Feds Shut Down Elite Torrents 738
honkimon writes "Cnn Money reports,
"Government agents said the onslaught included 10 search warrants and
the shut down of a central Web site used to coordinate all file-sharing
activity on the Elite Torrents network. That Web site,
Elitetorrents.org, had a selection of copyrighted works
that government officials described as virtually unlimited.""
Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Funny)
I definately feel safer knowing that DHS is tackling major problems like downloading movies.
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Funny)
You missed the punchline, dude.
If we don't protect the few people at the very top of society so that they can continue to rip off the common folk to make billions upon billions of dollars in profits, then by God, the terrorists have already won!
Ripoff? (Score:4, Insightful)
George Lucas sure will make a profit off that, but is all profit-making a ripoff?
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Funny)
Come on, get back into the
corporations = evil
profits = evil
US government = evil
Microsoft = evil
Just keep saying it and pretty soon you'll feel a lot better!
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mass produced media has all but killed small theatres and live entertainment. Even the local jobs from Cinemas are near-minimum wage mcjobs, and even those are being replaced by machines. The Cinema operations are franchised so as to lock in who can operate the enterprise and how they operate it, and the distribution of film quality is even monitored to keep cinemas on their toes.
It's a vertical monopoly where studios own the cinemas and the distribution. Worse, the studios and cinemas collude to ensure minimum competition and maximum revenue from their films.
Blockbuster cinema houses starve out independent cinema houses, then for the mostpart refuse to air local content which might not fill the seats. It's a rape of our culture and funnels money out of the local economy and right into Hollywood.
The revenues are used to empower legal teams to change copyright legislation so as to artificially protect their intellectual property. The rights which copyright gave them to make their bililons of dollars is just not enough for them.
In a world of six billion people, we should see more films and creative content than ever in the history of the earth, but for some reason, all we care about is the production of a few films from these big corporations.
In other words, George Lucas is a role model for Americans to screw the little guy.
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Interesting)
People who bring baby's and toddlers to movies because they cant get a sitter that night.
The guy who translates the entire movie line by line for his spanish speaking family of 8 so they can see it in the theater.
How about removing those people, because they RUIN my $10/ticket movie going experience. Which in turn makes me download the movie and sit at home and watch in comfort. They arent losing ANY money because I didn't go to the theater and buy a ticket. I have no intention of going to theaters because of the 10% inconsiderate fucks in the world.
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, that and when it's the just the wife and I, she thinks it's kinky to play around or get busy in the back seat like we're a couple of teenagers.
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Interesting)
Good independent work will always come to the fore. When people started getting sick of John Wayne movies and musicals and yet another damn Rock Hudson movie, along came Coppola, Scorcese, DePalma, Polanski, etc to bust it wide open.
I figure we need another year or two of ABSOLUTE DRECK before studios will start taking chances again on new work.
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it used to be true that houses owned all of the theaters in which their movies were shown, but that ended in 1948 when an antitrust case was brought against paramount (U.S. vs. Paramount Pictures, et. al) causing them, and others in suit, to divest their theaters.
I'd like to also point out that all of your examples of the movie industry "robbing america of its right to culture" are not the result of an ev
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually liked Revenge of the Sith, so I let others argue over whether the ticket price was a ripoff to see that particular movie. :-)
However, I don't need to argue about that. I can think of a few other ways we're being ripped off pretty quickly:
That's just off the top of my head. Anyone else care to add to the list?
So no, not all profit-making is a ripoff. But that doesn't change the fact that some of it certainly is. And no, illegally downloading and/or sharing movies isn't legal or ethical. But in the grand scheme of things, I think it's a hell of a lot less serious an offense than what the movie studios and especially the **AA are doing.
A better link for the punishment thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in a hurry to get the post on here, so I missed the link in the geek.com story to the original article [nyud.net] (non-Coral [usatoday.com]) at USA Today. That still doesn't change the fact that this kid got three months of a deferred jail sentence, three years of probation, 200 hours of community service (for those of you with a 40-hour a week job, that's five weeks off from work, or three months of weekends), $5,400 in fines, and he must take a class on copyright at the University (presumably at his own expense of time and money), and avoid file-sharing programs (I don't see any stipulation that the avoiding of file-sharing programs is limited to illegal downloads).
