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For-Profit, Illegal Movie Download Sites Threaten MPAA
vossman77 writes that BitTorrent is no longer the MPAA's enemy number one. They are now more concerned about illicit, for-profit movie download sites. This reader adds, "Just a thought, but maybe if the studios offered a low-cost, for-profit, legitimate download site without DRM, they could receive the profits at the expense of the cyberlockers." "Movie fans downloading free pirated films are no longer Hollywood's worst nightmare, but that's only because of a newer menace: cheap, and equally illegal, subscription services. Foreign, often mob-run, businesses aggregate illegally obtained movies into 'cyberlockers.' Cyberlocker-based businesses operate from Russia, Ukraine, Colombia, Germany, Switzerland, and elsewhere. ... Hollywood movies are made available via illegal for-profit sites within days of theatrical release, while the advent of global releasing now allows the proliferation of individual titles into an array of language dubs within the first month of a theatrical debut. ... When movies are released on DVD and Blu-ray disc, the sites upgrade the quality of video offered from camcorded images to pristine digital copies. 'Sometimes these sites look better than the legitimate sites,' Huntsberry said. 'That's the irony.'"
argentina ones are not Illegal as argentina has a free pass to US IP.
Hey, don't call the MPAA an iron.
I wonder, are sites like MegaVideo part of that list? I have a friend who told me about that they canceled their tv subscription and bought a MegaVideo subscription instead since they can watch even more and when they want. Wonder which sites are most likely to be a part of this list?
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Torrents higher quality and are better than legal downloads and are more useful since they don't have DRM.
Weed is better than alcohol because it doesn't leave you hung over.
Amphetamine is better than caffine because it takes much less to keep you awake and focus. And it's better to take speed as needed than every single day as it is usually prescribed.
The bottom line: the best things in life are illegal.
as simple as that. i would like to see mpaa, riaa take on russia.
Read radical news here
While both illegal, I think most people would agree that selling copyrighted stuff you don't have the rights to is worse. In that case it actually is a little closer to stealing because they are taking money from people who pay for the movie that might otherwise have payed for a legitimate copy.
It used to be the **AA vs Jammie, now it looks like the **AA vs the Mafia. Fighting somebody their own size, playing by their same rules, is probably something they won't enjoy.
isn't the point of piracy to NOT pay for it?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Or writers, editors, lighting guys, best boys (whatever they are), directors, stuntmen, casting directors, etc.
The allegation that these sites are "often mob-run" is just pretense for a soon-to-come crackdown on the internet.
this sounds interesting.
tell me more.
illegal sites "for profit" sites will always have an advantage of lower price compared to whatever MPAA is ready to give up in markup in their hypothetical "legal" sites.
That and zillion of "free with ads that are not in the video itself" sites.
That does not mean though that MPAA should not do those sites, because those "legit" sites have an advantage of their users not having their asses randomly fried.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Megavideo watch out, your days are numbered. I wounder what happens when the MPAA gains access to all megavideos access logs?
This is what Hollywood should really be worried about. People downloading movies and music likely would never have bought those media if they hadn't had access to free versions of them. But these mob-run pay-sites are funneling money from customers to their illegal operations. Unfortunately the RIAA and MPAA seem to be more interested in punishing normal people than actual criminals.
rofl, yeah right. That wont save you if you get caught even if it is coming from Argentina cause the IP doesn't belong to the US but to the individual groups.
"Just a thought, but maybe if the studios offered a low-cost, for-profit, legitimate download site without DRM, they could receive the profits at the expense of the cyberlockers."
just a thought, but maybe some consumers will always pick the lowest-cost, for-least-profit distribution channel, which will almost certainly never be the original studios as their business model concerns first recovering a large investment.
i'm finding it hard to believe that people actually pay to pirate movies on the internet... wouldn't it be just as hard to find the movies freely downloadable?
