Slashdot Mirror
MPAA Files Lawsuits Targeting Major Torrent Sites
diverge_s writes "Slyck news reports on a new wave of lawsuits the MPAA has filed against major Bit Torrent search sites including: Torrentspy, Isohunt, Torrentbox, Niteshadow and Bthub. From the article: '"Website operators who abuse technology to facilitate infringements of copyrighted works by millions of people are not anonymous - they can and will be stopped," said John G. Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA. "Disabling these powerful networks of illegal file distribution is a significant step in stemming the tide of piracy on the Internet."'"
I've bought about 200GBP of DVDs this year as a direct result of downloads from bittorrent. Just thought I'd mention.
From the article: The operators of these indexing sites appear surprised at the MPAA's decision to sue, as they have yet to receive any notification. "Funny, they didn't email me," Gary from ISOHunt said. "I'm not too concerned because we deal with copyright requests everyday, some of them from studios MPAA represents." "Justin" from TorrentSpy echoed Gary's skepticism. "I guess I will learn more when I see what they have filed exactly. [I'm] not sure why they are suing when we comply with DMCA requests but I guess we will learn more down the road."
http://www.sandstorming.com
A quick glance at TorrentSpy shows that they haven't given up, they're still dishing out torrents. They have a news story about it, but they don't seem to be too concerned.
I remember when the MPAA did this last time and the torrent sites shut down completely because it was in their subpoena (sp?) thing, so does this mean that TorrentSpy is defying the MPAA and (potentially) putting themselves up for harsher penalties?
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
Search engines are not illegal in the USA. You can use a search engine to search for anything. You can use a search engine to find a prostitute or drugs and other forms of illegal "entertainment" so why does copyright infringement the ipso-facto crime of the century? There are a lot of illegal bitorrent files and there are a lot of legal files. I hope someone challenges the MPAA on this.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Thank you MPAA, I didn't know about a couple of those!
1. Boing Boing
2. Slyck Forums
3. Another blogger with some good quotes
4. Normality Net with more info
5. Amit's Page with even more commentary
Drive by linkings!
Ho ho ho. So can I look forward to an addition to the a href="http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php">Pirate Bays legal threats page ?.
:)
P2P, torrents etc. are simply like having the best radio station and film channel in the world. It lets me try out stuff without spending my hard earned cash (an ever decreasing amount of which I have to spend on "non essentials" such as entertainment) so I know that I like something before I buy it.
Oh how the *AA dinosaurs futiley roared as the small furry mamalls took over their world
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
NZB-Zone has been targetted along with binnews and a couple of others. It is interesting to note that they have only gone for nzb sites and not the actual usenet providers - they appear to have the same rights as ISPs when it comes to common carrier status, but I'm no lawyer.
Freedom for the Culture!!!
An interesting but flawed philosophy. You seem to imply that if the IP holders were just scraping by and making ends meet, you would be happy for the torrent sites to be taken down?
Im just about making ends meet as a software develoepr, and one of my games is available as a torrent. No doubt this isnt exactly helping sales. So I suppose that the torrent sites you support check the financial data of each submitted torrent, will spot that I'm a solo developer who needs the cash, and decline to list torrents of my stuff right?
Bullshit. This is just freeloaders getting everything they can for free because they think they wont get caught. Dont insult everyones intelligence by dressing it up as some kind of robin hood tale.
