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MPAA Seeks Stronger Actions To Fight Streaming Video Piracy (streamingmedia.com)
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is stepping into the online video piracy debate and calling for criminal charges against violators, as well as strong coordination between a broad range of online service providers. From a report: The association's recommendations came in response to a call from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) call for comments regarding internet policy concerns. On July 17, the MPAA issued a 40-page document advocating a modernization of online policies in response to rampant illicit activity. While a range of commercial offerings help studios and sports leagues battle online piracy, anyone who has a friend with a Kodi box knows that unrestricted access to popular shows and movies is only a few taps away. The MPAA notes that 6.5 million homes in North America are equipped with a Kodi box, and the North American piracy ecosystem generates $840 million per year.
buy some black helicopters, hire some goons and break into pirates' homes and break some kneecaps
$850 million a year compared to the filmed entertainment industry's revenue of what, $300 billion +/- per year? I know that doesn't justify people pirating shit, but I'm getting real fucking sick of the "Won't someone please think of the millionaires and billionaires?!" argument.
Max Planck famously averred that science advances one funeral at a time. Ditto with this - we just have to wait for the dinosaurs in charge to the content companies to die for legal streaming to blossom.
North American piracy ecosystem generates $840 million per year.
How is someone giving your shit packaged in candy coating away for free generating revenue?
Maybe try making some content someone would be willing to pay for. You cut out piracy, it's not going to grow your bottom line like you think. You'll just have a bunch of people looking for something else to entertain them because they're not going to pay for your garbage. Those that are willing to pay for it already do.
Stop putting up roadblocks, try to cooperate with the people that DO want to purchase your crap, and stop continually trying to bend the consumer over and shove it up their asses while telling them it's for their own good. I feel like the preceding sentence needs to be read and re-read by every corporate entity in the US over and over again until the faintest hint of comprehension begins to dawn on them.
No hope that will actually happen at this point. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!
Have gnu, will travel.
that the industry could use to stream an archive of all old and new movies and shows to a persons home through the internet for a nice affordable price. Maybe one day someone will invent it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Missing from the summary is:
Angling for tougher measures to fight that activity, the MPAA calls for "civil and criminal actions against creators of pirate add-on software and the repository web sites that host them, against distributors of the preloaded devices, and against the entities streaming the content." [...] The MPAA wants to see stronger charges against a broader range of infringing organizations.
I was trying to figure out their angle because the MPAA already has pretty sharp teeth to prosecute pirates IF they can get to them. I support the idea of being able to shut down these add-on's that are solely used for piracy but I worry that it opens the door to other things that are used for piracy but have legitimate uses as well.
In the end it will always come down to this. If it can be seen or heard it WILL be pirated. The best way to minimize piracy is to make the content easily available at an affordable rate. This has happened for a lot of content.
Link sources/citations provided within:
https://thisguy1337s-place.000webhostapp.com/#wall
The Copyright Wall-Of-Shame
Reminder for all that 9 out of 10 times, the people who make a shitstorm about morality and ethics are the same people who don't abide by them and actually do worse things. This number increases to 10/10 with anti-pirate collectives as they have been observed and proven in these past few years of:
88. Adobe failing to pay licensing fees on the sales of Adobe products that contained Dolby technology by refusing to provide the agreed upon sales audits for multiple years over. Demonstrating that the largest and most wealthiest of copyright enthusiasts will also happily ignore copyright conditions when it suits their own agenda.
87. Copyright enthusiast David Lowery casting criticism at professor Michael Geist over the importance of copyright acknowledgement all while failing to obtain the proper license on an image shared in the Blog post.
86. FlightSimLabs planting SecurityXploded.Com's ChromePasswordDump v5.5 to successfully capture the stored Google Chrome passwords of users who are allegedly using product keys that are found on file-sharing sites.
85. The company behind the 2015 drama film Fathers & Daughters having their copyright infringement case being dismissed due to the company's exclusive rights to the movie being sold to a company called Vertical Entertainment who were not part of the lawsuit. (orig)
84. Youtube allowing multiple RIAA members to claim & monetize an uploaded video that contained nothing but white static noise. Illustrating that copyright is fundamentally broken and is only suitable to benefit a very select privileged few.
83. Music copyright advocates using the DMCA and domain seizures to cause irreparable harm to mash up sites like Sowndhaus & Spinrilla by taking action of litigation without ever notifying the website owners of the claim of infringement.
