How Seven Movie Studios Forced A Pirated Movie Site Offline (hollywoodreporter.com) 136
A major pirated movie site went offline last month after seven Hollywood studios won a preliminary court injunction. An anonymous reader quotes the Hollywood Reporter:
The MPAA-member studios sued the operators of PubFilm/PidTV in February, asking the court for a temporary restraining order to shut down what it described as a ring of six interconnected large-scale piracy sites. The suit was initially sealed, but was made public on Friday. Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal, Disney, Paramount and Viacom are named as plaintiffs in the suit for direct and secondary copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition.
They're seeking statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement plus restitution of the sites' profits. So, depending on how many instances of infringement are discovered, the damages in this case could be astronomical. The studios claim the sites had more than 8 million visitors each month, nearly half of which were linked to IP addresses in the U.S... The sites are believed to be operated in Vietnam.
The court also ordered GoDaddy, VeriSign and Enom to disable all six domain names, to prevent the domains from being transferred, and to do it without communicating or warning the sites' owners first. In response, the defendants purchased a new domain, and then began publicizing it with ads on Google AdSense.
They're seeking statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement plus restitution of the sites' profits. So, depending on how many instances of infringement are discovered, the damages in this case could be astronomical. The studios claim the sites had more than 8 million visitors each month, nearly half of which were linked to IP addresses in the U.S... The sites are believed to be operated in Vietnam.
The court also ordered GoDaddy, VeriSign and Enom to disable all six domain names, to prevent the domains from being transferred, and to do it without communicating or warning the sites' owners first. In response, the defendants purchased a new domain, and then began publicizing it with ads on Google AdSense.
The more they tighten their grip (Score:1)
The more star systems slip through their fingers.
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That only applies to Paramount Pictures [wikimedia.org].
Re: do it without communicating or warning the sit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: do it without communicating or warning the sit (Score:5, Interesting)
In theory I agree with this. However since in many countries (including mine) these studios force us to pay fees on things that could theoretically be used to pirate their stuff (blank media, printers, etc), I have little respect for "what's theirs" because they take "what's mine" by force of law.
Re: do it without communicating or warning the si (Score:1)
This exactly. If I have to pay a fee on blank media, then - ethically - the copyright holders have been paid. Copying their products is expected, so go for it.
There are various problems with copyright holder attitudes. Unrealistic business ideas for the Internet, crazily high values for their property ($150k per incident, WTF?), insanely long copyright length, etc.. The sooner their businesses die, the better.
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How can they just take money with no consideration provided? If it were a contract it'd be invalid.
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Property rights don't apply to copies of original works?
When did you turn Communist?
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View this proprietary work or don't graduate (Score:2)
Then you have the freedom to treat media that was created only because people were paid to make it, by other people who expected people who consumed that media to pay them, as if it never existed.
I don't see how. Many, probably virtually all, high schools and universities require students to view and analyze non-free, paywalled literary works as a requirement for courses that are in turn required to graduate.
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The studios are not the creators, in most cases, but those creators contract with the studios for distribution, and the studios have a legal obligation to ensure, to the best of their ability, that the distribution is secure. That secure distribution is in the best interest of the creators, who very often are paid a percentage of the distribution fees and box office receipts the studios collect. So if you are genuinely concerned about the creators, respect the deals they have made with their distributors.
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The only realistic alternative to a copyright based system is a system of patronage, where we only get to see stuff commissioned by wealthy people.
And if you don't like the fact the Bieber copyrights his music, then stop listening to his music for crying out loud.
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Copyright is working now. Not perfectly, but it is working nonetheless. The proof is in companies such as Microsoft (and others) making bank every month.
Nowhere does anyone say that copyright needs to work perfectly for it to be considered to be working successfully.
And what other ways (other than patronage) are available for people to fund content? Put some ideas on the table, rather than just hypothesize that there are other means available.
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The need for copyright is clear from the relevant laws and statutes that it is meant to encourage the production of works of authorship.
Our culture is richer because people have created these works.
Now, I don't agree with these seemingly infinite copyrights. I would prefer a much shorter copyright term - I would go for 40 years. I don't think copyrights need to be much longer than that to encourage production of works of authorship.
However, I would definitely not want a return to wealthy people deciding wha
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Another way is government funding
And you'd be crazy if you think governments are willing to pony up serious cash, especially with today's political climate. The problems with censorship and topic selection would be far more extreme as well if we allow the government a hand in what does and does not get made.
