well.
I've about HAD it with the MPAA and the RIAA saying crap like this. Most people here are intelligent people and even IF they download something it's usually just to check it out BEFORE plunking down hard earned money for it because, let's face it, the "industries" have let us down so many times and ripped us off we're tired of pissing away $20 for a CD that only has 1 good song on it.
For that matter, paying $40 (2 people including concessions) to go watch a movie that has NO redeeming features other than special effects that were overdone and physically impossible or incorrect. 'Wind' blowing stuff off of moving ships in space anyone?. Horrible acting, horrible dialogue, horrible horrible horrible!
Too many movies these days are relying on special effects thinking the more impossible we make it seem the cooler it is. BULLSHIT! THE MATRIX HAD A REASON FOR IMPOSSIBLE MOVES AND PHYSICS!
As one other poster noted this was an inside job! The copy that I have seen for download via BitTorrent was called a "work print". This means that it is a copy from the studio itself. Timecodes (little running numbers) exist on the bottom and not all the sounds/music have been put in yet. Given this FACT one can only assume two things.
1) An evil IP pirate (with a parrot and eye patch) broke into Skywalker Ranch with the swift silent moves of a SEAL Team member. Stole the workprint from under their noses and uploaded this from a Internet cafe in Eastern Russia after the extraction team showed up in a diesel powered submarine.
2) Someone involved with the production of this movie uploaded a copy themselves.
Now I love a good story but Occam's Razor makes me think the first one is a little out there. So I'm going to fathom a guess that SOMEONE ON THE INSIDE actually took the movie and distributed it online.
But really blame BitTorrent because I'm sure that is so much easier to digest. And as others have noted this movie didn't suffer in the least. Not in the box office and certainly not by "ruined" expierence of the fans. Maybe the MPAA shouldn't have gotten rid of Valente, even he wasn't THIS stupid.
Here is the contact info that was left on the press release. Download a free VoIP client like IPkall and let these folks know how you feel. Be nice.
MPAA Los Angeles
Kori Bernards
Anne Caliguiri
(818) 995-6600
MPAA Washington, DC
John Feehery
Gayle Osterberg
(202) 293-1966
No shit Sherlock Holmes.
My roomate went out of town to midland texas (gawd only knows why).
On tuesday of this week, he purchased a ticket for HG2G.
After the previews the starwars theme song came on, and EP III played for the few hours.
He saw the whole movie two days before release.
Seems like bitTorrent isn't the only culprit.
Now I've seen Everything
Fuck you, Glickman.
When they start refunding people's money when the movies blow ass I'll start caring when people pirate the movies.
The amount of money a movie makes at opening weekend in the theater is almost entirely based on how hyped it is, not how good it is. No matter how many reviews you read, you still won't know if you'll be satisfied with your purchase of tickets until you dish out the dough and go see the flick. So, they get your money whether or not their movie was any good. How is this any more fair than people who wouldn't pay for it anyway downloading it?
Question everything
You, "sir", are a "fucking" "commie" "hypocrate", "who" should be "taken" "out" and "shot". It's "people" like "you" who are "causing" this "problem" in the "first" "place". Of "course", it doesn't "help" that the "people" who "run" the "MPAA" are one "step" lower than "pond" "scum" on the "evolutionary" "scale".
I don't recall seeing too many WP's on the circuit, in fact I can't even think of the last WP seen. Things that make you go Hmmmm.....
W00T
noobs...TCP/IP did it...
Car manufacturers and the US goverment get blamed for providing vehicles and roads (respectively) for people who like to drive too fast.
JUDGE: For the benefit of the court, would you please explain "timecode"?
CLAUDE: Just because I don't know what it is ... doesn't mean I'm lying.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It must be bit torrent's fault not theirs for sending out thousands of DvD screeners to people for award shows or VIPs etc.
Napster: A P2P service intended to share free music that got premoted by the RIAA as a pirate service creating a flood of piracy before Napster was able do anything.
If left to nature Napster could have addressed the problems as they arrised. However instead everything happend at once rendering it useless for it's intended purpous.
Gnutella: Lesser known more effective for the puropus of research.
Quite a bit of piracy and no way to address it.
For Gnutellas survival no central athority exists so there is no shutting it down and no eliminating pirated copys of movies, TV shows and music.
However I've used it to track down long deceased code archives.
Bit Torrent: A way to make large files available by people who can not afford the bandwith.
Example: Slackware Linux CDs.
Yes people DO use it for piracy but you can shut down the source by finding who put the file up in the first place.
HTTP: The main diffrence between using HTTP and BT for piracy is that HTTP is not a P2P protocal. Large files eat up bandwith fees.
Byond that try knocking down a website that others mirror. Same as BT.
FTP: Like HTTP only more so.
IRC: Using it's own P2P protocal you can pirate stuff on IRC.
It's reasonably easy.
Ferther more if your MPAA, RIAA etc you'll never find the pirates. This is becouse there are humans involved. A verification process to insure only pirates can get access to the pirated matereal.
Usenet: Check alt.binaries.*
Google: No easier way to find pirated stuff than with a good search engen.
Floppy disks: The original P2P network.
Xmodem/Ymodem/Zmodem: Created to trade FREE programs and abused by some. Generally used approprately.
However in the 1980s certen organisations argued that it was nessisary to shut this problem down by making it illegal to own a modem and the suggestion was made that home computers (of any sort) served no other function than to hack into mainframes and needed to be banned.
Look it's just wrong to download a movie. It may appear minnor to rob say $5 from a person making $50M in a day. However there is the princaple. Also that $50M is more due to the fact that there are more Jedi in the fan base than Sith downloaders (Sorry bad joke). Not everyone enjoys a mostly enlightend fanbase. Preticularly many of the musicians who are under the RIAA protection racket.
However RIAA and MPAA are getting into a habbit of attacking anything calling itself P2P.
Might as well go after word of mouth advertising.
They got lucky with Napster and Gnutella dose have quite a bit of piracy.
But... Bit Torrent dosen't really have the key element that makes P2P "evil".
To shut down Napster priacy they shut down Napster.
You can't do even that much to GnuTella.
But Bit Torrent is more a matter of tracking down the person who put the file up and arresting him.
I don't actually exist.
"i.e. the p2p systems where it can take days to get these files. "
Well there goes the argument FOR that "new and improved" business model, slashbots are always toting. Guess we'll have to go back to that timely "old, and busted" business model.
Wow...Just, wow.
I know multiple women who have been raped (and, if you check out the anonymous survey statistics, chances are you do as well) and I'd like to see you try to tell them that their being raped is comparable in any way to downloading a movie without permission.
