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How Seven Movie Studios Forced A Pirated Movie Site Offline (hollywoodreporter.com)
A major pirated movie site went offline last month after seven Hollywood studios won a preliminary court injunction. An anonymous reader quotes the Hollywood Reporter:
The MPAA-member studios sued the operators of PubFilm/PidTV in February, asking the court for a temporary restraining order to shut down what it described as a ring of six interconnected large-scale piracy sites. The suit was initially sealed, but was made public on Friday. Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal, Disney, Paramount and Viacom are named as plaintiffs in the suit for direct and secondary copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition.
They're seeking statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement plus restitution of the sites' profits. So, depending on how many instances of infringement are discovered, the damages in this case could be astronomical. The studios claim the sites had more than 8 million visitors each month, nearly half of which were linked to IP addresses in the U.S... The sites are believed to be operated in Vietnam.
The court also ordered GoDaddy, VeriSign and Enom to disable all six domain names, to prevent the domains from being transferred, and to do it without communicating or warning the sites' owners first. In response, the defendants purchased a new domain, and then began publicizing it with ads on Google AdSense.
They're seeking statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement plus restitution of the sites' profits. So, depending on how many instances of infringement are discovered, the damages in this case could be astronomical. The studios claim the sites had more than 8 million visitors each month, nearly half of which were linked to IP addresses in the U.S... The sites are believed to be operated in Vietnam.
The court also ordered GoDaddy, VeriSign and Enom to disable all six domain names, to prevent the domains from being transferred, and to do it without communicating or warning the sites' owners first. In response, the defendants purchased a new domain, and then began publicizing it with ads on Google AdSense.
The more star systems slip through their fingers.
TBP is still around. So is Kickass, Demonoid, and Torrentleech.
Dunno what the websites they shut down were for, but it certainly didn't affect me, or anyone I know who regularity pirates stuff.
I guess... maybe they need to announce some sort of victory every so often? I dunno.
I'd never even heard of PubFilm until the court injunction.
Give my regards to Barbara.
Have gnu, will travel.
All this does is piss off people with the skills to make it even harder next time. Eventually the arms race will end, and the studios will be screwed. The only way to stop it is surgery, to prevent people from seeing/hearing things. Even in the 'meat world' war advances tech further and faster than peace does.
Remember we had 'piracy' ( i hate using that term btw, for one reason nothing is being stolen ..) before the internet. We will have it after too.
While I'm as libretarian as the next guy, and love "stick it to the man movements", in all fairness, these studios are trying to protect what's theirs. They are free to license the movies they make to whom they wish, in whatever manner they wish. You and I are also free to not consume their product, but it is their product. We may not agree to the regional releases, various licensing restrictions or media availability or delay dates, but stupid as we may believe their go-to-market strategy is it still is their right to execute it as they see fit. These sites are stealing the content and profiting from it; and that's just wrong.
constitution be damned
The First Amendment is about the government infringing on freedom of expression. Corporations being assholes isn't in the scope of the constitution.
And it will make the seas safer. How will that help movie studios against copyright infringement though?
#DeleteFacebook
That's okay. Going along with their concept of invented monetary damages, we simply have to invent a new MPAA crypto-currency and say each coin is worth 1 million Hollywood dollars.
#DeleteFacebook
the constitution be damned
What? I suppose you're also in favor of law enforcement taking time to send a friendly postcard to the home address of someone who's in the middle of committing a bank robbery. You know, so they have some advance notice that the crime they are literally in the middle of committing is about to be stopped. After all, the bank robber hasn't been convicted of anything yet, so even though a judge has reviewed what's going on and ordered the action, it's just not nice to stop the crime from continuing. Criminals are people too, and if their world view says it's OK to, say, kidnap someone or steal things, well, it's totally uncool to stop that in progress without first inviting their mom over for coffee to talk it through, first.
Do you REALLY think that the operators of these sites didn't get numerous notices from all of the parties involved, telling them to knock it off with the rampant piracy operations? Do you really think it's unconstitutional for a judge who has reviewed ample evidence to order steps to stop an obvious crime in progress? Let me guess: you consider the problem to be that the judge only did this when some private-sector parties made a stink about it, right? You know, sort of like when you - a private person - call law enforcement about something you see happening, especially when it impacts your home or business.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You're referring to the business entities that were set up to make money pirating other people's products? Yeah, that's bad. That's why a judge agreed with you and shut those guys down.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
About 100,000 more to go! :-D
In theory I agree with this. However since in many countries (including mine) these studios force us to pay fees on things that could theoretically be used to pirate their stuff (blank media, printers, etc), I have little respect for "what's theirs" because they take "what's mine" by force of law.