And in the article, it says that he was lucky that he was just a kid. If he had been older, the penalties would have been stiffer, including a mandatory three month jail sentence up front.
Oh, and I dug up [slashdot.org] the story from February 10 about the comparison between shoplifting and copyright infringement. Here is a link [nyud.net] (non-Coral [nyud.net]) to the original article.
Re:A better link for the punishment thing... (Score:5, Funny)
Sheesh, go easy on yourself for missing out on a link in your original post. Four links in one post is like the bibliography of a PhD disseration for Slashdot
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
<rant style="rant-type:soapbox;">
they can either become investors or quit
Okay, this is the last reply I'm going to post on this topic, because this is as close to a flame war as I want to get. If you want the last word, feel free to post a reply and I'll let everyone bask in your victory. I diligently try to avoid the soapbox like this, but man, you just caught me at just the wrong moment.
Your post is typical of someone who has had a relatively nice middle-class ride through life and doesn't truly know what it's like to be an ordinary working class schmoe. It's awful easy to say stuff like "become and investor" and "quit" when you have spare money to invest and could find another job relatively easily.
I'm guessing that you don't understand what it's like to have no spare money or to be forced to work a miserable job to keep food on the table because I'm guessing you can't relate. You think that you "pulled yourself up by the bootstraps" and "made yourself what you are today" because you went to college on your parent's dime and/or government-provided scholarship, grant, and/or student loan programs. If you lost your job today, I'm guessing you probably have money stashed away that you could fall back on, or at worst, a family that would find some way to take care of you. You think you've earned everything you have, and if someone else is poor, they're not unfortunate, they're just lazy because they didn't work as hard as you did.
Well, I've got some news; news that you will probably not believe because you've so successfully fooled yourself into believing that you've earned everything you have, but others reading will probably understand all too well. In America today, how hard you work has very little to do with how successful you are. I'm not saying the executives don't work hard, because a lot do. But they like to think that their sixty to eighty hours a week somehow entitles them to the lion's share of profit. Guess what: Sixty to eighty hours a weeks is a normal work week for a LOT of people who are barely making ends meet. In fact, some of the people in the corporate trenches would consider a sixty hour week a vacation.
These people would like nothing better than to find a good job somewhere else and quit, but the other company they go to will be just as bad, and they would lose any vested time in any pittance of a retirement plan they may have, vacation time they have built up for being at the company several years, and so on. So yeah, it's easy to armchair-manage people's lives, telling them to quit and lose what little they have for something worse, if you're not the one who will actually have to pay the price for it.
It's not like executives sit down with the grunts on the line and work out what everyone thinks is fair compensation for all employees. No, they TELL employees what they'll get, and that will be as little as they can get away with. These days, it's gotten even worse because many executives don't really even care about the long term well-being of the company, as long as they get their bonus this year and their golden parachute next year. As a general rule (exceptions are few and FAR between), the executives that can get away with screwing the employees the hardest will be the most lavishly rewarded for doing so. Why? It's built into the corporate culture. Their job is to maximize profit and minimize costs (i.e. things like salary and benefits for average schmoes). Being fair to the employees isn't part of the equation; in fact, it is a significant hinderance.
Bringing it back on-topic, most of the people working on the film AREN'T being paid what they're "supposed" to be paid. They're being paid the bare minimum they can be paid. Even though both are in a sad state under the constant attacks they've suffered lately, we fortunately have things like unions and liberals around to try to ensure that the bare minimum will at least allow these people to eat. They "signed up" for it not because it
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
I will admit to being the guy with the nice middle class ride through life to whom you refer. I have never in my life worked a minimum wage job, and the least I was ever paid was $6.25 an hour as a lab assistant in college. I have never had difficulty finding work as a soccer referee for over $15/hr on weekends, I have taken entry level grocery bagger positions for $9/hr and I have babysat for $7.50 an hour. During college I mostly worked internships at around $13/hr, which combined with $30,000 in government subsidized loans paid my tuition.
