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Movie Industry to sue File Sharers
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:05 PM
from the juast-a-matter-of-time dept.
from the juast-a-matter-of-time dept.
Wack Valenti writes "SiliconValley.com reports that the motion picture industry, taking a cue from the RIAA, is planning to file copyright infringement lawsuits against file sharers it says are illegally distributing movies online. The first suits could be filed as early as tomorrow."
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Stargate Atlantis (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stargate Atlantis (Score:4, Interesting)
I wish they'd find a way to solve their problems without being outwardly hostile to the Internet, computer users, and/or their customers.
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conspiracy theorists rejoice (Score:5, Interesting)
seriously though, it is kinda interesting that after a couple years of wait and see, they've suddenly decided to file these suits after bush (friend of corporations, etc) is firmly back in power
mod me down as flame-bait if you want, I just find it an interesting point, not conspiracy but it makes sense; they waited until they knew the party that would support them was going to be in power for a while before they moved.
Re:conspiracy theorists rejoice (Score:5, Informative)
The Ninth Circuit is considered the most liberal in the country, and yet it has been very friendly to the members of the RIAA and MPAA.
Poor government knows no party.
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Re:conspiracy theorists rejoice (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I think there is a strong point to be made about companies being hesitant or cautious around election times.
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Re:conspiracy theorists rejoice (Score:5, Interesting)
Hollywood was solidly backing Kerry, maybe this is their temper tantrum because "their guy" didn't win.
LK
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Re:conspiracy theorists rejoice (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh
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Re:conspiracy theorists rejoice (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you have been living on Mars for the last eight months, you might have noticed that George Bush [opensecrets.org] is not the darling of the entertainment industry. If you look at the top contributers [opensecrets.org] not one of them are from the entertainment industry. One cannot say the same for John Kerry [opensecrets.org]. The top contributors [opensecrets.org] include Time Warner and Viacom. If you look at the RNC [opensecrets.org] ($2.8M) and the DNC [opensecrets.org] ($5.7M) who do you think is more beholden to the entertainment industry?
I think it is obvious that the actions of the entertainment industry is independent of the occupant of the White House. The Democrats are as friendly to corporations as the Republicans. If you believe otherwise, then you have tasted to much of the Kool-Aid. I hope you voted Nader, because both the Democrats and the Republicans are not for you.
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Please (Score:5, Funny)
What ?! (Score:4, Funny)
May I plug i2hub.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have fully moved to private networks like this, and my University's DC++ hub. I was shocked when i saw all these people at school using public networks like Kazaa (corrupted now) and Ares and BT.
Re:May I plug i2hub.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Funny thing is.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Funny thing is.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's not legal in any case (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, I'd rather see a return to the days of 5 dollar tickets and extra extra buttered popcorn and a Coke for a couple bucks more than see the movie industry devolve into this legal sewer. With DVD sales doing well, it becomes more and more reasonable to watch a movie in your house. With the proliferation of file-shared movies online, the quality of playback becomes less an issue as viewers get attuned to the lower bitrates.
Personally, I'd rather go see the films in a theater and don't mind paying a couple bucks to do so. Lately, it's been getting outrageously expensive, well passed the point where one could argue that it was merely inflation. I'm not saying that file sharing would be curbed by cheaper theater tickets, god knows the addictive powers of the free movie drug. But I do think that they could really recreate the concept of the "blockbuster" with a little less take at the box office.
In short, file sharing copyrighted works is illegal. The movie industry probably shouldn't do this, but are well within their rights to litigate. I'd like to watch movies at the theater but not pay so much.
Translation (Score:5, Funny)
"The MPAA doesn't give an estimate for how much online piracy costs the industry annually, but claims the health of the industry is at stake as the copying and distribution of movies online continues to grow unabated."
The fish [slashdot.org] translation from "press-release-ese" to "english" gives me...
"The MPAA knows that online piracy is the least of its worries compared with media piracy overseas, but is afraid that its decrepit business model might go the way of the dinosaur if too many people learn how convenient and environmentally friendly digital distribution really is."
USENET (Score:5, Interesting)
I always wondered why USENET is not targetted.
Re:USENET (not centralized) (Score:5, Insightful)
It is peer-to-peer and egalatarian as hell, but everybody (with linux anyway) already has the software and you have to search it *by* *hand*. It is SUPER EASY to forge a message, especially if the forger is an admin of a host system.... *any* host system in the net.
Nobody really has the power to unilaterally remove any of the content in particular, and even the venerable "cancel message" can be blocked. As long as any USENET backbone exists almost any message can "pibby-back" through the "blocked" parts of the net as a crosspost.
