File Sharing In the Post MegaUpload Era

An anonymous reader writes "This report looks at file sharing in the post MegaUpload era. The main finding — file sharing did not go away. It did not even decrease much in North America. Mainly, file sharing became staggeringly less efficient. Instead of terabytes of North America MegaUpload traffic going to U.S. servers, most file sharing traffic now comes from Europe over far more expensive transatlantic links."

Comments

What did you expect?

[elrous0]

It's not like the people who've been pirating for the last ten years are just going to say to themselves "Hey, let's go back to the way it was in the 90's and forget that we've gotten used to not paying for our movies and getting them instantly!" just because of some raid. And as long as there are pirates sailing the high seas, *someone* will be there to sell them boats.

Re:What did you expect?

[discord5]

Hey, let's go back to the way it was in the 90's

Yeah, piracy didn't exist in the 90s. Do we get the don't copy that floppy guy back too?

Re:What did you expect?

[Samantha Wright]

In the cases where an alternative distribution channel is available (there often isn't) and it is available for a reasonable price (which people often also disagree on), people pirate content that they don't really care about in order to fill their lives up. Perhaps there's a social incentive for knowing about what happened on some TV show; perhaps it's to stave off boredom because they're depressed and don't have greater ambitions or hobbies for their free time (this describes more people than anyone cares to admit); perhaps it's just to distract them because they're tired. In none of these cases is the consumer deriving value from the art of the content; it's just slightly more interesting than usual time-filling fluff, like the proverbial airport novel, sports news, the weather, or gossip in a bar. That's why we don't feel compelled to repay the artists behind the content.

Re:What did you expect?

[jaca44]

http://www.27bslash6.com/foggot.html

Re:What did you expect?

[khr]

I think my first "copy party experience" was in a church, in 1983ish... Everybody had their box of 100+ floppies and you'd walk around and see if there was anything you wanted, "borrow it" for 5 minutes to make a copy, rinse, lather, and repeat, for hours.

For me it was in high school, all the nerds wandered around with boxes of flopppies, some of us custom painted our boxes, or put stickers so everyone knew who was cool...

When the school had all Apple computers we used to trade games and utilities straight across, disk for disk... If you didn't have something someone else was interested in, you didn't get their stuff. But once we all started upgrading to PCs, we were a lot more free about "sure, copy anything you want". I don't know what changed, really, same people, mostly the same physical floppy disks, too...

Era?!

[TaoPhoenix]

I'm more annoyed at the wording - "In the post ____ era, the world will never be the same."

Re:Era?!

[Rary]

I'm more annoyed at the wording - "In the post ____ era, the world will never be the same."

Especially in this case, where the "Post MegaUpload Era" isn't even three weeks old.

Re:Era?!

[Captain Spam]

I'd agree with you, but in the eons that have passed in this, the post-TaoPhoenix's-post era, it's become entirely irrelevant. Just like the first half of my post, in this post-Captain-Spam's-first-half-of-his-post era.

Blame Napster

[Shakrai]

Blame Napster for making file sharing main stream. Back in the day when we had to walk uphill to school both ways the only way to pirate stuff was to be a geek or know someone who was. In the glory days most piracy happened on BBS'es, IRC and USENET. The former two were generally only available to those "in the know" while the latter was mostly used by people seeking pornography (who remembers working on PCs and finding gigabyte sized Free Agent cache directories?)

In the end even the RIAA/MPAA types know that they will never stop piracy. Driving it further underground and returning it to the domain of the technically informed would stem their perceived losses though. I'm not sure if this is an obtainable goal with the internet being what it is but you can bet they will keep trying as long as they draw breath. The only thing that will stop this is the rise of meaningful (read: cheap and easy to use) online services that make piracy more trouble than it's worth. A lot of people think that iTunes did this for music, though I would argue that Pandora has done more to negate music piracy than iTunes. I don't think you can directly translate Pandora into movies though.

Re:Blame Napster

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a matter of time until someone develops an Android or jailbroken iOS app that allows true peer to peer piracy over bluetooth or wifi. You'd set it up to share what you want, and to search for things you're looking for. If you were friendly, you could even set it up to look for things other people you see for x amount of time are looking for. Walking on the street? Riding in a bus? File sharing everywhere you go.

Re:Blame Napster

[Hatta]

Driving it further underground and returning it to the domain of the technically informed would stem their perceived losses though. I'm not sure if this is an obtainable goal with the internet being what it is but you can bet they will keep trying as long as they draw breath.

Not a chance. Even if we had to go back to finding files on IRC, someone would whip up an XBMC plugin that made it entirely transparent and usable by morons.

Re:Blame Napster

[MickyTheIdiot]

The *AAs at this point are simply in a quixotic battle against the rules of the real world. They might as well lobby for changes in the laws of physics... it falls into the same category. Trouble is most of our legislators are oldsters, people easily bought, or people who can't understand any of the basics of the world we live in.

