Music Piracy Documentary Released As Torrent

goodbye_kitty writes "The producers of a new documentary film analyzing global music piracy have decided to 'put their money where their mouth is' by releasing the film as a free Xvid download (hosted by the Pirate Bay, as one would expect). The film explores the blurred line between 'fair use' and piracy, and includes interviews with DJ Danger Mouse (creator of the now infamous 'grey album'), Lawrence Lessig (founder of Creative Commons), the lads from the Pirate Bay, and even some guy from the MPAA. Here is a link to the torrent."

Comments

Put their money where their mouth is

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Are you sure it wasn't simply the case that they're out of money and/or nobody will distribute the documentary for them?

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure it wasn't simply the case that they're out of money and/or nobody will distribute the documentary for them?

Or maybe they're just clever and realise they can get lots of free publicity on sites like /. by releasing the programme as a torrent. Don't think we'll ever know, but you're reading this article aren't you?

Unfortunately am in Canada and Bittorrent has been banned by the Internet Police over here, so we're not allowed to download files.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I really wonder about that. A lot of movies don't get a distributorship, it's a basic fact of the industry, even more so with indie films.

Anyways, "blurring the line between fair use and piracy" is a red flag to me. I really won't agree with an argument that somehow fair use can be blurred to the extend that distributing entire works (entire songs, entire albums, entire movies, entire TV episodes) to potentially millions of people is somehow fair use. Fair use has usually been interpreted as short clippings, parodies, making a personal copy of a work that you legitimately have and so on.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[MontyApollo]

Not many people pay to see propaganda documentaries to begin with, and file sharing is such an exciting topic...War in Iraq, National Health-care Crisis, File Sharing...

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[another_fanboy]

FTFS: releasing the film as a free Xvid download

Believe it or not, there are legit purposes for torrents. Too bad so many people insist upon using them for not-so-legit reasons.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[halcyon1234]

You can download just fine on Rogers. I sure do. Just be sure to use the "Encrypt Traffic" option on Azureus, and set yourself up with a non-standard port. Check out the Azureus Wiki on NAT Problems on how to do this. I suggest using a port like 25522 or something like that.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[ajs]

Unfortunately am in Canada and Bittorrent has been banned by the Internet Police over here, so we're not allowed to download files. Wow. That's totally freaking insane!

Next time I download an OS via BT, I'll think of you... I'm really sorry, man.

That said, I'm a little surprised and disappointed at Slashdot's reaction to this documentary. Someone does a documentary about file sharing, puts it up on BT and we attack them for it... sad. I would have thought we'd be glad to see that someone is finally starting to smell the new media. Do they want their documentary seen? Of course, they do, but if this works out, you know there will be thousands of fairly smart people thinking, "OK, now how do we make that a business?"

The age of the fight between content creators and peer-to-peer sharing needs to come to an end. The age of the peer-to-peer media empires is long overdue.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Rogers throttles all encrypted traffic.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you didn't know, Rogers shapes all encrypted traffic (see http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs#Cana da), which includes anything from SSH to torrents. In fact, the only way to download this movie at a reasonable rate through Rogers is to disable Encrypt Traffic (and possibly some other settings, depending on your config). Then it'll go just fine and fast. However, if you plan on downloading anything remotely illegal looking (i.e. OS iso's, video games, ripped movies) they'll send you a nice Cease and Desist notice occasionally.

Oh, and the reason you may be able to download fine is because they're only doing this Traffic shaping in certain areas (most), and there are a few areas I know of where they don't seem to have control just yet. And no, there's no magic port-trickery you can do to get around their traffic shaping.

So does anyone know an HTTP or FTP source for this movie?

Sincerely,
An unwilling Rogers customer

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

serves thieving scum like you right for stealing other peoples hard work, dipshit.

*sigh* you know the only thing I've ever tried to download through bittorrent is Ubuntu, am not interested in illegally downloading stuff (that doesn't mean that I think Hollywood films and anything other than Indie bands are worth paying for though, even if they were I don't want to support the film/music industry bullying people).

Anyway, in this case I just wanted to lessen the strain on Canonical's servers. They should send the bandwidth bill for all Canadian Ubuntu downloads to Rogers: bunch of shunts.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[spyrochaete]

Next time I download an OS via BT, I'll think of you... I'm really sorry, man.

Don't feel that sorry. It's not true. I'm on Rogers and I use Azureus with encryption. I get 300KB/s torrent downloads just fine. They recently bumped up speeds for free from 4Mb to 6Mb so I'm sure the potential Bittorrent speeds are much faster than I get. I'm just at the mercy of whoever's uploading.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[MBraynard]

Believe it or not, there are legit purposes for torrents. Too bad so many people insist upon using them for not-so-legit reasons.

Totally. And then they use the criminals to try to pass laws like the Brady Bill and the 'Assault' Weapons Ban and ...

Oh wait...

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched to Sympatico for that reason. At the time they didn't have a bandwidth cap either, they don't seem to care currently though with my account. I download pretty constant using ~250 GB month (total up+down). Both Bell and Rogers, suck, but at least Sympatico seems to let me use the bandwidth I pay for and not charge overage fees (yet).

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[SolitaryMan]

Someone does a documentary about file sharing, puts it up on BT and we attack them for it... sad. I would have thought we'd be glad to see that someone is finally starting to smell the new media.

They put it on BT because their target auditory uses BT, not because they are "smelling new media".

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect, this just means that the area you're in hasn't been affected by their traffic shaping yet . It is true. Call and ask tech support. They'll tell you they do. And some of them will even agree that it's dumb.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[aerthling]

Google Video: http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-166095 432964105847&q=good+bad+copy&total=254&start=0&num =10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[kebes]

Well of course the "blurred line" won't appear when you counterpoint two extremes: short clips on the one hand (clearly fair use) versus distributing full copies to millions of people on the other hand (clearly copyright infringement, according to current laws).