In college, a friend of mine had found AllOfMP3.com and diligently purchased hundreds of dollars worth of songs. When albums are ~ ten cents and legit, why not? He had assumed that because technology was so wonderful, someone had finally figured out how to eliminate all the middle men in the process of making digital music. So I investigated and showed him where the servers he downloaded from were located (Russia and Germany) and then pointed out how their local laws allow them to do this without rewarding the artists in anyway. He stopped using it but, like the article said, claimed it was worth the extra money to get the real thing with correct track labels and a perceived level of legitimacy. Like, he saw himself as not at fault legally ... the seller is the one who should get punished.
Sure opened my eyes to the problem of global and local laws surrounding copyright that over reaching blankets like ACTA have tried to address. Basically people see file sharers being sued but they don't see these users being sued. So you get on newsbin or something where a service takes a small fee from you and basically makes itself the target for the lawsuit. You aren't buying a license for the media, you're buying insurance in case the RIAA/MPAA come down on the service you're using. If they do, you lose only the fractions of the cost you put in and the site owner takes the fall. That's raw capitalism for you!
My work here is dung.
In Soviet Russia, the government takes on the RIAA and MPAA!
Which is more or less what the article is saying, for a sufficiently cynical view of corruption and the current political situation over there...
IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
someone, strum a guitar...
'That's the irony.'
"it's just a little toooooaoaoooohhhh ironic,
It's like the MPAaaaaayaaaaaaaah,
can only make sites that look fake
and then the freeieeeeee sites,
that you wish you could pay,
Oops, the RIAA probably has a thing or two to say about my unauthorized humming of the original song while thinking of that parody. crap!
lol haha
Copies of which would end up on every file sharing site within minutes thus destroying the market for said DRM-less downloads.
Seeing as most people using the internet do not respect copyright, why would the MPAA think anything other than that would happen?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
If you are a subscriber to:
Sorny.com
UniblersalStudios.com
Fox.com
You are probably getting ripped off by the mob.
Now THAT is a movie I'd pay money to see.
-S
They might for DVD quality, but then there's no incentive to get the movie early, since the DVD-quality copy isn't going to be available until months later.
Now, if the movie is DVD quality and "released within days" of theatrical release, then Hollywood has their own problem they need to sort out. It's not the "pirates" getting the new movie out there.
Someone on the inside is letting the DVD-quality copy out early. But then, we already knew that, didn't we?
People who are willing to pay money for an illegal download would obviously pay at least something for a legal download. Some people probably believe these are genuine sites.
Now, I'm pretty neutral about people downloading movies for free. I don't think it does a lot of harm although the sense of entitlement a lot of downloaders have irritates me. These guys on the other hand, are directly profiting from someone else's work. Sure, the MPAA could compete pretty well if they dind't have to make the damn films in the first place.
This is exactly the sort of thing copyright law was intended to prevent. It's a system that has worked reasonably well for quite some time. I'm surprised there's so much sympathy for criminals.
Every month I see some twit post an ad in the computers-and-tech section of my local Craigslist branch, advertising a disk drive or Flash media pre-loaded with hundreds or thousands of movies or MP3s, and in every instance the asking price is far more than the value of the media itself. Those people, too, are profiting from it; whether they are vacationing members of one of these shady foreign cartels I can't say.
Yeah... that would be Antigua, not Argentina.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I do remember something about the US screwing over some small country recently so WIPO issued sanctions saying that they wouldn't be expected to enforce US copyright law in that country for a period of time. Essentially they have the approval of the international community to pirate whatever they want from the US and they don't have to pay licensing. It wasn't Argentina though.
