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Piracy IT

Movie Industry: VPNs and Tor Pose a Threat to Legitimate Streaming Platforms 90

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The Motion Picture Association says that circumvention services such as VPNs, DNS masks and Tor networks can pose a direct threat to legitimate streaming services. In comments submitted to the US Trade Representative, the movie industry group highlights PDF various other piracy challenges around the globe.
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Movie Industry: VPNs and Tor Pose a Threat to Legitimate Streaming Platforms More

Movie Industry: VPNs and Tor Pose a Threat to Legitimate Streaming Platforms

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:02PM (#60680578)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yeap: "TOR for streaming" is laughable :D

    • This, I wonder if they're trying to fence all the pirates into more...blockable services before they implement some kind of crackdown - maybe under a more copyright-friendly Biden administration?

      • Re:Have these people tried Tor? (Score:5, Informative)

        by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:36PM (#60680756) Journal

        My bad, I figured out what this is about, these systems pose a threat to region-locking content, evading a region lock on a legal service is just as bad as any form of piracy to these greedy assclowns.

        • It's partly greed. Partly differing copyright regulatory environments - a company may have exclusive streaming rights to a show in one country, not in others. Or an older movie may not even be under copyright anymore in one country, but still copyrighted in others.. But it's mostly due to differences in standard of living around the world. $13/mo for Netflix is reasonable in developed countries, but may be exorbitant in developing countries.

          Good news is that that's a temporary state. Eventually the d

      • This, I wonder if they're trying to fence all the pirates into more...blockable services before they implement some kind of crackdown - maybe under a more copyright-friendly Biden administration?

        Have you any indication for that? Biden is not exactly the most liberal candidate, but you could assume the more consumer rights-aware liberals will have a better chance with a Democrat president, rather than with Trump.
        Also, I haven't really seen Trump as friendly to right to repair / consumer rights / open source at all.

        • Trump absolutely isn't friendly to those things, but Biden has a very pro-rightsholder history on copyright issues. And this is an issue where the average voter doesn't really care, and special interests can easily get their way with a receptive politician.

          • I see. Let's hope the more consumer-rights friendly liberals get some influence in congress or the government.
            (Are there any consumer-rights friendly republicans?)

            And I wish it was possible to vote Green or Pirate Party in the US without sacrificing chances for the at-least-less-evil party.
            First past the post, without second rounds of runoff voting, is an election system with quite a number of bugs.

          • Are you kidding me. BOTH Trump and Biden will FUCK us hard from behind with no lubrication. People who think one or the other will be good for us is kidding themselves! Both will cow-tow to the MPA/RIAA, both will cow-tow to copyright holders, both will screw us over right to repair or any kind of consumer rights. Why? they want all the BIG $$$ from the companies. You and I are the ones that WILL suffer no matter WHO wins.
            • Abolish copyrights, trademarks, and patents and watch the wealth flood from the small pool of hands in currently resides.

            • One bit of good news on right to repair: Massachusetts voted for a new automotive right to repair law by a margin of nearly 3 to 1. It extends the existing law (Massachusetts was also the first state in the US to pass such a law, and it because the model for laws around the country) to repair data that is communicated wirelessly rather than through the diagnostic port. This is important because the long-term plan of the car makers was to remove most of the capability of the wired port over time, letting the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        Do you think Biden will attack Canada with tariffs to enforce us to tighten up our copyright like Trump did? Guess it is an American thing, can't have a public domain.

        • Quite likely. That's the one area where Biden will be at least as bad as Trump. Small price to pay for saving American democracy though.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dryeo ( 100693 )

            While Biden won't be much of an improvement for us, at least he'll likely be diplomatic in his relations with his neighbours and is more likely to be somewhat informed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is probably just another messed-up alliance with "law"-enforcement that is at work here.

    • You can set your exit node by country in the Tor config (torrc) using an ExitNodes line.

