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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.
It's like saying, "Guns don't kill people, the physics of hurtling bodies does."
well, no sith sherlock! from the screencaps i've seen, the timecode was still in there.
an industry whose purpose is the distribution of media recordings has been obsolete since the late 1990's. it is now cheaper and easier for people to do it themselves. by sticking blindly to their business model, the MPAA is simply refusing to accept changes that they have no control over.
Ethically wrong? Illegal, certainly. In many places. For the distributor usually, not the distributee.
But we're well beyond a universal system of ethics aren't we? I can imagine a number of arguments that could be used to by people who have no ethical problem with copyright infringement.
For one, copyright is a contract between the government and authors on their people's behalf. Since it's made without the individual's say-so, he might not consider himself bound by it.
For another, copyright has only existed for a few centuries. The great ethical minds of the past never had a problem with appropriating the intellectual property of others.
Another argument that could be used is that modern copyright terms have been manipulated by big business into lengths of time that violate their intended purpose. Therefore the law is unjust and should be disobeyed.
Another argument could be that copyright itself is a bad idea that stifles creation. In music, for example, the case could be made the copyright has killed live performance. Therefore the law is wrong and just be disobeyed.
So on and so forth.
I can imagine arguments in the other direction as well. But the point is that there is no universal morality on the subject.
If BitTorrent didn't exist, it wouldn't have gotten to the public nearly as fast.
Or better, if the internet didn't exist. That could have slowed it down by weeks.
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?
Well thank God America isn't in control of the Internet!
No matter how much control, how many laws, how many overbearing policies are slapped on the Internet, there will always be an underground.
The only people these new laws and forms of control will stop are folks like my dad. It is no different than using software protection to help stop piracy; only average joes are affected.
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.
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! --------
Is that why Silver Screen just opened up a new branch in my home town, and why I've filled two whole shelving units with DVDs of my favourite films and series in the 18 months or so since I bought a DVD player?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"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.
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.
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 industry's method of distribution is only "obsolete" to those who want to find some way of justifying their illegal and unethical greediness. Sure, the *IAA's may be greedy, but at least they're (mostly) legal in that they are an actual business playing (usually) by the law (and even in those cases where they haven't been, that's still no justification for breaking more laws against them). They just enjoy feeling like Robin Hood.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Piracy and theft are charged words designed to generate a strong emotional response.
True enough, but the emotional tug only works in the short term, then people rapidly become jaded.
Besides, it works the other way too. I wanted to get a copy of Buster Keaton's The Navigator a few weeks ago, spent an hour on the phone tracking down a video store that had a VHS copy (I'd have preferred DVD), only to find they wanted $39.95 for a video containing the film I wanted, plus two additional shorts. I called them gougers, which made them strongly emotional.
The end result though, was that I hung up, found a bittorrent, downloaded the movie, watched it, then deleted it. In other words, while I broke the law to avoid being ripped off, I still knowingly chose to break the law.
The *AA have made it impossible for me to purchase a 20 minute film made by artists now long dead at a reasonable price. Films like those have long since amortised their costs, but we are still being charged prices which equate to more dollars per minute than a current-run movie. The law supports the *AA, but that says more about the current law makers than about justice.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
> 3. Stealing $100 from me means I'm losing $100. Downloading illegal
:) They'd want it for their personal (and now more complete) collection. To them, this is one of those "you can't buy it in stores" items.
:)
> movies means they are not getting extra $xx. Little difference, but
> still, a difference.
This argument has been played out, but can't ever been proven. It's been used by software "pirates" for years. The regular argument is, "I'll use it if it's free, but if I have to pay, I'm not interested."
I'm sure there are more than a fair share of Linux users out there, who used the older versions of Windows, and now that it's more difficult (but not impossible) to acquire a free copy, they find it easier to use the free solution.
That's not to say Linux users are theives. I'm a Linux user and administrator, with over 150 boxes. I use it because it's better (IMHO).
Back to the question at hand.. Do the people downloading this movie intend to watch it at the theater? Maybe, maybe not. I didn't pre-buy my ticket. I didn't wait in long lines. I didn't see it, and have no intention to kill myself doing it. Now, if someone handed me a DVD with a pirated copy burned on it, and I watched that, did it make a financial difference to MPAA, or the Star Wars enterprise? Nope, not in the freakin' least. **BUT** they'll scream piracy if they found out.
