Film Consortium Urges ISPs To Dump Ineffective "Six Strikes" Policy For Pirates

An anonymous reader writes: The Internet Security Task Force, a group of businesses working to protect content creators and consumers from the negative effects of piracy, has called for an end to the Copyright Alert System, saying the anti-piracy initiative is not only ineffective but actually makes things worse. The group suggest that it be replaced with a new system based on Canada's Copyright Modernization Act. Mark Gill, ISTF chairman and President of member company Millennium films, says "We've always known the Copyright Alert System was ineffective, as it allows people to steal six movies from us before they get an educational leaflet. But now we have the data to prove that it's a sham." The Copyright Alert System (CAS) is set to expire early July.

Comments

Wait, what?

[xevioso]

From the article:

"The incendiary acts behind the move appears to be the wide-spread pirating of 2014 action blockbuster The Expendables 3, about which Mark Gill comments that it “has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash"

And how the hell would they know this? It's not like snail mail letters have GPS attached to them so the sender will know you have opened them. How do they have any idea at all in any way shape or form how often these letters were received, opened, read or followed? I smell a rat...

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more concerned with the claim that The Expendables 3 has been viewed more than 60M times. Viewing crap movies like that causes far more damage to the public than any possible money lost by the studios.

Re:Wait, what?

[g0bshiTe]

Also of note is this tidbit

However, on "Expendables 3,"in the period of September through November 2014, per data collected by CEG-TEK International, an internet security firm: 0.3% percent of thieves on these five ISPs received a notice. By contrast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications (who are not part of the CAS) do forward notices to customers who infringe. The difference in results is substantial. On "Expendables 3" in the period of November 2014 through January 2015, per data collected by CEG-TEK : Cox and Charter ISPs posted a 25.47% decrease in infringements Copyright Alert System ISPs abetted a 4.54% increase in infringements.

So really it's not about the number of notices it's the fact the ISP's that composed the CAS aren't forwarding the letters.

Citation: http://www.prnewswire.com/news...

Re:Wait, what?

[Em Adespoton]

From the article:

"The incendiary acts behind the move appears to be the wide-spread pirating of 2014 action blockbuster The Expendables 3, about which Mark Gill comments that it “has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash"

And how the hell would they know this? It's not like snail mail letters have GPS attached to them so the sender will know you have opened them. How do they have any idea at all in any way shape or form how often these letters were received, opened, read or followed? I smell a rat...

They use polls and extrapolate. After the notices were sent, they then "follow up" with a percentage of the notices sent out, to see if the intended recipient actually got/read them. The notice itself may also include a step the target is supposed to take that signals to someone that it was read and acted on.

Either way, it's not going to be very accurate.

Re:Wait, what?

[avandesande]

I think they are claiming that only 0.3% of their notices(to the isp) made the 6 strikes CAS cutoff and actually materialized as a mailing to the customer.

Re:Wait, what?

[ArmoredDragon]

I think the real purpose behind this is a call for a new organization called The Movie Security Task Force that promotes the use of VPNs and private trackers to reduce the number of copyright notices sent out.

Re:Wait, what?

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's free, so why not. (or so current wisdom suggests)

Unfortunately, this is why crap movies continue to get produced.
[scene, studio boardroom] "Ex 3 was viewed 60+ million times. Yeah, most of them were illegal, but so what. Eyeballs !! Obviously, we need to make Ex 4!"

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the numbers still don't add up. If only 0.3% of the notices reached the users, yet piracy dropped 4.5% to 25%, that means the 0.3% that were reached were extremely disproportionate in their piracy by a factor of 15 to almost 100 which is well outside any statistical possibility. Not even word of mouth amount pirates could explain it. This means none to very little of the drop off was a result of the notices, so yeah, they need to rethink whether sending notices is worth it.

Personally, I think the drop is mostly the result of movie quality continuing to drop so there is even less worth pirating even if free.

Re: Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the isps argue that copyright notices work because people who pirated expendables 3 one month and got a letter dont pirate expendables 3 the next month? Is that their theory?

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwwww, someone's panties are in a bunch because every single human on the planet obviously doesn't understand things on the higher level that they do. What, are your preferred music artists too obscure for the rest of us? Go tighten that scarf around your neck a bit more, if you wouldn't mind. I don't think the human race would miss you very much.

Hey, kid, maybe some people like to watch mindless action movies where things explode. Viewing habits are NOT indicative of mental capacity. Ever heard of suspending disbelief? Try it sometime.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I routinely throw into the trash mail from any company I'm not actively doing business with. Why would I want to read junk mail?

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

So really it's not about the number of notices it's the fact the ISP's that composed the CAS aren't forwarding the letters.

More than likely the ISPs are filtering out the obviously bogus claims (such as fair use). Remember these are movie executives talking, how many of those 60 million "views" are actually people watching fan reviews posted on YouTube which contain a three minute clip of one scene? I think what movie execs find most irritating about CAS is that they don't get access to a suspects name and address so they can't mail them Prenda style extortion letters.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are also people that actually like watching 2 Girls and a cup, but that hardly make it a masterpiece or even remotely enjoyable.

Re:Wait, what?

[gl4ss]

look dude, that would make expendables 3 the most popular movie in canada.

or perhaps they have some examples of movies which were viewed(pirated) multiple times by everyone in the nation due to their logic.

they're copyright guys so it's unknown if they know how the internet works, so they can just pull out things from thin air or base claims on shit like every connection opening in a torrent network is a view (resulting in anyone copying a movie making 20-1000 "views" - it's absurd they could deduce the number of views from number of torrent downloads anyways.).

Re:Wait, what?

[Mashiki]

Hey, kid, maybe some people like to watch mindless action movies where things explode. Viewing habits are NOT indicative of mental capacity. Ever heard of suspending disbelief? Try it sometime.

I tried that, then the neo-puritan and 3rd wave radical feminists showed up and tried blaming videogames for all the worlds ills.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, are your preferred music artists too obscure for the rest of us? Go tighten that scarf around your neck a bit more

Please I only listen to kreatrock, hipsters will never listen to it before it was mainstream since it never will be.

Re:Wait, what?

[Opportunist]

Extrapolating from the experience of the efficiency of the rest of the snail mail spam.

Re:Wait, what?

[Opportunist]

That only holds true if your time has no value.

Time, though, is the most valuable commodity you have. It's damn hard to get more of it and once used it's gone.

Re:Wait, what?

[Opportunist]

And certainly not grounds for making a second one. Hell, not even the notoriety of the first makes making a second one a viable idea!

Re:Wait, what?

[DedTV]

Because only 0.3% of the 60 million downloads were conducted by AT&T, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, Verizon or Comcast subscribers. The notices weren't trashed by the infringers, they were trashed by ISPs who didn't forward them because they don't participate in CAS or exist outside the reach of CAS and the DMCA and don't forward notices that cite those laws as the legal justification for the notice.

Many of those ISPs probably received and forwarded a separate notice that conforms to format required by their country's copyright enforcement laws. It just wasn't a CAS notice.
But media company executives and lawyers won't let silly things like the truth or facts get in the way of a good self-serving narrative.

COOL!

[ToxicBanjo]

I'm off to find Millenium films at the store. I'm going to physically steal 6 movies and then ask for my educational pamphlet. What a deal... thanks ISTF!

/facepalm

Re:COOL!

[countSudoku()]

Millenium Films are what you watch while on a long journey in the Millennium Falcon

My favorite part is the time the guy wrote:
"working to protect content creators and consumers from the negative effects of piracy"

Consumers? What fucking negative effect are they talking about because the prices sure have not been improved. Oh yeah, they *might* get a reduction if all the pirates of the world are caught and locked up in movie jail. That's the ticket!

Re: COOL!

[Jason Levine]

Coincidentally, they are showing Expendables 3 in movie jail, though some have said that this is inhumane.

Re:COOL!

[Opportunist]

Well, you're losing valuable information. Like the FBI warning, the unskipable ads for movies you are not interested in and a DVD menu that doesn't work.

The Real Question I Hope That Gets Asked...

[g0bshiTe]

The Internet Security Task Force (ISTS) is calling for American ISPs to abandon the “ineffective” Copyright Alert System (CAS), which sends up to six warnings to ISP users identified as sharing copyrighted works via BitTorrent and other means, before potentially taking sterner action against the end-user. The CAS system was enacted in 2011 by the Center for Copyright Information following three years of initial research into an approach to online movie piracy, though it was not taken up by ISPs until 2013. ISTS claims that the system is ineffective, and cites a growth of 160% in piracy of movies, TV shows, software, video games and music over the last two years, and an assertion that such piracy accounts for 24% of global internet usage.

The question is then, how much of that 160% growth is US infringement? Is that percentage high enough to merit a change or is this some bullshit number (I'm sure the number is real) but they make no mention if it's 160% growth of US infringers.

