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.
Re:Free movies, then and now (Score:3, Interesting)
If movies were simultaneously released on DVD and in theaters, would anyone even go anymore ? I sure wouldn't. Between the cell phones, commercials, children climbing the back of my chair, and the dude smoking in front of me, I think it's a safe bet I'd rather stay home.
And if the movie would be on tv at the same time as on dvd, would you still buy the dvd ?
My point is, there is a reason that movies first appear in theater, and that a dvd is released before it airs on tv.
I had a roommate... (Score:5, Interesting)
(His "crowning" achievement at the time was cracking a particular game in which the code was stored encrypted, then once loaded from disk, decrypted before running - basic self-modifying code. He dug around the assembly code and figured out how to copy the decrypted code back to disk, and disabled the decryption routines, so the disk only contained the real runtime code. This proves if it can be protected, it can be cracked...)
Also, I had a relative (now deceased, but not from anything the RIAA did... *grin*) who was into downloading these cracked films. When we were going thru the estate and cleaning his house, we found around a hundred CDs burned with copies of all kinds of current films. I looked at a couple and was shocked at how bad they were. 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.
So it seems to me that the danger from these guys is incidental to Hollywood. I can't see that they're really losing that much money from these pirates. It's about bragging rights, not enjoying the movies.
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. Depriving someone of legally due money is theft, no matter whether it's property that is removed or information that is copied.
But in the end, I suspect that the monetary damages due to this copying are less than the net costs to Hollywood from aggravated and disenfranchised consumers.
why are subject lines needed on existing threads (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I still don't get (Score:1, Interesting)
And the reasons in this article are very true. The people do it for no other reason than to be faster than the next person. There is no need for making cash out of it, and if you do fellow pirates will shun you.
If you think pirates are in it for the money you are wrong.
Gangs? IRC a precursor to USENET? ROFLMAO! (Score:2, Interesting)
Referring to file traders as "gangs" and thereby evoking the aversion to violence in one's own neighborhood, is unwarrantedly hysterical when applied to people using computers and watching movies.
The sad part is, Hollywood's surrogates such as this article's author will likely succeed in creating this kind of unwarranted hysteria. It's all a part of your unnatural conditioning.
A more balanced article would have given coverage to the debate over whether anything is actually "stolen" during the process of noninvasive duplication... and whether the artificial concept of "intellectual property" has a basis in any reality other than commerce.
When commerce is not involved (i.e. copying for free, when one would not have ever paid for it anyway) it is difficult to understand how the owner of this "intellectual property" has somehow been deprived of anything whatsoever.
Yes, the duplicator also gains something for his efforts, but this is the inherent nature of information itself. It is something fundamentallly nonmaterial, which lends itself naturally to replication. Value can be multiplied, and for free.
The very term "intellectual property" therefore contains a contradiction.
Though it is possible to keep secrets, ultimately nobody can truly "own" information.
If I memorize a song I hear on the radio, and later sing it with a friend while driving, have I somehow "stolen" this song? I'm not even pretending to have written the song; I'm simply repeating it for pure enjoyment. That is an innocent act. I'm sure that similarly, movie traders all have the dignity to leave a film's credits intact.
If you really believe that duplication constitutes stealing, then whenever the owner of the song I was just humming finds out it is missing, they should try to file a police report on the missing information, and see how far THAT gets them.
Oh wait... nothing is missing? Well then!
The BitTorrent effect (Score:5, Interesting)
"Without this duplication and distribution structure providing content, the P2P networks would run dry. (BitTorrent, a faster and more efficient type of P2P file-sharing, is an exception. But at present there are far fewer BitTorrent users.)"
Huh? When was this article written? In Jan 2005, when this article was posted, they don't consider BitTorrent a major P2P player?