82. Epic Games' taking aggressive judicial action against a 14 year old "Fortnite" cheater over the usage of an online game cheat and multiple free accounts registered with fake email addresses. Demonstrating that copyright litigation is often the action of choice with little consideration of who may be targeted.
81. ABC, AOL, CBS Broadcasting, NBCUniversal, NPR, Time, Viacom, Warner Bros, Yahoo and Ziff Davi settling with numerous photographers due to infringing use of their photographs found throughout their News & Blog articles. In which CBS later counter sue due to a Gunsmoke screen shot being posted on social media in an attempt to reduce their damage settlement. Demonstrating that not even those who actively litigate copyright law don't bare any respect for it.
80. New Zealand's ruling National Party being forced to pay $600k for infringing the copyrights of Eminem's track "Lose Yourself" due to using a derivative song with a similar melody for their campaign ad demonstrating that even when obtaining proper licenses will not prevent a copyright related lawsuit.
79. Four officials of the Russian site-blocking body Rozcomnadzor, (including spokesman, top lawyer, and Anastasiya Zvyagintseva) being charged with fraud and stand accused of having 'employed' ghost staff whose salaries were actually paid to existing employees, on top of their own money all while being allowed to block 4,000 sites on copyright grounds with an additional 41,000 innocent websites blocked as collateral damage demonstrating that copyright law often leaves a trail of harm rather than any potential good.
78. Game developer Atlus targeting the Patreon page of the RPCS3 (Playstation 3) emulator with a DMCA takedown notice due to a comment which sta
and the North American piracy ecosystem generates $840 million per year
I thought the MPAA members never showed a profit? That's what I hear about a lot of movies. (Must be accounting errors -- stupid beancounters, can't even count*.)
GooGEL says: Modern film industry. The worldwide theatrical market had a box office of US$38.6 billion in 2016.
... For each new film, a movie "is set up as its own corporation, the entire point of which is to lose money" by paying fees to the studio producing the movie.
And: Their lack of profitability, in fact, is typical. Over 80% of Hollywood movies fail to turn a profit.
While 2Q7: Sony has recorded a full-year net profit of $655M, a 50% fall from the previous year, while its Pictures division posted a loss of $719M year-on-year, driven by box office underperformance.
Maybe this is pointing the way to a new market where they CAN make a profit. Or am I missing the point?
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* link
There once was a business owner who was interviewing people for a division manager position. He decided to select the individual that could answer the question "how much is 2+2?"
The engineer pulled out his slide rule and shuffled it back and forth, and finally announced, "It lies between 3.98 and 4.02".
The mathematician said, "In two hours I can demonstrate it equals 4 with the following short proof."
The physicist declared, "It's in the magnitude of 1x10^1."
The logician paused for a long while and then said, "This problem is solvable."
The social worker said, "I don't know the answer, but I a glad that we discussed this important question.
The attorney stated, "In the case of Svenson vs. the State, 2+2 was declared to be 4."
The trader asked, "Are you buying or selling?"
The accountant looked at the business owner, then got out of his chair, went to see if anyone was listening at the door and pulled the drapes. Then he returned to the business owner, leaned across the desk and said in a low voice, "What would you like it to be?"
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
also IP address are a poor match if you are going on ISP logs and the costs of the ISP's to do all of needed paper work.
I have a box with Kodi on it. All content in my library is ripped from media purchased legally and I don't use any illegal streaming services.
Would pay money for legal standard IPTV streams I could aggregate into my TVH server yet no such thing exists. There are many services that cost money and appear to be legit... many people use them without realizing their true nature.
What I won't pay for are separate spy sticks and spy boxes, that require HDMI ports I don't have and nonstandard streaming services that only work from "apps". If it won't run from Kodi and appear in a single unified interface it might as well not exist because I'm not interested. I refuse to waste my time screwing around with changing sources and running different apps because the industry is too busy playing games and fragmenting everything and can't get it's shit together.
The industry could either give users what they want at reasonable cost or they can live with the consequences. The MPAA as a lobby isn't powerful enough to do jack shit.
I like how you think, but I seriously doubt that the MPPA would fund any politician that supported this idea so it isn't going to happen.
Also, Criminal prosecution is one thing, and I think that those who make something distributing copyrighted works, if it be money, advertising revenue or something else of value should be subject to criminal charges should the local DA where the person was when the distribution took place decide it's worth it. But Civil suits are quite another. I like your idea that a downloader should only be liable for the fair market value of the material at the same resolution as determined by the retail value of the same general material.
