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HBO Attacking BitTorrent
DIY News writes "HBO is actively poisoning the BitTorrent downloads of the new show Rome. In addition to an older tactic of offering bogus downloads that never complete, HBO is now obstructing the downloads offered by other people. HBO runs peers that tell the tracker they have all the chunks of the show, but then send garbage data when a downloader requests a chunk. While the bogus peers can be detected, it will take much longer to download shows."
Good for HBO. They have every right to protect their legitimate revenue stream. If we think we can send whatever sequence bytes we want over the p2p networks, I say we extend the same freedom to the fine people at HBO.
At the same time, this is also good for p2p software. I'm sure it will only result in better algorithms for dealing with tainted peers.
You say it like HBO is doing something Evil. I would agree, if they were messing up the protocol, across the board, but, from the article, they are doing this to downloads of their copyrighted material (specificaly, the show ROME).
Perhaps "HBO using technology to counter Copyright Infringment". I mean, really, downloading Rome cant be particularly leagal. It is theirs. Surely this is a good thing. I mean, entities have to be able to protect their property. Argue what you will about the terms of copyright (I would agree they are ridiculous). But this is somone trying to protect something which is currently making them money. And they arent suing anyone, either (yet). I for one, hope they can find a technological way to stop people from using BitTorrent to illeagly download theiri intellectual property, as I tend to prefer those solutions to the far nastier ones that are available (see the RIAA).
I hate to break it to you, they have the copyright to the show. They have full license to distribute the show in any way they see fit. They see fit in distributing the show as a garbled mess over Bittorrent. If you don't like their distributation method, that's YOUR problem. Find another way to watch their show.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Also, it much nicer than suing people, and possibly more effective.
Car thieves are miffed because auto makers are now installing locks on all cars.
...or...
If you're going to be a thief, don't complain when someone tries to stop you from stealing their stuff. Anyone who complains about this is an immature idiot. HBO spends 10 million dollars to develop, produce, and advertise a show on their premium networks. To recoup the costs, they charge subscribers money. For those that don't wish to subscribe, they sell DVDs in a couple of months, so that you can either buy the DVDs or get them off Netflix or from some other video rental source. HBO makes 20 million dollars from this process. HBO goes on to keep their people employed and continue to make television series and movies.
HBO spends 10 million dollars, and everybody steals their content without reimbursing HBO for any of their costs. 10,000 people lose their jobs because HBO declares bankruptcy.
I know this is an extreme case, but I'm tired of all the whining because a company (or even a person) who produces something that you think is valuable enough to at least steal would like to make some money off of it. Yes, I know they're rich, but if you don't like that, stop buying their product. Why exactly should networks, studios, software developers, or anyone else provide anything of value if there's no benefit to them, i.e. no way to make a living?
I'm a software developer, and if my company doesn't get paid for something, I get laid off.
Grow up people.
shh...
don't talk about usenet.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I can go to the supermarket and eat cheese for free. I don't have to steal it or nothin'. They even slice it up for me. They find that by simply giving cheese away they end up selling more cheese than if they don't. To a certain extent they even reduce shoplifting (most grocery shoplifting isn't hardcore theft, but casual snacking along the way and a package of bologna with one slice removed is, to the store, the same as a whole stolen package of bologna).
The free cheese whets my appetite and makes me more inclined to buy a half pound of the stuff for later.
That is, of course, if the free "cheese" they give me isn't really a pile of poison poo spray painted yellow.
I really hate when that happens.
Perhaps HBO should consider, instead of interdiction, simply giving the first few episodes away to induce subscription, that is, of course and ironically, if the show isn't too cheesy.
If they don't feel inclined to give me a free sample, at my convenience, I'm afraid I'd be inclined to believe there's something about it they don't want me to know.
Like the fact that I wouldn't want to buy it.
KFG
do you want a site that could be busted to have a history of what you downloaded and of your upload download amounts?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Wait, you're serious? ROFLMFAO!!!!!!!
Yeah, HBO is going to fire someone for preventing the free dissemination of their copyrighted material over the internet. Yeah, sure. Especially a cost effective, directly focused counter to what would otherwise be settled by $300 Per Hour legal departments who might or might not sue the right person. Um-hum.