Re:Free movies, then and now (Score:5, Interesting)
Screen Quality (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing which I really need fixed for movies is to reduce the amount of commercials before the show starts and (although I know it's really not feasible) some way of allowing me to watch at my own convenience rather than picking from a small set of times which don't start until well after work is over and largely conflict with other things I have to do during the day. *wry grin* Again, the amount of commercials is a factor. Theoretically, I can watch a 2-hour movie (when you can find one that long anymore) starting at 4:45 and still get to 7:00 play practice. Then the previews start, followed by commercials, followed by more previews. I know many people who don't even bother showing up for movies until 10 minutes in because they know the movie won't start until then. It says something that The Passion of Christ actually had to advertise that there were no previews or commercials before the movie. (Which was nice, particularly as this was one of the longer films)
Comments from a mexican (Score:4, Interesting)
The whole bulk of piracy done in here is not DVD bootlegs, or even ripped online stuff. It's cheap VCD's recoded versions of the movies, available for $5. Some are even recorded at the theaters (you can see the shadows of people walking).
Frankly, how many people download ripped & divx-encoded versions of a movie, if they can just purchase the thing (either legally or illegally) and put it on their DVD or VCD player? (cheap chinese VCD players are sold at local markets, too - and I DONT mean supermarkets, but common cheap markets with low-profile merchants).
Taking into account that nerds who spent hours in front of the monitor, are a minority of the global population, the MPAA shouldn't worry about online distribution of the movies. The "complete DVD ISO" downloads usually take _HOURS_ to download. Who will download 4.5 or even 8 gigs of a ripped DVD? come on! IMHO it's much more convenient to go to the store and purchase the thing. I can purchase Shrek 2 at my local walmart for $21.95, and a VCD rip for $5.00 with the merchants near the subway.
(A very different thing is legally purchasing anime episodes with prohibitive prices, specially if you don't live in the US).
Maybe what the MPAA fears is that the next generation of DVD players will be DivX enabled. But I bet it won't be until 5 years when these babies get mass marketed, and only THEN common people will start downloading divx rips of their favorite movies.
So, if purchasing the actual DVD from a local retailer (or a copy from a black market merchant) is much easier than movie piracy, what the heck are the MPAA complaining about? Are online groups REALLY the ones they should be going after?
Now *THAT* (blaming income loss on online piracy) is what I call a "load of bullshit".
cam rip vs. buy a DVD (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I had a point there. It might have been that I, as a consumer, was prepared to spend good money on this movie (see it twice = $18.00, DVD=$25.00), but Hollywood's obsession with control meant that I could only buy one ticket, and I had to wait around for the DVD. There was a small chance I would have settled for the cam rip, if it had been better quality, and then there's more lost money.
It would be interesting to see the studios release films on DVD right after the theatrical run finishes, but then they would bitch and moan about "nobody watches the movie because they're just waiting for the DVD." They won't be satisfied until they can erase our memory of the movie when the closing credits roll, and charge us for each viewing.
-paul
Thomas Jefferson (was Re:Disturbed) (Score:5, Interesting)
13 Aug. 1813Writings 13:333--35
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line between the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which are not. As a member of the patent board for several years, while the law authorized a board to grant or refuse patents, I saw with what slow progress a system of general rules could be matured.
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Sorry folks, this is my canned response on this topic. Because yes, some of us really do not "get it." Thomas Jefferson is the man you are quoting, and you clearly do not understand the kinds of radical limits he placed upon IP rights. And right, the intent of the person quoted is of no consequence...
Re:explanations (Score:2, Interesting)
Movie Copying (Score:3, Interesting)
Online piracy?
Peer to Peer file sharing networks?
:-)
None of these.
It was a first generation copy from a DVD master at an official movie distributor. Made by a permanent employee, with no payments, etc. I am told he/she was just "doing a favour". Lord knows how many copies were made! We just borrowed the disk, and gave it back.
If Hollywood cannot get their own houses in order, then I really do not see how they can reasonably point the finger at anyone else. Personally, I would not stop at Hollywood, but would include the RIAA also.
For what it is worth, I will now buy a copy (when it is officialy released), since the kids (and I) thought it was so good