MPAA Targets TV Download Sites 810
KenDaMan writes "ZDNet.com is reporting that the MPAA is targeting websites that serve as traffic directors for BitTorrent swaps. From the article: 'Continuing its war on Internet file-swapping sites, the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it has filed lawsuits against a half-dozen hubs for TV show trading.' Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it."
Re:btefnet (Score:5, Informative)
"The six sites sued Thursday include ShunTV, Zonatracker, Btefnet, Scifi-Classics, CDDVDHeaven and Bragginrights."
Re:what? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:MPAA (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Actually that's the ruling about time shifting. (Score:1, Informative)
The average client announces once every ten minutes or so. Considering that btefnet has around one million active peers at any given time, that means that there are about ~1500 announces per second.
While this is fine for actually returning peers, any sort of disk I/O logging is simply impossible.
And a site of that size can't keep apache logs for more than 24 hours or so without erasing them due to disk space issues. In short, don't worry about it.
Re:MPAA (Score:1, Informative)
Sure, the fansubs make for free marketing, but when the fansubs of a series stops and the sales of the legit release suddenly go up for the non-fansubbed episodes, it looks really bad for the people saying "Oh, but I always replace fansubs with the real thing". And since a large chunk of anime budgets come from the U.S. licensing, well... I hoped you enjoyed the decent animation quality while it lasted. Time to go back to the slideshows of the 90's or the badly warped amaturish animation of the 80's and before.
Oh yeah, no more experimental stuff like Kino's Journey, which was largely funded by a U.S. studio that just wanted something different.
Of course, I'm sure you're one of the ones that really is buying everything you download. Someone is, right?
Re:MPAA (Score:3, Informative)
It's not a lie.
Read here [animesuki.com]:
I assume the same is true for TV.Cause the TV Networks need to learn (Score:5, Informative)
What's funny is the MPAA and other companies scream up a storm of how it's illegal and wrong, have they ever stopped to consider how much of a fucking monopoloy tv is?
Case in point, I'm a huge sci fi fan. Take Trek as a main example. Sure if I'm at home during the day around 1pm I can catch TNG/DS9 reruns on "Spike" TV but most people with day jobs aren't home at that hour. Sure I could Tivo/DVR/VHS tape it but then again you have to deal with the inconsistances of stuff being prempted, etc Not to mention you're paying to record the stuff, those VHS tapes and blank DVD's aren't free, if you record it yer at least spending X amount of money on blank media.
So as most people are unlucky to not be able to tape shows, such as my example, what options do we have?;
- Wait till reruns begin/occur. Some shows are already in rerun syndication on other networks. Take Stargate. It has new episodes of SG-1 on the Sci Fi channel. but if you turn on say, the WB at 3 am some nights you catch old reruns of it. This falls into the above example of being able to record such things, as such times, in an affordable manner. And that doesn't take into account the current season of a show. Smallville just ended it's season (I think), so if you missed the last few episodes of the season you gotta wait till the end of Summer when the reruns of that season "catch up".
- Buy the seasonal DVD's. Ok this is my main deterent. I'm a huge Trek fan, have been for 15 years. I own not one season or movie of Trek on DVD. Why? Walk into the cheapest department store there is. Seriously, go to Walmart or K-Mart or Target. See those prices? $80-100 for ONE season of basically any Trek. $80 fucking dollars. I don't need 20 extra DVD's, sure their nice but I just want the series, in DVD format in DVD quality all in one nice little package. I honestly cannont justify paying more than $30-40 per season of a TV show. If you want all 7 seasons of a Trek series, it's almost $800......I can buy a god damn CAR for that (or at least put a downpayment on a nice one). Now some DVD's have become more, economical. This past Christmas when Buffy season 7 came out, they released a holiday package deal, all 7 seasons for around $200-250. That is reasonable. I can justify that purchase for the cost. And you still can find a deal here there, Amazon.com knocks off a couple hundred bucks on big series like Trek, but still not much... Now remember when I said go to a department store? Try a large chain store like Best Buy, EB, Suncoast, Media Play, etc..Double those prices.
- Avaiblility. Remeber how I mentioned the cheap stores and big expensive chain stores? What do you see most of in the dvd sections at Walmart or Kmart? New Releases. Sure they have a handful of tv seasonal dvd's but most likely the last that was released (i.e. you'll find Stargate Season 7 but not Season 1...). So what are you left with? Going to a store that specializes in electronics and shit like Best Buy or Samgoodie, whom have a nice HUGE selection of DVDs and such but charge INSANE prices. ($1200 for all of DS9 last time I checked...)
The quality of tv just doesn't justify things in the end. I mean, for every Trek dvd or Scape DVD that's fairly expensive you'll find CRAP like American Idol or the latest incarnation of Survivor selling like hot-fucking-cakes for half the price. Hell I haven't watched anything on the Fox network in years (except 24) cause every night it's their prime time lineup of "Reality TV" shit. ABC, CBS etc follow either in the same suit or throwing out the 14th different spinoff of CSI or Law & Order o_O
When prices are reasonable or tv schedules become more flexible in correlation with recording media prices then maybe I won't use BT for my source of entertainment.
