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Film Industry's Latest Search Engine Draws Traffic With 'Pirate' Keywords' (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on from the different-approach dept.

A new search engine launched by the Dutch film industry is targeting 'pirates' specifically, reports TorrentFreak. Every movie or TV-show page lists legal viewing options but also includes pirate keywords and descriptions, presumably to draw search traffic. "Don't Wrestle With Nasty Torrents. Ignore the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story torrent," the site advises. From a report: Like other "legal" search engines, the site returns a number of options where people can watch the movies or TV-shows they search for. However, those who scroll down long enough will notice that each page has a targeted message for pirates as well. The descriptions come in a few variations but all mention prominent keywords such as "torrents" and reference "illegal downloading" and unauthorized streaming.

73 comments

  1. Assume your customers are criminals. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Then treat them that way. What an absolutely wonderful way to build their loyalty!

    1. Re: Assume your customers are criminals. by negRo_slim · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Considering this industry, along with most other IP based industries, have long since become parasitical leeches on society and wilp never generate loyalty or respect among any rational thinking individual until we hit a hard reset on the whole affair. Fuck em. Not saying pirate, I'm saying ignore altogether.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    2. Re:Assume your customers are criminals. by Altrag · · Score: 1

      Who needs loyalty when they have 100+ years of government-endorsed monopoly on their works?

      Sure if you're looking for "any movie" there's lots of competition, but most people are looking for specific movies and the monopoly prevents you from (legitimately) getting it from a competing provider.

  2. google twats stopped their search blacklisting by iggymanz · · Score: 0

    too bad the twats at google stopped their search results site blacklisting feature. any good search engine should have that feature, everyone should demand it

    1. Re:google twats stopped their search blacklisting by crtreece · · Score: 1

      eliminating domains from a search by preceeding the domain name with a - still works. Was there some way in the past to make that global and/or persistent?

      --
      file: .signature not found
    2. Re:google twats stopped their search blacklisting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +you're +"smoking crack" and didn't notice the google dumb down

    3. Re:google twats stopped their search blacklisting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe google.cn is more to your liking?

    4. Re:google twats stopped their search blacklisting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Eh, just skip down to the DMCA takedown part... pretty sure it contains all the good links, anyway.

    5. Re:google twats stopped their search blacklisting by iggymanz · · Score: 2

      yes, google allowed you to have a list of up to 500 domains that would not appear in search results, called Manage Blocked Sites", discontinued in early 2013

  3. Oops I did it again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is yet another anti-piracy measure that will only affect legitimate consumers and have zero impact on 'pirates'. When you piss on your legitimate customers it only serves to push them towards illegitimate content sources.

    1. Re:Oops I did it again by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      I'm struggling to see how. Legitimate consumers presumably aren't searching using those keywords.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Oops I did it again by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Of course they are. They watch a movie in the theater then pirate a copy for home viewing or search for a copy of a movie they own because they want a high quality encode from someone who knows what they are doing. A few might be looking for copies of movies that just aren't worth watching in the theater while saving the theater for content that is actually best viewed that way (basically audio and visual effect intensive films). Some are just trying to get around hdcp nonsense so they can utilize their 4k devices.

      Almost all pirates are legitimate consumers trying to get around hassles imposed by the industry. The industry wants to limit the amount of content you enjoy, how soon you can enjoy it, and how you can enjoy it. When those limitations don't get in the way people still pay for content.

    3. Re:Oops I did it again by tsotha · · Score: 2

      Almost all pirates are legitimate consumers trying to get around hassles imposed by the industry.

      That's... quite an assumption.

    4. Re:Oops I did it again by Altrag · · Score: 1

      But not an entirely unjustified one. Remember this comic from a few years ago?

      That said, there's another issue involved: Media is too expensive for the amount people want to consume. If you watch one movie each Saturday, and assuming a $40 price tag per movie because you like to watch relatively new releases, you're talking about $160 per month or $2080 per year. Most people watch a hell of a lot more than one movie a week.

      Netflix is great for this -- you pay one flat monthly fee and you can get as much content as you can handle. Perfect! They were on their way to becoming the iTunes for video.

      Except somewhere along the way, competition got in the mix. Now I'm all for competition usually, but of course this isn't real competition like you get selling apples -- this is exclusive competition.