What HBO is doing is what every business should be doing instead of taking the RIAA's route. HBO is not restricting your right to make copies at home, they are not restricting your archiving of those copies, or even sharing them with your family/close friends. They are not suing BitTorrent, they are not demanding that all P2P software be banned, they are pro-actively preventing the illegal distribution of their material in an incredibly low impact manner. Bravo, HBO.
OK, so I get HBO (or any other channel, premium or not) on-demand. Most of the time, there are just a few *specific* episodes they offer. If and when I can find the one show I want (or all of them), I can then record it on my Tivo/PVR, right? I can use my PVR to put it on a DVD, right? If I'm running a home-brew PC-based PVR, I can copy it to disk. Or, I can just record it when I watch it at it's regularly scheduled time. The point is, I already pay the particular media company for the right to watch their channel, because I want to *WATCH* the programming on that channel. Anyway, there are several ways that I can get this show onto a device that will allow me to play it back whenever I want, on whatever device I want. Are you saying that because it's downloaded instead of recorded from TV that it's illegal? I hope whatever tards at HBO came up with this idea get knocked over the head with the clue stick!!!!! If they want to stop/reduce the downloads that they think is a bad idea, then USE THE TECH that will enable them to make a buck off of it. People are still gonna download it, but if the make it easy to _legally_ obtain this show ($$ for non-subscribers, 1/2$ or free for customers), they can have a huge array of options for how to present this, and the method of delivery. Of course, putting some stupid DRM in there is gonna hurt their cause... What the hell is it gonna take for these old media companies (MPAA, RIAA, TV, Cable, etc) to realize that the internet and online users could be helping their bottom line instead of making them look like idiots, and them treating their customers like theives. There is a market opportunity here, and they are completely ignoring it.
--- "To ignore race and sex is racist and sexist!" -- Jesse Jackson
No kidding... it's hard for some people to even consider the fact that HBO IS IN THE RIGHT!
People are illegally distributing a copyrighted movie, and are BITCHING that HBO is stopping them, by knowing more about the "hackers" game than the "hackers" do.
Go HBO! More power to you, IMO.
I'm getting soooo sick of this sense of self-entitlement... "give me everything for free" attitude.
$0.02 (CDN)
And they are pro-actively helping the P2P community by giving them incentive to design and implement better, more secure, less easily polluted P2P networks, protocols and tools. Bravo, HBO!
I am puzzeled and troubled, both by your comments, and how it got moderated. A supermarket may choose to give you free samples. It is theirs to give. But you cannot make the argument, "well, because the supermaret gives free samples, I am entitled to take free cheese, even when they are not giving out free samples."
It is the supermakets property, and their choice, how they wish to advertise. Similarly, the series "Rome" belongs to HBO (or whoever the relavant copyright holder is). It is not correct to say "it would be good marketing for them to give this away, therefore it is legitamate for me to take some" any more that you could say "it wasnt shoplifting, when I unwrapped the cheese, they regularly give the stuff away". It is THEIR choice, not yours. If you dont want to buy it because they wont give you a free sample, that is your choice. But that doesnt legitamize people who want to download, against the will of HBO. Their marketing descisions are not the same as your entitlment.
But you cannot make the argument, "well, because the supermaret gives free samples, I am entitled to take free cheese, even when they are not giving out free samples."
I am puzzled by the fact that you seem to believe I have made that argument. I have done nothing of the kind. Perhaps you need to go read my post again and try to see what those who moderated me saw.
KFG
I can go to the supermarket and eat cheese for free. I don't have to steal it or nothin'. They even slice it up for me. They find that by simply giving cheese away they end up selling more cheese than if they don't.
True, but they don't let you take the whole 10 pound block of cheese home for free.
Perhaps HBO should consider, instead of interdiction, simply giving the first few episodes away to induce subscription, that is, of course and ironically, if the show isn't too cheesy.
HBO isn't selling you a block of cheese, or a single show, they're offering a service where you get a lot of movies (well, a few movies played a lot of times) and a few HBO-only shows. Perhaps your cable operator occasionally runs a free HBO weekend promo.
If they don't feel inclined to give me a free sample, at my convenience, I'm afraid I'd be inclined to believe there's something about it they don't want me to know.
You could probably go to this link and "watch a clip of the new episode". At your convenience, of course.
Here come da fudge!
"So what if I download and episode, realize that I really like it, and want to sign up?"
Sheyeah, right.
