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Piracy Movies Television The Internet

Film Consortium Urges ISPs To Dump Ineffective "Six Strikes" Policy For Pirates 186

An anonymous reader writes: The Internet Security Task Force, a group of businesses working to protect content creators and consumers from the negative effects of piracy, has called for an end to the Copyright Alert System, saying the anti-piracy initiative is not only ineffective but actually makes things worse. The group suggest that it be replaced with a new system based on Canada's Copyright Modernization Act. Mark Gill, ISTF chairman and President of member company Millennium films, says "We've always known the Copyright Alert System was ineffective, as it allows people to steal six movies from us before they get an educational leaflet. But now we have the data to prove that it's a sham." The Copyright Alert System (CAS) is set to expire early July.
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Film Consortium Urges ISPs To Dump Ineffective "Six Strikes" Policy For Pirates

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  • Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xevioso ( 598654 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @05:49PM (#49685455)

    From the article:

    "The incendiary acts behind the move appears to be the wide-spread pirating of 2014 action blockbuster The Expendables 3, about which Mark Gill comments that it “has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash"

    And how the hell would they know this? It's not like snail mail letters have GPS attached to them so the sender will know you have opened them. How do they have any idea at all in any way shape or form how often these letters were received, opened, read or followed? I smell a rat...

    • Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:02PM (#49685537)

      I'm more concerned with the claim that The Expendables 3 has been viewed more than 60M times. Viewing crap movies like that causes far more damage to the public than any possible money lost by the studios.

      • Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:21PM (#49685643)
        It's free, so why not. (or so current wisdom suggests)

        Unfortunately, this is why crap movies continue to get produced.
        [scene, studio boardroom] "Ex 3 was viewed 60+ million times. Yeah, most of them were illegal, but so what. Eyeballs !! Obviously, we need to make Ex 4!"
        • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

          look dude, that would make expendables 3 the most popular movie in canada.

          or perhaps they have some examples of movies which were viewed(pirated) multiple times by everyone in the nation due to their logic.

          they're copyright guys so it's unknown if they know how the internet works, so they can just pull out things from thin air or base claims on shit like every connection opening in a torrent network is a view (resulting in anyone copying a movie making 20-1000 "views" - it's absurd they could deduce the num

        • That only holds true if your time has no value.

          Time, though, is the most valuable commodity you have. It's damn hard to get more of it and once used it's gone.

    • Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)

      by g0bshiTe ( 596213 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:04PM (#49685551)
      Also of note is this tidbit

      However, on "Expendables 3,"in the period of September through November 2014, per data collected by CEG-TEK International, an internet security firm: 0.3% percent of thieves on these five ISPs received a notice. By contrast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications (who are not part of the CAS) do forward notices to customers who infringe. The difference in results is substantial. On "Expendables 3" in the period of November 2014 through January 2015, per data collected by CEG-TEK : Cox and Charter ISPs posted a 25.47% decrease in infringements Copyright Alert System ISPs abetted a 4.54% increase in infringements.

      So really it's not about the number of notices it's the fact the ISP's that composed the CAS aren't forwarding the letters.

      Citation: http://www.prnewswire.com/news... [prnewswire.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      From the article:

      "The incendiary acts behind the move appears to be the wide-spread pirating of 2014 action blockbuster The Expendables 3, about which Mark Gill comments that it “has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash"

      And how the hell would they know this? It's not like snail mail letters have GPS attached to them so the sender will know you have opened them. How do they have any idea at all in any way shape or form how often these letters were received, opened, read or followed? I smell a rat...

      They use polls and extrapolate. After the notices were sent, they then "follow up" with a percentage of the notices sent out, to see if the intended recipient actually got/read them. The notice itself may also include a step the target is supposed to take that signals to someone that it was read and acted on.

      Either way, it's not going to be very accurate.

    • I think they are claiming that only 0.3% of their notices(to the isp) made the 6 strikes CAS cutoff and actually materialized as a mailing to the customer.

    • I think the real purpose behind this is a call for a new organization called The Movie Security Task Force that promotes the use of VPNs and private trackers to reduce the number of copyright notices sent out.

    • 60 million times? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chibi Merrow ( 226057 ) <mrmerrow&monkeyinfinity,net> on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @08:00PM (#49686159) Homepage Journal

      Wait, is this guy claiming 20% of the US population pirated Expendables 3?

      And we're supposed to take anything else he says seriously?

      • No, the claim is, "has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times." (Emphasis mine) No mention of geographic scope, but the figure is utterly unsupportable anyway. Even if they knew precisely how many allegedly infringing copies had been made (they don't) there is no way of knowing how many times a movie has been viewed. It could be anything from zero to 60 million views with anything from one to one gajillion allegedly infringing copies in existence.
        • Your implication that someone could sit through this train wreck more than once is even more outlandish than the original claim.

    • Internet Rapist Task Farce. There fixed that for you lying, power-hungry, treacherous pukes.
    • Extrapolating from the experience of the efficiency of the rest of the snail mail spam.