      So if you want to watch Orange is the New Black you have to have a Netflix account because nobody else offers that show, and if you want to watch Game of Thrones you need an HBO account because nobody else offers that show, and if you want to watch something else you need a third and a fourth and a 10th account, each one of which is costing you $10-20/mo and suddenly we're back to the multiple thousands of dollars per year and people can't afford it again.

      So there's lots of situations where people might buy the media you're offering if you provide them with a reasonably-priced and convenient legitimate alternative, but they'll still be trying to pirate the one after that because their budget doesn't stretch nearly as far as their appetite. Unfortunately the movie industry likes to play the all-or-nothing game rather than just trying to get as much as you can afford to pay them and calling it good enough.

      Oh and no, "go outside and play with your wheel and stick" isn't really a suitable alternative in this day and age. "Going out" usually ends up involving food or drinks or shopping or a theater movie or something else that costs even more -- people stay in and watch Netflix because its already the cheaper form of entertainment!

    5. Re:Oops I did it again by sudon't · · Score: 1

      Yeah, couldn't agree more. The promise of Netflix was that, like their movie rental business, you'd have access to virtually every movie, (and TV show), ever made, but instead of waiting for a DVD to come through the mail, streamed instantly over the internet. But, oh no, the studios would not allow that! They seemed content to spend their time whining about "piracy". Meanwhile, the people found a way around their intransigence.

      I have Netflix, and finally, after many months of waiting, HBO-Go for PS4. But I'm not going to pay for every streaming app out there so I can get that one show they each have. It's annoying enough to have to switch between three apps, (Netflix, HBO-Go, and Plex). Whatever HBO and Netflix don't have, I am happy to torrent. Also, good on Netflix for saying "fuck 'em" and producing their own content.

      --
      -- sudon't

      Air-ride Equipped

  4. Subject by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The descriptions come in a few variations but all mention prominent keywords such as "torrents" and reference "illegal downloading" and unauthorized streaming.

    Also known as "outright lying." Oh, right. I don't need quotes. It's jut outright lying. Shame on them. There's no excuse for misleading people like this. Downloading/streaming is *not* illegal. Only uploading content for which you don't own the right to do so would be considered copyright infringement; a civil (not criminal) issue.

    1. Re:Subject by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When torrenting on any common anti-leach seed, you are simultaneously uploading/sharing as well as downloading.

    2. Re:Subject by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, but you aren't uploading a complete work, you're uploading parts of the work. ;)

      Along with several other people, in varying jurisdictions, uploading different and complementary parts. Is that prosecutable under the RICO act? Have the **IA's tried that yet?

    3. Re:Subject by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that your "only the tip" defense? Good luck with that.

  5. Wonder if this works... by FFOMelchior · · Score: 2

    Seems like fool's gold (aka pirate). There's already a torrent of junk when it comes to any sort of search, but that's to be expected from something free. Maybe if they had kept their tactics on the download, they wouldn't have to deal with this streaming pile of nonsense.

  6. Re:They want you to watch it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I love watching the old Marx brothers stuff. Groucho was my favorite.

  7. Netware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Drew Major on teh spoke!!

  8. Rogue One? by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    Why would the Dutch film industry care if people are pirating films made in Hollywood? What is in it for them?

    1. Re:Rogue One? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      By "film industry" they probably mean distributors and/or cinema operators.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  9. My favorite piracy-related films by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Curse of the Black Pearl

    Dead Man's Chest

    At World's End

    On Stranger Tides

    Dead Men Tell No Tales

    1. Re: My favorite piracy-related films by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      No Princess Bride?

      Dread Pirate Roberts inconsolable.

      Black Sails also, but you said films.

    2. Re: My favorite piracy-related films by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You missed your cue:

      "No Princess Bride? Inconceivable!"

    3. Re:My favorite piracy-related films by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Pirates of Penzance
      Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (Veggie Tales)
      Captain Phillips
      The Pirate Movie

  10. Re:Shiver me timbers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    oh noes, checking out a dvd or book from the library is the same thing

  11. SEO by grumpy_old_grandpa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So run of the mill Search Engine Optimization, in other words.

    1. Re:SEO by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 1

      Keyword spamming would be closer to what they are doing, tricking people searching for [movie] + torrent into finding a result.

