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New Litigation Targets 20,000 BitTorrent-Using Downloaders
Hugh Pickens writes "The Hollywood Reporter reports that more than 20,000 individual movie torrent downloaders have been sued in the past few weeks in Washington, DC, federal court for copyright infringement, and another lawsuit targeting 30,000 more torrent downloaders on five more films is forthcoming in what could be a test run that opens up the floodgates to massive litigation against the millions of individuals who use BitTorrent to download movies. The US Copyright Group, a company owned by intellectual property lawyers, is using a new proprietary technology by German-based Guardaley IT that allows for real-time monitoring of movie downloads on torrents. According to Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer at the firm, the program captures IP addresses based on the time stamp that a download has occurred and then checks against a spreadsheet to make sure the downloading content is the copyright protected film and not a misnamed film or trailer. 'We're creating a revenue stream and monetizing the equivalent of an alternative distribution channel,' says Jeffrey Weaver, another lawyer at the firm."
"The difference between the MPAA's past approach and the new one being offered by the US Copyright Group is that the MPAA took a less targeted approach going after a smaller sampling of infringers in a single suit for multiple films, to send a message. In contrast, the US Copyright Group is using the new monitoring technology to go after tens of thousands of infringers at a time on a contingency basis in hopes of coming up with the right cost-benefit incentive to pursue individual pirates."
These types of lawyers give other types of lawyers an even worse name.
And before you sue me for that statement I'm sure that there is some sort of 'fair use' or 'truth' defense, so phfffft!
Also, please read the article for once:
the US Copyright Group, on behalf of an ad hoc coalition of independent film producers and with the encouragement of the Independent Film & Television Alliance. So far, five lawsuits have been filed against tens of thousands of alleged infringers of the films "Steam Experiment," "Far Cry," "Uncross the Stars," "Gray Man" and "Call of the Wild 3D." Here's an example of one of the lawsuits -- over Uwe Boll's "Far Cry."
This is INDIE film makers suing. Not MPAA, not Hollywood. Indies.
"...and monetizing the equivalent of an alternative distribution channel."
The equivalent of a distribution channel where tens of thousands get movies for free, but then a randomly selected group has to pay a hundred times the cost of the movie in litigation fees.
At least they're innovating...
I'm still unclear on the business benefit to the MPAA companies that comes from suing their customer base. This isn't going to win them any friends and is even less likely to increase their profits. It was stupid when they were suing dozens of people - but stepping this lunacy up to 50,000 lawsuits looks more like a death wish than "monetizing the alternate channel".
If the only way to keep a business model working is to "open up the floodgates to massive litigation" then we should take a close look at why our society keeps those businesses afloat.
Personally, I think the basic reason we built the amazing companies in the "entertainment industry" is that distribution used to be difficult, and it required a lot of capital to set up channels to get media to consumers. This is no longer true; & the other reason - funding the creation of great media - obviously does not create enough value to justify the business that many of these companies continue to sue to protect.
It must be insult to injury to get sued over an Uwe Boll film. Not only did they watch it, but they got sued for doing so. Nobody needs that!
Shooting yourself in the foot, 20000 law suits at a time. Apparently the independents are not more down to earth than the MPAA, just less successful. Way to ruin a reputation.
What "good alternative" can I use to watch high-def movies stored on my home server via my networked media tank or laptop etc?
As long as the pirates provide a better product than the studios, the customers will turn to the pirates.
Bullshit.
Piracy costs nothing, the kids that do this were not going to buy those movies or games either way.
As for good equivalents please tell me where I can buy DRM free videos. Even DVDs are not DRM free.
I am not a pirate, I only break the law by using libdvdcss to watch my legally rented netflix dvds.
It must be insult to injury to get sued over an Uwe Boll film. Not only did they watch it, but they got sued for doing so. Nobody needs that!
