BitTorrent Gives Hollywood a Headache 694
fudgefactor7 writes "Although the MPAA and the RIAA, and practically anyone else who has an interest in protecting their intellectual property rights online, are fighting against P2P programs like EDonkey, Morpheus, and Napster, BitTorrent is coming under even greater scrutiny, albeit with less actual success so far, and that is giving Hollywood a headache, since they really don't know what to do about it and they can't go to Cohen and moan. Once he let the genie out of the bottle there was no way to put it back in. And with the likes of PeerGuardian, et. al., it only gets harder for the corporations to put the virtual, and legal, smackdown on file sharing."
Re:What's the problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I don't think BitTorrent will be much of a prob (Score:1, Interesting)
Private Trackers (Score:3, Interesting)
So sites like suprnova are wayyyy to open and as time goes by the smart people have moved away from such sites.
But there are private trackers as well they have.
- Alot of people
- Alot of content
- Good ratios so speeds are good
Nothing like suprnova and they are monitored carefully by the owners, so how are the MPAA/RIAA going to monitor these?
PeerGuardian (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Simple solution. (Score:5, Interesting)
No it wouldn't. It's only illegal to break encryption if it forms an effective copyright protection measure (I forget the exact terminology, but that's close enough). In this case, it wouldn't actually be protecting anyone's copyright, so they would be legally entitled to break it.
and give out the key in a special license, so that anyone/anycorporation/anyorganization that uses the key in any way forfeits all ability to punish anyone/anocorporation/anyorganization for it's contents.
The legality of such a license is questionable, at best. First of all, can an encryption key (a purely functional item, usually automatically designed) be considered copyrightable? If not, then you do not need a license to use it. Secondly, can a license take away a person's rights to their own IP? I wouldn't have thought so.
IANAL, etc.
Peerguardian (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Either way I can't say that I think it is obvious in any way that it should be legal to keep a tracker just because it does not actually hold the file. Its only purpose in existance is to provide access to the file, and also, the hashes that it keeps are generated from the file. While some people are tempted to compare the trackers information to plain linking I think it is a flawed argument. While the tracker only points out where each file fragment is available from the pointed to hosts are not there for any other purpose than to be pointed out by the tracker. They are if you will not really practically reachable in any other way. In that sense one can just as well see the tracker as an integral component in a system that as a whole is illegal.
Re:I don't think BitTorrent will be much of a prob (Score:2, Interesting)
Facilitating crimes? It's become a cliche, but it's worth reminding ourselves that introducing a new vocabulary to change the meaning of common and well-understood ideas is a tactic as effective as it is disingenuous, yet a tactic that demands not only tacit acceptance on everyone's part, but also a measure of credulity as that typically found on the AM airwaves for its success. Put another way, you need to (and often can) fool all the people all the time.
How else to gain advantage than re-frame the discussion? Instead of concerning ourselves with (or being amused by) the mundane activities of ordinary folks who, when children, were taught to share, we can all become law enforcement officials. Just like on TV. But why just mouth the words when we can complete the picture with the requisite uniform, badge and perhaps a sidearm.
Aiding and abetting? Providing material support? Or maybe offering expert advice and asistance? How about conspiring to commit? It was George Bush who said "There ought to be limits to freedom." but my guess is that both he and his former attorney general John Ashcroft would be just as proud.
It'll never happen, but... (Score:1, Interesting)
First of all, there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. Peer to peer networks will get better and more secure, up to the point that nobody knows what anybody is sharing or downloading.
Secondly it won't stop people from going to movies or buying stuff... I still like going to a movie because it's just a different experience than seeing a movie at home. So is a concert. And sometimes when you really like something very much you just feel better buying it knowing you support the artists that created it. I know I'm not the only one that feels that way. (This way making lousy holywood movies might actually be BAD for business too...)
There are plenty of alternate opportunities to make money. I would love to buy stuff online if I would know it's just good quality with no hassles, and the prices were decent.
Finally, the current business model is outdated... legalizing the sharing of copyrighted material will get the companies looking for new ways to do business NOW, and will give the greatest benefit to the consumers. In the end they'll have to do that anyway (due to the first reason).
