Microsoft-Funded Startup Aims To Kill BitTorrent Traffic 601
TheGift73 writes "The Russian based 'Pirate Pay' startup is promising the entertainment industry a pirate-free future. With help from Microsoft, the developers have built a system that claims to track and shut down the distribution of copyrighted works on BitTorrent. Their first project, carried out in collaboration with Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, successfully stopped tens of thousands of downloads. Hollywood, software giants and the major music labels see BitTorrent as one of the largest threats to their business. Billions in revenue are lost each year, they claim. But not for long if the Russian based startup 'Pirate Pay' has its way. The company has developed a technology which allows them to attack existing BitTorrent swarms, making it impossible for people to share files."
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this is good. Bittorrent is a great protocol, but it can be improved in many ways. Something like this is likely to fix that (legal attacks won't).
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
These attacks are illegal under US law and Microshit conspiring to fund it is only asking for serious fines/injunctions.
Protocol encryption? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Protocol encryption? (Score:5, Informative)
This service doesn't appear to be listening into BT chat between two parties. It is joining existing swarms and spreading misinformation to the swarm to confuse clients into halting their downloads.
Re:Protocol encryption? (Score:4, Insightful)
poisoning (Score:5, Insightful)
Mind you, that's with current technology already.Once BitTorrent clients will get exposed to poisoning more, I'm fairly certain mechanisms to mitigate that will become far more effective.
A house divided? (Score:3, Insightful)
Private swarms really don't do much for resolving the issues of trust on a large scale. Causing one's enemy to fragment is what the Russian technique does.
Re:A house divided? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure they do.
Private swarms originate from private trackers. Private trackers regulate uploads and only allow vetted content for the group. It solves the issue of trust on a large scale quite nicely.
Re:Protocol encryption? (Score:5, Informative)
That already happens - if a peer is found to be sending frequent chunks that fail the hash then the client automatically blocks it and knows it is unreliable. The BT protocol is already pretty good at detecting and routing around poisoned seeds/peers.
Assuming that there's at least one good seed in the swarm, all this will do is slow down the time it takes to complete a file and more wasted chunks/more hashfails.
The movie industry could take a page from the music industry's book. All of that poisoning of p2p networks did nothing to slow down music piracy. What really made a difference was offering a product that people wanted to buy at a reasonable price: DRM-free tracks in good quality for a sensible price. Give people what they want and they will buy it, even in the presence of "free". The music industry learnt this (albeit by being dragged kicking and screaming into the future) and are now reaping the benefits. The movie industry is not there yet - the difference between the two sides of the iTunes store, for example, is quite telling. Enormously expensive DRM-crippled videos on one side, that are not even price competitive with DVD and BluRays in stores, vs cheap, DRM-free, high quality music files on the other that are selling like hot cakes.
Peer ban hammer (Score:5, Informative)
"The company doesnâ(TM)t reveal how it works, but they appear to be flooding clients with fake information, masquerading as legitimate peers."
All it would take is for a client to verify to data in the chunk (probably by it's MD5 or SHA), and if it's busted then try and download it again from the same peer. If it fails the second time then just ban the peer.
But I imagine they already do this, don't they?
Re:Peer ban hammer (Score:5, Interesting)
"The company doesnâ(TM)t reveal how it works, but they appear to be flooding clients with fake information, masquerading as legitimate peers."
All it would take is for a client to verify to data in the chunk (probably by it's MD5 or SHA), and if it's busted then try and download it again from the same peer. If it fails the second time then just ban the peer.
But I imagine they already do this, don't they?
I never looked deep into BitTorrent protocol - I did examine Gnutella/Limewire, and you might be surprised just how horridly lame and insecure that protocol was. BitTorrent is the next generation after Gnutella, I assume it's better, but I doubt it's the last word in P2P.
The value of P2P is in the user pool, the protocol can be tincans on strings and it is still an impressive and valuable resource.
Pirate Pay is aiming to piss in the user pool, forcing the issue of trust... I assume that will be addressed now.
Some thoughts [mangocats.com] from, oh, maybe 10-15 years ago on the subject.