  • From what I've seen (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:04PM (#60680590)

    It's the movie industry itself that poses the biggest threat to legitimate streaming platforms.

    • Re:From what I've seen (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:11PM (#60680622)

      This is really the problem. The movie industry creates their own problems with the confusing licensing deals that make movies available in one country but not another, or make movies come and go at random from streaming platforms. Spotify, and similar platforms, has completely changes the music industry. I can now pay a small monthly fee and have access to all the music I want. I really wish something similar existed for movies. At least movies that have made their way to DVD/BluRay home release. They can keep exclusivity for the first few months and only have movies available in theatres, but I think most people would just be happier with a single service that could give them all the older movies over having to sign up to a bunch of different services, and still having to rent individual movies a-la-carte to be able to access everything.

      • I currently pay for: Netflix, Amazon Prime video, Disney+ and CBS all access, hbo no longer has anything of interest to me... and I still vpn and torrent stuff. Is obvios Iâ(TM)m willIng to vote with my wallet. The industry is forcing me to torrent Stuff. Make everything available on fewer platforms and price correctly, movies first are for Sale only, then high price rental. Stop playing games and let me rent at a fair price.

        • Re: From what I've seen (Score:4, Insightful)

          by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:44PM (#60680790)

          I'm quite annoyed at what the rental prices are. Back when renting physical items was a thing, it used to cost be about $1 to rent older movies that had been out for a while at my local rental place. This was on VHS, which would need physical location to store and would need to be replaced after a certain number of rentals. With digital content, we are at the point where movies cost $5 or more to simply rent them. I would rent a lot more and pirate a lot less if older movies could be rented for cheaper prices. It should not cost the equivalent of a week's worth of Netflix to rent a single movie that was released many years ago and that most people have probably forgotten about.

          • What's even worst is that in a lot of cases, you can buy the DVD of the movie for less than half the rental price.

          • Redbox is still pretty cheap and a lot easier than the old rental stores used to be. I still use Redbox from time-to-time when I want to rent a movie but don't want to pay $5+ for it on a streaming service.

          • From the perspective of the movie studio, renting and pirating are the same thing.

          • Netflix still does DVDs by mail, and that selection dwarfs their online offerings. Depending on how many movies you watch a month that might make sense for you

          • Someone below said that, to the MPAA, renting is the same as piracy. That's more or less true. This is why VHS movie rentals from small rental stories could be cheaper than the big places. Like find or pause a VHS on that blurb that appears after every movie on VHS. You'll see that loaning or displaying in public, is considered a violation. So you know when you were a kid and they put on a movie that the teacher brought from home for you to watch? Well, that teacher is technically breaking the law. As such,
            • Use of copyrighted material in education is fair use in many cases, so the teacher may have been in the clear. It's an unclear legal area.

              • Use of copyrighted material in education is fair use in many cases, so the teacher may have been in the clear. It's an unclear legal area.

                The last I looked at the fair use law, that's not the case. The education usually refers to the copyright material itself being the subject. If the teacher was showing beauty and the beast on a rainy day because there's no class work that day, that doesn't apply. With that said, even educational videos are usually purchased with explicit educational license. In short, if the class was about animation and the video was paused to analyze the animation technique or color theory or the like, then yes. If it was

      • Let me preface what I'm about to say with that, I don't agree with what the MPAA has said/put out at all. It's obvious that they care more about control and profit than understanding how said technology works. But with that said, region locks have *some small* validity. The first case is cultural difference. Some movies being censored, edited, etc. before they can be distributed in said country. The worst example would be movies in China forcing removal of anything that might slightly depict Taiwan as a cou

  • Seems like we've got another game a Whack-A-Mole going on here. While legit streaming services are setting up all over the place, it seems like Tor and VPN are being used to fake locations, totally confusing the studios pricing plans.

    Information wants to be free, but it gets stopped by paywalls.

