MPAA: the Impact of Megaupload's Shutdown Was 'Massive' 308
An anonymous reader writes "The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has declared that the Megaupload shutdown earlier this year has been a great success. In a filing to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the group representing major movie studios says the file hosting and sharing industry has been massively disrupted. Yet the MPAA says there is still work to be done, identifying sites that make available to downloaders 'unauthorized copies of high-quality, recently-released content and in some cases, coordinate the actual upload and download of that content.' Here's the list of sites, including where they are hosted: Extratorrent (Ukraine), IsoHunt (Canada), Kickass Torrents (Canada), Rutracker (Russia), The Pirate Bay (Sweden), Torrentz (Canada), and Kankan (China)."
Checks my SickBeard and CouchPotato (Score:5, Interesting)
Success != Money (Score:5, Interesting)
So in other words, their profits suddenly shot up by some "massive" amount? I mean that's really the only reason to go to the trouble (and cost) of shutting stuff like this down, is to recover some revenue, right? After all, that is the only kind of success that matters to the content producers, is making more money for their effort.
FTA:
Interestingly, recently published research suggests that shuttering Megaupload may have even had a negative impact on box office revenues. In a recent blog post MPAA’s head of research Julia Jenks said the short paper is “not clear or compelling,” but it’s an indication that the Megaupload shutdown might not be all that positive for the industry itself either.
Oops. Spin it, Julia. Spin it round and round.
Re:What they didn't say (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly.
If they are "losing" money due to "piracy" then why does Piracy NEVER show up on the balance books for EACH movie?
Re:Puke (Score:3, Interesting)
was conducted illegally,
With you so far. The whole thing was a clusterfsck.
and that thousands of legitimate users and businesses were harmed.
Not buying this though.
Well, OK, perhaps thousands. But percentage-wise, what would you guess as to number of legit files vs infringing files?
F*** you MPAA.
With you here again.
Re:Puke (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't help (Score:5, Interesting)
It is pretty clear it seems to anyone but you that the evidence so far is that Megaupload WAS NOT being used as a gigantic, unregulated store for pirated content, which is why the case is completely falling over. Sure the shutdown was massive but massive in a bad for the US in-Justice system and, US Foreign Relations. It is blatantly clear both were manipulated via corporate interests through the Vice Presidents office and at the instructions of psychopathic corporate executives a company was destroyed so they could be made a public example. In the great fishing expedition it was expected that evidence would be uncovered to justify the destruction as prior to the destruction the evidence was not there. However us the case unfolds with evidence lacking, the only real investigation that needs to be conducted is one of corruption of the US legal system by US corporations.
Re:Yeah right... (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, at least back then they actually busted people for tax fraud.
These days, you can sell overpriced services to yourself to guarantee yourself a loss. Because everyone else participates in the same scam, so it's not "overpriced" any more... right.
Re:Yes, yes it was. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I tend think Slashdot is generally just pro-piracy because they want to stick it corporations--they want all the music for free, all the movies for free, all the software for free, like some sort of God-given entitlement. Face it folks, you do have to pay for content.
I think for a lot of people, piracy is less about getting something for free, and more about a refusal to continue playing by a set rules that are counterproductive to the progression of society as a whole. People are fed up with this whole concept of "Intellectual Property," and it's spreading more and more every year. The media empire is drastically attempting to sway our thinking back to the old ways, but they are fighting an uphill battle, as people are beginning to realize what is best for the media empire is not what is best for the progress of society. We no longer need IP to "force" us to create! The internet has made it quite evident that it is human nature to explore new ideas, create, and to be creative. What we need more than ever is access to free flowing (uncensored) ideas and information from all over the globe. This more than anything will bring us together as a species, and allow us to progress in a direction that is not just ideal for the privileged few, but to every human being on this planet. I strongly believe that Intellectual Property is counterproductive to this goal.
It was a good ride, but it's time for Big Media to go. Let's start by abolishing all concepts of Intellectual Property, and simply make plagiarism illegal instead.
Re:Doesn't help (Score:5, Interesting)
I really don't understand what the hoopla about content is. I stream in Netflix and have a basement full of VHS tapes. I have yet to figure out why any of it was worth saving or why I bother to keep watching. Most television shows amount to " I Love Lucy", "Dragnet" or "The Price is Right" with tweaks. Movies are outright regurgitation of previous works without exception. Who really is getting paid for this? The originators are long dead and the flunkies who worked on these projects are already paid. The studios who made them are already paid, over and over, through advertising , sales (suckers who bother to purchase hard copies that will gather dust just like all my VHS I mentioned earlier). Maybe this is just about lawyers creating a stream of revenue for themselves. Maybe if we sprinkle "Roach-Pruf" around, this will go away.
Silly asses!
Re:Doesn't help (Score:5, Interesting)
Megaupload certainly had legitimate uses, but piracy was a major, major use. That may not have been a legitimate reason to shut it down (and certainly wasn't justification for the way it was done), but I don't think anyone can argue that Megavideo, for example, didn't have much, much more pirated content than, say, Youtube or Vimeo.
Well, by all accounts the shutdown actually HURT box office sales [techdirt.com]. It was also reported here on Slashdot [slashdot.org].
Maybe it was just nerd rage, refusing to go to the movies ever again!
Re:Doesn't help (Score:5, Interesting)
I really don't understand what the hoopla about content is. I stream in Netflix and have a basement full of VHS tapes. I have yet to figure out why any of it was worth saving or why I bother to keep watching. Most television shows amount to " I Love Lucy", "Dragnet" or "The Price is Right" with tweaks. Movies are outright regurgitation of previous works without exception. Who really is getting paid for this? The originators are long dead and the flunkies who worked on these projects are already paid. The studios who made them are already paid, over and over, through advertising , sales (suckers who bother to purchase hard copies that will gather dust just like all my VHS I mentioned earlier). Maybe this is just about lawyers creating a stream of revenue for themselves. Maybe if we sprinkle "Roach-Pruf" around, this will go away.
Silly asses!
I actually like rewatching old movies.
I'm mid way through copying my 200 DVD's to my home fileserver so it's even easier to watch them. So far, I've run across two that I couldn't copy due to copy protection on the DVD (Wall-E, and some other Disney movie, I think it was Cars). I think there's some Windows software to bypass the protection, but it didn't take long to find a copy online that I could download.
I wonder if my cable company ratted me out for bittorrenting the two movies? Maybe the movie industry will sue me for downloading movies that I already paid for.
I dropped my Netflix disks-by-mail plan and started buying used DVD's from Amazon -- they are pretty cheap, I usually pay $5 or $6 including shipping, so I can buy 3 movies/month for about the same as I was paying for the Netflix subscription.