BtEFnet & ShunTV DEAD - Two Down, 4 to Go (Score:3, Informative)
Let the Migration to Anonymous P2P Begin. (Score:5, Informative)
I think these lawsuits will simply speed up the migration away from P2P to anonymous P2P [wikipedia.org]. Many individuals believe strongly in the freedom of uncensorable speech and many also think that copyright (a monopoly on the free flow of information and a an barrier to promote artificial scarcity of knowledge erected by government enforced through threats of violence) needs to be reformed at best and removed totally at worse.
The more promising anonymous p2p applications is I2P [i2p.net], its Wikipedia article here [wikipedia.org]. It is a network layer and has a variety of tools including anonymous bittorrent [ducktorrent], [i2pbt], [azeureus plugin] (Azureus 2.3.0.0 has I2P code in its core as seen from their release notes [sourceforge.net]), anonymous p2p search [i2phex], anonymous IRC [core], anonymous http [core], anonymous distributed content store like Freenet [Quartermaster or 'Q']. All it really needs is people to share their content (just put it in your files in automatic webpage directory) and anonymous newsgroups.
There is also Freenet [sourceforge.net] which is a useful backup to I2P until I2P develops a well working distributed content store (currently Quartermaster or the defunct Stasher fufill these rolls and are in the I2P core CVS). If you get Frost [sourceforge.net] for Freenet there are a few distribution organisations there as well.
Actually, (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what? (Score:4, Informative)
That they are. The "suprnova" of the porn torrent sites is Empornium [empornium.us]. Pro: leeching is limited by ratio and you cant just create new leech accounts, so the download rates usually saturate your connection. Con: the admins are arrogant assholes.
Re:TiVo Sucks... (Score:5, Informative)
A VCR lets you keep the tapes, you can't take any content off a TiVo. Once you run out of room, you have to delete the show. And you can't record and skip commercials. With a VCR you can pause during commercials.
A) you absolutely can skip commercials with tivo, and I'll bet you head-to-head I can skip my commercials faster and more acurrately. B) you can transfer files off your tivo to your computer/portable media device C) you can burn them to a DVD if you so choose D) your friend could give you said DVD as easily as a tape if he didn't think you were such a know-it-all dick.
-truth
Re:TiVo Sucks... (Score:3, Informative)
Additionally, I can access my TiVo from my job site. I haven't installed the spooler yet, but I can, and get my TiVo down in Mexico. This is bandwidth prohibitive though. If I had more time, I could have my PowerMac serve as an intermediary, get the TiVo video, and stream it to me in Mexico in a compressed format. But as I'm not home long enough to get it working, it's my fault (not Tivo's) that it's not doing it yet.
Also, being in Mexico, I've started to download some things that I don't get down here. Battlestar Galactica comes to mind. I've always avoided the SciFi channel because every time I turn it on its about those damn big worms (Tremors the series). If I'd NOT pirated Battlestar Galactica, then SciFi'd never get a chance from me. Now they have a viewer (once I'm back home, that is).
Finally, I look for Good Eats as soon as it's out. Can't wait to copy that one off the TiVo -- I want it right away.
Re:MPAA (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Animesuki and 4chan are just as illegal as thepiratebay and suprnova -- it's just that the Japanese publishing houses usually don't CARE, because the people downloading the torrents usually buy DVDs and overpriced toys.
Re:btefnet (Score:3, Informative)
Site says:
This domain has just been registered for one of our customers!
Domain registration and webhosting at best prices.
Registry says:
Registrant:
oblivionx btefnet
Domain servers in listed order:
NS0.DEMANDRED.NET
NS1.DEMANDRED.NET
NS2.DEMANDRED.NET
Registry for Demandred.net
Registrant:
Huntington Beach, California 92648
United States
Domain servers in listed order:
NS0.DEMANDRED.NET
NS1.DEMANDRED.NET
NS2.DEMANDRED.NET
But most telling...
Subject of #bt on efnet
* Now talking in #bt
* Topic is 'BE PATIENT WHILE WE WORK THINGS OUT'
Looks like server hop perhaps to avoid there ISP shutting them down.
Re:ALL "Piracy" == Business Opportunity (Score:3, Informative)
See, this is the problem slashbots have understanding copyright. It's not locking up an idea for ever, it's granting the sole right of copying, distribution, performance, public display, and/or making derivatives or an original expression of an idea. To correct your automobile analogy, well not really correct it, just point out where you are wring, Ford is not granted the sole right to make cars. However, they are granted the sole right to make Ford Mustangs. Chevy is still going to make, and well within their right, to make the Corvette and Ford can just go stuff themselves if they want to make their own Corvette. They compete in the sports car market, NOT the Ford Mustang or Chevrolet Corvette markets.
