Anti-Piracy Group BREIN Demands Torrents Time Cease and Desist 91
An anonymous reader writes: Not even a week has gone by since Torrents Time appeared on the scene, and the site has already been served with a cease-and-desist letter. Anti-piracy group BREIN, based in the Netherlands, has deemed the streaming tool an "illegal application" and demands the administrators "cease and desist the distribution of Torrents Time immediately."
to hell with devs (Score:5, Insightful)
Force them to consume all of their time and income in legal fees
Guarantee that after they are decimated, several hundred anonymous, hidden services with the same agenda will surface with far greater impact.
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Because sadly being innocent is not a defense and while you may not automatically lose due to your lack of legal representation, you also won't necessarily win because your innocent. Failure to respond, fully and properly to a lawsuit can lead to a costly loss. As can lack of procedural knowledge, past case law, etc.
This is one of the great inequities in U.S. law, a complainant with sufficient resources can prevail due to the defendants lack of resources. A unending series or motions, court filings, etc.
Re: to hell with devs (Score:2)
Re: This is a test (Score:1)
And an unsuccessful one at that
Wow that did not last very long! (Score:3)
Wow that did not last very long!
But the real issue just suing over tools that can be used.
What about usenet? Has the lawsuits ageist that stopped or has it's usage really dropped off other then the pay servers that are geared to downloading files.
Re:Wow that did not last very long! (Score:5, Insightful)
What about usenet?
Shhhhhh....
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To expand my "Shhhh" comment, I don't think Usenet has yet risen to the level of "low hanging fruit", but let's not give them any ideas...
However downloading via Usenet is more complicated than via torrent, and Joe Average User would have no clue how to go about it. That said, I know some major Usenet providers have been DMCA'd and abide by them.
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I know this sounds like crazy talk and the delusions of an old and feeble minded but... Err... My ISP still has Usenet. It's even still active. I've never noticed anything disappearing from it. However, I don't use it to download stuff so it's *very* unlikely that I'd have noticed anything going by-by. The surprising thing is that it's still pretty active. I do have some "warez" groups loaded and in sync but I never see anything I'm interested in. There's not a whole lot for me to pirate via Usenet when pre
Re:Wow that did not last very long! (Score:5, Insightful)
Since we're suing tool makers why not go ahead and sue the makers of the auto dialers telemarketers use. That would greatly cut down on the telemarketing calls we receive. Save us all a lot of time and money.
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Now where's the money in that?
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Well the people making the dialers ain't selling them to the telemarketers for free so I figure they have more money than some Podunk torrent software thats free..I checked the torrent time homepage it doesn't even have any ads on it. Its likely being run at a loss by someone who thought it was a neat idea.
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I'm a little surprised that people still haven't figured out that if you loudly announce your presence, you're going to get shut down pretty quickly. There are still places where you can get any content you want, but the only ones who survive are the ones who are a little more low profile and try to stay "under the radar" so to speak. And not any kind of "torrents".
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I disagree with your last sentence: there are plenty of private torrent sites that are exactly as you describe: low profile and under the radar. I don't even know anything about the vast majority of them, just that there are a good number of them, and I'm lucky enough to have gotten into one years back, that I use all the time. The nice thing about it is, being private, you're not in much danger of getting caught (and, being small, nobody's even going to try to sneak in or break them down - they're going to
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Hint: If you can get onto a supposedly low-profile, secret, or private site/tracker, so can THEY.
It's not a matter of any site or tracker being targeted, it's about hitting up a particular release that's being targeted during the time one of the MAFIAA bots was hoovering up IPs.
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Ok... how exactly are you supposing that THEY are going to find someone to invite them in? They can find the site, but they're not going to be able to see who's seeding what unless someone was dumb enough to send them one of their invites, so I repeat: who would be dumb enough to do that? (Clearly nobody, as that's never happened.)
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LOL?
Those private sites and trackers don't interview people and find out who they are. They start with a group of friends and they invite more people and the first few groups of users get invites to send out. The site operators do not verify who these people are, nor can they.