Many things the **IA do is bullshit, but closing torrent sites that encourage illegal content is fine by me. Bittorrent is a superb system that works wonders for distributing game demos and movie trailers etc. By defending its usage to steal IP, your just going to bring the whole system down.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I had to make an account just to respond to this. Im a long time reader so it was about time anyway. Listen this is just history repeating itself. We saw it First with Napster and music. Then Kazaa came up and all of its clones. Then they attacked the few major torrent sites in existance with lawsuits. What happened everytime? Pirating evolved, its like the MPAA and other such organizations serve as nature in the darwinism that is file sharing. Every time they strike down one site or technology it just evolves and gets better. I remember the days before bittorrent and how much of a pain it could be to find a specific file, now because they have forced us to we have a much more efficiant and anonomous system to distribute illegal software. I say bring them on because I'm excited to see what new and improved ways will come forward to share files. Not to mention the fact that if they quit trying to stop it (amplifying the problem) and started trying to profit off of it they would be doing much better. Look at the advertising oppertunities....
i read that as "You're either with us or you're with the torrentists"
As illustrated in the above example, having some legitimate uses is not enough to avoid a ban, nor is having some illegitimate uses enough to justify one. Instead, we must weigh the legitimate and illegitimate uses against one another.
Of course, we must also consider what "illegitimate" means in context. A nuclear bomb has the potential to cause thousands, if not millions, of deaths, as well as render the land uninhabitable for decades to come. A BitTorrent site, on the other hand, merely has the potential to give thousands or millions of people access to free movies, music, TV shows, software, and porn, and the only threat it poses is to the business models that are founded on restricting free speech. Which one is the real threat?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Hmmm, lets see. The math says that there are several dozen solid BT sites out there, and 7 have been threatened. If they all go away today, there are only a few dozen left to choose from, and there are 20 or so added a week.
Yup, this will show those little shits, they'll have to run to #8 on thier bookmark list now. Ha, take that.
YAWN. Stupid MPAA, no cookie. You are making the same mistake the US military is, fighting the wrong war, and losing both because of it.
-Charlie
slashdot is educational.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
Ever thought that perhaps your game just isn't good enough?
/. but there was an artivle that CD sales of the top 50 went down quite a bit while the studios still made more cash because people suddenly bought way more stuff that wasn't mainstream. So good music WILL sell. So will good movies and good games. Therefore I believe that if you're not happy with how much games you sell you might want to try and make a better one next time.
I'm not saying everyone out there downloading from BT is a saint who just wants to try before they buy. That would be bullshit. But there are enough people out there who doubled or even trippled the amount of money they spent on DVDs and/or CDs and/or games just because they found games they've never even heard about before.
I don't remember whether it was on heise.de or
I know this might be moderated Flamebait, but you know what? I don't care... if people don't like my opinion, it's their problem entirely.
Ummm, you do realize sites like isoHunt don't have torrents *submitted* to them, they index .torrent files available elsewhere on the internet, much the same way Google indexes websites available elsewhere on the internet. They remove torrent links upon request, have you actually bothered emailing any of these sites to ask them to remove your torrent?
If they'd put half the effort into actually making quality films as they do with these worthless lawsuits, I'd gladly pay $30 for theatre admission and snacks for my girlfriend and I. Until then, I'm paying what it's worth to see these movies. Do they admit blow up dolls to movie theatres nowadays?
Most companies try the best to look great to their customers, to appeal to young people. Microsoft is spending billions to make itself look smaller and more open.
MPAA and RIAA are spending billions to make headlines such as "MPAA sues grandpa without computer", "RIAA sues 13-year old girl for sharing mp3", "DRM technology in audio CD-s installs without a warning and opens your PC-s to hackers", "don't use the uninstaller, it leaves your PC even MORE open to hackers", "MPAA and RIAA join together to sue Earth and be done with it".
If I could separate myself from this twisted reality we live in, where this is supposed strategy to drive up sales, I'd say they are doing everything possible to make people hate them.
Most of these sites aren't hosted in the US, or in countries that recognize torrents as being pirated material.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
"most BT traffic is illegitimate"
Not all people consider sharing of information and media to be "illegitimate". The idea that culture can be controlled and bottled up by powerful media companies is a quaint 20th century notion.
You are quite correct in questioning the effect of any ban. Bit-torrent networks and other types of filesharing are rooted in basic human behaviour and desires. That's not going to change any time soon.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
I hate to agree with you, but I agree with you. Only the threat of real violence is ever going to stop anybody. Peaceful protest doesn't work.