And as an extra bonus, the crime rate in almost every country would go down immensly (no more illegal file sharers! YAY!)
private communities (Score:2, Interesting)
but they can be found, and it easier who has access to them, and all the warez is in one place, so you can sue each user to a huge amount.
now with bittorrent, it is quite easy to setup a private webserver with a forum, torrent files, and a tracker rejecting unknown users. that does not create much traffic, as most data flows between the members directly. if the site is found and the server is taken in: it only has
also downloading torrent files is not illegal.
and I hope nobody is stupid enough to have tracker log files, so there is not very much evidence for legal battles.
even more important is that with bittorrent a
hundret people with everyone only donating small resources (dsl line, one central server) can have a huge impact.
Re:So many legit uses (Score:5, Interesting)
The article is full of quotes about film-industry people bitching about how difficult it will be to destroy bittorrent. "It's very difficult for an interdiction company to get in the middle of that system"
Uh-huh. Yes, the internet is resistant to people attempting to destroy it, that's part of the design. The worrying thing is how many people are completely open about wanting to do so.
" [John] Malcolm of the MPAA declined to say whether the trade group intends to sue Cohen" - I think that says it all really, that such options are even being considered. You may as well sue the founding fathers for allowing people to speak in public.
Re:I think BitTorrent users are harder to sue (Score:4, Interesting)
they would have to keep track of your online BitTorrent activity for quite a while to collect multiple infringements.
They also need to:
I think many of these are the same reasons IRC and Usenet can go along without being bothered too much, plus the critial mass of people aren't there, but that's how a lot of the files get out to FastTrack or BitTorrent I'm sure.
The Stuff You Can't Get (Score:5, Interesting)
My most recent downloads, for instance, have been copies of Sifl & Olly (which hasn't been released on DVD) episodes of the BBC's Spaced (which, while released on DVD, is only available in the UK on region 2 media, and I'm in the states), and the Drive-By Truckers Pizza Deliverance, which is woefully out of print. In the case of the Truckers, I already own a copy of the record, but it's beat to shit. Supposedly they'll be re-releasing it sometime in 2005, and I'll undoubtedly be buying myself a new copy. In the meantime, however, I'd like to be able to listen to it.
I'm one of those folks who would happily purchase the stuff I pull via BitTorrent... if I could. It irritates the shit out of me to be snooped online, and to read article after article about the RIAA and MPAA pissing and moaning over downloading, when they don't really seem to be paying attention to what is being downloaded.
Sure, there's a shit-ton of folks dealing in warez and publicly available media, but there are also tons of sites dealing specifically with stuff people seek that can't currently be purchased legitimately (I don't understand downloading a crappy boot of a movie destined for DVD release, or downloading a movie that can be purchased for a few bucks online or rented. Frankly, it's a waste of my bandwidth). You'd think they'd look at the popularity of, say, Sifl & Olly torrents and say "Well shit, there's a market. Maybe we should release a DVD of that stuff."
And hey; how about not pricing it outlandishly (a la Carnivale or Six Feet Under)? Nothing makes me consider downloading more than knowing that, by purchasing it, I'm voluntarily allowing myself to get screwed.
Re:Legally (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the real problem with going after torrent users. Unless the accuser actually downloads the file from the same torrent, they have no proof that the file is actually what it says. Once they do this, though, they are distributing their material knowingly.
So,
Re:I don't think BitTorrent will be much of a prob (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's make a little example:
Now, in torrent terms:
BigCorporation1267 comes along and sees the library has InfringingBook612. What do they do?
Instead of going to the source (author), or having the distribution of the book pulled (publisher), they go to the library (tracker). "You're aiding in the distribution of infringing materials! Stop or we'll sue!"
The library itself has neither the funds nor manpower to take this to court; if anything, they would likely win a case. Yet, they have to roll over to the big guys.
It's a great plot, at that. Make the library the scapegoat when the book publisher is truly at fault for distributing infringing materials. Of course, the blame should really go to the author, but it's quite hard on the internet. So, take down the library, annoy a bunch of people, and the corporations win. In their own minds, of course; they're not stopping the content, so they can still play victim later. Marketing brilliance, really.
TV (Score:4, Interesting)
Not! (Score:4, Interesting)
It is incredibly common for studios to offer samples of their work without compromising their rights to to it.
This PeerGuardian bs again? (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, can someone once and for all tell me how PG makes it more difficult for corporations to track down file sharers? All the have to do is use a public network, right? I just don't get it. Do some think they'll sit behind a special kind of RIAA network to scan people and have totally missed the news of PG mentioned everywhere?
Have we got any data on blocked RIAA connections?
People mentioning PG is always talking about the software like it efficiently blocks the organizations you've picked.