As they aren't even down.. so its a net loss for the industry due to all the free press.
And what if I disagree to very concept on owning exclusive rights to any sort of media? Besides, they are NOT authors, they're middlemen who have their own interests first.
The summary links to that information. A good summary is exactly that ... A summary. Has you followed the link you would learn, among other things, that pubfilm.com is now pubfilm.ac and pubfilm.is but still up and running, so the reports of their death have been greatly exaggerated.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Dumbass, the constitutional reference being made is the fucking right to due process, e.g. being notified properly of legal actions taken against you. Go the fuck back to school.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
These sites are stealing the content
No. These sites acknowledge that content exists, that it's not available with adequate ease or at a reasonable price, that an unnatural monopoly has been imposed by anti-consumer laws bought by media cartels and have responded by making the content available through other means.
This content doesn't belong to the studios. It belongs to world culture.
I agree with you. The real point is that this is a waste of time and money. Not that I care, they can piss away every dime they have on lawyers but for every cluster like this they destroy, two more will pop up somewhere else. The fact is that as long as it's easier and better to watch pirated content that's what will happen. They can't win this war with lawyers.
Luck with that.
Just as "Hacker" now equals "Bad Guy Who Breaks Into Computers" Language Evolves, and not always in the way Geeks, or insufferable pedants, would wish. Deal.
Then you have the freedom to treat media that was created only because people were paid to make it, by other people who expected people who consumed that media to pay them, as if it never existed.
It's the "I don't believe in IP, so I'm going to download {Insert Hollywood blockbuster here}" position that's unsustainable in practice. Without IP, you wouldn't have that blockbuster, nobody's just going to throw quarter of a billion dollars (or even $60M, for less blockbustery movies) unless they think viewers will pay for it. You can very much still oppose IP, but it has to be on the understanding that available media will change, and the vast majority of the stuff being copied without permission will cease to be made.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I'm fine with that, most of that stuff is boring anyway. It can work based on voluntary donations too. In fact current system ("purchases" + "piracy") is de facto equivalent to voluntary donations. Like people publishing torrents recommend "purchasing" stuff you liked. Need only to make this explicit and enshrine this in law.
The studios are not the creators, in most cases, but those creators contract with the studios for distribution, and the studios have a legal obligation to ensure, to the best of their ability, that the distribution is secure. That secure distribution is in the best interest of the creators, who very often are paid a percentage of the distribution fees and box office receipts the studios collect. So if you are genuinely concerned about the creators, respect the deals they have made with their distributors.
>> And what if I disagree to very concept on owning exclusive rights to any sort of media?
Spoken like someone who has never created anything worth stealing. Seriously, you believe you have a right to drive down to the newsstand on the corner and fill up the trunk of your car with the newspapers and magazines the middleman there is selling, without paying him?
This exactly. If I have to pay a fee on blank media, then - ethically - the copyright holders have been paid. Copying their products is expected, so go for it.
There are various problems with copyright holder attitudes. Unrealistic business ideas for the Internet, crazily high values for their property ($150k per incident, WTF?), insanely long copyright length, etc.. The sooner their businesses die, the better.
Besides, they are NOT authors, they're middlemen who have their own interests first.
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. They bought the rights, it belongs to them. For example: You're not a car maker, but you bought your car and now it belongs to you.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
If those people want exclusive rights just to create something then I'm fine with them not creating. Paying money for something that costs nothing to replicate goes against whole reason money exist. It's equivalent to operating a money printing machine. It cost nothing just to allow someone to copy something, which is totally distinct from the act of creation and not connected to it in any way as far as economic system is concerned.
While I'm as libretarian as the next guy, and love "stick it to the man movements", in all fairness, these studios are trying to protect what's theirs. They are free to license the movies they make to whom they wish, in whatever manner they wish. You and I are also free to not consume their product, but it is their product. We may not agree to the regional releases, various licensing restrictions or media availability or delay dates, but stupid as we may believe their go-to-market strategy is it still is their right to execute it as they see fit. These sites are stealing the content and profiting from it; and that's just wrong.
The problem with that: it's not "theirs" in any direct inherent sense of the normal concept of ownership. It's "theirs" in the sense of a government-granted monopoly. This monopoly is a legal institution they have corrupted and subverted very far away from its original reasonable function (12 years copyright in the era of the Gutenberg press ... 100+ years in the era of the Internet ... really??). You can pretend like that doesn't have ramifications, like it doesn't invite an opposing reaction, but it won't help you understand that you describe the viewpoint of only one side there.
