Slashdot Mirror
New Round of P2P Lawsuits from Hollywood
An anonymous reader writes "There is a new story on ZDNet about more lawsuits against P2P file sharers. The catch is that Hollywood is using the log files off Bit Torrent sites like Suprnova and LokiTorrent."
The Sneaker Net may still be alive. Except it's now on DVDs instead of floppies. Is Blu-Ray next?
And I was so looking forward to offset my higher fuel prices by downloading the summer's blockbusters (have there been any?)...
For that matter, why did those sites keep logs, anyway? That seems like a pretty dumb idea to me really; there was at least one case in the past where a site (Cryptome?) was subpoenaed for httpd access logs but came back saying that they didn't keep any.
I don't want to advocate copyright infringement, but if you do it, then you at least shouldn't do it in a blatantly amateurish way...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Dear MPAA:
Please explain how the logs you cite prove I downloaded your movie. The logs show a 28k ".torrent" file. I was unaware that your movies could be compressed to such a degree! I would now like to direct you to my large DVD collection.
Fuck You,
Your Customer.
.
Illegal does not imply morally wrong. Not all laws are justified or "correct".
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
This new approach makes it a lot harder for them to win at trial. All they have is a file that lists some IP addresses.
In the previous cases they hired people who connected to p2p filesharers and observed what exactly was being shared.
Not a single one of their previous cases has gone to trial. It's not cost effective for them to go to trial even when they can win!
The formula is simple...
1. Send threatening lawyer letters to people you believe to have violated your copyright...
2. Wait for a response...
3. Look for an admission of guilt...
4. Profit!
Surely some of these WAPs are located in buildings where the neighbors are leeching free broadband using granny's DHCP server and downloading all sorts of copyrighted torrents.
I wonder how many of these innocent granny types are going to be getting nice subpoenas from the MPAA. If they are senile and ignore them they might get default judgements when the case goes to court. Is the MPAA going to take away their money/home/valuables when they win by default?
Hell, my own home WAP was temporarily wide-open and unsecured for a while when I first set it up. Do I deserve to get potentially sued for being temporarily clueless?
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
They are suing customers because they want to pressure Congress into passing laws criminalizing file sharing beyond the extent which it is right now. They figure the people sued will complain to government. Their lobbyists will deflect the complaints by saying they'll stop if they get what they want legislatively. Otherwise, they'll whine, they will be put out of business eventually.
The politicians cave and we lose more rights. It's really rather masterful if you think about it. In a really evil way.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
It may be a good idea to switch to trusted file-sharing. Remember the days of old (pre-napster) when one had to search out a good ftp site or hotnet server, contact the admin by email, etc. Did you ever worry that the admin was some RIAA/MPAA agent setting a trap? Did you worry that an RIAA/MPAA agent was sniffing packets between you and that ftp server? Did you even know that the RIAA/MPAA existed for a purpose other than putting warning labels on your entertainment?
Too many of us have bought into the "my way, right away" mentality, in which if we can't find what we want in less than five minutes, someone's done us wrong. To many, this is a way of life, and they have stopped caring (to the point at which they routinely risk the longterm health of themselves and their society) who provides them a service or product just as long as it is provided right away. Now, i appreciate the immediacy of (some) file-sharing utilites as well as the broad range of content available on their networks, but is the risk really worth it? Why would anyone in their right mind risk a heavy fine for downloading dukes of hazard or the latest jason mraz album? Anyone who uses any of the top five file-sharing protocols takes that risk each time they download something that someone in california happens to care about.
If you really want the "phat loot," make sure you know who's providing it to you, or at least make sure they can never find out who you are. I've found that the best way to get anything free is to personally know someone who has direct access/control over it. Next chance you get, go visit the helpdesk or IT department or whoever's responsible for installing software onto the machines where you work/go to school. If you don't have a job or go to school (get a job, hippy!) then go visit the local community college during the next open house (and then visit the IT dept). Those people are (or will shortly be) your friends. Chat it up with them, talk about your favorite video game/author/movie/pet - you will have something in common with them (it's inevitable, Mr. Anderson). Any place with a respectable IT department has either site licenses or several extra licenses for just about anything you could ever need/want. Guess what... if you need a software package - and your newfound friend has a few extra on hand - he will share with you (unless he's a total tightwad).
As for movies and music... be honest with yourself. The tripe that has come out within the past few years (White Chicks? You got Served?? Catwoman???) is far below you, and you don't need to watch the whole movie (or listen to the whole cd) to figure that out. Invariably, any movie or music worth experiencing is also worth at least a rental if not an outright purchase - otherwise, don't waste your time. Indie movie makers and musicians probably don't care (and might even like it) if you download their stuff, so go wild on that one.
Trust is good. Patience is good. We could all use a little more.
That is if the tracker is hosted on the torrent site. Most of the time this is not the case. Typically all the originating site is providing a torrent which connects you to the tracker site. So the parent is correct. In 90% of the cases you are just downloading a 28k .torrent. Hardly infringement unless they can prove that you downloaded the whole file and went on to seed. See, it isn't the downloading that they typically look at, its the distribution. They want to go after the people setting up seeds and trackers a lot more than the casual person that downloads last week's episode of Deadwood.
