MPAA Seeks Stronger Actions To Fight Streaming Video Piracy (streamingmedia.com) 110
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is stepping into the online video piracy debate and calling for criminal charges against violators, as well as strong coordination between a broad range of online service providers. From a report: The association's recommendations came in response to a call from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) call for comments regarding internet policy concerns. On July 17, the MPAA issued a 40-page document advocating a modernization of online policies in response to rampant illicit activity. While a range of commercial offerings help studios and sports leagues battle online piracy, anyone who has a friend with a Kodi box knows that unrestricted access to popular shows and movies is only a few taps away. The MPAA notes that 6.5 million homes in North America are equipped with a Kodi box, and the North American piracy ecosystem generates $840 million per year.
Just hire their own swat team (Score:2)
buy some black helicopters, hire some goons and break into pirates' homes and break some kneecaps
Re:Just hire their own swat team (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Just hire their own swat team (Score:5, Informative)
They hired the New Zealand police to do that to Kim Dotcom. I gather there was nothing in the way of censure dished out to those police by our courts when it was deemed to be "unlawful" so chances are they could hire them again at a very competitive rate and, if they throw in airplane tickets, they'd probably even do the job in other countries if asked nicely.
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What? Why? That costs money! It's way cheaper to let the people who you want arrested pay for it, too, and let their government do the dirty work for you.
Privatize profits, socialize costs. That's how you get rich.
That's a lot of money! (Score:5, Interesting)
$850 million a year compared to the filmed entertainment industry's revenue of what, $300 billion +/- per year? I know that doesn't justify people pirating shit, but I'm getting real fucking sick of the "Won't someone please think of the millionaires and billionaires?!" argument.
Re:That's a lot of money! (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget that it has been proven time and time again through studies and practical application (Incompetech being just one example) that any artist with actual talent and quality product(s) will benefit more from utilizing piracy than warring against it.
Some using piracy as a marketing tool, some eve put their stuff on torrents and make the news among the pirate scene for it which translates into a loyal consumerbase of people who chip in money too (and a loyal base is always better than generic sales since it translates to guaranteed revenue), and even the fact that the majority of pirates also have the biggest Steam libraries due to the fact that they tend to respect quality product more than the average consumer due to the quantity of products they go through thanks to piracy to weed out the shit from the gold.
The industry, whether gaming or music or movie, are over-saturated.
So over-saturated that it's impossible to give even a 1/10th of each of those industry's artists the chance to be sampled if we had to pay for each and every one.
The over-saturation argument is probably the main and biggest argument going for piracy, especially now that even demos and samples are being corrupted and turned into scam methods for trying products.
Re:That's a lot of money! (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Downloading is not "piracy". Piracy is a specific crime related to making and distributing copies, generally for personal gain. Somebody who sells copies of someone else's personal DVD and sells them is a pirate. An uploader might be considered a "pirate", but a downloader is not, because a downloader is not distributing. **
2) Downloading is a copyright violation, not a crime. In scope, it is akin to making a personal copy of a videotape.
3) In most cases, downloading is done when there would not have been an original sale (e.g., movie ticket or DVD) anyway. So the copyright owner didn't "lose" anything.
4) Even if there hypothetically might have been a sale, copyright violation is not "theft". See # 3. It is a completely different area of law.
5) And even if there would have been a sale, all the copyright owner "loses" is the potential profit, which is a tiny fraction of the retail price.
6) Penalties for copyright violation are already unreasonably harsh.
Re:That's a lot of money! (Score:5, Informative)
Many torrent programs force you to upload as you download, but not all of them.
If you aren't uploading as you download, you are not "distributing". So you can't be a pirate.
The lesson there is to make sure you have torrent software that can be set to not simultaneously upload.
Transmission for the Mac is one such example. It can be set (with some care) to not upload at all.
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Ratios are usually maintained almost entirely by the BitTorrent software. Few sites I've seen enforce ratios. In fact I don't even recall seeing one. Not that I have looked very much.