If randos on the internet can get an invite when someone on reddit makes /r/secrettorrentsite the instant the site goes live, you have no way to prevent the MAFIAA from getting an account. These sites depend on having a large user b
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Uh... zero. It will totally get you banned for trying, and would be pointless anyway, as their torrents have to authenticate you as a user of the site before they'll let you start downloading (I don't know how that works, but I know it does). But they'd still totally ban you for uploading their torrents to public sites even regardless, as it would be a clear indication that you didn't read the rules clearly, which say don't do that. :p
The funny thing is (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the type of technology we were promised back in the early nineties (usually followed by "and who will bring this to you? at&t") and is also a really good stab at reducing the redundant point-point traffic caused by Netflix and other "legitimate" streaming services. But it takes an application outside the law as a demonstrator. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. There was a time, for instance, when any video recording/playback set of features was first used for pr0n, and then gradually migrated to legitimate use. But I've been hoping so far in vain for legitimate services to torrent their content. (except for a few independent content creators.) I guess it makes too much sense.
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That's cute and all (Score:2)
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At&t said they would have internet service out to my house within 5 years..10 years ago. So good luck with that.
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I don't think AT&T is a serious player anymore. But they made good commercials.
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> and who will bring this to you? at&t"
Given that AT&T is my ISP, in fact they *are* bringing it to me.
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> and who will bring this to you? at&t"
Given that AT&T is my ISP, in fact they *are* bringing it to me.
But perhaps not in the way they intended.
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There was a time, for instance, when any video recording/playback set of features was first used for pr0n, and then gradually migrated to legitimate use.
Are you implying watching pr0n is not legitimate use?
Duly noted. I guess I mean non-pr0n use. There's probably a better word but I can't think of one right now.
Grrrr (Score:2, Insightful)
How dare progress stand in the way of dinosaur business models!
Pigs (Score:3, Informative)
The PEOPLE DEMAND that BREIN die a horrible death.
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I'd already be happy if BREIN ceased and desisted to exist.
BREIN are complicit (Score:5, Informative)
Re: BREIN are complicit (Score:4, Interesting)
BREIN is a government-sponsored shake down.
They have collected on music royalties, even for songs that never signed onto a label or labels connected to them but never pay out.
It is quite literally a single man organization (1 office) that produced some anti piracy ads and manages to spend millions of euros per year.
Re: BREIN are complicit (Score:4, Informative)
Yip, by law, BUMA/STEMRA/BREIN is the only organisation that is allowed to collect royalty payments for music as a third party.
By law, by default all music royalties are collected by BUMA/STEMRA/BREIN, if you do not register at BUMA/STEMRA/BREIN then the music royalties they collect will go to their own funds.
You can opt out of BUMA/STEMRA/BREIN by stating at the copyright line that royalties are managed by yourself (you are not allowed to use another organisation to collect royalties).
If you play your own music for a group of people and you didn't opt out, you will have to pay BUMA/STEMRA/BREIN royalties, musicians have been caught playing their own music and not handing of royalties to BUMA/STEMRA/BREIN, even though they where not registered at BUMA/STEMRA/BREIN, and so they had to pay fines on top of the royalties.
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BREIN is a government-sponsored shake down.
As far as I know, BREIN is an industry-backed group with no government sponsoring.
They have collected on music royalties, even for songs that never signed onto a label or labels connected to them but never pay out.
I think you're confusing them with Buma/Stemra, who manage music royalties. They have indeed been accused of not paying out royalties when they should.
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They all reside in the same office building. While all independent in name, this does suggest unwanted informal connections.
Easy fix (Score:1)
Start planning a v2 which allows users to make their own videos available with the same ease. Market it as "truely free youtube alternative". Maybe not trivial to do it, and to do it right, but it can take a lot of the wind out of the anti-piracy organizations sails regarding their claims "just made for piracy"
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If Torrents Time is indeed just a browser plug-in that streams videos using the bittorrent protocol, then there is nothing illegal about the tool itself. It could be used for streaming videos legally or illegally, that depends on which torrents the site operator sends to the plug-in. In this regard, it's no different from any other torrent client.