Re:Peer ban hammer (Score:5, Interesting)
BitTorrent is a really nice, elegant protocol (I wrote a client for it once), but the designer's criteria are likely not that of the current users. Bram Cohen was trying to design a protocol for a publisher with limited resources to publish to a lot of consumers. There was resilience baked in, but only for stuff like data corruption over the wire. All the stuff to protect against intentionally-poisoned torrents, decentralization (trackerless torrents), anonymity and encryption have been retro-fitted, generally by third parties, and through informal consent to a standard among the various client devs.
Re:Peer ban hammer (Score:5, Insightful)
"The company doesn't reveal how it works, but they appear to be flooding clients with fake information, masquerading as legitimate peers."
In the US, this type of behavior in other circumstances is regarded as network intrusion and is considered illegal hacking. What makes this legal? The target also engaging in illegal activity?
Re:Peer ban hammer (Score:4, Interesting)
All the major BitTorrent clients already do this, at least with the data chunks. If a certain peer fails more than a few hash checks it is permanently banned.
A lot of peers also support dynamic block lists that use known lists of media companies and groups like the one mentioned in the story. The client will periodically download the list and block any traffic from those IPs.
I couldn't find any technical detail but I assume they are injecting fake data in the initial hash exchange. With the magnet link system all you have is an initial hash and you use peer discovery to find someone in the network who knows what files (and associated hashes) that magnet link hash is associated with (the bit torrent info header from a .torrent file). As far as I know it is using SHA1, although older systems used MD5 in which case you could fake an info reply with crap data that passes the hash, tricking the client into claiming it is an invalid download. But with SHA1 it doesn't appear to be feasible to do on demand, but I wonder if they are using some sort of massive lookup table to do the same sort of poisoning attack? Seems unlikely. It also seems you could use the same logic from file chunks - send the magnet link hash to several peers and if some peers consistently give a failure block them.
Another potential weak point is peer exchange... If you pretend to be a valid peer but inject just enough of your own corrupted peers in the list (and/or just flood the list with slow responders, etc) you may be able to significantly delay the download or even stop it. For example, have your poison peers hand out correct file chunks at high speed (to get preferred) but make sure that none of them hand out certain crucial chunks or all respond extremely slowly for them. Your client could end up with a peer list mostly of the poison peers and find that it just never seems to finish the download, though it gets to 97% OK.
Re: (Score:3)
fyi, Its SHA-1 according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_(protocol) [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
But it might be other kind of fake information (maybe give a lot of fake sources through peer exchange?).
I think that might have an effect on torrents with few peers, but if you have a lot of real peers, it doesn't take long to connect to enough that your speeds for that torrent are maxed out (or at least "way fast enough").
Some of the description seems to indicate that they would do IP spoofing of legitimate peers to send invalid data and get that peer banned. I'm not sure how well that would work in reality, and even if it does work, it seems like a minor fix to the protocol would solve that issue.
Re:Peer ban hammer (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, isn't there a shiney new law on the books that makes intentionally spoofing an ip address illegal?
It would be interesting to see someone press charges for this, especially since the connection to microsoft is being publicized.
Re:Peer ban hammer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Peer ban hammer (Score:5, Insightful)
Spoofed IPs will never get routed correctly. You can't hold a "conversation", which means you can't even create an encrypted connection.
So they'll add a mechanism to ban peers based on bad peer exchanges.
If a peer gives you 2 or more bad peers... ban.
Which is, to answer the GP's question, exactly what's done for peers that send you bad chunks.
For ISPs to use? (Score:4, Interesting)
I assume this software is meant for use on ISP equipment, because otherwise what they're claiming seems totally impossible.
Re:For ISPs to use? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the people who wrote LOIC for Anonymous should've set up a front organization to sell a rebranded version of the same thing to the RIAA.
Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Which will result in increased private trackers, whichever flavor of megaupload is coming down the pipe, expanded usenet, encrypted file contents, etc etc. I have yet to see any attempt by content holders cause any more than a minor hiccup in the download stream. Oh, wait, I have seen one - I haven't downloaded a song since iTunes began allowing me to get DRM free songs through their service.
This isn't the first time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Honestly, I think this whole business is more of a fetish, or compulsive fascination with file sharing on the part of the old guard, than a solution to any actual problem.
Sticks and stones may break my bones -
But protocol poisoning excites me.
Twisted fucks....