Re:The Real Question I Hope That Gets Asked...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worldwide. Click the link to The Internet Security Task Force. It's right there on that page.

Re:The Real Question I Hope That Gets Asked...

[Anonymous Coward]

oops. read your comment again. I thought you meant something else. Ignore my post.

Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[flopsquad]

What kind of crazy, Wild West law allows anyone to legally break into a movie studio and abscond with the film masters for up to 6 movies?!!

Ohh, they were doing that thing with the word "steal" again, where they accidentally used it instead of "make a copy in violation of copyright law."

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[reve_etrange]

taken without permission. The last 3 words in the previous sentence define theft.

No, they don't. Theft is taking scarce good without permission. You can keep using their newspeak if you want though.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

Since "good" refers to something physical, I see you've decided to respond with the predicted "it's not tangible, so therefore it doesn't count" excuse.

This completely ignores the fact that things do not have to be tangible to be considered to have a measurable value. Your time, for example, is worth money both to yourself and your employer.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope one day you are the victim of "Identity Theft", or more correctly "Identity Copying" because nothing will have been stolen, you will still have you identity.

Identities are hardly scarce, there are Billions of them with Millions of new one created every day, and you have lost nothing.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

taken without permission. The last 3 words in the previous sentence define theft.

No, they don't. Theft is taking scarce good without permission. You can keep using their newspeak if you want though.

Which is why they defined "Intellectual Property Theft". It varies by country of course, and it is usually only criminal activity when it is for commercial purposes, trade secrets, patents, etc. It is a real thing and not 'newspeak'. Granted most people aren't aware of that and they are usually incorrectly using "theft", but there are real legal ramifications to downloading movies; you just need to make a business out of selling your infringing copies before you run afoul of the system.

That said, you have no legal right to your network connection beyond the contract you signed when you got hooked up. Most of which have a clause that permits the ISP to stop providing your service for any reason. They can shut your service off regardless of your opinions of copyright law.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[jaa101]

Since "good" refers to something physical, I see you've decided to respond with the predicted "it's not tangible, so therefore it doesn't count" excuse.

This completely ignores the fact that things do not have to be tangible to be considered to have a measurable value. Your time, for example, is worth money both to yourself and your employer.

Nobody is saying that there's no value in copyright violations. What they are saying is that it is not theft. I like the car analogy for this one:

• Theft: Somebody come and steals your car parked outside your house. Now they have a car and you don't.
• Copyright Violation: Somebody comes and makes a copy of your car parked outside your house. Now they have a car and so do you.

See the difference? And remember that it was you who said it makes no difference as to whether the things are tangible or not.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[JeffOwl]

You just countered your own argument. Time is something that when taken can't be gotten back. When you copy something you do not deny the legal holder the use of whatever it was.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

Actually, you do, or at least some amount of it, when it comes to copyrighted works.

Copyright is supposed to be the exclusive right to say who is allowed copy. If someone else is copying without permission, then some percentage of that exclusivity is compromised, and actually *lost* to the copyright holder.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[jaa101]

You appear to be stuck on the notion that if copyright violation on a movie, for example, were theft, that it is the movie itself that was being allegedly stolen

Never said anything like that. All I'm saying is that if I download a movie (or other IP) in violation of copyright laws then that is not theft. If you want a catchy, single-word term, use "piracy" (though, in my view, that devalues the original crime of that name which is still going on) but use of the word "theft" in this context by big content et al. is wrong.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[adolf]

If somebody else is copying without the copyright holder's permission, then by the very definition of "exclusive", the pirate is depriving the rights holder of some measure of what was legally recognized as their property

Which is covered by copyright laws.

Please understand that an exclusive right to copy a work ("copyright") is a relatively recent notion in the grand scheme of things, and that theft is probably humankind's second defined profession (after prostitution).

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

It is no more wrong to call piracy theft than it is to call it the same if you tap into your neighbor's cable so that you can get cable without paying for it. Either way you are taking something that you have no legally recognized right to take. In the case of cable, it's the broadcasted content itself, and in the case of copyright violation, it's the exclusive right to dictate who may copy the work that the rights holder is supposed to have (ie, copyright literally means "the right to copy"). Since "exclusive" by definition, means that nobody else is doing it, when somebody copies a copyrighted work without permission, they are actually depriving the lawful rights holder of some measure of those rights.

So yes... it is theft. Suggesting that it isn't is just a specious rationalization used by people who don't want to feel guilty about it.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

The exclusive right to copy a work has *ALWAYS* existed.... if the creator doesn't publish in the first place, then their exclusivity on controlling the work is entirely natural. Before the printing press, exclusivity on controlling who could copy a work was a fortuitous side-effect of the fact that copying something was so labour-intensive and error prone, that it was not generally in would-be pirate's best interests to pursue it. As copying got easier after the printing press, some mechanism for keeping that exclusivity was needed, even it could only operate within a legal framework, and operate so long as people respected that law... which is what led to the creation of copyright.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[jaa101]

So yes... it is theft. Suggesting that it isn't is just a specious rationalization used by people who don't want to feel guilty about it.

And by judges preventing improper inflaming of juries.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

Okay.... I'll have to give you that one.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

The definition of theft is as defined by the laws that govern your jurisdiction. By most western law definitions copyright infringement is not theft and there is no "specious rationalization used" by anyone but you.

Re: Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is not theft. No matter how much you would like it to be. It isn't, period. Get over it and stop whining.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[harperska]

Ok, copyright is by definition a right. Hence the name clearly meaning "the right to copy". And I will buy your argument that piracy is taking away somebody's right in that sense. However, taking away somebody's right to something is not theft. If it was, copyright violations could be prosecuted under larceny laws. If Slashdot turned off your account, preventing you from soapboxing about piracy, they would be taking away your free speech right. Likewise, they can't be prosecuted for larceny in that case. In fact, in the general sense there is no prohibition whatsoever for private entities to infringe on other private entities' rights. That is why it is perfectly legal for businesses to ban guns on their premises, despite the second amendment, and internet forums can ban members for saying stuff they don't like, despite the first amendment.

Since piracy is not theft, an entirely separate section of laws have been written to address it. If it was theft, those laws would be unnecessary. Let's all stop calling it theft now, alright?

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[flopsquad]

I don't argue that intangible property doesn't matter, or is fundamentally not worth anything, because I don't believe that.

Rather, I argue that language has meaning and entrenched rightsholders like this ISTF are abusing language for their own gain. Theft already has both a legal and commonsense definition that requires the victim be deprived of the stolen thing.

Coopting words like theft and piracy is an attempt to take the very real negative emotions that go along with being robbed and deprived of a physical possession, and associate these emotions with the unauthorized duplication of bits. Copying isn't stealing. Breaking into a house to take pictures of a sculpture so you can 3D print it later isn't stealing. Stealing is stealing.

I'm not even arguing theft must always be of a tangible physical object; you can steal a trade secret because the value is in the secrecy, and appropriating that knowledge effectively deprives the victim of its entire value.

But if you download the latest Taylor Swift single, you're at most depriving her (label) of a single potential sale, to you. Nothing is stopping her from selling or licensing that song to anyone else. Nothing is stopping her or anyone else from enjoying their own copy. It's infringement, and it's still wrong. But it isn't theft.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[dryeo]

The exclusive right to copy a work has *ALWAYS* existed.... if the creator doesn't publish in the first place, then their exclusivity on controlling the work is entirely natural. Before the printing press, exclusivity on controlling who could copy a work was a fortuitous side-effect of the fact that copying something was so labour-intensive and error prone, that it was not generally in would-be pirate's best interests to pursue it.

Bullshit, people freely copied right up until publishers came along and wanted money for free or close to it, by paying a pittance to an authour for his work and trying to keep a monopoly on it.
There has always been musicians who freely copied each others work. There has been poetry for near forever which people freely copied. There has been stories told by people and freely copied probably since before humans were modern humans. At that people had very good memories before being literate was common and could repeat stories quite accurately..
There still primitive peoples who have no concept of copyright.
Same with ideas, you saw someone do something new and you copied them.

As copying got easier after the printing press, some mechanism for keeping that exclusivity was needed, even it could only operate within a legal framework, and operate so long as people respected that law... which is what led to the creation of copyright.

No, when the printing press came along, government needed someway to censor and contracted it out to private publishers who censored in return for a monopoly. With the enlightenment censorship went away (at least partially) and the publishers lobbied for a law to entrench their monopoly, argueing even then that "it was for the artist" while ripping off the artist. The compromise was a limited monoploly for a limited time to advance learning with the works going into the public domain after that limited time. They also had to register and give a copy to one of the 2 main universities of the time.
The idea of yours that sharing didn't happen is wrong as people naturally share abundant goods.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[reve_etrange]

I'll have to give you that one.