      I remember seeing a sort of similar page when some pirate search engine got it's page impounded by the DHS/MAFIAA, so they set up a honeypot replacement site that showed your results then had links to legal sources of the movie, and if you STILL clicked on the "torrent" link, it went to a "You've Been Naughty, You're Busted" page.

      --
      -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
    2. Re:SEO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they are linking to torrents as a destination of where you can get a file would it be illegal to download that torrent? If the link text was a real torrent site despite the link URL being a different target I'd argue it's legal to download those torrents even if you manually type in their displayed link instead of being redirected to their blocked page.

    3. Re:SEO by Altrag · · Score: 1

      I just had a thought for what might be smarter -- put up an actual legitimate page with actual legitimate places you can purchase the content. I don't really see the point of the honeypot links at the bottom?

      If someone's willing to pay for a legitimate source that they just didn't know about anyway, then the honeypot link isn't helpful. Of course a legitimate source would need to be at least streamable (if not downloadable.. ie: not send you off to a physical store or wait for shipping or whatever) and reasonably priced -- two things that are somewhat unlikely the way the movie industry does things currently, but its at least a theoretically plausible scenario if they ever start trying to appease their customers instead of fighting every step of the way.

      And if someone's just looking for a torrent they've already closed the page at the first sign of it being a link farm (legitimate links or otherwise) long before they get to the bottom.

    4. Re:SEO by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 1

      They thought of that - the "legal" links are legit, they are usually buy the DVD from Amazon or stream it from NetFlix, or the app stores, etc.

      The sneaky shitty part was they are in a tiny box at the bottom of the page, and the rest looks like the regular torrent search landing page, perhaps so that people won't notice the tiny box of legit links.

      --
      -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
  12. TorrentFreak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This moderator msmash keeps pushing the same news sites to the /. frontpage each day, with TorrentFreak being the most useless of them all. It's like he's reading his RSS reader each morning and choosing the same sites every time. Could we stop it with these uninteresting piracy news?

    1. Re:TorrentFreak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or perhaps grab a user submission once in a while and give the submitter credit. Must be the laziest moderator ever.

  13. Could have been fine. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This could have been fine if they ignored the silly attack on pirates message.
    Nope, they had to be dicks about it.

    I'm all for improving access to legal distribution and watching methods.
    Problem is the industry itself ISN'T. Especially when you have to deal with region restriction bullshit.
    Until region restrictions die off, piracy will still happen in large numbers even if the entire internet were to die right now. Sneakernet existed long before the internet. People were quite happy to take a van of VHS cassettes to a car-boot sale or any other typical free-form markets.

    1. Re:Could have been fine. by shaitand · · Score: 2

      The industry isn't interested because they don't want to maximize legal consumption and convenience they want to give you as little as possible for as much as possible so there is room to make a guy who has more money pay more money.

      Honestly, I think the MPAA should band together and offer it's own streaming service. New movies hit it as soon as the theater and start at theater prices for 24hr rentals, an algorithm monitors the purchase rate over time and automatically reduces pricing with some hard time based cut offs. About the time the movie would hit Blu-ray it finally falls into a Netflix style subscription bucket except this one has all the movies and nothing ever goes away and content is always distributed with all the latest capabilities right from the get go like 4k, 3D, etc. Subscription proceeds are distributed according to views. That lets the movie industry maximize revenue, cut out all the middlemen except their own collective trade organization, and provides dramatically more convenience to the consumer.

    2. Re:Could have been fine. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      As price falls, consumption rises. There comes a point where the product of price and units sold is maximal, and hollywood, like every other industry, devotes a great deal of money and expertise to trying to determine where this optimal price lies. No easy task, as it varies between regions and across time.

    3. Re:Could have been fine. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not how marketing works. By creating scarcity people become concerned that they won't be able to get what they want so they jump at any chance to get it now even if it ends up costing more to do so. Can't risk waiting until next month to buy something as the movie might have been pulled by then (Disney does this type of thing constantly) and then you'll have to wait 2 years before you can buy the remastered version. If the movies were always available then people wouldn't care so much. Oh, I'll just get that next time. And then next time never rolls around so the people never end up buying.

      I'm not saying I like that, but that's how the media industry see things. I'm sure they have tons of data to back that up and I'm sure that data proves exactly whatever they want it to prove. Since data mining is an art instead of a science, you're free to get whatever you want out of it.