I know what you were trying to say (trying to paint copyright as an absolute moral right--an idea so historically rejected and antithetical to the original conceptions of copyright in the US that that in and of itself deserves to get you kicked out of the room), but if you can't see how watching a movie without permission and raping a woman might -- just might -- be too incongruous subjects for analogy, then there isn't much more to say.
George Lucas appears to have about as much interest in women as a necrophiliac. He paints them like dolls, keep them motionless, and won't let them act. Keisha Castle-Hughes, the girl from Whale Rider who nearly won the Academy Award for best actress a couple of years ago, played the Queen of Naboo but, as Yoda would say, recognizing her impossible to do it might be. She was onscreen for less than 5 seconds, an act of slash vandalism worthy of Quentin Tarantino.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
If somebody made counterfeit money and threw it around in the streets for others to pick up, is it the streets' fault? Should streets everywhere be shut down?
I downloaded the movie and watched the first 30 or so minutes of it to decide weather or not I want to see that movie after the first two prequil bombs. I am going to see that movie tomorrow. Though I do have some qualms about funding such bastards as the MPAA, especialy since this movie has grossed so high already and they are COMPLAINING about BT users. But I must see that movie on a big screen, high quality with speakers. I guess all I can do is tell the MPAA to eat a dick.
No such thing as cable or electric theft. Since they still have the signal, and the electricity.
Of course identity-theft isn't theft. It's fraud with two victims.
They probably released it themselves.
But I am waiting to watch it in the theater. The copy I downloaded will be burned to two dvds and shipped to my brothers in Iraq. Yes even in someparts of Iraq bootleg DVDs aren't prevailent.
Bittorrent was not reponsible for a stuffup in the studios security.
If the MPAA wants to blast bit-torrent then they should select a movie which did NOT break the all-time opening day US box office record for a Thursday at over 50 million dollars. Technically they are right about people infringing by trading the pre-release cuts on bit-torrent, but with such huge receipts you could argue that bit-torrent was rather like cheap marketing and promotion. Who would be satisfied with seeing a film like this on their computer and NOT in the theater? The MPAA is crying w/two loaves of bread under their arms and they risk people taking their complaints less seriously in the future by such a crass display of greed. They are really shooting themselves in the foot on this one, it is a wonder that their public relations firm didn't advise them to let this one be, at least until the DVD sales start or perhaps they did and the morons on the MPAA board decided to pursue the matter anyway and damn the torpedoes. In the end it is their own cause which will be torpedoed and they will have nobody to blame but themselves. They should stop blaming P2P for all of their lost 'sales' and start producing some worthwhile material instead of the crap which they produce 99% of the time these days. People have more entertainment choices these days and they dont want to spend their hard earned money on crap.
Really, nobody has much used the world pirate that I can recall, until it got attached to copyright infringement. While I think that the word is being misused... you're more likely to hear something like "huh, I thought you mean he was copying music" in the case of a pirate on the seas than the opposite with a music pirate.
How strange, I downloaded my copy from USENET.
I actually did download it. Then promptly deleted it. I want to see it on a big screen, with decent sound.
Identity theft most definately deprives the victim of a very large amount of their personal time. Not that I agree but copying something does not take anything OUT of someone's back account. At worst it would prevent putting anything IN the account.
Identity theft is tangible in the sense that the victim is deprived of their time and money to restore their credit.
Sue the internet!
Warning: Could be fatal if taken seriously
Stop blaming the entire thing on the distributive means by which technologically savvy people use the internet.
It all comes down to your own security, who has the actual access to the media at hand. The biggest one you may ask? I saw a release that was done with a test or preview, not sure of the actual terminology here. It was the one with the timecodes in it. I mean, it's not like a bit torrent user went to the star wars factory and grabbed the digital hard drive, and seeded it. Someone had to have access to it, ripped it, and voila.
From there it doesn't go straight to bitTorrent either. Most times it will either appear on a newsgroup, or it will be on a private FTP for a release group or other designated release tree.
There are a few steps usually before it hits a BitTorrent site, and I wish that the MPAA would stop blaming every little thing that goes on with their product, directly at the BitTorrent community.
Ya, they do mostly share illegal materials, yes a lot of them are positioned outside of north america to avoid the easy outs of the MPAA's and RIAA's legal battles, but they're still there. I hope they realize that everytime they shut down a site, 3 more open.
If they really want to stop this, they have to work on getting legal issues straight world wide, leaving no country un-assaulted. If you get the laws in effect, then there's no way that you could possibly fail. Until then, the sites will continue to spurt up everytime you jackhammer a site down to the ground. It's sad, but it's a reality, and I'm sure with your unlimited funds you make from movie sales, that you're more than willing to spend OUR money fighting legal issues, cause hey, if you can make your billions, and then spend tax-payers money on legal battles, how can you lose?
I think the MPAA shafts a single downloader $2000 to $4000, and that compares to the $10 cost of a single seat in the cinema. At that rate of multiplication, I'd say that the movie industry would be lacking in its duty to its shareholders if it did not use the legal system as a source of revenue. A case could be made out to that effect, not withstanding that the corollary to "and lead us not into temptation" is "Thou shalt not temp". Corporate America at it again, please move along now.
Me, personally believe to stop illegal downloading is impossable..unless you kill the internet(not happening). I didnt really think of downloading this movie, but now that i hear there mad over this bull, i think i will download it. Gee, i hope the MPAA doesnt get mad......
PS: BitTorrent is the greatest thing EVER invented...
I bought a box of old 78 records a couple of years ago at a flea market.
in the box were some records which were marked to only be played on the radio (promotional copies is what they are now called) there were some of the make your own records Thin alluminum disks with plastic on both sides which had recordings which were made live one at a time by a machine. one of the sides has a pirate copy of Perry Como singing something.
All of the records were from the early 30's
Funny how you get a flamebait mod because you have the temacity to question slashdot's bonifides.
Anway the debate goes on elsewere.
"I disagree. One can define theft as taking an item that one is not legally
entitled to. I think that is a reasonable definition of theft, and
copyright infringement typically meets this defintion. The most common
argument against calling copyright "theft" is that nothing is taken from the
owner. Of course, that is also not true. The owner's IP is taken without
their permission. Another argument is that the owner is not prevented from
using the IP. Again, that is not totally true. Infringement typically
reduces the value of the owner's IP (because unauthorized copies dilute the
marketplace), and thus the owner has lost something. Often, anauthorized
uses are inferior in quality, hurting the owners reputation. The fact that
the owner has an infinite supply of the IP is not relevant to the issue,
IMHO."
"And there, in a nutshell, is the disagreement.
What does "take" mean?
Does "take" mean that I get it when I "shouldn't" have it?