Also, if the material is NOT available for purchase because it's not yet been released at a retail price, the value of the settlement must be capped to the same rate collected per verified viewer as the distributor would have collected from the theaters at the time of viewing. So your first run bootleg copy of the latest blockbuster you show to 3 people would cost you no more than theater tickets would have.
However, if the material is not available for retail sale, being out of print and not available for viewing in theaters, damages are limited to the average cost of a first release offered for retail sale in the last year.
Also, MPPA should offer a "get legal" license, where you can buy a license for downloaded material for personal home use. This would allow you to keep the material you like and give the MPPA a way to get downloaders to "come clean" when they find them and if the MPPA offered rewards for disclosing the source of your download, could really generate some nice revenues and give them a way to issue DCA notices quicker to slow down the flood of material.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Now that we have an precedent set on making exemptions from the CDA, I expect they are going to push for another to really give this teeth.... and all they need is some compliant legislators.
the MPAA calls for "civil and criminal actions against creators of pirate add-on software and the repository web sites that host them, against distributors of the preloaded devices, and against the entities streaming the content."
The MPAA has money to send a 40-page writeup when comments are being solicited.
What organization can we donate to that will make 40-page writeups in the OPPOSITE direction when comments are being solicited? And advocate for reducing overaggressive enforcement, loosening the stranglehold on the public domain, and promote expansion of fair use, and insisting some piracy be accepted as long as companies can still make a fair profit AND alternate solutions (when there is a real problem to be solved --- other than companies earnestly trying to squeeze out 5% more profit or something by promiting fascist regulations and enforcement) and less severe penalties against individuals?
If us individual consumers and americans aren't represented in these kinds of solicitations for comments, then what will happen is only the MPAA will have the ears of our representatives, and they'll get one-sided laws passed whatever they want.
How did you get that content into your NAS.. There are very fer places in the world where you can rip a DVD or Blu-Ray and not be a 'pirate' already just for doing that.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Go after the people actually making money off piracy, not the naive kids trying to watch a free movie!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You must be new to this game. You can't bring facts into an argument where the MPAA or RIAA are concerned, that's against the rules. I'm sorry, you're fired!
Certainly, apply criminal charges for piracy... as long as, in such prosecutions, the MPAA proves, beyond doubt, rather than simply a preponderance of evidence (as required under criminal law) that each download or stream represents an actual lost sale to an MPAA member, rather than just a presumption of a lost sale
And (2): The punishment should be proportional to the crime. What's the punishment if I steal a DVD from a store? It should be less than that because I didn't actually deprive anybody of anything.
No sig today...
US Law enforcement has always been in the pockets of the Plutocracy to enforce profits. From Land Barons, Intellectual Property tactics haven't changed.
People are switching to streaming (VOD) services at a surprising rate (as they did with music) but it seems that the MPAA still isn't happy.
If they wan't to kill piracy, why not set up their own dropbox service and write their own plugin for Kodi and effectively out-pirate the pirates.
Hell, if they did that (thus legitimizing this activity) I'd gladly pay $100 a year for access. Now let's see, $850m divided by 100 -- gosh, they'd only need 8.5 million subscribers to completely wipe out their current (alleged) losses.
Sounds do-able to me.
But then again, we all know that some people (and organizations) aren't happy unless they're complaining about something and if there was no piracy, the MPAA would be very sad indeed.
As Jane Q. Public pointed out above, the loss to Association members is a fraction of the profit, which is a fraction of the sale price. If the MPAA proves I would have purchased the DVD, and if I have Amazon Prime membership, then does part of the settlement go to Amazon? What if I have Netflix, too? What if I get all my DVDs at RedBox and the public library? Now I'm falling into the silliness...
They really need to offer a service that is as good as or better than the pirate site.
The pirate sites are better designed and faster than Netflix, Hulu, and the like.
I get actual files and not some stream
A lot more content.
That is the biggest one. Even if you had a sub for all the major streaming services, I would be willing to bet that the pirates have 95% on the content vs the 80% the totality of the streaming sites would have.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Sometimes I get really sick of how people are starving, banking assholes that ruin the economy get off, the world is dying from pollution, drug addiction is becoming worse across the planet, corruption runs whole countries... and we have to stop everything to help these rich fucks and their war on poor people that like entertainment.