As bad as the school system is in this country, schools and public libraries offer sufficient resources for any interested person to obtain an education. I was homeschooled from K-12 grade, which meant that for the most part I taught myself. By buying used books online, you are looking at an investment of a couple hundred dollars a year. (And if you don't believe me I can put together a book list to show you.) It does not require a privleged middle class upbringing to obtain a quality education. I will agree though that for a kid whose parents don't really care, getting a quality education is much more difficult.
Obtaining a state college education is also not difficult for someone wanting to do so. My local state school has in-state education costs of under $500 a semester. Take your highly motivated examples who work two full time jobs. At $10/hr each job, that person is making about $40,000 a year. While $10/hr is high for starting salary, it is well within the reach of someone who is a good employee and is willing to relocate. Particularly if said party is willing to live in an inexpensive area (ie NOT San Francisco), they can very quickly have enough savings to go to school. If they can continue to work while in school, they may be able to avoid even needing much from their savings.
The real way a person gets into an untenable position is by making poor decisions. Not obtaining a quality high school education is the first mistake most people make. They then follow this by getting married or having kids they can support that family. Our society is unwilling to wait for anything or plan for the future. A person cannot end up a single mother with 3 kids working a minimum wage job without making some stupid decisions. While I do believe we should help such people recover from those mistakes, your claims that people aren't at fault for where they are in life just do not reflect the facts.
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Informative)
Obviously that does not include the books right? And BTW WOW, what state do you live in where school is that cheap?
Anyway here is a question for you, please answer honestly if you are capabable of it.
Did you pay 100% of your schooling? By that I mean you received 0% of your education costs from your parents. If you got loans that's OK, you can also count grants as being "your money".
"'Not obtaining a quality high school educat
Lay off the mothers (Score:4, Informative)
You said: A person cannot end up a single mother with 3 kids working a minimum wage job without making some stupid decisions.
Meet my mom.
Before I was born, she got a graduate degree in Zoology, and performed cutting edge genetic research. She met and married my father, a doctor, who is now one of the top anaethesiogists in the nation. She stopped doing research to raise her 3 kids - I'm the eldest.
So far so good, right?
Well, around the time my littlest sister was born, my dad was working around 100 hours a week. We'd see him once a week or so, and he'd always be angry and throwing things and cursing. Scary for a kid. Even scarier for my mom - her threw her down the stairs and rammed her head into a wall, giving her minor brain damage. Of course, she divorced him, and took us kids and headed to another state. However, ten years had passed since she worked in research, and she couldn't get a job in her field anymore. She managed to get jobs making cold calls on the telephone and secretarial jobs. So there she was, a single mother with 3 kids working a minimum wage job. Perhaps you could tell me the bad decision she had made? Was it marrying the rich doctor who loved her and treated her well for ten years? Or was it leaving her academic career to work on something much more important to her?
Now, I'm doing fine, but I'm about the same age as my mom at the "so far, so good" stage. I haven't made any seriously bad decisions, and I've made a few good ones. Who knows where I will be in a few years? Maybe struggling like my mom had to.
You are correct that there is more to life than luck - decisions do count. But you need to realize that as we are all humans, the information that people use to make their decisions is imperfect. Sometimes decisions which looked good at the time look bad only in retrospect. In addition, while bad luck isn't everything, it does happen - death, illness, abusive families. Just because giving up to bad luck isn't the answer doesn't mean that it doesn't make things much harder. I suggest before you go around judging those minimum wage mothers with 3 kids, you think about how their kids are going to judge you when you tell them from your privileged position how stupid they are.