Or does "take" mean, that the prior owner no longer has it?
Those in favor of stronger copyrights argue for the first.
Those in favor of looser copyrights argue for the second."
"I think that I have already provided a number of reasonable definitions of
theft that suffice. The problem isn't you taking the position that the term
"theft" may be misleading as a synonym for infringement, because they are
NOT synonyms. The problem is you claiming that there is no reasonable
definition of theft that could include infringement. That is just not the
case, and is insulting to those who think otherwise.
-Bodi"
from the midnight screening alone and they are still whining. It's amazing. You guys should seriously get your government to outlaw these mofos. I'm not kidding, they are polluting the world with ideas that are so fubar, that the death sentence suddenly doesn't seem to be such a stupid idea anymore.
But the MPAA is not concerned with profit at all, they are worried about "how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone". I mean, think of those poor children, accidentally opening their Bittorrent applications in the morning, then accidentally clicking on the "RotS" download, then accidentally sitting through several hours of on-screen video, and then their magic is dimmed. In fact, everybody, young and old alike has such horrible accidents, that's why Bittorrent needs to be banned, so that people don't run it accidentally anymore, you see.
These people don't have to conspire to leak it, which would be really risky for them if it were found out.
"Leaking purposely" in this context means that they didn't take sufficient precautions to keep it from getting out. They didn't need to discuss that or conspire to do it, they just tacitly needed to not bring it up at the meetings at which the film release was discussed.
The thinking would be "hey, let's not bother keeping this one from being pirated--it won't hurt our profits, and it will give us ammunition for lobbying".
(I find it highly suspicious that they can't be more specific where the copy came from: working copies are unique, and they are probably also watermarked.)
If the law of the land where the MPAA lives says that libraries, schools and reporters can distribute copies freely, then I submit that the MPAA is required by law to allow the following uses:
1. Use of bittorrent or any other communications protocol to freely disseminate copies to any member of a library, school, news organization, or informal version of these institutions (i.e. an online version of a library that attempts to provide library-like services, an online study group, a private blog, or a distributed movie/song/book critique and article publishing website.
2. Use of a bittorrent application that specifically provides a way to discuss, critique, and publish said critique of copyrighted works.
3. Free dissemination by an organization that teaches about film production, film business, the economics of software distribution, or otherwise states an academic purpose and attempts to execute it.
4. By law, anyone who watches a movie downloaded over bittorrent and reports on it should ironically be free from prosecution. (IANA so please respond)
In other words, a university class on film, or a campus newspaper, should be able to use bittorrent legally. Also, if bittorrent downloader software enabled collection of ratings or reviews, and published it on a website or through the downloader application, that should also be allowed.
The MPAA neglects fair use and invents probable income from people who would not buy their work, while ignoring positive results from bittorrent. I believe that considering the low funding of libraries, it would be most efficient for them to spend much of their money on compiling a freely available digital archive of books, songs, movies, and other works, and also to broadly interpret any restrictions on what it takes to become a member of the library. If you requested a work from the library online, you could freely download it immediately, and you could use bittorrent to reduce the burden on the library's bandwidth and could offer donations to the library for disk space increases, better searching, etc.
I think this would work extremely well for books especially, since if you look at Project Gutenberg you can see that plain ASCII text creates small files that are eminently useful. So I would like to see libraries start with books and move into music and movies as well. By movies I also want to include film, and also recordings of broadcasts from TV. I hear about rotten Hollywood movies an awful lot but I would like to learn more about talented authors, musicians and filmmakers who are not so well financed. Libraries and their right to freely disseminate would be great for this. Similar things can be done by entertainment news organizations and academic institutions if they developed software applications that facilitated their raison d'etre (articles, reviews, lessons, spreading knowledge) while helping the user obtain the work. I think therefore that bittorrent and other protocols should reward people who stand up to be counted and participate in news or academic reviews of the works after viewing them. Similarly, if free dissemination by libraries proves to hurt authors (unlikely I think) then by counting users on their tracker an appropriate remuneration can be made. Though I expect it would just be purchase of one physical copy for the most popular works disseminated digitally. That's how libraries work.
I have already been to the movies and seen it twice, I have also downloaded the pirate copy and watched it at home once. Having access to the pirate copy did not deprive them of their precious income nor will it deprive them of a dvd sale it just gives me the consumer more freedom as i can continue to watch my pirate copy as many times as i want.
Nah, what dims the magic for me is the bastard behind me who downloaded it off of BitTorrent who wouldn't STFU with the telling his friend what was about to happen.
(Score:0, Interesting)
The three legal movie download services mentioned in the MPAA press release are:
- CinemaNow - Windows only.
- Movielink - currently a 403 forbidden.
- Ruckus - colleges/universities only, not for individuals.
Maybe I'd take the press releases more seriously if there was a legal choice for DVD (or higher) quality video that I could watch on the platform of my choice.
http://www.themeparks.ie
Well honestly bittorrent just saved me the hassle of going to a crowded theater before a 10 hour work day with the rest of my friends. Or having one of those same "friends" ruin the movie for me.
I got to see it, and in the privacy of my own home. Yes, I do intend to see it in the theaters, I just want to wait a week or two.
The RIAA and MPAA just like counting their eggs before they hatch. "Well we see all those downloads, and surely they will never pay for such a movie now that they saw it for free!! but if we add those numbers to the numbers we have, look at the phenominal source of revenue!" Yah forget the fact that most of those people will probably pay for it as well, not to mention all the dvds, then the collectors set, then the 6 episode collection, and the rape me in the ass box specials after being (insert future THX like technology here) remade. Some people are just to greedy...
No, I am not an English major. My posts are subject to typos and incorrect grammar. Do not expect perfection.
It does not matter what the general public thinks. The MPAA will mention the leak time and time again to politicians and judges. They are simply issuing press releases now so they can site reputable news sources when the mention the subject later.
The value of Ferrari is material. You then have the car and can drive around.
The value of a movie is immaterial. It doesn't exist as other than information (video, sound). When you copy immaterial goods, you hurt the original creator.
Hope this is now clear.
And yes, copyright infringement is just that, it's not theft, but the Ferrari example is flawed.
replace the first line with: Blaming bittorrent instead of the people who actually made it into a format the average shmo's computer could read is unfair, unjust, unamerican, and unsmart. Because noone seem to catch, or even bother to try to catch the origion of the stolen movies, it keeps happening. There are several ways you could prevent this, like delivering the film to the cinemas with time-locks, to using serial numbers embedded in the film.
