Online Groups Behind Bulk of Bootleg Films (& Games)

xasper8 writes "First it was the RIAA, now Hollywood is cracking the legal whip on online piracy." There's a better article about this in the recent issue of Wired that gets more in depth on this. Basically, good background on how file releases get made. <update> Yes, we did have Wired link yesterday as well. My bad.

Re:Disturbed

[Yokaze]

Where is he saying that it is useless and a waste of lives and money? He merely states that there are limits to its success.

What a load of bullshit in the article!

[rbarreira]

I know that media news about technical issues are rarely accurate, but this article's mistakes are a little bit exagerating, I think... "Unlike popular file-swapping networks where millions of files -- mostly for music -- are shared relatively easily, it takes more than a casual effort to even begin to find the right place to download a movie." -- what? "Typically, large movie files are broken down into text that appears to the naked eye as gibberish. Files are distributed through news groups or made available through so-called top sites or private computer servers accessed by File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, an early conduit for exchanging data on the Internet." -- half-right... There are other examples, and if one cares to think about it, many of the stupid statements (like the second one I've shown) only happen because they try to explain things too much. Who cares how the movie files are "broken"?

You are misunderstanding the point..

[goldenglove]

Personally, I feel the central point of the entire article (beyond the obvious revealing of the inner-workings of the scene,) was to reveal the POWER of the scene, and its distribution system. Specifically, near the end of the article, the article mentions a company named "JunGroup [jungroup.com]" that distributed MP3s over P2P, IRC, and FTPs to promote products. Now that consumers actually understand the basics of The Scene, they can begin to accept untraditional business models that utilize the piracy avenues for legitimate distribution. If you look at the JunGroup site, they have a link to their "The Scene [welcometothescene.com]" TV series, a TV series about the inner-workings piracy from a desktop perspective, revealing (graphically) the majority of scene practices (both good and bad.)

Re:Free movies, then and now

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

If the MPAA wants to stop internet piracy, they should stop releasing movies in Asia at the same time as in the USA. A month delay would do it. But for them the quick bucks are more important than internet piracy.

Actually, many movies are released much later in many Asian countries. However, delaying releases doesn't solve the problem much. Only CAMs will be delayed, and not many people actually download CAMs anyhow.

Screeners and Telecines are a lot more popular.

Re:Disturbed

[cpt kangarooski]

Not all federal laws are criminal. For example patent laws are federal, but they are not criminally enforcible. AFAIK the DoJ doesn't care about patent infringement one bit.

You know when they wrote "Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness"? They really ment, "Life, Liberty, and Property"

No, that's not true. First, Tom Jefferson was perfectly capable of cribbing 'property' from Locke if he wanted to. He deliberately did not because he didn't believe there was a natural right to property.

And you know, Movies and whatnot are one's property

No, they're not.

And again, Jefferson would have disagreed with you as well. Google for his letter to Isaac McPherson, and skip down to the bit where he discusses the nature of the patent system, property rights, etc. The same concepts extend to copyright as well.

and it is the governments job to make sure that people have the right to control their own property.

No, it's not.

The government MAY get involved in this, but there's nothing at all that says that they have to all the time.

Warez Scene != Drug War

[aardwolf204]

Members of these so-called ripping groups, also known as warez groups, have created a community referred to as "the scene." It exists primarily on the Internet's back alleys -- private Internet Relay Chat, or IRC

"There are a lot of similarities with the drug war," said David Israelite, chairman of the U.S. Justice Department's Intellectual Property Task Force. "You never really are going to eliminate the problem, but what you hope to do is stop its growth." I'm not sure wheather to laugh or cry. Remember kids, dont copy that floppy.

Re:Free movies, then and now

[Shakrai]

Ever since movies started costing $9-$10 (so $20 for two tickets)

I hear that same argument on /. all the time. Am I the only one that has a cheap theater nearby? Our local "Cinema Saver" (that is the actual name they operate under) gets all the new releases about two or three weeks after they hit the mainstream theaters. Tickets are $2 a person for daytime/$3 at night. You can buy a large tub of popcorn (with refills) for $2.50. There's also the small town theater in a town about 15 miles from me that gets the new releases when everybody else does that has tickets going for $5.00 with affordable food/drink. They only have two screens and the evening showings are usually packed but it's a decent place.

Sure with my first choice I need to wait a few weeks but so what? It's worth it to see it on the big screen and support a local business. Have the big chains completely wiped out everybody else in every other part of the United States except for where I live?

There should be no reason why you can't take your girlfriend out to see a movie and split some junk food for less then $10-$15.

Re:explanations

[Fjornir]

I still think of instant messaging software as a dumbed down version of IRC

I like to think I was there for the tail-end of the IRC glory days, and as cool as IRC was, today's IM software has a lot going for it. I haven't seen opwars on them. No problems with netsplits and nick collisions. No arms race while every server sets their clock back further and further in order to 'win' the above. No crapfloods. None of that "Hur. Hur. Our last OP just lost link -- everyone get out of the room so we can get OPs back!!" madness.

I still think of... webbased bulletin boards as poorly implemented frontends for usenet

I have no idea what the current state of usenet is, but man... When I stopped reading news regularly it was quite bad. SPAM cross-posted six ways from Sunday. Make.Money.Fast... No topical posts... In the .m groups, mod-fiat preventing any honest discussion of a subject if your views weren't in direct alignment with his. I'd say that things have come a long way...

Now pardon me, I need to go get a free iPod and there's a picture of a goat someone says I need to look at.

Why not create a new topic?

[pgnas]

These continual discussions posted under "your rights online" need to be moved to a new topic of their own. I mean, what does this have to do with rights? since when does infringing upon someone elses product become a right? Since when has freely ditributing someone elses product without their permission or become a right?

I suspect that this term right is being used/misused very loosly, see Websters' definition:

" something to which one has a just claim: as a : the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled b (1) : the interest that one has in a piece of "

I don't see how walking into a movie theatre, paying the money to view the movie, recording the movie, and distributing it to all who want to participate in thievery to download it constitute any type of right. Right?

"something to which one has a just claim"

Please explain how anyone other than the people directly involved in the production of a movie apply to the above? Is it because they paid the $8-$10 to see the movie?

I tell you what, if I spent $50M to make a movie and some schmuck with a $500 CamCorder and a broadband Internet connection was caught up in a frenzy of unauthorized movie distribution with a group of his cyber-buddies, I would exercise every power I could to take that group down. Let's face it, computing power is increasing by leaps and bounds, bandwidth is on the upswing as well, eventually, if this was left around and ignored, it could become a problem.

" the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled "

there are way too many people with the sick beleif of entitilement, again, if you paid the price to produce the film in some way, shape or form and you have an agreement with the production company, I would say that their may be some sort of entitlement, and if you are not getting your share, then I suggest you open up the yellow pages because their are piles of lawyers out there that will get the payment you are entitled to.

"the interest that one has in a piece of"

You more than likely did not contribute anything in the line of creativty or monies, you have no intrest therefore you are again, not entitled

"ok, ok, but this should be a matter if civil leagality, not for the government to step in..."

I would suspect then that we would not be talking about rights rather than some breach of contract, or negligence.

just pay the money, if you don't like the movie, then shrug it off, no one owes you anything ... In addition, I agree that all those fatcat movie producers are more-than-likely scum and make too much money, along with those over-paid actors/actresses. I guess if money is your problem, then either boycott the movies, or become and actor/actress or producer.

Please though, don't hand me the line that any of this is some type of right.