Re:Ripoff? (Score:4, Interesting)
I do however respect your right to your point of view and you put your thoughts forth in an organized manner. I was able to clearly understand your point of view, and that generally is the point of communication (even on
I could go on for hours and hours with the flaws of unions and liberal philosophies, but it's really not worth the effort. Let me just say that they both had a place and a time when they were useful and needed, but that time has passed.
corporations are antithetical to values that most people consider good qualities: fairness, sharing, caring, and that other kumbaya stuff that you probably would like your kids to learn.
Sure, I'd love my kids to learn that stuff. In fact, I've been teaching them that their whole lives. However, they also are learning that they need to work for what they want, they are learning that rewards only go to those who are willing to take the risks to get them. They are also learning that it's wrong for a government to do for the people what they can do for themselves.
I have no clue to your background, nor do you have any clue to mine. I suggest that further discussions be taken offline, I'd be happy to discuss philosophies with someone as rational as yourself.
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Funny)
I did. He lost me when he said "How the proletariat got in my pajamas I'll never know."
Re:Ripoff? (Score:3, Insightful)
But they want to see it anyway?
I've got a plan!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
If genocide isn't enough to get the good old USA to act, "stealing" a few bucks from their VERY wealthy citizens should do it.
Compulsory Buying, Eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just how is anyone selling anything ripping off anyone? No one is forcing anyone to buy anything.
Since most of the
Smacks more than a bit of the obese bitching that Big Macs cost too much.
Re:Compulsory Buying, Eh? (Score:3)
Re:Compulsory Buying, Eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Compulsory Buying, Eh? (Score:3, Funny)
What is an ahssy?
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people don't know any better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Average Joe American, is not savvy / educated enough to understand the mechanics of torrents, Hollywood (for instance that - Star Wars was an insider leak) or that this is a misuse of the DoH's resources. To them, pirates, downloaders and terrorists are one and the same.
Why? Because somewhere along the last couple of decades, peoples' knowledge of their own laws, (especially laws involving quickly changing technology) took a significant downturn. Simply try asking people on the street about the USAPatriot Act or the DMCA. Most - know nothing. Some may have a different perception of the act due to propaganda and only a few will care about it.
Unless it is directly affecting the person, it's not important to them for the most part...
Democracies, in order to be effective, require active and INFORMED citizens - something that is slowly dissappearing (for a multitude of reasons).
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the old impulse cannon you target at your heads all day long has something to do with this?
Fair and balanced, my ass!
Dear Americans:
Stop letting TV control your view, and check things out for yourselves. It might be interesting to see what is going on outside of the living room.
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:3, Insightful)
This should read 'dear humans', but I guess some europeans can't admit that their folks are just as fucking ignorant as our own.
Max
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:4, Interesting)
God, that patriot act of yours is darn scary. does anyone know if there is an equivilant in Britain? I hope not, I like to think that British norms are more informed than American norms (Though the results of our last election seem to suggest otherwise.)
It scares me that any body, even governments, can have such power. I like to think that in the modern age, people are protected by bodies like the UN. It pisses me off when the governing bodies of countries like America ignore UN rules because they think they are above the international law. In a perfect world, no one would have such extreme power over anyone else...
Screw it, maybe I'll just give up the real world. People are always saying that nerds like me have 'poor social skills'. What a load of crap! Sure, in their world I might be considered a bit strange, but in the world that is most important to me, the internet, I am a good member of society. But I am off topic, so I'll stop.
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you kidding me? You guys don't even have a Constitution to provide an foundation to object to laws like PATRIOT. Have you ever checked out the UK's anti-terror laws? Check out the "Anti- Terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001" (which, BTW I'm unclear whether its anti terrorism, crime, and security, or only anti terrorism and crime; I would presume that it is pro-security, though the title is a bit ambiguous on that point.) Its chock full of fun bits.
Better yet, check out the laws in the UK in the 1970's and 80's to deal with the IRA--I'm not defending any group or act here, just pointing out that many of those laws make PATRIOT look benign. Just a hint: indefinite detention without any trial, and there's more where that came from.