This is the context in which they operate. The moral argument of "they're stealing from us!" (forget that it's not actual larceny) hinges on the idea that "they're taking what we legitimately own!" But there are two broad parties here, the copyright holders and the people. "What we legitimately own" keeps being redefined again and again, always in the favor of just one party, decade after decade. At some point it gets hard to distinguish who is the thief and who is the victim. At some point, the other party gets tired of being walked all over and retaliates in the most obvious and available way: they stop respecting corrupt laws. The fix is to remove the corruption and restore sane, reasonable respectability to the institution of copyright. Everything else is either a band-aid or an arms race.
If intellectual property is abolished, there will be no piracy, so in a way you are correct.
Copyright law is first and foremost the thing I have a problem with and then any behavior that is the result of the existence of the law.
Then you have the freedom to treat media that was created only because people were paid to make it, by other people who expected people who consumed that media to pay them, as if it never existed.
I don't see how. Many, probably virtually all, high schools and universities require students to view and analyze non-free, paywalled literary works as a requirement for courses that are in turn required to graduate.
an unnatural monopoly has been imposed by anti-consumer laws bought by media cartels
Why can't the constituents instead choose to outbuy the cartels or choose to elect legislators less vulnerable to such buying?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I maintain that I have a religious belief in the invalidity of intellectual property along the lines of Kopimism. This is a stronger defense than just freedom of speech issues. Don't know about it actually getting tested in court, though.
Assuming that by "consume" you mean view:
You and I are also free to not consume their product
I don't see how. Feature-length motion pictures are advertised to the public using a "trailer", or a short film consisting of excerpts from the motion picture. The trailer is just as copyrighted as the full work. So when I am viewing another motion picture, and its presentation is interrupted by a trailer, I am all but forced to view the first second of the copyrighted trailer.
Despite that I paid nothing for access to this trailer, I pay with being legally deemed to have had "access" to this trailer. Once I have had access, if any of my own works ever end up appearing accidentally similar to the trailer, I could get in trouble for nonliteral copyright infringement. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music.
There's no reason to believe that buying rights even makes sense. Like it goes against the idea of authorship which is supposed to be central to copyright. If you sell rights you're still author but your "rights" are no longer "protected" because you don't "own" them. It's other guy's "rights" now and they set all rules which original authors may not agree with anymore for whatever reason but their opinion doesn't matter anymore.
If you aren't going to bother to read my comment, why bother to reply?
I happen to agree that systemic copyright infringement should be opposed by the legal system. This has nothing to do with my point, which was that it's not a constitutional issue.
Yes, that makes sense. No, my interpretation wasn't wholly moronic.
Regarding your sig, I'd hardly call your blustering anywhere near Carlin level.
Wouldnt a libertarian be against copyright and the like as a distortion to free trade? It's an artificial contruction of government that completely changes the nature of national and international trade after all.
I'm not "as Libertarian as the next guy" (what does that even mean?) though so I'm not buying what I'm selling here.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
So, you're opposed to judges looking at evidence and doing things like issuing warrants, injunctions, etc., as they have for centuries. Because judges are goofs (did you really use that word?) and it's pontificating to be aware of history and of how these things can, do, and should work. Gotcha! Carry on.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Wait. Let me get this straight.
Property rights don't apply to copies of original works?
When did you turn Communist?
How can they just take money with no consideration provided? If it were a contract it'd be invalid.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The only realistic alternative to a copyright based system is a system of patronage, where we only get to see stuff commissioned by wealthy people.
And if you don't like the fact the Bieber copyrights his music, then stop listening to his music for crying out loud.
Content locking is not mandatory. You, or anyone else, can create content and distribute it completely free of charge.
You are probably not going to spend $200m on any content that you want to give away for free, and therein lies the problem.
Yes, studios fear disruption, but the disruption they fear isn't about free content. They are much more worried that the likes of Amazon and Netflix are going to supplant them.
Proof? There are countless other ways to acquire funding that isn't patronage. Also, based on context you seem to incorrectly assume that copyright is realistic.
Copyright is working now. Not perfectly, but it is working nonetheless. The proof is in companies such as Microsoft (and others) making bank every month.
Nowhere does anyone say that copyright needs to work perfectly for it to be considered to be working successfully.