Unfortunately for your position, "that one" is the entire argument. Our civilization possesses codified laws in which the words used to define the laws actually matter.

In the laws that we actually have, as opposed to the ones you wish we had, the taking of scarce goods is theft, while making unauthorized reproductions of copyrighted material is copyright violation.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[reve_etrange]

I see you've decided to respond with the predicted "it's not tangible, so therefore it doesn't count" excuse.

That's simply false - as several posts below have noted.

This completely ignores the fact that things do not have to be tangible to be considered to have a measurable value.

No, it doesn't, and further you are conflating scarcity and tangibility. Regardless of the measurable value, or tangibility, of a thing, it must be scarce to be stolen.

Referring to copyright violations as "theft" is nothing more than a lobbying tactic based on perverting our language into a simplified form in which nuance cannot be expressed, but I'm not surprised you've fallen for it given your demonstrated lack of legal and linguistic knowledge.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case of legal precedent, I respectfully disagree with the judge's decision.

As an individual, I do feel that some art isn't worth paying for, media that is currently in circulation is clearly a thing not worth paying for. Expendables 3 is a movie that I avoided and won't download because I have no desire to see that tripe. A friend of mine who is a fan of the series explained just how bad the production values of the movie was.

However, as a content creator, which I am not, but know many of, an individual needs to be able to generate a living off of their work. When you have services that don't pay their creators, then they will either seek other means to prevent creating or just stop creating. While I feel that the movie studios are clearly overstepping their boundaries, I have to agree that they have to protect their creations to some degree.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Pentium100]

The difference between real theft and copyright infringement is that if you steal a physical item (say a DVD of a movie), the legit owner of the item no longer has it. He is then out the money he paid for it (paid money, no item). I steal a DVD from you, you can no longer play that DVD.

Copyright infringement is different in that here no item is lost - the studio still has as many copies of the movie as they had before I downloaded it. What the studio considers a loss is the potential profit they would have had if I bought the movie instead, however, that assumes:
1) That I would have bought the movie new for the full price (and not buy used or wait for the price to drop).
2) That the movie is available for sale at all in the store (how do I get the Star Wars Holiday Special legally?)

Remember - if I buy a movie used, the studio gets zero dollars from me.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

If by "scarce" you mean of finite quantity, then it is.....a copyright holder is supposed to have exclusivity to control who can copy a work, and since "exclusive" means that nobody else is doing it, by very definition the degree of exclusivity that the copyright holder otherwise would have had when copyrright infringement occurs is compromised. Theoretically, that exclusivity would only be completely gone when everyone in the world had a copy of the work, but in practice, the value that is associated with the exclusivity is such that it would be considered worthless long before then.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

...no item is lost

And yet another "it's not tangible, so therefore it has no value" excuse. I think I already called this in my original post above as a predicted response by people who can't think of original arguments and are only left with specious ones.

Copyright is supposed to be the exclusive right of the copyright holder to determine who is allowed to copy (lit. "the right to copy"), and if someone does that without permission, by the very definition of exclusive, those rights are being deprived. One is no less stealing them from a copyright holder by committing piracy than a person who gets cable television without paying for it is stealing from the cable company.

Whether the person being stolen from will ever happen to notice what is being stolen is irrelevant.

Plain and simple, stealing is taking something... anything... without permission.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

So yes... it is theft.

No, it isn't theft. I won't say that you're stupid, since you quite obviously aren't, but you sure have an agenda that you're playing very hard. You're also failing badly, in case you haven't noticed.

Suggesting that it isn't is just a specious rationalization used by people who don't want to feel guilty about it.

Suggesting that it is makes you look like an idiot and/or a shill. My bet is on shill, in your case. Doesn't really matter, either way.

Again: It is not theft.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Pentium100]

And yet, there is a difference - even the law recognizes it. The "no item is lost" is not because it's intangible, but also because making a copy does not destroy the original. Compare these two events:

1. I copy a CD borrowed from a friend. The studio still has as many copies of the album as they had before.
2. I break into the studio, grab the master tape, leave a blank tape (the same type) (or copy the tape then erase it) and run away. The studio no longer has the album, but I only stole the music - they did not lose the physical tape.

To me, only the second event would be stealing while leaving all tangible items are in place.

And you cannot steal a "right" - the studio still has the right to copy the album, I cannot take it away from them without getting a new law passed, since the right is just how the law sees it. I can however, infringe on the right, or rather, the exclusivity of it by making my own illegal copies.

And if the cable company did not disconnect the cable after I cancelled the service, then I sure can watch TV without paying.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

1. I copy a CD borrowed from a friend. The studio still has as many copies of the album as they had before.

What the studio does *NOT* have in this case is precisely as much exclusivity to control who is allowed to copy that content as they would have had if you had not made the copy... since in this case, you would have done so without permission, costing them a measure of the exclusivity of control that they were lawfully supposed to possess. It's a right they may still technically always have, buts its value is still measured in what amount of control they have to actually exercise they right... and again, "exclusive" means nobody else is doing it, so it stands to reason that if anyone else is, then they don't really have that exclusivity... even if they still supposedly have that right on paper. In practice the only exclusivity that the consumer can lawfully deprive the copyright holder of is in the realm of copies that would be considered fair use, or fair dealing, which are typically for the personal and private use of the person that made the copy, and not for any form of public usage, whether it is commercial or not (publicly shared folders on one's personal hard drive, for example, particularly if they are shared outside of one's own household, would qualify as public use, even not commercial use, and copyrighted content in such a location may well be infringing if one has not received any permission to make copies for public use).

And if the cable company did not disconnect the cable after I cancelled the service, then I sure can watch TV without paying.

I was referring to if you take it upon yourself to hook up your own cable, actually... which is how cable theft generally occurs... or else using a neighbor's paid cable line, either with or without their knowledge.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

It is no more wrong to call piracy theft than it is to call it the same if you tap into your neighbor's cable so that you can get cable without paying for it.

But that's not theft. It's illegal, under similar rules of copyright, but I'm not stealing anything.

Either way you are taking something that you have no legally recognized right to take.

You can't own an equation. Math and information are not physical entites to try and apply the rules and limits of physical items onto them just results in a set of laws and rules which make little sense, and which are ultimately unenforceable with out requiring people to surrender all rights to both ownership of physical goods and, going to the logical limit, even speech. Information is entropy, the universe is constantly moving it around and creating more.

Copyright goes against the fundamental laws of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.

In the case of cable, it's the broadcasted content itself, and in the case of copyright violation, it's the exclusive right to dictate who may copy the work that the rights holder is supposed to have (ie, copyright literally means "the right to copy"). Since "exclusive" by definition, means that nobody else is doing it, when somebody copies a copyrighted work without permission, they are actually depriving the lawful rights holder of some measure of those rights.

Rights that were given are not natural rights.

So yes... it is theft. Suggesting that it isn't is just a specious rationalization used by people who don't want to feel guilty about it.

Nope, it's not theft and people like me will argue with you till the end of time about it, and even prove to you it not by continuing to copy information for EVERYONES benefit.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[tricorn]

If I was taking someone's exclusivity, then I'd have some of it. Guess what I DON'T have if I copy something, with or without permission?

If I take something from you, then I have it and you don't (despite various idiomatic phrases, e.g. to take someone's virginity). If I haven't taken something from you, it isn't theft. If I copy something, I haven't taken anything. It may be copyright violation, but it isn't theft.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. There was never an exclusive right to copy anything till the 17th century. What you call an "Exclusive right" requires that the information be left in a closed system. That doesn't exist, even in real life, once a work is created it exists and if someone can procure a copy or the original then the information is naturally copied with out the creator's consent.

The most you can argue is that the creator owned the original object that contained the information, but no the information itself.

Hell, this happens every time you watch a movie or listen to music. Your brain copies the information into synaptic patterns. Theoretically we may even be able to retrieve that information after the fact... I wonder, what's going to happen when cheap SQUIDs and more advanced computers become available? Pirates may not even need to bring video cameras into theaters. That's will be an interesting day.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Your time, for example, is worth money both to yourself and your employer.

Excellent point. Where are all the prosecutions, convictions and aquitals, for time theft? You do not sell your time, you sell your skill and labor. Wasting others' precious time is what the makers of Expendables 3 have done, but it is not stealing when someone wastes your time... unless time actually belongs to you. It does not. You cannot literally possess time-- only metaphorically, like Jim Croce.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[jabuzz]

Because theft has a strict legal definition that pre-dates the invention of copyright.; that is "the intention to permanently deprive someone of something physical". As such copyright infringement does not meet the legal definition of theft and calling it theft when discussing something legal is simply wrong.

Stupid car analogy, if I take your car without permission and go for a drive, then a week later return it, I will not be prosecuted for theft (well at least not in the U.K.) because I had no intention to permanently deprive you of the car. It is why the offence of "taking without out the owners permission" exists for these offences.