  • I'm off to find Millenium films at the store. I'm going to physically steal 6 movies and then ask for my educational pamphlet. What a deal... thanks ISTF!

    /facepalm

    • Millenium Films are what you watch while on a long journey in the Millennium Falcon

      My favorite part is the time the guy wrote:
      "working to protect content creators and consumers from the negative effects of piracy"

      Consumers? What fucking negative effect are they talking about because the prices sure have not been improved. Oh yeah, they *might* get a reduction if all the pirates of the world are caught and locked up in movie jail. That's the ticket!

      • Coincidentally, they are showing Expendables 3 in movie jail, though some have said that this is inhumane.

      • Well, you're losing valuable information. Like the FBI warning, the unskipable ads for movies you are not interested in and a DVD menu that doesn't work.

  • The Internet Security Task Force (ISTS) is calling for American ISPs to abandon the “ineffective” Copyright Alert System (CAS), which sends up to six warnings to ISP users identified as sharing copyrighted works via BitTorrent and other means, before potentially taking sterner action against the end-user. The CAS system was enacted in 2011 by the Center for Copyright Information following three years of initial research into an approach to online movie piracy, though it was not taken up by ISP

  • by flopsquad ( 3518045 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @05:55PM (#49685495)
    What kind of crazy, Wild West law allows anyone to legally break into a movie studio and abscond with the film masters for up to 6 movies?!!

    Ohh, they were doing that thing with the word "steal" again, where they accidentally used it instead of "make a copy in violation of copyright law."
  • Steal? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:03PM (#49685541) Homepage

    as it allows people to steal six movies from us

    Holy crap, you mean all this time the pirates could have actually been stealing movies and thus kept the rest of the world from ever seeing them? I guess we're lucky they only made copies.

    • we got off lightly. It was 4 Adam Sandler Movies, National Treasure 3 and the latest film from Sstar Actor Shia Labeouf
    • by dryeo ( 100693 )

      I think they meant taking 6 DVDs from them, which often would mean breaking and entering, something I do agree should be illegal. I'm just amazed that such a huge number of DVDs, Blurays etc were taken.

  • Leaflet? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sahuxley ( 2617397 )
    What does the leaflet say? Our profit is more important than your freedom to communicate?
    • You honestly expect people to open, let alone read, mail spam?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Oh, that system that they are abusing by sending threatening letters in direct opposition of the purpose of the system and the courts here in Canada? I'm sure they'd love to have that system elsewhere so that they can abuse it all over the place.

  • Negative (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:24PM (#49685655)

    a group of businesses working to protect content creators and consumers from the negative effects of piracy

    These guys must be doing a great job - I've never suffered any negative effects from piracy.

    • You suffer the negative effects every time you purchase a movie ticket at a theatre. If there was no piracy, tickets would be 3$ each, popcorn would be $1.50 and that soda would be 2$.
      • Re:Negative (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Thiez ( 1281866 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:46PM (#49685787)
        High speed internet is a relatively new thing. I think it's safe to say that there was barely any online movie piracy twenty or thirty years ago. Were movie tickets $3 back then (or really $1.95 / $1.38, when we adjust for inflation)?
      • No. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:54PM (#49685835)

        File sharing can't drive those prices up. If piracy results in fewer people going to theaters, the reduction in demand will force prices down. If movie watching suddenly became more popular, prices would not go down, they would go up, especially when theaters are routinely sold out. That's how commerce actually works.

        The greatest harm file sharing could do is: reduce the expected ROI on major movies, which in turn results in fewer movies produced, and less money spent on the movies being made (which might reduce their quality). At the moment, the market is awash with more movies than anyone can watch, and the amount of money spent on some of them is ridiculous. So, I don't see that harmful consequence happening at all.

        • +1 Contains economics.
        • by Rich0 ( 548339 )

          File sharing can't drive those prices up. If piracy results in fewer people going to theaters, the reduction in demand will force prices down. If movie watching suddenly became more popular, prices would not go down, they would go up, especially when theaters are routinely sold out. That's how commerce actually works.

          The greatest harm file sharing could do is: reduce the expected ROI on major movies, which in turn results in fewer movies produced, and less money spent on the movies being made (which might reduce their quality). At the moment, the market is awash with more movies than anyone can watch, and the amount of money spent on some of them is ridiculous. So, I don't see that harmful consequence happening at all.

          Kinda sorta. Reduced demand for tickets would indeed result in fewer movies produces, but I suspect that the ones being produced would be the highest-selling ones (blockbusters/etc). These could very well be priced higher, since they would have less competition. If they didn't think they could price it higher, they probably wouldn't produce it at all, since they would anticipate low volumes being sold.

          That is my sense of it at least.

          But you are correct that it isn't some kind of zero-sum game where some

        • File sharing can also increase demand. If the pirate buys what he or she likes, as is common, then the pirate is getting more value per dollar spent, and will spend more money overall on whatever he or she is pirating. Simple economics.