I'd be more than willing to say, a good number of the people (Errr, immoral bastards, in MPAA terms) who are downloading it, not only already spent the money on a ticket and watched it in the theater, but they're the big fans. They have VHS, DVD, and Laser Disc copies of every Star Wars movie ever released. They have an action figure collection dating back to when they were 5 years old. They can say "Luke, I'm your father", with a straight face.
But yes, it's still stealing. Even if it doesn't apply to you, the fact that this commercial product (yes, Star Wars is a commercial product), because they are only offering it as a *PAY* product, it is only a pay product, and it is not up to the general public to make the decisions for them.
Lets twist this for you. Think sexuality.
People like having sex. Most people love having sex.
Some people charge for having sex.
If a woman charges $200/hr to have sex with her. This is her commercial product.
If you see this same woman, is not working at a particular moment, due to not having a paying client, should you be allowed to take a free romp? Sure, why not, that's what she does, and she's just sitting there.
I think the same of Ferarri's. I go down to a dealership twice a week, and when I see a Ferarri just sitting there, all lonely, with no owner, I steal the car, and drive it around. It wants to be driven, right?
So, the movie wants to be watched, right? No. You want to watch it, and if you're going to watch it, you're going to pay for the product, just like you would with the whore, or you would in buying the Fererri.
Myself, I'm happy without having a whore, without having a Fererri, and without seeing this particular episode of Star Wars. I may have one of each someday, I won't make any decisions quite yet.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
People like you don't like DRM, or region-locked DVDs, and all that crap.
;-)
And if it weren't for people like you being so blatantly selfish, the rest of us wouldn't now have to put up with it.
Region coding had nothing to do with >cough copyright infringement. Where you get off on this tanget I don't know. The truth is, they would have done region coding anyway. They concieved of region coding as a way to put up a technological barrier to being able to see movies earlier in your own market than they were released, if they happened to be released already in another market segment. It was nothing to do with not paying for the movie. They simply thought that they could maximize profits by staggering theater and DVD releases in different markets.
The other truth is, DRM would have come anyway. Macrovision was setup before VHS copyright infringement was ever a big deal, and it (just like every method before it) was quickly circumvented and tools were available *before* its introduction to do so. (Your pre-198X VCR didn't have the feature and wouldn't recognize it.
Ethics indeed. Companies have long sought ways to make you pay for things again & again. I don't see the movie industry as that much different from G.E. making lightbulbs that were designed to last less than half the length advertised. You would have to go buy it again. Or appliance makers designing a product to fail after a certain period (common house fans are a good case in point).
In the same way, DVDs are made on a material with a shorter than advertised life, they wont replace the media if it goes bad, and they have made it illegal for you to make a backup of your media that you paid for. They are advertised as "OWN IT ON DVD", but you don't own it. Maybe your version of ethics is different from mine, but I consider (and so do many state attorney generals) the tactics of G.E. to be unethical and illegal. It's no stretch to say that the movie industry is just as unethical and had performed the exact same kind of fraud as G.E., but they went 10 steps further with their fraud an unethical behavior. They tried to circumvent your rights to the material even while the media is working.
If these same extended tactics were applied to lightbulbs, no one in the right mind would buy them if they were advertised as such. This would be a lightbulb that doesn't turn on when you tell it to, it only comes on when G.E. allows it to, it doesn't turn off when you tell it to so you can't save the bulbs life - it only turns off when G.E. tells it to, it wont work when you try to do things that G.E. doesn't like you having light for, or if you travel with it it wont work in certain locations, and even though it fails in less than half of the time advertised they wont replace it. You have to buy another one. It would also code your socket so you couldn't use a different light bulb, and if you modified your light socket to work with other bulbs or to make the lightbulb behave like all light bulbs should knowingly behave (despite it still having a reduced life), they would sue you and have you thrown in jail.
People who copy movies may be copyright infringers, but the MPAA are pirates.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
If you're going to disagree with him, could you at least make an effort at a reasoned argument? Your one-liners aren't going to win any people over. The "Are you with the MPAA by chance" is tired if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us-rhetoric that doesn't advance the cause of sharing.
Copyright infringement however is about loss of "potential revenue". When someone downloads Ep3, no one is any worse off than they were before, they are simply worse off than they might have been. This is where the grey area comes in, and why the "piracy is theft" argument just doesn't hold up. This is not to say that piracy is necessarily right, though you could argue that those who hold it are abusing their part of the agreement, simply to say that it is not the same as theft. Not receiving something you might, or might not, have received later on is not the same as losing something you already have.
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
>'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.
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.
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.
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.
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