Slashdot Mirror
Torrent Website ExtraTorrent Under DDoS Attacks; Pirate Bay Also Down (torrentfreak.com)
It's getting harder for people who don't like paying for movies, music, and applications. Popular torrent website ExtraTorrent is suffering an outage Tuesday, the site confirmed. The site says it is on the receiving end of DDoS attacks, observing 40 to 50 million requests coming from the United States every hour. The site told TorrentFreak that it has been facing "tons of cyberattacks" over the past three days. The Pirate Bay is also down for many users. Users who try to access the site get a CloudFlare downtime warning, or a new Captcha error.
Not down for me. Still loads just fine
I sure hope our government catches and punishes the criminals who took the law in their own hands and started these DDOS attacks.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I sure hope our criminals catch and punish the government who took the law in their own hands and started these DDOS attacks.
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
lol, The RIAA and MPAA have finally figured out how to stop piracy
where i get my illegal content now??? someone stop the criminals
You don't need reasons to feel entitled to something. On top of that doing something against the rules if you can get away with it is basically standard business practice for most big organisations, why are common citizens expected to behave differently?
because they can actually be held responsible.
Uh oh, someone told the truth. Around here we're supposed to pretend that it's something else, other than being cheap.
I can't speak for eveyone, but I have adopted the see-first-pay-after-if-worth-it attitude.
I've paid enough for disappointing music and movies that I now want to see and hear it first before paying a dime. Them trying to hustle me with a spectacular preview and delivering nothing more is not going to work anymore.
Write and/or read. https://scifurz.wordpress.com/
It isn't "being cheap". I like to maximize my income while minimizing my expenditures. Any good business does that. You should too.
by buying CD/DVD/BR's at pawnshops. Support the local brick and mortar pirates.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Maximising your profit and minimising your expenditure *IS* being cheap. Yes, the phrase "being cheap" is a pejorative one, but that doesn't make it inaccurate in this case.
I see it in a similar vein.... For as long as we've had the ability to use technology to save duplicate copies of print, audio, video or computer software content, we've had this raging "piracy" debate. But nothing's really changed.
If you're in an industry that makes its money from charging to redistribute copies of content, it's in your best financial interest to leverage any possible angle to prevent anyone ELSE from doing the same thing you charge money to do. Meanwhile, the consumer simply wants copies of particular pieces of the content for personal use and enjoyment -- so he/she is looking for any angle to obtain as much as possible at the lowest possible cost.
I'd like to know who these mythical people are who LIKE paying for movies, music and applications? In reality, nobody I know enjoys spending their hard-earned money for these things. It's simply a compromise made depending on the circumstances. (EG. A new movie comes out and you really want to be among the first to see it. Your only reasonable option is to pay the movie theater's price for a ticket to view it there. Otherwise, you're probably only going to get a very sub-standard quality bootleg copy of the movie (at best) to watch at home - which isn't going to do the movie any justice. Same might apply if you want to own a particular music album that's difficult to find. You might not have any avenues to download a free copy so you resort to paying the asking price to buy it.)
There are, of course, other considerations that have to do with the "value adds" of paying for a legal copy of a piece of content. You might appreciate having a digital license on a service like Steam for a video game, because it adds convenience. (Instead of having to protect a physical piece of media from damage or loss, it exists in the "cloud", tied to your account, indefinitely. Any time you want to reinstall the game on a new computer, even years later? It's right there for you in Steam when you log in.)
But IMO -- all of this "push and pull" is just a natural condition that comes with the territory. If I was a content distributor, I'd concentrate on making sure I had the most convenient and easy to use service for purchasing the content, and added as much value as I could to the whole process. I wouldn't waste time on the legal end of things, trying to chase down and eliminate "pirates" -- because in most cases, the "pirate" one day can be your customer the next. There will always be far more content to consume than anyone has time to digest ... and there will always be only some small subset of what you're offering for sale that any one person will be willing to purchase from you.
No it isn't. It is just good business.
What's that? These people are doing the opposite, unlawfully downloading the few songs that the major labels released this week, while ignoring the 53 million songs they can legally get for free, the ones that aren't produced by the major labels? I wonder why they insist on getting the major label music and ignore the vast majority of music, which isn't produced by major labels. I guess they actually DO really want something that the major labels offer, they're just crooks who decide to take it illegally rather than spend the $1 to buy it on itunes or Amazon or whatever.