It's like getting kicked in the balls after consuming a large meal consisting entirely of broken glass bottles.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Can we bill them for the court's time? If they are going to use the court system to "create an alternative revenue stream", they can damn sure pay for the costs of handling all that paperwork. If an average citizen decided to do this (by using the court system to send out tens of thousands of nastygrams and collecting on the handful that pay) they'd be facing serious-ass jail time.
A while back, a colleague and I had a discussion about unauthorized downloading, and I quipped something to the effect that I would avoid infringement penalties by buying the content and then ripping it. He, OTOH, asked why. Why would I pay for something I could legally record from broadcast for free.
There's an interesting double standard here:
In both cases you've acquired the same content, in the same form, for the same price. But now we're supposed to believe that because it happens via the internet, a crime has been committed? That their business is now suddenly failing because people are doing the same thing they've done for years with tape players and vcrs?
The VCR didn't kill tv and movies. Nor did the tape player kill rock and roll. If you can't make a living as an artist in the era of mp3's and youtube, well, you couldn't have made a living back then, either. Stop blaming the Internet for your own failure.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I think this is what most don't understand. I am the type of pirate that does it for convenience. There is no other method of accessing movies that is as convenient as piracy, and I don't see anything coming in the near future that can come even close to allowing me to easily watch movies in multiple places in my home or on the road. With a downloaded .mkv, I can watch any movie I have on any TV in my home or on any computer in the world at the press of a button. I would love to see a viable legal alternative to my current setup, but it will never exist due to the luddites in charge of the movie companies.
"Widespread piracy is causing problems."
Prove it. You may find this difficult to do, since movie studios routinely lie about operating at a loss:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
Palm trees and 8
Want to put a stop to this - don't sue, just publish the names of people who spent time downloading and presumably *shudder* watching films by Uwe Boll.
[Insert pithy quote here]
All the MPAA has to do is get me a girlfriend and I'll gladly spend 10 to go out and see a movie. Until then its torrents from my parents basement using my neighbors wifi connection.
Each of those soon to be 50,000 people is entitled to a jury trial. That's a LOT of resources tied up on this and for a long time. The logistics could get ugly. And this is supposedly just the test run that could open the floodgate?
The courts will have a choice. Either shred any semblance of justice, reject this litigative spam, or devote itself exclusively to these suits and hope they get to the last of them before the revolution comes.
This isn't a network sniffing thing. They connect to the swarm just like any other user. Encryption is there to prevent man in the middle sniffing in an attempt to evade ISP throttling. Encryption won't help you here.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
"You think 40-50 year olds with a job wouldn't had bought them otherwise?"
Yes, if the movie is too cheap for them to have seen in the theaters. Let's see some proof that they would have purchased the movie -- that is the claim these companies are making, right? Prove that these companies are suffering. I have trouble believing that they could operate at a loss year after year and not go out of business.
Palm trees and 8
We aren't creating problems, we're creating solutions! By pirating, we are creating jobs for thousands of lawyers, paralegals and entrepreneurs who are seeking to end the very thing keeping them employed!
We are saving the economy and the american way. Join us.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
These discussions always devolve into pro- and anti-piracy rhetoric, but I have a question.
I actually agree in principle that piracy is wrong. But where I have a problem is with their method of determining guilt. I wish Ray Beckerman or one of the other attorneys here would explain to me how they can *prove* that I, and I alone, am the one responsible for an illegal download with an IP address???
Unless I'm the only one in the house and unless I have a static IP address, how can they *prove* that it's me? And even in that case, what if someone sneaks into my home during the day (maybe I gave the neighbor a key to watch my cats while I was on vacation one time). That's what worries me.
It would be the height of irony for ME to one day get thumped for this, when I AM opposed to piracy. But I could see it happening -- suppose I open a wireless access point at my house, taking reasonable care to secure it, but someone manages to hack in and download copyrighted material without my consent? Why am I liable for that? I'm a VICTIM, not a criminal!!!!