This is how Peerblock comes in handy (Score:5, Informative)
Downloaded the blocklists for Pirate Pay as well as the antip2p blocklists.
I tested on a poisoned swarm that had listed 5000 seeders (which were mostly mediadefender and pirate pay poisoners)
Peerblock dumped over 4500 of the poisoned seeds from the torrent by blocking them and my torrent speed went from 20K/s download to 2500-3000K/s download
So for companies like this I highly recommend picking up Peerblock and getting some blocklists, especially the antip2p blocklists.
http://www.peerblock.com/ [peerblock.com]
Never ever again have problem with companies like Mediadefender or PiratePay and their ilk.
Re:This is how Peerblock comes in handy (Score:4, Informative)
For those wanting the actual blocklists to use with their torrenet client, Peerblock, linux blocking program such as nfblock
or whatever program you use
here are some blocklists some updated multiple times per day unlike what trolls may say
Go here: http://www.iblocklist.com/lists.php [iblocklist.com]
copy and paste the "Update URL" into your blocklist program of choice, Peerblock for windows, Nfblock for linux, or add them to your firewall, since it's a simple text based list of ip's updated throughout the day and at least daily.
They do contain the PiratePay ip's and tons of other antip2p ip's since the ip blocks owned by all the companies are public information listed by Arin.net for the most part.
So if you don't want to use peerblock but some other ip blocking program get all your blocklists here: http://www.iblocklist.com/lists.php [iblocklist.com]
And yes it blocks Pirate Pay and all torrent poisoning companies, you will see poisoned torrents seeders drop from astronomical 2000+ seeds (mostly poisoners) down to the real numbers and your torrent speeds will increase since your client is no longer trying to download from poisoners.
Re:This is how Peerblock comes in handy (Score:5, Insightful)
PeerBlock is probably great for all the Neanderthals who still use Windows. It isn't available to anybody else.
The lists are available for download by anybody, and are in a format that can easily be used as a source for whatever sort of filtering software you want to use (like iptables, or the system built in to your BitTorrent client).
Re:This is how Peerblock comes in handy (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it is. You can still use their blocklists. I have a script on my NAS (running Transmission) to download them daily and tell Transmission to use them. Works perfectly other than having to automatically restart Transmission at 5am every day, which really isn't a problem.
If you're using a standard Linux with iptables (unlike my NAS which has iptables removed...), just use moblock. It handles getting them daily and blocking them at the firewall, though this won't really stop your torrent client from at least still trying to connect to those peers. Then again that's the same position PeerBlock users are in. Having the torrent client itself use them in probably more efficient, but this is easier.
Re:This is how Peerblock comes in handy (Score:5, Funny)
It even (optionally) automatically downloads online lists once a week.
Yea, it even (optionally) also automatically feeds your cat. All it lacks is a decent torrent client.
Re:This is how Peerblock comes in handy (Score:5, Informative)
The way poison seeders work is they will happily provide you 97% of the files. The remaining 3% you never get, and your client has a great preference built up for the seeders that got you to 97%. It will occasionally give one the boot and replace it, but with thousands of poison seeders your chances of getting a good one are very poor.
At least one popular client is smart enough to use block lists selectively. It happily downloads from the poison seeders, until they get slow to respond. Then it imposes the block list, kicks any peer on the block list, and rebuilds the peer table with non-blocked peers.
**AA, always taking the hard road (Score:5, Insightful)
They can spend lots and lots of $$$, effort, and time trying to make it harder to get access to content that people want... ... or, they could just make the content available for a reasonable price in a timely manner. But I guess that takes too many brain cells.
And why is MSFT so interested in making their platforms less useful for consumers? As a stockholder, I'd like to see them quietly funding 'legitimate' sharing sites to make the Windows OS the preferred content consumption platform, rather than keeping me from getting what I want.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
Re:**AA, always taking the hard road (Score:5, Interesting)
Since that didn't end up working out so well, they seem to have gone the route of more overtly sucking up to the content guys. Whether this is because they just really don't want to see the Wintel platform get locked out of the fancy new blu-rays and so forth or whether they see themselves and Hollywood as having the same long-term architectural interest in building platforms that make paying for digital goods non-optional isn't clear to me.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Challenge Accepted (Score:4)
I don't pirate movies, music, or software, but I'd be more than happy to try and figure out how to stop this. I haven't looked into it much, but I will. I seriously doubt it'll be hard to combat them, but it'll be fun figuring it out.
