MPAA Cracking Down on TV Torrent Sites 436
sallgeud writes "It appears the other shoe has dropped and the MPAA is now going after sites which link to torrents of TV shows. The beef with redistributing copyrighted material seems to make sense... but I'm wondering if it makes a difference in the world of DVR. The vast majority of downloads appeared to be of content that is broadcast free over the airwaves. I'm wondering how much different this is than going after Tivo? Would these sites have been hit with lawsuits if they had stuck to purely over-the-air broadcasts?"
dupe and old (Score:1, Insightful)
Btefnet isn't closed (Score:2, Insightful)
Is that a serious question? (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL, but I suspect that fair use allows for the former but not the latter. In either case, the difference should be clear, in both intent and in practice.
Much better solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
TV shows are about the only thing I download via bittorrent (and a few books), mainly because I can't watch when shows are on, and it is more convenient than my DVR. The shows I watch already have logos from TV stations, etc., why not run a "drink coke" banner at the bottom from time to time instead?
If they were really smart, they would also provide their own bittorrent tracker server (complete with Google/Overture ads), making it unnecessary for me to go to other sites and be "tempted" to download music and movies as well.
Death to Mickey Mouse, long live the Marx Brothers (Score:5, Insightful)
Mickey Mouse is the poster child for one part of the abuse. In Mickey's case, they are extending the copyright forever so that they can continue to milk the mouse. If you don't like mouse milk, that's just too effing bad. They have also greatly extended the coverage of copyright against derivative work, again to keep the mouse (and friends) alive and "uncontaminated".
The Marx Brothers represent a different kind of abuse. That's a case where they use (extended) copyright to suppress distribution of works that ought to be in the public domain. In this case, those works would compete very favorably with the tripe Hollywood produces--so they avoid the competition by suppressing those golden oldies.
Who said crime doesn't pay?
Re:Is that a serious question? (Score:2, Insightful)
I could either drive over to my mothers and pick up her video, or I can go and download it.
(Of course, there are other perks to going to your mothers on a Sunday afternoon, no bittorrent site I ever found offered a roast dinner)
Once again, they just don't get it... (Score:1, Insightful)
From the MPAA's point of view, it's probably immoral to watch television shows without the ads. I am guessing that this will all come down, once again, to an issue of "advertisers' rights"... basically resulting in a court judgment that a person has zero rights to watch an entertainment program without watching the advertising, even if it is broadcast over public spectrum.
When will this lunacy stop?
Re:I was always wondering... (Score:2, Insightful)
i FREAKING MISSED dOCTOR wHO (Score:1, Insightful)
I am willing to risk Federal Jail and Extradition to the US to watch it, luckily the hassle campaign by the MPAA has had no effect and a quick search returns a torrent.
Copyright infringement should be a small time crime with a small time fine.
I buy some stuff but my rapacious fandom means I need more than I can possibly afford, so I download some stuff.
Perhaps I could agree to pretend I'm watching some adverts or something.
Well yes, they would... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many TV torrents still contain the original advertisements they aired with? I'm thinking in the region of.. hmm... zero? Now, how is all this "free to air" television subsidised? Oh? Advertisements?
Do you see now?
Re:Well yes, they would... (Score:5, Insightful)
slashback (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can you be sued if... (Score:4, Insightful)
YOU CAN BE SUED FOR ANYTHING BY ANYONE. Will they win the case, that is the important part?
.
PBS / Public TV re-broadcast (Score:2, Insightful)
Nature, I Claudius, Colonial House... c'mon you guys love this stuff too, right? Commercial TV is 60% crap, even without the commercials.
Re:Can you be sued if... (Score:2, Insightful)
Before that comes the key question: Can you afford a lawyer? If the answer is no, then the rest is moot.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stories aren't reposted because they're "important". They're reposted because the editors are careless and didn;t notice. If I can't read Slashdot for a few days, I just browse through the "Older Stuff" stories linked conveniently on the right side of the front page.
I get annoyed at this because Slashdot regularly asks me to moderate posts, to improve the quality of the site, but provides no usable mechanism to moderate the editors. Even the email address on is encouraged to send warnings of dupes and errors is rarely answered, sometimes bounces, and is ignored in almost all cases. So now I rarely boither to mod at all; why should I care about the quality of the site when the editors obviously don't? In work I've found it similarly disheartening to be concerned with quality when the managemnent doesn't give more than lip service to the concept.
