Online Groups Behind Bulk of Bootleg Films (& Games) 365
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.
Disturbed (Score:2, Insightful)
It actually disturbs me deeply that someone in the U.S. Justice Department is admitting casually that the war on drugs is useless and a waste of lives and money.
Free movies, then and now (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from what this says about the drug war, which is another post entirely, this pretty much sums it up. People are always going to find ways to get access to movies without paying for them.
In the bad old days it was one person goes into the theater and props open the emergency exit door so all their friends could sneak in. (And this probably still happens.)
These days one person goes into the theater and copies the movie and distributes it in DVD or VCD format so all their friends can watch it from the comfort of their own couches. Which are much nicer than those cramped movie theater seats, don't you think?
Re:Disturbed (Score:5, Insightful)
War on drugs is a huge waste of money and can never be won. You will not even get close. It would have been much better if they accepted the fact that not all drugs are the same and differentiated between soft and hard drugs. That would ofcourse empty the prisons of a lot of people and make room for the real criminals rather than a potsmoker. But then the statistics would not look good...
Please, no moralising (Score:1, Insightful)
What *IS* wrong is the methods the MPAA will use against people who copy movies. Watch them chew up the courts redefining what is right and wrong
Re:Free movies, then and now (Score:4, Insightful)
These days one person goes into the theater and copies the movie and distributes it in DVD or VCD format so all their friends can watch it from the comfort of their own couches. Which are much nicer than those cramped movie theater seats, don't you think?
The difference is that these 'friends' are tens of millions of people online. There only needs to be one guy capturing the movie, and the entire world has access within a matter of hours. That's the difference.
Re:Free movies, then and now (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Disturbed (Score:5, Insightful)
That was quite a "logical" leap you made there. Are you superman? Because that was a hell of a chasm to cross to come to the bizarre conclusion you did.
Re:Disturbed (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh wait, duh. The RIAA and MPAA and their "politican contributions". Ca-ching!
ACs out there whining about moralising (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Disturbed (Score:2, Insightful)
"There are a lot of similarities with the drug war,"
Or when will these geniuses realize that the same is true about the war on terror? Of course there are even more lives and money wasted on fighting it...
Re:ACs out there whining about moralising (Score:1, Insightful)
Copyright is a civil issue in my country.
Re:Please, no moralising (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is some homework for you: Produce a popular new multi million dollar feature film. Allow free copying from day 1. Report back to Slashdot on how you are recovering your production cost.
Re:Disturbed (Score:3, Insightful)
explanations (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
Private Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, which is a precursor to the modern instant messaging software, or Usenet news groups that function like bulletin boards.
I still think of instant messaging software as a dumbed down version of IRC and of webbased bulletin boards as poorly implemented frontends for usenet.
I must be getting old ...
Look at the numbers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the numbers:
http://us.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegro
Keep in mind these number are just for domestic lease - only in the United States and do not reflect global sales or rentals.
#1 is Titanic - $600,799,824 in domestic sales. Breath taking - now lets say 1000 people download the movie and 'stole' $8 ea. From the studio... the studio 'lost' $8000... that's
Now lets say the article is wrong and these groups are rampant and it's easy to get ahold of these pirated movies and 100,000 people download them (I'm being very generous here)... so now the studio looses $800,000... that's still
Granted Titanic was the #1 movie - look at #100 on the list - you can do the math at home... the number are still unreal...
To further my point in 1999 Michael Eisner was paid $589 MILLION dollars for his annual salary. If the poor set designer is worried about loosing his/her job to internet privacy, maybe they should stop looking online and start looking at the real pirate.
This is nothing more than greed - who is stealing from who here?
Don't even get me started on the RIAA...
drugs != files (Score:2, Insightful)
Except illegal drug distribution is linear, file sharing is exponential. Big difference.
Re:Disturbed (Score:3, Insightful)
The "war" on drugs has been charactarized as something that was winnable. The cost and the damage to people and society is a reasonable one because someday it won't be needed. Try to remember back to Vietnam (or civics class for the youngins in the audience) and remember when we were stuck in a war where we had no clear conditions for success and no exit strategy or conditions to impliment it in case of failure.
This statement shows an official admitting that there is no clear strategy for success in the "war" on drugs, it is essentially a quagmire where we keep throwing resources at the problem without a net gain. For many this change from a winnable situation to one with no clear resolution would doubtlessly cause their view of the situation to transform from one of useful expenditure to wasted money.