Re:Peerguardian (Score:3, Interesting)
But aren't RIAA getting a lot of their money from lawsuit by out-of-court settlements? I mean, few people have the lot of money they wish to spend on getting a lawyer and fighting in court.
Re:Why don't they use it instead (Score:3, Interesting)
The plan is to have people pay a weekly flat fee (much like you would a cable bill) and have access to all the shows broadcast on the BBC-owned channels over the past seven days, as well as previews of new shows before they made it to the BBC's own channels. They, of course, would come with DRM - the shows would become unwatchable after seven days - but I thought this was a fairly reasonable trade-off. He also suggested (in an official BBC capacity, just for the record) that a distributed 'BitTorrent-like' download system could be used to take the load off the corporation's servers - he went to great pains to reinforce that 'the BBC did not support illegal downloading or filesharing' and that they would lock down their transfer method rather than just using BitTorrent, but he did say that 'the BBC supports the idea of using distributed downloads of legal material'.
I think this fills all four of your points, and it's nice to see a guy with a big position at a major broadcast corporation start seeing sense - not all people in corporations are evil, and Matt Locke is genuinely nice guy - if the BBC's idea works out it'd be nice to see some of the American networks follow a similar pattern, but to be honest I can't see it happening - you guys always seem to be a lot more 'closed' when it comes to distributable content, and I expect most broadcasters would still be too scared about people cracking into the system... I expect the BBC have less to lose financially if people do still get material illegally, as anyone with a TV is already paying them with our TV licence fees whereas most Americans could just ditch cable altogether if someone cracked a system like this, but that's no reason for a few not to maybe try it if the BBC gets this plan up and running.
And as for a similar style to iTunes, I got to see a mock-up of the client - brushed metal everywhere - seems everyone's taking a leaf out of Apple's style book
Re:I think BitTorrent users are harder to sue (Score:3, Interesting)
Just consider that it is within fair use to distribute brief quotes and excerpts. Not that I would expect that half of the movie would count as such, but if there were a system whereby 100 users were each responsible for 1 minute of a movie and some index told them where to get each minute then I'm not sure that there is anything illegal being done by the uploaders, nor is it clear that the downloader is doing anything illegal. If bit-torrent can faciliate this sort of defense then I'm sure that bigbiz will have a much harder time attacking it.
Re:Legally (Score:4, Interesting)
That depends on your legislation. In Canada, for example, you only infringe copyright if you intended to infringe it. The high penalties associated with infringement of copyright, ie. criminal sanctions, leads to a high burden on the crown to prosecute.
So if a tech-unsavy person is uploading while downloading as part of the protocol, s/he is likely not intending to infringe copyright in the uploading, and therefore likely not guilty of an infringement.
However, the downloading itself may be an infringement, and by virtue of clicking the link, you have shown intention (though shown, it's not proven; accidental clicking, etc.).
Incidentally, I do not know what would happen if you were downloading a copyrighted movie you already own (fair use/dealing), and you were aware of the uploading. In that case you may be infringing copyright, but at the same time exercising your right to a backup, though to exercise that right through the bittorrent protocol, the only means of acquiring a backup given the DVD copy protection, you must redistribute and inherently infringe portions of the copyright.
RE: hashes (Score:3, Interesting)
Might have some validity, but I think it's still a stretch. The original point (legally speaking, anyway) of concern over "derived works" was focused on people doing slight modifications to existing code and attempting to resell it as something new and original. (EG. If I have access to the source code to Outlook Express email for Windows and I change the screen colors and default fonts, some of the wording and dialog boxes, and put the folder list on the right instead of the left, I can't run around selling it as a new email product called "MailMaster 5000 Pro".)
A hash, in and of itself, is a very small chunk of alphanumeric data that doesn't contain enough code to conclusively prove it was only able to be created by using a specific original work. (After all, I could write a small program to generate random hashes all day long and theoretically create one that happens to be identical to one made the "proper way", by generating it based on a specific file.)
Re:Legally (Score:4, Interesting)
How to poison BitTorrent for Dummies (Score:2, Interesting)
Target audience: RAII, MPAA, BSA
Step 1:
Get a DSL or cable account on every major ISP.
Step 2:
Join the torrent for every movie or song you want to poison. Repeat this for each ISP.
Step 3:
After you've downloaded the file, alter a few key bits every few dozen KB. You may need to use sophisticated methods [slashdot.org] so checksums match.
To throw people off, host a few non-broken files of stuff that's legal to freely share, e.g. Linux distributions.