Re:Challenge Accepted (Score:5, Insightful)
Legal? (Score:5, Informative)
“We used a number of servers to make a connection to each and every P2P client that distributed this film. Then Pirate Pay sent specific traffic to confuse these clients about the real IP-addresses of other clients and to make them disconnect from each other,” Andrei Klimenko says.
If they're attacking computers without authorization, they're in breach of all kinds of criminal law. It doesn't matter if those computers are participating in infringing or not. Sounds all kinds of illegal, at least in the US.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
the'd better be careful (Score:4, Insightful)
If riaa/mpaa whomever attempts this on torrents for my legitimate content, I'll track them down and file charges for denial of service.
Umm, wait a moment... (Score:5, Interesting)
The assorted ISP-based 'filtering' stuff is obnoxious; but quite possibly legal under the 'we do whatever we want, cry about it' clause under which consumer ISPs customarily operate.
However, if the (rather vague) description provided by this startup outfit is to be believed they are spoofing bittorrent peers and sending some sort of specially crafted misinformation in order to bring communication between multiple 3rd-party systems to a halt. That certainly looks like a DoS attack, if probably a smarter-than-brute-force one. Even if there were actually some standard of proof being applied to determine that the target swarms are in fact 'infringing', vigilante justice is generally not all that legal. Without any such standard, this is a case of a couple of studios hiring some skeezy Russian outfit to perform denial of service attacks against who knows who in support of their bottom line.
I understand that the law isn't really supposed to apply to people who matter; but surely a felonies-for-hire business model presents some degree of risk to those who go shopping for their services, no?
Re:Umm, wait a moment... (Score:4, Insightful)
Remind me again when performing DoS attacks against 3rd party servers became legal?
When the RIAA and MPAA became branches of the US government. Some say this was under Clinton, some say Bush Sr, some say Obama, truth is, all of them contributed
Re: (Score:3)
Hmmm, the Slashdot equivalent of the burglar complaining the homeowner shot at them while they were breaking in.
This is more like shooting at your neighbor's house because you claim to have seen a burglar there. Which would not, I'm reasonably sure, stand up as a valid defense in any court.
What could go wrong? (Score:4, Funny)
iTunes Store, Amazon, Spotify (Score:5, Insightful)
These are awful business models. Their content is all available for free on Bitorrent. They can't possible expect people to pay for content they can get for free.
So they're all a dismal failure, right? Well no. They're actually doing pretty well. There is a simple way to reduce piracy, make the content available at a good price on demand so that it's just as wasy to get it legally. Most people don't actually mind paying for content, they just don't want to drive to the store to buy a disc to watch a film.
I don't even watch anymore. (Score:4, Informative)
Don't start a war you aren't likely to win. (Score:4, Insightful)
In attacking BitTorrent, Microsoft is attacking a protocol, which may or may not contain something illegal. When they disrupt a valid download, it is they who will be in the wrong, and it is they who can potentially be the target of legal action (assuming they get caught). They are also attacking a group (hackers) known to fight back in ways that are difficult to detect.
If Microsoft can target BitTorrent downloads, then hackers can look for flags which indicate Internet traffic originated from a Microsoft program, and target it. If that happens, it won't be long before Microsoft products become known for their inability to function reliably over the Internet (some might argue that this is already true, but I'll ignore that possibility). Yet the individuals/groups Microsoft would have to identify are much harder to find, and thus much more difficult to prosecute or sue.
I believe this is a very foolish act, perhaps and act of despiration, on Microsoft's part. It doesn't appear likely to work very well, and is likely to make them a target.; Moral: don't start wars you aren't likely to win.
Re: (Score:3)
In attacking BitTorrent, Microsoft is attacking a protocol, which may or may not contain something illegal.
Not only that, but the protocol is often used to download fully legal software that competes directly with Microsoft's products. I used BitTorrent to download the last three releases of Ubuntu.
Don't attack the medium, attack the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Again they embrace a way of attacking the actual network without discriminating between legal and illegal use of it.
Distributing copyrighted material via bittorrent is NOT a crime, assuming the content owner is doing it or in some way approves of it being done. It's no different from putting copies of your product on a truck, assuming again that you would want to.