Regardless, I was talking about the law, not "what everybody does".
Re:That's a lot of money! (Score:4, Interesting)
If you aren't uploading as you download, you are not "distributing". So you can't be a pirate.
Interesting thought: if your upload is non-contiguous and your ratio is less than 1, maybe you were distributing material used under fair use?
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I'm not sure why it hasn't been, because it seems like a plausible argument. But I think it would have to be a lot less than 1.
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One way the industry has tried to catch downloaders (but mainly uploaders) in the past has been to set up a "honeypot" of videos or music to download.
But a court found that the security companies doing that, on behalf of the copyright holders, did not themselves possess any copyright.
So the "honeypots" were guilty of the same violations as the people they were trying to catch.
Re:That's a lot of money! (Score:5, Funny)
You wouldn't steal a car.
You wouldn't steal a baby.
You wouldn't shoot a policeman. And then steal his helmet.
You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet.
And then send it to the policeman's grieving widow.
And then steal it again!
Downloading films is stealing. If you do it, you will face the consequences.
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Fuck off... I've got a drawer full of stolen handbags and drive a stolen ride every day.
These people don't know me!!! :-)
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You wouldn't steal a baby.
Of course I wouldn't steal a baby! Those things are annoying and needy. Why would someone want to steel one? And downloading isn't exactly steeling. Steeling implies you no longer have it because I took it from you. If I could clone a Ferrari in the same time it takes me to download a movie, you bet your ass I would.
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So what I'm getting from your post is that you would go to the toilet in a policeman's helmet.
Maybe. Depends on the situation. However I would definitely make a copy of a policeman's helmet if suddenly had the desire to.
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Steel? :P
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Got to share that classic funny video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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You wouldn't download a car! Fuck you, you don't know me!
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Sidenote, I have actually pirated a physical object before. I needed a stead verticle cut in a piece of wood. The options were: a) buy a piece of plastic from Dremel for $50, b) download the piece of plastic from thingverse and have a friend print it for $2.50.
Arrrrrr.
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Depends on your country doesnt it? Here, we dont allow corporations to bully citizens and write their own laws.
want another copywrite extension? pay off a gvt official
wan harsher penalties (but not for the studios who have also been caught).. pay off a gv official...
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I'm getting real fucking sick of the "Won't someone please think of the millionaires and billionaires?!" argument.
Who said that?
It's a fallacy to think money loses value as it you get more of it. $850M is always $850M which is a shitload of money, to anyone and everyone, even to an industry with a revenue of 300x that (also, revenue != profit). It just doesn't work like that. Regardless, that's the industry, which is composed of thousands (or more) individuals and companies. It's not some gigantic hegemony all under one roof.
Anyway, this sort of thinking is dangerous because it can be used to rationalize all manner of
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also IP address are a poor match if you are going on ISP logs and the costs of the ISP's to do all of needed paper work.
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I like how you think, but I seriously doubt that the MPPA would fund any politician that supported this idea so it isn't going to happen.
Also, Criminal prosecution is one thing, and I think that those who make something distributing copyrighted works, if it be money, advertising revenue or something else of value should be subject to criminal charges should the local DA where the person was when the distribution took place decide it's worth it. But Civil suits are quite another. I like your idea that a d
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Also, MPPA should offer a "get legal" license, where you can buy a license for downloaded material for personal home use. This would allow you to keep the material you like and give the MPPA a way to get downloaders to "come clean" when they find them
"Hi, we noticed you shared out first run movie hundreds of times. Give us $9.99 and we'll call it even."
Good luck with that.
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let alone movies
If you aren't torrenting movies they wouldn't have targeted you in the first place. Who knows what you are even talking about.
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Anyone who knows anything about torrenting. Since you don't understand seed ratios, maybe you go back to the kids' table and let the adults talk.