    • also preventing them for imposing geolocation restriction's on content people want so in most cases can't get them on local option's.

    • Information wants to be free, but it gets stopped by paywalls.

      This

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Right.... Location-Locking is the real threat. What we need is a law prohibiting any service provider, particularly online content providers that offer digital software, music, videos, books, or other digital media, from selectively blocking, limiting, charging additional fees, or reducing in any way what content selection can be accessed by a customer who has paid for based on the customer's IP address, region coding of their IP, or any kind of location data such as GPS, or even to limit by EULA from

      • You're missing something... most content providers charge the same throughout the USA, but World copyright laws vary, and some places have economic conversions.

        Worst offender: Spain. No respect of US copyright. There has to be some blocking of their Internet or else they'd share it all with the world.

  • Whack-a-mole (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xonen ( 774419 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:11PM (#60680630) Journal

    Even if we'd outlaw any kind of encryption and verify all available content online is licensed, we'll just be back swapping USB keys with our neighbors.

    Remember TV and video, vinyl and cassette, radio and walkmans, there's always a way around and privacy-conflicting technical 'protections' or limitations are not going to help. Give it up already. Put your effort to make a deal consumers can't refuse. Last i heard Netflix is doing good business.

  • It is in the interests of The People for Congress to create copyrights to promote creative development.

    It is also in the interests of The People to have secure crypto to prevent panopticon monitoring, as billions around the world labor under, a boot on their face, forever.

    The latter is vastly more important. The former doesn't even work in dictatorship or censorious countries, sadly including democracies more and more.

    • The latter is vastly more important.

      No. That doesn't matter. Democracy, free speech, consumer laws, advocacy groups, human rights, baby seals, and kittens, all of these pose a threat to legitimate streaming platforms. Therefore they all must perish in the flames, lest Hollywood be deprived of its rightful profits.

  • Your lies and fake news generation about this fact is ridiculous. Shitty movies and greed is what has done the damage.

    But keep on believing the bullshit.

  • Everything is a threat! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:29PM (#60680706)
    Remember, just the existence of the Internet was considered a threat. VHS tapes were a threat, DVDs were a threat, Redbox, Gnutelle, bittorrents, The Pirate Bay, everything that comes around seems to be a threat.
  • to understand that VPN is not a circumvention technology. Yes, it can be used to jump between networks in different countries but its core purpose is not circumvention.

  • Region Locking (Score:3)

    by meerling ( 1487879 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:40PM (#60680782)
    So they are pissed off that they can no longer say people in a particular country can't watch a particular show.
    LoL, I feel so bad for the movie industry no longer being able to prevent people from using their streaming services :D
    It's like if the meat industry decided to block all selling of bacon in Colorado and gets pissed when Coloradans start driving over the border to buy their bacon!
    • If everyone can watch shows from other countries it will erode national identities leading to everyone in the world thinking similarly and world peace. Wouldn't want that.

  • Don't region limit content (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kryptonut ( 1006779 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:46PM (#60680798)

    Simple....if you stream to any country, people will pay for it. I live in New Zealand and there are a few services that have gone as far as region blocking based off credit card country of issue - so even the VPN's are no good.

    There are 2 types of people that pirate content, those who would never pay for it and would pirate it anyway - and those who would happily pay for the content, but cannot due to their geographic location.

    • Re:Don't region limit content (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bsolar ( 1176767 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @03:08PM (#60680896)
      It's always interesting how corporations want to reap the benefits of globalization (cheaper labor and product materials) but prevent consumers to reap the same benefits.

    • Fuck it, sail the seven seas.

    • There are edge cases where that works out poorly, such as workers from other countries who get a posting in a New Zealand office for a year or two. They're generally not able to obtain local credit cards because they are not permanent residents so they're in a double bind: they can't watch their streaming subscriptions from home (except possibly over their corporate network) because of IP address blocking, and they can't buy a local one.
  • If they would just stop geo-restricting their content, the problem would go away. The amount of people willing to pay for a VPN to pay less for Netflix because it costs less in some other country should be close to zero. Geo-restrictions are what makes this happen, that the damn industry is, after several decades, unable to adjust to the fact that the market is now global. How hard can it be?
  • Is the MPAA now the arbiter of legitimacy?