When someone is pulled for speeding, it's the *driver* who is ticketed, not the owner of the car. In fact, speeding tickets are routinely thrown out of court simply because the arresting officer couldn't prove that he/she had the vehicle under constant observation after clocking them at an illegal speed. There's always a chance that the car changed drivers while it was unobservable.
Why doesn't the same principle apply here?
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
You must not have watched it, then.
Does someone have a list a of filmmakers that use the "U.S. Copyright Group"? I'd love to send out a few handwritten letters explaining why I'll never spend a dime on one of their products again.
if the legal copyright holders seed to you, they KNOW what was inside the encrypted stream.
If the legal copyright holder is offering a free download (seeding) then should they sue you for accepting their offer?
Couldn't this proprietary software package being used to track downloads be construed as a wire tap ergo inadmissible in a court of law?
Or is this AC being a silly little AC again?
With love
The Anonymous Coward
Bullshit.
Piracy costs nothing, the kids that do this were not going to buy those movies or games either way.
But wait! If the kid found out the movie is crappy, it might prevent their moms, friends or relatives going to the cinema/buying DVD!
You pretty much can't in a digital format. maybe get movies on VHS and convert them to DVDs? Personally I do the following:
IMO, this is no different than if I use a DVR with a big hard drive to record every movie I like from HBO, Cinemax, etc. I can watch a DVR'd movie as many times as I like, and I can keep it until the HD crashes in the DVR. This speaks volumes to the ignorance of lawmakers on technical issues: recording digital content that comes down the wire = OK, but recording that same content off a plastic disc = BAD. WTF? So, if I bought the CD or DVD and it's sitting in in my closet while a digital copy resides on my network, according to the RIAA/MPAA that is not fair use. Really? Dan Glickman and Cary Sherman can kiss my pucker - Until and unless I upload the ripped copy to the internets I've done nothing wrong.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Hold on.
Let me get this straight ... they've found 20,000 people downloading Uwe Boll's film?
If I were a defense lawyer, all I would do is play the thing for the judge - nay, I would insist that he sees it from beginning to end - and then I would watch the lawsuit getting dismissed with prejudice .... and all the poor sods sued ordered compensation for the mental anguish caused by mere insinuation of having downloaded the thing, all the involved lawyers getting disbarred, charged with cruelty to judges and odious crimes against humanity, declared terrorists etc and so on...
Is it me, or is everything getting shittier everyday. It feels like more and more, articles, columns, and information leaks point to the ever diminishing rights of citizens of the world. The United States is broke, and its overlords are continuing to spend more money. The rest of the world is either pussyfooting under political correctness, stripping their citizens of any rights they once had, while other countries continue to grow their nuclear arsenals and further fuel the idiotic self-destructive nature that humankind cannot seem to shake.
I am ranting, I know, but for mother fuck-fuckity-fucks sake how much longer are the rational, intelligent, and reasonable going to continue to stand for this? Are the aforementioned independent free-thinkers to disjointed, apathetic, and outnumbered to ever turn the tide? I feel this civilization is edging towards a serious crises, one much worse than we have ever seen. Be that crises a nuclear holocaust, or the silent denigration of of the common sense rights that a democratic mentality provides, the crises is coming, and we don't seem to be heading anywhere near the appropriate direction to turn the tides of destruction.
Perhaps my tinfoil hat is too tight, maybe I need to get some sunlight. I don't know. But it is hard as a relatively young individual to imagine a positive environment for future children. Each day that passes, more rights are stripped, more debt is incurred, more inflation rapes the dollar, more political seats are bargained, more people hate democracy, more people get lazy, more people become passive obedient workers, taking the big red, white, and blue dick right up the ass, while the bourgeoisie reap the benefits of a society that becomes more mentally jellified by mass-media induced mind-fucking every day.
Sorry about that. Your regularly scheduled broadcasting will now continue.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Is it possible for a Bittorrent tracker to make IPs appear in the swarm that aren't actually representing any actual clients?