Did you even read TFA or just see "torrent" and since you installed bittorrent you think you're an expert? If you aren't torrenting movies this discussion doesn't concern you. No one that uses bittorrent to download Linux ISOs is being targeted. Did you really think the suggestion was that they should just come to do the door of anyone that uses torrents and try to make them pay for a movie?
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As I said, I don't seed anything "hundreds of times."
Oh I see. When I said "Hi, we noticed..." you thought I was addressing you personally, and felt the need to answer my question telling me you do not personally share movies or seed.
Linux ISOs are frequently shared by torrents.
I said: "No one that uses bittorrent to download Linux ISOs is being targeted". Do you understand the difference?
You clearly know shit about bittorrent
Maybe. But you lack basic reading comprehension. I'd rather be me.
Clearly I could not have shared anything hundreds of times.
Not only do you have no morals around paying for content, you have no morals among pirates either. A leech is a leech. You as an expert in bittorrent sh
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Actually that may work, I seem to recall them declaring that a "blank media tax" [wikipedia.org] in certain countries.
Of course, that's really just a burden for them, they'd much rather have the right to deduct from everyone's wages before taxes. Remember we're *all* dirty pir
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Nope, they got their cake and got to eat it too. You have to pay the blank media extortion fee (on anything that could remotely contain something copyrighted, including hard drives, ssds and USB sticks... I better shut up before they notice that you can use paper to print pictures) while still not being allowed to make any copies.
Essentially, what these con artists got away with was something banks would dream of: A fee they get to cash in on every gun and car because it could be used in a bank robbery, so
Re:Only for provable loss of sales (Score:4, Insightful)
Certainly, apply criminal charges for piracy... as long as, in such prosecutions, the MPAA proves, beyond doubt, rather than simply a preponderance of evidence (as required under criminal law) that each download or stream represents an actual lost sale to an MPAA member, rather than just a presumption of a lost sale
And (2): The punishment should be proportional to the crime. What's the punishment if I steal a DVD from a store? It should be less than that because I didn't actually deprive anybody of anything.
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At this point, you'd be in less trouble if you shot a clerk at Best Buy to get the actual DVD.
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Dying business model (Score:2)
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we just have to wait for the dinosaurs in charge to the content companies to die for legal streaming to blossom
Streaming is legal. Ever heard of Netflix? Amazon?
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You must be new to this game. You can't bring facts into an argument where the MPAA or RIAA are concerned, that's against the rules. I'm sorry, you're fired!
What? (Score:1)
North American piracy ecosystem generates $840 million per year.
How is someone giving your shit packaged in candy coating away for free generating revenue?
Maybe try making some content someone would be willing to pay for. You cut out piracy, it's not going to grow your bottom line like you think. You'll just have a bunch of people looking for something else to entertain them because they're not going to pay for your garbage. Those that are willing to pay for it already do.
Stop putting up roadblocks, try to cooperate with the people that DO want to purchase your crap,
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Let me give you some examples:
1) A bit torrent site, well known for hosting a certain type of content, latest theatrical releases for example, gets a lot of traffic from people who want to download that content. Even though the
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Actually, I'm pretty sure those 840m is WAY more than could be generated by selling licensed content because only a tiny fraction of those copying content would actually even consider paying for it.
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Or they could do what all the other "free" pages do and demand to know everything about you including your shoe size and dick length. That could really become a gold mine, considering their market demographics is dead centered in the very interesting 14-30 years age bracket, it's near impossible that they go out of fashion with the regrowing kids (like Facebook does, it's considered the social media for old people among kids today) and that market demographics doesn't have anything to offer anyway in large
Trade you ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... stronger anti-piracy measures for a hard 25 year limit on copyright term. We can't have our law enforcement people chase down every copy of Steamboat Willie.
They created the problem and now have the audacity to bitch about it. So fuck 'em I don't care how long copyright terms are. 7 years, 25 years, 10 billion years - I'm still not in compliance.