However, your implication that there is no "blurred line" isn't fair. The example given in the summary is DJ Danger Mouse, who mixed two different works to create something totally original. The music labels said that this was "clearly infringement" whereas many artists and fans said this work was novel and original, and clearly something that should be allowed under fair use (whether or not it actually is fair use is for courts to decide, I suppose, but the arguments regarding copyright are not so much about what the law is, but rather what it should be). This is one case where there is disagreement about how to interpret the actions, hence a "blurred line."

Lawrence Lessig (in his books, blog entries, talks, etc.) provides many other examples of activities which straddle this line (e.g. a film-maker begin told to pay thousands of dollars because a Simpsons clip was playing in the background of one of the scenes in a documentary). Sometimes they are legal yet still legally persecuted by the big-labels. Sometimes they are illegal yet many people feel they are legitimate personal uses, or important creative uses. These fringe cases are very interesting.

Now, I have not watched the documentary under discussion, so I can't say whether they tackle these fringe cases in a thoughtful way. However, I can honestly say that there is a dangerous blurred line between what you are allowed to do according to "fair use" and what you are going to get in trouble for doing according to "copyright law." The fact that this line is so ill-defined is what leads to all the questionable lawsuits against artists and end-users... and to a chilling effect in the production of creative works (which Lessig worries about constantly).

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[gsslay]

Alleged throttling and shaping != banning

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

>I get 300KB/s torrent downloads just fine.
>They recently bumped up speeds for free from 4Mb to 6Mb

So now you can burn through your unlimited (limited) 50 GB quota in under 1 day? Sweet deal!

And the rogers guy wonders why I won't buy their service... Perhaps because I like to download for more than 1 day each month.

My current ISP expects me to use more than 100 GB a month (they offer two peering options, one for customers under 100 GB, one for unlimited customers). And, at $29.95 a month, they make me wonder why anyone would use cable.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[nine-times]

IANAL, but it doesn't seem to me that the concept of fair use was well-defined in the first place (and therefore has never been anything but blurry). Certainly there have been decisions by courts that some particular use is fair, but it does not necessarily follow that all other uses are unfair and punishable. My understanding is that even a conservative legal attempt to define "fair use" would be a bit like trying to define "self defense". It's not a cut-and-dry issue, but rather one that has to be interpreted a bit on a case-by-case basis.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a terrible analogy. The people who pirate materials may be economically depleting creators of royalties, but they sure as hell aren't killing them.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're unwilling to tell us who this ISP is?

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

The people impacted by the Brady Bill and the AWB weren't killing anyone either.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[teh_chrizzle]

My understanding is that even a conservative legal attempt to define "fair use" would be a bit like trying to define "self defense". It's not a cut-and-dry issue, but rather one that has to be interpreted a bit on a case-by-case basis.

yes, it needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis, by the courts... not by corporations, not by lobbyists, not by useless technologies, not by ISPs, not by site operators, not by high priced legal goon squads and not by trade groups.

the problem is that you can use the DMCA to club fair use and free speech *BEFORE* the courts get involved.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Moniker42]

The whole service has been banned in Canada? That can't be right, it's used for lots of things - Linux distros, software updates... Microsoft are even thinking about implementing their own flavour of it in the next version of Windows (or a service pack for Vista).

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[tkdtaylor]

Yeah I'm using Robers too except I'm paying for the extreme package (mostly for higher upload speeds) and my download speed has also been bumped except everytime I run a speed test I'm lucky to get 500k. I'm a few days away from calling and cancelling if they can't even deliver 1Mb when I'm paying for 8.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[spyrochaete]

There's probably something with the cables on your street or in your house/apartment. I had the same problem when I lived with my parents. Just ask them to come check out the lines. They should be able to fix it for free and give you a refund on as many months as you complain about.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[phadez0r]

Let me guess...Teksavvy? My god Teksavvy rules.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[fiendy]

I am running encrypted BT traffic using Rogers Extreme, while I have had slowdowns before, I generally can run 150-500kbps just fine.

That being said I don't like Rogers (cut newsgroup access, traffic shaping, etc.) but its the best of the worst choices for me.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[tubapro12]

Exactly, we (Americans) must preserve the few fair use rights we have remaining. Further confusing the ignorants by blurring piracy and fair use definitely will not help and I'm sure many are aware the MPAA and RIAA would be glad to see fair use rights gone.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[GraZZ]

I'm going to go ahead and assume that he's using Teksavvy, as he has perfectly described their service breakdown.

http://teksavvy.com/

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[ioshhdflwuegfh]

The example given in the summary is DJ Danger Mouse, who mixed two different works to create something totally original. Which sounds to me just like blurring the blur.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet.
Damn brady bill.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be using port 1720 (Rogers' VoIP port) would ensure no throttling occurred, but I read some time ago that doesn't work anymore. I suggest rogers customers with an available alternative provider cancel their service as Rogers Cable is totally untrustworthy. That's the conclusion I came to anyway, after buying a modem from them after recieving (ultimately deceptive) promises of "unlimited service" only to have their policy change completely within a couple months - "we didn't mean no limits when we said unlimited, sorry."

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[tkdtaylor]

Thanks, I've been meaning to check the connections in the house because my gf mentioned even the cable signal is "noisy" so you're probably right.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Da_Weasel]

Oddly enough when I clicked on the link for the torrent download, my torrent application generated the following message box: "Torrent Task Exist!"

---------
Created time: 2007.07.11 11:19:34
Finish time: 2007.07.11 14:29:53
---------

Apparently I downloaded this last month and it was so great that I forgot to even watch it.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[spyrochaete]

Just a heads up - one time our cable connection got "noisy" as well. This ended up being due to some road construction work that was done right near our house. Rogers had to dig a huge deep hole in our front yard to fix it. It only took about 3 days, they didn't charge us anything, and they replaced the grass. Still it was a real nuisance and eyesore.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[MBraynard]

The Brady Bill has expired. In all states there is an instant background check instead. Takes about 3 minutes.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[im just cannonfodder]

use uTorrent 1.6 and enable the encryption so you cannot be throttled!