And what other ways (other than patronage) are available for people to fund content? Put some ideas on the table, rather than just hypothesize that there are other means available.
And if you don't like the fact the Bieber copyrights his music, then stop listening to his music for crying out loud.
I don't see how to do that when the grocery store plays Bieber's music over its speaker system.
You, or anyone else, can create content and distribute it completely free of charge.
Not if someone else accuses me of accidentally infringing copyright by copying part of his work into my own.
They moved to ccTLD: .ac is Ascension Island, and .is is Iceland.
I guess it will be harder to bring them down again, as a US court will probably consider it has no jurisdiction there.
You've never seen anything truly Carlin if all you've done is watch his HBO appearances and listen to his tapes.
Try reading one of his books. He's VERY short and succinct in them with most points, with a lot of fuck thrown in for good measure.
So not only do you not know shit about the constitution, you know jack shit about one of America's greatest comedians.
I think Sister Mary needs a bigger ruler to deal with you.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Domain name: $10
Cost to get court order to shut it off $millions to taxpayers, nothing to hollywood
Laughing myself silly at Hollywood's antics: A headache and upset tummy from laughing too hard.
I'm not even sure why Hollywood is still around. They are simple gate keepers exacting a toll, and they don't even produce anything I've seen in decades that I'd have paid to see. I don't even bother with trying to see it without paying, it's a simple waste of time and effort for trash.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
outbuy the cartels
Because the cartels have millions if not billions of times more money than any individual. Maybe Elon Musk could do so, but he's got more important uses for his money.
elect legislators less vulnerable to such buying
For the same reason we don't ride unicorns. Such things don't exist. You're usually given a choice between two or maybe three legislators who are both bought by various anti-consumer organizations. And the occasional time an honest politician comes around, they're quickly removed in one manner or another -- either sweetening the deal until they join the ranks of the bought, or if that doesn't work just drown them out with huge amounts of character assassination ads that they can't afford to fight because you know.. no significant brib^W"campaign contribution" money behind them.
This is of course subject to scaling -- there's less interest in buying laws that only affect a couple thousand people (though local interests still try to bribe local politicians..) So its somewhat easier to find an honest politician in smallish towns and cities. But the bigger the politics, the closer to one the probability of corporate influence.
Because the cartels have millions if not billions of times more money than any individual.
Why can't constituents pool their money to outbuy the cartels?
Libertarians tend to have a bit of trouble when it comes to shared resources of any sort.
Lets say we're neighbors. There's a river a mile away that we both have to walk to in order to get water (because we live in pre-industrial time or whatever.)
You get sick of walking and since you happen to be rich, you hire a bunch of yokels to dig a tributary down to your property (and being a good libertarian, you're careful to ensure you have the right of ways for the necessary strip of land.)
So now I need a bucket of water. I have the option of a) Walking a mile to the river or b) walking a hundred feet to your pond. Lets further assume that your pond is close enough to my property that I can reach over and grab a bucket of water without damaging even a single blade of grass on your side of the line, just to make the example completely pure.
In the libertarian view, I should always be walking that mile because the tributary is not "mine." I didn't build it or pay for it. That much makes sense. Where it kind of falls apart is that the bucket of water is the exact same whether I take it from the head of the tributary (ie: the river) or the base. It does no harm to you at all for me to take it from your pool. And yet you refuse to let me for no reason other than ideology.
From what I've seen this is the general mindset of libertarians -- its not so much about "I worked for it so its mine" as much as it is denying anyone else from enjoying your labors, even if it costs you absolutely nothing to allow it. And in that mindset, copyright makes perfect sense since they're interpreting it not so much as granting you a monopoly as much as they are interpreting it as denying me things I didn't directly earn -- the "if I can't have it, no one can!" attitude.
Now of course a flamebait claim like this will draw all the self-proclaimed libertarians that will either try to say the same thing in nicer words (which doesn't really change the claims..) or say that their personal form of libertarianism makes exceptions for these situations (which is fine.. they're welcome to believe whatever they want. But that also doesn't change my claims which aren't tailored to any one person's specific beliefs beyond my own, which are based on my own observations.)
PS: Can any of you libertarians point out where even my carefully tailored example fails to meet the pure libertarian ideal? Lets assume I'm honest and that the failure isn't something sideangled like preventing me from taking my bucket in the middle of the night when you aren't watching, but an actual failure in the layout of the example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , notionally it is patronage, but not in the way you mean it since it's not tied to wealthy patrons. Another way is government funding. And you failed to prove the need for copyright. Existence of Microsoft(which basically attempts to build own government around control of software that is not subject to democratic checks and balances going a lot farther than simply compensating developers) was never the objective of it, and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't exist without copyright. Like, Red Hat isn't hurting for cash either, at least enough to sustain development. Copyright is only needed to raise astronomic rent for silly world domination plans.