All this is like law 101 for crying out load.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

So yes... it is theft. Suggesting that it isn't is just a specious rationalization used by people who don't want to feel guilty about it.

No, it's copyright violation. Not theft.

Talk about rationalization; copyright fanatics like yourself really need to get out more.

Copyright law is purely a fabrication of the mind, there is no physical component. And people change their minds.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Dragonslicer]

taken without permission. The last 3 words in the previous sentence define theft.

No, they don't. Theft is taking scarce good without permission. You can keep using their newspeak if you want though.

Depends on where you live. Some states define "Theft of Services" as a crime.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

That's not stealing. But hey, at least you call it stealing. In German, the word creation is literally "robbed copy".

But yes, it's actually possible to steal a copy. That's when you go into a store, cut open a CD, take a blank CD from the store that you did not buy, make a copy and then leave with the CD you just burned in the store.

Copyright infringement is still not legal. But it just ain't stealing. You're depriving someone income that he is legally entitled to. Yes, that's more words than "stealing", but it's closer to truth.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

And when my employer does not pay me after I do my work I can have him arrested for stealing my time?

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

Piracy is even more wrong than thievery. Piracy is not only the unlawful taking of goods, it's the unlawful taking of goods with force and violence under aggravated circumstances with little if any regard for the life of the ones deprived of property.

And so far I never felt the urge to kill studio bosses just to get a movie. That urge is independent of whether I have any interest in the movie.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

It's fraud. It's not theft. Stealing is by its very definition the taking of something using guile or trickery with the intent to keep and depriving the original owner of its continued use. And that latter part is not fulfilled.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

erh... no. The problem with being able to reap the rewards for the works of art has exactly been the problem since the dawn of time for artists. Painters had it fairly easy in this regard since copying a painting is pretty hard. But you do not have to look further than theater and drama, let alone opera and music, before you find the problem of "copying". The ushers looking for people filming the movie screen may be a relatively new thing, but in Shakespearian times they were looking for people sitting in the audience writing dialogues in shorthand. The actors didn't get their copy of the script to take home, scripts of new plays were under heavier lock and protection than unaired blockbusters are today.

Because there was no copyright.

Writers had a pretty tough time, especially new ones. Not only was it hard to find an editor if you're a noname, you also pretty much sold over your script to the editor (ok, that's not very different from today... but for other reasons). And then the clock was ticking, because as soon as there was an even remote chance that the work could be a success you'd have editors all over the country offering cheap reprints.

Copyright sure changed that. And that's why it's in its core a good idea. The problem is just that it went WAY, WAY too far. 70 years after author's death is beyond ridiculous.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

So how much does the MPAA pay you anyway? You've been all over this article getting rekt left and [copy]right: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7411895&cid=49686521

but here you are still going at it...

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

Guile or trickery are not required. Theft is simply the taking of something tat one does not have any lawful permission to take. Period. Anything more than that is just specious rationalization . If you reallywant to bring up deprivations, I have already explained what copyright violation (for many practical pulses irrevocably) deprives for the rights-holder: The *value* of those rights which is maintained only so long aas people voluntarily respect them.. Of course if you want to argue that people ought to have no obligation to respect such rights, then you are a copyright abolitionist, which is another matter entirely.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

Copyright is an extension to the *entirely* natural right to exclusivity that would exist if the creator had never published at all... After all, if nobody else even knows about it, then how an they copy it? To encourage creators to publish in the first place wen it s possible for others to copy e work (before the printing press, copying was sufficiently labour intensive and error prone that those barriers were considered to be adequate disincentive) copyright was invented to give such people some measure of such assurance.

If publishing without such assurance were genuinely a common trait, then why are even most freely distributed quality works *explicitly* copyrighted? That is simply that they may bother to expressly claim such a copyright... Even though they may have it implicitly, if it were not of some value, the creator of such a work would generally not bother to even mention it, or they may even try to explicitly donate their work to the public domain. But no... The vast majority of even freely available works are explicitly copyrighted. Copyright is therefore of value to creator, but it is that value which is harmed by copyright infringement.

Re: Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL because you said that, it will now happen to you. Way to go mr big shot movie industry shill. It's probably mark-t posting as AC because everyone ripped him a new ass.

Let's wish bad things on people because we don't like their views. I bet you and Hitler would of been best pals.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

"It's not theft, it's PIIIIIRACYYYY" is a tired straw-man argument that needs to be put to rest and never, ever, ever mentioned again. Yes, they are legally different acts, but they are both illegal and both cause damage to the original owner, either in real loss or in opportunity loss.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[david_thornley]

It's called "theft of services". It functions as theft because your time and labor are a scarce resource, and if you do some work for somebody you've expended time and energy that you don't get back.

So, yes, if your employer deliberately hires you with the intention of not paying you, that's a criminal offense. It's hard to prove that, though, so usually it's treated as a civil matter.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Content creation should be incentivized. At some time, in some form, by some method. I strongly agree there.

At the time of "perceiving it" is the wrong one. Trying to prevent awareness of the data ("viewing") is the wrong one, down to the logistically-impossible-to-attempt level. I'm not saying you "shouldn't" copyright round wheels; you can't. Same goes for paying a dead man about them.

Correcting the current, fundamentally-broken system is probably impossible, but the truth remains that we set things up very wrong. And by "we" I mean a small number of people. They set it up that way because they'd collect.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

There is still the option to take something by force or threat thereof, which serves as the difference to robbery (which is, for this very good reason, usually something punished much harder).

Be it as it may, the requirements for stealing are not fulfilled. Neither is the intention to deprive the rightful owner of its use nor is there any way someone copying content could deprive the rightful owner of its use.

And ... what the hell is the value of a right that is only maintained as long as people voluntary respect it? A right that only exists for as long as everyone voluntarily accepts its existence and ceases to exist once this is no longer the case is no right, it's tolerance. If you have a right to something, it is not dependent on someone's willingness to go along with it. that's the very definition of a RIGHT.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Some_Llama]

"It is no more wrong to call piracy theft than it is to call it the same if you tap into your neighbor's cable so that you can get cable without paying for it. "

if i steal cable from my neighbor then his service is degraded and i am depriving him of something, if i copy a movie i make no degradation to the original and thus no harm.

esp since i'm never gonna pay to see the expendables 3, i might watch it for free tho... like when it plays on tv 4000x

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

Copyright infringement reduces the value that copyright has in the first place... so you are not just depriving them of something they *may* have otherwise possessed, but something that they were supposed to actually have already had... the exclusive right to control who can make a copy. That exclusivity is where copyright gets its value from, so depriving them of that lowers its value to the holder.

If you steal $20 from somebody, in actuality all you've really stolen is paper that is worth a few cents... it is the *value* of that paper that is determined to have actually been stolen, however. It is similar with copyright infringement... you take away the right holder's exclusivity and its value is diminished, just as certainly as if you had siphoned money out of their bank account, but not actually transferred the money to any other account. Still theft, even if you don't profit from it.

Theft is nothing more complex than taking something that you have no lawful permission to take. Trying to qualify it with notions of tangibility, intent, objective measure of value, or who apparently suffers for it are all wholly irrelevant.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[metamatic]

So yes... it is theft. Suggesting that it isn't is just a specious rationalization used by people who don't want to feel guilty about it.

Like the US Supreme Court, for example.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

By that logic copyright is depriving everyone else of the value of the content that multiplication entails. Because content is obviously less valuable to the user if he is not allowed to make copies or able to use it in the way he deems most fitting for his purpose.

If you follow this train of logic, copyright itself is what lowers the value of the commodity. Now, this isn't the argument I'm trying to make but if you insist in introducing it, I can use that too.

But aside of that, the definition of theft is not mine. It's the legal one. It ain't a simple one either. Theft is taking a tangible object (rights and immaterial goods as well as animals are explicitly mentioned here) away from its original place (else I'd be liable for larceny by just picking up an object in a supermarket) with the intent to keep (separating every kind of accidental possession as well as circumstances such as finding something and trying to return it to its rightful owner) without the consent of the rightful owner (separating it from every kind of commercial transaction as well as actions as appropriation of things that have no owner and gifts where the original owner parts willingly without compensation), without force or threat thereof (differentiates it from robbery)

Funny enough there is also a provision for "undoing" the crime by returning the stolen good before the victim of the theft notices it, which would result in it not being punishable. So you think if the person copying something (i.e. "stealing" in your definition) should go free if he uploads it back to a server owned by the studio owning the rights to it before the studio notices it?

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

By that logic copyright is depriving everyone else of the value of the content that multiplication entails.