/. ^_^
Next time, I'll get more than an hour of sleep before commenting on
" 'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone '"
Yeah because the sticky popcorn covered foyers with badly sanitised soda dispensing machines uncovered tubs of popcorn and foul unhygenic toilets of my local multiplex cinema really help me to feel the magic of movies.
For a movie that absolutely smashed opening day records for box office takings I can really see the correlation between movie piracy and box office takings.
I wonder when if people ( the everyone in this quote ) will ever tell the MPAA to pipe down quit yapping and actually live in the real world.
incidentally I cant condone copyright theft but I just dont approve of grandstanding by "industry officials" making up figures and numbers to fit their arguments. Thats our job !
could someone explain whats so magic about forking out 10$ to go see a film to my wallet? if cinemas didn't insist on raising prices for cinema tickets (not to mention popcorn and drinks) every year then i might go more often. i don't even download films because my computer is to old and crappy but i still don't go to the cinema. Everytime i see a film that might look good, that it gets good "reviews" by the press and such, I always end up with a sinking feeling in my stomache and the thought: "10$ for pretty pictures is alot". I like the cinema experience of big screens suround sound and big comfortable chairs, and i bet alot of film downloaders too, unfortunatly for the MPAA they don't like getting ripped off blaming bittorrent just ruined the magic you heartless monkeys!
It's good for pretty much everyone.
Game demos, movie trailers, home movies, shareware applications... pretty much everything these days is either distributed over bittorrent or will be shortly. It's like FTP in that it is destined to become a completely integrated standard into the web's existence. It allows for the transfer of large files at one hundredth the bandwidth cost of a standard file server. It won't be long until system updates, etc are all using the technology.
I'll reiterate this again. Bittorrent isn't a file sharing application like Napster. Bittorrent is a file transfer protocol, dozens of times better and cheaper than existing file transfer protocols. If you want to transfer a hollywood blockbuster, Bittorrent is your best protocol. If you want to download a video from CBS News, Bittorrent is still the best protocol. If you want to download the latest terrestrial maps the terramapping project of the US government, bittorrent is still the best protocol. It's just the best protocol for any kinds of large file downloading that you may do.
Just looking over my bittorrent logs, I've recently downloaded the new FF7 advent children trailer, a copy of the Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Demo, 3 Gigs worth of open-licensed video game music, the interviews from "OutFoxed" (legally), and the Natural Selection mod to Half Life. All of these are legal, appropriate uses of Bittorrent, and are far more common than searching a P2P network for legal content. Even the centralized structure of the bittorrent network requires the kind of source-signatures that would discourage illegal uses. It's just a great protocol for transfering large files. It's a pity it's also a pretty good protocol for transfering large illegal files, as there are clear legal uses.
The ______ Agenda
I saw the movie in cinema on wednesday (premiere day here in germany) and it was awsome. I'm downloading right now, because I need to watch this flick constantly. NOW.
;)
If there would be a DVD available, I think I would pay up to 30$ for it. Now. Not in 8 month. Also an iTunes download would be nice.
Unless they notice they can make MORE money using multiple distribution channels instead of blocking the willing customers from paying for it, they will have problems.
I'll be back in cinema at least on next wednesday, to get my weekly sith dosis. Sorry, I'm a geek, as it seems
Revenge of the Sith has enjoyed the biggest opening in movie history. Makes it kind of hard for me to cry a river over the downloaders hurting the poor wittle movie industry.
The magic only would've been dimmed if I had a T1 connection. As it is, I went and saw it in theaters opening day while it was still downloading at home.
you mean the film is out.
Earlier today I thought I had downloaded Star Wars and so I started to watch it. About 1 hour into the film I realized all this time it was just a montage of crudely-recorded voyeuristic video clips of German women pooping in their own mouths while a circle of dachshunds took turns pissing on her.
It's kind of hard to tell the difference between krautenscheissessendachshundurinischenporn and a Star Wars movie. What I thought was Yoda was just someone's hemorrhoid. And this isn't the first time I confused a krautenscheissessendachshundurinischenporn with a Star Wars. "Hey that isn't Jar Jar binks -- that man is stretching his scat-encrusted ball sack to unholy limits!"
The day we have "BitTorrent Association of America", is the day the industry will stop blaming the protocol..
Otherwise they would've paraded some joe sixpack around for the video leakage.
I think we should sue them all.
[sarcasm]
- some psuedo chemists choose to produce methamphetamine, obviously all scientists use chemistry to make drugs
- some people smuggle drugs into the united states by hiding it as they drive past the border, obviously anybody entering the country is to blame
- anybody that wears a red shirt is obviously a gang member
- anyone who attends the catholic church is to blame for the child molestations
- all postal workers go crazy and shoot up the place
- everyone leaving bars/pubs drive home drunk
- and the politically incorrect kicker, all muslims are terrorists, islam should be stopped
[/sarcasm]And what's the advantage to doing that over, say, S-Video?
What can you do with your firewire enabled TV that I can't do?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
So...
Bittorrent causes Piracy
but
Guns don't kill people
Ok, just so we can get our stories straight.
Oh, and BTW, I went to see Revenge of the Sith Yesterday at the Cinema with my Son, Packed house.
*Blink*
*Blink*
Frith o Inlé! That could actually work. The MPAA and RIAA create extremely sophisticated viruses that latch onto pirated mp3s and avis, then seed them into the P2P networks. When the infected files are played, the viruses up the radiation emitted by CRT monitors and what have you, sterilizing pirates!
If that's not enough of a deterrent by itself, the problem will remove itself in a few generations. Now, if we can only stop the insidous pirate recruiters from bringing impressionable young children into the filesharing lifestyle...
well they blame bit torrents... why dont they go next after the internet for making people able to get files online... or better yet the operating system makers...
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
Bullshit.
I've seen, at the very least, fifteen different copies on usenet. Bittorrent is a convenient target. Nothing more.
Bittorrent is a somewhat 'noobish' way to steal stuff. Bittorrent just makes a convenient target because the MPAA can figure out WHO is downloading....and have them all arrested for not wanting to pay $8 to see a movie that sucks.
Bittorrent is a tremendous tool, and I plan to use it in the future to distribute my own works from my website. The MPAA gestapo can beat THAT with a stick.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Here's the thing... Person A pays to see the movie, $10, and then buys it, $25. Total cost = $35 Person B waits and buys the movie. Total cost = $25. Why should person A pay more than person B if person A already saw the content. It's unfair.
I agree with you saying this has been discussed ad nauseam here but most of the time the discussion descend into noise
NO THEY DONT!!!!!!!!!!
and the logically founded arguments get lost.
I proved you're wrong 'cos I already said they don't. Shut your effing cakehole, you are a GHEY MAXINTOSH OWNERZ00rrorrorfrr!~!!!!!!