Look at the success of the Muslims protesting the Cartoons of the profet Mohammad. USA Newspapers and TV are scared shitless to air the offending cartoons, in fact, you have to hunt real hard to find out what the hoopla is all about.
Imagine if every lawyer working for the RIAA suddenly had to fear for his life every time he issued a supeona against a website. Imagine if every spammer thought that his family could be in danger when he sends out the 6 billion emails for Penis Enlargement.
They'd think twice about doing such things if it meant their car would have flats, their house could be burnt and their family kidnapped and beheaded.
There's an old saying that freedom must be taken. If we want to be free of these gangsters, then we need to take action, and it's very likely going to have be violent action because these days nobody understands anything else.
The terrorists have won. They have taught us that terrorism can get people to change their ways. Look how much they have changed the USA. We need to take that lesson and apply it to other areas that need change.
So, yes, while I don't want to agree with you, I admit that that only way I see real change happening is after some people die. It's not a nice thing to say; but it's an awful reality that we may have to come to accept.
And please don't send the FBI to my house, I'm not a lunatic about to commit these crimes, I'm simply pointing out that this is likely to happen sooner or later.
Thanks!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
A BitTorrent site, on the other hand, merely has the potential to give thousands or millions of people access to free movies, music, TV shows, software, and porn, and the only threat it poses is to the business models that are founded on restricting free speech. Which one is the real threat?
If those business models that are 'founded on restricting free speech' stop paying for production of the content that goes to make up the main core of all these torrent sites, what will the sites offer? The content isnt free, you just arent paying the asking price for it. The real threat is that the content may stopped being produced because the people paying for the production arent seeing a return on investment.
You have no inherent entitlement to the content.
Please help boosting the development of the anonymous networks... Because that's what's going to happen if you keep on doing this.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
More with your mouse over the bottom of each page in the press release: http://www.mpaa.org/press_releases/2006_02_21_raze r.pdfm e=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=4
You will vind a hidden registration link.
You guys have now stolen so much, the MPAA cannot afford anymore to pay a $30 registration fee to Iteksoft. http://www.iteksoft.com/modules.php?op=modload&na
Dear MMPAA. It is time for you to sit down and chill a bit (grab a beer or something.) - you should know by now that stopping people from copying digital information is a futile effort. I know this is your job, and I know that you are working very hard on this, but it is not an effort that's going to lead to any regime where pirated movies does not exist. Just ask the guys working against music and software piracy.
So, while you sit there contemplating on the situation and what you do, you should ask yourself. Why is it that people are pirating movies? Let me give you two answers; well, the most obvious one, to save money. What can you do about this? Lower the price of theater tickts and DVDs? - Well, I don't know for anyone else, but I don't think my reason would be money.
Next one, the big one, availability, this is a major issue. You've become a lot better at distributing movies fast, atleast the movies that brings in a lot of money. But there are still people who prefer to watch their movies at home, and there are places that doesn't get the move at their theater until months after it has been shown and talked about elsewhere in the world.
Personally I think that if you provided an online service without your silly DRM, one which people could download your movies themselves and pay for it, people would. I know atleast I would. You have implemented means to stop people from doing this, like DVD zones, movies being released at different times in different parts of the world and you're releaseing the dvds a lot later than the theaters has shown the flick.
So, what I am suggesting is that you stop chasing kids downloading your materials off the net. You should still go after the profit makers, nobody likes them anyway, but above all, if you want to stop piracy, you gotta beat the pirates in terms of availability and quality of service.
You can transfer my consultant fee to my paypal account now.
After that happen, you'd be surprised how much of artists you liked are in fact are indies and has no relation to the RI/MA Ass. of America. What's more they'd be happy to know that you have downloaded their song/movie - and thus learned about their existence. And if you liked them payed visit to concert or show.