Far from what the rhetoric of
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:4, Funny)
They'd probably have called it "Slashpoint" or "Slantdot" something, given the minor linguistic hurdles between the UK and America. But at least there'd be somewhere to gain karma by grousing.
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you even listening to yourself? To translate: no one should have power over anyone else... except for the UN, which is made up of people, who would then have power over other people?
That would be the
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:3, Informative)
Ineffectuall does not mean corrupt, you are parroting the "UN is corrupt" mantra that comes only from the mouths of some of your own politicians. I have no idea who ordered the tankers to be allowed to pass through the blockade and on to Turkey, but I doubt it was a corrupt individual in the UN. Also I do not think the US is soley to blame, the security council is to blame and they know it. Some have backed Kofi calling for reform of the council. The US has gon
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:3, Informative)
It was immigration and customs, by the way, and nobody but the magoo who started this thread made any connection to terrorism. What a bunch of lemmings.
Terrorent (Score:5, Interesting)
Terrorent: A terrorist who uses bittorrent to illegally distribute American Freedom ©.
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Interesting)
But you can be sure it's not because of terrorism.
How much of California's income comes from the film industry and the industry that services it.
At this stage, the movie studios are nearly nothing more than specialised banks (do I get credit for quoting Neal Stephenson !) - and with the vast sums of money involved, its not surprising that the law appears to re-act quicker.
But the law folks need a semi-genuine excuse to pursue these cases without alienating the public.
For example, if their line was "Yeah, well we need to help the movie industry backers get richer" - how many people would be taken to their cause. As a matter of spite, people would swing the other way - anything to go "get the system".
In Britain, before the motto for pursuing these sites and pirates was "to fight terrorism" it was "to fight organised crime".
In the end, it's all down to money, and in the movie business there's loads of it floating around.
Every wonder how dangerous driving in some countries can only incur a penalty of a few hundred dollars/euros (if you are really unlucky) while recording a film in a cinema (which I don't condone) can incur an _unlimited_ penalty where I come from.
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:4, Informative)
I really think you people take pride in your ignorance.
I say this in another post, but Immigration and Customs, which handles copyright infrigement, is part of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security was created partly to battle terrorism and partly to combine the domestic agencies into one group. This issue has nothing to do with terrorism, even though it adding the word makes it all juicy and gets everyone all riled up.
Someone broke the law, and the government did its job by shutting them down.
Please get a grip and focus on the real issues of the day.
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Department of Shitty HTML involved? (Score:5, Funny)
Sweet mother of God, what an ugly page. View source and it gets even scarier...
I need to wash my eyes now.
Re:Santa Claus was the first through the door w/ m (Score:5, Interesting)
The government underwent a massive reorganization in the last two years. 22 agencies-- including big departments like the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, Coast Guard, Customs, and FEMA; have all been moved to, or are in the process of being moved to the DHS.
This is a BIG change... it's the most signifigant restructuring of the US government in the last 50 years.
You really, really need to know this stuff.
Re:Santa Claus was the first through the door w/ m (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps the people that are modding this as "interesting" should ask themselves whether or not the comment is, or is not, BS. As an example, the CIA is not a piece of DHS, and is not being moved to DHS. Rather, we've got a new office (now occupied by Negroponte) that is coordinating the intelligence output (though not necessarily operations) of several disparate agencies or units within other agencies. While DHS has a strong interest in coordinated intelligence, it is not an intelligence agency, per se. The FBI, likewise, is still part of Justice, and neither are, or will be, part of DHS. Get your damn facts as straight as your tinfoil hat.
Not true about CIA and FBI (Score:3, Informative)
But with this statement I agree:
This is a BIG change... it's the most signifigant restructuring of the US government in the last 50 years.
infinite? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually it was... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:infinite? (Score:3, Funny)
What do you think those infinite number of monkeys are doing when not trying to bang out Shakespeare?