Every attempt to curb the "piracy" will fail because this is simply the digital laws of information work. We can take huge step backwards into the world where every piece of information is tied to a piece of paper or a piece of rock, we can try to legislate it out of existence, or we can accept it and make a world that the artists (not corporate middlemen) can make a living.

Re:Blame Napster

[Shakrai]

or we can accept it and make a world that the artists (not corporate middlemen) can make a living.

That's a great theory where music is concerned and any start up band can get going with a couple hundred bucks worth of equipment and a broadband connection. I'm not so certain how it translates into movies though. To pick one of my favorite bits of modern culture, do you think you can bring Harry Potter onto the big screen without the resources of big budget movie studio? All of the special effects, the editing, the cinematographers, the actors, director, stunt performers, etc, etc? How do you propose to see that the "artists" in this example get paid without having some sort of corporate middleman?

If you accept that movies are a part of our culture then there has to be a sane middle ground between "information wants to be free!" and "we are going to control where and when you can watch the movie you paid for"

Re:Blame Napster

[0123456]

To pick one of my favorite bits of modern culture, do you think you can bring Harry Potter onto the big screen without the resources of big budget movie studio?

You could try not paying actors $20,000,000 for a few weeks' work.

And, frankly, a future where movies were based more on characters and story than fancy effects wouldn't be a bad one.

Re:Blame Napster

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, and playing devil's advocate here, they are actually winning the war. Yes, SOPA and PIPA may not have gone through, but it was the fact that if the US turned off another country's domain, it might be considered an act of war, with the ramifications that comes with it, similar to a naval blockade is considered an act of war for a port.

Here is how the *AA is winning the war:

1: ISPs will hand them logs now by request. Not by court order. This allows long fishing expeditions.

2: Treaties like only appear on the news after they are signed. It only was a lucky happenstance that this didn't happen with ACTA.

3: Foreigners who have never set foot on US soil are being held criminally liable for breaking US laws. Picture Americans being deported to Saudi Arabia or Syria for lashings or beheadings because they were viewing pr0n.

4: Piracy is being forced to the edges. This is success right here. Once piracy is forced to transatlantic or transpacific links, it isn't hard for ISPs to charge users for bandwidth use across those links, similar to how AT&T charges $250 a terabyte with DSL now.

5: DRM stacks are everywhere. The next generation of Windows 8 logo compliant PCs can be said to have a hardware level DRM stack with the signed UEFI mechanism that cannot be disabled, and if disabled, content like programs and games won't work.

6: It is becoming harder and harder for devices to get jailbroken. The PS3 took almost five years to have a single signficant crack, and that is currently fixed, with PSN detecting and auto-banning modified consoles. Modified xboxes are tossed off XBL instantly. Even iPhones are taking longer and longer to have a significant JB, and the Cydia market has to virtually recode stuff like Winterboard from scratch. Even with that, all it takes is a restore, a forced upgrade to the latest iOS, and iOS users are back at square one.

7: One essentially is forced to use a VPS if one doesn't want to be ratted out. Of course, good VPSes are suspect.

So, compared to this time about a decade ago, life is a lot tougher -- there are nowhere near the open wireless connections (warchalking is long gone), people who had open wi-fi connections are facing steep fines or jail times due to abuse, and the PC is essentially a dead platform when it comes to gaming.

Yes, SOPA was a battle that was conceded, but the war is still being won by the *AA.

Re:Blame Napster

[icebraining]

People will still pay for stuff. Hell, the MPAA had record profits each year from 2006 to 2010.

Movies provide an actual valuable service, that some guy in his home connection can't replace for free: huge screens to appreciate those expensive special effects and pretty photography.

Re:Blame Napster

[aztracker1]

Using IRC as a host network for Bittorrent trackers, etc would be pretty effective in terms of not getting shut down though...

Re:Blame Napster

[0123456]

They aren't mutually exclusive you know. I'd love to see you tell the story of Harry Potter without "fancy effects" and I doubt you can say that story isn't character based.

It's a bunch of kids in a school waving wands around. If Ealing Studios had made it in the 50s it would have cost less than a million dollars in today's money even with Alec Guinness playing one of the leads.

Heck, I've seen at least one TV show with a very similar plot and I guarantee you they didn't have a multi-million dollar budget for each episode.

Re:Blame Napster

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Zune have a feature that did bluetooth or WiFi song sharing called 'squirt' (or 'squirting')?

It was squircle. Squirting is something different, but don't worry, we nerds probably will never stumble into that situation...

Re:Blame Napster

[pjt33]

Ah, but torrent sites now are pushing magnet links instead, which are pretty much what you're talking about.

Re:Blame Napster

[Esteanil]

Check out the trailer for Iron Sky, http://www.ironsky.net/ - then check out their budget http://www.ironsky.net/site/support/finance/

This is their second film, the first one (the most popular film ever created in Finland) was mainly distributed (for free) over bittorrent.

Looks better than anything set to come out of Hollywood this year, IMO.

Conclusion: If Hollywood dies, we'll still have good movies. Not that there's much chance of that, seeing as they're making more money than ever...