MP/RI Ass. of America is in fact a show business cortel. They control (or own) production, promotion and resales channels of content. Indies exists in your U.S. only thanks to few remnants of common sense and new lobby for indies on capitol hill. Your beloved Ass'es of America tried not once to "stamp" on "rampant" "threat" to their "business model" coming from the hippies who do nothing useful but distract people with their money from "show business" of USA. Business as usual, one would say.
I always tried to explain (unsuccessfully) you Americans what really at stake and what is the true problem of the RI/MP Ass of America. But they have already won your minds over - and you hardly hear the words. Forst word you have to memorize is "CULTURE". Second is "SOCIETY". Think of them. Write them on a wall and look at them hour a day. Probably then you would understand that commercializing what actually makes the bone of society leads you nowhere. (*)
P.S. That's the explanation why USA has such high crime rate. That's explains why you Americans at large has no understanding what's going outside: since you have no culture (but show business) one can hardly expect you to understand way others are living. The way people are living is formed by the culture and society exists at large as a way to preserve the culture. From the global prospective, RI/MP Ass. of America has found a way to sell you what you owned to begin with. They are "free riders". They've made you beleive that "culture" can be property. And it seems you already lost it...
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
BitTorrent and the like score quite badly on the first two points - most BT traffic is illegitimate, and there are plenty of legal ways to distribute files.
:P
Are you serious?! BitTorrent is frequently used for distributing large, legitimate files - in fact, I use it on a weekly basis, and I do not infringe copyright with it. BitTorrent is now the standard way of distributing many files that it is legal to distribute, from Linux distributions through to demos of commercial games, and banning it would therefore affect a huge range of legitimate activities.
Sorry, but while there ARE systems it would make sense to ban, based on your argument - such as other P2P systems like Kazaa and ED2K - I'm afraid BitTorrent is actually the one example of a P2P system that has been embraced by legitimate users and is widely used for legal purposes. It is the one P2P system that it would be MOST stupid to ban.
Incidentally, you win today's prize for the most careless use of language. "There are plenty of legal ways to distribute files", you said. There sure are - and BitTorrent is one of them.
By the way, if you think bananas are normally used for peaceful purposes, you can't have watched many cartoons. A banana skin is a very common weapon.
If those business models that are 'founded on restricting free speech' stop paying for production of the content that goes to make up the main core of all these torrent sites, what will the sites offer?
If that happens, I imagine the sites will offer content created under other business models, content that was produced in the past, and content from the public domain. Or maybe they'll dry up. Who knows, but more importantly, who cares?
The question you posed contains a huge "if", and as such it only pertains to a fantasy world where everyone stops making music, movies, and other works that people enjoy. But in the real world, people have been making music, writing, and painting for thousands of years, copyright or not. They aren't going to stop just because it becomes hard to make money by selling copies of information; they'll just switch to a model where they get paid more directly for the work they do.
The content isnt free, you just arent paying the asking price for it. [...] You have no inherent entitlement to the content.
That's one way to look at it, but not a very accurate way. The string of bits that makes up a movie or song file is free once it's been created in the first place, and while I don't think I'd use the word "entitlement", I would definitely say that we have the moral right to share those strings of bits with one another, just as we have the right to share sports scores or our thoughts on the weather.
It's a plain and simple fact that the string of bits I've attached to this message(*) will make "Hit Me Baby One More Time" come out of your MP3 player, just like it's a fact that it was 23 degrees outside today. Some people think it should be illegal to share one of those facts, not because it would lead to fraud, loss of life, or a breach of national security (some legitimate reasons for restricting information flow), but simply because it would mean a few large businesses had to be restructured. I, on the other hand, think the freedom to speak and write freely, as well as to share one's cherished experiences with friends and strangers, is important enough that we should demand a damn good reason for limiting it - and putting a buck in Sony's pocket doesn't exactly qualify.
