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Piracy Technology

Russian Cinemas Are Showing Pirated Movies Downloaded From Torrents (torrentfreak.com) 112

Posted by msmash from the not-the-onion dept.
Andy Maxwell, reporting for TorrentFreak: In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, several Hollywood studios announced the immediate suspension of new releases in Russia. Unexpectedly, some Russian theaters are still able to show movies such as The Batman on the big screen but this isn't down to the studios. The movies are sourced from illegal torrent sites and few seem afraid to admit it.
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Russian Cinemas Are Showing Pirated Movies Downloaded From Torrents More

Russian Cinemas Are Showing Pirated Movies Downloaded From Torrents

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  • "Unexpectedly" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You, Andy Maxwell from torrenfreak, call it "unexpectedly" while you yourself reported on: https://torrentfreak.com/eset-... [torrentfreak.com]

    This was totally to be expected, even before the Russian government officially endorsed copyright infringement of Western intellectual property.

  • Oh no (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Captivale ( 6182564 )

    Won't someone think of the Hollywood billionaires?

    They won't stand for this. After all, piracy is wrong and they have moral standards. Unless China is involved, in which case go ahead and commit genocide, we'll point our cameras slightly to the left to avoid getting it on tape when we film blockbusters there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Copyright is an agreement by a jurisdiction that they will protect IP owners from infringement. These may extend to multiple jurisdictions with treaties. However no one has the obligation to respect others laws or treaties. The US does not participate in the international prosecution of war crimes by its soldiers. The US decided a few years ago that it would manufacture and sell land mines. Copyright law in the US IE uses primarily to protect Mickey Mouse and no other country necessarily has to comply with

  • Russia is at war (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DMJC ( 682799 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @06:19PM (#62500828)
    Why would Russia care what their enemies think? Also why would they respect laws from foreign powers that took $300 billion in USD reserves from Russia? This isn't very complicated.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Because someday they might want to rejoin the human race.

      • Right. And we'll be willing to overlook the pillaging and mass murder of civilians and indiscriminate bombing of hospitals and schools, but FUCK YOU for stealing Batman movies and showing them in a theater!

        They are welcome to return to normal relations any time they like, they'll just have to pay to rebuild Ukraine for a while first.

        You break it, you buy it. And they broke the ever-living shit out of it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          There are both multiple crimes here, and multiple *perpetrators*.

          The owner of some movie theater in Moscow showing pirated movie is probably not responsible for shelling a maternity hospital in Ukraine. His crime is *minor*, and his "victims" able to take care of themselves. Nonetheless those victims will demand compensation. They should go somewhere near the back of the line when it comes to restitution, but there's no particular reason to dismiss their claims if their damages can be exacted from that p

        • And yet the US gets away with pillaging and mass murder of civilians and indiscriminate bombing of hospitals and schools when waging war. US points fingers at others but does not acknowledge the wartribunal in the Hague except when it suits them.

          • Precisely, thank you!

            At least a small section of population have their eyes open and haven't been brainwashed by their gov and media, and see the blatant double-standards.

            As Nelson Mandela correctly stated, "if there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the USA. They don't care for human beings." [youtube.com]

            Remember "carpet bombing"?
            Sickening.

          • Oh, the whataboutism justification. How intellectually dishonest of you. Two wrongs clearly make a right, right?

            And I totally forgot that the US spent months shelling cities into rubble and actively blocking the ability for civilians to evacuate.

            Why is it that some people justify horrific atrocities because someone else did something not even remotely as bad? But you know what? Even on a far smaller scale, it was unforgivable when the US did it too, numb nuts. At least the US did what they could to limi

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

              Pointing out hypocrisy is not whataboutism. Western countries operate under "rules for thee but not for me". Name a western country that sanctioned the US for invading Iraq. Name one that sanctioned France for bombing Libya. Or one against Saudi Arabia for doing the exact same thing against Yemen as Russia is doing in Ukraine. Countries that claim to stand on principles but quietly ignores them when it suits them are hypocrites and should rightfully be called out for it.

        • Right. And we'll be willing to overlook the pillaging and mass murder of civilians and indiscriminate bombing of hospitals and schools

          Well, Americans seem to overlook the same when their own government does it
          So maybe just as with the raping and pillaging of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan (only in recent past), they easily forgot, perhaps American might also have a short memory of Ukraine?

          they'll just have to pay to rebuild Ukraine for a while first.