Yes.
It's also not guaranteed that a peer in the swam is downloading or uploading. The only way to be 99% sure is to send/receive to/from a given peer. But, if you don't send/receive 100% of the content to/from that single peer, it would be hard to claim copyright infringement, as you couldn't prove a full copy had been shared by that IP address.
I don't know about you, but even with my very fast connection, it would take me a long time to download 50,000 copies of a movie. And, it'd be insanely difficult to make sure that I downloaded it from exactly 50,000 unique peers.
You know, I'm getting sick of all the whiners too.
Someone makes a movie and *gasp* wants to make money from it. You have several choices:
Pay full price and watch it in the theatre soon after release
Wait for it to come to the cheaper screens
Wait a bit longer for it to come to DVD/Blu-ray
Wait still longer for it to come to TV
If you're not happy with any of the options, then do without. Find something else. There's more to life than movies and music, and you don't have an inherent right to just take stuff any more than I have an inherent right to "borrow" anything from you without asking first. If you stopped pirating crap tomorrow your world isn't going to end - you'll just have to find something constructive to fill your time with - like interacting with people.
Or wait until the copyright expires.
Not possible, copyrights will get longer again next time mickey mouse comes up.
I pay for my media, but the reality is copyright no longer serves society as it was supposed too.
I really wish people would stop treating IP like actual property. It's not. Actual property has the problem of scarcity. You can't take IP. You can make copies of it, for sure. You can use it without an appropriate license. But the correlation drawn between stealing and copyright infringement is simply invalid.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
I would love to see a viable legal alternative to my current setup
It's more than that, though, because your current setup in many cases should be legal.
How many dollars have been stolen from consumers by way of the politicians that have been bought to extend copyright on works that should have entered the public domain decades ago (copyright is supposed to be for the public benefit, which is why their government enacted it), and how does this compare to the money the industry claims is being stolen now? I think they may owe us a perpetually growing chunk of change, in fact.
And as a preemptive strike against the pedantic counterpoint, let's assume for these purposes that yes, selling somebody the Brooklyn Bridge is stealing from them.
This is why I gave up downloading movies, I now resort to buying all of my movies on blu-ray.
Sure, most of them fell off the back of a truck, but the fines are much less harsh than getting sued by the movie industry...
They don't need to prove, beyond any doubt, that you were the person who downloaded it. That's not the burden of proof in a civil case. Hell, that's not even the burden of proof in a criminal case.
They only need to prove that you were the one who likely downloaded it. Civil cases in the US are based on a "preponderance of evidence". That simply means that they need to be more than 50% right.
Their reasoning is "We have these records that this IP address downloaded this movie at this time. We have a statement from the internet provider who owns that IP that this account was the one who used it at the time of the download. That account belongs to Mr. Smith."
If they go to court with that level of evidence, and you simply show up and say "Prove it" or "It might have been someone who stole my wifi signal" then you are going to lose. You also need to submit evidence that makes their evidence tell a different story, and show that it is likely to have happened.
Now, if you showed up with logs from your router that showed that this MAC address downloaded the movie, records from the MAC address database that shows that the MAC was assigned to a particular manufacturer, plus an expert technical witness to explain what all that is, and a signed affidavit that says that you don't own, have never owned, and was not using a device by that manufacturer at that time, then you have just likely made a sufficient defense.
Note: IANAL.
Actually, if you live in the U.S., you've committed a felony. I'm not saying that's right, but that's what the law says.
My father buys quite a lot of dvds. A whole lot more than he should in my mom's eyes ;)
That said.... He absolutely HATES the forced anti-piracy clip at the front of every blasting dvd in sale now... He hates it enough that he has now started ripping his movies to ISO files and watch them using his win7 laptop connected to the TV. He usually watches the movies while on a fatburner-bike and the last thing he wants to do when he goes for a 30 min 'trip' is to spend the first few minutes watching a damn anti-piracy clip.
