Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

After Megaupload, MPAA Targets Other File Sharing Services

Posted by timothy on from the making-a-list-checking-it-twice dept.

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."

19 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess the pirate bay is still flying under the radar. Hopefully that one never goes mainstream.

    1. Re:Pirate Bay? by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh its above the radar. Heck its founders even did jail for it. But they are taking a solid stance and have basically told the MPAA/RIAA to fuck off and have deployed clever lawyers to keep it afloat.

      This whole thing really is pissing me off. My band uses these services to facilitate distributing our album and what not, and since a lot of our followers really dont know how to drive bit-torrent, this is the easiest way to get them the goodies.

      And because we are distributed across 2 countries (Members in the US and Australia) , we use it to send mixdowns and recording stems when we do stuff.. I mean I guess we probably should move to dropbox for that sort of thing, but the point still remains. These bloody lawyers are trying to ban ALL sharing, and seriously not all, in fact probably most, sharing is piracy.

      Its bullshit, these people need to be called out as enemies of the internet and free speech.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    2. Re:Pirate Bay? by blackraven14250 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As a smaller, (presumably) independent band, the RIAA wouldn't mind killing you off. The RIAA isn't there for small artists; they're there for the few giant names they can push, and any competition is bad competition in their view.

    3. Re:Pirate Bay? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My band uses these services to facilitate distributing our album and what not

      Your label is supposed to handle that for you. If you're not signed with a major label and have the temerity to try to distribute your own music, you're clearly some kind of terrorist socialist pedophile drug dealer pirate, and will be dealt with accordingly.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    4. Re:Pirate Bay? by Xelios · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Independent film makers get similar treatment from the MPAA. And unlike musicians they really are forced to deal with them to have their film rated for release.

      --
      Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
    5. Re:Pirate Bay? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Heck its founders even did jail for it.

      Actually none of them have. They have been sentenced but only one is actually living in Sweden and his will be served in the community rather than behind bars. The others left ages ago and the authorities have been unable to recover a single penny of assets from them to pay the millions of Euros in fines, and as they are now in countries that won't extradite to the EU there is pretty much no chance of them doing any time. Plus there are still appeals in the pipeline.

      Meanwhile the Pirate Bay continues, benefiting from free publicity paid for by the media companies trying to take them down.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:Pirate Bay? by TFAFalcon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      MPAA will contact Youtube and get your video removed. They own all music after all.

    7. Re:Pirate Bay? by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As a smaller, (presumably) independent band, the RIAA wouldn't mind killing you off. The RIAA isn't there for small artists; they're there for the few giant names they can push, and any competition is bad competition in their view.

      Well neither the RIAA or ARIA have ever done a frigging thing for us, so I don't doubt that. Heck I even had a genine "no no" issue of piracy happen to us once where I found a site in the US selling our MP3s for about half the priace we where selling them. I dont care if you pirate-bay or whatever our songs, its not really about that for us. But don't sell our work without giving us a cut of it, is all we ask.

      Well I contacted ARIA, and they said "Oh thats in the US, we cant help you". So I contacted the RIAA and they said "Your australians, we are not really interested sorry."

      Well I bet if we where AC/DC or something they would be.

      Frankly I'd rather kim dotcom got my money than RIAA or ARIA. At least I'm under know illusions as to who Kim represents.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    8. Re:Pirate Bay? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Independent film makers get similar treatment from the MPAA. And unlike musicians they really are forced to deal with them to have their film rated for release.

      And if you are an indie filmmaker, you can expect very harsh treatment at the hands of MPAA for your rating.

      I just heard an interview with the director of the terrific new documentary Bully and he was talking about how the MPAA wanted to give his movie an "R" even though all of the characters were real teenagers involved in real bullying and the movie is possibly the most important movie for middle and high-school kids to see. He ended up just going "Unrated" which of course will limit his distribution (but it looks like a lot of media people are getting behind him to help out).

      I've made a portion of my living as a professional musician, composer and arranger for about 25 years and I won't go near a project with anything but an indie label and not only an indie label but a really small privately-held indie label. I most enjoy self-released work, which in my opinion has now reached a point of quality every bit as good as anything on a major. I only pay for music when I can buy direct from the artist, or very nearly direct. I'm hoping to get to that point with movies someday.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  2. vice president for worldwide content protection by macraig · · Score: 5, Informative

    That Paramount actually has a "vice president for worldwide content protection" says plenty.

    1. Re:vice president for worldwide content protection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Piracy is only illegal because the law says copying and distributing music is illegal.