It's not depriving them of anything they would have had if the person hadn't published the work in the first place. Publishing, however, generally enriches society, so copyright is supposed to provide the creator with some of the same sense of assurance that people will not copy the work when they publish as an incentive to do so. The argument that creators do not need copyright as an incentive simply because plenty of people were creating and publishing works before copyright was invented does not consider all of the factors that are actually involved, and is a specious one, or at least highly suspect... in particular, it fails to account for the simple fact that in those times, there were entirely natural barriers that prevented many people from making copies of works - physical labour-intensive, high chance of errors, not to mention an overall high degree of illiteracy. As some and eventually all of those barriers were reduced or stripped away, all that copyright does is extend the assurance that creators had long before copyright ever existed that people would not copy their works, even if it only does so through wholly artificial means.

But when it cannot offer that assurance, then it becomes less valuable to the creator.... ultimately leading the creator to resorting to self-censorship or else very limited availability for the work. DRM, anyone? It's a sign that in today's age of free copying and ignoring of copyright, that copyright has already lost a lot its value to creators.... and it will, I'm afraid, only get worse - at least for people who obey the law.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

Guess I may assume by that comment that we've finally left the "stealing" argument and moved off a new tangent. Fine by me.

Again to pick up your logic of "if they had not published it the customer could not have bought it so copyright does not deprive them of anything", by that logic one may argue that copying has not deprived anyone of income if said copier would not have bought it. Which is about as easy or hard to prove or show as whether or not not publishing had deprived anyone of anything considering that someone else might have.

In the end, it doesn't really matter.

Copyright was supposed to balance the interests of those that create and those that consume. Before copyright there was little if any protection for those that created and if you didn't have a patron life was pretty rough for you. Today, though, we're living in a world that has gone berserk with the protection of intellectual property. No matter where you look, it's gone way beyond sanity. Be it from "lifetime of creator + 70 years" to the creator essentially being allowed to dictate how, how long and under what circumstances you may use his creation. I don't think anyone making anything tangible has even remotely this amount of control over his creation.

And that is how it's supposed to be?

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[mark-t]

Before copyright there was little if any protection for those that created and if you didn't have a patron life was pretty rough for you.

This is false. Before copyright, and in particular, before the printing press, copying was sufficiently labour intensive and error prone to functionally act a deterrent... it didn't stop everyone, of course, but then consider that the laws against copyright infringement don't stop everyone today either.

by that logic one may argue that copying has not deprived anyone of income...

True... but copying *HAS* deprived the right's holder of the value behind the exclusivity that copyright is supposed to have, and this is something that until an infringement occurs, the copyright holder actually *DOES* have. Exclusivity is something that works creators have always had... they have it implicitly when they create the work if they simply do not publish in the first place, and before the printing press they had a measure of it by virtue of the fact that copying back then was so difficult that it tended to act as a copying deterrent all by itself.

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[Opportunist]

Sorry, but this information is incorrect. There are countless accounts of artists (especially composers) going to insane lengths to at least protect their works so the premiere is theirs. There are reports of opera singers having to practice somewhere in a boat on the sea so nobody could hear them practice new operas (allegedly this was true for "La donna e mobile" from Rigoletto). Shakespeare didn't let his actors leave with their copy of the play, fearing they would sell it and rival companies would perform his plays.

Or, more blatantly, trying to track people filming the movie screen may be new, but back in those days people were sitting in the audience and taking notes in a form of shorthand. I guess taking paper to the movies must have been looked at not unlike you trying to sneak in a video cam today.

There were many problems with this lack of copyright, and the original intent of copyright was a good one. To keep greedy copycats from profiting off someone else's work. Good intention. And the original copyright protection was quite sensible. It has just developed into the abomination it is today that has nothing to do anymore with the protection of someone who can't protect himself in another way.

Copyright was invented to protect artists from publishers that try to cheat them. Oddly enough, today it protects those very publishers.

Steal?

[mwvdlee]

as it allows people to steal six movies from us

Holy crap, you mean all this time the pirates could have actually been stealing movies and thus kept the rest of the world from ever seeing them? I guess we're lucky they only made copies.

Re:Steal?

[dryeo]

I think they meant taking 6 DVDs from them, which often would mean breaking and entering, something I do agree should be illegal. I'm just amazed that such a huge number of DVDs, Blurays etc were taken.

Leaflet?

[sahuxley]

What does the leaflet say? Our profit is more important than your freedom to communicate?

Re:Leaflet?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are free to communicate, you're just not free to copy and distribute other people's content without their permission.

I'm sure you'd object if people started copying and distributing the content of your emails without your permission. Why do you think it's okay to do to other's what you wouldn't like done to yourself?

Re:Leaflet?

[reve_etrange]

I'm sure you'd object if people started copying and distributing the content of your emails without your permission.

Fortunately, such things are already illegal totally outside any form of intellectual property law.

Re:Leaflet?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how long have you been working for CEG-TEK International?

Re:Leaflet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people would not object. Most people use Facebook.

Some people would object. Let them. However, such a person has no right to physically abuse or threaten others for sharing the contents of his e-mails.

I'm happy for the movie industries to lament the movie sharing scene. However, supporting a law against such sharing and trying to enforce it crosses the line. It's simply not right.

Re:Leaflet?

[Opportunist]

You honestly expect people to open, let alone read, mail spam?

Re:Leaflet?

[Opportunist]

Then again, I don't try to sell the crap I write about in my email to the world. I try to keep it private. And I'm very sure that most people would not mind if those littering the charts today had done the same.

a new system based on Canada's

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, that system that they are abusing by sending threatening letters in direct opposition of the purpose of the system and the courts here in Canada? I'm sure they'd love to have that system elsewhere so that they can abuse it all over the place.

OMG!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Video Pirates!!!

Negative

[Anonymous Coward]

a group of businesses working to protect content creators and consumers from the negative effects of piracy

These guys must be doing a great job - I've never suffered any negative effects from piracy.

Re:Negative

[Githyanki]

You suffer the negative effects every time you purchase a movie ticket at a theatre. If there was no piracy, tickets would be 3$ each, popcorn would be $1.50 and that soda would be 2$.

Re:Negative

[Thiez]

High speed internet is a relatively new thing. I think it's safe to say that there was barely any online movie piracy twenty or thirty years ago. Were movie tickets $3 back then (or really $1.95 / $1.38, when we adjust for inflation)?

Re:Negative

[Anonymous Coward]

Big HD TVs have absolutely nothing to do with the decline in movie attendance. None at all. Despite the fact the general American population has no idea how to pirate movies. The fact that piracy statistics are inflated with the fact that people in countries that rarely see anything released tend to be the largest pirates of movies.

Re:Negative

[fustakrakich]

Gee, if nobody 'stole' anything, it would all be free!

Re:Negative

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 fucking hilarious. I sincerely hope you were going for funny though. If not, wow, clueless.

Re: Negative

[firewrought]

No, all of those things would cost slightly more, because you've raised demand for theater seats and goodies. The studios want too make as much money as possible from their product... you think they're just going to return the extras money to consumers in the form of lower ticket prices? This isn't akin to a shoplifting scenario, where theft adds incremental cost to each unit moved. Piracy acts more like a competing business, and when your competitor shuts down you can raise your rates.

Re: Negative

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, Good One!

Re:Negative

[Anonymous Coward]

An everyone would have a puppy, a glass of Sam Adam's Utopias, and a home by the sea.

Re:Negative

[Anonymous Coward]

You suffer the negative effects every time you purchase a movie ticket at a theatre. If there was no piracy, tickets would be 3$ each, popcorn would be $1.50 and that soda would be 2$.

You're funny. If that were true then prices of so-called IP with DRM would go down, not up. You're just a fanatic, either unable to think for yourself or paid not to.

Re:Negative

[Opportunist]

You believe that? For real?

The price of a commodity is independent of its creation cost. The only effect the cost has on the price is whether the commodity is offered at all. If, and only if, the cost is higher than the price, it will not be produced. That's the ONLY effect the production cost has on a commodity.

Price is what the seller assumes as the point where the most profit can be made. And this is very easy to determine for a commodity that has a near zero per-unit cost: Units * price per unit. That only must be optimized now.

If piracy played a role in price policy, it would mean that the higher the piracy, the lower the price. For logical reasons. People have a level they are willing to pay, and that level is lower if illegal copies are easy to get and detection rates are low. If piracy didn't exist, prices would go up. not down. If you need proof for this, take a look at the price of legal DVD copies of movies in the far east where illegal copying runs rampart and you can buy bootlegs at every corner, fairly openly even. A legal copy of a DVD blockbuster costs a handful of bucks, simply because there is no chance in hell to sell them for anything more than that.

Don't know many peoiple without Email spam filters

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the emails were going out I'd bet they read like spam in any case, so quite likely either manually or automatically "spam"

Double Standards of Course...