Re:Death to Mickey Mouse, long live the Marx Broth (Score:1, Insightful)
The natural extension of your "argument" is that the creative people should create one adequately "good" thing, and then they can sit on their arses for the rest of their lives. That most definitely is *NOT* the purpose of copyright.
Of course, I admit that is not actually a problem of the present system, since these days the actual creators have generally signed over all their rights. Most of them make pretty mediocre livings, but they hope for the second round effect: If one of their creations does very well, they can generally start negotiating for much more favorable contracts. The MPAA gang is quite willing to play along with those rules, since it's relatively more convenient to control a small market defined by a few "megastars".
I think the most extreme example is for manufactured "talents" in Japan, where some very mediocre artists are hyped to "superstardom". This has absolutely *NOTHING* to to with creativity, and *EVERYTHING* to do with brand marketing and profit maximization.
Re:Is that a serious question? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since discovering that particular bit of history (I'm too young to remember it personally) I tend to just play things by "no harm, no foul" rules. In this case, that would mean downloading Dr Who, since I was never going to watch it with adverts in place anyway (I'm at uni without a telly, so it's being recorded at home and parents rarely make a point of taping the adverts).
"No harm no foul" is legally unenforceable but imo is very nearly as moral and a damn sight less confusing to live by.
Re:Much better solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is that a serious question? (Score:4, Insightful)
Taping audio/video and passing it among your friends has been going on for decades. Also, that couldn't expand very far due to generational losses. Technically copyright infringement, but way under their radar.
The difference now is your circle of friends has expanded to include everyone online (potentially millions), and the copies they receive are identical to the original, and can be distributed again and again.
Eventually they will come to terms with this, but the landscape is changing too fast for them to keep up.
One of the main problems is people have come to expect free downloading of music and video. Why should I pay when I can get it from eDonkey or BitTorrent for free? In the music realm, iTunes has made some inroads into legal, pay downloads. But free still trumps $1 per track for a lot of people.
Re:Well yes, they would... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if they let those of us who are overseas watch it earlier, we wouldn't need to download it.
Just a thought.
Re:The main issue (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is that a serious question? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is one of the fundamental misinterpretations of online music/video piracy.
I don't believe it's about price or "free" at all, I believe it's about convenience. The question that people ask themselves is, "What is the easiest way to get what I want? Which is the path of least resistance? What offers the most convenience?"
Traditionally it's been easier to just go out and buy the product rather than hunt out an illegal copy, but the internet has turned that on its head. The affected industries have to get their acts together and turn things back around to how they should be. Initiatives like the iTunes Music Store go a long way towards achieving that, but nothing practical is being offered for TV/movies as of yet.
Re:The issue is DVD sales (Score:2, Insightful)
it's just like the radio vs mp3 argument.. there's some weight to it, but not as much as it might look like at first glance...
Re:Well yes, they would... (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to the value that they would have if I were to legally record the show to VCR and fast-forward the ads?
Re:The issue is DVD sales (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh, that's horseshit. The same people who are downloading TV shows are also buying the DVD sets of those shows, if/when they're available.
For example, I've downloaded every episode of Lost so far this season, and burned them to DVDs. I'm still buying the DVD set when it comes out, because it will be better quality and likely have a lot of extras.
Plus, I've lent those DVDs out to friends and gotten quite a few people hooked on the show who otherwise wouldn't be watching (and Lost is a very good example of this, because you can't really pick it up in the middle; you have to have been watching from the beginning to really know what's going on)-- generating more potential DVD sales.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually made Slashdot more fun; I am the honorable type and felt compelled to use the mod points responsibly (when not enjoying multi-K pileons), so I browsed at -1, etc. Since "the community" told me to screw off, I'm relieved of that responsibility.
Just chill and enjoy the ride. Barring a major change, Slashdot ought to be superceded or unrecognizable in two years. The owners are making a lot of very classic mistakes, and they refuse to recognize them as such because they result in this slow, long term degradation of respect, not the instantaneous loss of revenue. By the time they understand, it will be too late, Slashdot will already have passed the inflection point. Slashdot may never "die", but I'm sure it will make a hell of a lot less money.