when the criminals can give you better customer service then the legit manufacturer/vendor. If the MPAA/RIAA always bitch about how every download is a lost sale image how much they would be racking in if a new movie was available for $2-5 for digital download. You would be stupid to download it illegally when you can get a brand new release for the price of a coffee. Oh lost the file in a crash oh well its only $2 to download it again. At that point I wouldn't even bother hitting the the pawn shops few days after new releases to get them for $3 when I can save time by buying it at home and let it download. Now give the user tons of payment options even pre paid cards for people who can't set up paypal or credit cards and you're brought your business int the 21st century. Its amazing what you can achieve when you work for the customer.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Back when I used to play games online, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was "If someone plays a dirty trick on you, don't get mad, remember it and use it on someone else the next time!". Like TFA says: If they offered an inexpensive, legal, DRM-free service, they'd put the pirates out of business.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I'm not usually a big fan of organized crime, but I love that this is happening. Hopefully it results in some successful mob hits of MPAA/RIAA lawyers and executives and discourages others from wanting to work for them.
That's right. I am wishing death upon those that dare pursue a career with the MPAA or RIAA. About the only people lower than you are the kiddie porn peddlers.
My uncle has a VERY large collection of movies he gets from one of those places. For whatever fee it is he pays per month he can get up to 10 a month and then a fee for everyone after that. They are fairly decent quality (cost more for the HD versions). He thinks it is legal since he is paying for it, the website is professional looking, and the cost/access rules are what he expects for a legit company.
Indeed, he was lamenting to me a few weeks ago about not being able to find a blue-ray player that also plays his DIVX's. He commented that as easy as it is to get them off the internet and as fast as they come out he didn't understand why all the players just didn't mostly move to that format. I, once again, explained that it was illegal and few companies are going to be going about making your illegal downloads work easier. He looked blankly at me and said "Oh" - it was about the 50'th time I've tried to explain it. It is amusing that he refuses any of the ones I download for free but will happily pay someone else for the same thing so "He knows he is legal". If something were to happen and he end up ripped off (I suspect that if they are getting ready to be shut down many would be all over some credit fraud) or something happen and him go to court he would be one of the ones perputally confused that such a nice company dd it too him. I suspect that letters would be written to movie studios and no amount of being told "It is *illegal*" will ever sink in to most.
Really, with as many people that *do* use them the MPAA ought to just bite the bullet and enter that market - were it legal I woud most likely pay the fee (I'm not about to give someplace pirating anything credit card or bank account numbers even if I were willing to pay for something I could get for free). My uncle (and those others I know that use these services) still go to the movies just as often, the MPAA is just missing out on the profit he is sending to an operation in another country that may or may not be legal there.
For myself *this* is the type of piracy they ought to go after. I have no sympathy whatsoever for selling copyrighted information that you do not have permission to do.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
... that they start putting contracts on each other, then in the end the world would be a better place without them both.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
You guys have to stop expecting free media! Sheesh. Have you ever watched a movie's entire credits? Its like a small city put that together. Cheap and DRM free is not going to happen if that small city is going to eat and dress their children. Media pirates are not Robin Hoods. Robin Hood only stole which was *wrongly* taken. All these people who make want is a liveable wage. Not eevry one involved is a mega star or executive.
The economy needs money to be exchanged, to flow. As long as you refuse to pay for the media you consume, the economy will suffer.
'Sometimes these sites look better than the legitimate sites,' Huntsberry said. 'That's the irony.'
Irony is one of those slippery words that seems to have be given meaning by Humpty Dumpty. Merriam Webster provides the following:
1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning --called also Socratic irony
2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play --called also dramatic irony, tragic irony
I'd rather just go to Humpty Dumpty in 'Alice Through The Looking Glass':
Humpty appears in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1872), where he discusses semantics and pragmatics with Alice.
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't--till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master that's all."
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again.
"They've a temper, some of them--particularly verbs, they're the proudest--adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs--however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"
ideopath @ play
'Sometimes these sites look better than the legitimate sites,' Huntsberry said. 'That's the irony.'
He’s so close to an epiphany that it’s almost painful.
Everything about them is better. Except, perhaps, the quality of the picture, but personally I won’t tolerate a really terrible picture anyway. I’ll just wait.