Only if there was technology (Score:5, Insightful)
that the industry could use to stream an archive of all old and new movies and shows to a persons home through the internet for a nice affordable price. Maybe one day someone will invent it.
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Maybe they could put them all on one service. Some place on the InterNET where all the FLIX are available. They could call it FLIXNET!
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they _could_ put them all on netflix. They haven't, because they still think they can extract more money in other ways.
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I apologize; I was unclear. By "they" I meant the rightsholders. Netflix would love to have a bigger catalog, I'm sure.
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That's partly because the media companies were threatened by Netflix's size. They saw how the music companies gave Apple their content and then Apple grew large enough to dictate the terms. The media companies want to prevent that and are actively working to knock Netflix down. Part of this process is to starve Netflix of content either by not renewing licenses or by raising the price of licences so that Netflix won't renew. They don't really care that this might drive people to piracy, in fact they're conv
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Overreach (Score:2)
Missing from the summary is:
Angling for tougher measures to fight that activity, the MPAA calls for "civil and criminal actions against creators of pirate add-on software and the repository web sites that host them, against distributors of the preloaded devices, and against the entities streaming the content." [...] The MPAA wants to see stronger charges against a broader range of infringing organizations.
I was trying to figure out their angle because the MPAA already has pretty sharp teeth to prosecute pirates IF they can get to them. I support the idea of being able to shut down these add-on's that are solely used for piracy but I worry that it opens the door to other things that are used for piracy but have legitimate uses as well.
In the end it will always come down to this. If it can be seen or heard it WILL be pirated. The best way to minimize piracy is to make the content ea
Re:Overreach (Score:4, Insightful)
I support the idea of being able to shut down these add-on's that are solely used for piracy but I worry that it opens the door to other things that are used for piracy but have legitimate uses as well.
But what is solely used for piracy? I know a lot of people who have Plex servers filled with stuff they actually own and ripped and share their servers with friends. I know a lot of people with Plex servers that they obtained everything on it and share it with their friends. I also own lots of movies that are on my friend's server, but I don't feel like finding the disc for them (probably still in a moving box) so I stream it from said server...does that mean that I'm pirating it? If I had a Kodi box and did the same thing, would that mean I pirated it? I have yet to find a piece of tech that is solely used for piracy.
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Copyright Wall of Shame reminder (Score:5, Informative)
Link sources/citations provided within:
https://thisguy1337s-place.000webhostapp.com/#wall
The Copyright Wall-Of-Shame
Reminder for all that 9 out of 10 times, the people who make a shitstorm about morality and ethics are the same people who don't abide by them and actually do worse things. This number increases to 10/10 with anti-pirate collectives as they have been observed and proven in these past few years of:
88. Adobe failing to pay licensing fees on the sales of Adobe products that contained Dolby technology by refusing to provide the agreed upon sales audits for multiple years over. Demonstrating that the largest and most wealthiest of copyright enthusiasts will also happily ignore copyright conditions when it suits their own agenda.
87. Copyright enthusiast David Lowery casting criticism at professor Michael Geist over the importance of copyright acknowledgement all while failing to obtain the proper license on an image shared in the Blog post.
86. FlightSimLabs planting SecurityXploded.Com's ChromePasswordDump v5.5 to successfully capture the stored Google Chrome passwords of users who are allegedly using product keys that are found on file-sharing sites.
85. The company behind the 2015 drama film Fathers & Daughters having their copyright infringement case being dismissed due to the company's exclusive rights to the movie being sold to a company called Vertical Entertainment who were not part of the lawsuit. (orig)
84. Youtube allowing multiple RIAA members to claim & monetize an uploaded video that contained nothing but white static noise. Illustrating that copyright is fundamentally broken and is only suitable to benefit a very select privileged few.
83. Music copyright advocates using the DMCA and domain seizures to cause irreparable harm to mash up sites like Sowndhaus & Spinrilla by taking action of litigation without ever notifying the website owners of the claim of infringement.