Re:Blame Napster

[xenobyte]

Actually you have to set a limit somewhere. Moving from the file outwards, the first steps are now clear:

1) Hosting the file: BAD
2) Linking to the file: BAD
3) Running a portal with links to files: BAD
4) Linking to a portal with links to files: BAD
5) Running a portal with links to trackers that links to pieces of the files: BAD (mostly)
6) Linking to a portal with links to trackers that links to pieces of the files: Still okay
7) Running a portal with links to a hash values (magnet links): Still okay
8) Linking to a portal with links to a hash values (magnet links): Still okay

The magnet links are a in a grey zone. You can argue that a link to a hash value is useless without third party resources, and thus that it in itself in no way can be said to be illegal in itself.

Sneaker Net

[jdastrup]

I now accept requests for files over the phone or via hand-written letter and I deliver them on a USB stick, multiple foppy disks, or cassette tapes, whatever you prefer.

My file sharing will not be stopped

But is it file "sharing"?

[zarlino]

Honestly, I never even thought of Megaupload-like sites as "file sharing". If that's file sharing, then every website is sharing with you lots of html, css and image files. I'd rather call that "File publishing". You upload a file to a server which is then published to the world. "File sharing" to me implies some form of P2P technology where users literally share local files and bandwidth with other member of a network.

People have been pirating stuff

[Osgeld]

on computers since there were computers, 1 website is not going to stop them, all websites will not stop them, what will stop them is a change in how things are done.
If people are "too cheap" to buy your product maybe your product is too expensive.
If people are getting pirate copies of your software to avoid the iron fisted DRM bullshit, well maybe get rid of your DRM bullshit.
If people are downloading your movie to watch once then never again maybe you should make it easier for people to watch.

just a thought that no one making this shit wants to hear

Archaic models of war

[Wolfling1]

Traditional military strategy has been to go for the command and control infrastructure. The morons in DoJ just don't realise that its a useless strategy when dealing with the internet. Your enemy is far more mobile than you are, and they will simply relocate, or re-distribute to overcome the assault.

/politicians and police don't understand the internet

Don't fight it, put ads on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking back at the stuff I "pirate" it's really kinda funny. It's mostly TV shows that are no longer on the air. Shit I would watch on Hulu if they had it. It baffles me that the TV networks are so bad at this concept. Put a show that's been off the air for 5, 10, 20, 50 years or more and slap some modern advertisements on it and you can do what you've ALWAYS done and make money off of advertising. Off shows that you've already paid the production price... it's practically free for fuck sake.

You get targeted ads, a clear picture of what people are interested in watching, and you're continuing to make money off of your legacy. But no they only want to put the last 3 to 5 episodes off the current season. So stupid. I pirate less because of sites like Hulu. Their business model, making money off adds, doesn't even have to change. How can they fucking not see it? So. god. damned. stupid.

Economics

[betterunixthanunix]

Economics defeats moral arguments every single time. People pay money to see their favorite bands play a live concert, because live concerts are an experience that cannot be burned to a disc or downloaded from a website. People pay money to see movies in a movie theater because you cannot download the experience of being in a movie theater. Concerts and movie theaters make money because the experience you are buying is scarce.

Copies of music and movies are not scarce resources anymore. We no longer require specialized industrial equipment to make those copies, and it costs almost nothing to make a copy. With an effectively unlimited supply, we should expect copies of music and movies to cost nothing; the industry needs to find some new scare-but-demanded way to enjoy entertainment, or focus more on the ways they have left.

Movie budgets

[betterunixthanunix]

1. There is no real way for an outsider to estimate the cost of producing a movie. Movie studios vastly overstate the costs of movie production to avoid paying people whose contracts stipulate a percentage of profits; this is a practice that is called Hollywood Accounting and it once received the attention of a congressional investigation.
2. Large amounts of money is spent on special effects that add little to the development of the plot or characters in a movie. While this makes movies look cool, it is not clear that it is necessary for the movies to be a box office success, and it often detracts from the plot (many movies hardly have a plot to speak of, and rely solely on special effects for entertainment value). Further, these special effects should come down in price as computer time becomes cheaper and software is improved.

Movies could be produced for far less than what is typically spent on them, and at a reasonable quality level. What makes a movie like The Matrix great is not the special effects or the bogus accounting, but the story that it tells, and that story could be told on a lower budget, with good acting, good directing, and good camerawork replacing much of the technology that is thrown at movies today. Movies are indeed part of our culture; special effects need not be.

What it did do...

[roc97007]

...is cause a lot of people to rethink storing legitimate data in the cloud.

Wrong way around

[Roger W Moore]

The MPAA currently can only compete on one of these points -- cost.

Actually the MPAA can effectively compete on all the other points EXCEPT cost...they can do everything you list, better than any pirate, except give it away for free. The fact that they are ignoring all the other points and trying to compete on cost is why they are having such a hard time. If they released content commercial free, at the same time as (or even in advance) of broadcast in multiple DRM-free formats for a low cost the chances are that they would attract customers willing to pay for the simple convenience vs. searching dodgy websites for content of unknown quality which is only available after broadcast.