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And if you don't like the fact the Bieber copyrights his music, then stop listening to his music for crying out loud.
I don't see how to do that when the grocery store plays Bieber's music over its speaker system.
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Besides, they are NOT authors, they're middlemen who have their own interests first.
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. They bought the rights, it belongs to them. For example: You're not a car maker, but you bought your car and now it belongs to you.
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Re: do it without communicating or warning the sit (Score:4, Insightful)
These sites are stealing the content
No. These sites acknowledge that content exists, that it's not available with adequate ease or at a reasonable price, that an unnatural monopoly has been imposed by anti-consumer laws bought by media cartels and have responded by making the content available through other means.
This content doesn't belong to the studios. It belongs to world culture.
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an unnatural monopoly has been imposed by anti-consumer laws bought by media cartels
Why can't the constituents instead choose to outbuy the cartels or choose to elect legislators less vulnerable to such buying?
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outbuy the cartels
Because the cartels have millions if not billions of times more money than any individual. Maybe Elon Musk could do so, but he's got more important uses for his money.
elect legislators less vulnerable to such buying
For the same reason we don't ride unicorns. Such things don't exist. You're usually given a choice between two or maybe three legislators who are both bought by various anti-consumer organizations. And the occasional time an honest politician comes around, they're quickly removed in one manner or another -- either sweetening the deal until
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Because the cartels have millions if not billions of times more money than any individual.
Why can't constituents pool their money to outbuy the cartels?
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Because that requires organization, determination, and working toward a goal with a long-term objective. Maybe that was part of the character of Americans in the past but it sadly isn't anymore. Most of them are too fat, soft and stupid to even realize just how much they're getting screwed by a system that lies to them daily. It's not really their fault because the educational system and mass media help make them that way. It is their fault for liking it. That's why the problem is not self-correcting.
Or maybe, most Americans think that copyright really isn't that big a deal, especially compared to EVERYTHING ELSE happening in politics, and that you're so fanatic about it is something that they would consider pretty weird.
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Same AC here. You think the attitudes and characteristics I'm talking about apply solely to copyright? Are you seriously so narrow-minded, or does interpreting my words in such a narrow, limited context just help you to feel like you're "right"?
This article and this discussion is about copyright, if you want to open it up to "abuse of power" generally, be my guest, but that's a problem we've struggled with since the dawn of structured society, and will continue to do so till the death of civilization.
What you see as ghastly and horrible copyright abuse is not something most people think is a problem, or at least, they want to fight other, far more important battles first. If you want to rally people to fight the power, then by all means, but you w
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I agree with you. The real point is that this is a waste of time and money. Not that I care, they can piss away every dime they have on lawyers but for every cluster like this they destroy, two more will pop up somewhere else. The fact is that as long as it's easier and better to watch pirated content that's what will happen. They can't win this war with lawyers.
Re: do it without communicating or warning the sit (Score:4, Insightful)
While I'm as libretarian as the next guy, and love "stick it to the man movements", in all fairness, these studios are trying to protect what's theirs. They are free to license the movies they make to whom they wish, in whatever manner they wish. You and I are also free to not consume their product, but it is their product. We may not agree to the regional releases, various licensing restrictions or media availability or delay dates, but stupid as we may believe their go-to-market strategy is it still is their right to execute it as they see fit. These sites are stealing the content and profiting from it; and that's just wrong.
The problem with that: it's not "theirs" in any direct inherent sense of the normal concept of ownership. It's "theirs" in the sense of a government-granted monopoly. This monopoly is a legal institution they have corrupted and subverted very far away from its original reasonable function (12 years copyright in the era of the Gutenberg press ... 100+ years in the era of the Internet ... really??). You can pretend like that doesn't have ramifications, like it doesn't invite an opposing reaction, but it won't help you understand that you describe the viewpoint of only one side there.
This is the context in which they operate. The moral argument of "they're stealing from us!" (forget that it's not actual larceny) hinges on the idea that "they're taking what we legitimately own!" But there are two broad parties here, the copyright holders and the people. "What we legitimately own" keeps being redefined again and again, always in the favor of just one party, decade after decade. At some point it gets hard to distinguish who is the thief and who is the victim. At some point, the other party gets tired of being walked all over and retaliates in the most obvious and available way: they stop respecting corrupt laws. The fix is to remove the corruption and restore sane, reasonable respectability to the institution of copyright. Everything else is either a band-aid or an arms race.