          Americans, the epitome of justice in the media?
          Meanwhile, behind the scene, stealing millions or billions of dollars worth of foreign resources, such as Afghanistan [theguardian.com], a form of collective punishment, leaving the population in abject poverty.

          • Oh, so because one country was a bad actor and did bad shit, that means everyone should look the other way when another different country decides to be a bad actor and do bad shit?

            Seek medication.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        When they want to rejoin, all the IP violations will be pretty much ignored, provided there is income and guarentees for private corporations that they will not be affected. Look at all the IP violations that China has done, and how companies (mainly the US) still kiss the dragon's clawed feet.

      • Because someday they might want to rejoin the human race.

        ... or whatever left of it in fallout shelters.

      • Re:Russia is at war (Score:4, Informative)

        by Tom ( 822 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @05:20AM (#62501944) Homepage Journal

        Once you step outside the western world media bubble, you'll find that Russia is much, much less isolated than you think.

        Sure, almost all countries raised their hand on the costs-me-nothing virtue signaling UN resolution, but almost no countries outside the western block join in the sanctions, and some have intensified relations with Russia since then. Especially in Africa, Russia and China are quickly replacing Europe in trade relations.

        • Re:Russia is at war (Score:4)

          by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @06:01AM (#62502018)

          Because, as we all know, African trade value greatly exceeds USA+EU combined, and is able to replace it very successfully.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tom ( 822 )

            Depends on whether your perspective is the next quarter or the next quarter century. Africa has been growing much faster than western countries for the past decade or so, at something like 6% while GDP growth in the US, for example, has never exceeded 4% in the past 20 years and has been negative several times.

            Africa also had the luxury of simply jumping over some development steps. Landlines aren't much of a thing, but mobile Internet is huge. And digital payment systems such as MPESA were common there bac

            • Yes, because Russia is definitely able to wait a quarter of a century for Africa to pick up the slack.

    • Isn't it still some special operation according to Russia? All the sanctions we're outlined perfectly clearly when all their forces were massed on the border - if anything this is an impressive amount of follow through on promises made if an invasion happened.

    • Re:Russia is at war (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @06:59PM (#62500980)

      True, Putin does not care. There is rampant theft and it's the new virtue in Russia. They are stealing Ukrainian grain, Ukrainian tractors, even Ukrainian toilet seats, and yet Ukraine has never been an enemy to Russia. But Russia sends it's troops over and calls them heroes, but then freaks out when one thing is blown up just barely over the border on their side. ("not fair!" the bully cries, "you aren't supposed to fight back!")

      • Re:Russia is at war (Score:5, Informative)

        by ChatHuant ( 801522 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @01:16AM (#62501666)

        They are stealing Ukrainian grain, Ukrainian tractors, even Ukrainian toilet seats

        You know, despicable as this armed plunder is, what is really, really terrible is that Russians are stealing Ukrainian people, especially Ukrainian [yahoo.com] children [businessinsider.com]. It's inconceivable - to me at least - that such barbaric behavior can happen in 21st century Europe.

        • And even more inconceivable how tepid the response of the "free world" has been. If there's ever been a reason to risk a global conflict, this is it.
    • That's correct comrade! Why should they care about Copyrights when they don't even care about human lives, and not invading another country by all means? Victory at all cost comrade.
    • You're right, but on the other hand why would we give a shit? Either way, we don't get the money from them viewing those movies so meh, fuck 'em doesn't affect us either way.
    • all that matters about this news is that the companies that are STILL doing 'business' with those maniacs realize 'business as usual' is IMPOSSIBLE and them too cut their business relations TOTALLY.
  • These guys must be having a field day. Licensing fees? What's that? Oh, you mean profit? Right.

  • Returning to "normal" after this invasion snafu is becoming even harder every day. Once the dust settles, Ukraine becomes free again, it will take a really long effort to clean up Russian mess.

    Yes, they are at war, and could care less about copyright. Sorry, I messed up. They are just doing a "special military operation" while everything is normal. Nothing to see here. Anyway, if they ever want to go back into civilized society, and not end up as "North West Korea", this too will come to account.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      While this is just an unimportant detail, it really shows how truly Putin has fucked over Russia. Well. Put in a dictator, get screwed. Never has worked any other way. But the amount of failure we are seeing in such a short time is impressive. The bad thing is that this will only make him try harder. Lets hope they manage to get rid of him before he does a lot more damage.