I think this conclusively proves that arguments and logic never get lost in the noise. (^_^)
If it wasn't bittorent it would be gnutella/ed2k.
If it wasn't gnutella/ed2k it would be direct connect.
If it wasn't direct connect it would be kazaa.
If it wasn't kazaa it would be irc.
If it wasn't irc it would be FTP.
Illicit content will always be distributed over the fastest most efficient protocol the people doing it can find. (also moving to most anonymous/secure).
Why? because they have total freedom of choice to choose the BEST, even if it's hidiously expensive software they wont care because they'll get hold of that without paying to use it the same as everything else.
why would ANYONE wanting to distribute metric tons of water keep trying to do it with a straw when a hose was available, and a hose when industrial pipes were, if getting hold of and setting any of the equipment options up cost them absolutely nothing at all.
The same goes for any other software, eg video editing, content production, they'll always get hold of the best to do the thing they want to do.
video codecs are a brilliant example, WTH are Sony doing branding xvid/divx as 'nothing but pirate tools' and crippling Vegas Video for it. People working on any home video want the lowest filesize, best quality compression they can find usually to send their home video's to friends, archive as much as possible, whatever.
many games companies use divx now, I'm sure more will use xvid soon (maybe they're worried about licensing? worrying it might be making their content open source).
(not that pirates wont welcome sony's blue-ray format or probably several of their other products)
Crippling x or y bit of software because pirates use it is just crippling progress, technology as a whole. All it does is cause them to move to a competing/different technology/program, and annoy legitimate end usesrs, often stoping them buying a product,
Ultimately shooting everyone in the foot.
it was the BitTorrent of the dark side - SithTorrent!
np: Yagya - We Reject The Now (Flow.ers)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
I thought that was Gigli that caused the SMS lash out?
It's so funny to have a dark side in the movies and another one in the real world trying to destroy a group of rebels. Can't George Lucas sue the MPAA for copyright infringement?
The solution is obvious: R2D2 is a Jedi. Who else can jump around and levitate like that? Also, he often uses Force Lightning, he can sense Obi Wan on Tatooine, he uses Jedi mind tricks on C3PO (why else would a natural coward follow him into such dangerous situations), and in Return of the Jedi he carries a frikkin' lightsaber.
Bittorrent has proved resistant to *AA attacks due to having lots of legitimate uses. So, this is a deliberate attack by the industry morons using the publicity of star wars. I would love to see the executives of the RIAA and MPAA assassinated before they damage the progress of technology.
when they start releasing movies (on dvd & online for download) immediately . As in at the same time it's released in theaters...
:)
Which you would think, would be a good thing, since they would bank even more. They could even sell the latest DVD release at the theater, buy it after you see it kinda thing
Thanks, MPAA, for clearing that up.
And everyday drive-by shooters use cars, bank robbers use sacks, and shoplifters use pockets.
Let the banning begin!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Did anyone think to tell Mr Glickman that most of us would LOVE to go see movies on the big screen and help the industry recoup their investment if thay would maybe save that $48 million dollar marketing budget, and use the $50 million for making the movie to make GOOD movies? You could even take $10-12 million from that marketing money saved!
No, don't ask your MARKETING department what they think, OF COURSE they're going to tell you you need to market crap to make a profit - they're the MARKETING DEPARTMENT you stupid fuck! Their entire business is based on getting as much money out of everyone else as possible.
Other than the occational chunk or porn and a few south park episodes when my shitty cable company didnt carry the cartoon network (this was back in the day) I don't think I've ever downloaded film or television from the internet. it's just a shitty way to watch a movie.
I watch DVDs on my laptop because its all i got right now and it really licks balls compared to going to the theater.
Mr Glickman, stop being a whiny cock. Make decent movies more often than once a year, and we'll all start going to see them again.
I mean, what's the next step, Mr Glickman? Will you pull a page from the bible of the retards in the Airline Industry and beg the government for some free money?
s'wut i sed.
I'm glad I decided to download the movie before going into the movie theater to see it, ROTS sucked. I read the book before hand and it was great, I loved it, and was looking forward to seeing the movie. The movie was rushed, didnt contain anywhere near enough to explain it all correctly and the fight scenes were short and boring.
I don't see how me downloading one movie or "stealing" it, is any different than them charging me $15 to go see a movie, $20 to buy a DVD or $6 to rent it. For the pennies that they pay to produce something on DVD or the amount that they make the movie theaters pay back to them just to show their movie, if anyone is the theif it is them.
Therefor, it doesnt lay heavy on my concious when I steal a movie or a cd. And until they lower the prices on such items and quit trying to over stuff their pockets, because theyre a bunch of greedy fuckbags, then I will continue to pirate anything and everything I feel like.
The fault is on who recorded the movie illegally. The fault is on the movie theater who coudln't keep someone from recording the film. The fault is on who had the original copy and leaked it out. The fault is on whoever suppose to keep it secured but couldn't.
If he hadn't invented the internet, poor George Lucas could scrape a few dollars together and could afford to buy his next meal.
Doesn't some inner-sanctum guy have to steal the movie first? Or did some non-Lucas-Arts-bit-torrent-user stealthily break in and steal it? It seems to me the major problem here is that people who work at these production companies are stealing the movies.
Blockquoth the AC:
OK, I don't have any good information either way, so let's accept that premise for now.
I'm afraid that doesn't follow at all. Copyright (or some contractual terms, NDAs, or other restrictions with similar intent) is precisely what stops someone who writes software for one company getting away with selling it to their rivals afterwards. I know; I've seen a court case where precisely this happened.
Sorry, but you're going to need very solid statistics to convince me that that's even close to true. I suspect there are several orders of magnitude more people working for companies selling software than there are writing open source, even if you count all the guys who once contributed a five-line patch to a tool they happened to find and nothing else.
Moreover, what really counts here is how much useful software is actually produced, not how many people are working on it. A quick visit to SourceForge shows pretty clearly that the vast majority of downloads are for a relatively small number of apps (many of them geek tools like the P2P stuff we're discussing in this article), and that the vast majority of version numbers in the "Latest News" column start with "0.".
I do realise that most software projects "fail" in some sense of the word, but at least IME the vast majority of commercial projects ultimately produce something that's significantly useful to someone, even if it's late/over-budget/whatever. I'm no sure the OSS world can justifiably make the same claim.
In other words, if you want to argue that copyright does not incentivise the availability of useful software, you probably need a lot more freely available software than just OSS to make your case.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"MPAA Blames BitTorrent for Star Wars Distribution" and in other news, meteorologists all over the world have come out and blamed rain for making everything so darn wet.