That said, this bit from from the page for website owners [torrents-time.com] sounds a bit dodgy:
Torrents Time as a monetization solution allows you to start nourishing a great relationship with your users where you profit, among other things, from subscriptions to VPN services, which is truly essential to your users. Your users on the other hand, can show their love and appreciation for everything you're doing for them by using these services which they need.
Why would users need a VPN? Those unfortunate enough to have an ISP that disrupts bitt
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Why would users need a VPN? [...]
I mostly agree with your interpretation, but think of people living under oppressive regimes where content is censored or its consumption punished. This is not exactly unheard of.
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I imagine that since anyone posting on youtube could also make a torrent of that content that functionality exists.
There is plenty of indie content distributed via torrent by the creators not to mention things like linux distros with official torrents.
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Yup, loads of Linux software's distributed as torrents. In fact, almost every one that I see gets downloaded and I try to add all the new versions that are announced early on. I keep 'em seeding for years sometimes. I've got the space and bandwidth, why not help out? (And yes, that is a whole lot of torrents, space, and bandwidth.)
There are plenty of legitimate uses for torrents. 'Snot just for pirating.
Why not just call the entire Internet illegal? (Score:3, Insightful)
All hyperbole and kidding aside, is it just me or do these BREIN fools sound like just more politicians, completely devoid of any ability to understand technical things? Their argument is like liberals trying to outlaw firearms: they make a basic assumption that 'guns are evil, therefore get rid of guns' when in reality people kill people, and eliminating guns won't really do a damn thing; someone wants to kill, they'll find a way, gun or no gun. Bittorrent has many legitimate uses. Deeming any bittorrent client 'illegal' is asinine, you'd have to deem all bittorrent clients illegal, and the entire protocol illegal, too. At that point you may as well call FTP illegal, or any chat client that allows file transfer illegal, or make file attachments to email illegal. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never mind the fact that filesharing is never, ever going to go away, either; they're fighting a losing battle.
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I like your argument except for the insane gun analogy, which would be fine if not for the implicit absolute superlative.
I don't want the rest of your powerful hyperbolic sarcasm undermined by a 3rd party pointing out that there are places in the world where reducing the number of guns at the very least did not lead to increases in shooting or violent crime, and that there are few places where this did not occur when implemented, and every time one of your ridiculous politicians tries to reference some inte
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Except for the fact that eliminating guns DOES reduce (and significantly) gun violence.
But other than you being wrong, it's exactly the same.
Assuming you are right, the analogy still holds water. Guns are still legal (in many places). Use of guns to commit crimes is still illegal. Therefore, use of Torrents Time to purposefully infringe copyright should be illegal, but Torrents Time should (arguably) remain legal. This analogy isn't quite as solid, since many people think there should be varying levels of firearm regulation from completely outlawed to heavily regulated to no regulation, so all that is still up in the air, but I think the vast ma
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Because your premise is flawed, both in your gun analogy and about this software.
Much as handguns are made for shooting people, Torrents Time is built to enable piracy. The fact that you can use your gun at the shooting range, or Torrents Time to stream Big Buck Bunny, doesn't change their intended usage.
Contrary to your belief, not all murders are premeditated, and not all killers are undetered by difficulty. Having a gun on-hand greatly increases your chance of killing someone in a fit of passion - consid
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And?
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That's just, like, your opinion, man.
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The real problem is that the MAFIAA are trying to destroy themselves. People who download this stuff are not going to pay for it. You can't force them to. Many of them don't even have any money to give you, because they are kids or students. Sorry, but even the ones who have money don't value your work at â29.95 so there is no point trying to force them to pay it.