Curses! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Curses! (Score:5, Funny)
Had copies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Had copies? (Score:5, Informative)
Regards,
Steve
Re:Had copies? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Had copies? (Score:5, Funny)
Hydra (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hydra (Score:5, Insightful)
So they shut down a site that was trading in illegal stuff. What is the big deal? (other than the fact that the feds are concerned with THIS and not so much things that really hurt human beings)
Re:Hydra (Score:5, Insightful)
Torrents wouldn't be so bloody popular unless the current distribution model for media was a source of widespread dissatisfaction. Despite a plethora of laws passed to uphold aging business models, the number of Americans (just Americans) engaging in illegal downloading activity passed more than an estimated *70 million* last month. When a quarter of your citizens consistently and repeatedly break the law despite the imposition of relatively harsh (even ludicrous) prison sentences then there's something seriously wrong with the law - by definition. The citizens supposedly define the law, and if a good chunk of them ignore it (with the numbers rising every month) it's a fair bet that the law they're dismissing doesn't reflect their own interests or goals.
The RIAA and MPAA refuse to adapt to changing market conditions. Just plain, flat-out refuse. Probably because they know that in this case while adaption might very well preserve or even increase profits, it'll almost certainly strip them of the non-economic power they've acquired over the last fifty years - power that the tin-pots in the industries love more than money itself. So instead of adapting and avoiding this whole mess they buy laws and send Americans to jail over COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, which is just fucking stupid.
And yet despite this, the increasingly stiffer penalties, and the crackdowns, the number of Joes and Janes breaking these laws is climbing faster than at any other time in history since the Prohibition! That should tell you something right there about how well the law reflects the will of the people it supposedly serves.
Max
And this ended piracy for all time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And this ended piracy for all time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Please! This isn't about piracy! This is an industry trying to save itself from DIY publishing and distribution. This piracy thing is a really good distraction, apparently. It seems to have clouded almost everybody's vision of what's really at stake. If piracy is so rampant, why is the industry making record amounts of money every year?? The new Star Wars flick is in the Guiness Book, and yet thes
Re:And this ended piracy for all time... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's never been about piracy ever, because we never hear about huge piracy rings in the Pacific Rim being "shut down" and thousands of bootleg DVDs taken off the streets. China and other places just give the US the finger when it comes to "tightening copyright provisions and intellectual property protections."
You see reporters walking up to vendors on the street corner in New York selling movies one week old on VHS or DVD, yet there's only one high profile
The fewer pirates will offset the new income... (Score:5, Insightful)
Footage (Score:5, Funny)
RTJKJAS? (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess somebody didn't like the FBI and HS insignias... Is this an indication of HS abusing the power it gained after 9/11 ?
Re:RTJKJAS? (Score:5, Funny)
then i had sex with sandra bullocks and my day was complete
Re:RTJKJAS? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:RTJKJAS? (Score:4, Funny)
Return of The Jedi King, Jar-Jar Against Spiderman.
It's the next epic hollywood blockbluster which was leaked early and led to the site being taken down.
Re:RTJKJAS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Psst... Hey buddy, can you spare a
IT'S NOT A HACK (Score:3, Informative)
At the bottom of the page we read:
"The Motion Picture Association of America provided valuable assistance to the investigation."
So nope, it's not a hack. It's official.
Star Wars 3 Linked To? (Score:3, Funny)
How long before (Score:3, Interesting)
Title of the post should have been: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps they should have been using an artifical intelligence content-authoring program [autoblogger.net]?
It seems unreal... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It seems unreal... (Score:3, Informative)
The FBI's jurisdiction covers all Federal laws not primarily handled by another branch (for example, counterfeting is handled by the Secret Service). Copyright infringement has long since moved from a purely civil to a criminal matter and therefore falls u
Re:It seems unreal... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hollywood uses creative accounting (but not just for taxes, Winston Groom didn't earn any royalties on Forrest Gump, how much did it gross again?) to avoid them.
There are big companies that pay taxes, but you'll find out that they have little in the way of marketable intellectual property.