I concede I excuse myself a bit as a special case for my piracy... battleing for years with a mental disorder that's left me a bit anxious in public plus a suspended license this last year that completely curbed my brick and mortar renting...
And I've become nuerotic about wasted time, ie. getting to the movie early and then the time it takes to turn to the next thing to occupy you.
And my couch is more comfortable, my bathroom closer, my home theater sound (2.1) sounds better than it often sounds in the real theater, my food healthier, and the day will come when I have a kick ass tv.
So, to restate, I really dislike going to the theater and think they should mostly go away and we can build parks and have public art where most of them used to be and I can go to the artist(s) website and click the paypal button and watch, read, hear, see the art in a manner best for me to experience.
Down idealism, down. Take you pill.
torrent availability.
There is no such thing in a democracy as a bought law. Money doesn't vote, voters do. If your population is collectively stupid enough to believe that it can only vote for one of two people, both of whom will do much the same thing that isn't in the interests of the people electing them, and to vote for them anyway, then that's the bigger problem I'm talking about, right there. If the American people don't want the unethical pro-big-business laws, well, they had an election a few months ago. Anyone who voted for the two big name parties other than for strong tactical reasons doesn't have any right to complain.
(The situation in the UK is somewhat different, since the vast majority of people didn't vote for the guy who "won" and more of us did vote for someone else; this is just one demonstration of why our electoral system itself is corrupt, which is a greater problem still.)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I watch the documetar that came with my DVD OT. And it said for ESB Luscas had to pay huge fines over no openning creidts with the actors names so he resigned. Soooo why does the MPAA even care? Personal I'd think that the half the Stars War going popluation that did download it would be the part who will be coming up with triva questions like: "How many seconds does R2D2 burn his(its) thrusts to alight the oil he spill?" or "what is the name of the drooid that devilder Luke and Ledia?" Somehow I find it hard to believe Luscas lost much to DL.
Life is like untied shoe laces; it always tripping you up and getting in your way.
I didn't know that dimming the magic of movies was illegal. WTF!
....on the first day, and they're bitchin'???
But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
'There is no better example of how a really bad writer/director dims the magic of the movies for everyone."
A $200 million FX budget isn't enough to give Hayden Christensen the talent to deliver those awful lines with any flair.
>'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world.'
I got a better one for you, Bob.
'There is no better example of how the magic of the movies can be ruined for everyone than the fact we still can't, in 2005, go see the movies in the original language. You live in a french country? You got no choice but to watch it translated in french. With all the technology available, why haven't we still got multi-language movies with frequency-based FM transmission of the language track (english: 88.1FM, french: 90.1FM, etc)? (keep music and F/X playback on the cinema equipment)."
The only way to preserve the movie magic, and give it credit, is to download an illegal copy and watch it at home. I can THEN go pay the 6 euros and watch it in french at the cinema, legally paying for a stupid dub. Next time, I think I'll even get the illegal version, watch it, then go pay the 6 euros at the cinema but then just go back home immediatly without watching it in french. DUBBING KILLS THE MAGIC.
If some of these new movies and CDs popping up on P2P practically overnight are actually being deliberately "leaked" by the RIAA/MPAA to boost the credibility of their anti-piracy rantings. I'm not saying this as a "conspiracy theory" type of thing - but it is awfully convenient that this so rapidly happens with EVERY major movie/music release.
Seeing as it's genereally regarded as being on the leading edge of internet profiting...
I saw episode 3 in the cinema last friday, just like I saw all Starwars movies within short time after release.
That said, I saw episode 1 and 2 also as a 'pirated' copy on my big tv screen at home, why? because I am one of the milions of people on this planet who is visually impaired. Not bad enough to not be able to watch TV from a relative short (1 1/2 yards) distance, but bad enough still to not be able to catch most of the details when seeing something on a big screen in a cinema. Siye makes NO difference, the ONLY thing that makes a difference is distance.
Basicly, this leaves me with a simple choice: waiting for the official DVD release before I can watch something, with the simple consequence that I cannot share the experience with my friends who go see it when it appears in the cinema, or watch a pirated copy shortly after release.
As said, I go see them in the cinema as well simply for the experience, and indeed to reward the people who made the movie.
If I cannot also watch it from nearby on my own big screen then there is NO use whatsoever for me to go see it in the cinema either.
Now, if the MPAA would offer me a chance to watch it in a way that I can actually catch the details also, there would be no need whatsoever for me to go look for a pirated version, but they don't.
Is my situation special? well, it does not apply to most people, yet it still applies to milions of people, milions of potential customers for them that they simply exclude, and who thanks to 'piracy' still do have a way to enjoy what the MPAA members make and release.
But well, it is a lot easier to just go whine about the unproven theory that such piracy reduces their income and blame technology for it. I have yet to see any sign of such piracy really reducing their income and I know for a fact that for me personally, it makes me spend more money on MPAA stuff then I would without it.
In short, being able to watch it on my own setup (which is adapted for my visual impairment) allows me to actually catch the visual detail and that in turn makes it an option for me to also go see it in a cinema (where I will lack the visual detail). The comination will still give me the complete experience. Without this possibility, there is simply no point whatsoever for me to go see things in a cinema.
Let the MPAA come up with a solution for that.
It's not how much money they made in the box office, it's the principal of the matter.
From my perspective, blame is being focused in the wrong direction. As some have said before, it'd be like blaming HTTP or FTP for transmission of the torrent files.
They're pushing the blame from their poor security to a popular file-sharing protocol, while further "solidifying" their argument against BitTorrent. Win-win for them, assuming the people reading about it cannot detect bullshit when they see it.
You want theft? Let's try the price of popcorn at the movie theaters. How much did this movie make again in it's opening day, again? Pah-LEASE.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Let's face it, there's a simple reason why they blame the P2P networks. The person who they should really be blaming is the one who acquired the movie from the film company or wherever he got it from in the first place, and then distributed it. Why aren't they putting the blame on these guys? Because they aren't smart enough to find out who he/she is. Then there's operators of these so called topsites. If it wouldn't be from them, and their "races", movies wouldn't go around the internet that fast ,and wouldn't be as accessible to the average joe. Why don't they blame FTP site operators? Because although alot of ppl know about FTP sites, it's not something that's known/understood/used by the majority of the internet users. When you say Kazaa or bittorrent or speaking of MP3s Napsters, this is something that everyone, including my grandma was using. It's all about public perception. They want to target whatever is most widely known to the public. It's all about instigating fear in people.