I think we should start sending false traffic-announcements, swap roadsigns and pave false roads going to nowhere in an attempt of obfuscating the road network all over the entire world. This is ofcource to prevent thieves, smugglers of lewd and illegal goods as well as well as drunk-drivers and other highway-killers from reaching their homes, customers and/or victims. Since all highway killers (due to road accidents) are using the roads to do it, we can eliminate all these deaths by preventing everyone from using the roads. It has just as much merrit as other attacks on infrastructure, although not as clearly claimed cash proffit. (I say claimed cash proffit as any test with free candies outside a store will tell you that giving away 1000 free bonbons is not ammount to 1000 less sold in the store. Someone should really test this and I would encourage them to do so.)
Suckers born every minute (Score:5, Informative)
The BitTorrent protocol will be reworked to neutralize this crap, but in the meantime someone gets to make an awful lot of money selling ultimately worthless software to the *AA clowns. BitTorrent is made stronger, the MafIAA has a little less money, and someone else profits handsomely at their expense.
Win-win all around.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, on the bright side it means a bunch of Russian programmers get to pocket some money from clueless Americans and giggle as their efforts have zero impact on the situation.
This has been going on since Napster. The exact protocol or technology isn't the problem. If they kill bittorrent, which is unlikely, how many other competing systems are there in the wings that will fill the gap? I can think of five would be successors to bit torrent that would become a big thing overnight.
The problem isn't the presence of this technology its failing to offer viable video on demand services for your content online at reasonable rates.
Most people were used to not paying anything BEFORE piracy. What did people pay for television? Nothing. You ignored the ads and the tv was free. Even if you had cable which most didn't the cost was fairly nominal for the basic package. And as to DVDs, wake up... blockbuster and the other video rental stores have died. THAT should tell you something.
Accept it. The DVD is dead. Embrace video on demand and understand that you can't charge DVD prices for it.
Hulu was a great idea but you keep starving it. Put ALL your content on it. If you want to keep the brand new stuff off it, fine. But give it everything else and make the service ad supported.
If you can't make that work as a business model then your whole industry is doomed. Make it work.
Microsoft failed at appeasing big entertainment (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone remember Vista? Do we remember why it sucked so badly? I do. It had quite a bit to do with Microsoft trying to appease the demands of the music and movie industries. It resulted in a ridiculously slow and bloated OS that couldn't even run on the newest hardware.
And does anyone remember what Microsoft's vision did to Nokia? I do. Nokia is still in its death throes but it's dead. Microsoft still doesn't understand that the people don't love them... that, in fact, the people mock them and hate them. And Nokia was a respected and loved brand. Even though their own attempts at the smart phone were unsuccessful, they were inches from giving up and making an Android phone which would have been only as good as the others with the old, respected, Nokia brand. Microsoft combined Nokia's struggle with the hatred of the people to create a poison which has killed Nokia.
And now Microsoft wants to play with big entertainment AGAIN?! Really?!
Well, if we crave entertainment, I dare say we will have it... at Microsoft's expense. Even giants like Microsoft can die of a thousand cuts and failures.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Informative)
casual piracy really is hurting the industry.
Lots of "people" say this, but the evidence is lacking.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end it won't matter. Someone will figure out how they are doing there and modify the swarms so it becomes ineffective. The true way to combat piracy is to look at why people are pirating and modify your business strategy so that pirates become paying customers by their own choice. Yes, there are "die hard" pirates who will pirate regardless, but there a lot that wouldn't if they could get it legitimately.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Interesting)
They could start by pricing DVDs and Blu-rays reasonably. Next step would be to remove all the crap [tomsguide.com] that goes on between "insert disc" and "watching movie," [i-am-bored.com] which often cannot be skipped without violating the DMCA (I'd like to violate the DMCA, actually, with the business end of a shovel).
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Funny)
(I'd like to violate the DMCA, actually, with the business end of a shovel).
Don't worry, that sentiment is mutual.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Interesting)
They could start by selling them. Like you know, in the rest of the world.
It's all great the US has all these services and that the DVDs and Blu-rays are available there in the first tier (which is still too late). But most of them never even get to Central/Eastern Europe. People pirate here not out of choice but because of lack of options. Also, in a country where a new game costs about the fourth of minimum wage (which is not enough to live on anyway), people are not going to simply become paying customers. Economy of most slavic countries lies in ruins, and that is it.