It is not because whoever's running Disney this week has naked photos of President Bush (at least, not that I know of) but because Disney profits help
seems to be fake (Score:3, Interesting)
SithLord changes topic to 'Site Status : Down : ET Was DNS Hacked'
ET thanks everyone for there patience
info*
also at the bottom of the page it says RTJKJAS
Re:seems to be fake (Score:3, Informative)
Re:seems to be fake (Score:5, Informative)
This is what the actual irc channel topic is:
* Topic for #elitetorrents is: Site is down forever. please part. > http://www.ice.gov/graphics/index.htm [ice.gov]
* Topic for #elitetorrents set by SithLord- at Wed May 25 13:00:56 2005
Re:seems to be fake (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ice.gov/graphics/index.htm [ice.gov]
The Cost of Idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
Amount of downloads: Aprox 10,000
Amount Star Wars grossed in just the first weekend: $158.5 million
I suppose that somehow, somewhere that extra $95,000 that they may or may not have made anyway is worth all this.
I'd bet that 9K out of the 10K downloaders actually paid to see the movie anyway.
Another One Bites The Dust (Score:3, Funny)
If they bust Empornium next, they'll completely ruin my sex life.
How difficult would it be to host these trackers in China or any other country that the neo-cons in Washington don't have against the wall?
Latency shouldn't be such a problem, all the tracker has to do is hook the users up.
MM... looks strange (Score:4, Interesting)
FBI:
http://elitetorrents.org/Shut%20Down%20By%20FBI%2
http://elitetorrents.org/Shut%20Down%20By%20FBI%2
So they shut it down, and the ip is:
192.31.21.68
And although ping do not respond. Who is throws:
OrgName: San Diego Supercomputer Center
OrgID: SDSC
Address: P.O. Box 85608
City: San Diego
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 92186
Country: US
NetRange: 192.31.21.0 - 192.31.21.255
CIDR: 192.31.21.0/24
NetName: SDSC-APOLLO
NetHandle: NET-192-31-21-0-1
Parent: NET-192-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS1.SDSC.EDU
NameServer: NS0.SDSC.EDU
Comment:
RegDate:
Updated: 1994-12-20
TechHandle: TH60-ARIN
TechName: Hutton, Thomas
TechPhone: +1-858-534-5136
TechEmail: hutton@sdslug.org
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2005-05-24 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
interesting domain no?
Interesting Verbage. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Federal agents launched a crackdown on users of a popular new technology used to steal the latest "Star Wars" movie..."
Download instead of "steal" would have worked fine in that sentance. I guess steal just conveys a more sinister idea. Like roaving bands of junky Bit Torrent users are going to break into your home at any moment. The will "steal" anythign to get their fix!
"Within 24 hours, more than 10,000 copies of the "Star Wars" film had been swiped."
Ahh yes "swiped" the files were swiped from the servers, depriving the poor innocent children of their Star Wars!
I really hate CNN, they are getting as bad as Fox News.
-Orcspit
Re:Interesting Verbage. (Score:3, Insightful)
I saw 10 minutes of a pirated version (Score:5, Interesting)
Bunch of us watched the first 10-15 minutes. Everyone said "Ok, so far it doesn't suck. Let's go see it."
Remember when Apple let the first 7 minutes of "Chicken Run" loose on their trailer site? Good move, I say. I'm fed up with biased movie reviews and trailers that show the only cool parts of the whole movie. I'm still pissed off that I wasted $30 + 2 hours of my life to see "Mission to Mars" after seeing the trailer. Bastards.
Like pissing in the ocean (Score:3, Funny)
The entire structure of copyright laws need to be revamped.
Of course i know that will never happen as long as the large corporations are in control of the government.
Obviously we're talking about subsets of unlimited (Score:3, Insightful)
So this is virtually unlimited, but selective. As there are an infinite number of positive integers, but there is a larger infinite set of real numbers, EliteTorrents had a virtually unlimited selection, but they still didn't have everything.
I agree with what some others have said here - this looks like a DNS hijacking and fake warning. The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement have absolutely nothing to do with copyright enforcement.
5 years in pound-your-ass (Score:3, Funny)
copyright laws will face up to five years in federal prison, restitution, forfeiture and a fine.