  • that could deliver any show to millions of homes at once with out having to go to the movies and watch from the comfort of my couch and 120" projector.

  • the MPA and its members need to reconsider their goals, or at least their methods, for the best ROI (profit). location is not, and never has been, a proper basis for licensing. instead, it should be who, and their cultural groupings. the technology of the past has not provided a means to deal with this and location was the only viable workaround. it became so methodical that everything was done in terms of location, even licensing contracts.

    the technology exists now (digital encryption) to deliver conte

  • They want you to buy rights for each region you plan to view in.

  • There's a reason the summary is so short. (Score:5, Informative)

    by BitterOak ( 537666 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @03:33PM (#60680996)
    There's a reason the summary is so short. The technologies mentioned in the headline are barely mentioned at all in the report. I downloaded the 85 page report and skimmed through it looking for references to VPNs and Tor. The report mostly deals with the state of copyright legislation and trade barriers and taxes in various countries in the world. I finally did a search for the word "VPN" and it occurred only once in the entire document in a brief paragraph under the United Arab Emirates (I'm not sure why they were singled out.) Clearly the focus of the report is not on VPNs or Tor: those technologies are barely mentioned. So the headline is a bit misleading. Still the paper is an interesting read for those interested in the state of copyright legislation and its enforcement worldwide.

  • This whole region locking thing is basically around the idea that exploiting the bid/ask spread of different markets is THEIR RIGHT and you are an evil pirate if you go around it.

    If a product in one area is cheaper because that area has suppressed wages and economy, it's MY RIGHT to exploit that and buy the product there then have it shipped to my market.

    This means if they decide to raise the prices just because people in my market are more wealthy, I can avoid that and buy the cheaper one from the other ma

  • Region Locking = Artificial Scarcity due to Greed (Score:3)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @03:42PM (#60681038)

    Fucking cluestick to the MPAA:

    Look, I _want_ to pay for online content but I can't sometimes due to the stupidity of Region Locking, aka Artificial Scarcity, "Exclusive" Licensing Deals based on Geography, shitty Price Gouging, and Forced Obsolescence when a streaming platform loses a license. As a result I don't even bother with shows (old or new) that I otherwise would have rented or bought. I'll go without the hassle of using a VPN and just buy the damn BluRay because I can watch whenever I want to.

    Is it ANY surprise that some people pirate when there is NO LEGAL alternative???

    STOP putting up artificial barriers for customers who WANT to pay for digital content. This isn't fucking rocket science. Stop with the bullshit licensing deals. The digital world DOESN'T depend on artificial borders.

    You had ONE job: To allow the customer to BUY your product and you couldn't even do THAT. Whining about how people are using VPN isn't solving the problem. Just SELL me the fucking product already!!!

    Playing these mind games with "Time Limited Exclusive" tells me you have ZERO respect for my time and property.

    The software world does this bullshit too where you can no longer buy older versions. Gee, people pirate because they don't need the overpriced new version. Go figure!

  • It's always something, isn't it, with them?

    First it was VHS tapes (which, ironically, ended up opening a whole new industry for them)

    Then it was 'that internet thing'

    Now it's "the pandemic bruh, and all those snazzy technologies from 'that internet thing' again!"

    Why oh why do these industries expect to be rescued/protected all the time when they're failing??

  • I agree, in the same way that the existence of cars pose a direct threat to pedestrians.