All but forced to view copyrighted trailers (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming that by "consume" you mean view [gnu.org]:
You and I are also free to not consume their product
I don't see how. Feature-length motion pictures are advertised to the public using a "trailer", or a short film consisting of excerpts from the motion picture. The trailer is just as copyrighted as the full work. So when I am viewing another motion picture, and its presentation is interrupted by a trailer, I am all but forced to view the first second of the copyrighted trailer.
Despite that I paid nothing for access to this trailer, I pay with being legally deemed to have had "access" to this trailer. Once I have had access, if any of my own works ever end up appearing accidentally similar to the trailer, I could get in trouble for nonliteral copyright infringement. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music.
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If it puts your mind at ease, consider the term 'consumer' in the context of a data flow model, like a DSP filter graph. Some nodes produce, emitting data for others to accept. Some nodes both accept and emit, maybe acting like a filter, splitter, merger or some other function. And finally some nodes represent some output beyond the scope of the filter graph (a screen, a file, a null output required to force data processing) and are consumers of the data.
But that's the problem. The prevailing paradigm for popular culture strongly encourages the vast majority of the general public to act as consumers, not as nodes that both accept and emit cultural works.
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Wouldnt a libertarian be against copyright and the like as a distortion to free trade? It's an artificial contruction of government that completely changes the nature of national and international trade after all.
I'm not "as Libertarian as the next guy" (what does that even mean?) though so I'm not buying what I'm selling here.
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Libertarians tend to have a bit of trouble when it comes to shared resources of any sort.
Lets say we're neighbors. There's a river a mile away that we both have to walk to in order to get water (because we live in pre-industrial time or whatever.)
You get sick of walking and since you happen to be rich, you hire a bunch of yokels to dig a tributary down to your property (and being a good libertarian, you're careful to ensure you have the right of ways for the necessary strip of land.)
So now I need a bucket
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in all fairness, these studios are trying to protect what's theirs.
It isn't actually "theirs".
Copyright is a legal contract between artists and the public to grant a limited monopoly over distribution in exchange for releasing their works into the public domain after the copyright duration.
Now you'll notice that it says "artist", not "content owner" and that it also says "limited". Copyright was originally limited to 20 years. However no significant amount of content has entered the public domain since the 1940's. In fact they keep extending copyright in order to pre
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Content locking is not mandatory. You, or anyone else, can create content and distribute it completely free of charge.
You are probably not going to spend $200m on any content that you want to give away for free, and therein lies the problem.
Yes, studios fear disruption, but the disruption they fear isn't about free content. They are much more worried that the likes of Amazon and Netflix are going to supplant them.
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You, or anyone else, can create content and distribute it completely free of charge.
Not if someone else accuses me of accidentally infringing copyright by copying part of his work into my own.
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accidentally infringing copyright
Then do something original instead
What steps can I take to ensure that I "do something original"?
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constitution be damned
The First Amendment is about the government infringing on freedom of expression. Corporations being assholes isn't in the scope of the constitution.
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If you aren't going to bother to read my comment, why bother to reply?
I happen to agree that systemic copyright infringement should be opposed by the legal system. This has nothing to do with my point, which was that it's not a constitutional issue.
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You're right, there may be a due-process question here. [slashdot.org]
How on earth do you figure that isn't a constitutional issue?
Because, as I made quite clear, I was thinking of the First Amendment. Very often one sees confusion as to the scope of freedom of expression.
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Dumbass, the constitutional reference being made is the fucking right to due process, e.g. being notified properly of legal actions taken against you. Go the fuck back to school.
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Yes, that makes sense. No, my interpretation wasn't wholly moronic.
Regarding your sig, I'd hardly call your blustering anywhere near Carlin level.
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You've never seen anything truly Carlin if all you've done is watch his HBO appearances and listen to his tapes.
Try reading one of his books. He's VERY short and succinct in them with most points, with a lot of fuck thrown in for good measure.
So not only do you not know shit about the constitution, you know jack shit about one of America's greatest comedians.
I think Sister Mary needs a bigger ruler to deal with you.
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Haven't read his books, but I've listened to his later stand-up material. Honestly I figure his over-reliance on snark and bitterness didn't play to his favour there. He certainly had his moments, but a lot of the time it struck me as just empty anger with little real point.
