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."'"
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.
slashdot is educational.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
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.
Blanks don't count!
"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.
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.
I know your comment was a joke, but actually in many countries there's a tax on blank media that goes to content providers. So...in many cases, blanks DO count.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
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
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.
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
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.
In France for instance it is the case :)
At the same moment the government is about to vote the controversial DADVSI law (that some nickname not without reason the "Vivendi-Unversal Studio" law).
One of the goal of this law is to suppress the right French ppl have had so far to make a private copy for personal usage of DVDs (they don't suppress for audio CDs though... go figure.. :). So far you have had the right to transfer the videos from the DVD you bought into your iPod (even though you have to hack the DVD protection for that), make a DVD copy of Nemo (in case the kids destroy the original), etc... This also has legitimated the royalites the movie industry gets from the tax on storage devices (CDs, DVDs, Hard Disks, USB keys, iPods, etc... ) And of course they wish to remove the possibility to make copies but WITHOUT SUPRESSING THE TAX AND THE ROYALTIES to the movie industry!!
This law was planned to be voted by night on Dec 23rd (yeah, no joke!!), but some congressmen rebelled and added amendments to legalize p2p instead and drag media and public attention to this "hidden" law, planned to be voted in secret on christmas eve.
I don't think the law will hellp their decreasing profits (on the contrary), but it will harm our economy for sure...
Now... maybe if they made it attractive to "buy" things.. like no fucking DRM, cheaper fees, ppl would actually buy more and they'd make money out of it :) Who would bother dowbload a movie of bad quality on a P2P network and wait days or weeks, while you could buy it for 5 bucks, of better quality, without DRM, and with a faster d/l ?!!
But apprently the trend is to double the fee for the next generation DVDs.... they don't get it yet... go on like that and you will file for bankrucpcy and jail half your customers :)
The problem I see is that they take down legal content in the pursuit of pirated DVDs. Why should the BT community that isn't pirating DVDs be paying for the abuse of a few?
With the approach the MPAA applies, bars, clubs, etc. would be shut down when a couple patrons are arrested for drug dealing or prostitution because they're "enabling" the illegal activity. For some reason, there doesn't seem to be a lot of precedence for the *AA approach of shutting down entire businesses when pursuing a few criminals.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
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
Of the four storage media you list, only one has the levy applied to it — blank CDs. The levy applies to "blank audio recording media", and according to the way they define that, hard drives, USB sticks and blank DVDs are not affected. At one point, the Copyright Board, who decides what media have the levy applied, applied it to portable digital audio players, but the courts struck that down.
About a year later, they said "Well, we *can* stop online piracy, so we will propose a bill that makes it illegal and we will make additional income from legal bullying and litigation".
My biggest problem with that, is that they "forgot" to remove the levy. So now, file-sharing is basically illegal...
Wait, wait, wait. Lost somewhere in your story is the point at which the bill you refer to (bill C-60, I presume) became law. And bill C-60 has not become law. So I don't know what you're on about.
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.
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."