      • You believe that? For real?

        The price of a commodity is independent of its creation cost. The only effect the cost has on the price is whether the commodity is offered at all. If, and only if, the cost is higher than the price, it will not be produced. That's the ONLY effect the production cost has on a commodity.

        Price is what the seller assumes as the point where the most profit can be made. And this is very easy to determine for a commodity that has a near zero per-unit cost: Units * price per unit. That o

  • by jythie ( 914043 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:31PM (#49685693)
    Every time I see calls for harsh anti-piracy initiatives, I picture what would happen if equally harsh rules were put in place for some of the dirty IP tricks or outright theft MPAA members engage in. "Oh, your studio got caught taking a copyrighted screenplay submission, rejecting it, then handing it over to one of your own people again? Sorry, your access to distribution has been cut off and you will not be able to produce movies anymore"
    • How about you used DRM to deprive people of their right for format shift and backup. Sorry you loose your right to sue for any copyright infringement.

      • by jythie ( 914043 )
        That would be an excellent example. If you use copyright to gain more control than you are legally permitted to have (there are limits in contract law regarding what a contract can and can not do) more than 6 times than you lose your ability to use such enforcement mechanisms. Given how they have been pushing to treat each download as a seperate infringement, that would mean if your DRM prevented more than 6 cases of time shifting than that is 6 violations and your rights are revoked.
  • Crappy Research (Score:4, Insightful)

    by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:37PM (#49685741) Homepage

    From TFA:

    Under CCMA there is no limit on the number of notifications that must legally be forwarded to ‘offending’ ISP customers, which has led to a 69.6% reduction in infringements at Bell Canada, with Rogers, TekSavvy, Telus and Shaw all reporting notable reductions in piracy (or, theoretically, greater uptake of VPNs).

    I'm willing to bet after the first notification, people just move to a VPN service to hide behind... Fix the inaccessibility issues involving movie and show availability, and I think you'll see piracy drop a lot faster than trying to punish people. People really just don't care, they just want their movie or show, so make it accessible and affordable. Market is just waiting on you guys to fix the issues IMHO.

    Some people also don't want to go to a theater with a bunch of other people and pay astronomical prices for a bag of popcorn. On the other hand, some people really like that theater experience. So offer us both, simultaneously, an online release and theater release, so the shy people can enjoy the movie with the need to wait 6 months or steal it.

    • erm correction: So offer us both, simultaneously, an online release and theater release, so the shy people can enjoy the movie WITHOUT the need to wait 6 months or steal it.

      • The 6 month wait is because the Academy Awards require that gap between theatrical release and showing any other way for a movie to qualify for the awards. There's every reason, however, for studios to decide to go with simultaneous release for any film whose likelihood of getting even a nomination is roughly the same as the MPAA & Friends using accurate piracy numbers by anything other than accident--though theaters might stop getting their cut as usually the first week's ticket sales go entirely to t

    • by rhazz ( 2853871 )

      I'm willing to bet after the first notification, people just move to a VPN service to hide behind...

      Not only this (and I know people who did exactly that), but people are also opting for VPNs to get around Netflix geo-blocking. I bet a lot of the Canadian reduction is mirrored in US increases.

  • by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:40PM (#49685759)

    stopped reading there.

    look, don't lie to me that you are helping ME, a consumer.

    you look stupid when you lie. and you guys do such a really bad job of lying, too.

  • It's certainly not ineffective. If it were, there wouldn't be so many VPN providers in business.

  • Orwell (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Livius ( 318358 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @08:09PM (#49686219)

    I'm not a fan of the new trend of naming legislation by the opposite of its purpose.

    E.g. Copyright Modernization Act which is about implementing feudalism.

  • That's what this is really about, litigious companies like Volt Pictures have formed the Voltron of Copyright Trolls and now are complaining that they do not have enough fodder to feed their ambulance chasing lawyers to send out threatening (and misleading) settlement letters too.

  • These guys don't seem to grasp they're in an arms race that they already lost.

    Between VPNs and cyberlockers exactly how do these clowns think they're going to stop anything? People selling heroine on the internet are rarely caught and as we can see despite the DEA expanding their efforts against it, that is expanding geometrically.

    These people think that they're going to have more of an effect against people pirating the latest movie than the DEA is having stopping people from selling heroine? They're just

  • If: "Dear Charter Internet Customer:

    Charter Communications ("Charter") has been notified by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, that your Internet account may have been involved in the exchange of unauthorized copies of copyrighted material" = a strike. I have 8 against me for something you can view on youtube.

  • If: "Dear Charter Internet Customer:

    Charter Communications ("Charter") has been notified by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, that your Internet account may have been involved in the exchange of unauthorized copies of copyrighted material" = a strike. I have 8 against me for something you can view on youtube.

    -Might be a dupe having a bit of a /. connection problem.

  • What is up with their name? They have nothing to do with "internet security."

    If I saw that name out of the context of this article, I would think they were something like CERT..

  • Muahahaha, how quaint!

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