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Deliveranc3]

They do seem to still be able to limit upstream bandwidth, I only get 30-50 kbps now.

And their method of accomplishing that are becoming more draconian, they seem to be hitting both ports and encrypted data.

It used to be that you only needed to encrypt the data itself, now you need to encrypt the headers, it's going to get worse before it gets better too :(

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[daigu]

Great post. Thought I'd also point out that I think Lessig has moved on to a bigger problem.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

We *are* out of money but have started to receive some more or less timid offers (distribution and sales). We thought this might very well be the easiest and most efficient way to get it out there, a way to prove a point and our best chance to get some money back. Danish TV chipped in an amount that covered travels. We all have other work on the side (2 journos, 1 filmmaker) and will not starve. But the last 6 months have been particularly tough since we all had to devote *all* our spare time on this. We hope that it'll get picked up by broadcasters and festivals because donations are just not going to cut it alone. But look at is this way: had we gone through the trad. channels you probably wouldnt watch it. Or read this. On another more personal note. I have downloaded quite a few documentaries and profited from a lot of "free" internet culture, and wanted to contribute back. After this I think I will be more inclined to support artists/filmakers/the guy who does the website etc etc when I can, especially if they get a reasonable cut. If you donateafter watching the film we, the directors, get 100%. No excuses :P

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

I have it on my server but my ISP will pull the plug on me if I publicize the link.
Does anybody want to offer us space / bandwidth? Please contact us at info [at] goodcopybadcopy [dot] net
Obviously, it would be even better if we can make a few bucks off, say, offering an (free)"ordinary" and (2bucks)"hi quality" version.

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[beav007]

but you're reading this article aren't you?

You must be new here. You'd be lucky if he/she(/it?) read the entire summary...

Re:Put their money where their mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

This movie is really interesting, we watched it at the iCommons in Dubrovnik. You can also download it from archive.org in several formats. http://www.archive.org/details/Good_Copy_Bad_Copy- film

Sir?

[Anonymous Coward]

But what will Sir Elton John think of this?

Pay time

[ciryon]

I wonder who's paying the producers salaries.

Re:Pay time

[phillip_alexander]

It's at least partially funded by Denmark's national broadcasting corporation. It was produced and aired here more than three months ago, so part of the salaries are paid by the Danish television license fee payers (not including myself).

They ask for donations though.

Re:Pay time

[carpe_noctem]

Their parents? At least, until they graduate...

Why?

[Todd Fisher]

Why would I get this off the web for free when I can pay for it at a store?

Coming up, on DVD

[Anonymous Coward]

The DVD will include a rootkit...

Re:Doesn't work

[El_Muerte_TDS]

It works for me, and about 200 other people

Re:Doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

WFM, 500 KB/s download currently. Fix your firewall.

Oldddd

[zeridon]

That's way too old.
It has been circulating around for about a year or so ...
It appeared shortly after the movie Steal This Film

Re:Oldddd

[rHBa]

Even the torrent is 2 months old!

Re:Oldddd

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It aired on danish TV on may 2nd this year.

I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[samuel4242]

I wish I could be optimistic for their bank account, but here's what will probably happen: the file sharing crowd will download it, watch it with a few beers, nod in constant agreement, curse the Man, and then raise a beer in a toast to the coolness of the producers. Perhaps a few will even contribute to the tip jar. But the jar won't fill up enough to pay for the time put into the project. And the producers sure won't make enough money to support themselves or a family so they can do such a cool thing again. Oh well.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[Yonatanz]

Also, the producers' work will be viewed by thousands of people, and probably reviewed by tens of professionals and might reach production company managers, who may hire them for their next movie...

If you are unknown, then this can be the perfect entrance to the industry. But you have to be good so that your free product is at least somewhat impressive.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[lilomar]

Why does their bank account have to be the bottom line?
Why couldn't they maybe, just maybe, want this to be free, be willing to put this documentary out there so that anyone can see it for free, even at a (monetary) loss to them? What is wrong with contributing to the public good without focusing on what you are going to get in return?

Capitalists. Yech.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[spyrochaete]

... the file sharing crowd will download it, watch it with a few beers, nod in constant agreement, curse the Man, and then raise a beer in a toast to the coolness of the producers. Perhaps a few will even contribute to the tip jar. But the jar won't fill up ...

That's precisely the story of the teams who made the Half Life mods CounterStrike and Portal. They were noticed by Valve Software and hired. Even if they weren't they'd have a heck of a portfolio for their next job interview.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[Anonymous Coward]

apparently, although they are asking for donations, they dont believe in covering its cost by that method either (from http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/ ): We sold the film to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) who have been the first, and until now the only TV station, to air it. This money covered about one fourth of the total costs, so obviously we need to sell it to other TV broadcasters world wide to make ends meet. If you want to help us with this, please suggest your local broadcaster to get in touch with us. given the fringe nature of this kind of a project, id say selling it to even a single TV station is not a bad achievement.. Also note, thats Danish public broadcaster, imo another demonstration of the value of broadcasting free from commercial interests; the idea of such a documentary being aired on top TV station (afaik public broadcasters are very strong in nordic countries) of a country is incredibly suprising to me...

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

It's always refreshing to find someone posting one's exact thoughts and sentiments.

This is certainly an opportunity for the creators, here. This world of today is so concerned with cash that we seem to forget the value of things which do not produce cash.

Really, those like the FSF, Creative Commons and the EFF should in fact be sponsoring these kind of productions. That would then be genuine revenue for the creators.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. This person's assumption seems to be that there aren't people on this planet who are so charitable that they do something for others even if it comes at a great cost for them. But I guess in his or her world such sacrificial behavior would be regarded as insane.

I have no doubt that the makers of this documentary would very much like to recoup their expenses, even if they don't have any interest in profiting. But it would seem like the distribution of their movie is just a little more important to them if they're willing to provide it on BitTorent and aren't even offering anything for purchase.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you do to get food and shelter and medical care? Beg? Live off mom and dad?

