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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.'"
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.
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...
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
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
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.
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.
I believe it was BitTorrent on the Grassy Knoll. BitTorrent also touched those boys at Michael Jackson's pad. This is like blaming Boeing for destroying the World Trade Center.
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
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
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.
why do you assume wanting people to be truthful about something ammounts to justifying it?
for example, no matter whether I'm for or against the right to have an abortion I don't want people describing the doctors as "baby murderers". it is incorrect.
and anyone who needs to make incorrect statements to make their argument sound strong should always be regarded as suspicious.
clearly ethically wrong, that is pirating movies
The MPAA is in no position to give me, or anyone else, ethics lessons.
You can't take the sky from me...
This is obviously wrong and misleading. It is akin to saying the axe murdered the person, or it was the car that hit the guy in the crosswalk. That is simply not the case: it is the PEOPLE behind the tools that make the decision about how to use them.
This rampant demonization of peer to peer software is absurd. The fact that we have to have a case go to the supreme court to decide whether or not peer to peer software should be legal is absurd. They have to decide in the HIGHEST COURT of the land whether or not people who own computers can share data between the computers?
Again, we (as a society) love to blame the tools, rather than take personal responsibility for our actions. I, for one, grow tired of it.
There are people who would tell you eating pork is clearly unethical. You say the grandparent poster is splitting hairs, I say you're being too general.
English has ambiguity.
Sure it does. English also has a lot of speakers who care if you call a limerick a haiku or if you call a dolphin a fish or if you call copyright infringement theft or if you call a nationality a race. These people will correct you if you get it wrong.
Get over it!
You might want to consider taking your own advice.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
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.
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..
BitTorrent is (one of many) file transfer mechanisms that spareds distribution cost evenly over content consumers, instead of dumping it all on the content producer.
And that's all it is. Nothing magic, evil, or anything.
The only reason the MPAA doesn't like it is because it happens to be prohibitively expensive for someone who isn't making money off of it to distribute lots of content in the old days. The MPAA makes lots of money from licensing their content, so they don't care if it's expensive for a content producer to distribute data. P2P simply happens to reduce cost to content producers (good for individuals who can produce worthwhile content, like open source authors or Red vs Blue artists) below the point where individuals without scads of money can infringe on copyrights held on very large files like movies.
The attacks the MPAA is making against P2P are attacks against inexpensive content distribution, and all those that rely on it and those that benefit from 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. 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 find nothing wrong with the terms "piracy" and "theft" to describe such actions.
But what about "rape" and "murder"? When you copy a movie, you are metaphorically raping the director by taking something he considers precious, without consent, for your own pleasure. And you are metaphorically murdering his chance of making a profit out of you.
In fact, I think people who rape kids' movies should be charged with sex crimes. Those pedos are some sick people. I heard about this guy who even copied an old "Bambi" VHS tape! Pedophilic rape and bestiality in one. The sicko tried to say it was okay because the copy was for his granddaughter. That's just twisted.
Or maybe we could, you know, use words which are actually descriptive of the real crimes being committed?
"Copyright infringement" should be reserved for cases such as when I make a video game that stars Mario or Pokemon, infringing upon Nintendo's copyright.
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.
Of course, it's not your fault you don't know the difference. You've been confused by everyone using words wrongly. If everyone used "theft" to mean theft and "copyright infringement" to mean copyright infringement and "trademark infringement" to mean trademark infringement, then there would be no confusion. When you start using "theft" to mean copyright infringement, it's hardly surprising that you then get confused and use "copyright infringement" to mean trademark infringement.
And yes, the difference is important. Copyright infringement can be a criminal offense in some circumstances; I don't think trademark infringement can. That's a pretty big difference.
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.
...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
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?
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.
My friend once thought the same thing. After explaining why Bit Torrent wasn't at fault for any of this, I decided to provide a visual demonstration. I asked him for a pencil, I took a pair of pliers, and I broke it in half. He then asked why I broke his pencil, and I told him that the pliers did it, and he should be accusing them. He said that he still didn't understand, so I produced a pair of scissors and asked for a $100 note. He got the message.
You are still blaming the TOOL for what the PEOPLE do.