This would put you in that same class of people who download albums off of P2P so that they can listen to the whole thing before buying a copy. While there might be a small percentage of people who do that (certainly not anybody I know -- all of my friends who use P2P do so to save money), it's abundantly clear that most people do things like downloading "Rome" so they don't have to pay HBO to watch it.
"So yeah, I just can't imagine how this helps them at all."
As an aside, the ironic thing is that your post is presently 4, insightful, despite the fact that you used "I can't imagine" twice in your post and even titled it "Don't get it." That's a lack of insight.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Signed what? I called my cable operator, gave them my credit card number, and my HBO service was turned on before I even hung up the phone. I have no contract with HBO.
If you don't have money to purchase something, do without. There are plenty of free entertainment services available.
.
I have the money. I spend some of it on entertainment services, however, it is not my mission to give it to them. It is their mission to get it from me. I am under no obligation to cooperate. In fact, I rather resist. If you do not I'd be perfectly happy to get a post office box you can send your money to.
Personally I insist on getting value for my money and I am the sole arbiter of what constitutes value for my money. Because it's mine.
There are plenty of free entertainment services available.
Exactly! In fact, I make money by providing these, so I'm intimately acquainted with the phenomenon. When you avail yourself of my free entertainment services you are not my customer. You are my product which I am reselling to someone else. I also provide paid entertainment services, which you would likely not avail yourself of if you had not first seen one of my free services. Yes, I'm playing both ends agains the middle for my own benefit. Welcome to the middle. But if you do not feel you recieve value when I charge you I will lose you as a direct customer. That would make me unhappy.
If you really want to see ROME. .
You seem to have missed the point that I don't. See my first paragraph.
Problem solved.
I don't have a problem. HBO does. See my previous paragraph. I think you might have some issues with the whole buyer/seller relationship. I can't afford to misunderstand this as my income is derived from it directly. Please send money to my post office box.
As for a download on demand service, I'm sure they'd be thrilled to do that if they could be reasonably certain that you could not then redistribute that video to 20,000 or so of your closest friends over P2P.
Well, thank God that their failure to do so prevents that from happening!
Here is the one thing, the only thing, they can be absolutely certain of; media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed. This is an innate property of the business they are in.
If they don't like that they have two choices, 1)Get out of the business. They are no more required to sell media than I am to buy it, 2)Deal with it.
The one who figures out how to deal with it while keeping the customer happy is the one that will still be around and thriving ten years from now.
The customer is control, because their money is theirs.
Deal with it.
I have to, because if I don't I go hungry, not in ten years, but tommorow. Spend a year or two as a street performer. It'll learn ya.
KFG
I can go to the supermarket and eat cheese for free. I don't have to steal it or nothin'. They even slice it up for me. They find that by simply giving cheese away they end up selling more cheese than if they don't.
Would you still buy the cheese if you could take as much of it as you wanted, whenever you wanted, for free?
Now you are comparing apples.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
I'm sure the executives at HBO are thinking the same thing about people who have the ability to pay for HBO yet won't.
I, for one, applaud their pseudo-solution to piracy of their show. This action, though not very nice, is a direct result of people trying to jack them of their creativity. While I haven't seen the show, I can comment that the steps they are taking do not interfere with legitimate downloads, nor are they suing everyone in sight.
Those of you bitching about your slow downloads must realize that someone pays for this, and HBO is trying to make sure that if they have to foot the bill, you won't get your downloads easily.
Now if they produced shows that didn't SUCK I might give a shit.
Apparently all those people downloading episodes of Rome seem to think it's worth something. If the show was really crappy nobody would care that HBO is poisoning torrents that nobody cares about, and we wouldn't be discussing this.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
When you taped their show with your VCR you could do exactly what with it? give or loan your tape to someone else? Spend far more time than it was worth making a copy of your tape to give or loan to someone else? There was a limit to the "so called" damage you could do. I say "so called" because honestly, your shared tape of a show on HBO was little more than a small, free sample to anyone you gave it to. At best it was an extended commercial for HBO and their wares.
Now you go online and the entire season will be there to be downloaded. Given time and enough fans the whole run of the show would be available online if HBO didn't do something about it. Why bother paying for HBO if you can get the one or more shows you want to watch online for free?
You can't compare the taping of television shows twenty years ago to the ridiculous level of leeching that takes place today. As Samuel L. Jackson said so well in Pulp Fiction it "ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport."
And most of all every single person who tries to draw the comparison knows it perfectly well.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.