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is possible that those who worked on the project are employed elsewhere, or at the very least receive enough income from other projects to pay for bills and such.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[Anonymous Coward]

For 3 minutes of video on YouTube, yes. For a full length, professional quality documentary, no.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? A lot of free/open source software would be a counterexample to your argument.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[shark72]

"Also, the producers' work will be viewed by thousands of people, and probably reviewed by tens of professionals and might reach production company managers, who may hire them for their next movie..."

Ah yes, the "design my website for free" argument.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[Anonymous Coward]

The work on a free/open source software can be distributed in small bits over a large number of individuals. The work on a film/book/album or any sort of work which is less modular than software cannot effectivly be farmed out. An hour a night spread over a year and ten-thousand individuals might create useful software, but it won't create much of a film.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[samuel4242]

Also, the producers' work will be viewed by thousands of people, and probably reviewed by tens of professionals and might reach production company managers, who may hire them for their next movie...

I hate to be negative, but I can't see some producer saying, "Gosh, these radical dudes really did a great job undermining the reason why I'm able to get million dollar paychecks. I think I'll hire them to do my next movie. And I'll pay them millions even though they have argued that file sharers shouldn't have to pay into this pool."

It's all well and good to stick it to the man. Just don't expect the man to be so impressed by your stick-to-it-tiveness and hire you immediately. Those kind of things only happen in Seinfeld .

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[samuel4242]

Also, the producers' work will be viewed by thousands of people, and probably reviewed by tens of professionals and might reach production company managers, who may hire them for their next movie...

My guess is that the folks in Hollywood are much more likely to see crowdsourcing and Creative Commons as a way to get cheap material. They'll pat this guy on the head, give him $1000 to set up some stick-it-to-the-man website, and then collect the results into a movie that's then released to theaters. The theaters will make their money on popcorn. The producers will make a ton off of the admissions fees. These cool dudes will get a tiny royalty after the Hollywood accounting machine gets done with them. It happens to actors and screenwriters all of the time.

Re:I'm sure glad they have a trust fund...

[samuel4242]

Again, I hate to be negative. But why would I cancel Shark Week or whatever else is on so I can show some documentary that's already reached it's entire target audience via BitTorrent?

Consider this script:
Lackey: One of our viewers is on the phone, sir. Do you want to take the call?
Moneyman: Why?
Lackey: They downloaded a film and loved it enough.
Moneyman: Great. What do they want from me?
Lackey: They want you to pay the guy and broadcast the film.
Moneyman: Why? So they can see it again?
Lackey: Apparently.
Moneyman: They've seen it already. They've shared it with their friends. Why?
Lackey: I don't know.
Moneyman: I'll think about it. [pause] No.

there are rules for releasing

[Anonymous Coward]

we should all know the standards,
Good.Copy.Bad.Copy.2007.LiMiTED.DVDRip.XviD-GCBC.a vi [Read nfo]

infamous == bad

[Anonymous Coward]

the word infamous means famous in a disgraceful way. it's a bad thing. you're not using it right.

Re:infamous == bad

[Darksun]

Quote the Three Amigos!

The infamous El Guapo."

What does that mean?
"In-famous"?

In-famous is when you're
more than famous.

This man El Guapo is not just famous,
he's in-famous.

Re:infamous == bad

[iainl]

Dangermouse's Grey album, like all mashups that haven't had their rights negotiated with the original artists' legal representatives are illegal.

Once upon a time, breaking the law was thought of as vaguely 'bad' and 'disgraceful', so the term sounds fine to me.

Re:infamous == bad

[plague3106]

Dangermouse's Grey album, like all mashups that haven't had their rights negotiated with the original artists' legal representatives are illegal.

Well, thank you for your ruling your honor.

Once upon a time, breaking the law was thought of as vaguely 'bad' and 'disgraceful', so the term sounds fine to me.

And then we were flooded with stupid laws, laws that most people don't want, and laws that were just downright immoral to enforce.

Saying that breaking a law (like the "blacks in back" from the 60s) is always bad or disgraceful is just plain stupid. We should not follow laws just because they are there, they need to reflect our beliefs and protect our freedom.

Re:infamous == bad

[Daychilde]

And I bet you NEVER exceed the speed limit by even 1 mph, right? You stinky law breaker!

(and if, in fact, you don't, I bet there's SOME law somewhere you break... most people do...)

Re:infamous == bad

[Husgaard]

Saying that breaking a law (like the "blacks in back" from the 60s) is always bad or disgraceful is just plain stupid. We should not follow laws just because they are there, they need to reflect our beliefs and protect our freedom.

Any good law has to follow community standards. If too many people think we have to follow a law just because it has been passed, or if the law criminalizes a lot of people, we risk ending up with the nazi regime that came because too many germans thought "ordnung muss sein" and were worried about "terrorists" in the thirties.

Of course this argument can also be abused by people intending to break a law they do not personally think is good. This is not what I mean to say here, but we should all be careful about following a law just because it has been passed as a law. If a law making it mandatory to shoot everybody with glasses at sight was passed (as was essentially the case in Cambodia some years ago), I hope that everybody would violate it.

And today I worry because I see people being a bit too law-abiding, even if the laws seem unjust or can target almost everybody. And it makes me worry if we will soon see another instance (in swedish) of nazi-germany somewhere in the world.

very good movie!

[Comsn]

good copy bad copy is a very well produced movie.
it also has interviews from some of the key players in this copyright fight.

now i want to find some techno brega music!

Re:very good movie!

[Jeek Elemental]

Ill 2. that, they brought up some interesting stuff. Well worth watching.

Re:very good movie!

[chartreuse]

I'll 3 that. Two things in particular: As a documentary, it does a great job of presenting the ideas and people involved, pro and con, in their social context (instead of just as talking heads spewing debate points), and it's got major segments set outside of North America and Europe, showing the global side of the copyright crisis that's rarely considered.