Source: I live there and have lived all my life.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Funny)
"Source: I live there and have lived all my life."
Looks like we have something in common.
I have lived all my life too!
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
How fortunate you are.
I have merely survived.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have lived all my life too!
I hope I haven't lived all of it yet...
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Interesting)
First, I rarely bittorent anything, but I recently tried to find an audiobook for my son that is old and no longer being sold anywhere. My experience was somewhat similar to the oatmeal trying to watch game of thrones online: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones [theoatmeal.com]. Audible? No. Amazon? No. Barnes & Noble? No.
The only places I could find the audiobook were used and costs 40.00 or more for cassette tapes...which I would then have had to convert to MP3s myself. Long story short, thanks to bittorent, my son is now halfway through the book and loves it.
If someone would have bothered to actually sell the audiobook, I would have forked over money for it.
This is a prime example of why copyright law should be relaxed on abandoned copyrighted material. They like to bitch about piracy, but they sure don't go out of their way to offer the public what they really want.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know, while copyright has undoubtedly become a bloated perversion just reducing the period to a more sane 5 to 20 years would eliminate virtually all of the real problems with it. There's something to be said for giving authors, musicians, programmers, etc a window in which they have the exclusive rights to their work so that they can attempt to profit from it.
Sure, at least some would still create just for the love of it, especially musicians who can make money in live performances, but I guarantee Hollywood blockbusters would be a thing of the past. As would most popular literature. Not to mention Photoshop, Windows and probably Linux. Do we really want to hand the world to Apple and their tightly-bundled-to-the-hardware OS?
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
So, how much money does Hollywood make from 20+ year old movies? And what stops them from remaking the movie and getting another 20 years off the remake?
Basically, I call BS, changing copyright back to 20 years will have NO affect at all on Hollywoods Blockbusters.
However, they won't be able to sue the shit out of some small production company that wants to make a side-story off the original 20 year old movie like they can now... I think this is the real fear, some small productions have been HUGE hits and as technology gets better and better the "cost" to create movies will drop significantly; in other words, they are milking every penny they can now since they know their model is doomed in the long run.
We are at the point now where actors/actresses are not needed; they can be computer generated and used for the whole production; whole movies can be created by a small team of people -- now jump ahead 10 to 20 years, think what will be possible then. The only thing that can't be easily created is the "story" itself; but if thousands of old stories become "public domain" then interesting small-production remakes, additions, remixes, cross-overs, and restructuring will dominate YouTube and other near/or free services :)
We are already seeing some of this now (even with the draconian laws) so you know the networks must be shitting themselves....
Re:Interesting technology (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't need a long copyright to remake a 20-year-old movie. There's nothing stopping them from making a movie version of a 200-year-old story that's in the public domain, and in fact that sometimes happens (The Count of Monte Cristo, for example). Same goes for one of their own stories that's fallen out of copyright protection; they can make a remake any time they want (and that remake itself will then enjoy copyright protection for the normal term), the only "problem" is that they can't prevent someone else from making their own (possibly much better) remake. Only someone who hates competition would see this as a problem.
I don't know about small production companies competing with the blockbuster-makers, however. This isn't the 90s, and computers aren't getting much faster any more; it costs a fortune to do CGI for a blockbuster; part of that is the hardware cost, which is very large due to the computational power needed, and part is the graphic artists, which aren't getting any cheaper. Computers are getting faster, but it's a snail's pace compared to what happened before, so the main improvement will be in the software tools, making it easier to create CGI scenery. For the foreseeable future, the blockbuster-makers would do well to stick to making blockbusters with lots of CGI, since the small studios can't afford giant server farms for doing such work; the small studios can instead concentrate on making movies that don't rely on much FX, and instead rely on acting talent and storyline.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You could also include a mechanism for a copyright's owner to release prematurely an
Re: (Score:3)
first making it so that disuse can cause expiration
yes! it should definitely have to be available for purchase to be protected. of course, they would just put up an exorbitantly priced digital download and say "here ya go".
Re:Interesting technology (Score:4, Interesting)
Tell me why trademarks need continual work to maintain, and patents worth BILLIONS last only 20 years but copyright lasts over a hundred years for NO MORE EFFORT THAN INITIAL CREATION.