Your claim that 99.9% of P2P traffic is totally, irrefutably, undeniably illegal is ignorant, foolish, and asinine. Much like guns can be used for hunting and to commit murder, Bit Torrent is used for taking the load off of people who wish to distribute free content, but have no way to finance it. (After all, distributing free content isn't a huge moneymaker)
Sure, there are a lot of people who use it to commit copyright infringement, much like there are a lot of people who use a gun to commit murder. That doesn't mean that they are in the majority, especially not the huge percentage that you listed.
By banning P2P software, all you are doing is hurting those who use it LEGITIMATELY. You are not doing anything to stop those who use it illegally.
Why? Because the people who are actually behind the crime are going to commit the crime using another tool. If guns were banned, people would just use knives to commit murder, but those who hunt with guns will no longer be able to do that. Ban knifes, and people will turn to something else, but chefs will definitely be hurt by it.
Similarly, if Bit Torrent is banned, people will turn to FTP and HTTP. It's not going to stop. It's not even going to be HINDERED.
Tools are crafted with a specific purpose in mind, but people find many ways to abuse them or use them in a way that their creator did not intend. I'm sure that whoever invented bricks did not give a thought to people who might clobber someone over the head with them. I'm sure he only thought of how many buildings could be made with them. Similarly, the author of Bit Torrent likely didn't think that his tool would be headline news after being used by people commiting copyright infringment, and it is not Bit Torrent's fault that such a thing happened. It is, ultimately, the people who use it wrongly that are to blame, and MPAA is only going after Bit Torrent because, however futile it is, it's far more easier to place the blame on Bit Torrent.
----
(Before you reply: Yes. I know this is a troll. No, I am not new here.)
1. With 40k salary, $100 is still important. On the dark side: Lukas shits money (not sure if it's correct English), $xM is less for him then $50 for me.
2. I don't recall anybody but my friends/family worrying after I got robbed/stolen from (it happened few times... even after I got kicked multiple times in the head they told me to wait patiently at the hospital for several hours before any doctor spoke to me). Why in the world would we give a shit about people that aren't even "neutral strangers", but people we honestly dislike (MPAA)? I didn't go outdoors to find that guy and smash his head. And that's exactly what MPAA and other fatties are doing. Here's one recent example. They do a lot of nasty things, which are immoral to people that are far less strict than I am. 3. Stealing $100 from me means I'm losing $100. Downloading illegal movies means they are not getting extra $xx. Little difference, but still, a difference.
4. I personally believe that it's morally worse (yes, I'm a relativist) to be a fat guy that chases little ones than to be a little guy and steal intellectual property from fat guys.
Apple's already clearly demonstrated that the market's there and has a price point higher than zero for music. It's only a matter of time before someone (Tivo maybe?) figures out how to do that for movies. The more the *AA people stand in the way, the longer that's going to take. That's what I'm on about.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If anything, the excitement around the movie was probably heightened by early reviews that came out from folks who had seen it illegally. I know I was in a theater auditorium live on a MUD (on my Blackberry, yes I'm a geek) and someone said they had already seen it 12 hours ago but were going again that day. They had also already encouraged others to go see it.
Hollywood seems to believe that everyone is out to rob them. The truth is that when a movie is good, folks WANT to see it on the big screen and folks WANT to reward Hollywood for a job well done.
Where BitTorrent might have an impact would be on a BAD movie -- and that is what I think Hollywood is really worried about. Did you see the backlash against cell phones and SMS after The Hulk came out? It's dissapointing start was largely blamed on early messages floating around telling folks how bad it was, causing them to cancel plans to see it.
I, for one, think Hollywood should embrace technology more. I have a 1-year old child, and seeing the midnight debut of Ep III was a MAJOR hassle. Had they provided me with a legal way to see it in high quality, I would gladly have paid more than a theater price for the convenience.
Come play Moral Decay!
Except in this case the press release is directed specifically at BitTorrent for facilitating the distribution of Episode III. They are not attacking piracy, but blaming BitTorrent for it.
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.
it is the MPAA's fault, the movie people just can't seem to keep they're employees from copying and distributing movies over the internet. instead of tracking down and suing the people who donwload the movies, the MPAA should find the employee who released the movie and sue him/her
"Hollywood seems to believe that everyone is out to rob them."
When it's what you do all day it's difficult not to expect it from others.
If I were the Dealership or even Ferrari itself I would immediately acquire the wand.
I would have recognised it as a method of slashing my manufacture and distribution overheads and therefore a way of increasing profits.
Just as the RI/MPAA have manifestly failed to.
Trust The Computer, The Computer is your friend.