[jythie]

Every time I see calls for harsh anti-piracy initiatives, I picture what would happen if equally harsh rules were put in place for some of the dirty IP tricks or outright theft MPAA members engage in. "Oh, your studio got caught taking a copyrighted screenplay submission, rejecting it, then handing it over to one of your own people again? Sorry, your access to distribution has been cut off and you will not be able to produce movies anymore"

Re:Double Standards of Course...

[silas_moeckel]

How about you used DRM to deprive people of their right for format shift and backup. Sorry you loose your right to sue for any copyright infringement.

Re:Double Standards of Course...

[jythie]

That would be an excellent example. If you use copyright to gain more control than you are legally permitted to have (there are limits in contract law regarding what a contract can and can not do) more than 6 times than you lose your ability to use such enforcement mechanisms. Given how they have been pushing to treat each download as a seperate infringement, that would mean if your DRM prevented more than 6 cases of time shifting than that is 6 violations and your rights are revoked.

Crappy Research

[duke_cheetah2003]

From TFA:

Under CCMA there is no limit on the number of notifications that must legally be forwarded to ‘offending’ ISP customers, which has led to a 69.6% reduction in infringements at Bell Canada, with Rogers, TekSavvy, Telus and Shaw all reporting notable reductions in piracy (or, theoretically, greater uptake of VPNs).

I'm willing to bet after the first notification, people just move to a VPN service to hide behind... Fix the inaccessibility issues involving movie and show availability, and I think you'll see piracy drop a lot faster than trying to punish people. People really just don't care, they just want their movie or show, so make it accessible and affordable. Market is just waiting on you guys to fix the issues IMHO.

Some people also don't want to go to a theater with a bunch of other people and pay astronomical prices for a bag of popcorn. On the other hand, some people really like that theater experience. So offer us both, simultaneously, an online release and theater release, so the shy people can enjoy the movie with the need to wait 6 months or steal it.

Re:Crappy Research

[duke_cheetah2003]

erm correction: So offer us both, simultaneously, an online release and theater release, so the shy people can enjoy the movie WITHOUT the need to wait 6 months or steal it.

Re:Crappy Research

[Anonymous Coward]

Close, I went to a different 3 letter place...

IRC, not VPN.

Torrent is had. IRC privmsg to bots offering direct connection downloads are much safer and less policed.

Re:Crappy Research

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm willing to bet after the first notification, people just move to a VPN service to hide behind... "

I'm willing to bet most people don't know the first thing about VPN services to look one up.

Re:Crappy Research

[Opportunist]

Now they don't. But knowledge is easily multiplied. Knowing how to set up a VPN service in such a way that you can't get detected is one YouTube video away.

And knowing that you need a VPN service is one posting in a torrent board away.

Re:Crappy Research

[Cinnamon Beige]

The 6 month wait is because the Academy Awards require that gap between theatrical release and showing any other way for a movie to qualify for the awards. There's every reason, however, for studios to decide to go with simultaneous release for any film whose likelihood of getting even a nomination is roughly the same as the MPAA & Friends using accurate piracy numbers by anything other than accident--though theaters might stop getting their cut as usually the first week's ticket sales go entirely to the studio, with the theaters slowly getting to keep more over the weeks. (This is why the food is so expensive: that's where they make their money.)

It'd take overhauling a good part of the system, actually, but would be very sensible to do, especially as part of installing mechanisms to future-proof the system--historically, they've been trying to pretend new technology doesn't exist and won't ever exist, and this causes problems later on when having to figure out things like music rights for a new release format not included in the original contracts. Having anticipatory measures would streamline the entire process, especially given that sometimes the problem starts with nobody knowing who (all) needs to be renegotiated with in the first place...

Re:Crappy Research

[rhazz]

I'm willing to bet after the first notification, people just move to a VPN service to hide behind...

Not only this (and I know people who did exactly that), but people are also opting for VPNs to get around Netflix geo-blocking. I bet a lot of the Canadian reduction is mirrored in US increases.

Re:Crappy Research

[duke_cheetah2003]

Guess you haven't used uTorrent lately, they advertise often enough for BitGuard, which is a very easy point and click VPN service. Any idiot could set it up.

Re:Crappy Research

[duke_cheetah2003]

Excuses. The market's response to excuses: Steal it if you won't make it available.

Re:Crappy Research

[Cinnamon Beige]

Maybe I should have been clearer: Movie theaters need to earn money and they do not keep a goddamn single fraction of a cent until the movie has been out a while. I've done this unusual thing called 'talking to the owner' of a few, and it's actually altered my habits; I won't pay the concession prices, but I do wait until the movie has been out for a while and at least most of what I paid for the ticket is theirs.

If movie theater can't break a profit your bright idea will not work because there will be no theater to go see the movie at. (You are aware that the studios don't own the theaters and haven't since 1948 or so because of a SCOTUS ruling?)

I should add that, really, the reason you cite for doing it is hilarious to me because I would be in that group you expect to prefer watching it at home. I avoid the first week--weeks, if it's popular--and go during the cheap ticket hours because those are the empty times. I've even gotten private showings this way, since as long as they've sold a ticket they've got to show it...

Re:Crappy Research

[duke_cheetah2003]

correction: Btguard

a group of businesses working to protect content

[TheGratefulNet]

stopped reading there.

look, don't lie to me that you are helping ME, a consumer.

you look stupid when you lie. and you guys do such a really bad job of lying, too.

Re: a group of businesses working to protect conte

[Anonymous Coward]

By that token the pirates are "Helping the corporations to protect viewers"

By showing more people the content than who would have seen it without hard working pirates' help.

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

File sharing can't drive those prices up. If piracy results in fewer people going to theaters, the reduction in demand will force prices down. If movie watching suddenly became more popular, prices would not go down, they would go up, especially when theaters are routinely sold out. That's how commerce actually works.

The greatest harm file sharing could do is: reduce the expected ROI on major movies, which in turn results in fewer movies produced, and less money spent on the movies being made (which might reduce their quality). At the moment, the market is awash with more movies than anyone can watch, and the amount of money spent on some of them is ridiculous. So, I don't see that harmful consequence happening at all.

Re:No.

[reve_etrange]

+1 Contains economics.

Re:No.

[Rich0]

File sharing can't drive those prices up. If piracy results in fewer people going to theaters, the reduction in demand will force prices down. If movie watching suddenly became more popular, prices would not go down, they would go up, especially when theaters are routinely sold out. That's how commerce actually works.

The greatest harm file sharing could do is: reduce the expected ROI on major movies, which in turn results in fewer movies produced, and less money spent on the movies being made (which might reduce their quality). At the moment, the market is awash with more movies than anyone can watch, and the amount of money spent on some of them is ridiculous. So, I don't see that harmful consequence happening at all.

Kinda sorta. Reduced demand for tickets would indeed result in fewer movies produces, but I suspect that the ones being produced would be the highest-selling ones (blockbusters/etc). These could very well be priced higher, since they would have less competition. If they didn't think they could price it higher, they probably wouldn't produce it at all, since they would anticipate low volumes being sold.

That is my sense of it at least.

But you are correct that it isn't some kind of zero-sum game where some paying less automatically pays to others paying more. Pricing isn't directly related to cost - rather pricing is related to supply/demand, whether you make the product at all (and usually how much, but not in the case of a movie which has neglibible marginal cost) is related to cost, and the latter tends to affect the former via supply.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

File sharing can't drive those prices up. If piracy results in fewer people going to theaters, the reduction in demand will force prices down. If movie watching suddenly became more popular, prices would not go down, they would go up, especially when theaters are routinely sold out. That's how commerce actually works.

You'd think so, but as theater attendance keeps falling the prices still keep going up. They're hooked on the milk of the blockbuster, and keeping profits where they were or going up. This is partially because they have one scant resource (huge screen, huge speakers) so keep trying to add perks to that to raise the price, while everything else is going to other channels (TV, and now streaming).

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

... reduction in demand will force prices down ...

Yes, down to the limit of fixed costs, which are high in cinemas. So the price will drop very little. After that, it's like drive-in cinemas all over again.

Re:No.

[Githyanki]

I know that piracy and theatre prices have nothing to do with each other. Couldn't find sarcasm tag when writing my post. If I were serious, it would be dvd sales that are hurt. Those prices haven't climbed as rapidly as theatre prices though.

Re:No.

[david_thornley]

File sharing can also increase demand. If the pirate buys what he or she likes, as is common, then the pirate is getting more value per dollar spent, and will spend more money overall on whatever he or she is pirating. Simple economics.

Re:No.

[david_thornley]

As I understand it, in the US the ticket prices mostly go to the production companies, not the theaters, and the theaters largely make their money on selling food-like substances. Since the cost of providing copies to theaters is small, the ticket prices could go a lot lower.

