After Megaupload, MPAA Targets Other File Sharing Services 214
An anonymous reader writes "It is no secret that the MPAA was a main facilitator of the criminal investigation against Megaupload. While the movie studios have praised the actions of the U.S. Government, they are not satisfied yet. Paramount Pictures' vice president for worldwide content protection identified Fileserve, MediaFire, Wupload, Putlocker and Depositfiles as prime targets that should be shuttered next."
Countersue (Score:5, Interesting)
When do the various file-sharing services get together and collectively countersue the MPAA for obstruction of commerce, racketeering, and whatever else comes to mind when one industry gets together to choke another?
For that matter, when does the internet start to crowdfund a bounty in the form of attorneys' fees to go after these guys? [coinconnect.org] Perhaps we were waiting until the ISPs implement "6 Strikes", at which point all the open public WiFi hotspots will necessarily be taken offline or passworded outside common public use.
DMCA safe harbor status (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know all of these services, but doesn't the DMCA's safe harbor provision exempt them from this sort of witch hunt prosecution, as long as DMCA reports are handled in a timely manner ? You could receive a thousand such reports a day, as long as you promptly take down the content (or challenge false claims), you're supposed to be in the clear, as far as the law is concerned.
I've received such complaints in the past, when one of my hosting clients had their site compromised and was used as a warez drop. I fixed the problem, nuked the offending files and never heard of it again. Given that I'm currently in the process of setting up such a file host (no payments though), I'm a bit concerned about this legal abuse. Youtube allows user uploads, and honors DMCA takedowns, and they seem to be doing just fine. Both sites are hosting user-created content. Both have the potential to carry copyrighted material. Both generate ad revenue from their traffic. What makes a filehost any different ?
Re:Pirate Bay? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Countersue (Score:5, Interesting)
The best way to get these guys is to cut off their revenue stream. Stop buying [1] their crap.
[1] By "buying" I also mean downloading, for by doing so you are endorsing it, giving it further mindshare.
But the drop in revenue will only be attributed to more pirating.
Yeah. Kindly fuck off with your "stop buying/downloading" and actually get off your ass and give a shit like the rest of us.
I've contacted the EFF about issues like this, what have YOU done, mister "sit around and do jack shit"?
Sorry for cursing, I'm just really peeved about stuff like this.
I'm an indie musician
The ills of the entertainment industry are merely symptoms of a greater problem.
Boycotting in all forms is an excellent plan, while considering options to deal with the real issues (bribery, corruption, crippled economy, laws by the 1% for the 1%, etc.)
When facing civilization-challenging crises, entertainment is something that's rather easy to ignore / boycott.
We're likely on the same side, but I see entertainment as the circuses part of "bread & circuses" and seek farther-ranging solutions, which ought to trickle down into the content industries, copyright, and patents.
Of course, I myself am not exactly sure what to do, and expect any effective solution to be ... messy as hell, probably devastating to many, and entirely unpalatable. At some point, our status quo will be describable in those same terms, and by then maybe some ideas will be on the table with a critical mass of support behind them. Not there yet...
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection (Score:5, Interesting)
Piracy is only illegal because the law says copying and distributing music is illegal.
People who support piracy are fighting to have the law changed. These people believe that since music can be copied indefinitely and at no cost (even though there is an initial cost of producing the music), the music industry should change to a business model that makes music free.
There are also people who are just fed up with the music industry's abusive behavior. They can sue people who upload music to others for all I care, but many of us are sick of seeing sharing services get shut down - these services have useful, legal purposes. We're m also sick of all the fake DMCA take-downs, the "pay-up or else" letters that target innocent people, the attempts to make wifi network owners liable for how other people use their network, the extradition of young students to the USA for doing something that is legal in their own country, the SLAPP lawsuits, the constantly increasing copyright terms that lock away history from the public (yes, some songs and movies can be considered of historical value), etc.
You can disagree with this, but the fact is, people are not saying the music industry should stop using the protections that the law gives it: they're saying these protections should be taken away. They want to change the law, arguing "but it's the law" is beside the point.
And you won't convince anyone that the music industry should get protections from the law when the music industry behaves the way it does, just like if Hitler were alive you would not succeed at convincing anyone that he should have the right to own a gas chamber.
Re:DMCA safe harbor status (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably more effective than you think. One of the things YouTube did was to give copyright holders the option to profit from advertisements on the video, so it's quite possible that they are up there with after-the-fact permission. Some of the songs on YouTube are actually official videos from the holders, in particular Vevo [wikipedia.org]. I'm guessing the rest just don't care enough to have the videos taken down, as I've seen some of them up for years.
Re:Countersue (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, had to fix that for you. No movie ever made has ever turned a profit, none. [wikipedia.org] In fact, some world famous movies are such colossal failures they weren't even able to pay the actors [slashfilm.com] who starred in them.
Re:Pirate Bay? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a smaller, (presumably) independent band, the RIAA wouldn't mind killing you off. The RIAA isn't there for small artists; they're there for the few giant names they can push, and any competition is bad competition in their view.
Well neither the RIAA or ARIA have ever done a frigging thing for us, so I don't doubt that. Heck I even had a genine "no no" issue of piracy happen to us once where I found a site in the US selling our MP3s for about half the priace we where selling them. I dont care if you pirate-bay or whatever our songs, its not really about that for us. But don't sell our work without giving us a cut of it, is all we ask.
Well I contacted ARIA, and they said "Oh thats in the US, we cant help you". So I contacted the RIAA and they said "Your australians, we are not really interested sorry."
Well I bet if we where AC/DC or something they would be.
Frankly I'd rather kim dotcom got my money than RIAA or ARIA. At least I'm under know illusions as to who Kim represents.
Re:Pirate Bay? (Score:5, Interesting)
And if you are an indie filmmaker, you can expect very harsh treatment at the hands of MPAA for your rating.
I just heard an interview with the director of the terrific new documentary Bully and he was talking about how the MPAA wanted to give his movie an "R" even though all of the characters were real teenagers involved in real bullying and the movie is possibly the most important movie for middle and high-school kids to see. He ended up just going "Unrated" which of course will limit his distribution (but it looks like a lot of media people are getting behind him to help out).
I've made a portion of my living as a professional musician, composer and arranger for about 25 years and I won't go near a project with anything but an indie label and not only an indie label but a really small privately-held indie label. I most enjoy self-released work, which in my opinion has now reached a point of quality every bit as good as anything on a major. I only pay for music when I can buy direct from the artist, or very nearly direct. I'm hoping to get to that point with movies someday.
Re:vice president for worldwide content protection (Score:4, Interesting)
Also no-one needs TPB to distribute their personally created music.. Even if your band can't afford the miniscule hosting fees you can just host the torrent file; the whole point of bittorrent is it doesn't need sites like TPB.
Nobody needs anything in this world but food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. The point is, people use The Pirate Bay to distribute legitimately, the number of hits that it gets (according to Alexa, the 206th most visited site in the world [alexa.com]) make it worthwhile to put things there for distribution.
Just because you'd rather throw the baby out with the bathwater doesn't mean the rest of us want to. You don't think the RIAA would cream their jeans if they could just stop all music sharing on the internet, legit or not? You don't think they would abuse their power if given the chance? Come on. They themselves have gotten busted for the same shit. [techdirt.com]