Personally, I would love to buy things on DVD like Deadwood, but when I went out and priced Season 1, they wanted $100 for it. Since I already payed HBO to watch their channel for the whole season, I couldn't justify spending $100 to watch it again. I ended up missing the last few episodes of seson 2 and they expired on On Demand, so I was left with two choices: Wait 6 months and pay $200 for both seasons or download them all for free. It wasn't a really tough decision for me, especially considering how much more I could use the $200 for better things. I could see if it were to be like $40-50, but come on. They would probably sell a whole lot more if they dropped the price too. I mean that works out to a little less than $10 an hour for entertainment. That's more expensive than a movie ticket, nearly twice as much.
Great series though! I can't wait to see if they do a season 3 and I really hope they pick of the pieces of Carnivale because the season 2 finale was a really cheap way of ensuring there will be a season 3. All that buildup to the most anti-climatic ending of a series I've seen in a long time.
zosxavius photography
Assumption 1: you need to spend a hundred million dollars to produce two hours of entertainment to capture my attention.
Assumption 2: you do this in one off hits.
Both of these assumptions are based in the manufacturing reality, where spools of film had to be manufactured, transported, and then shown in specially built cinemas. Both of these assumptions are now completely bogus.
In fact I prefer listening to podcasts, which have a budget in the order of $50 an hour, to watching the latest block buster crap, with it's $50 million an hour budget.
Why? Because the podcasts are closer to my interests, they treat me as an intelligent, thinking, emotional human being, not a pair of eyes to be dazzled with tits and explosions.
Story telling. It's an amazing tradition. Something I'm hoping Hollywood rediscovers sooner, rather than later.
He's a big Star Wars fan (as in actually owns figures, not just a movie fan). He's seen the latest one 5 times that I know of. At a minimum of $8 per ticket, he's given the franchise $40 + drinks/popcorn/milkduds. This is on top of the 3 or 4 collectable box sets of the originals he owns (mucho dinero). He also got one of the downloaded copies of Episode 3. He hates the quality of it, but it's a piece of Star Wars history to him.
I on the other hand saw the movie once, really liked it, but won't fork over any more money to see it again. I'll wait for someone to loan me their DVD to watch.
Now, who should the studios more likely sue, him or me? What's ironic though is that if I'm correct, I'll be the one 100% legal. He'll be the one committing a crime, even if Hollywood benefitted much more from him. It's people like my friend that they are in business at all.
Give them a dollar, and they'll suck you dry. I'm almost scared to use anything but cash at the theater for fear of what other craziness they may come up with next if they had my name on a reciept.
I8-D
Well, think of it this way. The fact that I got addicted to firefly has sold at least three box sets and ten serenity tickets. In most marketing text books the original content would have been called a "teaser", because it was low quality et al.
But, if you had your perfect world, where i couldn't get access to the pirate firefly content, you know what would have happened? I would have gotten addicted to something else. A web comic series, say...
I got into Joss Wheadon and bought the entire Buffy/Angel series on dvd because i got to watch a half dozen eps of each on p2p(No WB where I'm at,No cable either).That equals a very big payoff to them thanks to p2p.The same goes for games.I bought the entire Mechwarrior series because of a ripped version of Mech3.
While i don't agree with dvd iso's i don't see anything wrong with the "ripped" versions.They are either lower quality(Videos) or have features removed/missing(games) and are a great way to check out something that if your only choice was shell out cash you'd probably never try.
There is so much money they could be making.Imagine a p2p channel with all the movies over 5 years old for 19.99 a month,Or a channel with all those great games from the 9x era, All you want for 19.99 a month.If they didn't use DRM in return for no support I'd be happy to sign up.Instead they just keep beating the dead horse while wondering why no one wants their latest formula crap.Greed+stupidity+lack of vision=lousy business.Just my 2 cents.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Well, I've said this before:
Most people, given the choice, want to pay a reasonable price for a legit copy of something. However, currently the pirated material is often "better" than the legit version (for some values of "better").
For example, the distribution mechanism for illegal movies is better:
- You don't have to drive to get to see the movie
- You don't have rediculously overpriced food pushed at you
- You don't have to put up with 30 minutes of adverts before watching the show you paid an overpriced fee to see (goes back to the "reasonable price" thing above)
- Not so much an issue these days but it used to be that a lot of movies were released here in the UK long after they hit the US - I can't see how they can complain too much about people getting impatient to see something they've hyped up (still applies to TV though).
- You don't get accused of being a copyright infringer when you're infringing copyright, whereas you do if you go to the cinema or buy a DVD.
And yes, I fully agree with you about music - almost all the CDs I buy these days have been (partly at least) downloaded first so I could hear if what I was buying was worth it - the only people who lose out from that are the crap acts who aren't worth buying.
http://blog.nexusuk.org