Demonoid Domain Names Up For Grabs 293
hypnosec writes "One of the most famous Torrent tracking sites, Demonoid, which was shut down recently by Ukrainian authorities, is on the receiving end of one more blow, as the domain names for the site are up for grabs. As it stands, three Demonoid domains: Demonoid.me, Demonoid.com and Demonoid.ph are up for sale on Sedo. The time is ripe as of now for the sale of the domain names as it has caught the attention of many on and off the web. The traffic that Demonoid used to attract was huge, and internet marketers would definitely want to bank on this. Initially thought of as being under a series of DDoS attacks, the torrent tracking site was out for a prolonged duration, following which it started serving malware-laden ads."
geez, this Slashvertisement isn't even disguised (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on, this part of the summary sounds like something I'd expect to find in email or blog-comment spam:
These kinds of stories are often intended as marketing disguised as news stories (news is 'domain for sale', real purpose is to advertise 'domain for sale'), but usually it's not this blatant!
I hope samzenpus is getting a commission (Score:5, Insightful)
What next? Penny stocks? Canadian pharmacy stories?
I miss it already (huge movie buff) (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok so I'm an evil horrible movie pirate....
*however* in my defence, I'm in Australia - our online streaming offerings are utterly dreadful "Content not available in your region" geo-ip blocking is something you learn to DETEST here.... or of course our internet download limits which would go with them - streaming is often significantly less efficient than a fully buffered, truly local copy of a film. (no stutter, better quality, no need to re-download if you pause half way through and the playback device goes to sleep)
Furthermore my tastes are incredibly obscure, I'm one of those movie nerds who will watch a film, check imdb trivia and forums (80% bad, 20% good) to find more information about the actors, writers, directors, trivia and so on. Unfortunately for almost every movie I watch, I find 2 to 5 more. Yes I'm a movie junkie, I love them.
Problem is here, Demonoid was the only place I know of with really, really obscure stuff - it's not just the Korean, Japanese, Thai, Hong Kong films - it's also the overall older films or the things which aren't a 7 or higher in IMDB. Finding odd Japanese 1970's film under say IMDB 6.5 LEGALLY is damn near impossible in this country or online (out of print DVDs or collector pricing) it's simply extremely difficult to find a legal, simple and reliable solution.
So, long story short is, demonoid saved my ass for a long time and already in the few weeks it's been gone I've been finding less and less of the things I'm after. - the movie houses don't make this easy for us in the slightest :/
RIP Demonoid.
Re:Textbooks (Score:3, Insightful)
The textbook industry is a scam. If anyone deserves to have their products pirated, it's those bastards. Retail prices are insane; resale prices are absurd, especially in light of what book stores will give you for your used books - that has to be on the order of 200%-300% profit on a resale; if resales begin to impact the bottom line of new book sales, they'll just make a minor edit and release a new revision. Certainly profitable for everyone involved except the student, but hardly a business practice worthy of respect.
Re:sad to see (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got the order wrong, there will be a lot less pirating when companies realize that DRM is what's killing their sales. DRM only hurts the people who buy the software, not the people who pirate it. Really, it's the pirates that are getting superior software (due to removed DRM), and they're getting it for free. There's no way you can logically argue that you can put an end to DRM by eliminating piracy. If you eliminate DRM though, it's much easier to end piracy.
DRM doesn't protect companies from pirates (and companies who believe it does are idiotic), no matter how good of a system they come up with eventually there will be a way to bypass it. The reality of the situation is that developing DRM is a complete waste of resources, because people will get past it - so the cost of developing DRM really just cuts into their profits more.
tl;dr: You have it backwards, end DRM to (help) stop Piracy. Also DRM is idiotic in general.
Re:Textbooks (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone who wants to read a textbook is a member of an academic institution. A good introductory text to a field you're not familiar with is usually better reading than whatever happens to be on top of the NYT best seller list.
Re:sad to see (Score:0, Insightful)
It's more nuanced than that; It depends on the software.
Software like Photoshop, Reason, and Cubase to name a few don't get much benefit from DRM - and the reason for that is that the software is rarely upgraded. By the time people come around for an upgrade cycle, sometimes 6 months after the release of the new version, the DRM's already been cracked (because pirates like to boast they're on the latest and greatest).
Eventually is the key word there.
Basically, think about what kind of software you're looking at before making blanket statements. DRM is sometimes useless; especially on more expensive software on a slow update cycle. But it has value to companies where their catalogue 'refreshes' quickly; they don't care if it's broken 2 months down the line as long as it works for those first few weeks where the hype is high.
Secondly, there's a lot of paying gamers who would argue that it's them getting the superior product; look around at the number of people who sing the praises of Steam. Yes, it's DRM, but it's also a free online backup facility for their titles and allows them to sync their saves between multiple machines. Pirate copies don't do either.
In other words, it's DRM that adds value to the product rather than taking it away. If more companies learned that lesson, there'd be a lot less piracy around; DRM systems that remove value (such as the 'always online' systems that Ubisoft and Blizzard like so much) tend to drive people to piracy for the reasons you've outlined.