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After Megaupload, MPAA Targets Other File Sharing Services
An anonymous reader writes "It is no secret that the MPAA was a main facilitator of the criminal investigation against Megaupload. While the movie studios have praised the actions of the U.S. Government, they are not satisfied yet. Paramount Pictures' vice president for worldwide content protection identified Fileserve, MediaFire, Wupload, Putlocker and Depositfiles as prime targets that should be shuttered next."
I guess the pirate bay is still flying under the radar. Hopefully that one never goes mainstream.
That Paramount actually has a "vice president for worldwide content protection" says plenty.
When do the various file-sharing services get together and collectively countersue the MPAA for obstruction of commerce, racketeering, and whatever else comes to mind when one industry gets together to choke another?
For that matter, when does the internet start to crowdfund a bounty in the form of attorneys' fees to go after these guys? Perhaps we were waiting until the ISPs implement "6 Strikes", at which point all the open public WiFi hotspots will necessarily be taken offline or passworded outside common public use.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
The Affordable Care Act failing to pass muster in the Supreme Court would imperil the planned 2013 Legislative Lobby agenda by the RIAA and MPAA to introduce that Affordable Media Act (AMA) which would provide Government Subsidies to help keep Blu-Ray and Access to Media Streaming Services at existing Prices in exchange for the requirement for all American Tax Payers to show proof of the purchase of at least $500 per year in Digital Media from any one of a number of participants in a Government run Media Marketplace (member including Walmart, iTunes Music Store, Amazon and others) or pay a tax penalty of $100,000.00 or 10 years imprisonment since it can be assumed that by not buying media from an authorized Marketplace Member, you are engaged in Copyright Infringement.
American's want online media -- let's provide it to them in a lawful and controlled manner.
I don't know all of these services, but doesn't the DMCA's safe harbor provision exempt them from this sort of witch hunt prosecution, as long as DMCA reports are handled in a timely manner ? You could receive a thousand such reports a day, as long as you promptly take down the content (or challenge false claims), you're supposed to be in the clear, as far as the law is concerned.
I've received such complaints in the past, when one of my hosting clients had their site compromised and was used as a warez drop. I fixed the problem, nuked the offending files and never heard of it again. Given that I'm currently in the process of setting up such a file host (no payments though), I'm a bit concerned about this legal abuse. Youtube allows user uploads, and honors DMCA takedowns, and they seem to be doing just fine. Both sites are hosting user-created content. Both have the potential to carry copyrighted material. Both generate ad revenue from their traffic. What makes a filehost any different ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Infringing copyright to consume and enjoy material someone else has produced is equivalent to "saving jews"? Dude.. you are fucked up in the head.
The statement being replied to did not express the wrongness of copyright infringement, but of breaking the law. If the law is the basis on which you decide morality then it would seem you would have to conclude that saving Jews from Nazi persecution when they were in government was an immoral action since it was illegal. If you can't abide by that conclusion then you need a more thorough justification to claim that copyright infringement is wrong.
An average high school student could be expected to understand that point without having it explained. I pity you, since either your intellect is insufficient to understand the point or your character is insufficient to require you to make an honest argument. Both are serious deficiencies.
Why don't you hire an artist to produce content for you? Then you own it, you can do whatever with it, including sharing it with others for free.
My wife is a musician and we are quite ok without locking the internet down. Recording artists from major labels now put their songs on youtube for free and still sell copies. Why they are still getting bent out of shape over file sharing is beyond me.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
MPAA may be full of shit, but at the same time it's annoying how anti-piracy comments always get robotically modded down in Slashdot. I just think it's good to look objectively at both sides of the coin.
To reiterate what the previous response has already pointed out, the comments that get modded down are not flagged as trolls because they're anti-piracy, it's because they are actually trolls. The arguments they put forth almost invariably consist entirely of some combination of rhetorical exaggeration, false analogies, tautological question begging and unjustified moral indignation. They provide no reasoning, they're just pure flame bait.
The main problem with the "anti-piracy" position is that there is almost nothing legitimate they can ask for that they do not already have. The existing laws go so far above and beyond what is reasonable to "fight piracy" that anyone arguing in favor of further extensions is inherently a dangerous extremist seemingly incapable of articulating a justifiable position. They advance an unsustainable framework of debate over which the only possible subject of compromise is the magnitude and timing of further increases in enforcement powers, rather than facilitating necessary and productive efforts to mitigate the outrageous damage already being caused by the legislation that their previous efforts have pushed through against all reason and justice.