Step 4:
To fool technology like PeerGuardian, change your IP address every few days at random intervals.
The end result:
People unlucky enough to grab a segment from you will probably get at least 1 altered bit, resulting in a broken download. In the case of sound or video, it may not make it unplayable, but it will mark it as a bootleg copy.
Step 5:
Pay your ISP bills and compare this cost to the net increase in revenue, and realize you are in the hole.
Half the Point, and then some (Score:1, Interesting)
The idea the something like PG is some 100% successful bastion of solitude is clearly bull.
On the other hand, as such systems move into use they will tend to increase in efficacy.
PG is orthoginal to a spam filter. But unlike spam, the Internet Address space is reasonably constrained.
So Peer Guyardian like systems, as they develop, tend to partition off known "problematic" peers.
The real problem will be with cross contamination. If an offender switches IP addresses, their previous actions on the old address leave the _next_ guy to get that address stuck out in the gulag.
So addresses that cannot be changed easily (like _some_ government sites and larger corporate assets) can be rather effectively told to "stuff it" and left to play in their abreviated version of the internet. This could be quite effective over time.
Copntrapositively, one should expect the poisioners to eventually have to adopt the tactics of the spammers. That is, the P2P track-and-poision outfits really need bot-nets of compromised machines to "borrow unused bandwidth" from widely distributed machines to use for the probing and poisioning.
[Tinfoil-Hat]
Consider for a moment a network of something like set-top internet enabled boxes (say X-Boxes, Tivos, Web-TVs, or DRM-infested Windoze) contolled by large companies. Suppose these boxes had idling deamons that did things like online updates, and were spread all over the country/world. It wouldn't take much to patch-in a bot to allow any consumer point-of-entry into the internet to be used for all-but-one-time check of a P2P server or a local machine.
Consider also, those media-server boxes that let you play media files from your computer into your TV or sterio. How hard would it be for such a box to send out a single UDP datagram to the internet if it "felt like it" after it saw a "questionable media file"?
If that box was _also_ online-updatable, how hard would it be to updiate-in a bit of local spyware to check up on a client, and then update it back out once a decision had been made.
[/Tinfoil-Hat]
Technologically speaking, we are in an easy-to-proliferate arms race. To some extent, failure to play the MAD game (using tools like PG etc.) is just rolling over for a good nuking.
but like any good arms race, the tools of today are always flawed and will always need to be teamed up as an ongoing strategy. And lots of them will get very dated very quickly.
So PG (etc) could/will reach a critical density, effectively increasing ones safety to a non-trivial degree. At which point the attack will have to change.
That the enforcers will eventually need to play on the same level field as the least-legal denominator (spammers) is a foregone conclusion.
Except that the enforcers will play the EULA card when the tiny portion of their customers who care, notice that their "private" systems are being used as weapons platforms (often directly against their owners).
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
Re:This PeerGuardian bs again? (Score:3, Interesting)
as for the effectiveness of PG:
http://www.dmeurope.com/default.asp?from=f&Arti
"Indeed, Akshay Patil, a student at MIT, whose paper, Identifying Sources of Spoof Files and Limiting Their Impact in the FastTrack Network, discusses the phenomenon, notes that spoofing has become a considerable problem for the FastTrack network - the network used by Kazaa - with downloaders of popular songs finding a spoof rate of 50 per cent of tracks."
"As the spoof files come from a fairly small set of IP addresses (the record companies or anti-piracy firms, obviously), a filter that blocks files from these addresses produces, according to Patil, a *75 per cent reduction* in spoof files. PeerGuardian is a small firewall application available for download that blocks and logs connections to these addresses. The block list is maintained by users and updated daily."
a link to the MIT paper:
http://web.mit.edu/patil/Public/805project/
Lets make this clear:
1) Spoof files are used to catch sharers on kazaa, and to generally annoy people.
2) In tests an MIT student found that he was getting 50% fake files on some hits, all from a small number of IP addresses.
3) By using PeerGuardian with these addresses (long since added to the db, this project is out of date) he was able to get a 75% reduction.
Sound ok?
We never said it was 100% but 75%+ (we've improved a lot since 2003) reduction is pretty good, no?
If anyone has any problems please come on IRC and myself of someone else will be glad to talk to you!
irc.methlabs.org (port 6667)
#methlabs
(or click the irc link from methlabs.org)
Thanks
Joseph Farthing
Administrator & News Editor
Methlabs.org
Re:Legally (Score:3, Interesting)
It is an infringement
Intent is codified in at least some statutes in this language or similar through the phrase "knows or should have known". That snippet is from the Canadian Copyright Act [cb-cda.gc.ca].