Re:Can you be sued if... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here are three (Score:2, Insightful)
not THE LAW (Score:1, Insightful)
This is NOT enfocing the law.
This is using the law to support discretionary, and in reality, often capricious, behaviour on the part of the police.
You've made my point with the quoted remark.
The cops USE the law. They don't ENFORCE it.
Yes, I'm aware of 4th amandment(USA context if it wasn't clear from 'Texas'.
They USE the law to circumvent other laws.
There is tacit agreement to this, all the way up the chain of opppression. If the law were really there to 'serve and protect' there would only be one 'law of the road'. It would be, 'you drive safely'. With video in police cars, cases would be easy to make. The asshole passing on the right in rush hour, even though he is not exceeding the speed limit would be penalized while the guy running 110 in broad daylight, on an open road with no traffic, would be perfectly within his rights to do so.
In some countries the approach to speeding is to license the top speed of the vehicle based upon the vehicle and the driver. You'll see big trucks limited to 60kph, small economy cars to 90, and that Aston Martin DB-5 without a limit. Of course, 'unsafe operation' is still an offense and makes more sense than the friggin concept of zero-tolerance.
Re:affiliates are the answer.. (Score:3, Insightful)
At least in my area, ALL of the broadcast stations owned by the network companies. Yet they still make a big deal out of local news. I imagine with the current ownership rules, this is a pretty common situation.
Re:The main issue (Score:0, Insightful)
Well since the people did not watch the show as it was originally aired, they already missed those ads, so where is the lost revenue from it?
Future sales of DVD's? People who enjoy things like a series usually buy the DVD sets anyway because it makes them happy to own them.
The MPAA is stepping all over fair use. The advertisers received their pay when the viewers who watched that show saw their ads. These people obviously didn't anyway.
Re:Death to Mickey Mouse, long live the Marx Broth (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that still happens today. And at any rate, it doesn't really matter. Copyright is concerned quantity, not quality. You don't want the government making decisions as to which pieces of art should get the most protection. Whether you see high art or low art, it should be the public that decides, and this is basically a matter of where money gets spent. (And of course, one man's high art is another's low art, and there are shifts over time)
The best thing that happened to art was when it was turned into a viable career for anyone to pursue.
When did that happen? Most art is economically worthless; most artists can't treat art as a viable career. The stereotype of the starving artist exists for a reason.
That's not culture, though, that's the pocketbooks of consumers.
What's the difference? You can't make significant objective statements about culture. Certainly the government shouldn't try. But if you can get anything you want for free, however, then at least you can get access to as much of whatever you like; if it cost money, you'd have to prioritize. This lets individuals make their own decisions as to culture.
I want apples to be free, but I can't go into someone's farm and pick a bunch and go sell them at half the going rate because it benefits society. I agree it would be GREAT if that's how the world worked, but it doesn't and all it accomplishes is putting an apple farmer into the poorhouse.
Ever watch Star Trek? They have those replicators that can make apples by rearranging tanks of various raw materials. If we had those starting today, apple farmers would indeed go out of business; why pay them to grow an apple, when you can just get perfect apples, every time, at the push of a button? Putting them out of work, while in the process solving world hunger, seems like a good plan to me.
Creative works are like this now. They're non-rivalrous, meaning that we can reproduce them forever, and no one loses anything. The materials we fix the works into might have some cost associated with them, but it's often pretty minimal (just as the replicators technically need a power source and raw materials, though they can recycle the latter).
Jefferson drew a comparison with fire. If only one person has fire, he can charge people to use it. But everyone can light a taper from his fire, and get their own fire, without diminishing his. This puts the first guy out of business, but now the whole world has illumination.
Copyright isn't intended to help artists. It's intended to get them to create new works (by giving them the incentive of a monopoly) but to also get those works in the public domain as fast as possible, for it is in the public domain that the works can do the most good.
If we gave artists too much of a monopoly, it would directly prevent the works from being in the public domain as fast as possible. If we didn't give them a monopoly, or enough of one, not as many works would be created within the timeframe that is acceptable to us for getting works into the public domain.
But no matter what, we're always looking at the public interest. Whether there are many successful artists or just a few doesn't really matter much. The public wants art, not artists.