    4. Re:Could have been fine. by shaitand · · Score: 1

      I'm not that is really the case for movies. People aren't afraid they'll go away they are just impatient and want what they want now rather than later.

      "Not having to wait" is definitely worth something to most people. How much it is worth probably dependent on how large a sum needs to be before it is significant to you and that mostly depends on how much you have. The scheme I proposed above lets the billionaire satisfy his impulse to have the movie before everyone else but also gives the middle class their chance to get the movie slightly sooner for an extra couple bucks.

      The beauty (for them) is that pretty much everyone would at least subscribe to the all you can eat streaming buffet with every movie ever released by any MPAA studio so even you consumed nothing this month they'd still get money from you.

  14. How to do it even better by Qzukk · · Score: 3, Informative

    because.moe is a search site for anime streams that links directly to the legal stream options instead of serving as a pointless exercise in crying about pirates without helping either the movie companies or the consumers.

    Maybe film.nl should try being useful instead of pointlessly patronizing, then people might use it.

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  15. Re:Shiver me timbers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's easier just to cut them out completely. I don't watch their movies at all: No torrents, no rental, no buying, no consuming. I gave up Netflix and Hulu too.

  16. Honey Pot by zifn4b · · Score: 2

    It's a honey pot using SEO. Only uneducated kids would ever fall victim to such a thing. The real sources of this sort of thing are not advertised on search engines and never have been.

    --
    We'll make great pets
    1. Re:Honey Pot by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "The real sources of this sort of thing are not advertised on search engines and never have been."

      That isn't true at all you can find most of the major indexing sites on search engines. Perhaps you meant invite based ratio sites? Those aren't the "real" source, just a different source and you can still find the path to them on search engines.

    2. Re:Honey Pot by Torodung · · Score: 1

      No, a honey pot would be setting up a bogus torrent and tracking all the people doing purportedly illegal things. It's a trap to catch people in the act. This is just stupid.

    3. Re:Honey Pot by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      "The real sources of this sort of thing are not advertised on search engines and never have been." That isn't true at all you can find most of the major indexing sites on search engines. Perhaps you meant invite based ratio sites? Those aren't the "real" source, just a different source and you can still find the path to them on search engines.

      Nope not referring to any of that and I don't care anymore. I'm not poor anymore so I have purchased all my media for a long time. I honestly don't understand why people pirate anymore anyway. Games, movies, music it's all really cheap now. The prices used to be fixed unreasonably high and now it's pretty reasonable. I can't remember the last time I paid more than $10 for a game. If you want it on day 1 you'll shell out the high price but you're paying for day 1. Patience is a virtue.

      Also pirating indie games is just plain despicable. Those are the good guys!

      --
      We'll make great pets
    4. Re: Honey Pot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the movies I want to watch are arthouse European cinema (mostly Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Scandinavian and Eastern European) or particular janras of Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Honk Kongese movies that no one bothers to import in US. You simply can't buy them and the rare copies you find in the library are ntsc dvds which are horrible formats. If they were at least PAL dvds it would have been better but because of the brain dead American NTSC format, these movies have never been released an region 1 DVD and the library does never carry region 2. And you can't never find region 1 in PAL.

    5. Re:Honey Pot by Altrag · · Score: 1

      If you want it on day 1 you'll shell out the high price

      Most people want it on day 1. What's the point of buying a movie for $5 3 years after all of your friends have stopped talking about it? Sure its cheap but you lose a lot of the social aspect of consuming media, which is more important than the media itself to a lot of people.

      Not that watching old movies or playing old games is a bad thing, and people do lots of that (both legitimately and otherwise) but that's not really what anyone's worried about in piracy discussions -- other than a few of the biggest names, most media has lost 99% of its value after the first few months give or take, so nobody really cares all that much about those beyond padding a "see how many things got pirated!" chart.

  17. What if there are no legal streams? by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So are they going to have search pages for films where a legal streaming option is actually not available?

    One nice thing about classic brick-and-mortar rental stores was it was easier to get older titles (and they were cheap-cheap to rent). The back catalog on online streaming seems to not reach so far back. Rather ironic in a form of media that is so much better suited to chasing "the long tail" due to the low cost of disk storage for a streaming title.