      • Re:Return to normal (Score:4, Insightful)

        by youngone ( 975102 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @06:59PM (#62500976)
        Russia has never had any other type of leader, and except for brief periods in 1905, 1917, and 1991 has never even had the hope of a representative government.
        If Russia manages to get rid of Putin they will install another one just like him. Not that the average Russian has any intention of getting rid of Putin, or any way of doing it.
        • Yeltsin is the one who agreed to support USA's handed picked.... Putin.
          • That is the first time I'm hearing that the US picked Putin to take over from Yeltsin, and I'm not buying it.
            I do love a nice conspiracy theory though, so feel free to explain.

    • Russia has been a nation where theft is tolerated and ignored for decades. That is, as long as the theft is against foreigners or the lower classes. 15 years ago we tried to sell our product in Russia and the Russian resellers flat out said that they would not sell unless we added more security features because otherwise they'd only sell one copy after which every potential customer would have a clone.

      • ...15 years ago we tried to sell our product in Russia and the Russian resellers flat out said that they would not sell unless we added more security features because otherwise they'd only sell one copy after which every potential customer would have a clone.

        If the situation is that bad, then it tends to question how a "reseller" exists in Russia. How exactly does that capitalist concept work? Are there only a dozen people selling anything there? Seems to be.

        • Because the security features would help. Ie, the issue was licensing of features, as well as verifying that the licenses match the serial number, etc. So with authentication they customer can't just get an old refurbished machine on ebay and then clone the software and license file for it. I'm over simplifying to avoid giving too many details.

    • Yes, they are at war, and could care less about copyright. Sorry, I messed up. They are just doing a "special military operation" while everything is normal. Nothing to see here.

      Rumor has it they are going to actually declare war Real Soon Now, which under Russian law is a legal step towards instituting the draft. That should be fun for all involved.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leptons ( 891340 )
      *couldn't care less

  • Uh oh. Another thing that won't end well for them. (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @06:25PM (#62500852)

    Now Russia is going to have fight the MPAA ...

  • Great news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ickleberry ( 864871 ) <web@pineapple.vg> on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @06:42PM (#62500904) Homepage
    Two positive news stories about torrenting in succession! I love it!. Obviously I am against Putin/War but its great to see torrenting coming back into vogue. Everyone I know seems to have converted to DRM services in recent years, much to my dismay

  • SInce most world nations have already pulled out the stops to punish Russia as much as is possible - well now what can you do when anyone in Russia does anything not considered legal internationally?

    Patents mean nothing now, except being helpful instruction for production.

    Copyright is of course out the window, since you can't punish them anymore for public viewings.

    Taking any property in Russia for your own - again no possibly of punishment, just grab whatever you like!

    • Of course if you do want to participate in any of that IP pillaging that you just wrote about, it requires living in Russia, under Putin. That'd be a hard pass from me, my dude.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tekram ( 8023518 )
      Russia owes $120 billion to western banks and another $100 in assets left stranded by western companies in Russia. There will be a balance to settle when and if Russia pay reparation for the loans, damages and lives lost.

      • Russia owes $120 billion to western banks

        I'd have a little more sympathy for that if the U,S, had not blocked Russia for paying with the international funds thay already had. Those funds should have been automatically used to pay off western debts, but then I guess that would mean less awesome seizure funds for the U.S.

        There will be a balance to settle when and if Russia pay reparation for the loans, damages and lives lost.

        Ha ha ha no. Russia holds the cards here, and by cards I mean vast quantities of

        • Russia may hold (natural resources) cards, but it doesn't hold all of them. There are other suppliers, and Russia is likely to discover that "desperate" nations will switch to them, and may never come back. And for energy (i.e., oil) in particular, the world is moving to alternatives that nobody needs Russia to supply.

          And sanctions are not "stupid" -- they are the logical non-military step to take in order to apply pressure to a misbehaving nation like Russia.

        • So what would you do, then, as you are clearly an expert at international relations? If sanctions are "stupid" then you are reduced to the following choices:

          1. ignore a tyrant dictator that is rolling tanks into a sovereign country neighboring it, and then act shocked and surprised when the next neighbor to the west gets the same reaction, until he invades and takes over a country you actually care about or have a mutual defense treaty with (which leads to...)