Re: a group of businesses working to protect conte

[fustakrakich]

Lying works! We have the DMCA and all sorts of nasty laws on the books. I figure as long as we reward liars and con men with money and political power, we're in for lots more. Seems only natural, Pavlovian in fact. They are not stupid for lying. People are stupid for believing.

Naw

[rsilvergun]

we got off lightly. It was 4 Adam Sandler Movies, National Treasure 3 and the latest film from Sstar Actor Shia Labeouf

Re:Naw

[Opportunist]

So their plan is that they can plead insanity if they get caught?

Ineffective?

[senatorpjt]

It's certainly not ineffective. If it were, there wouldn't be so many VPN providers in business.

stupidity...defined...

[Anonymous Coward]

hell yah! lets get back to SUING OUR CUSTOMERS!!!

The facts

[Anonymous Coward]

... before they get an educational leaflet

That's a problem: They're not getting money from offenders.

... a new system based on Canada's Copyright Modernization Act

The article doesn't say why this law is admired by the copyright lobby. What powers does this law give to Hollywood?

Australia is slowly approaching the idea of speculative invoicing for movie pirates. How would a 'Copyright modernization act' affect their copyright lobby?

60 million times?

[Chibi Merrow]

Wait, is this guy claiming 20% of the US population pirated Expendables 3?

And we're supposed to take anything else he says seriously?

Re:60 million times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, are you claiming no one outside the US pirates movies?

Re:60 million times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Expendables 3?

Re: 60 million times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. I am a hardcore pirate, I download and seed shit on principle, because the state-granted monopoly called "copyright" is a bigger theft than the alleged "violations", and I still stayed away from that crap, as I do for all films of the 80s action movie have beens.

This rap is a load of crock anyway, the industry is making excuses, so that it can offload costs to the taxpayer and the ISPs.

Re:60 million times?

[GumphMaster]

No, the claim is, "has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times." (Emphasis mine) No mention of geographic scope, but the figure is utterly unsupportable anyway. Even if they knew precisely how many allegedly infringing copies had been made (they don't) there is no way of knowing how many times a movie has been viewed. It could be anything from zero to 60 million views with anything from one to one gajillion allegedly infringing copies in existence.

Re:60 million times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, makes total sense to me.

See, someone could have downloaded a single copy. Then hooked up hundreds of TVs in a circle around someone. Then forced (enhanced interrogation style) someone to watch it 60 million times worth. Okay, maybe that's excessive, but you get the idea.

Re:60 million times?

[Opportunist]

Your implication that someone could sit through this train wreck more than once is even more outlandish than the original claim.

Re:60 million times?

[Cinnamon Beige]

Yep, makes total sense to me.

See, someone could have downloaded a single copy. Then hooked up hundreds of TVs in a circle around someone. Then forced (enhanced interrogation style) someone to watch it 60 million times worth. Okay, maybe that's excessive, but you get the idea.

I think that qualifies as torture. At least choose something better...

Re:60 million times?

[GrumpySteen]

No, the Film Consortium guy is the one implying that by suggesting that every download should have gotten a CAS notice. The goal is, as always, to misconstrue the numbers to suggest that piracy is a huge problem (20% of the US population pirating movies is scarier than 0.8% of the global population).

The person you responded to is simply reacting with disbelief that at the Film Consortium guy's idiotic statement.

Orwell

[Livius]

I'm not a fan of the new trend of naming legislation by the opposite of its purpose.

E.g. Copyright Modernization Act which is about implementing feudalism.

Re:Orwell

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Modernization_Act ?

IRTF

[harvey the nerd]

Internet Rapist Task Farce. There fixed that for you lying, power-hungry, treacherous pukes.

gasp...6 whole movies!

[Anonymous Coward]

if this guy could see a directory listing of my nas he would probably need the fainting couch

We don't deliver letters until they pay

[Anonymous Coward]

When those cheapskates start paying for us to be a process server for their civil litigation we will deliver them. Every time I have contacted them and asked how we should bill them they tell us we are required to deliver them. I tell them it cost money to be their process server and to pay up. They usually hang up and ignore any other attempts to negotiate payment for it. They say piracy but its really copyright infringement. Civil, not criminal. I'm sure Comcast and Time Warner feel different since they are major copyright holders.

Copyright Trolls complain they can't get cust info

[BenJeremy]

That's what this is really about, litigious companies like Volt Pictures have formed the Voltron of Copyright Trolls and now are complaining that they do not have enough fodder to feed their ambulance chasing lawyers to send out threatening (and misleading) settlement letters too.

Highly flawed analogy

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

"It is no more wrong to call piracy theft than it is to call it the same if you tap into your neighbor's cable so that you can get cable without paying for it."

There's a big difference between tapping a neighbor's cable and pirating a movie off the Internet. An unlicensed cable connection generally involves one connection/source, your neighbor's. But if you want to download from the Internet the same number of movies you could watch from an unlicensed cable connection, you can choose from more than one source, from the various file-sharing sites to torrents uploaded by thousands of different individuals.

To summarize the difference:

Illegal cable connection: one source (your neighbors).
Internet movie pirating: many sources (unless you're the sort who watches only one movie)

Re:Highly flawed analogy

[mark-t]

Illegal cable connection: one source - the cable company

internet movie pirating: one source - the copyright holder.

Who you get the cable from or where you download the movie from is immaterial with regards to who one is taking something from.

Re:Highly flawed analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still not theft, though. Give it up, already. Discuss copyright infringement for what it is. Discuss its benefits and its drawbacks on their own merits. Trying to sneak in the "theft" word all the time weakens any arguments you might otherwise have. Don't you understand this?

Re:Highly flawed analogy

[mark-t]

I'm not "sneaking" the word theft in there.... when somebody takes something that they have no lawful permission to take, it *IS* theft... plain and simple. Some people don't like that word because theft implies a sense of morality to it, and because most people like to think of themselves as moral, and of course doing immoral things would make an otherwise moral person feel guilty. Since they don't really feel guilty about piracy, they conclude that it can't actually really be theft in the first place. There's a name for that... It's called circular reasoning.

Re:Highly flawed analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not theft because I have not TAKEN anything. They still have it. At most they've been deprived of their rights, but that's not theft. You can try and argue it as metaphorical theft, but it is not theft by the legal or even colloquial definition of the word.

Re:Highly flawed analogy

[mark-t]

Those rights, however, have a value to them.... a value which is diminished each and every time those rights are deprived. It is that value they are *actually* losing, and in fact can never fully recover. That this value happens to be valueless to the pirate is irrelevant.

Re: Highly flawed analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

I think mark needs to goto another forum because clearly no one believes the shit he is saying.

Here's an idea, make quality works that are affordable , user friendly and I guarantee you piracy will drop. Their model now is throw as much shit at the wall and see what sticks. And the consumer pays.

Re: Highly flawed analogy

[mark-t]

Where did I suggest that copyrighted works should not be affordable to the general public? However, retaliating against such unaffordability by ignoring the law and making unauthorized copies anyways is not the appropriate response... what is appropriate is to vote with your wallet and not endorse that right-holder's works in the first place. Anything else comes from nothing less than, or any more complex than a simple sense of self-entitltement.

Re:Highly flawed analogy

[david_thornley]

The rights still exist. If I pirate a movie, the copyright holder(s) still have all their legal rights as well as all their copies. It may diminish the potential audience.

Re: Highly flawed analogy

[david_thornley]

Still orating from your moral high horse, claiming that people who disagree with you are immoral?

Let me clue you in on rhetoric. If you make stupid arguments against a practice, and claim moral superiority like that, you're actually encouraging that practice. People who pay attention to you are likely to reject your message because you're saying they're immoral. They're likely to find your arguments bad, and generalize to the attitude that arguments against copyright infringement are bad.

Some of the people disagreeing with you don't pirate stuff. They're not going from a sense of self-entitlement, and accusing them of that accomplishes nothing.

Re: Highly flawed analogy

[mark-t]

I haven't alleged a darn thing about morality.... all I said was that copyright infringement is theft because it amounts to the taking of something that one has no lawfully recognized permission to take.

But theft itself is not necessarily immoral. For example, stealing something from somebody who himself has previously stolen in violation of recognized law, but has gotten away with it, in order to give the property back to the rightful owner is still quite clearly theft (and one may find themselves criminally responsible for such), but especially if they do not expect compensation for said return, one can hardly suggest that it is particularly immoral to do so.

Why the F are ISP's doing IP enforcement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously WTF.
We have a process for illegal things.
gather evidence
goto the "law" press charges
or goto Court & sue for damages

Re:Why the F are ISP's doing IP enforcement?

[Opportunist]

But ... but... but then I'd have to pay for it! I'm entitled to you paying for my protection! I've bought enough politicians to say so!

Here's a new system:

[Anonymous Coward]

I call it "make it easier for people to download shit legally, and for a reasonable price, than pirating." Not a very catchy title, of course.