It is just too soft a target to really take any action against. Don't beleive me, just look at what is flowing there. The borderline kiddy-porn that is in the alt.binaries.(whatever) group is unstopable.
Besides, there are enough stupid people involved that you can't keep titty-pictures out of alt.sex.pictures.erotica.gay.male. What a dumb waste of time to try to *send* those pictures in that forum. What a DUMB waste of time trying to STOP those pictures from being sent in that forum.
What an _incridible_ waste of time trying to filter, find, and catch every single USENET server site in an attempt to really trace the sources of movie fragments....
If *you* had to "go after" USENET where would *YOU* start?
P.S. Remember: Drugs, Terrorisim, and Kiddy Porn are the root passwords to the US Constitution.
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For those of us with DVD burners it's REALLY simpl (Score:5, Informative)
Play it with VideoLan client
Open up dvd smartripper
Rip the DVD
Run the ripped files through DVD2One
Burn to a DVD
Wont... (Score:5, Interesting)
mount
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Double Standard (Score:4, Insightful)
Yawn... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Mr. England,
Thank you for providing us with your machine information. We have fixed the situation to better serve your secure viewing needs:
Your computer is now safe from non-compliance. Thank you for your cooperation.Sincerely,
Mortimer Snerd
MPAA Compliance Officer
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Wooooohooooo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wooooohooooo (Score:5, Informative)
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Takes one to know one... (Score:5, Interesting)
So now the RIAA are going to go after people for violating copyright law and screwing them out of their profit. *Sigh* Not that it's the same people in charge now... but still. Anyone want to vote hypocritical bastards?
Cease and Desist! (Score:5, Interesting)
I
So... is this the end of offering open access to your neighborhood? I have no interest in monitoring traffic over my network, but it looks like the buck stops at the little guy (as usual).
What exactly is the objection? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a thought for consideration.
Perhaps the RIAA's actions are objectionable not because they are protecting Intellectual Property rights, but because they are using illegal search techniques and shotgun accusation techniques in a clumbsy attempt to do so.
I for one would have no objection to the MPAA suing people whom they have determined are offering copyrighted material for download based upon public web pages or other public directories. And where they have actually downloaded enough of the file to verify that it is indeed the copyrighted material and not just a matching file name.
Freeway Blogging on Movie Theaters? (Score:5, Interesting)
More on Freeway Blogging. [freewayblogger.com]
Coincidence? I think not! (Score:5, Interesting)
10719431 [slashdot.org]
10719438 [slashdot.org]
10719453 [slashdot.org]
10719470 [slashdot.org]
10719614 [slashdot.org]
10719618 [slashdot.org]
10719643 [slashdot.org]
Remember when the MPAA were the good guys? (Score:5, Insightful)
At the time, I called BS, and said that the only reason that the MPAA wasn't suing yet was because video piracy wouldn't take off until Internet connections got a bit faster - given that video files are much bigger than audio files.
Well, guess what, that was exactly the case. I assure you, if FTTH becomes a reality, this will become an even bigger problem. Please, let's stop fooling ourselves that pirates are making a pseudo-moral decision that pirating from certain evil companies is ok, but pirating other products is not ok because those products are actually worth the money.
People pirate what is easy to pirate. That's how I pirate! Audio and video cassettes made pirating copyrighted materials easier, but not particularly easy, because it takes too long to copy and distribute copyrighted materials that way.
Computers and the Internet made this type of piracy an order of magnitude easier. Each time we get faster connections to the Internet and bigger hard drives, it gets easier still.
Stop pretending that the companies can offer you something to stop you from pirating their products. Or next, will you be saying that, actually, while the director's commentaries and alternate endings are great, DVDs are too expensive at $20 and need to come down to $10, otherwise you'll pirate them?
And then, what will stop you from demanding $5?
Listen, either you're ok with pirating copyrighted works, or you're not. But stop pretending that you're only ok with it because the system is rotten. Because there is no evidence that if the threat of lawsuits were lifted and prices dropped, anything would change.
And, also, please stop pretending that it's because the RIAA and MPAA are fighting the Internet or computers or modern technology. Last time I checked, Outkast just went platinum from online mp3 sales. iTunes sells millions of songs per year, online. The RIAA and MPAA have no problem with modern technology. But they need to make sure it works in such a way that it doesn't enable unrestricted piracy.
Nonstory. Cheeks have already been spread. (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that this is clearly the kind of thing Americans want. If the capacity for outrage doesn't exist for prisoners of war abused in Iraq, if it doesn't exist for voting machine manufacturers pledging money and support for only one party, if it doesn't exist for the zero accountability expected of the Enron, Worldcom, and Haliburton criminals... why should any American give a second thought to the people who will be fscked by the MPAA?