This is where copyright went all wrong. If I write a book about "Bob", I don't see why you couldn't write a story about him too. In fact, I would hope you WOULD. I would hope we could work together to make Bob a better-developed cultural fixture, without worrying about licensing and other silliness. On the other hand, I don't want you to take my book and sell it word-for-word without paying me anything. The two do not need to be tied together (though they currently are, in today's world).
What happened was that people started making translations of Uncle Tom's C
my response to the MPAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Daily Show downloads every night in 5-10 minutes, pretty much right after they had been aired. It was nice to be able to check out some of the other shows, like the Simpsons or South Park, but for me it was only about The Daily Show. I can't afford (and flat out refuse) to pay $44/month for one single show that I want to consistently watch.
The MPAA is fucking up royally. It's not just about the TV shows. I bought America the Book, and it was Jon Stewart fans like me that helped keep it at #1 for so many months. I saw Lewis Black when he came to Portland a few weeks ago. I gladly support the artists and producers making this material, but I'm not going to regress back to an outdated business model that tries to suck the consumer out of every last penny. I'm not going to pay $29 for the DVD Indecision 2004, which doesn't even have all of the episodes and happened more than six months ago. If I can't get The Daily Show in a reasonable amount of time for a FAIR price, then I'm forced to find it online, like the millions of other who used these sites, and the millions around the world who don't even have access to Comedy Central.
MPAA (and RIAA, take note too), until you change your strategies, this is my response:
When Revenge of the Sith comes out next week, I'm downloading the pirated version (which will probably hit the internet before the movie is actually released anyway). I was planning on seeing this in the theater, but now I think it's time to start getting all of the new movie releases over the internet as much as possible. And I'm keeping my eye out for the next good BitTorrent site (hopefully in an Eastern European country this time).
This isn't about what's illegal, it's about what's right.
Re:Death to Mickey Mouse, long live the Marx Broth (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, but you see that's a different issue altogether. If I could solve world hunger, I could put farmers out of business and guarantee they'd always have enough to eat, and never worry again. The only way this connects to freely copying art is if any artist is able to walk into a restaurant, perform or deliver some kind of art, and freely take food without paying actual money.
Copyright isn't intended to help artists. It's intended to get them to create new works (by giving them the incentive of a monopoly)
I would argue that incentive is meant to help artists. If you don't help artists turn their work into money (if only briefly) then you reduce the number of artists dramatically. The majority of "great" art created over the years was done by those who were either paid to produce or were using their art to make a living. If you completely gutted their ability to monetize their work, none of them would have kept at it.
If someone had been in the audience during the first performance of "Hamlet" and taped and re-distributed the play to everyone who wanted it, free of charge, Shakespeare would never have existed the way he does now. The risk to the public interest is that by dismissing the value of creative works and their creators, they may be discouraging the most brilliant artist of all time from taking a shot. An artist is not necessarily someone who opts to starve for their art.
I myself often find derivatives that are excellent, perhaps even superior to their sources.
What would be truly useful would be a mindset that let the creators of derivative works communicate with the original artist so that they could bounce ideas off each other to make something far superior to the first product. That was one of the worst victims of modern copyright... the inability of artists to collaborate unofficially, for fear of being sued.
Yes, except that [$1 for a movie] way too high
Yeah, I would prefer to see a complete decoupling of the service and payment myself. If you can get access to the work, enjoy it. If you enjoy it, pay something to the artist. In some cases the medium will require an up-front fee (like DVDs), but you as the consumer set the price. Most people have no trouble supporting the artist that made their favourite show or song or book. I just wonder if $1 as a suggested starting point is a good way to kick it off. I find that people today need to be told what to pay, even if they'd prefer another price. That's a whole lot of social engineering right there.
after all, how many times over do they want to get paid for the single act of creating a single work
This was the biggest problem that drama faced when it started getting written down and reproduced. It used to be you had no choice but to see the artist hard at work to appreciate their art, because you had to see them live. Once we started recording things (especially movies and TV), that personal connection got lost. Someone making a TV show shouldn't expect to be paid seven times for the same work by the same person, but if ten million people watch their show and enjoy it, they should expect that some of those people appreciate it enough to pay for it.
