Film industry to sue online pirates (MPAA)
- Thread starter Gattsu25
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DJ Demon J
Banned
This is an attempt to fluster the district courts/Supreme Court into reconsidering the Grokster decision. MPAA's stance is, we don't want to sue the individuals, as while some are knowledgeable about the illegality, some truly aren't, and either way, ALL are being induced into sharing by P2P file-sharing companies who make money off of contributory/vicarious copyright infringement. The appeal from MPAA to the courts is--do you want us (along with the RIAA) tying up the legal system with lawsuits against individuals or would you rather make the file-sharing companies (Sharman Networks, etc.) liable for their actions and make it a simple once-and-done case?
DJ Demon J said:
That's very interesting, and makes more sense to me than the tactics of the RIAA. I've been wondering what the MPAA would have planned since I've started seeing the threatening ads about movie piracy in malls. I still don't think the tone of the ads is a good idea for customer relations, but not taking action against the individual is a very good idea.
radioheadrule83
Banned
Doth Togo said:
Sydney Bristow's mother? Oh NOES!
DJ Demon J
Banned
Phoenix said:
BT can be abused for piracy, but there's no corporation out there pimping BT like KaZaA or or Morpheus pimped FastTrack technology. The game industry is a big proponent of technology (as can be seen by many companies using BT to distribute game files). In the case of BT, the closest thing to a corporation behind the inducement of copyright infringement is sites like Suprnova.org, which work with the 1,000 or so major trackers (of those, probably 100 represent the majority of all BT traffic) to drive users to their websites to generate (a massive amount of) ad revenue.
As Doth said, the hammer's about to fall on BT too.
DJ Demon J said:
Except that's extremely short-sighted. There will always be some P2P sharing network that allows people to distribute content. There needs to be some kind of action taken on the personal level.
DothTogo said:
What I don't understand is, if all the crazy-IP people say it's no different from stealing, how come the government doesn't have any sort of enforcement on-line for this sort of thing? Are you hinting that they will finally set up some sort of group that can "police" the Internet?
This just puts money in the pockets of bootleggers. You'll just have to go to the corner guy for a copy of the latest bootleg now instead of dloading it. Then again, you can still download, just install whatever new P2P proggie comes down after BT is officially shutdown in the next 6 months. Fuck Asscroft and the MPAA. What, they didn't have enough $100M movies this year? Sheesh. PEACE.
DJ Demon J
Banned
Nerevar said:
Ashcroft announced several IP enforcement initiatives over the past few years. There've also been several FBI/DOJ investigations into warez groups, with more on the way. As for a governing body that controls internet content and expression, no there aren't plans for that and I sure as hell hope there never will be. But it's pretty easy to track people's activities online, especially the power trip-happy (thanks for the new catchphrase onion pixy!) warez guys.
Nerevar said:
They already do. It's not only using ECHELON but also identifying links between organized crime rings and the warez community. Believe me, there are lots of relationships between the two groups. But don't worry, if you're not in the upper part of the syndicate community, they don't go after you. Leave that to the IP trade associations. :lol
DJ Demon J said:
I'm not asking for them to track IPs online. what I'm saying is - for example - the mall has security guards. If you steal a CD from the store and bolt, the security guard will catch up with you and arrest you. But there's no equivalent on the internet. You can hop onto just about any torrent and, unless the original content-owner sues you, there's no government enforcement. Why is that? It's not like it would be hard for the gov to hop onto a torrent and see who's downloading, then get the name / address of the person from the IP provider. Don't all P2P programs allow you to "see" the full IP info of all other people sharing files? Isn't that the whole point of P2P?
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
Courts, the film/music industries, and law enforcement agencies are way behind the technology and the people who exploit it. That's why there has been little effective enforcement. You should read a court opinion written by a 60 year old judge, who has no idea about how any of this technology works, trying to reconcile this stuff with common law intellectual property rules developed for another era. It's not pretty.
Damn them for trying to enforce laws protecting their work from theft!