The lack of DRM is better. The lack of involuntary filler content (previews and menus and such) is better. The convenience of being able to fairly quickly get any full-length feature film and watch it in the privacy of your home is better. The price, of course, can’t be beat. And apparently in some cases the websites even look better than their legal counterparts. Admittedly, being illegal is worse, but only if you get caught.
To beat piracy, they’re going to have to make the legal offering better. That’s all there is to it. Apple was very successful with iTunes (well, once they got beyond the notion that 1 song from an 8-song album should cost 1/8 as much as the album). It appears that a lot of people think iTunes is better than illegally downloading.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Antigua/Barbuda
http://games.slashdot.org/story/07/12/27/1514235/WTO-Awards-Caribbean-Country-Right-to-Ignore-US-Copyright
The article is hosted at movies.yahoo.com, and in turn their source is the CEO of Paramount. Is there any reason to believe that these are used nearly as widely as either claim?
This just seems like PR to try to influence people to view those involved in illegal downloading as serious criminals.
Who would give their credit card number to a site of questionable legality? I suppose you could give a one time use CC number, but wouldn't you be in constant worry that the site might forget to pay off its local officials, get raided, and have said local officials sell all the records to the MPAA/RIAA?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
who owns the most judges and politicians ...
While I do find it amusing that organized crime is better at delivering service customers seem to want than the entertainment industry, I am worried that this official, apparent switch from the 'freeloading pirates' to 'evil mob controlled, virus-infested , money we should be getting sites' might succeed in swaying the public opinion from...'meh,harmless, what else is on' to 'zomg,mob's blood money'.
As these sites do not look questionable, why wouldn't they?
I mean, come on, it is not like the site is named "Illegal-movie-copies.com" nor does the "about us" page say "Proud subsidiary of the Russian mob."
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
This reader adds, "Just a thought, but maybe if the studios offered a low-cost, for-profit, legitimate download site without DRM, they could receive the profits at the expense of the cyberlockers."
Does anyone else feel the same way about such business model suggestions? "They know best because they're n that position" certainly isn't foolproof logic, but they definitely spend a lot more time and money and have a more realistic understanding of what impact pricing and distribution methods will have on revenue than know-nothings that always seem to recommend business practices that are in their best interest.
Whale
I think that we are looking at an old business model against the digital era. The media will be soon memory cards/usb sticks/etc. No more plastic cases, CDs/DVDs, etc.
Also the actual generations have another perception of "time". No patience. The rate of buy-forget (consume) is very high now. I remember having a toy for a long time (months, at least!!). Now, kids receive mp3 players that are thrown away after the little movie player, that is thrown away for an iPod, and so on...
I personally think that is not a problem of "piracy"...is more a problem of controlling the market. With digital copies around, there is no control, so they can't regulate the market. Also, digital information is (not yet) taxable as Goods and Services....maybe in the near future we will have to pay tax for the amount of information we download, as for G&S...so every house will have a downloadometer digitally connected with the IRS/CRA (Im in Canada)...
Then, free networks will arise...and the battle for freedom/control will continue...
Excellent point. How many people verify that Amazon.com has the rights to sell the movie downloads they do?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Besides, people STILL fall for 409 scams. You don't think they would fall for this when they fall for something that has been beaten to death in the media?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
OTOH, the illegal sites are less likely to rootkit your computer than the legal ones!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
It was the WTO doing the screwing not WIPO. The country is Antigua and it was about online gambling and a serious lack of knowledge on how the US government structure works.
And the ruling is only to the effect that the US can't create embargoes or trade sanctions against them because of pirating activity. It doesn't absolve them from individual lawsuits from the owners of the copyrighted materials as those treaties and protections from them are separate and complete by another organization altogether (WIPO as you already suggested). A company or person in Antigua can pirate something, then be arrested and criminally charged if they enter the US or any territory the US controls. Civil lawsuits can also be pursued against them if their pirating happens or extends to any US jurisdiction including other WIPO member states due to provisions in the wtc and wppt treaties.
that they start putting contracts on each other
At least the Mafia honors such contracts, unlike the MAFIAA.