As has been said by people more eloquent than I, it's too late [austinchronicle.com] anyway.
What do I get? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not so long ago, the EFF suggested just this. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not so long ago, the EFF suggested just this. (Score:5, Insightful)
What bugs me about the EFF statement is that they've backed away from it. I thought it was right all along to sue the individuals responsible for copyright infringement, and I still do (although I'm crass enough to make disparaging comments about the RIAA/MPAA as they sue). I currently use Kazaa to share out a handful of audio sermons from my church's pastor -- content that we own the copyrights to and are fully, legally allowed to distribute however we wish. So I have a vested interest in Kazaa and BitTorrent remaining legal. They have a legitimate use: they diminish the load on our Web server (and by extension, the cost) by distributing the load.
As the Web sites I volunteer for begin experiementing with video and other large chunks of data, it is imperative that technology assist us in moving forward. If we artifically limit the technology, then we will be unable to offer up content, even though we own the copyright on it, and wish to provide it for free!
Of course, suing thousands of naive kids and tech-illiterate grannies isn't really going to stop an onslaught of millions of infringers, and does have a chilling effect on legitimate uses such as mine, and does play right into the old line about making all citizens into criminals to keep them under control. So even though it's the right way to do it, I'm not sure what good it does.
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Re:Not so long ago, the EFF suggested just this. (Score:5, Funny)
You're tricking a bit the kazaa credit system, eeh? Cool way of having a gig of mp3 available that you know nobody is gonna download.
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Now that we have proven... (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I am concerned, at this point we should all be doing our best to hasten the decline.
Everybod jump on the pendlum and push. It's gotta swing trough it's arc before there will be any relief. The United States of America has to legislate and litigate itself into its role as a backwater far off the information super-highway, before anything here can get fixed.
The sooner the rest of the world leaves us in the economic and Intellectual Property [sic] dust, the better.
In fact, if the corporations can make enough of a mess SOON ENOUGH, it could even prevent the stupid legislation.
Sue Away, MPAA! (hey it rymes, it should be their new slogan! 8-)
As environmental pressure increases, the organisim is forced to evolve.
So it will be _best_ for the world if we can all get the pressure up as fast as possible.
Plus we know how much credibility the US now has overseas. The more they win here, the freer the rest of the world will be. They *know* (hopefully) that if they follow our lead, then they will enevitably end up with a Bush of their own.
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Re:Now that we have proven... (Score:5, Insightful)
The MPAA has the financial resources and the political might to possibly "tie" that pendulum down as soon as it swings far enough their way. If you help swing it, are you so certain that they won't nail it in place at the edge of its arc?
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Politics and Business Pendlum analogy works (Score:5, Insightful)
When you repress your own businesses, the market goes elsewhere. That is the free market theory at least. To date the swing of the pendlum often leaves countries totally devistated in its wake if it goes to far, but the regions recover even if the political systems don't.
I beleive that the current economic trends are tanamount to disaster and if the "ugly" can come on fast enough to be noticed by the populace they may act to fixe it.
We are boiling frogs here (to mix a metaphore). If the "Broadcast flag" (for instance) were to "suddenly go live tomorrow" it would be gone in a year. If we let it ease in slowly we may be stuck with it for decades.
As it is now, the "rising rate-rate of litigation" (yes, rate twice) is enough that our economic partners around the world are starting to notice and scatter. But consider that this change of rate has been exhibited almost solely in my lifetime (or more correctly in Ralph Nader's professional lifetime). It has not yet become ensconsed in our "perminant" way of life, it hasn't outlived a generation cradle-to-grave. It isn't "tradition", so it is possible to escape it *IF* we can get the public to see the precipice.
I don't really "wish" for the colapse as some kind of nielist orgastic ideal. I have just become convinced that it is essentially enevitable.
(To continue to mix metaphores) we *really* need to pull the band-aid(tm) off quick, or we are going to lose a _heck_ of a lot of hair... 8-)
But even if the entire United States colapses economically (which would be hard to do given that we grow lots of food) business and creativity will simply rise somewhere else.
It's not a pretty pendulum. It's not a "local" pendulum. But the cycle persists.
Wehn it gets totally out of wack, we (editorial we not royal or possessive we) throw a war...
Oh wait...