All they are doing is limiting their audience. Better to just ignore piracy and get on with producing good content that people are clearly wi
Re:Why not just call the entire Internet illegal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Their argument is like liberals trying to outlaw firearms: they make a basic assumption that 'guns are evil, therefore get rid of guns' when in reality people kill people, and eliminating guns won't really do a damn thing; someone wants to kill, they'll find a way, gun or no gun.
Any argument you might have had just evaporated with this ridiculous statement.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hi... [harvard.edu]
http://www.ajpmonline.org/arti... [ajpmonline.org]
And before you get all uppity and start yet another gun argument, no-one is suggesting to outlaw firearms, gun regulation means allowing sensible people access to sensible weapons, just like in most other western countries that have gun regulations, and healthy gun ownership, but nowhere as many issues.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never mind the fact that filesharing is never, ever going to go away, either; they're fighting a losing battle.
The strategy, like gun regulation, is not elimination, it is to minimise availability. By going after the low hanging fruit, it makes pirate file sharing a less common practice. So the stupid people who can't figure out technology will find it too hard, and so pay for it through legitimate channels instead (have you seen iTunes profit lately?) This strategy only has to make a 10-20% dent in the market and it is worth million of dollars. That doesn't sound that stupid to me.
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The problem with regulating guns in the US is the fact the guns are in the citizens hands to regulate the government. If you allow the government to regulate guns and by proxy regulating itself then you will get tyranny.
History.
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The problem with regulating guns in the US is the fact the guns are in the citizens hands to regulate the government.
Really? How is that working out? Do you have examples of where this all this gun ownership enforced regulation the government?
If you allow the government to regulate guns and by proxy regulating itself then you will get tyranny.
Big claim, which falls apart when you know that every other modern democracy that allows government regulation and doesn't have Tyranny. How does that happen under your hypothesis?
History.
Which history? Please enlighten the group because I'm really struggling to think of a historical event where gun-toting natives prevented a government enforcing tyranny on the people. We do however have ten
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All hyperbole and kidding aside, is it just me or do these BREIN fools sound like just more politicians, completely devoid of any ability to understand technical things? Their argument is like liberals trying to outlaw firearms: they make a basic assumption that 'guns are evil, therefore get rid of guns' when in reality people kill people, and eliminating guns won't really do a damn thing; someone wants to kill, they'll find a way, gun or no gun.
All hyperbole aside.... if that's how you feel why don't you give Daesh the nuclear launch codes? Surely they want to kill us and surely they'll find a way, so just give up now. Yes, a tool is just a tool. That doesn't mean we're going to stop trying to keep it out of the hands of bad people or find ways to make it less suitable for doing bad things. Even the US has restrictions for convicted felons and fully automatic weapons. So say you're convicted of embezzlement, you've never had any violent history in
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You jest but I'd not actually put it past them to try to propose/mandate an alternative to the traditional protocols on some form of locked-down, access controlled, proprietary network that disallowed any unapproved content or actions. Sadly, there's a number of people who not only might support that but might not notice the difference. It could easily be couched in the sentiment that it's to save the children or to thwart terrorism.
No, I don't mean a firewall like China has. I mean a complete replacement w
Thanks BREIN (Score:5, Interesting)
I would probably have never found out about this app, but since you're coming down so hard and fast on it I figured it must be good, so I've now downloaded and installed it.
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Currently, it is Mac only but it looks like there are a few alternatives. There's Popcorn-Time and TorrentStreaming that I've come across for Linux but I've only bothered trying one of them. I have also checked out Tribler (thanks to them letting me know about this type of thing) and that appears to be not much different than a torrent client that does prioritizing so that you can watch it while it downloads.
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I would probably have never found out about this app, but since you're coming down so hard and fast on it I figured it must be good, so I've now downloaded and installed it.
I laugh at the sentiment but I find it funny that you only watch the slashdot stories talking about cracking down on services rather than the stories about the services starting up. [slashdot.org]
Re: Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're forgetting that these groups don't care about valid uses of technology. All they care about is whether something can disrupt their revenue stream. Most of these groups would gladly ban the internet in its current form if it was within their power.
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Hammer time