Or, maybe they want DRM-free recordings in the quality/format that *they* choose and which can't be "disappeared" from their "library" at the whim of some corporation, or maybe want copies of music no longer offered by the labels/studios.
Cheap is nice, but there are other reasons equally valuable to many listeners. The old business model died when general purpose computers and the internet became ubiquitous. The MPAA/RIAA/labels/studios are the present-day equivalent of buggy-whip makers desperately trying to fight progress and preserve the old paradigm instead of taking advantage of the opportunities new technology and new methods of distribution offer.
It would not surprise me in the least to learn that the major labels/studios and/or the US government are the ones responsible for the DDoS attacks...actions which, if performed by an individual, would be prosecuted as criminal acts. But then, it's become almost a daily routine that the government is discovered to have broken the laws we must obey. 'Law for thee but not for me' seems to be the normal attitude and policy with the US government. Another good reason to keep government size, scope, and powers to the minimum needed to prevent chaos and lawlessness. When it comes to governments, with great size and power comes great corruption.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
> Or, maybe they want DRM-free recordings in the quality/format that *they* choose and which can't be "disappeared" from their "library" at the whim of some corporation
iTunes sold DRM-encumbered music for six years. For the last eight years, it's been standard MP3 that you can save to any storage you prefer. So your excuse is nearly a decade out of date.
Well fighting piracy DOES work to some degree. If you can make it slightly harder it will eliminate more piracy. For example I don't pirate now, because I know my ISP tracks it using DPI of traffic. Some people take the next step of getting a VPN, but I didn't. My main point is it beneficial for you to minimize your expenditures. I don't feel guilty about it either. Apple/Microsoft/etc all minimize their tax bills. It is just good business.
It's all those fan-boys looking for the Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
> It's getting harder for people who don't like paying for movies, music, and applications
Not paying for stuff the suckers pay for. That makes me smart. Right, America? I guess so. Why pay if you can screw the bastards instead.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/26/politics/donald-trump-federal-income-taxes-smart-debate/
> it's impossible for them to change that policy at their whim with an updated TOS.
Well yes, it is. That's kinda the point of getting a DRM-free mp3 when you pay your dollar - you can copy that mp3 to any of your devices and nobody can take it away from you. It's *exactly* the same as downloading an mp3 via Bittorrent, except you're not a crook.
> Yes, because iTunes is the only digital distribution platform and has every recording ever made
Apple, Google and Amazon are the top three, probably accounting for 90% of all downloads and yeah they all do DRM-free mp3 and sometimes other formats like flaac.
Face it, your excuse is well passed it's "use by" date. Time to either a) pay your dollar or b) admit you're just a crook, simple as that. Same as shoplifting.
> It's getting harder for people who don't like paying for movies, music, and applications
Uh oh, someone told the truth. Around here we're supposed to pretend that it's something else, other than being cheap.
It's funny that it's a product when it's convenient and a licence when it's not. Not to mention that if the package is opened then you can't return it if it's defective. And a final note, why are not all titles available. Isn't that the point of copyright so they will be published.
Yeah I know who is cheap and it's not the pirates.
It was only matter of time before they hired Russia.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Same here. I've begun to loathe new blockbuster movies. They're generic, boring and I'd never watch again. Any movie that I've watched more than 5x I've legally purchased. The rest, I've watched, had the privilege to discuss as a new topic, then never wanted to see it again.
Presidential elections also.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I guess you're not familiar with poor . It's like cheap but without any alternatives.
> It's like cheap but without any alternatives.
As indicated in the subject line of this thread, just Myspace alone offers 53 million free songs by 14 million artists. The vast majority of music is free. Contrary to your belief, apparently, you will in fact NOT die from lack of Justin Bieber.
That's the shareware model for software. Download the program and try it out for free. To continue using it after a certain amount of time, or to unlock certain features, or to get rid of an annoying nag screen, you pay for it. While not the most popular model, it's still used successfully pretty widely.
The record and movie companies are such Luddites that won't even try to explore new technologies and models. They fought the VCR tooth and nail, were forced to accept it by the courts, and a couple decades later most of their revenue came from videotape and later DVD sales and rentals. They fought movie rentals tooth and nail, were forced to accept it by the courts, and a decade later something like half of their revenue came from movie rentals.