Now, the effort that went into producing that string of bits for the first time is what isn't free, and that effort is what no one has an entitlement to. An artist is free to charge whatever he wants for recording a song, writing a book, etc., and to refuse to do any of it until his conditions have been met. But once he has agreed to do it, the fruits of his labor are free for all of humanity to use, just like any other numbers.
(* not really attached)
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Oh for fuck sakes...
You cannot buy culture. You learn about it, you appriciate it, you emulate it.
You have just proven his point - you have no culture, and apparently no idea how to debate.
Whoo, signature!
DesireCampbell.com
yes many times. end result is lots of abusive emails + spam.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Lets just say in a perfect world, everyone stopped downloading. Do you think all the taxes and extra fees on blank media / or iPods (Canada) etc got added due to piracy would get lifted? I highly doubt it. They are getting some love / reimbursment .. I dont feel guilty at all for the stuff I download.
The legaltiy would depend on the opinion of a judge, who will be influnced by the big bucks of the industry. Are you willing to take the chance and lose your entire income trying to fight what is 'right', even if you win?
I bet no.
And i dont agree you can have a legal search engine for prostitution ( where prostitution is not allowed that is ). We just had one guy closed up for doing just that in this area. They took his site away too. Something about 'intent'.. You know, 'intent to commit a crime?' . Just beacuse its on the net doesnt mean that factor is tossed to the wind.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Actually, I was ten years old.
:)
And it was on North Truro beach in Cape Cod.
This was actually the first thing I thought of, when I read that phrase.
I was trying to build a safe haven for my castle. The ocean was relentless. The sand was weak. I had to dig and pile as fast as I could to "keep the ocean out" so my castle would be "safe".
I figure they'll be as effective as I was.
But I had way more fun than they ever will
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
How does one tell a "legitimate" BitTorrent tracker from an "illegitimate" tracker? Does someone go through the tracker and calculate the ratio of copyrighted material to free/copylefted material?
Since a BT tracker is simply a search engine, are you suggesting that the engine should inspect all of its indexed torrents and filter out the ones that are copyrighted? What about material that's copyrighted but has been posted to the tracker by the copyright owner?
If I were so inclined I could use Google to find illegal materials and services - as mentioned by other posters, but the **AA is not suing Google (yet) probably because they're too big and expensive to sue. (After all, Google is refusing to turn over search records to the government even when handed a subpoena.)
I would argue that a BitTorrent tracker is not an inherently illegal device and that there's no easy way to measure the amount of "illegal" traffic on it. All one can do (if one is the copyright holder) is to request the tracker remove links to infringing material when it's discovered, and that these trackers have been complying with those requests.
Shutting these trackers down will do two things:
1. Annoy a lot of people and generate more animousity towards the **AA
2. Shift the traffic to a number of lesser-known trackers who then become the next TorrentBox and such
Let's face it, the RIAA and MPAA are just playing Whack-a-Mole here and are starting to get frustrated each time the mole pops back up.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
you have to hunt real hard to find out what the hoopla is all about.
No, you have to type "Mohammed" into Google, and it's on the first page. Better yet, type "Mohammed caricatures" and you get several pages of links. That's not "hunting real hard", that's something even a school kid could do.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
But you can't beat THESE guys...
http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
Who would have produced that 'culture' if they hadnt payed for it? Would it have simply appeared?
Once upon a time, before the copyright cartels came to dominate, such work was created on a comission basis. There is no intrinsic reason that we can't go back to that business model, and leverage the reach of the internet to allow anyone, anywhere to comission work from anyone and anywhere in the world. Even large productions can be comissioned with a variant of the "group buy" idea that is already very popular in niche communities on the net.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"If those business models that are 'founded on restricting free speech' stop paying for production of the content that goes to make up the main core of all these torrent sites, what will the sites offer? The content isnt free, you just arent paying the asking price for it. The real threat is that the content may stopped being produced because the people paying for the production arent seeing a return on investment."