      People who support piracy are fighting to have the law changed. These people believe that since music can be copied indefinitely and at no cost (even though there is an initial cost of producing the music), the music industry should change to a business model that makes music free.
      There are also people who are just fed up with the music industry's abusive behavior. They can sue people who upload music to others for all I care, but many of us are sick of seeing sharing services get shut down - these services have useful, legal purposes. We're m also sick of all the fake DMCA take-downs, the "pay-up or else" letters that target innocent people, the attempts to make wifi network owners liable for how other people use their network, the extradition of young students to the USA for doing something that is legal in their own country, the SLAPP lawsuits, the constantly increasing copyright terms that lock away history from the public (yes, some songs and movies can be considered of historical value), etc.

      You can disagree with this, but the fact is, people are not saying the music industry should stop using the protections that the law gives it: they're saying these protections should be taken away. They want to change the law, arguing "but it's the law" is beside the point.
      And you won't convince anyone that the music industry should get protections from the law when the music industry behaves the way it does, just like if Hitler were alive you would not succeed at convincing anyone that he should have the right to own a gas chamber.

  3. Countersue by sixtyeight · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Countersue by Trogre · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The best way to get these guys is to cut off their revenue stream. Stop buying [1] their crap.

      [1] By "buying" I also mean downloading, for by doing so you are endorsing it, giving it further mindshare.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    2. Re:Countersue by Maow · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The best way to get these guys is to cut off their revenue stream. Stop buying [1] their crap.

      [1] By "buying" I also mean downloading, for by doing so you are endorsing it, giving it further mindshare.

      But the drop in revenue will only be attributed to more pirating.

      Yeah. Kindly fuck off with your "stop buying/downloading" and actually get off your ass and give a shit like the rest of us.

      I've contacted the EFF about issues like this, what have YOU done, mister "sit around and do jack shit"?

      Sorry for cursing, I'm just really peeved about stuff like this.
      I'm an indie musician

      The ills of the entertainment industry are merely symptoms of a greater problem.

      Boycotting in all forms is an excellent plan, while considering options to deal with the real issues (bribery, corruption, crippled economy, laws by the 1% for the 1%, etc.)

      When facing civilization-challenging crises, entertainment is something that's rather easy to ignore / boycott.

      We're likely on the same side, but I see entertainment as the circuses part of "bread & circuses" and seek farther-ranging solutions, which ought to trickle down into the content industries, copyright, and patents.

      Of course, I myself am not exactly sure what to do, and expect any effective solution to be ... messy as hell, probably devastating to many, and entirely unpalatable. At some point, our status quo will be describable in those same terms, and by then maybe some ideas will be on the table with a critical mass of support behind them. Not there yet...

    3. Re:Countersue by ThePeices · · Score: 5, Informative

      "But the drop in revenue will only be attributed to more pirating."

      The movie industry has been doing quite well indeed.

      Just look at their profits the past ten years. They are breaking profit records year after year. The movie industry has never made so much money in its history.

      And all of this in the face of rampant piracy for many years.

      What does that tell you?

    4. Re:Countersue by WCLPeter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They are breaking profit revenue records year after year.

      Sorry, had to fix that for you. No movie ever made has ever turned a profit, none. In fact, some world famous movies are such colossal failures they weren't even able to pay the actors who starred in them.

    5. Re:Countersue by AngryDeuce · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you'd click his links, you'd see that they're totally accurate, and also widely accepted practices within the industry. Do you know why all the big stars get a piece of the gross income instead of a piece of the net income? Because, on paper, every movie has lost money, regardless.

      Once you hear that such films as Rain Man, Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and the Tim Burton Batman "lost money" according to their studios bullshit accounting practices, it's hard to take any of their claims of "lost revenue" due to piracy seriously.

      And it's not limited to the MPAA, either. The RIAA argued that Limewire caused them $75 TRILLION in damages. How does anybody credibly believe anything that comes out of these guys mouths?

  4. This is why America needs the Affordable Care Act by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  5. Re:DMCA safe harbor status by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's vague enough for lawyers to argue over. The problem is that DMCA takedowns are of limited effectiveness in such a dynamic environment: Take one down, someone will upload a new one in a few seconds. The legal case against Megaupload hinged on a technicality: They took the files down on request, but didn't also take down duplicates of the same file uploaded by someone else, even though they could (as they used file-level dedupe) have done so trivially. It isn't entirely clear what the responsibilities of a service provider are any more: The DMCA doesn't get into the technical implications of hashlists, de-duplication, fingerprinting, the countermeasures against them or the countermeasures against the countermeasures. It was written on the assumption that publishing content would be a difficult and expensive task, so if you can get it pulled down you've seriously inconvenienced pirates. The whole model breaks when publishing a file is just a matter of uploading, which it really always was.

    The only way to actually stop piracy would be by passing new laws so draconian that I'd rather just see the entire copyright-driven industry destroyed than sacrifice that much freedom or hand so much power to those who can afford lawyers.