Re:Please, no moralising (Score:2, Insightful)
It's fairly simple to realize the reasoning that Hollywood is putting this false emphasis on piracy causing the downfall of their 1.5-5 rating IMDB movies, because scapegoating is extremely easy to do. By pointing the finger at piracy groups online in order to 'save themselves,' they no longer have to have the self-realization that their movies have been dropping in quality while increasing in quantity for years now, with few exceptions.
I am not attempting to convey that piracy is positive, or even legal, trust me. I know the laws state that copying someone elses intellectual property, and spreading it around is illegal when the product is licensed. Yes, I know that. My argument is simply attempting to realize that instead of making an enemy out of this FASCINATING underground, why not befriend it? Use it's amazing power to distribute legal content to all, rather than squashing one of the most powerful (if not the most) distribution systems on the Internet.
Re:Disturbed (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree completely. Now if people would realize the "war on terrorism" is not, and that it's a war on muslim-extremists with a vague title allowing the "changing of the enemy" whenever more tax dollars are needed, we'd be off to a good start.
Re:Free movies, then and now (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I had a roommate... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Look at the numbers... (Score:2, Insightful)
Is the RIAA really justified by suing some student for $20k b/c he has a few 'illegal' MP3's? The MPAA and the RIAA are making examples out of people and the punishment hardly fits the crime.
Why can I record a song off the radio but not download one? I know, I know - it's against the law... but show me any record executive or musician who NEVER taped a song as a kid...
For that matter when I get a song or a scene from a movie stuck in my head and it plays over and over - am I stealing?
Civil or criminal ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Copying files may be legal sometimes; maybe the guy has permission ,maybe the file represents something more than 80 years old, maybe it's some other kind of 'fair use', maybe it's a file produced by the US Government, etc. Matter of opinion, for a judge to check every time. It is a civil problem; I don't want my tax dollars used to stop it, and I don't want my prisons filled up by someone on the wrong side of this law.
Copying files and then taking money off someone under the false pretence that there is permission is a crime, though, becuase of the 'money' side, and also if intimidation happens along the way. Also might become a tax crime later, if the 'money' is not declared.
Use my tax dollars to stop the money-changing-hands fraud, the intimidation-if-it-happens, and the tax-evasion-if-it-happens.
Re:Free movies, then and now (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't go to movies any more, because we've gone from a point where it takes years for the movie to be released on VHS/DVD (how long was it between the theatrical release of E.T. and the VHS release?) to now, where a movie can be a summer hit, and available for sale before Thanksgiving.
Plus, like was said earlier, I don't have to deal with the annoying habits of other people when I watch the DVD. (And they don't have to deal with mine. I tend to talk during really bad movies... although I was told by several rows worth of people in the theater that I only improved Mystery Men.)
So, the choice, for me, is wait for the movie to come out on DVD and get it then. Avoid the theater, avoid the overpriced snacks, and be able to watch it as many times as I want. No piracy needed, thanks.
Kierthos
Re:Disturbed (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you are some kind of Christian scientist, I presume you are only refering to recreational drug use. Regardless of whether or not you personally would choose to drink beer, smoke pot, eat magic mushrooms, etc. I don't see what gives you the authoritity to declare them 'inherently bad'. marijuana != heroin. Have you been listening to your politicians again?
Re:Disturbed (Score:3, Insightful)
The founders of the country felt that rights were inalienable and NOT created by society or other people. That is, you had natural rights.
I recognize rights on a philosophical level, myself-- basically, anything that does not put force on another person. Putting something in your own body does not, under just about every conceivable circumstance imaginable, force anything on anyone besides yourself. You are not stealing, damaging their property, or hurting them.
I do not live or feel comfortable with your idea of an "ant colony society", where the individual is at the whim of the majority.
So yes, I have the right to do any damn thing I want whether other people like it or not, as long as I do not damage their property or harm them explicitly.
Re:Please, no moralising (Score:4, Insightful)
That's funny. What kind of hell would
Re:You Are An Idiot (Score:3, Insightful)
If the originals goals of copyright no longer require the creation of media empires, then such empires should crumble from the face of the earth.
The "industry" is ultimately irrelevant.