Just for discussion purposes.. does anyone know any urls of said websites?
Just a thought, but maybe if the studios offered a low-cost, for-profit, legitimate download site without DRM, they could receive the profits at the expense of the cyberlockers
Nope. The illegitimate sites can always undercut the studios, as they don't have the expense of actually making the movies.
..Is where i personally draw the line. They should be taken out if they are truly profiting off piracy. And no, i don't mean making a buck or 2 on the side with some ad revenue on a torrent page, but true profit by selling the stuff.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Babby is formed through software exchange.
That sounds like a spurious argument. If I already know up front that I'll never see XYZ copyrighted work in the public domain anyway, what earthly reason could I have for waiting 14~28 years?
If (waiting == not waiting), don't wait.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I didn't know about these kinds of service. If they don't charge much I'd consider subscribing. I have a nice TV and 20 Mbps to put to good use.
The fact that this has been slashdotted could mean extra revenue for these pay-per-download sites. Funny how the RIAA ends up shooting themselves in the foot. I wonder how many current users didn't know about The Pirate Bay before the RIAA or one of it's representatives started talking about it. Each time they try to fight some download service, they end up getting them free publicity. Funny stupid grunts.
I use a prepaid credit card for all my online business. I don#t do much online shopping, so the higher fee does not bug me.
Everyone can leech my number for what i care - they have to catch the 5 minutes where there is actually money on it.
who cares what business model a distributor wants, when there already is a distribution model: the internet, that can deliver anything, to anywhere, for free
i'm certain that if i wanted to sell bottled water for $5.00 next to a free natural spring, i might be angry that people were choosing free over spending $5.00. and i might try to sabotage or block access to the spring, if i assumed it was written in the constitution or the bible to profit forever, because at one time i was the only water supplier around
the internet has rendered distributors obsolete. the laws under which they protected their business before the internet, are simply unenforceable. there is a reason why they call it disruptive technology. the gun did away with feudal system, the printing press did away with monarchies, and the atom bomb did away with world wars. now, the internet has put media distributors out of business. its a done deal. deal with it
you will note, of course, that television, then the vcr, then the internet, were supposed to destroy the movie business, and none of it has. a movie called avatar just made a bazillion dollars... ALL INSIDE A MOVIE THEATRE
perhaps movie makers need to get used to the fact that a movie theatre is the only place they will be able to make money on their product in the future. as if that is somehow a path to poverty, as avatar demonstrates. crocodile tears
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
are full of shit. The people that are profiting off their work is the natural first choice to go after. Instead they go after individuals to destroy and try and make ridiculous amounts of money off of and waves in the media. BULLSHIT. They are all greedy cowards or mindless idiots in suits. either way....
If RIAA and MPAA or whoever can charge me for every blank DVD and CD I purchase without proof that I have downloaded anything illegally why are we so upset with the mobsters. My musician friend says he has never seen a cent of what I have paid for my blank media.
Its funny, but I am being forced to look in the direction of some of these sites. I have been downloading movies and tv shows from iTunes because it was too easy. Now my wife would like to watch some of these on our TV, but guess what? I cant! Not without spending another $260 for apple TV. Not because my DVD player wont handle digital media... Our home movies play just fine from a thumb drive. But the stuff I have paid for wont! So my solution, download it from somewhere else.
Sorry I have no sympathy for the MPAA and its DRM. Create a business model that is affordable and competitive with the crimials, and the criminals will go somewhere else and I will continue to buy legit.
See how many you can find kids! Ready? Steady? GO!
Single mothers, poor college students, and elderly gentlemen are not proper targets. People ACTUALLY making money off piracy are the right targets, and they have no moral leg to stand on.