Pimpwerx said:
Damn them for trying to enforce laws protecting their work from theft!
for the government to shut down sites like suprnova (i.e. sites hosting torrents but NOT trackers), new laws will have to be created or possibly precident will need to be set.
suprnova isn't techncially violating any laws or any copyrights. what they are hosting is meta data based off of copyrighted data, but nothing they are hosting is copyrighted.
the trackers are also difficult to go after, because technically no copyrighted material is being hosted or passed through the tracker either.
that is the beauty of bittorrent (or horror from a legal standpoint) in the law's current state. the only people that can be gone after are the people actually transferring the files.
don't get me wrong, the law will adapt, but currently bittorrent sites and trackers are going to be diffidcult to prosecute. until they can establish and legally link generated meta data to the copyrighted material itself and saying that the facilitation of that meta data as well as any transfers caused by the meta data are the same as transferring the copyrighted material itself, their only recourse will be to go after the actual seeders and leachers using bittorrent. as they are the only ones actually transferring or maintaining copyrighted material.
suprnova isn't techncially violating any laws or any copyrights. what they are hosting is meta data based off of copyrighted data, but nothing they are hosting is copyrighted.
the trackers are also difficult to go after, because technically no copyrighted material is being hosted or passed through the tracker either.
that is the beauty of bittorrent (or horror from a legal standpoint) in the law's current state. the only people that can be gone after are the people actually transferring the files.
don't get me wrong, the law will adapt, but currently bittorrent sites and trackers are going to be diffidcult to prosecute. until they can establish and legally link generated meta data to the copyrighted material itself and saying that the facilitation of that meta data as well as any transfers caused by the meta data are the same as transferring the copyrighted material itself, their only recourse will be to go after the actual seeders and leachers using bittorrent. as they are the only ones actually transferring or maintaining copyrighted material.
DJ Demon J
Banned
Guileless said:
IAWTP
DJ Demon J
Banned
borghe said:
Research the terms "contributory copyright infringement" and "vicarious copyright infringement." Both are key elements of US copyright law, and are the basis for what will be used in a legal argument against sites like Suprnova.org.
Going after the technology, rather than the individual users, is completely wrong. P2P isn't inherently bad -- it's simply how it's applied in each individual case that needs to be evaluated. If there ever is a formal government effort to shut down all of BitTorrent, you'll find me leading the protest -- and I don't even USE BT.
I will say this again and again until it gets fixed: Copyright law in this country is BROKEN. The fact that these large content cartels are suing people -- while at the same time screwing over the content creators -- is fucking ludicrous. Unfortunately, no one is EVER going to advocate any changes since the corporations own the government at this point.
I will say this again and again until it gets fixed: Copyright law in this country is BROKEN. The fact that these large content cartels are suing people -- while at the same time screwing over the content creators -- is fucking ludicrous. Unfortunately, no one is EVER going to advocate any changes since the corporations own the government at this point.
vicarious has nothing to do with it...
here is the problem.. they are technically not linking anything. they are providing meta data.. (suprnova that is). now the trackers could certainly be covered under this however this again isn't covered under a "forum" of any type, and they aren't directly transferring any copyrighted materials.
as I said, I'm not saying the law isn't being broken, but with bittorrent they are travelling into new and uncharted territory. There are many layers of accountability and unfortunately the only one that has legal precident (the users) are the exact ones the MPAA is wary to go after (don't punish the ones you need to make your money, a lesson learned by the RIAA).
the only recourse they truly have at this point would be to say the trackers are contributing, unfortunately today putting up a new tracker is pretty simple, not to mention doing it by way of IRC or IM'ing would make it very difficult to contain.
But I still believe that closing down suprnova or similar sites will require them to say that torrents or any sort of generated metadata is the same thing, or at least fascilitating, copyrighted material.
We'll see though. I hope they can contain it personally.. It is insanely out of hand. I just can't believe that if it were so easy and under existing laws that suprnova would have been able to be around as long as it has.
here is the problem.. they are technically not linking anything. they are providing meta data.. (suprnova that is). now the trackers could certainly be covered under this however this again isn't covered under a "forum" of any type, and they aren't directly transferring any copyrighted materials.
as I said, I'm not saying the law isn't being broken, but with bittorrent they are travelling into new and uncharted territory. There are many layers of accountability and unfortunately the only one that has legal precident (the users) are the exact ones the MPAA is wary to go after (don't punish the ones you need to make your money, a lesson learned by the RIAA).
the only recourse they truly have at this point would be to say the trackers are contributing, unfortunately today putting up a new tracker is pretty simple, not to mention doing it by way of IRC or IM'ing would make it very difficult to contain.
But I still believe that closing down suprnova or similar sites will require them to say that torrents or any sort of generated metadata is the same thing, or at least fascilitating, copyrighted material.
We'll see though. I hope they can contain it personally.. It is insanely out of hand. I just can't believe that if it were so easy and under existing laws that suprnova would have been able to be around as long as it has.
Phoenix
Member
-jinx- said:
The government isn't that stupid. Shutting down one technology will just lead to the creation of another technology to take its place. That's one of the reasons for the 'induce act' and all of these other bills, proposals, etc. They know they can't get rid of the technology. They just hope that they can get rid of the people who are exploiting and drive the piracy back down to nuisance levels as opposed to the copyright disaster that it is today.