I'll have to dig up his earlier works some time.
Copyright law is government infringement. (Score:1)
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Perhaps you could indeed construct a constitutional objection to copyright -- that was the reason the USA was so slow to adopt it, after all -- but I don't think that's the point being made here.
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the constitution be damned
What? I suppose you're also in favor of law enforcement taking time to send a friendly postcard to the home address of someone who's in the middle of committing a bank robbery. You know, so they have some advance notice that the crime they are literally in the middle of committing is about to be stopped. After all, the bank robber hasn't been convicted of anything yet, so even though a judge has reviewed what's going on and ordered the action, it's just not nice to stop the crime from continuing. Criminals
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Never heard of 'em. (Score:2, Interesting)
TBP is still around. So is Kickass, Demonoid, and Torrentleech.
Dunno what the websites they shut down were for, but it certainly didn't affect me, or anyone I know who regularity pirates stuff.
I guess... maybe they need to announce some sort of victory every so often? I dunno.
Re: Never heard of 'em. (Score:2)
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Demonoid isn't the same as before. I certainly don't trust Kickass any more.
Thanks (Score:5, Funny)
I'd never even heard of PubFilm until the court injunction.
Give my regards to Barbara.
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That's okay. Going along with their concept of invented monetary damages, we simply have to invent a new MPAA crypto-currency and say each coin is worth 1 million Hollywood dollars.
Advancement of Tech (Score:1)
All this does is piss off people with the skills to make it even harder next time. Eventually the arms race will end, and the studios will be screwed. The only way to stop it is surgery, to prevent people from seeing/hearing things. Even in the 'meat world' war advances tech further and faster than peace does.
Remember we had 'piracy' ( i hate using that term btw, for one reason nothing is being stolen ..) before the internet. We will have it after too.
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The way to prevent it is to find a new way to monetize the content.
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The way to prevent it is to actually respect your customers
Isn't this Spotify's mantra? Why are new album releases still appearing on TPB? Because at some point you have to admit people just don't want or cannot pay for content.
-dk
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I admit I have pirated software in the past. Generally though I do buy the stuff I use. I would download stuff then run it for a while until it reached the point it was in my goto toolkit. At that point it's kind of silly not to support the author. If I didn't find it useful I got rid of it and looked elsewhere. If you don't fund useful software it goes away. People don't like to work for free and I don't blame them. On the other hand I hated buying a product that ended up not being what I thought i
Re: which sites (Score:1)
One Down.... (Score:1)
Not really (Score:1)
As they aren't even down.. so its a net loss for the industry due to all the free press.
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Really. I can see ppl out there going "you mean I can get it for free?"
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When they brought down Napster they unleashed distributed file sharing. That's when the drizzle became a flood.
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Luck with that.
Religious persecution (Score:1)
I maintain that I have a religious belief in the invalidity of intellectual property along the lines of Kopimism. This is a stronger defense than just freedom of speech issues. Don't know about it actually getting tested in court, though.
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Religious belief works as a defense as long as it's not an inconvenience to important powerful people.
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I think that's probably never going to be a mainstream thing.
New domains (Score:2)
They moved to ccTLD: .ac is Ascension Island, and .is is Iceland.
I guess it will be harder to bring them down again, as a US court will probably consider it has no jurisdiction there.
For everything else, there's Name Cheap (Score:2)
Domain name: $10
Cost to get court order to shut it off $millions to taxpayers, nothing to hollywood
Laughing myself silly at Hollywood's antics: A headache and upset tummy from laughing too hard.
I'm not even sure why Hollywood is still around. They are simple gate keepers exacting a toll, and they don't even produce anything I've seen in decades that I'd have paid to see. I don't even bother with trying to see it without paying, it's a simple waste of time and effort for trash.
Meh (Score:1)
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And it will make the seas safer. How will that help movie studios against copyright infringement though?
"Pirating" Now Equals "Copyright Infringement" (Score:2)
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It can mean more or less than that, but in the context of computing pirating has almost always equaled copyright infringement--in part because nothing gets *stolen*
"Pirating" as a term for copyright infringement long predates the modern computer as well, since at least the 1600s.
Re: "Pirating" Now Equals "Copyright Infringement" (Score:2)
Arrr ye scurvy dog!
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