Let's apply this to television since analogies, especially car analogies, are often just plain wrong. fox is welcome to make The Simpson's (I know they don't make it, they have the rights to distribute it, work with me here a bit) and any other station that wants to air or create their own episodes of The Simpson's has to deal with Fox. NBC is welcome to start their own cartoon about a dysfunctional family, they just have to start from scratch and hope they can garner enough ratings to make it popular and compete against The Simpson's. Again, the market is not episodes of The Simpson's it's cartoons or sitcoms about dysfunctional families.
This, in my opinion, is an acceptable "monopoly". FOX and NBC cannot have a monopoly on television though if their shows are popular enough they may obtain more of the television audience than other stations. If you want to compete you have to make a better, more original show than the other studios. If a studio spends the time, money, and effort developing and producing a hot show why should they have to compete with other studios for the same show? If you want to distribute the show across the internet you have to obtain the same rights and if the studio say no you are more than welcome to develop and produce your own internet based cartoon or sitcom and share it however you like. If it's good you might even get a studio interested but don't count your chickens.
Re:MPAA (Score:3, Informative)
One could argue that they (or whoever runs the trackers) are aiding in the process, but it seems that at least under swedish law this is not illegal (yet?).
Re:Yeah, that's kinda the point (Score:2, Informative)
TV shows sent to affilites in the US are still broadcast in the clear for the most part, because many can't decode encrypted ones.
Which means if you have a 'big' (whatever the technical term is) sat dish, you can watch TV shows without ads, in advance, and record them digitally.
It's actually rather obvious which is which. If it has anything besides the network logo, or non-perfect commercial editing, it's from a broadcast. If not, it's probably from satellite and never had commercials to start with.
Oddly enough, thanks to conservative Christians, it's now perfectly legal to sell devices that 'edit' TV shows and movies.
This was designed to allow a DVD player that skips (or possibly just blanks) 'offensive' scenes. I'm sure the law attempts to actually limit it to 'offensive content' instead of ads. But the post office has a law saying you can stop offensive mail to you, and the courts said, point-blank, that the post office is allowed no judgement in that...if you say the Radio Shack catalog is offensive, or third class mail, or green envelopes, they legally have to stop it.
So, legally, it's probably okay, now, to sell a device that talks to a bunch of other devices and lets you vote on where ads are, and skips them if enough people agree.
And what I think the FCC should step in and say is: You get these frequencies for free, and in return you had to provide useful content on them. Well, we're changing the rules. Not only do you have to provide useful content on them, you are required by law to provide in last 48 hours you broadcast for download on the internet, in 30 minute sections, so this useful content can be seen if people miss it.
It can be DRMd and expire at 48 hours, and you can even disallow fast forwarding. Although, of course, the availiblity and format of your net content might be discussed next license renewal. If it doesn't work under Linux, the FCC is going to be waving some letters at you.
And unlike other things the FCC likes to screw around with these days, it probably actually has the authority to do something like that, just like it can mandate a TV station keep a record of complaints and announce call letters on the air.
Re:btefnet (Score:2, Informative)
Re:MPAA (Score:5, Informative)
It's not quite so cut and dry. What is illegal in one country may not be illegal in another. Take America for example, half the laws in America these days seem to be written for the lobby groups and not the citizens. What is considered a copyright violation may not be considered a violation in another country.
Last year (or maybe two years ago) it was ruled in Canada that sharing music was perfectly legal. The judge ruled that having a "shared music folder" on your computer where other users could download copies of the music was tantamount to the public library letting a citizens use photocopier to copy pages of a given book. That is the exact analogy he used.
So while in America sharing music might be illegal and said to violate copyright law, in Canada it is perfectly legal. Even if the MPAA thought we were violating American copyright, they have no course of action to take against us.
While Canada & America and countless other countries are bound by international copyrights, what violates a copyright in each respective country can be very different.
FYI: Smallville hasn't ended its season... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:what? (Score:2, Informative)
That said, there are numerous pr0n torrent sites.
In singapore... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:what? (Score:5, Informative)
Reason: because they have to deal with the worst of the worst kinds of adolescent assholery. They're strict with their rules, and there are generally no second chances. If you want your porn for free, you follow the rules; the fact that the site is so popular is a testament to how many people agree with the mods' enforcement policies.
Or, so I've heard.
Re:what? (Score:2, Informative)
Prostitution is legal in Australia and New Zealand.
The world didn't end. In fact, in New Zealand, the 'sex workers' now have legal rights with respect to their employers (brothel owners) and can take such matters to the Employment Court like any other contractor or employee. The downside for them, I guess, is that now they have to pay income tax.
Legalising prostitution recognised what was going on all day every day anyway....and gave the people at the centre of the industry legal rights they had never had before. Win / win for all concerned. Including the clients, from what I hear.