    The problem continues to be Hollywood wanting a licensing fee just for making the title available, where if they were willing to take a purely per-view fee, they would see more revenue. VOD services like Amazon could leave the title up for a $0.99 rental fee forever then.

    1. Re:What if there are no legal streams? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The biggest problem with this shit is arrogance. All the people involved want to leverage their content to secure better economics because they all think people can't live without their special content. It is like holding a hostage or being a hold out in a bulk land purchase. They think that Amazon / Netflix / XYZ Corp can't live without their special content or would be so drastically better with it that it is worth more than the "market rate per unit" price.

      Some studios think so highly of their content that they try to use it as a basis for their own platforms (Hulu). It sort of worked in the sense that Netflix had to start producing its own content but then that also shows that their content is not special. Over the long run people are just buying content, not specific studio's content.

      This ultimately leads to a highly fragmented markets where the studios and everyone involved only want to sell to top end buyers on a per unit basis rather than letting content free and making it up on volume. But it all goes back to the idea that by making the content "exclusive" they can somehow induce an above market rate purchase solely because each content owner thinks their content is the content people won't go without.

      Even though Netflix has shown that the above "idea" is false the studios are just digging deeper. Obviously they think they haven't withheld enough content.

    2. Re:What if there are no legal streams? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Search for 'Capadocia' (HBO Mexico) or 'Wentworth' (Australian), there are no legal sources available (in the Netherlands)
      The first also has no illegal sources available (at least not for me). I could download the show but I don't understand Spanish never found proper synced subtitles.

      Also their legal options are Netflix, Ziggo (cable provider with on-demand service containing all HBO shows) or Bol.com (webstore)
      We have something similar in Belgium as Ziggo but watching HBO shows on demand without also a costly unwanted cableTV subscription is not an option

      So torrents it is for every show not available on NetFlix or the ones they region block.
      I once started watching a show in the airport during a layover in Vienna, Austria. When I got home in Belgium I had to torrent the show to see the rest.
      Geo-blocking Internet content needs to die.

  18. How to use google 101 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Instructions (if you insist in using google):
    1) Open https://www.google.com/advanced_search
    2) Find all the words: "torrent" or "free"
    3) None of these words: "pay" "credit card" "illegal"

    problem solved :)

    1. Re:How to use google 101 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Too much typing. Instead try:
      1) Search on Google.
      2) Click on DMCA removed results link at the bottom of the page.

      The media companies are kind enough to document all places they don't want you to see. Why search for something when they'll do it for you?

  19. Pirate keywords ? by MondoGordo · · Score: 1

    Arrrr !!! Shiver me timbers matey!! Where's the RUM?

  20. And in case you are wondering... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The search engine's results are crap. Mostly because the availability is crap. The available options appear to be:
    - It does not even know the movie exists.
    - it is not available at all.
    - get a link to website that sells DVD's. of series old seasons. Mind that it is not even a deeplink. just a link to the main page.
    - Get a netflix / HBO and a bunch of others subscription services.
    - setup an account on yet another bunch of services, and install their crappy app to watch a movie.

  21. Dutch film industry? by johannesg · · Score: 1

    There's no such thing. Although the local village theatre occasionally finds itself with enough subsidy for a camera...

    1. Re:Dutch film industry? by ffkom · · Score: 1

      Well, there are a few nice Dutch movies, after all, such as "Vet Hard" or "Popoz".

    2. Re:Dutch film industry? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Black book" is excellent

  22. What the hell are 'Pirates'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you are going to charge someone with murder, theft, rape and kidnapping on the high seas, call them 'Pirates'.

    If you want to have a rational conversation about copyright infringement, don't frame the argument in favor of the MPAA and RIAA.

    1. Re:What the hell are 'Pirates'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kid doesn't want to be a Pirate? Pirates are cool.

    2. Re:What the hell are 'Pirates'? by Altrag · · Score: 1

      Wow. There's still people trotting out the terminology non-argument in 2017? I'm impressed!

      Language changes. Words obtain new meanings. Deal with it.

    3. Re:What the hell are 'Pirates'? by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      Give it a rest. The term's been around for centuries wit this meaning. The idea that movie pirates are anything like the same is the setup to a joke.

      Even if it isn't, nobody gives a shit. The public perception of the high seas pirate is a comical adventurer played by Johnny Depp, or a swashbuckling hero played by Cary Elwes!