I'm used to documentaries that just rehash issues and facts that would be well-known to someone interested in the subject, with a little bit of entertainment thrown in, and those are great for getting regular people up to speed. Good Copy Bad Copy, though, had genuinely new information for me, and I consider watching it time well-spent.

OMG ur so busted

[ArcadeX]

they partnered with the FBI and getting this movie will put spyware on your machine and inform the MPAA and RIAA...

seriously tho. All I want to know on the subject i've already read here and other sites. People most comfortable with downloading movies using torrents have better movies to get and I would guess aren't that interested. Only thing I would even be remotely interested in is some of the qoutes from the mpaa guy just to see one individual's scewed opinions, but I'd rather have it in text format.

Re:OMG ur so busted

[Trent Hawkins]

I'd rather it be in the style of Moore's "documentaries". Sure it's not the truth but it's damn entertaining!

On youtube?

[digirus]

I don't have a bit torrent client. Is it on youtube yet?

Re:On youtube?

[andrewd18]

Get one - it's worth it.

Re:On youtube?

[nlitement]

Just because you're on Linux doesn't mean everyone has to run Java software. Torrent FTW.

Re:On youtube?

[jZnat]

It's more likely to be uploaded to Google Video since they have a much larger file size limit.

Re:On youtube?

[Anonymous Coward]

Java means you can't be hit by a buffer overrun, which is the last thing you need when using such a client...

Re:On youtube?

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 Wrong.

Re:On youtube?

[Krakhan]

Speaking of which, it is up now: Good Copy, Bad Copy

ed2k link

[Anonymous Coward]

for those who want the real thing (remove spaces and wrapping)

ed2k://|file|Good.Copy.Bad.Copy.2007. LiMiTeD.DVDRip.XviD-GCBC.avi|731333922|9300AC0FA91 7351EB73E5459B70995F6|/

tsk^3, Linuxpeople

[newr00tic]

Azareus is the worst example of a good program.

(Yes, for you hillbilly Linux folks; that dot is a period)

omg DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to totally DMCA you guyz for hosting copyrighted material and/or links to it.

needs green monsters, in directors cut

[sjwest]

Disney did Pirates, the film does not contain green characters like shrek and so failed the multiplex cinema test.

await the directors cut

The producers will starve

[Goog500]

Maybe its time to admit that as much as we want everything to be free (software, music, movies) it just doesn't work on a large scale. Sure, us slashdot geeks can download copyrighted content all we want, but it DOES have a negative financial impact on the producers of that content. How big is that impact? I don't know - maybe marginal, maybe significant. I'm sure a lot of people justify this by reasoning that the only people losing money are rich overpaid content producers. But I'm not sure if that though process is correct...

Re:The producers will starve

[lilomar]

it DOES have a negative financial impact on the producers of that content. How do you know?

You have to factor in the fact that seeing a movie/listening to a song is advertisement for that work and for the creators of that work. I don't know if this is going to be enough to counter the loss from the people who download the work instead of buying it (not all "pirates" are in this category, but I digress), but it does need to be considered.

If you have evidence (a study, statistics) that there is a negative impact, I would be very interested to see it. (Any study done by the MPAA/RIAA/Affiliates doesn't count, they bend and break the facts way to often for me to trust any "research" they do in the matter.)

I understand that it seems like common sense to assume that downloading hurts the movie and music industries, mostly because they make such a stink over it. But assumptions like this only muddy the water.

I am not attacking you in any way, I just really hate it when things I consider to be propaganda are treated like facts without any evidence. =^)

Re:The producers will starve

[Goog500]

I certainly don't have any studies - and I doubt it's very feasible to do a real, independent study on this. I mean how can you accurately measure the viral marketing benefit of watching a downloaded movie? I only say this based on my intuition and personal experiences. And I've come to believe this more strongly lately. Not because my views have changed - but because my personal experiences have. I go to college, and I've definitely noticed an increase in piracy among students. Specifically in new forms of piracy - more people than ever before students watch downloaded tv shows and movies - but importantly, its an increasingly popular trend. But lets assume that you're right - that the marketing benefits of piracy outweigh any lost revenue. If this really is a revenue generating strategy for media companies, it is not the communities' right to implement it (especially given the media companies expressly forbidding it). In a capitalist market, if this were true, someone should use it to create their own company that would topple the media empires :)

Re:The producers will starve

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that you are exaggerating the problem. Not everyone downloads copyrighted material illegally. Believe it or not, there is still a healthy buying population, albeit a stagnating one. If there wasn't there wouldn't be any DVD sales or software purchases to speak of.

Re:The producers will starve

[Kingrames]

That's not true and it's never been true.

If i want to buy and view the movie "300" but a friend comes over with a movie of his and we watch that instead, I am no less inclined to eventually purchase and watch the movie 300. If he made me spend money to watch his movie, then I would be less inclined.

Even if the movie in question WAS 300, I'd still be willing to go and purchase it if I decided it was worth my money, and a lot of movies are.

The argument you're implying is that getting something for free makes you less likely to spend money, and that's not true, it's never been true, and it will never BE true. People with money and nothing better to do will spend their money on stuff they like and want.

You have to keep in mind that the guys you're supporting are the same people who catch someone watching a movie that they didn't pay for and spend hundreds of thousands in attorney fees in order to victimize said person to set an "example" of what happens to you if you ever watch movies for free before paying for them.

All for what? To save a few bucks in the future? To "save" their business from the evil pirates? Hardly. The reason these guys hunt down and victimize kids and college students is because they can write off their legal expenses as a cost of doing business and hopefully slip into a lower tax bracket, cheating the American people out of tax money.