People in that sort of work [colour correcting] aren't the kind of artists we're talking about here. They merely provide a service, and that has nothing to do with copyright.
Ah, but it does. If I create a show and I have a crew of 100 people making each episode, and I can't keep Company B from selling it for $1 on the street corner, I can't make my next episode, and those 100 people are out of work. And those people ARE artists... that's just the point: you can say that a singer is just one person able to make their own way, starving on
Re:Death to Mickey Mouse, long live the Marx Broth (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that's a bit bizarre.
If the marginal cost for everyone to create copies of material things is at or is very near zero, and there are no monopolies on things, then everyone will be able to have all the things they want at minimal cost, but there will be little economic incentive to create new things. That is to say, the person who invents a new kind of apple will have little economic incentive to do so.
Similarly, if the marginal cost for everyone to create copies of creative works is at or is very near zero, and there are no monopolies on things, then everyone will be able to have all the works they want at minimal cost, but there will be little economic incentive to create new works. That is to say, the person who writes a new novel will have little economic incentive to do so.
Still, these scenarios aren't terribly bad. In the first, no one wants for food, clothing, or shelter. Space exploration would become very affordable, and you could probably start building terraformed planets easily. (Of course, I'd be worried that we'd kill each other with the things, but that's not a problem with regards to works) However, no one would create new kinds of things, at least not expecting to sell them or the plans for them later. So on the one hand, some invention might stagnate. OTOH, if anyone can experiment cheaply, and needn't worry much about food or shelter, we might see a wealth of amateur things get made. As well as professional things, where you simply paid for people's labor.
In the second, no one wants for creative works by and large (some things are easier to make copies of than others -- it's hard to print out life size marble sculptures right now). This reduces creation of original works for economic reward, though you'd still see people doing it for fun, or for art's sake, or to gain critical acclaim, or whatever. And people can make derivatives, so there's a wealth of amateur works too -- sampling and covering music, making sequels to movies or books, etc. Again, professionals would have to charge for their labor, rather than expecting to be able to sell copies at a significant profit.
In both cases, if you sold someone an apple, or a book, then you'd be able to count on never selling another of the same to that person again. And that that person would spread copies near and far. But you'd at least be able to use copies of other people's stuff.
It's possible that neither scenario is ideal, but they're both livable and extremely similar.
Anyway, I think we're getting off track.
If you don't help artists turn their work into money (if only briefly) then you reduce the number of artists dramatically.
Well, remember that the help we provide is merely an opportunity. Most artists don't money out of their copyrights. And fewer still turn a profit. Even fewer really gain wealth. Artists are notorious for ignoring opportunity costs. This is convenient for everyone else, though.
The majority of "great" art created over the years was done by those who were either paid to produce or were using their art to make a living. If you completely gutted their ability to monetize their work, none of them would have kept at it.
Oh, I don't know. The first kind -- the ones paid to produce -- are simply providing a service. Hiring an artist to paint your portrait is not materially different than hiring a plumber to unclog the drains. They're being paid to do a job, and that's the end of it. The plumber doesn't get a royalty every time you flush the john.
In fact, such an idea is especially ludicrous when you bear in mind that eac
Re:affiliates are the answer.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This has also been an issue with "repeated" stations where a big station might have their own extension of coverage (usually via UHF) and marginalize smaller stations with less, or inferior, product.
At the moment, though, all of it is moot. Neither NBC nor your local NBC affiliate want you just downloading The Apprentice (as an example). They want you to be tuned to the station and watch ER, the local news and Jay Leno, too. Under the current system, they have a good chance of doing this since they can advertise the product they have coming up and encourage people to keep their TVs tuned in. Under an on-demand system, you get The Apprentice and then have to actively choose again if you want to watch ER. In other words, having you do nothing (not changing the channel) benefits the affiliate in the broadcast system but penalizes them in the on-demand system.
This is also why you have network executives who complain about TiVo. As another example, I have no interest in the local news programs so I never watch them - my TiVo enforces this because it never records those programs.
The current network/affiliate system is going to go away. Technology is advancing in such a way that it's only a matter of time. For now, though, the people making money off that system are going to fight like hell to keep it in business until they can find an option that will both give the consumers what they want and make them scads of dough in the process.