'As they lack DRM, these sites provide better product than the legitimate sites,' Huntsberry said. 'That's the irony.'"
There fixed it for ya Mr. Huntsberry.
The title sounded to me like the pirating sites (from Russia) were physically threatening the RIAA executives or something.
Oh well, maybe in time...
The RIAA took on Russia to get allofmp3.com closed, which was an online bulk-purchase site for music files - in mp3, ogg, wav and others. You were charged for the size of the file, but you could have it any way you wanted it, and in near real-time.
It was so superior to iTunes that it had to be stopped, and so they used the US government as proxy, by buying the right congresscritters to "convince" Russia that it was in their economic interest to shut the site down, which was done.
The operators of allofmp3.com were subsequently found by Russian courts to have been operating fully legally under Russian law.
Do you really think the oligarchs will do differently with this, with a media-friendly Democrat majority running the show?
We should invade those countries!
want to fight the pirates? fix it like this: .iso or i will get it elsewhere. and none of this, back in the vault, lucas-disney lameness. and speaking of lucas, for someone who is all about the hi-tech movie magic, why is star wars always the last shit to come out on new formats?
1. no artificial scarcity. if you want to pervert the system and place physical roles on intangible goods (unauthorized copying is theft), then price your wares to your nearly unlimited supply, which, unfortunately is nowhere near as much as you think it is.
2. relating to #1. nothing goes out of print...ever. sell me the fucking
3. if you want to play in the global, digital world, everything should be licensed globally. no more bullshit, regional markets. stop the arbitrary bullshit. internet == one big market. that would truly level the playing field.
4. revert back to the original 14+14 copyrights. or hell, because this IS a global thing, make a global copyright. so we don't have dumb shit, like Popeye becoming public domain nearly everywhere except a few places.
probably more, but this is a good start.
...
They don't even need to remove DRM to start actually making money in the movie buying market. What they need to do is restructure the logic of how the DRM works so that copying content has no effect ... other than reducing their download demands.
Basically, how it would work is that the content is encrypted, as expected. Let the encrypted content be copied and traded freely. Sell playback certificates that are bound to a specific decoding device (NOT software). This device ultimately should be a monitor with a means added in (either over the HDMI connection, or via a separate USB connection) to pass the encrypted (and compressed) audio/video stream, along with a certificate that only that monitor can decrypt which has the decryption key for the content.
Software (and it can be open source, too, since nothing special needs to be done here) would get the public key of the monitor and pass it along to the movie seller. Once payment is made, they sign it and send it back. As part of that is the decryption key, encrypted by that monitor's public key (if determined to be valid). The details happens inside the software for people that aren't programmers (a browser or plugin could do it).
There are more details to keep it secure, but it doesn't need to require more software than what can be incorporated into the browser, or other alternatives. It can be done in open source (by a programmer than can understand those details, or use a toolkit that is likely to emerge for it). This would work because it isn't the software that decrypts anything; the monitor would do that. Alternatives to the monitor doing that are other devices like video cards or DVD players with a USB port which will enforce the HDCP requirement.
FYI ... I hate DRM as much as any geek. But I also know, and acknowledge, that it is possible, when doing it right and doing it carefully ... and (most important) doing it without an arrogant corporate attitude of forcing everyone to use some specific software that will do spamming ... to actually make a form of DRM actually work, and even with BSD and Linux.
The real problem, of course, is that the MPAA members are either just to incompetent (I don't expect a CEO to understand these crypt details, but they should be able to get technical advisors that can figure it out ... incompetence thus being unwilling to pay a geek to do it) or too arrogant (they really want to do something else besides just selling a movie to everyone in the world ... selling a right to play the movie, that is). So it will never happen. The "DRM wars" will go on for a couple more decades until the MPAA itself goes out of existance because most of its members have folded because they failed to follow the market.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Does this mean that Hulu is some kind of ongoing criminal enterprise? How can you tell? They don't have any MPAA seal of approval or anything like that.