82. Epic Games' taking aggressive judicial action against a 14 year old "Fortnite" cheater over the usage of an online game cheat and multiple free accounts registered with fake email addresses. Demonstrating that copyright litigation is often the action of choice with little consideration of who may be targeted.
81. ABC, AOL, CBS Broadcasting, NBCUniversal, NPR, Time, Viacom, Warner Bros, Yahoo and Ziff Davi settling with numerous photographers due to infringing use of their photographs found throughout their News & Blog articles. In which CBS later counter sue due to a Gunsmoke screen shot being posted on social media in an attempt to reduce their damage settlement. Demonstrating that not even those who actively litigate copyright law don't bare any respect for it.
80. New Zealand's ruling National Party being forced to pay $600k for infringing the copyrights of Eminem's track "Lose Yourself" due to using a derivative song with a similar melody for their campaign ad demonstrating that even when obtaining proper licenses will not prevent a copyright related lawsuit.
79. Four officials of the Russian site-blocking body Rozcomnadzor, (including spokesman, top lawyer, and Anastasiya Zvyagintseva) being charged with fraud and stand accused of having 'employed' ghost staff whose salaries were actually paid to existing employees, on top of their own money all while being allowed to block 4,000 sites on copyright grounds with an additional 41,000 innocent websites blocked as collateral damage demonstrating that copyright law often leaves a trail of harm rather than any potential good.
78. Game developer Atlus targeting the Patreon page of the RPCS3 (Playstation 3) emulator with a DMCA takedown notice due to a comment which sta
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Hmm? The funniest one didn't even make the list, where UBIsoft infringed on the copyright of RELOADED [slashdot.org]?
Markets (Score:2)
and the North American piracy ecosystem generates $840 million per year
I thought the MPAA members never showed a profit? That's what I hear about a lot of movies. (Must be accounting errors -- stupid beancounters, can't even count*.)
GooGEL says: Modern film industry. The worldwide theatrical market had a box office of US$38.6 billion in 2016.
... For each new film, a movie "is set up as its own corporation, the entire point of which is to lose money" by paying fees to the studio producing the movie.
And: Their lack of profitability, in fact, is typical. Over 80% of Hollywood movies fail to turn a profit.
While 2Q7: Sony has recorded a full-year net profit of $655M, a 50% fall from the previous year, while its Pictures division posted a loss of $719M year-on-year, driven by box office underperformance.
Maybe this is pointing the way to a new market where they CAN make a profit. Or am I missing the point?
-------
* link [another71.com]
There once was a business owner who was interviewing people for a division manager position. He decided to select the individual that could answer the question "how much is 2+2?"
The engineer pulled out his slide rule and
Kodi box? (Score:1)
I have a box with Kodi on it. All content in my library is ripped from media purchased legally and I don't use any illegal streaming services.
Would pay money for legal standard IPTV streams I could aggregate into my TVH server yet no such thing exists. There are many services that cost money and appear to be legit... many people use them without realizing their true nature.
What I won't pay for are separate spy sticks and spy boxes, that require HDMI ports I don't have and nonstandard streaming services th
2nd Act of the FOSTA/SESTA play (Score:1)
Now that we have an precedent set on making exemptions from the CDA, I expect they are going to push for another to really give this teeth.... and all they need is some compliant legislators.
the MPAA calls for "civil and criminal actions against creators of pirate add-on software and the repository web sites that host them, against distributors of the preloaded devices, and against the entities streaming the content."
Who will advocate in the opposite direction? (Score:4, Insightful)
The MPAA has money to send a 40-page writeup when comments are being solicited.
What organization can we donate to that will make 40-page writeups in the OPPOSITE direction when comments are being solicited? And advocate for reducing overaggressive enforcement, loosening the stranglehold on the public domain, and promote expansion of fair use, and insisting some piracy be accepted as long as companies can still make a fair profit AND alternate solutions (when there is a real problem to be solved --- other than companies earnestly trying to squeeze out 5% more profit or something by promiting fascist regulations and enforcement) and less severe penalties against individuals?