I have a very simple reason for watching a rip of Star Wars. I probably would have payed to watch it on the premiere date IF IT HAD BEEN AVALIABLE. I live in a rather small town. It has a very nice cinema, 13 meter wide projection screen and a nice digital surround sound system, at least for such a small town. There are a finite number of film rolls, though. We usually get'em much later than everyone else, when they're all worn out and the novelty of the movie has decayed somewhat. I don't want to wait weeks for the movie when the majority of Norway has already seen the movie. It's even worse for the HGTTG movie. They're not showing that one until late JULY, and that's for all of Norway! So I fetched rips of both movies. I did it out of impatience, and in a sort of protest. I probably would've watched them both in the cinema if they had been available earlier. IMO, such delayed distribution systems aren't acceptable. In the new Internet world, your social network spans the whole globe.
"[bittorrent] dims the magic of the movies for everyone"
Oh my god, how on earth can they expect people to take them seriously when they translate "could let a relativly insignificant percentage of people see the movie without contributing to the $40 billion empire" to the above quote.
It just goes to show how totally amoral movie distributers and their representatives are and why I'm proud to have several people uploading the movie off my computer right at this moment!
I care, for one, as do a great many of the people who CREATE such things to start with. Attitudes tend to change greatly when it's YOUR work being stolen.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
As I was sitting in the cinema last night about to watch Ep3, I was saying the exact same thing to my friend. I want to sit at home and watch this on my home theatre, and I'll pay for that so I don't have to drive to the theatre, get tickets, wait, and watch the film with idiots all around me and unable to pause it to go to the washroom. I couldn't bring my wife because someone has to watch the kids. It's just damned inconvenient.
I want a solution that will put a film on my TV, within a day if not within minutes, at a price between a DVD rental and a movie ticket. And I want to choose from a huge catalogue of movies, more than my local video stores have. I'm not interested in the latest Adam Sandler movie, I want to watch obscure foreign films and the occasional blockbuster.
I'll pay for it.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
>I> And what's the advantage to doing that over, say, S-Video? What can you do with your firewire enabled TV that I can't do?
High definition. A choice of multiple audio or video streams. Perfect copy. The kind of stuff that is great for video on demand.
Ok, you are certainly welcome to your opinion but the simple fact is that it's not your decision to make. None of these "arguments" that I see on slashdot mean much to me. They imply that "information is free". Well it's not. It's only free if the creator wills it so. If the creator wishes their creations to be free, as many thousands of the readers of /. do with their open-source projects, then great! I think that FOSS is an excellent movement and a source of inspiration for others.
But what about those that happen to want to make money from their creations? They want to control the marketing, quality, distribution, public relations, etc of their product (or idea!). And why shouldn't they? Let's take an example. I make a piece of software. It's commercial, and I'm selling to large enterprises. It's a niche market so the market will pay...$3000 for this software. It is in my own best interest to protect the integrity and quality of my product so that my company will do well. If some guy takes my software and then sells it for $49, what happens?
Something like that could ruin me. And guess what happens if this is repeated en masse? You have created a situation where I am actually DISCOURAGED to take the time to create something. Hell, I might as well give up and wash cars for a living. Where are all the good ideas then?Now, I realize most of you are socialists and communists (look up the definition sometime) so my arguments above will just either go over your head or you'll ignore them out of hand. I understand that. I won't convert someone to capitalism with a slashdot post. But what makes your world view more important than mine? Or to put it another way, why should your rights overrule mine? Because you think so? Now THAT makes a lot of sense. (That was sarcasm.)
Ok, let's bring this back on topic. Lucas made the movie, he can do whatever the hell he wants to do with it. (Like spit out flat dialog and complement it with poor acting.) If piracy of movies becomes commonplace, which has certainly happened in certain areas, people who would have gone to see the movie will instead download it for free or buy a cheap knock off DVD on a street corner. That is taking money from his pocket, and is taking your socialist views and pushing them on his capitalistic ones.
Disclaimers:tcp/ip?
...and helping the thief see what to steal.
No worse yet, they are blaming the bulb!!!
--------
* Sigh *
...is Lucas. If he hadn't made the movie, then nobody would be able to download it.
(Does this stunning display of illogic qualify me for a multi-million$ job at the MPAA?)
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
If those bootlegs can stop anyone from having to undergo the suffering that is Episode III, I am all for 'em! Seriously though, my expectations for Episode III were low, but I didn't really expect it to be as craptastic as it was. Still, the CGI was good. (Albeit massively overused...)
I have bought DVDs of every single non-shite film I ever downloaded via Bittorrent
You see, you put the finger right on their bleeding wound. What about all those shite movies they make every year? Who's gonna pay to see all those terrible movies if everybody can download them, watch the first three minutes and delete the file? Who's gonna feed the families of the thousands of bad directors, screenwriters, actors and producers out there if everybody can judge their work before paying for the ticket?
...
High Definition? I have Digital cable and half the channels are high def.
If I use s-video to hook my TV up to my computer, I have a choice of multiple audio or video streams. Perfect copy? Copy of what? I'm playing my copy on my computer.
Video on demand? My Adelphia DVR has VoD and is High Def..
You haven't answered any of the questions I asked.
What can you do with your TV that I can't do?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Come play Moral Decay!
Then again, by the argument I sometimes hear, it's worse to rape a hooker than a random woman. That is, the argument that it's alright to copy something that the author doesn't offer for sale. That means It's ok to rape a woman, since you'd pay her the $100 if she was a hooker.
Of course, the point that I'm trying to make here is not it's ok to rape a woman who won't have sex with you for $100, or that it's evil to copy stuff that's not available for sale, but that the whole analogy is STUPID.
I also blame the Internet for pornography.
High Definition? I have Digital cable and half the channels are high def.
Congratulations! I have digital cable. My locals (when they broadcast in high definition) + 4 channels + 2 subscription channels are in high def. Are yours 720p or 1080i?
If I use s-video to hook my TV up to my computer, I have a choice of multiple audio or video streams.
S-Video is not high definition. It is limited to 480i. It can't do 480p, 720p, 1080i.
I have a choice of multiple audio or video streams. Perfect copy? Copy of what? I'm playing my copy on my computer.
Well, high definition images are fed to your digital cable box in an MPEG2 transport stream. And multiple audio and video streams can be active on a single channel. This is exactly what is recorded with a DVHS deck.
Perfect copy? Copy of what? I'm playing my copy on my computer.
I'm recording the transport stream 100% perfect as it is sent out. Bit for bit, I capture everything that comes to my digital cable DVR, and in high definition. There is no data loss because there is no digitization of video.
You haven't answered any of the questions I asked. What can you do with your TV that I can't do?
480p, 720p, 1080i. ATSC decording, QAM decoding. 3x firewire input, HDMI/DMI input, multiple component inputs (analog) in high definition. I believe I also have multiple S-Video, composite video inputs. Also a cable NTSC input and antenna NTSC input.