This is the result of the end of the cold war and the successful defeat of left wing politics by the right - aka total war on everyone who is not rich. Class war writ large without any counter force because of stupidity and ignorance of the average citizen.
I'm OK with that, if we also make it a crime to falsely claim a violation of your copyright when clearly no such violation exists. If some copyright association entity gets your YouTube video pulled because their automated algorithm mistakes the cadence of birds singing in the background for a copyrighted song, someone at that association has to go to jail.
Also, MPPA should offer a "get legal" license, where you can buy a license for downloaded material for personal home use. This would allow you to keep the material you like and give the MPPA a way to get downloaders to "come clean" when they find them
"Hi, we noticed you shared out first run movie hundreds of times. Give us $9.99 and we'll call it even."
Good luck with that.
If they did, whom would the MPAA / RIAA sue ?
Litigation is a spectacular money maker. Not one they plan on abandoning anytime soon.
Even if they have to seed the torrents themselves.
The folks who are calculating their âoe losses âoe due to piracy are the very same people who claim, through magic math, that $movie ( which made a Billion in sales worldwide ) wasnâ(TM)t profitable.
All so they donâ(TM)t have to pay those very same people theyâ(TM)re claiming to be protecting from the evil pirates :|
We won’t help gamgam and pawpaw who got conned out of thousands trying to get their grandson jimmy out of jail, but he was never under arrest in the first place. Won’t chase down the guys selling credit cards. Or the dudes phishing for social security numbers and bank logins.
But we will sure as hell throw a college student in prison and fine him the value of a nice car or house for fucking bootlegging a shifty film like the hurt locker.
Bullshit. It’s not because we can’t catch the fraudsters, it’s because we won’t because gamgam and paw paw don’t have as much money as Hollywood.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Actually that may work, I seem to recall them declaring that a "blank media tax" in certain countries.
Of course, that's really just a burden for them, they'd much rather have the right to deduct from everyone's wages before taxes. Remember we're *all* dirty pirates to them.
The MPAA is (one of) the enemy of a free and open internet.
Anything you can do to hurt them is good.
Nope, they got their cake and got to eat it too. You have to pay the blank media extortion fee (on anything that could remotely contain something copyrighted, including hard drives, ssds and USB sticks... I better shut up before they notice that you can use paper to print pictures) while still not being allowed to make any copies.
Essentially, what these con artists got away with was something banks would dream of: A fee they get to cash in on every gun and car because it could be used in a bank robbery, so everyone having and using one must compensate them for the damage done by those that actually use those things in such a fashion.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
At this point, you'd be in less trouble if you shot a clerk at Best Buy to get the actual DVD.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not mentioned in the article, the comments are Here
Shoot... Verizon is even there with a comment on how the NTIA should focus on reducing public use of radio spectrum and making more spectrum to be licensed to commercial telecom carriers.
let alone movies
If you aren't torrenting movies they wouldn't have targeted you in the first place. Who knows what you are even talking about.
Anyone who knows anything about torrenting. Since you don't understand seed ratios, maybe you go back to the kids' table and let the adults talk.
Did you even read TFA or just see "torrent" and since you installed bittorrent you think you're an expert? If you aren't torrenting movies this discussion doesn't concern you. No one that uses bittorrent to download Linux ISOs is being targeted. Did you really think the suggestion was that they should just come to do the door of anyone that uses torrents and try to make them pay for a movie?
As I said, I don't seed anything "hundreds of times."
Oh I see. When I said "Hi, we noticed..." you thought I was addressing you personally, and felt the need to answer my question telling me you do not personally share movies or seed.
Linux ISOs are frequently shared by torrents.
I said: "No one that uses bittorrent to download Linux ISOs is being targeted". Do you understand the difference?
You clearly know shit about bittorrent
Maybe. But you lack basic reading comprehension. I'd rather be me.
Clearly I could not have shared anything hundreds of times.
Not only do you have no morals around paying for content, you have no morals among pirates either. A leech is a leech. You as an expert in bittorrent should know that if everyone shared 1:1 nothing would be shared. So you rely on other people breaking the law to preserve your 1:1 ratio.
It is effectively the same as video taping something off HBO and lending it to your buddy was in the 80s and 90s.
I think if someone had invented a way to instantly copy VHS movies for free, and a way to instantly transfer the copied movies anywhere in the world for free they'd have had a problem with that as well. Just because they didn't run around prosecuting people that copied VHS movies doesn't mean they condoned it.