Re:The producers will starve

[lilomar]

I doubt it's very feasible to do a real, independent study on this. I tend to agree with you on this.
But it doesn't stop people from trying.
(The last two are PDFs)

I never said that it outweighed, or even matched the lost revenue, I said it might which means you can't say for sure that piracy has a negative impact.
I tend to believe that piracy doesn't have a negative impact though because of an interesting observation that I read somewhere. (but I can't for the life of me remember where, could have been a /. post)

There are 3 types of pirates:

1. People who would have bought the product, but didn't because they downloaded it.
2. People who wouldn't have bought the product, but downloaded it and liked it enough to buy/recommend it to their friends.
3. People who wouldn't have bought the product, but downloaded it and didn't like it enough to buy/recommend it to their friends.

As long as 2 and 3 are greater than 1, there is a net gain.

As to whether or not this is up to the community to decide, I'm not arguing the moral issues, I'm just arguing the economic ones. In economics, the consumer always decides the profit, even when that makes them criminals.

Re:The producers will starve

[swillden]

The reason these guys hunt down and victimize kids and college students is because they can write off their legal expenses as a cost of doing business and hopefully slip into a lower tax bracket, cheating the American people out of tax money.

That makes no sense. They have to have some reason other than saving a little tax money, because they have to spend more than what they'll save. The tax savings may partially offset the legal expenses, reducing somewhat the risk of litigation, but they don't even eliminate all of the litigation expenses much less produce a net gain.

Re:The producers will starve

[Goog500]

I think the most important thing about what I'm saying here is the trend. I've noticed over the last year, and continue to notice, a dramatic increase in the amount and types of piracy by my peers. I think any college student (at least at my school) would agree with this assessment. It is actually getting easier and more common to pirate copyrighted materials - music, movies, tv, even books. If this trend continues, piracy will move more and more towards having a significant negative financial impact. In fact, one of those articles you linked to, "Music Sales in the Age of File Sharing" by Eric S. Boorstin, seems to corroborate this:

My findings suggest that file sharing is not the cause of the recent decline in record sales, and that file sharing decreases the record purchases of younger people while increasing the purchases of older people. Right now, file sharing may not be bad for sales. People are creatures of habit - the older generation is more used to buying CDs, and they're more opposed to technology in general, so it is natural that file sharing may not affect their consumption patterns. But as the younger generation becomes the older generation, they will bring their habits with them too, and I don't think they are likely to abandon file sharing in favor of buying records. And forget about the generation that are the kids now - they'll probably never even see a CD in a jewel case. Basically, I'm saying that I think piracy is going to become a bigger and bigger issue, until it actually begins to have real, measurable, negative financial impact on content producers. And I really don't think lawsuits or DRM is going to be a solution. I think 10 or 15 years in the future the media industry will be dramatically different - but how, I'm not exactly sure.

Re:The producers will starve

[Anonymous Coward]

The argument you're implying is that getting something for free makes you less likely to spend money, and that's not true, it's never been true, and it will never BE true.

You're kidding, right? I have had friends that, although there are hundreds of movies in their library, have never owned an original copy of a movie in their lives. They've either copied it from cable, got a copy from "the guy in the theater in Reno", duplicated directly from another (rented or loaned) tape and LaserDisc or, now, downloaded from the Internet.

None of these are by any means poor - their video equipment alone is worth thousands of dollars - they just don't see any problem with just making copies of stuff they like.

Re:The producers will starve

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be focusing too much in one demographic - college students. the behavior of college students most certainly does not reflect the behavior of the general public. If it did, we probably wouldn't have a functioning society anymore because everybody would live fast and die young, but I digress. The principal problem when it comes to Internet copyright infringment seems to be that the entertainment industry's moneymaker for the past 50 years is also the most likely to infringe material today.

Take the music industry, for example. Despite their supposed catering to all genres, their biggest cash cow still consists of cruddy pop artists who rarely see more than 3 years in the minds of the public and never develop a truly devoted fanbase. In the past, this didn't matter, because the artists were marketed to teenagers and college students. Their disposable income, tendency to buy things on impulse, and a stereotypical lack of musical taste made this strategy very successful for the recording companies (not so much for the artist though). Back then the only true threat to exploiting these impulse buyers was the secondhand market, which in this case was extinguished by demand disappearing almost the very moment that potential sellers became sick of the album, effectively leaving them stuck with it. The generation gap and changes in trends and whatnot also prevented them from selling the albums to the next generation of impulse buyers, thus eliminating the labels of the need to compete with their previous "work." Then Napster came along, and suddenly "impulse buy" became "impulse download."* The ability to quickly fill up your music collection with awful pop singles that you only will take interest in for a short while had a tremendous effect on the typical spending habits of your average teenager/college student. In the long term it could be seen as a win-win for the student: the "free" nature of the music meant that there was no cost in its acquisition and consequentially no remorse later on when the student got sick of it. Unlike a CD or tape, which had to be purchased and thus gave the impulse buyer the feeling of being cheated of his or her money when found to be unable to either find joy in the purchase or to recoup costs by selling, a "free" download incurred no costs and thus the feeling of being cheated went away: you just deleted the MP3, and life went on. In fact, I'm willing to believe that this same mentality applies today with your stereotypical pop-loving teenager. You say you know a lot of college students. Ask some of them what they have downloaded freshmen year. Now ask graduating seniors what they initially downloaded and how much of that initial collection they still have (whether or not the portion of the collection later becomes a purchase is irreverent in this case). I'm willing to bet that a substantial amount of the freshmen's music will no longer be on the senior's PC. But again, I digress.

This is of course just what can already been seen in the music market. The same thing is starting to happen with BitTorrent and movies/TV. Despite all of the complicated solutions out there to curb the infringement problem, I'm surprised that the one I'm about to recommend doesn't seem to have a lot of steam anywhere I look: change your target demographic to one that is less likely to infringe. Focus on an older, more mature market, and stop throwing money at marketing toward the impulse buyers. Napster or no, it really wasn't a sound investment to begin with. Sooner or later the teenagers would have found out a way to fight back against their exploitation, even if they aren't even aware that they are fighting back. If Napster didn't come along, you can be sure that something else would have. The tape deck showed the beginnings of what happens when you focus your profits on such simple-minded creatures, and should have been a warning sign to recording companies to shift their target demographic to a fanbase that would potentially be more loyal, even if o

Re:The producers will starve

[Kingrames]

And I doubt they'd have ever even gotten into movies if they didn't think they could get them for free.