You're right, there may be a due-process question here.
How on earth do you figure that isn't a constitutional issue?
Because, as I made quite clear, I was thinking of the First Amendment. Very often one sees confusion as to the scope of freedom of expression.
Haven't read his books, but I've listened to his later stand-up material. Honestly I figure his over-reliance on snark and bitterness didn't play to his favour there. He certainly had his moments, but a lot of the time it struck me as just empty anger with little real point.
I'll have to dig up his earlier works some time.
in all fairness, these studios are trying to protect what's theirs.
It isn't actually "theirs".
Copyright is a legal contract between artists and the public to grant a limited monopoly over distribution in exchange for releasing their works into the public domain after the copyright duration.
Now you'll notice that it says "artist", not "content owner" and that it also says "limited". Copyright was originally limited to 20 years. However no significant amount of content has entered the public domain since the 1940's. In fact they keep extending copyright in order to prevent any work from being entered into the public domain.
So it seems the "content owners" are not keeping their end of the bargain... so why should we keep ours?
They are trying to restrict competition, so piracy became their competition.
Also I've spoken to several artists about this, their responses have always been the same. They dont care that I pirated their albums, in fact it helps them. What they want me to do is keep coming to their shows because thats where they make their money.
While I'm as libretarian as the next guy, and love "stick it to the man movements",
So basically you're saying your retarded. And in all probability, a content cartel shill.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
accidentally infringing copyright
Then do something original instead
What steps can I take to ensure that I "do something original"?
Too bad they cannot do anything about the largest pirated media site in the world, Baidu.
The need for copyright is clear from the relevant laws and statutes that it is meant to encourage the production of works of authorship.
Our culture is richer because people have created these works.
Now, I don't agree with these seemingly infinite copyrights. I would prefer a much shorter copyright term - I would go for 40 years. I don't think copyrights need to be much longer than that to encourage production of works of authorship.
However, I would definitely not want a return to wealthy people deciding what constitutes good art and therefore what is worthy of funding. We are on the cusp of truly democratizing the creation of works of art in a way that was just not possible even 2 decades ago.
I trust the market, and I trust copyright (as a concept) even though I also think current copyright periods are excessive.
This is exactly what I want to stop: only rich people deciding what will be seen by masses, and it's clear that copyright accomplishes totally opposite goal, since nowadays you need VC backing just to shield yourself from copyright lawsuits and establishing cross-licensing to reuse any sort of other people's art. And you can be sued even if you don't reuse anything(people will sue anyway if you created something close to other copyrighted work accidentally even if it doesn't exist) or if your reuse is compliant with fair use(youtube etc won't bother double-checking this if they get a takedown notice). And, no. Statutes of law don't make copyright's need clear. Far from it. Besides citing statutes when I'm in fact arguing for their repeal is circular reasoning.
Another way is government funding
And you'd be crazy if you think governments are willing to pony up serious cash, especially with today's political climate. The problems with censorship and topic selection would be far more extreme as well if we allow the government a hand in what does and does not get made.
Because that requires organization, determination, and working toward a goal with a long-term objective. Maybe that was part of the character of Americans in the past but it sadly isn't anymore. Most of them are too fat, soft and stupid to even realize just how much they're getting screwed by a system that lies to them daily. It's not really their fault because the educational system and mass media help make them that way. It is their fault for liking it. That's why the problem is not self-correcting.
Or maybe, most Americans think that copyright really isn't that big a deal, especially compared to EVERYTHING ELSE happening in politics, and that you're so fanatic about it is something that they would consider pretty weird.
Same AC here. You think the attitudes and characteristics I'm talking about apply solely to copyright? Are you seriously so narrow-minded, or does interpreting my words in such a narrow, limited context just help you to feel like you're "right"?
This article and this discussion is about copyright, if you want to open it up to "abuse of power" generally, be my guest, but that's a problem we've struggled with since the dawn of structured society, and will continue to do so till the death of civilization.
What you see as ghastly and horrible copyright abuse is not something most people think is a problem, or at least, they want to fight other, far more important battles first. If you want to rally people to fight the power, then by all means, but you won't get that much of a response from your average man by starting with whether you can copy a dvd or not.