MPAA to Sue BitTorrent Tracker Servers

Mirkon writes "The Register and Reuters report that the Motion Picture Association of America is planning to begin a legal assault on websites that host BitTorrent trackers for copyrighted movie files. An announcement is supposed to be made by the MPAA President/CEO today, along with help from CEO of private P2P network developer Red Swoosh, and the CEO of BayTSP, 'which offers file-branding and -tracking applications.' Not that they have any vested interests in this of course. Though the articles take care to mention that this action is not against standard users, how long is it until BitTorrent itself is targeted?" Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie. I can't imagine why people would want to download movies when they have that great theater experience to compare against.

Re:SWAP in person!

[CdBee]

offtopic, and this is too.. but I'll point out to you that this site is of no use whatsoever to anyone who has the good luck not to live in the USA, nor is it actually P2P.

No it's not

[scheme]

just went to check on Suprnova to see if it's been taken down because of this, but today it has become a For Pay site! Sad day....

You probably went to suprnova.com or suprnova.net which are pay sites pretending to be suprnova. Suprnova.org looks like it still is the same as usual.

Re:Guess You'd

[Nodar]

I used to be a movie theatre projectionist, so, I have a slight amount of insight into this. The AD ads, such as pepsi, coke, etc, are a function of the theatre owners going for profit, the trailers are a function of the movie studios that refuse to give you movies unless you put so many trailers on it (and the DO check). The new anti-piracy ads, however, were not in place when I worked in this field, but I can suggest they probably come from the studios as well. So remember kids, buy that 1000% markup popcorn!

Finnish Police & BSA Busted BitTorrent Site

[petril]

Tuesday, 14 December 2004

Early this morning National Bureau of Investigation and BSA have busted finnish BitTorrent link site Finreactor for distributing copyrighted material worth of million euros.

According to sources, NBI raided the admins homes today and seized all the computer equipment and storage media for further investigation, but released the suspects shortly after the raid. The site itself has been down since early hours of today. Site had over 37,000 registered members and had links to more than 6,000 pirated releases on BitTorrent network.

Read the Full story [2039.org].

PS. If you are finnish, read this [waymeet.net].

Re:Vote with dollars

[frostfreek]

Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies

Here's little tip:
Even if the DVD advert has disabled the fast forward buttons and the root-menu button, you can still hit 'stop', and then 'menu', which will bypass the ads. Maybe I shouldn't leak my secret, or they'll come up with a bug(feature) for that, too.

'Course, if it's a VHS tape, you can use a pair of scissors... Snip!

Re:"TacoBell won the franchise wars."

[mkro]

Actually, in the European release of the movie all references to Taco Bell were changed to Pizza Hut. Guess because Pizza Hut is so much bigger than Taco Bell here.

Re:I call BS...

[Kaa]

30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it (no pun intended). I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.

It really depends on the theater.

Near the place I live there are several movie theaters. One is an oldish small theater. One is a big shiny megamultiplex or whatever they are called. Obviously the megamulti has bigger screens, better sound system, etc. etc. Yet I don't go there to watch movies. Why?

Because in the oldish small place they'll show me two-three trailers and then show me the movie. That's what I came there for.

In the megamulti I'll have to sit through tons and tons and tons (yes, 15-20 minutes) of commercials before they even get to the trailers. Really stupid and obnoxious ones, too. So I stopped going there.

Re:Reform

[John Courtland]

You are, of course, correct - but only for now. Once ads become super-invasive to the point where a normal person cannot walk outside without hearing and seeing them, people are going to start going ballistic (or at least I will). It's one thing to advertise for shit during a shit production, I'm perfectly capable of tuning it out or not going. It's quite another to bombard people with advertising to the point they have no recourse but to listen to it. I'm certain this is the dream of many marketers.

In fact, I'm all for advertisement. How would I know about cool gadget X without it? But the invasiveness and complete obnoxiousness of the current crop of ads really gets under my skin.

They changed it for the VHS/DVD release too.

[Bob_Robertson]

It's interesting to watch Sly's mouth say "Taco Bell" and hear him voice-over "Pizza Hut". Also, the Pizza Hut sign didn't quite fit into the scenes it is seen in. Just that little bit off that screams "FAKE!"

I wonder if the voice-over was included in his original contract? Hmmm..... Paid by the word?

Bob-

Re:I call BS...

[Ubergrendle]

For Blade: Trinity, I timed it on my watch -- 27 minutes before the first scene from the movie started. I include 6 layers of promotional Movie Studio logos as commericals.

The way they trick you is through having 2-3 minute commercials... you're expecting a 15-30 second spot like TV, but in the theatre you're a captive audience...you can't flip channels. You're very unlikely to get up and leave in fear of missing the start.

In fairness, I sometimes enjoy the movie trailers...but they're still advertisements.

Suprnova looks covered to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on the front page it says:

By using this service, you agree to the following conditions: You may not use this service to obtain or distribute software or any other copyrighted material that you do not have the right to. Any violators must leave this site immediately.

So there.

Correction to my post..

[mowler2]

Crap, should have used preview... Anyways, here it goes again:

Good luck [thepiratebay.org] suing Piratebay [piratebay.org]... :)

Re:Use Earthstation 5 . anonymous filesharing !

[Anonymous Coward]

They are based in palestine which REALLY PISSES off Hollywood. They hate the jews.

Uhm, I'm pretty sure the Palestinians tend to hate the Jews too...

Re:Reform

[MMaestro]

Start creating. Stop consuming.

I know. Unrealistic hippie talk. Lay off the crack pipe. Blah blah blah...

Actually, I would say "This is already happening, look at the machinima scene. Three words : Red Vs. Blue." People are already looking away, just not enough... yet.

Re:Vote with dollars

[sl4shd0rk]

Oh yeah. A good belt in the mouth usually settles it.

"No, I don't want to see Barney, I wanted the Wiggles"
"No, let's watch Barney"
"No, Wiggles!"
"Barney!"

*POWWW*

Have your ever thought about sitting down quietly with your children and hitting them?

Re:ATTENTION

[hunterx11]

You mean Code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act [snopes.com] won't protect me? Damn, and I thought my warez site had foolproof protection...

Re:Vote with dollars

[hunterx11]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to be pedantic.

You see, organizations like the RIAA and MPAA like to say that copyright infringement is stealing.

It isn't. Stealing is taking a tangible thing from someone else without their consent.

The thing is, charging $12 or one cent or 52 octillion dollars to see a movie isn't stealing as long as people agree to pay it.

Overcharging is bad. Copyright infringement is (usually) a civil offense. Stealing is illegal.

Independent films

[Anonymous Coward]

To me the solution seems simple: support your local independent film outlets. Here in Leeds (northern England) we've got the wonderful Hyde Park Picture House, which shows a huge array of independent and foreign films every month, and in an old-style cinema building no less.

We've also got the yearly Leeds International Film Festival, which brings some great films into the huge theatres that normally only show mass-market bollocks (I saw Ghost in the Shell 2 this year, and some very bizarre Japanese shock-cinema last year).

So screw the MPAA and go support the filmmakers who need the money.

way to go : satellite TV

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently compared (for research of course) bittorrent and hacked satellite TV. With bittorrent you wait hours in order to get a screener or at best a divx, and can be sued, with satellite TV if you watch a channel from another country than yours you are not really liable, have a much lower profile anyway (passively downloading less than 100k of hex codes), learn a lot about electronics, physics, encryption, UNIX, and so on, and get to see dozens of three month old movies in DVD quality without wait (except for the occasional key change).