Rabits f**k all day! That's why they don't get lunch!
When you first hear about it, it sounds nice. But once you have to do it all day, every day, it gets tiresome.
That is why I reincarnated as a geek: zero sex!
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
Back when I used to play games online, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was "If someone plays a dirty trick on you, don't get mad, remember it and use it on someone else the next time!".
The Palestinians and Israelites would do well to remember that.
Does it matter? I can give my CC number to anyone I want and if they spend 1000s of dollars on it I just call the credit card company and say it wasn't me.
Boom charges are good and the company takes the hit.
So what law was broken by downloading?
The vendor may not have had the right to copy, sell the copy, or make it available. Is the downloader engaged in any of these activities? If not, she is in the clear. She doesn't even have to destroy the files if she is found to have purchased them from an unauthorized party. The law is clear -- a damage multiplier is applied to the person who infringes the copyright.
Remember, downloading is just downloading. It is not "piracy", "theft", or any other such thing. Where I live, about the only thing that would be illegal to download is child porn.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
"Just a thought, but maybe if the studios offered a low-cost, for-profit, legitimate download site without DRM, they could receive the profits at the expense of the cyberlockers."
Try Roku. Buy the box and watch Netflix and Amazon movies and videos for the price of a Netflix subscription.
No need to save them, watch whenever you want, as much as you want.
Or, are you just B.S.ing?
I don't need to explain how DRM reduces piracy because I never said DRM *would* reduce piracy. I said Cheap and DRM-free media is not going to happen if you guys keep pirating. Speaking out against DRM in this thread is idiocy.
Not one person who responded to my initial comment has admitted that pirating is illegal and wrong. Instead all of you have illogically attacked DRM as some kind of problem when it is a response to the problem of piracy. DRM is not the issue at hand and you clowns don't understand that.
Whether or not an individual is a pirate is irrelevant. As long as you, and the Slashdot community, continue to advocate pirating media you are essentially pirates, yourselves. You are part of the problem, not the solution. As long as the problem of piracy continues, those who create and distribute media will cling to DRM concepts. THus, you are the reason DRM exists.
I never said DRM will feed families and cloth children. You guys are incapable of reading comprehensively. The farce of your comment rated as "insightful" is a joke and evidence of the Kangaroo Court mentality of the piracy advocating Slashdot community. DRM exist because you pirate media via the Internet and for no other reason.
"Just a thought, but maybe if the studios offered a low-cost, for-profit, legitimate download site without DRM, they could receive the profits at the expense of the cyberlockers."
To me, the irony is that these illegal sites are showing the studios how a service like this could look, work, and be profitable.
I wanted to watch (not own) Pineapple Express tonight. Still in the process of passing through my entitled free downloader, I looked for the movie on the legitimate sites first. It wasn't available to stream on Netflix, nor on Hulu. So I checked out Amazon and they had the movie...for $12 (to "own"). But I don't want to own, I want to rent.
If Redbox can rent hard copy versions of movies for $1/night, why can't I stream a movie for a couple of bucks? I want to support the content creators, but not when I have the sneaking suspicion I'm getting ripped off in the process.
try 'a plane full of riaa/mpaa executives and lawyers'.
Read radical news here
....movie download sites threaten MPAA.
Alright, I'm sold. Links please!
I would actually argue the opposite: piracy exists because of DRM.
Which came first? The chicken or the egg?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
You should meet up with this user or this user!
Free Martian Whores!
Who watches movies anymore? I spend my money on something with a much higher content/dollar ratio, console games.
I haven't been in a movie theater in years, but have no doubt I spend more than 2 grand a year on games.
So all the illegal downloaders work for the movie studios and were wronged by them?
It's called unclean hands. If a movie studio has acted in bad faith with respect to obtaining the rights to underlying works, how much standing does the studio have to enforce the exclusive rights in its derivative work?