We've had 15 fucking years to learn the lesson that negative incentives just don't work. Offer people a product that's not inferior to, say, the pirate bay, for a reasonable price, and watch the cash flow in.

Re:Here's a new system:

[Opportunist]

Naja, MIEFPTDSLAFARPTP isn't quite a catchy acronym.

But the idea itself is sound. maybe find a better way to phrase it that TV anchors can pronounce.

... so they want pirates to use VPNs?

[Karmashock]

These guys don't seem to grasp they're in an arms race that they already lost.

Between VPNs and cyberlockers exactly how do these clowns think they're going to stop anything? People selling heroine on the internet are rarely caught and as we can see despite the DEA expanding their efforts against it, that is expanding geometrically.

These people think that they're going to have more of an effect against people pirating the latest movie than the DEA is having stopping people from selling heroine? They're just so f'ing ignorant.

The movie industry and the music industry need to have whatever portion of their business deals with such things slashed and burned... and then replaced with people that actually understand the technology.

Yes yes, if they can start hauling 14 year olds into court they might get people afraid enough to change their behavior. But it will also be a huge PR problem because they'll look like assholes whatever the morality of piracy is... and to make matters a great deal worse, changing behavior does not mean making anyone actually stop. It just means "change".

A torrenting VPN can cost as little as 5 dollars a month. With that you pretty much buy immunity from this stuff right there.

What is more, people might start pushing torrents through some sort of Tor based anonymizing system... which if it works could see the additional costs set to zero though at the price of slowing down whatever the download was because you're pushing so much f'ing garbage around.

Then you have cyberlockers which are everywhere. You can download most things through them as it is and if the torrenting networks get iffy then be shocked and amazed when everyone just starts going to cyberlockers as their first resort.

And that's just what exists RIGHT NOW. They start messing more substanively with the torrenting networks and god knows what people will come up with.

If the people running the movie studioes and music studioes understood the dynamic elements to what they were dealing with the LAST thing they would want to do is hit the whole system with a hammer and force a paradigm shift.

If they were smart, they'd go softly softly and collect lots and lots of data and try to subtly change consumer buying and pirating and viewing patterns without triggering a freakout response that could make the system a million times less manageable than it is right now. They can at least track things as it is now. If they smash the system they might not even be able to estimate what is going on.

And another thing which is endlessly irritating is the consistent conflation of Pirates = Paying customers. Some content creators might not care on the rather spiteful logic that if you didn't pay for it than I don't want you to have it. But on a purely dollar and cents calculation, a pirate that wouldn't have bought your content in the first place is irrelevant. Seperating out A from B is complicated but you can get a clearer notion of what is going on if you cut people off from a pirated copy and see how many of them resort to buying. The numbers are generally a good deal lower than the pirating population.

The pirating population shows you how many people would consume your product if the price were set to ZERO. Any fool with any knowledge of supply and demand is aware that if you increase prices on elastic goods that fewer people will buy. You could for example charge a thousand dollars for the latest super hero movie and SOMEONE would buy it. But the number of people that would buy it would be nothing like the numbers when the price is set to 20 dollars. And those numbers would be nothing when compared to if the price were set to ZERO.

Always when they talk about their lost profits they assume that X Pirates = X paying customers
Thus
Loses from piracy = X pirates * current retail price.

Which is idiotic.

If the movie industry wants to get more people to buy their content, they might consider lowering their prices. Already they've been forced to do thi

Re:... so they want pirates to use VPNs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod up if I could.
Cyberlocker is a new term that Hollywood does not want to discuss or mention. Sure they shut down Kim/Megaupload in NZ or whatever, but as a result the issue has multiplied and created something of a mini boom in Eastern Europe. VPN's are taking off like fire, many are NOT using what we suspect as borked USA pwaned CA's. Good luck on NSA making Latvia come to heel. VPN companies know they are kaput IF they get exposed.
All that remains is parallel reconstruction- but even then the squeals are broadcast far and wide.

Mouse Vs Mousetrap. Kim was ahead of the pack. A true visionary. I predict a lemming like rush to stronger crypto, then a shedding of CA's (now ALL i in USA control?).

The predictable conclusion is Hollywood has sabotaged and harmed NSA efforts, and disadvantaged non USA five eyes with inefficiency surcharges.
When everyone + man +dog adopts ChaCha, maybe Hollywood will get a directive to ease off with the bribes/payments to congresscritters in need of financial props.

Hollywood buys time at the expense of NSA. Eventually market demand will become a more efficient factor than political bribery - unless they actually want to make cyber lockers unlawful, which will trigger a whole bunch of awkward constitutional questions.

Re:... so they want pirates to use VPNs?

[Karmashock]

I don't think the NSA has anything to do with this because they have very different interests.

The NSA does primarily concern itself with state level enemies and various terrorist groups. Not only does the NSA not give a shit about pirate groups but they don't really care about the heroine dealers that the DEA is after either.

The NSA is only interesting in that they are the apex of US cyber spycraft. But while they are the apex they are also really only interested in the apex themselves of which pirates don't merit any attention.

NSA aside, I think we largely agree. The studios could have done better in this struggle but they'd have had to have been more reasonable from the get go.

Re:... so they want pirates to use VPNs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there really any difference between a cyberlocker and 'mainstream' services such as dropbox, Google Drive etc, which allow file 'owners' to generate a URL which will allow anyone to download the file?

Re:... so they want pirates to use VPNs?

[Opportunist]

The real problem is that with the increase of VPN and encryption, it also gets way harder to detect real criminals that commit real crimes that are a real danger to people. Because as the noise increases it's getting harder to see the real problem makers.

Good chance I have 8 strikes.

[Trax3001BBS]

If: "Dear Charter Internet Customer:

Charter Communications ("Charter") has been notified by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, that your Internet account may have been involved in the exchange of unauthorized copies of copyrighted material" = a strike. I have 8 against me for something you can view on youtube.

Good chance I have 8 strikes.

[Trax3001BBS]

If: "Dear Charter Internet Customer:

Charter Communications ("Charter") has been notified by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, that your Internet account may have been involved in the exchange of unauthorized copies of copyrighted material" = a strike. I have 8 against me for something you can view on youtube.

-Might be a dupe having a bit of a /. connection problem.

It's like another 'Holocaust'!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oy vey, haven't ve suffered enuff! The poor Jews... next thing you know it, they'll actually have to do manual labour...

Why not bring in executions for anybody who doesn't bow down to the Jews and their crappy films?

On another note - guess who derailed the Amtrak train and killed over five people...

http://gotnews.com/breaking-gotnews-ids-gay-activist-train-engineer-who-caused-amtrak-crash/

A GAY 'activist'. What joy... I wonder if he was high, as so many homosexuals are most of the time, by any chance...

Re:They want to replace it with something worse

[Anonymous Coward]

An organisation called the "Internet Security Task Force" should be advocating things like HTTPS everywhere and encouraging servers to implement HTTPS, developing and advocating phishing detection tools (for end-users) etc. As it is, their name is grossly misleading.

Re:They want to replace it with something worse

[Anonymous Coward]

To right. Are they there to fight for the security of the internet and to send out warnings of possible attacks on infrastructure. NO! of course not it's a just a fancy name some porn companies dreamed up when having a quick one off the wrist to moan about an infringement, nothing at all to do with security of the internet. Perhaps they should be bombarded with security questions about fibre optic tunnelling of the NSA, bot nets and general malware.

"...The negative effects of piracy."

[wardrich86]

Hang on, there are negative effects to piracy? I'd say a solid 90% of the stuff I own I pirated before buying it legitimately. Until the write a law that allows me to get my money back on media that sucks, I don't see there being any negative effect for the consumer on piracy.

Internet Security Task Force?

[Drathos]

What is up with their name? They have nothing to do with "internet security."

If I saw that name out of the context of this article, I would think they were something like CERT..

Six movies you say?

[GameboyRMH]

Muahahaha, how quaint!

Let me help here...

[Cinnamon Beige]

"Theft of services" is fancy lawyer for 'failing to pay for services'--from US Legal:

Theft of service is defined by state laws, which vary by state, but typically define the crime as knowingly securing the performance of a service by deception or threat, diverting another's services to the actor's own benefit, or holding personal property beyond the expiration of rental period without consent of the owner. Intent to avoid payment may be presumed under certain circumstances, such as failure to pay for an applicable rental charge within 10 days after receiving written notice demanding payment.

Thus, it is theft of services being talked about in the classic question "If you force a sex worker to have sex with you, is it rape or theft?" (I am inclined to go with 'both.')

Dog in the manger

[tepples]

So what's the working, lawful source for the film Song of the South or Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night? If a work's copyright owner does not make the work available to the public, what "value" are infringers "stealing"?