How many wars does any given "we" get before the world calls a time-out? 8-)
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Re:Now that we have proven... (Score:5, Insightful)
"As far as I am concerned, at this point we should all be doing our best to hasten the decline. Everybod jump on the pendlum and push. It's gotta swing trough it's arc before there will be any relief. The United States of America has to legislate and litigate itself into its role as a backwater far off the information super-highway, before anything here can get fixed."
Amen to that brother! I was rooting for Shrub to win the election for that very reason! He is pretty much despised (and rightly so) down here in Australia, and you'd better believe that the people I told that to reacted with shock and disbelief.
The sooner the U.S. destroys itself, the sooner the rest of us can carry on our lives without being subjected to every base pop media fad to emerge from the rancid American slum-culture de jour.
Just why a middle class Australian would want to emulate the lifestyle of a crack addicted black urban slum dweller eludes me.
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Re:Now that we have proven... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what? You're absolutly right. Of course we dont deserve the right to other people labor. But people dont deserve most of what they get in life. Be it good or bad, lifes not fair that way. But that doesnt mean that its wrong to take advantage of the situation and get ahead while you can. If ive got a means to gain somthing, be it knowledge, entertainment, or anythign else, if it doesnt take away from or harm someone esle, im going to go for it. Nerds in their rooms using bit torrent will NOT bring the industry to its knees. It will just anger them, make them more strict and less likely to listen to reason.
On that point I'd like to point somthign out. Nerds sitting in their rooms have made a difference. Ever heard of iTunes, movielink, or netflicks? It would be impossible to download movies or music online legally if people hadn't pirated them first. We'd still be stuck having to go to the store and purchase or rent hard copies of evreything if hollywood and the music industry hadn't had their hands forced.
And participate in our government. people who disagree with the system should become consumer rights advocates. raise money, hire lobbyists, support candidates, make tv commercials. co-opt the current political parties. work the system
I never suggested not working the system. But working the system doesnt mean you cant also work outside of the system. Not all people can afford to put out TV commercials for propaganda, hire lobbyists, or switch careers. That doesnt mean they should be unable to play a part. Part of the process in changing society is doing what you feel is right, and then working to make it legal. Unjust laws should not be followed, they should be broken, and shown to be the mistakes that they are.
Anyways, im tired and im going to bed. I doubt that I will be able to bring you over to my way of thinking (and tahts not really the goal anywyas), or you me. If anyone continues this line of discussion further, I'll take a look and comment on it tommorow.
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Re:what has the world come to (Score:5, Funny)
Um, I think the point is that they are NOT paying customers...
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Re:what has the world come to (Score:5, Interesting)
Fill me in here in case I missed something, but how are the movie theaters stealing money from anyone? I mean, at least you can claim (however implausibly) that stealing music is okay because the companies make rediculous margins and rip off the artists. That doesn't even remotely apply to movie studios though, it's not like actors are underpaid (in fact, I understand they have a very strong union), and the amount they charge customers is far less relatively speaking. I mean, paying a few bucks to see a $200million movie isn't a bad deal.
So to reiterate my question, how are the movie companies stealing your money?
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Re:what has the world come to (Score:5, Funny)
So this is what the third horseman looks like
Ahoy, folks. The end is nigh.
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Re:what has the world come to (Score:5, Funny)
Something to think about next time Bush talks about god.
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Re:Why only now? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why only now? (Score:5, Interesting)
The MPAA has been doing this for quite a while.
I remember when they sent a C&D letter to Pirate Bay, a filesharing site in Sweden for putting up the sound-track of Shrek on Torrent.
Ofcourse, the response was even better - classic Fuck You [thepiratebay.org].
And I'm sure we all remember the fiasco of movie premiers being up on filesharing networks, and how the MPAA raised a ruckus.
Definitely not the first time, I guess they're just going to intensify their efforts more.
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Re:Why only now? (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably because hard disks capacities are so large and DVD burners are now pretty much standard equipment on PCs. There must be a corresponding increase in movie pirating, critical mass must have been reached.
Me, I wish they had a "burn on demand" (BOD) model where you pay a minimal fee (think rental cost, ideally cheaper) and get to burn a movie on DVD. No case, no extras, just the movie.... I guess video-on-demand is almost the same...
Speaking of lawyers: Vioxx is Prozac for lawyers [ericgiguere.com]Parent
Whew, I was worried for a minute there! (Score:5, Funny)
The RIAA has been doing this for so long, why is the MPAA only doing this now, I wonder?
Hey, who cares? No self-respecting geek clutters up their hard drives with the drivel that the MPAA members produce. Now if the Porn Industry Movie Producers (PIMP) start cracking down on sharing Miko Lee and Jenna Jameson flicks, then us geeks are really going to be in trouble.
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