Re:Disturbed (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the fact that half the population is doing it indicates that something is off-balance and needs to be addressed. However, Americans as a whole don't think things through very well and take the logical consequences into consideration. (Witness the current epidemics of pathological obesity and crushing credit-card debt used to purchase non-essential, well, junk.) I don't think the population at large has had a good, long meditation on the economics at work in the content-creation industries. I think that many people fail to see that you don't get something for nothing, that something's gotta give.
On the other hand, I might say: Maybe the activity shouldn't be illegal when there's no way to enforce the law without the asphyxiating our inventive and free society. If the government decides that there's nothing it can (or at least should) do, it will be up to artists, technologists and business people to route around the problem.
One possibility is some iteration of the Ransom Model [theoretic.com]: An artist creates a work, makes excerpts of it available to the public, then demands a certain, fair, one-time payment. Once the payment is made, the work will be released to the public domain. This rewards the artist, although it will mean many fewer jobs for distribution and marketing middlemen. It also feeds the public domain, currently starved by ever-expanding US copyright law, keeping our creative culture vibrant. There are kinks to be worked out, to be sure (this is not a complete business model), but it's an idea.
Re:I had a roommate... (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't think he ever watched more than a few - he was a compulsive collector (like his hundreds of Elvis CDs) and just had to have them, not watch them. He never would have spent money on them.
[...]
Now, this doesn't condone the practice. I still consider it to be theft (no, this isn't flamebait), since someone ends up losing money at some level whenever someone else doesn't pay appropriately to view a movie or listen to a CD legally.
So in the case of the compulsive collector you mentioned, who lost money, and where did it go?
Depriving someone of legally due money is theft
No it isn't. Taking money from somebody is theft. Notice the taking. One example not related to copyright, where somebody deprives somebody else of money is insurance fraud. Notice how it's fraud and not theft. Different actions with different consequences - the same way copyright infringement and theft are different actions with different consequences.
But more importantly, it doesn't really matter whether you think copyright infringement is theft or not. The Supreme Court made it clear that copyright infringement wasn't theft in Dowling vs US, 1985.
Re:I still don't get (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free movies, then and now (Score:1, Insightful)
"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."
Yes, there are a lot of similarities.
Really, I think the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Sharing" in the face of complete disregard from citizens shows just how corrupt the US government has become since Prohibition was got rid of.
Re:Please, no moralising (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes
How do we nurture this art form in a world where the costs of production cannot, as you assert, be recovered?
We wouldn't. But that isn't the world we're living in.
See, we live in the REAL world, and in the REAL world, studios make movies, they make insane profits on them, and people copy them. Both things happen.
Both. In the real world. Not your imaginary world where movie copying = no profit = no movies. If that were the case then nobody would be creating movies while we copy them.
Seems both is happening, and profits are higher than ever. That's the real world for you.
Not bullshit. Errors. (Score:4, Insightful)
Example: Frankly I don't believe the "broken down as gibberish" stuff... if it meant breaking it down as BASE64 posts on usenet
I've done a few reencoding of *unlicensed* (read as: legal) anime episodes (fansubs), just to test the capabilities of Divx and xvid (we saw a
So yes, they're organized. Yes, they meet in private chat sessions. Yes, they do rip dvd's.
Another fact: Pirated DVD's are *obviously* cheaper than original DVD's (otherwise people wouldn't buy them). So I don't think one of these rippers would buy an original - unless it's a title they *love*, and want to immortalize themselves by ripping it and distributing it.
So is the article a "load of bullshit"? I don't think so. Irrelevant? Probably, we all (or at least those of us old enough to have used irc at a time) know such warez invite-only channels do exist.
And yes, I know Wired isn't "news for know-it-all uber-geeks who already know how things are done". It's a good article for common people. Let's not forget that.
Re:I had a roommate... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it is not theft. Theft is when one stoles something from an other, thus depriving him from his property. It was explained on
The phrase 'legally due money' can only be applied to contracts. If you do your work based on a contract then you are entitled to your 'legally due money'. However, if you are not paid that is also not theft. That is a breach of contract and you can sue the other party.
Re:Look at the numbers... (Score:3, Insightful)
"This is nothing more than greed - who is stealing from who here?"
I find it interesting when advocates of getting movies or otherwise unauthorized material via P2P state that somebody else's greed is the root cause.
You have some interesting observations but I'm not sure what your overall point is. Is it that people and companies who make more than a certain amount of money shouldn't be worried so much about losses?