          2. the end of human civilization through nuclea

          • I am not an expert in international relations but, as you have pointed out yourself, choosing option #1 or option #3 just delays choosing option #2. If sanctions aren't sufficient and #2 is inevitable, I'd argue that we ought to get to it. Of course, I don't think #2 is inevitable. And, more importantly, a stronger conventional military response might actually reduce the chance of nuclear war. The longer the whole Ukraine thing goes on with Putin screaming nukes, the more likely such a thing is to happe

          • Once you show you are afraid of #2 you have nothing left - that tyrant will keep doing whatever they want.

            And we will keep accepting it. That's the way it has always worked and that's how every US President has postured except this time. I am 100% sure we all know that was a big mistake but we would like to justify it somehow since it's already done.

            So we can only keep making verbal noise or sanctions type of signaling

            (it is just signaling for the simple reason that EU & US are importing more than anyon

        • Russia may have some much needed natual resources.

          But the Western world holds alot of things that Russia needs as well.

          Even the homegrown Sukhoi Super Jet passenger aircraft needs western components.
          https://www.aerotime.aero/arti... [aerotime.aero]

          Or for that matter, Russia's own military equipment also needs western components.
          https://fortune.com/2022/03/22... [fortune.com]

          And the recent difficulty around the world in getting any sort of computer chips / components due to covid is probably magnified a 100 times in Russia now. And sinc

    • Re:This is the price of harsh sanctions (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @06:57PM (#62500970) Homepage Journal

      Sure; this is why the whole idea of "maximum pressure" is dumb. You always want the other side to be worried about escalation.

      But I'd argue that sanctions in this case aren't really about pressure of any kind. No amount of sanctions will get Putin to climb down off his horse; this is about starving the horse out from under him. In other words destroying Russia's war fighting and political power.

      By that measure the post 2014 sanctions were more effective than anyone gave them credit for. They were never going to prevent Putin from trying to grab Ukraine, but they did ensure that when he did it, it was with a technologically crippled military.

      • this is about starving the horse out from under him. In other words destroying Russia's war fighting and political power.

        Not a possible outcome as long as other countries continue to buy gas and oil from Russia.

        In fact limiting who can buy Russian gas and oil has made it more desirable and thus Russia richer in the end. Just look at the conversion rate from USD ro Rouble,... better now than before the war started.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Well degrade then. I agree an embargo on gas and oil would be more effective.

        • If that was the case, why isn't Russia asking for more sanctions?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

            I'm not so sure about that. They voluntarily turned off gas and oil going into Poland and Bulgaria.

        • Russian oil sells for a 30% discount over other grades so it clearly is not more desirable. Prices are so high right now, though, that Russia is still getting a lot of money.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        In other words destroying Russia's war fighting and political power.

        Napoleon and Hitler both tried to do that and we all know how that ended.

        Russia isn't some backwater country. Well, it certainly is backwater outside the major cities, but it has a huge amount of natural resources and industrial capacity. It may have to go back to lower-tech weapons, but I'm fairly sure it could keep running this war for a decade without even sweating.

        • Sure, they could. In fact, they already did in Afghanistan from '79 to the beginning of the collapse of the USSR. And that was probably one of the major factors behind the collapse.

          Do you think the Russian people have a decade of war and international isolation in them after having a taste of being part of the global community for 25+ years? Can the Russian economy survive that long with decreasing customers for their only exports worth mentioning (oil and gas)? Europe isn't going to just sit there buyi

          • The Russian people are going to be forced to endure another 25 years of war and isolation. They really don't have a choice. And if millions of them starve to death, Putin won't care. In fact he's likely to conscript more soldiers and have them die. It saves food and it makes it harder for the people to revolt.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tom ( 822 )

            Do you think the Russian people have a decade of war and international isolation in them after having a taste of being part of the global community for 25+ years?

            I don't know. But neither do you or anyone else. And because of that, our leaders betting the lives of millions of Ukrainians on the fact that Russia will just stop wanting the war is immoral at best.

            Plus, Putin isn't exactly a young man, with rumors of bowel cancer and parkinson's - does he have 10 years left in him? If he kicks off, does the next guy in line have the same appetite for folly? Will the Russian people accept this bullshit from anyone else?