If us individual consumers and americans aren't represented in these kinds of solicitations for comments, then what will happen is only the MPAA will have the ears of our representatives, and they'll get one-sided laws passed whatever they want.
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advocate for reducing overaggressive enforcement, loosening the stranglehold on the public domain, and promote expansion of fair use
That won't work; it'd be going the other way -- the MPAA (and RIAA) is a ratchet racket.
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Really? Where is the EFF's submission to National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) call for comments regarding internet policy concerns. ? It seems like the EFF are asleep at the switch then, how much do they do anyways?; It's clear from these kinds of outputs that the corporates are far more Up on their game and aggressive in their lobbying....
Fair is fair (Score:2)
cattle barons (Score:2)
Hey MPAA, why not make some money yourselves? (Score:2)
People are switching to streaming (VOD) services at a surprising rate (as they did with music) but it seems that the MPAA still isn't happy.
If they wan't to kill piracy, why not set up their own dropbox service and write their own plugin for Kodi and effectively out-pirate the pirates.
Hell, if they did that (thus legitimizing this activity) I'd gladly pay $100 a year for access. Now let's see, $850m divided by 100 -- gosh, they'd only need 8.5 million subscribers to completely wipe out their current (alleg
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Sometimes I get really sick of how people are starving, banking assholes that ruin the economy get off, the world is dying from pollution, drug addiction is becoming worse across the planet, corruption runs whole countries... and we have to stop everything to help these rich fucks and their war on poor people that like entertainment.
This is the result of the end of the cold war and the successful defeat of left wing politics by the right - aka total war on everyone who is not rich. Class war writ large without any counter force because of stupidity and ignorance of the average citizen.
Pirates have a better service. (Score:2)
The pirate sites are better designed and faster than Netflix, Hulu, and the like.
I get actual files and not some stream
A lot more content.
That is the biggest one. Even if you had a sub for all the major streaming services, I would be willing to bet that the pirates have 95% on the content vs the 80% the totality of the streaming sites would have.
What's good for the goose... (Score:2)
I'm OK with that, if we also make it a crime to falsely claim a violation of your copyright when clearly no such violation exists. If some copyright association entity gets your YouTube video pulled because their automated algorithm mistakes the cadence of birds singing in the background for a copyrighted song, someone at that association has to go to jail.
They donâ(TM)t want to get rid of piracy (Score:2)
If they did, whom would the MPAA / RIAA sue ?
Litigation is a spectacular money maker. Not one they plan on abandoning anytime soon.
Even if they have to seed the torrents themselves.
Footnote (Score:2)
The folks who are calculating their âoe losses âoe due to piracy are the very same people who claim, through magic math, that $movie ( which made a Billion in sales worldwide ) wasnâ(TM)t profitable.
All so they donâ(TM)t have to pay those very same people theyâ(TM)re claiming to be protecting from the evil pirates :|
Wasted resources for rich hollywood (Score:2)
We won’t help gamgam and pawpaw who got conned out of thousands trying to get their grandson jimmy out of jail, but he was never under arrest in the first place. Won’t chase down the guys selling credit cards. Or the dudes phishing for social security numbers and bank logins.
But we will sure as hell throw a college student in prison and fine him the value of a nice car or house for fucking bootlegging a shifty film like the hurt locker.
Bullshit. It’s not because we can’t catch the fr
No point in trying to sugar coat it. (Score:2)
The MPAA is (one of) the enemy of a free and open internet.
Anything you can do to hurt them is good.
Full comments available (Score:2)
Not mentioned in the article, the comments are Here [doc.gov]
Shoot... Verizon is even there with a comment on how the NTIA should focus on reducing public use of radio spectrum and making more spectrum to be licensed to commercial telecom carriers.