You start with an interesting premise and then break into a meaningless and fruitless rant. Content publishers buy copyright from content creators. Content creators are under no obligation to sell it to the publishers. There is no flaw there and many independents have gone on to become publishers themselves.
Damn them for overcharging in the first place. What came first, the high prices or the piracy? It doesn't matter. There's nothing they can do to stop piracy without coming off as douchebags. They can't stop the source, the source is now everybody with a burner and a free copy of DVD Shrink. Or anyone with a camcorder and the balls to sneak it into a theater (where their friend is probably working the projector or the aisles). God bless the pirates for providing a free service to lazy and cheap people like me. PEACE.Guileless said:
The statements following "copyright law is broken" are not meant to be rationale for why it's broken. It's a much longer story about why I think there are problems with the law, and I don't have time to type them up here. I was pointing out the irony in the *AA position -- on the one hand, they are crying foul over pirates "stealing" from their bottom line, and on the other hand, not going out of their way to share the wealth with the people who make their business possible in the first place.Phoenix said:
It is true that content creators are under no obligation to sell to publishers. At the same time, the publishers in most major industries (book publishing, RIAA, MPAA) have a virtual monopoly over distribution. It's an interesting relationship, to say the least.
DJ Demon J said:
My professor is writing a brief trying to convince the Supreme Court not to consider the Grokster case. They are working on it together with Berkley's IP Clinic. Probably won't happen though, you need to convince 6 out of 9 judges to do that. Professor got me into doing some research for this last weekend. Not the way I wanted to spend my weekend.
DJ Demon J
Banned
borghe said:
I really wish I could post the 2 legal opinions written on how BitTorrent violates copyright law, but they're priviliged and confidential. Suffice it to say you'll see this issue argued (whether or not sites like Suprnova are guilty of vicarious/contributory liability) in the future, and case law will be made. I'm not trying to argue over moral right and wrong, my personal attitude towards the ideas and founding fathers' concepts behind intellectual property protection does not fall in line with the US Copyright Law's antiquated, written-before-computers concepts being applied to today's modern technology and the band-aid solutions congress has made (*cough* extending Mickey Mouse to 95 years *cough*) are NOT what the founding fathers intended. Not saying that I support piracy either....anyway....
Here's a excerpt from an analysis of US Copyright Law, Title 17, Chapter 5, Sec. 501. It refers to performances of music, but the tenet of vicarious infringement applies to Suprnova as the site owners derive a "commercial gain from the operation" of the site "wherein the [performance, or in this case, the transfer of TV shows, games, music, etc.] occur." That commercial gain/direct or indirect benefit? Ad revenue, which pays for their bandwidth (and a nice tidy sum in their pockets):
A well-established principle of copyright law is that a person who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner is an infringer, including persons who can be considered related or vicarious infringers. To be held a related or vicarious infringer in the case of performing rights, a defendant must either actively operate or supervise the operation of the place wherein the performances occur, or control the content of the infringing program, and expect commercial gain from the operation and either direct or indirect benefit from the infringing performance.
well, in the case of vicarious it would have to be proven that they are generating profit from it (probably) but again, that they are directly involved in infringing the copyright, which as the law is written right now I don't think they are. in effect they are hosting meta data.. in a way they are telling you where to go to find out where to get the files (sort of)
I am just playing devil's advocate here, nothing more. I fully agree with the concept of copyright protection (though do feel copyright laws are broken for the most part) and believe that sites like suprnova are certainly and obviously leading to illegal activity, again, I just don't think it is clear cut at this point, or you'd imagine they wouldn't have been able to freely operate for the last 2+ years.
I am just playing devil's advocate here, nothing more. I fully agree with the concept of copyright protection (though do feel copyright laws are broken for the most part) and believe that sites like suprnova are certainly and obviously leading to illegal activity, again, I just don't think it is clear cut at this point, or you'd imagine they wouldn't have been able to freely operate for the last 2+ years.
Doth Togo said:
I dont' want to live in a world where corporations act as their own policing agents. Maybe I've read one too many sci-fi cyberpunk novel, but it doesn't really lend itself to a world where freedoms are guaranteed. I'd much rather trust that to elected officials. It's sad, in my mind, that the US government is perfectly content with letting the RIAA and MPAA do their own policing of the internet for them.
Edit: And why are we all arguing about suprnova? Isn't it based in Germany, anyway, and thus exempt from US copyright law?
DJ Demon J
Banned
borghe said:
"Freely operat[ing]" |= not illegal. Just because no one jumped on them the moment they started committing illegal activity doesn't mean that the activity isn't illegal.