Regardless, you can't prove otherwise.

Re:The producers will starve

[Kingrames]

They also get a lot of perks from Congress by pointing their fingers and saying "see? our profits are down, so you're losing money too."

Re:The producers will starve

[Chris Pimlott]

If i want to buy and view the movie "300" but a friend comes over with a movie of his and we watch that instead, I am no less inclined to eventually purchase and watch the movie 300.

Unless, of course, in watching it with your friend, you realize you don't like it.

For high quality content, a "free preview" won't hurt the sales. For low quality content, it will.

Re:The producers will starve

[Kingrames]

Thus the low quality content is no longer profitable.

Documshmontary

[jlebrech]

That torrent file thing is 4kb how the hell is that a documentary, it doenst even play. /sarcasm

whoa there..

[newr00tic]

the word infamous means famous in a disgraceful way. it's a bad thing. you're not using it right.

That depends on whether you consider fame to be a good thing or not.

(Infamity ftw)

Betallica's...

[morari]

Grey Album was better!

no love for da usenet?

[Floritard]

Here is a link to the torrent. Fuck that. Where my NZB file yo?

Re:no love for da usenet?

[the_greywolf]

Rule number 1: we do not talk about the USENET.

Rule number 2: we do not talk about the USENET.

Re:no love for da usenet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that. Where my NZB file yo?

Kevin Federline has it yo!

Could we be anymore white?

Re:no love for da usenet?

[Universal Indicator]

Let it go, will ya? The "do not talk about usenet" trolls are about as bad as the "macs are gay" trolls. And here I am trolling about trolls.

TPB doesn't host the movie

[Anonymous Coward]

hosted by the Pirate Bay, as one would expect

Technically TPB doesn't host movies, which is why they are still around.

Re:TPB doesn't host the movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, the implied statement was "TPB is hosting the torrent." Technically, that makes you an overzealous techno-nazi.

Re:TPB doesn't host the movie

[Husgaard]

Technically TPB doesn't host movies, which is why they are still around.

Correct. This is hosted by people like me, who want to spread the good message in this documentary.

I have been seeding this torrent since a few days after it appeared on TPB, and it is quite interesting to see the /. effect on a torrent. This torrent was quite popular just after it appeared on TPB, but - as seen for most torrents - the interest faded after a few weeks.

But now, because of the /. effect, the torrent is more popular than ever. I don't remember ever having seen the maximum number of peers I allow for one torrent downloading from me (for this torrent), but I see that right now. And they all try hard to download as much as possible from me (which is not much since I have limited upstream bandwidth, and a lot of other good torrents to seed). But the more who try to download, the better performance bittorrent gives you, so the /. effect actually means faster downloads for a torrent.

Please feel free to get this. It is really interesting to see this documentary, and it has been a good eye-opener to many people who otherwise thought that harsher copyright protection is always better for our culture. And remember: This is put on TPB with the blessing of those who produced the documentary.

shhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't tell'm about 25522, that's my port.

mod parent up!

[Daychilde]

But more importantly, someone PLEASE needs to gather up the Recording Ass. of America and Motion Picture Ass. of America folks, and drill this into their skulls.

I don't think anyone has a good answer on the exact impact, but it's definitely not the ultimate-extreme-badness the aforementions Ass.'s claim; and it's clearly not 100% badness-free, as a lot of the geeks (m'self included) try and claim...

It's got some positive and negative side effects...

But the market is changing, whether anyone likes it or not. Legislating it to keep it the way it is is as stupid as trying to protect coal sellers during the transition to electricity a century ago... Times are changing, and you can't stop it. We've got to come up with different ways of rewarding content creators and epople who do, in fact, help distribute that content to the people who will enjoy it.

But as with so many other problems - healthcare, poverty (and the shrinking middle class), racism - there are so many problems, and this is one of the less important ones in the larger scheme of things... why can't we work on solutions? But we throw people in jail for pirating a song. Can't keep a good enough job? If you're unlucky, you might have a downward spiral and lose your home, on the street, into jail for vagrancy... Children growing up in poverty....... I know, this is all disjointed, but I'm compressing a multi-page rant into a paragraph or two... :P

Just seems like our current systems (i.e. governments, companies, society in general) aren't solving the problems that need solving. Take, for example, the original *goals* of Communism or Socialism - great stuff! But in practice, it didn't work out. So-called "Democracy" isn't doing all that hot either...

Since some users don't have bittorrent

[delirium of disorder]

Here is the google video link.

Short Review of the Film

[Shimmer]

I went and download the film using Bit Torrent. I felt very cutting edge doing this! I could feel my hipness level rising.

I watched the first third of the film, then skipped around in the rest of the film. The first section of the film discussed an important copyright infringement case surrounding the use of samples. However, in spite of the clever editing employed, the movie didn't illuminate the issue very well. I was left wanting to understand more about the sample itself (which I couldn't hear well at all), and whether it fell under fair use.

The second section of the file discussed another important musical work based on sampling: DJ DangerMouse's Grey Album, which combines vocals from Jay-Z over samples from the Beatles' White Album. The interview with DangerMouse intrigued me, but the movie again left me wanting to understand in more depth. I decided to cut to the chase and listen to the Grey Album itself.

Back to BitTorrent I went, and downloaded the Grey Album from the Pirate Bay. I felt even cooler this time around! While the album downloaded, I watched a bit more of the movie, in which the Pirate Bay guys talked about their site. To be honest, I found their position to be nearly incomprehensible, but I couldn't tell if this was because of the movie being vague or the Pirate Bay guys themselves being hard to understand (language issues, maybe?). But when they invoked Freedom of the Press in defense of the Pirate Bay, I decided I had seen enough.