What is so special about Walt Disney and Stephanie Meyers that they trump Steve Jobs and Arthur C Clarke?
Why are Arthur C Clarke's awesome books SOOO much more awesome than inventing geosynchronous satellites?
How come modern telephones are dependent on Hettie Lamar's expired and now worthless patent but her forgotten films are still "valuable"?
Re: (Score:3)
Absolutely abolish copyright law!!! I don't want it, it is goofy and hurts us people!
Oh wait that means that the GPL becomes null and void? So that means I can now copy, and black box my device all that I want? Cool let me on that train...
Copyright law is a only a means to an ends. It is up to the copyright holder to determine how the law is used. Studios use it to restrict freedom, whereas GPL uses it to give freedom. But it is the same underlying law that governs both...
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Informative)
The arguments for a very short copyright were all out there in 1841, in a powerful speech to the British House of Commons by Thomas Babington Macaulay:
http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm [baen.com]
Every single argument is still valid today.
Just 'cause son is old and no longer sold anywhere (Score:5, Funny)
doesn't mean it's right to illegally download a copy of him -- does it?!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure it does.
No one is selling a new copy. You can't even give some excuse about how the creator loses royalty money, because THE CREATOR IS NOT SELLING THE THING AT ALL.
Re:Just 'cause son is old and no longer sold anywh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Informative)
1: use encrypted peers
2: use a block list to avoid contacting known tainted peers.
3: if the torrents go down, resume downloading via usenet binary forums
4: continual attacks on the open Internet will just drive it into a new darknet.
The signal wants to be free 8)
And I 100% agree with the oatmeal. If they would sell it to me DRM free, I'd buy it.
You're doing it wrong (Score:3)
Re:Interesting technology (Score:4, Interesting)
Not paying protection racketeers would be a great start.
Because that's what MPAA/RIAA are.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
This. A billion times this.
Basically, stop devaluating your product. The "honestly" bought copy is worth less to the customer than the P2P one. I get more value out of an illegal copy than I get from a legally bought one. This is afaik the ONLY product where you get actually MORE value out of an illegally acquired item than of a legally acquired one.
If I buy a TV that "fell off a truck", I have no warranty, I have no mail-in rebates, I have no discounts for add-ons, I get nothing extra. If I buy that TV legally, I get more than just a TV, I get a lot of services on top of it. So yes, the TV costs more, "legally", but I also get better value for it.
With content, it's reverse. If I download it, I can time and medium shift it, I get no ridiculous warnings and unskipable trailers, I can easily cut scenes out of it, collect a few movies on a media server if I please. All that and more is what I do NOT get when I buy it legally.
How backwards is that?
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Some movies are that cheap. Not on Blu-ray though. Not new releases. For a medium that is trivially cheap to make, it's ridiculous to pay $25 or more for a movie when it costs maybe a dollar from factory to store. Given how wealthy the entertainment industry is, I have little incentive to give them more. Yes, I buy movies and go to the theater. But I do it infrequently. We might visit the theater twice a year and buy two Blu-rays per year. Other than that if I see a cheap DVD somewhere (and I don't care about the lack of HD quality) I'll pick one up. But given the effort required, I don't put much time into it.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still like the physical media. I like that I don't need a cloud that might disappear like a fart in the wind. I pay money, I get a physical disc. Yet I still have to be lectured about not copying illegally after I paid money.
The worst part about the FBI warnings is that the FBI prioritizes copyright over missing person cases [techdirt.com]. How about you spend less time ruining movie night and more time saving lives?
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I just got back from watching the movie Dark Shadows at the theater with my wife. 19 dollars for two movie tickets. The movie isn't the worst I've seen but frankly the cheesy old TV series was better. It's disgusting how rich people get making lame ass movies like this. I wish I had stayed home and read a book. Maybe a book on python programming.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Where can I digitally download a new release movie still in cinemas (I'd rather pay for good speakers in the privacy of my own home), when I am in Australia, for a reasonable price ($5 - $15), in a DRM free format that allows me to stream it from a central linux media server to the TV and laptops?
Are any of those points unreasonable? Nope.
Are any of those points unrealistic? Nope I do all the above right now.