My television can directly and display the MPEG2 stream that is transported over an HDMI, DMI, broadcast ATSC, cable QAM, or Firewire connection (like to a PC, or a DVHS deck, and in the future, some HD DVD solution). It can also take the video that comes over the QAM or ATSC tuner and output that to Firewire for capture on the computer.
You see, right now I am watching The Science of Star Wars on DiscoveryHD. I've got the following firewire loop going...
Motorola DCT 6412 HD DVR --> Sony KD-34XBR960 -- Windows XP SP2
At the same time that I'm watching The Science of Star Wars in 1080i high definition on my television, I am recording a bit-perfect copy on my PC. The bit-perfect copy is the exact MPEG2 transport stream that is sent from the channel provider, over digital cable, and to my HD DVR.
You cannot make bit-perfect copies with your video capture card or with your television. You have to digitize the video and then record it. I take the original digital format, as broadcast, and record it to my hard drive. Much like if you recorded the digital video stream send out by a local television station broadcasting in digital and high definition. You can play it back perfectly.
Streams seem to average about 1gb every 10 minutes. That's a bit rate of 18.2Mbps for 1920x1080 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio at 29.97fps.
Technically, I shouldn't be able to copy a 5c protected video to my PC, but apparently, my HD DVR has a bug that allows me to do just that.
Now, if there was a properly behaved 5c protected stream on the computer, I could download the video off of the Internet, play it on my TV, but still not be able to make copies. I would be restricted to the program that streams the HDTV video to my TV.
So I didn't read any of that.
But what it seems to be is "I spent $2500 on a TV and it has Firewire. That makes it better than your $200 TV + $10 S-Video"
Good luck with your wasting money. And have fun with that Firewire TV.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Russia is a capitalist country now. It's been like that, for . . . oh I don't know . . . MORE THAN A DECADE, YOU FUCKING MORON!
(see subject)
at Empornium and PureTNA they say "Hey, can you take our products down?" and EMP and TNA take them down and say "If you post this, you're banned." and that's that. the pr0n companies know that if people like their stars and content, they'll purchase enough pr0n to make it worth it.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Tell me, when you fell off your bed when you were eight, did your head landed on your daddy's naked, hairy-combover asscrack?
Thank you for bringing Slashdot's usual signal to noise ratio down to the level of FARK's.
Dumbass.
Good luck with your wasting money. And have fun with that Firewire TV.
I'm a geek! You can bet I will!
PS: Any HDTV is better than a $200 TV with s-video. Heck, by definition, even an EDTV blows the doors off of a $200 TV with s-video.
Alright, it works fine for my use. Which is watching downloaded episodes of TV shows.
Oh, and if you lost that "I'm so better than you because I can waste more money" attitude, maybe girls would be willing to talk to you.
Just a thought.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Oh, and if you lost that "I'm so better than you because I can waste more money" attitude, maybe girls would be willing to talk to you.
Well, if you pardon me, you're the one who introduced money into this thread. You're the one who then dismissed it as a waste. You're the one who claimed not to read a response which disproved your view. You're the one now turning this into a personal attack.
Seems to me that the only problem I have to deal with here is on the other side of the keyboard.
Your thoughts?
You're an asshole who will die alone, and I hope you get various cancers.
That was the sound of his point flying over your head.
Let me explain to you what an analogy is, by explaining what it is not. An analogy is not a direct comparison of two things for purposes of asserting their equivalence in terms of, for example, degree of severity. Your objection to his analogy, i.e. that raping someone is not comparable to copyright infringement, would have made sense if he were proposing that people who infringed on copyrights should be raped as punishment. But that's not what his point was. His point was to show the logical fallacy in the reasoning of those who try to justify copyright infringement, by showing that reasoning of the same form can be used to justify rape. Since the absurdity of the conclusion of that reasoning (i.e. that rape is justifiable) is much more readily apparent, the analogy serves to show why the reasoning is also flawed when used to justify copyright infringement, where the outcome is much less severe, and the absurdity of the conclusion much less obvious.
Hope this helps.
I know multiple women who have been raped [...]
I wonder if anyone else finds it amazingly coincidental that one thing these "multiple women who have been raped" have in common is that they all know you.
I care, for one, as do a great many of the people who CREATE such things to start with. Attitudes tend to change greatly when it's YOUR work being stolen.
I've experienced that too. Not creators vs consumers though, your work vs someone else's work. I've met professional, full-time developers that still couldn't care less about copying other's work...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Ridiculous. If your movie sucks so badly that after a download no one wants to go pay money to have the theater experience (of which many of these "thieves" are large fans of, those who can afford it, anyway) then really, the maker of said movie should just be happy that someone saw the piece of trash anyway.
. Your objection to his analogy, i.e. that raping someone is not comparable to copyright infringement, would have made sense if he were proposing that people who infringed on copyrights should be raped as punishment. As you have translated for someone else I will return the favour by translating for you... comparing something as distastful as rape to mere copyright infringement even by analogy is distasteful. Your logic-chopping is neato, but unfortunately what you have there is a flawed analogy, nothing more. Your perspective is predicated on accepting the appropriateneess of a given analogy and in this case it doesn't fly, the two events differ in kind not just degree. Its not a question of absurdity or anything else. I hope you get my point, using an inappropriate analogy to support a trivial issue is like being a Nazi and running a death camp because you... oops.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
it went directly to the artist and was unfiltered by RIAA/MPAA. Like any middlemen they jack up the price for their "Administration fees". In this I include the Studio and Record companies as legit recipients of my money. They actually do something. I have no need to gripe about what they charge, that's not at issue. I wonder how much of an issue this would be if these guys weren't such jerks.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Everyone knows movie piracy didn't exist before BitTorrent, right?
Copyright theft? So by downloading that pirated music or movie I "stole" the legal copyright documents in the process?
No, it's copyright infringement. Not murder, rape, manslaughter, and certainly not "copyright theft" (eugh!)
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
To each party no doubt :) Or and $50 for the sheet of paper.
Don't blame BitTorrent, blame whoever works for the studio who actually leaked the work print of the movie. Why aren't they going after these employees who work in the studios who are the real culprits leaking these things? Don't blame us if your security is lax, MPAA!
Forget BitTorrent. The majority of computers in use across America run some version of Microsoft Windows. People are using Windows-based computers -- and probably even Microsoft Windows Media Player, too -- to view Ep. 3!
The real culprit here is obviously Microsoft, for seeing to it that their operating system enables such... such... thievery!
And please, won't somebody think of the children?
Heh.
Out copying files. :)
Meta-Modded 'Unfair'.