By then, the album was nearly downloaded. When it finished, I cued it up in Winamp (how cool am I now!!!), and started it playing. The Beatles samples were very nicely done (I'm a big Beatles fan), but every time Jay-Z opened his mouth, I cringed. Hearing him sing/talk about N*ggers over the intro to While My Guitar Gently Weeps was nearly more than I could bear.

I thought to myself: What does Paul McCartney think of this? He probably doesn't like it much (and who could really blame him). What does Jay-Z think of this? He probably loves it! Is that enough to give DangerMouse the right to distribute Jay-Z's vocals with the Beatles as backup musicians? Interesting idea, but not persuasively executed. It's just not compelling enough to overthrow the existing paradigm.

And that's pretty much how I felt about the movie as well.

Re:Short Review of the Film

[iuewen]

I didn't see much bias slipping through the cracks in this documentary, perhaps you applied your own to what you were seeing? I just went back and watched the portion with the guys from The Pirate Bay again, and it seems to be only their opinions that are coming out. If you disagree with those opinions, then you are certainly entitled to that. The documentary was trying to explore the different stances and points of view pertaining to various recording medias and for that you need to see both sides.

Notice how they had both the MPAA director and the Pirate Bay admins?

In essence, it doesn't matter what Paul McCartney feels. His original work still exists, and is unchanged. If anyone wants to go back and listen to that, they can get it almost anywhere. The creation that DJ Danger Mouse came up with used a remixed version to tell a different story. You can be as offended as you want, I don't care for the music he created either, but that doesn't mean he had no right to use his own impression to create art.

If he had created this media, and distributed it with no license, then I'd say he deserves whatever came to him from it. But, nobody profited from his distribution, and nobody lost anything either. Something new and innovative was created, however, which is the whole point of this issue.

Also, if licenses for samples were 99.9% cheaper, then people might actually purchase them and use the tools at hand, much like the guy from Creative Commons suggested. Our system is flawed, and we don't control the world - we are going to fall by the wayside quickly if we don't adapt.

Re:Short Review of the Film

[Shimmer]

I didn't say the movie was biased, I said that it was unpersuasive. It did little to illuminate the issues it raised.

Re:Short Review of the Film

[good copy]

Brian, please tell us know how we could have illuminated "the issues" better? I am puzzled you spent time downloading it if you had made up your mind in advance. What is with you Slashdotters? Last time I checked in here the karma sure was better. Henrik

Re:Short Review of the Film

[Shimmer]

What makes you think I made up my mind in advance? The reason I watched the film is because I've heard good arguments on both sides of the copyright debate and was hoping to learn something new that would help me decide one way or the other. I was unsatisfied in this regard. Not trying to be harsh, but the movie just seemed shallow to me.

Sorry to disappoint you regarding your impression of "Slashdotters". At my age (40), I may be a bit older than the audience you are trying to reach.

Re:Short Review of the Film

[good copy]

I am not sure we are trying to reach a specific target audience, but yes, I do think there is a generational gap. The first crowd we screened it to (a couple of months prior to the release) was a bunch of immaterial rights researchers and scholars in Scandinavia. Maybe they were just being friendly with me, but they did say that watching Girl Talk work, peeking into the Tecno Brega scene plus the some of the sampling arguments were useful - and new - to them. One did say - but he was past 65 - that he found it plain boring. - No, its not your ordinary talking heads, preaching to the converted, documentary. Nope, we didn't provide you with an easy way out ("Piracy good" or "Piracy bad"). Guess you'll just have to wait for mr. Moore to make a film on the subject. Or someone else to tell you what to think. At least you didn't waste your hard earned bucks ;)

Get off. Your Ass. And jam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Get off. Your Ass. And jam.

Nigga != nigger

[tepples]

but every time Jay-Z opened his mouth, I cringed. Hearing him sing/talk about N*ggers over the intro to While My Guitar Gently Weeps was nearly more than I could bear. They're not "niggers" but "niggas". There's a difference [and a dozen cited sources].

Re:Nigga != nigger

[Shimmer]

Riiiight, that makes all the difference.

Here's a quote from the very article you link to:

There is conflicting popular opinion on whether there is any meaningful difference between nigga and nigger as a spoken term. Many people consider the terms to be equally pejorative.

"The death knell for hip hip..."

[Joce640k]

I've seen the film, it talks about "The death knell for hip hip".

If so, I'm all for it...

Re:Doesn't work

[MadMacSkillz]

It's working for me now. It wasn't when I posted the message hours earlier, using BitTorrent for OS X. I guess I should have posted the exact error message BitTorrent gave me. Still, I'd love to thank the losers who modded my post as a troll. Fortunately, I don't give a rat's ass about my "karma" because I'm an adult with a real life outside of slashdot.

License?

[trawg]

I went to mirror this and can't see anything on the website that indicates it has been released under a Creative Commons (or similar) license. The only thing on their site I can find is that they have "sold the film to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation", so I assume now that company owns the rights to the video.

I assume that it is freely redistributable, given that it is a torrent, but it'd be nice if the authors could make this clear on the website. (It could be embedded in the video at the end or something but I don't have time to check.)

Re:License?

[good copy]

It's Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0". At the time the torrent was posted (the morning after Danish TV aired it) we weren't sure we could do this. It'll be in the next release. Danish TV only bought the right to air it.

WTF XVID

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people keep using a fucking lame two-decades-old container format... Divx and Xvid should never have existed in the first place, especially with VBR MP3 being incompatible with the .avi specs! You don't see people putting MPEG Layer-3 audio inside .wav files, do you? So WTF is that Divx/Xvid bullshit?

Long live standard .mp4 files!

Re:WTF XVID

[good copy]

Ahh nice to see all the positive feedback here :) We *might* post a slightly updated mp4 sometime soon, but some people are bound to find something else to moan over ...

Re:WTF XVID

[Yvan256]

Don't worry, as soon as you put the .mp4 online I'm sure someone else will complain it's not in .ogg Theora+Vorbis. ;-)