Also.... He bought a blu-ray movie as his new spiffy laptop had a bluray drive. What happened? His sony hdcp-capable tv went blank when he tried watching it. It came with blu-ray capable software and was advertised as working "out of the box". He was quite annoyed that it didnt work. He spent a little time trying to get it to work, as he is quite computer literate but gave up with the feeling that it was just not worth it.
So he has written off the whole bluray format as "not worth it"... This is the kind of person who fits right in the 40-50 year old demographic who spend a lot of money on movies....
When he asks for movies for christmas or birthdays he asks to get them in pre-ripped ISO so he doesnt have to deal with the crap. That alone is more than enough of an indication of the failings of the movie industry than anything else. When you piss of the regular uses enough that they seek out ways to avoid it.... you have -failed-.
Give me a legal way to get the files in a decent format that I can play on any device (win7, winxp, linux, portable) which is priced at a point where a DVD doesnt look cheap in comparison then MAYBE they can salvage the failing industry.
I'm going to "me too" this. I would love there to be a legal alternative to buy non-drm files instead of purchasing the bloody physical media. I'd pay a decent amount to download a high quality torrent. The value to me is having a trusted source with a beautiful 10GB encode from the original. I'd easily pay $5 per movie, perhaps $10 for that. As far as I'm concerened the MPAA should set this up and watch their distribution cost plummet. Heck they could stick to torrents and have the customers help distribute. For TV the same thing goes. I'd download ones with commercials even if they posted them at the same time as they go to air. I'd probably even pay a modest subscription. Basically until they offer something like this they have no business going after "pirates" since their other option are so crappy. Once they do, all the power to them.
So then you are an idiot. Identity Theft is just a way for a bank who was scammed to make it your problem.
The fact that people are ok with this I cannot understand.
Can you post a link to the torrent please?
I think this is what most don't understand. I am the type of pirate that does it for convenience. There is no other method of accessing movies that is as convenient as piracy, and I don't see anything coming in the near future that can come even close to allowing me to easily watch movies in multiple places in my home or on the road. With a downloaded .mkv, I can watch any movie I have on any TV in my home or on any computer in the world at the press of a button. I would love to see a viable legal alternative to my current setup, but it will never exist due to the luddites in charge of the movie companies.
I really, really, really hate the itunes interface in general but the online version of the store for the ipod touch is actually a good thing. The only two shows I watch on the pod are olbermann and maddow and the feeds are almost automatic. They only post the last aired episode but with a click I can download them to the pod. No fees, possibly one commercial, very sweet. I assume the for-pay stuff like Daily Show and Colbert would be just as slick but they're usually charging too much for this. Movie rentals are $4 and many movies are listed for "purchase" at DVD prices. I'm sorry, if you're not giving me physical media then why should I pay physical media prices? If DVD kiosks in the supermarket rent movies for $1, why should the electronic version that's even cheaper cost as much as renting from blockbuster?
The tech is already here to make buying more convenient than piracy. The issue is that they're charging too much and doing too many dickish things.
I actually like the idea of being able to vote with my dollars. Direct measurement of consumption is far more accurate than Neilsen's. Treat a season like shareware, Doom I'm thinking. The first third is free. You pay for access to the second third. If it's a good show, you'll want to pay. But make the price reasonable. I see DVD's of full seasons going for $20 some places. Keep the price down low enough so that it's an impulse purchase and we'll do it. Just look at the app store. Dollar apps? shit, that's cheaper than an appetizer. Yeah, I'll try it. If it sucks, no big deal. Price it at $10, now I'm skeptical and likely won't give it a spin.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
That is why I go into stores and steal the actual DVD's. Much less punishment if I get caught and it is actual theft.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's perfectly possible to both think that copyright, as it stands, is out of whack and not pirate...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, and your hand passes right through it, it's probably an imaginary duck.
Protip: Real ducks don't talk