Re:Disturbed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Disturbed (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it is cyclic and naturally goes up and down, as do all trends among fickle teens. In the mid/ late nineties there were plenty of news articles about how drug use was skyrocketing in popularity again and how ecstasy was becoming an epidemic and was going to be the new crack, and so on. Now, there is tons of hype about the fact that it is slightly down. This is all stupid. Every few years, drug use will go slightly up or slightly down. That doesn't mean that every time there is a decline, the war on drugs is somehow working.
Re:Please, no moralising (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2002, I watched a movie nearly every week. They were good for a while, then I noticed that more and more movies really sucked.
In 2003, I tried to watch a movie nearly every week. I was disappointed nearly every week.
In 2004, I watched about three movies in the theater.
The quality of movies took a sudden nosedive in mid-2002 and has never recovered. IMHO, the reason that piracy of movies online hasn't taken off at the same level that it did for movies is that by the time the bandwidth became available to make it practical, there were so few movies worth pirating that it wasn't worth it.
And the lack of originality in movies is starting to become apparent. Hollywood has run out of good movie ideas at this point. The movie I saw last night on the airplane was... well, the same basic idea, the same primary plot twist as another movie I had seen the night before, except that the other movie was from 2002 or so and was actually a good movie. The newer movie was a blatant rip-off in a different setting. Instead of being funny, it was mostly dull. I laughed about four times the entire movie. Thankfully, the flight was three hours late, so they gave us the movie free. I would have been seriously pissed off if I had paid money to see that piece of junk. (Of course, I was seriously pissed off for other rather obvious reasons, but that's another story.)
In any case, to the MPAA, stop trying to blame the public for your ineptitude. It's only going to get worse. The only way to compete with "free" is "good", and if you don't figure that out, your industry is going to collapse. Inept corporations should die, though, so this is a good thing. They will eventually be replaced by corporations that actually understand the needs and desires of the consumer, and all will be well.
Here's hoping the airline industry is similarly permitted to go bankrupt and die. Cheers.
Re:Disturbed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please, no moralising (Score:3, Insightful)
If a law isn't performing its intended function of providing for the general good of society, but a minority has managed to keep it on the books & enforced for their own personal enrichment, then what should be thrown out first - the rights of the society, or the stupid law?
I'm making my argument in the context of REAL capitalism: "law" of supply & demand. Basically, if you provide a good or service that people desire at a cost that people think is worth it, then people will buy it. If you want people to keep paying you, then you have to keep producing a good or service at a cost they are willing to pay for.
Relying on government enforcement to make people pay you money that they wouldn't be willing to pay you in the context of a fair trade is just greedy.
There's always been copying -- we did it too. (Score:4, Insightful)
People who could afford to buy new did so to avoid the hassle, and they do now too. Most grown ups with jobs and other responisbilities don't have the time or inclination to fuck around on Kazaa. It's easier and cheaper to just buy or rent a DVD. Also notice how the $20 CDs sit for months, while the ones in the $7 rack sell like crazy. The problem with first-run music is that it's too aggressively priced.
Copying is mostly done by people who were never going to be customers in the first place, because they don't have the money. But copying reinforces their interest as fans, which the media corps will profit from eventually. A pirated CD today leads to a future concert ticket sale, etc. Even the media corps' own marketing people know this.
Re:Look at the numbers... (Score:1, Insightful)
Now, there is a difference between reading a book on loan and owning a copy of that book. I won't go into the specifics, but the difference is pretty obvious.
As for DVDs, they usually have some form of encryption. Decoding one for reproduction would be against the law. Again, entirely your choice.
Re:Look at the numbers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Our point is that we are under no responsibility to support movie companies. They are not our kids, they are not our parents, they are not war veterans. They are corporations and deserve neither our love, nor our pity.
The movies are still going to be made, because the movie industry is still profitable. As long as movies are made even the poor set-builders would get paid. We have no reason to worry, and we do not feel responsible for the well-being of Mr. Eisner and his friends, so there is nothing wrong with downloading a movie.
Re:drugs != files (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention the extremes that drug addicts go through to feed their habits. They steal, they embezzle, they lie to friends/relatives to extract money, and they neglect or sell their children (yes a Philadelphia woman was convicted of selling her daughter into slavery to drug dealers in exchange for crack). Drug addicts suffer from work productivity and would never be put in the hands of public safety. Society undisputedly suffers from drug addicts.
I don't read of file sharers reverting to such tactics to feed their habits. And I don't see any harm to society from file sharers.
Big difference, indeed.