  23. Where's the legal content? by BlueTemplar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Specifically legal DRM-free files. I'll be all over them. My GoG library can attest to that.
    *crickets*

    1. Re:Where's the legal content? by Altrag · · Score: 1

      Frankly I don't even care if its DRM-free as long as the DRM is right the piss out of the way. I have no problem with Steam. I mean sure if they close up shop tomorrow I'll be a bit annoyed but that's got far less of a chance of happening than me scratching a CD or forgetting where I put my copy of an installer package.

      I mean given the option, DRM-free is certainly preferable. But I'm not opposed to it as long as its not preventing legitimate usage (I mean someone somewhere will always have a problem with any software, but as long as the frequency DRM-related issues is on relatively the same scale as any other bug in the game, its not really that big of a deal.)

      Movies are a different beast, primarily because they're still served on physical disks for the most part. The DRM on the disks isn't that much of an issue (its pretty transparent) but all the hassle of having to go to a store (or wait for a delivery,) then sit through 3 minutes of unskippable FBI, DHS and Interpol warnings, then another 10 minutes of (sometimes also unskippable) ads for things you'll have forgotten about by the time they're released, then another minute of menu animations before you can finally hit the bloody play button is just so incredibly frustrating that I often end up going online anyway even when I'm watching things I've already purchased and have sitting on the shelf right beside me.

    2. Re:Where's the legal content? by BlueTemplar · · Score: 1

      You should think about the big(ger) picture. Copyright is supposed to be temporary. What is going to happen when that DRM'ed software ends up in the public domain? Are we supposed to rely on people (illegally now!) breaking DRM schemes to preserve our culture?
      http://www.technologizer.com/2...
      (And what is the online store's plan to preserve the different software versions?)

      Also, each new DRM scheme and monopolistic store brings us closer to the end of general-purpose computing :
      http://boingboing.net/2012/01/...

    3. Re:Where's the legal content? by Altrag · · Score: 1

      Well I'm necroing a half-week-old conversation, but on the off chance that someone bothers reading it anyway, I would like to posit that this is all absolutely irrelevant:

      1) As far as I know, a work entering the public domain has no direct requirement for your specific copy to be suddenly unlocked. I'm pretty sure it doesn't even require the works' owner to release it at all. Only that they can't sue you for infringement if you do manage to copy it. That's probably an unpopular viewpoint around here, but I'm reasonably sure that its a correct one.

      2) Even if we decide to force companies to release and/or unlock their works, we still have the issue that copyright is currently nearly a century long and they're still pushing to extend terms further. It doesn't really matter what happens when software enters the public domain if no software is ever given the opportunity to do so.

      3) And finally, with software specifically, there's the question of what exactly constitutes "the work": The binaries or the source? Specifically, if we decide that the source constitutes the work (and assuming we're discussing closed-source software obviously,) then the entire question is once again moot since its never released publicly and thus will never have the opportunity to enter the public domain.

      As for your last phrase: DRM schemes and walled garden store fronts are most definitely not the same thing. Steam doesn't do anything toward ending general-purpose computing. Nor does DVD or Bluray DRM. And conversely, there's nothing in the concept of a walled garden store that requires you to lock your program behind DRM (whether any particular store front does or not is another question.)

      Certainly the producers of media, including software, are doing their damnedest to try and claw back control using both technologies, but beyond the coincidence of them both existing and being used for similar goals at the same point in history there's little connecting the two from a technology standpoint. In other words, its the culture rather than the code that's the problem here.

  24. Only partially inaccurate... by kaizendojo · · Score: 2

    "Don't Wrestle With Nasty Torrents. Ignore the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story torrent,"

    True enough, they're all shit. But they DO say that there are legal alternatives to stream this - which is also bullshit.

  25. Like pissing into the ocean... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So their solution is to jut muddy the water in hopes that people give up searching because it's too hard?

  26. Media company mentality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But I'm not going to pay for every streaming app out there so I can get that one show they each have. It's annoying enough to have to switch between three apps

    See, for the studios, if you say the choice is:
    (A) Studio makes $100,000,000 and Netflix or other third party makes $100.
    - or -
    (B) Studio makes $10 and third parties make no money because they are not involved.
    They see (B) as the best option, as nobody else deserves to make money off the hard work that they did their best to avoid paying for in the first place.