    I assume the issue is that people are watching things in unapproved countries? Like a Canadian logging into Netflix using an American IP address, to watch a movie that hadn't been planned for release in Canada yet? (I didn't read the whole article)

    But it doesn't matter, lets be serious. People have been bootlegging region locked software (like games and dvds) since the beginning of time. Also people have been stealin

  • ... in Estonia, this seems like bull. We. Don't. Get. The. Shows. And Google ads tend towards Russian, the language of the hated occupant.

  • What does the movie industry plan on doing, we aren't china, there is no "great firewall". The chances of you stopping VPN's are zero. You can't legislate against them, they are also used for legitimate purposes.

    MPAA rep: We don't like VPN's
    Gov rep: Why?
    MPAA rep: because they don't let us track people and they confuse our pricing models
    Gov rep: Go on...
    MPAA rep: we want you to block VPN's
    Gov rep: ROFL

    • MPAA rep: We don't like VPN's
      Gov rep: Why?
      MPAA rep: because they don't let us track people and they confuse our pricing models
      Gov rep: Go on...
      MPAA rep: we want you to block VPN's
      Gov rep: Show me the money!

      FTFY

  • The Oatmeal [theoatmeal.com] captured this perfectly a while ago, fits with many of the comments so far. At this time this [theoatmeal.com] was even funnier - fortunately this has been resolved.
    The media mogul overlords somehow to fail grasp the two rules: 1) Make it Easy, 2) Make it Cheap. If what they offer is effects either of these, even in part, then people will go look elsewhere. The $ they allegedly lose to "piracy" would be significantly reduced because even people who pirate are prepared to weigh up the time and effort of piratin

  • ... is this one of those "Memories" from the 1990s?

  • Blind leading the blind (Score:3)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @06:39PM (#60681682)

    The Movie Industry folks are simply clueless and would rather go down kicking and screaming clinging to their old, outdated business models than joining the 21st century.

    When you refuse to change, your clients will find ways around your stubborness.
    Overpricing, region locks, exclusive content locked to certain providers all primary contributors to their problem.

    That problem being: When folks are denied an affordable and easy method to obtain the content ( they are even willing to pay for ), they'll find other methods to obtain it. In many cases, the un-official channels even provide a superior experience / product than the offical ones do. No DRM, no regional-locking, no unskippable ads, etc. etc.

    Instead of the Industry acknowledging the fact that their own practices are the root cause of their issues, they take the easy way out ( as usual ) and blame everything ( and everyone ) else for their failures.

    Pro Tip: Adjust your business model to match the century we now reside in, produce content that is worthy of our attention and you'll never have any financial issues to worry about.

  • Bullshit the threat is coming from Hollywood and celebrities.
    The content cartel!
  • The Movie Industy is out of touch. They're stuck with an outdated distribution model that they want everyone to use.

    The reality of geographical monopolies (exclusive distribution rights) is laughable for the internet.

    It would make more sense to offer a commission on each refer link that a browser has than try to force people to use a specific site that is local to something that is not relevant. If I have a Netflix account with a billing address is in California, but I'm in the UK for the week, why is
  • Movies ? They force a full half hour of ads on you at full volume, then expect you to watch a movie someone has paced-Make it simple to pay, the rest is just nonsense...and the moviehouse>cable>broadcast mode is just history now.

  • Oh God. The reason VPNs are a problem is because the movie industry wants to sell/license the same damn content again and again to the same streaming platform separately for each geographic region. This makes sense when you have to use cable networks or transmission services that are specific to a geographical region.

    It doesn't make sense for internet streaming because they internet has no real concept of geographical regions apart from artificially contrived region locking.

    These morons are doing MP3 all ov

  • We should just turn the internet off and keep RIAA and MPA happy. Then we can go back to our caves and watch rented DVD's. Yay commercialism over the advancement of the human race.
  • How about the movie industry stop charging so much for what is mostly crap movies anyway.

    Is it really necessary to pay actors a lifetime salary for one movie? (I know - not the case mostly...)

    I'll bet that if a low price were charged for both streamed and theater shows, they'd sell a LOT more.

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