I claim bullshit on this every time it is put forward by industry ludites. You show me one movie, book, song, software that WASN'T made for fear of piracy then we can talk about it. You can't and neither can they. You are talking about multi-billion dollar industries here and they can't show one instance where fear of piracy has stopped them from producing one single thing. So shhh about all this "we will starve and the content will disappear" bs.
"You have no inherent entitlement to the content."
And they aren't entitled to perpetual profits either. Copyright is supposed to expire. Think about that one.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Does it occur to anyone that by restricting the torrent sites and trying to destroy file sharing and music sharing that the real target of this is not piracy, but an attempt to destroy the growing ability of independent artists to make a name for themselves without the big labels? It looks to me like piracy is not the issue, but rather market dominance. Once the MPAA, RIAA have destroyed this upstart internet thing, they will then embrace the technology to distribute the content that they want on the terms that they want. Think about pay per view for EVERYTHING.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
"You have just proven his point - you have no culture, and apparently no idea how to debate."
(The "you" in "you have no culture" may have been either singular or plural, but I'll assume the former. My points would apply in either case.)
There are two related meanings of "culture" at play here: [1] A group's language, religion, art, and customs and [2] familiarity with and sensitivity to the fine points of the culture[1] of your own and other societies.
Saying someone "has no culture" is either a vacuous slap at the entire society in which the person lives ("you have no culture[1]"), or it's a statement that the person lacks culture[2]. The GP was asking about culture[1], not culture[2].
So that means that you, writer of parent, have taken the word "culture" out of its culture[1] context and hurled it as an insult, "no culture[2]". Nothing in GP suggests a lack of civility or learning -- just the opposite, in fact, as he displayed some knowledge of another group's activities. You used that accusation as a springboard to claim he lacked debating technique.
He, at least, dealt with the content of the message to which he was responding. You merely insulted him, while ironically posturing as a debater.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
This is IH from isoHunt.com. We also run TorrentBox.com. Some clarifications for comments here:
* Yes, this is MPAA's FUD. The lawsuit included.
* No, BitTorrent and P2P are not illegal (yet). They are not solely tools of thieves as the MPAA like to portray them as. There are many legal torrents in isoHunt's search index.
* No, I haven't got anything from MPAA about this lawsuit of theirs, but the press release is real and we are working with other sites, sued or yet to be sued, and the EFF on this.
* This is significant as they are suing search engines. isoHunt.com is a search engine. It does not discriminate, it index by algorithm. If we can, we'll be pulling in Google and Yahoo to say a few words that search engines are not illegal (yet).
* No, I'm not a crook. I see P2P as the new VCR, and I intend on proving that P2P can be used to the benefit of content creators, as a cheap and global vehicle for distribution and promotion.
Read more and comment on my forum announcement if you like:
http://isohunt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38933
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
Surprisingly, the only thing that makes me more angry about losing my rights online, is knowing its all the morons who download movies causing it. I would love to spit in the face of the MPAA and the RIAA, but only after spitting in the face of the individuals who encourage their actions by abusing their rights , usually in the form of downloading games, music, and movies.
It seems like the RIAA, the MPAA, and the illegal downloaders are all acting immature, and abusing the rights of others. The only person not abusing rights, is the exact person having their rights trampled on. As someone who doesn't steal software, music, or movies, I also won't break the law, so if I can't copy my CD to my computer because of some obscure law thought up by the RIAA, encouraged by the people who distribute music illegaly, that means I won't buy CDs, the RIAA won't make their money, and the people who have already proven to be okay with doing things illegal, will continue to copy their CDs.
Why not go ahead and make iTunes the only legal source of music purchasing, and iPods the only legal source of playing music?
It sounds harsh, but isn't that what you are suggesting? Eliminate the opposing forces, instead of increasing severity of the consequences of abusing rights?
Basically, the MPAA is targeting the wrong audience. Threaten the people doing the illegal downloading, and increase severity there. Don't threaten the rights of an entire country (or everyone in general). Find a way to restrict the rights of the abusers. Making it more difficult to do what I used to have rights to do in the past, only makes it harder to comply and easier to break the law. At the rate we are going, all recording devices will be banned, and we will only have read-only access to MPAA/RIAA provided content, with individual decoders created for each device we own.