5 years, isn't that a bit extreme. Still, kiddnapping gets 10 years, and that's only slightly worse than downloading copyrighted works
people need to learn moral nuance (Score:3, Interesting)
but the problem is that it is a different kind of wrong than stealing in the traditional sense. it is a new kind of wrong, and those who fight it are using a moral sledgehammer when moral nuance is needed. and those who fight p2p piracy are losing the battle by overreacting in their moral determination.
to put it another way: to convince people not to download movies, you have to stop using an elephant gun to shoot gnats. you need moral nuance, because those who are downloading aren't listening to fire and brimstone, as it comically outweighs the weight of their crime.
the usual cut off point between otherwise moral people on the issue of p2p piracy has to do with the notion of who copying files on p2p really hurts in society.
some would say that "it's still usually worth shelling out the cash so that the people that worked on the movie get the money that they're owed."
but that's wrong, philosophically AND practically. this is trying to apply binary logic to a question of scale.
the determination that not paying for a movie = stealing is wrong, not because not paying for a movie is right, but because it's simply NOT "stealing" in the moral sense that is brought to bear on the situation before us.
let's say instead of downloading a movie, you sneak into another theatre after the movie you paid for, something teenagers have been doing for decades. what have you stolen? well, if you didn't sneak into that theatre, that seat would have still been empty, correct?
meanwhile, if i steal a loaf of bread, i've stolen a loaf of bread. i haven't stolen half a loaf, i haven't stolen 100,000 loaves. it's a binary determination: i stole the binary value of a loaf of bread at market prices. i need to make moral amends so that "the baker that worked on the bread gets the money that they're owed."
that logic works PERFECTLY for situations where my actions results in something physically becoming unavailable for someone else's use. but that is NOT what is happening with pirated media.
i'll put it another way: let's say someone makes a movie for $100 million, and no one wants to see it, and the movie grosses $1 million. what is the logic behind asking for what "the people that worked on the movie get the money that they're owed?" is it safe to infer then that you support the notion that those who made the $100 million bomb get paid by society $99 million to make up for their loss?
no really, what are the makers of a movie MORALLY owed?
if someone makes a movie for $100,000 and it grosses $500 million, is that what they are MORALLY owed?
what are they owed in your moral sledgehammer approach to the problem?
so what is the value of applying the old binary logic of stealing to a question of scale?
the current moral attitude of the laws on p2p simply doesn't stand up to examination, philosophically and practically. with media: movies, music, text, etc... anything that can be digitized, the binary logic of morality when it comes to theft simply does not apply.
THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT!
again, listen to me carefully, i am not introducing a slippery slope to acceptance, i repeat: it is still WRONG to copy a movie online.
but it is not the same KIND of wrong. it is more nuanced.
so what people operating in a blind, closed minded "it's just wrong" approach need to learn is nuance. the RIAA and MPAA and the people who write the laws in this country need to realize exactly WHAT kind of wrong it is, and stop swinging their sledgehammers, and thereby doing nothing but demonstrate that they don't really understand what they are really talking about.
because refusing to play anything but hardball with a situation that requires a more nuanced moral approach does not do anything except create deaf ears by the POOR and YOUNG who are doing most of the file swapping to simple minded fire and brimstone moral determinations.
because P2P piracy IS a question of m
Think of it this way (Score:3, Informative)
By the same token, the newspaper would probobly also be breaking the law because they published the ad (knowing full well the ad was for something blatently illegal)
All a
As for the sites themselves, the sites being shut down tend to have only (or almost only) torrents for illegal files so its quite within the rights for them to be shut down (depending on what country they are in)
Re:homeland security (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Since when (Score:3, Informative)
So, whether you see it or not, what is alleged is clearly criminal in scope.
Re:Thepiratebay.org (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, just a thought. You can throw words like "illegal" and "rape" around all you want, but when Elite Torrents has more than a hundred thousand members alone... the people have spoken. It's time for something new.