Are any of those points able to be accomplished right now? Nope.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is adopted, P2P will adapt. Period.
It will take a month or so, so maybe we'll suffer a little bit. OTOH the media companies will have been ripped off for millions of dollars by a Russian company with 'Pirate' in their name. This will help me with the transition pains.
.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a two pronged attack I think. MIAA/RIAA sue the crap out of those they catch. This company promises to dramatically increase the number of people that are caught. Even if it only works for a month say they nab ~1M people pirating stuff. How many people will stop sharing because it is too risky. How much faith are you going to but into the next "untrackable" p2p method? They don't have to stop it from being possible to get away with pirating they just have to make the expected cost of pirating more expensive than it is to just go out and buy, rent or borrow the legit product.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:4, Insightful)
...and how many will just shift to filestube, downloading as happily as they ever had?
What I'm saying is, the adaptation may not be within a given protocol, but to a new protocol.
So far, we all went from sharing nibblers (or blank cassettes for music/video) via sneakernet, to BBS, to Napster, to eMule/LimeWire/ed2k, to BitTorrent, and now folks are getting into using one of a bajillion online "file storage" services to spread the stuff around.
Each time, it seems that the MPAA/RIAA can only seem to catch those who straggle behind and hadn't transitioned yet to the next stage.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:4, Informative)
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How much faith are you going to but into the next "untrackable" p2p method
Quite a bit actually. Freenet is illegal to even use in China, yet it is used all over. If China's government can't track it, I have a feeling it's safe to use in the rest of the world.
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casual piracy really is hurting the industry.
Lots of "people" say this, but the evidence is lacking.
Right. Avenger's kinda blew that out of the water. In fact, I'd heard one guy at work (after watching a pirated version) declare he was going to go see it in the theater for the 'experience'.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Informative)
The MPAA's five years of consecutive record profits [zeropaid.com] don't help with the evidence either.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:4, Insightful)
the evidence is lacking.
I think in Microsoft's defense, they know there are a metric shitton of pirated copies of Windows.
It's one thing to say some of the people who pirate wouldn't if another method was available. It's another to say that when 90% of Windows in China [neowin.net] are pirated. At least SOME of those 90% would have paid for it if pirating weren't an alternative.
Microsoft has been on record as saying that they'd rather you pirate their software then purchase the competitors.
The real issue is stopping competition. The *AAs don't want you paying indie media producers. Microsoft doesn't want you downloading a free operating system or office suit.
This technology can just as easily target legitimate uses of bit-torrent, even if it only by stopping its use for anything.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally think that is a very ignorant thing to say. First off, I think the evidence that piracy "hurts" these industries is sketchy at best. Sure... *IF* the person pirating said copyrighted material would have bought it legitimately otherwise, then I could buy that argument, but I'm not convinced that's the case. I think it's more likely that most of the pirated material simply would not have been purchased at all. If someone wanted it bad enough, and they couldn't obtain it any other way, of course they'd pay for it.
For me though the real issue is how anyone thinks they could make such a bold claim to stop piracy all together. If it just so happens that torrents no longer function because of their software, or some other means, people who want to pirate copyrighted material will just come up with another way. This is a never-ending competition and the RIAA, the MPAA, or any other organization for that matter, will *NEVER* win it as long as there is some method to digitize the material and there is someone out there with the intelligence and the desire to put forth the effort to get around whatever copy-protection mechonism is in place at the time.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds more to me like Microsoft and the media companies are being scammed.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Funny)
Yep. And by a Russian company with "Pirate" in their name.
Forgive me for what I'm about to type, but: "LOL!"
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Insightful)
When everyone breaks a law, it's fair to assume society has decided it is invalid. People might say otherwise ("oh, but artists will STARVE without copyright!"), but actions prove that copyright is not truly accepted by any country in the modern world. Why does it exist? Money.
Re:Interesting technology (Score:5, Funny)
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Only as long as it's not in favor of their MAFIAA campaign donators.
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I thought using force to stop criminals was only the privilege of the police and similar state owned organizations.
I get this unpleasant impression that you also get to use force if you are a state-owning organization...
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That's probably why they're based in Russia, which is notoriously lax in enforcing any sort of internet-related laws (unless they involve websites making fun of Putin, of course).
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