I agree with you - I think the shareware model would work spectacularly well for movies. You get to watch the first half of the movie for free, but at a strategic point halfway through the movie, it stops and you have to pay for it if you want to watch the rest of it. It's a concept which dates back to antiquity - A Thousand and One Arabian Nights used it. The fictional storyteller, ordered by the king to be executed the next morning, would tell the king half a story at night, forcing him to keep her alive to hear the second half the next night, at which point she would weave in the first half of another story thus keeping her alive another day. But the studios are too closed-minded to even consider trying it.
I don't. If they started the shareware model before all the downloading started, it might have worked. Now, I just don't even care to watch their movies even if it's offered for free. Even if they hand delivered it to me for free to watch, I still wouldn't watch it. They've pretty much destroyed my taste in all the movies they've been pumping out, most of it has been absolute crap. When you want me to pay $20 per a movie ticket to determine if a movie is crap, when the chances are very high that the movie is going to be crap, well, no thanks.
You can always use Spotify for free legally to see if you like the music and then buy the album to get rid of the advertisements.
I started using extratorrent after kickass torrents went down. Extratorrent is a shitty, shitty site where almost every click you make loads spamvertising of some sleazy-ass sort. Click to sort by seeders? New window instead, with spam instead of a sorted list of torrents.
So I turned off javascript, which worked for a while, until they started pulling this bullshit "Please enable Javascript to see site content". Mhm. More like "Please enable Javascript so we can clickjack you into oblivion". And the site admins have the nerve to be rude to site users that complain about their scammy, shitty behaviour.
If Extratorrent wasn't so shitty to its users, maybe this DDoS wouldn't be happening.
Here's an example of what happened when one did, but then found that they answered to Luddites.
Some years before Slashdot, when CD-burners were new and cost over a thousand, there was an "indie" record company that decided to let consumers choose from a list of any songs released by that company and have them burned to a CD. The artists got their fair cut per track and actually liked the idea (or so some said at the launch anyway). The day after the launch it was cancelled. It turned out that the "indie" record label was not so independent after all and piggybacked on a major label's distribution network, and the major label told them to cancel the idea or be driven out of business almost overnight. The luddites won.
Uh oh, someone told the truth. Around here we're supposed to pretend that it's something else, other than being cheap.
It's about not supporting censorship lobbyists for me. I don't mind paying for drm free content from Louis CK of GOG because they don't go around spreading viruses, tracking your online movements, suing families or lobbying for censorship bills around the world. But giving the MAFIAA my money? That would be immoral AND stupid (not because I spend a little money, because it's against my own future freedom).
I have plenty of money, do waste on other BS and miss some stuff for having this position (like going to the movies or live sports on cable). To claim people act in certain ways because of only one reason gives the impression you have no idea about how human beings are like.
What do I pirate the most of? Books actually. I also buy lots of physical books used though too.
> But giving the MAFIAA my money? That would be immoral AND stupid (not because I spend a little money, because it's against my own future freedom).
When you boycott a company, for moral reasons or any other, you don't use their products. Stealing the product isn't a boycott. If you ignore the 99.99% of music that's not produced by RIAA, and instead steal the RIAA music, that's not because it "would be immoral" to listen to most music, it's because you a) like what RIAA provides you, and b) would rather steal things than pay for it.
If I'm wrong, I'm very much looking forward to you explaining why it's "stupid AND immoral" to listen to Leannasaurus Rex or the other 14 million bands that aren't represented by the RIAA. So tell me, why exactly is it "stupid AND immoral" to listen to Leannasaurus Rex?
Cool, so I'll just come to your place, steal your stuff and murder you. It's okay that I do it since other people do it too!
You just inadvertently described what it's like to live in an active war zone where all semblance of governance has broken down.
Again, they key is "as long as you don't get caught". In the middle of a war zone your chances of getting caught are much lower, so you actually could get away with that in the right circumstances. In any country with a functioning government, it's generally much harder to not get caught.
Just don't scoff and dismiss offhand those who decide to survive when push comes to shove by tossing conventional morality out the door instead of dying as a morally upstanding victim.
Tell me if I'm missing something here:
radio recording
cassette mix tapes
high-speed dubbing
VCR
BBS
FTP
DVD ripping
Napster
bittorrent
stream ripping
You'd think someone would notice just how much easier and faster it gets with each iteration.