Don't encourage the MPAA/RIAA to do this. The best way to discourage it, is to reform laws to revoke the rights of abusers, and leave my rights alone. Another way is to stop downloading content you don't have rights to.
"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis
Many rants about how "Search engines aren't illegal", etc. Blah blah blah blah blah.
The point that I think is being made here is that search engines that end up being used virtually exclusively for the finding of materials that are illegal _OUGHT_ to be illegal, and that's why the MPAA is working at shutting them down.
You do not, for example, need to use one of the mentioned torrent search sites to find the latest Linux ISO images. I feel fairly confident in saying that the actual number of legal torrent files out there that could be not be found without using a search engine that predominantly indexes to illegal content (that is, copyrighted content which is being shared without the copyright holder's permission) is staggeringly tiny (although I similarly somehow would not doubt that some slashdot readers will take it upon themselves to cite a few examples in response to my remarks that will somehow "prove" this assertion to be incorrect).
So by the reasoning being proposed by the MPAA here, taken to its natural conclusion, if or when Google indexes substantially more infringing content than it does legitimate, and if and when that is predominantly what the engine is used for, then even Google would be shut down.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Then they closed down the P2P centralized servers.
Next they went after the distributed P2P systems and scared them off.
They started suing random P2P users with large share directories, often missing the mark.
Then they went after sites that stored only torrent files, and no actual content.
Now they're after the sites that index the torrents, and have neither actual content, nor torrent files.
Your own personal computer is next on their hit list of infringing devices.
Is anyone aware of just how small these content industries really are compared to the overall economy? They are the tail wagging the dog!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
MPAA/RIAA sues little guys...more people stop buying CD's....sales go down...MPAA/RIAA think, "Wow! Our sales are down! There must be more pirating than we thought! Crank up the lawsuit machine!"...more people get sued...less people buy CD's...sales go down...more lawsuits come....more people are sued....less people buy CD's...sales go down...more lawsuits come....I'm getting dizzy....
"After that happen, you'd be surprised how much of artists you liked are in fact are indies and has no relation to the RI/MA Ass. of America. What's more they'd be happy to know that you have downloaded their song/movie - and thus learned about their existence. And if you liked them payed visit to concert or show."
This seems to be the ongoing line of thought around here - that after CDs are produced no more because no one can sell them, artists will make their livings through live performances.
I wonder, of all the millions of iPod owners out there, how many have never gone to a live show or concert? I haven't been to one in over 15 years.
Lots of people don't want to go out to hear music. They want music they can take with them and listen to when they want to. If they have that, a lot of them are going to be satisfied with that.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Having passed 3.5 million subscribers over six months ago, conservative estimates of their monthly revenue on the World of Warcraft franchise exceed $41,965,000.00. That translates to over half a billion annually, with long term foreseeable growth.
Why?
Blizzard delivers the game via a streaming model, has absolute control of the content, owns the servers delivering the goods, and can continue adding content to keep it's subscribers coming back as long as it's profitable to do so.
Movie studios could do the same by offering a tiered system of streaming content at increasing resolutions on a subscription basis, i.e. 5 movies monthly/annually @ 640x480 = $X / 5 movies monthly/annually @ 800x600 = $XX / 5 movies monthly/annually @ 1024x768 = $XXX. Increase the frequency, pay more. While a simple concept, the watermarking/security technology to ensure there's no redistribution would hardly be trivial.
This then cuts "piracy" off at the knees, and gives studios control of their content again, without the overhead of egregious legal fees or bad PR. Everybody wins.
But, for this model to be profitable it would mean that studios would have to concentrate on putting out quality instead of quantity, and give up using Fx to coverup nonexistent storylines, and that's a topic for another thread entirely.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.