            I'm afraid if history is any indication then the next one will be worse and we'll all wish Putin was still around. Yes, you laugh now, but we can dig this up in ten years and see.

            • For the record, I wasn't being rhetorical. I was genuinely asking because I don't know.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Tom ( 822 )

                Like I said, I don't know either. But our fucked-up leaders all behave as if they did know, and they're betting the house on their magic number, and we all know how such stories end.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

        Sure; this is why the whole idea of "maximum pressure" is dumb. You always want the other side to be worried about escalation.

        Exactly. If you're wondering why Israel hasn't "put the pressure" on Russia, remember that Iran is supplying terrorists groups with a vendetta against Israel, and Russia, despite being is very friendly with Iran, has not supplied them with help for their nuclear weapons program.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      SInce most world nations have already pulled out the stops to punish Russia as much as is possible - well now what can you do when anyone in Russia does anything not considered legal internationally?

      Patents mean nothing now, except being helpful instruction for production.

      Copyright is of course out the window, since you can't punish them anymore for public viewings.

      Taking any property in Russia for your own - again no possibly of punishment, just grab whatever you like!

      Except Russia might want to rejoin the

      • So you are expecting content pirates to play ball and not put unaltered versions of movies on the Internet all of a sudden? How exactly would that work - you would need the entire internet to play ball with that - even one torrent shows up for a movie that doesn't have your "additions" included and it's all effort expended for nothing.

    • Well, the traditional sanction for the state permitting piracy has been to permit the aggrieved trading partner to engage in piracy right back. The idea is that if the first state's industry is harmed, they'll bring pressure to bear on their government more effectively than foreigners can.

      Antigua was granted the right by the WTO to pirate US works as a sanction because the US was enforcing laws against internet gambling (affecting Antigua) in a way that the WTO judged to be discriminatory. That said, the re

  • I've the solution (not to piracy) (Score:3)

    by franzrogar ( 3986783 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @06:45PM (#62500920)

    but to the murderer Russians:

    all IPs from Russia will only show newspaper about Russian crimes against humanity.

    Nothing else will resolve: no Universities, no VOD, no shops, just the list of their crimes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jabuzz ( 182671 )

      I immediately took the almost unprecedented decision to simply block all Russian, Belarusian, (Ukrainian because who the hell knows who is in control of what), and for good measure North Korean IP's from accessing the HPC facility at work. That sort of blocking is almost unheard of in Universities. Took a week to implement because I was abroad on a skiing holiday at the time of the invasion.

      Admittedly we don't have any users from these countries but we had noticed an unsuccessful targeted attack from IP add

  • Whereâ(TM)s Prenda Law when you really need them. Oh wait we are talking about Hollywood movies not porn, dears!

  • If they're sourcing cinema exclusives from the usual places, the real crime is charging Russians actual money to watch potato quality video with a big ass 1XBET ad banner on it. Cam rip quality has gone down the toilet ever since the big piracy groups all gave up/got busted.

    It's worth just waiting for a proper web-dl release these days.

  • I'm not sure why this is "unexpected" to anyone. Russia has something to gain but absolutely nothing to lose from violating copyrights, patents, or confiscating western assets at will. I'm sure internally they just call it counter-sanctions against the west for confiscating their money, assets, etc. The problem when you max on sanctions, is that you are left with no more stick to enforce things like copyrights or patents. The only stick left is world war, which (hopefully) no country is going to start over

  • Ironic (and not for long) (Score:3)

    by ugen ( 93902 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @07:30PM (#62501080)

    Ironically, most (first screen) torrents are (or used to be) movie theater recordings made in Russia.

  • Is going to throw them in the cellar.

  • Disney/Marvel should seed an illegal copy with pro-ukraine subliminal messaging throughout the movie.

  • Wait... (Score:3)

    by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @08:34PM (#62501250)
    So they weren't doing that before?
  • Putin's cancer is a good thing.
  • I would love to see the MPAA or Studios try to sue Russia and the theaters

  • Seriously? Unexpected? Only to people who know nothing of Russia - the country where both the local Facebook equivalent - VK - and the local Google equivalent - Yandex - have an entire section dedicated to videos where you can stream any current Hollywood movie you want.

    IMHO the most unexpected part is that they're using torrent copies for this instead of just streaming it directly. Probably want to make sure that there's not network trouble in the middle of the show.

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