However, even absent the explicit statutory requirement of intention, in most civilized constutional legal regimes you cannot be imprisoned for absolute liability offences. In other words, if there is a threat of imprisonment, the prosecutor has to show intention. In the least, there is a defence in due diligence. You can't chuck people in jail for transferring something they didn't realize was copyright. The heavy penalties actually seem to work against the regime of copyright enforcement, in this respect.
Re:Wrong? Or right? (Score:2, Interesting)
* The claim of financial losses or damage is mostly inaccurate because it presupposes that the copyist would otherwise have bought a copy from the publisher. That is occasionally true, but more often false; and when it is false, the claimed loss does not occur.
* The claim of loss or damage is partly misleading because the word "loss" suggests events of a very different nature--events in which something they have is taken away from them. For example, if the bookstore's stock of books were burned, or if the money in the register got torn up, that would really be a "loss." We generally agree it is wrong to do these things to other people. But when your friend avoids the need to buy a copy of a book, the bookstore and the publisher do not lose anything they had. A more fitting description would be that the bookstore and publisher get less income than they might have got. The same consequence can result if your friend decides to play bridge instead of reading a book. In a free market system, no business is entitled to cry "foul" just because a potential customer chooses not to deal with them.
* The claim is begging the question because the idea of "loss" is based on the assumption that the publisher "should have" got paid. That is based on the assumption that copyright exists and prohibits individual copying. But that is just the issue at hand: what should copyright cover? If the public decides it can share copies, then the publisher is not entitled to expect to be paid for each copy, and so cannot claim there is a "loss" when it is not. In other words, the "loss" comes from the copyright system; it is not an inherent part of copying. Copying in itself hurts no one.
* Originally written by Rolloffle (British Douchebag)
Defeatist? (Score:3, Interesting)
I got an idea then, change the law so that personal noncommerical use of copyrighted material is allowed to be coppied and the 'il' will drop out of illegal. It is the peoples' law, and it will be changed if the majority of people are 'criminals' under it.
"they will simply push for still more draconian legislation"
What is your arguement, that we give in to the harm done by the idea monopolists because they might do something worse in the future? Well, Neville, I have no doubt they are heading there anyway since their goal is nothing but the total control of information and ideas, so I suggest we not roll over but fight them instead.
"Copyright law is there for a reason..."
Yes, the reason was to promote the creation of new ideas. Now copyright has been perverted to stifile new ideas, and it appears to be getting more draconian every day.
The law tells you we are 'not allowed' to copy and share information, and then the law must be changed to reflect our new digital age.
"The more arrogant you become the harder you will get slapped in the end"
You try the being meek and subserviant method while idea monopolists create a world in which information is despensed like gasoline, and you pay by the letter. I think i'll try fighting for the right to information
WiFi Drive In Warez! (Score:2, Interesting)
Hardware is cheap, people could build a box with a 200gb disk and 802.11g card and hide it on top of a large building or structure. Maybe a pay phone booth, or in an attic of a house. A high gain antenna could be used. These "nodes" could communicate host to host using internet (or another open wireless link, highly throttled).
The clients would be anyone with a notebook computer and a directional antenna. Depending on the city, all one would have to do is point their directional at the site, and wala, warezsite! Think of it as pirate radio with a studiotransmitter link.
Granted the nodes could be DOS attacked, or stolen, but people used to rm the stashes on the FTP servers in the golden days.
In an office park, you could end up wtih "drive in warez"
Tune in next time for "slow bitrate warez trading via Shortwave radio"
Re:About naive, short-sighted, idiotic people (Score:3, Interesting)
Trust me, when the world gets to a massive Depression Mark II, (C) will be the least of concerns to both sides, FOOD will be #1.
Now back to copying music, kids did it in the 80s, swapping mix tapes, did that hurt the industry? The industry doesnt deserve 500 billion status, they made the fake distribution model in such a way that it would maximize profits (like the mafia does), so they have no intention to switching to a zero cost model to give music to the people for 1/10th the price. Uber greed is uber greed, they had their 5 trillion $$$ worth of money for the last 50 years, time to give some back.
Message to musos, make your money on concerts, not CDs, CDs are a free method to 'advertise' your concerts.
Re:WiFi Drive In Warez! (Score:2, Interesting)