Sites like suprnova are a critical element of obtaining the copyright material. There are trackers, torrent files, and seeders. The seeder is the initial point of distribution of the file. He/she could distribute that file in plenty of other ways, but the whole point of BT is to distribute FAST, hence the need for trackers, to control the communication between peers and the seeder. Now the equation isn't complete because you need to know the location of the tracker and the file information, which suprnova supplies in the form of .torrent files. Is it possible to remove Suprnova from the equation and still acheive a download through BT (by you and I, let's say, sharing the torrent file directly)? Absolutely. But Suprnova has facilitated the activity (and induced people--look at the front page of Suprnova--to commit copyright infringement) on such a large scale at which, not only has it grown the whole base of copyright infringement through BT, but also provided enough of a commercial gain (unique hits to the suprnova.org website) for them to be easily found guilty of vicarious and/or contributory liability.
I agreed with everything right up until this point. If it were easy they wouldn't have been in operation for 2 years.DJ Demon J said:
I am not saying what they are doing isn't illegal, I am just saying that I BELIEVE they are riding a grey area, a grey area that has prevented legal action UNTIL enough of a case can be gathered.
One only has to look at actions taken against trackers.. When Halo 2 was released the torrents still remained on suprnova even though the trackers were taken down (or the torrent was removed from the tracker).
I just think if it were that easy we would have already seen action.
DJ Demon J
Banned
Nerevar said:
Hey Nerevar, what would you rather have? US Government spending taxpayers' money on this, or forcing corporations to spend their own money policing the activity? DMCA was designed (however flawed the final outcome was) to not burden the US legal system with tons of minor copyright infringement cases. What's happened? ISPs and consumer electronics companies bitch about consumer privacy (which is a smokescreen to cover up their real concern--MONEY; they could give about as much of a shit about your and my privacy rights as every other corporation, they just want to be able to profit off of CD-R and DVD-R drives, TiVOs, and broadband internet connections).
The ISP and consumer electronics lobbyists (equally if not more powerful than entertainment industry lobbyists) have tried to prevent the entertainment industry from going after the bad apples quietly, without the need for lawsuits (just cutting their internet connections for abuse or setting up a warning/code of conduct/3 strikes you're out system), and thus far have largely prevailed--protecting their rights to profit off of the devices/services that can facilitate copyright infringement.
And FYI, a crucial portion of Suprnova's site looks like it is stored on a US ISP's server in Chicago.
DJ Demon J
Banned
borghe said:
OK, not EASY, as in throw a piece of paper in the wastebasket. But not extremely hard as you make it out to be. The entertainment industry moves slow on these issues (look how slow music industry response to Napster was). The reason is they're afraid of consumer backlash (and in the music industry's case, they got a fuckton of it).
DJ Demon J
Banned
-jinx- said:
One of life's lessons I guess. :lol It pays the bills and it has great exposure to the game industry, one of my hobbies. It's not that my views are so completely different from what I do.
Hey, if it was a perfect world ..... but it's not.
Late Stage Marxist
Member
Is Canada safe?
I will be amused as downloads increase, just to spite the corporations seen as shitting on the little guy. This is a lose - lose sitution for companies no matter what...the minute they go down this path of suing individuals. they will spend millions to collect thousands and in the proccess create customer hatred just like riaa and motivate those downloaders who bought their products to forgoe purchasing in an effort to "stick it to the man".
This will be hilarious
:lol
This will be hilarious
:lolDJ Demon J
Banned
-jinx- said:
Better business model or not, downloading and uploading music, movies, games as a peer in a BT torrent is piracy. I'm sure pirates would love the movie industry to have a perfect Movielink, with full, high-res digital version of movies for a decent price, so that one person could download it and then share it with the world via BT. "But they can protect it with encryption and stuff" they might say. And then when the crackers crack that protection, those same people will be the first hypocritical assholes in line to download. Don't make excuses for stealing something without wanting to pay for it.
it's so simple, even Jason could have thought of it!!!-jinx- said:
seriously, folks. this is ALL about money and power, and you're really fooling yourself if you think there's more to it than that.
ps to jinx, jason has a long long history of not making any sense. i wouldn't bother if i were you
DJ Demon J
Banned
Guileless said:
Feel free to replace "just steal" with "support piracy of." Last time I checked, a company that creates a product has a right to charge whatever the fuck they want for it, and you have a right not to fucking buy it and let them fail miserably for "overpriced" product. Oh wait, people are still buying it anyway. Can't blame the music industry if some people still think $14.99 a CD is a worthwhile investment.
You're always in here spouting the same bullshit jinx, claiming that the music industry's high CD prices for many years makes all the piracy of music today right and justified. Did the music industry set itself up for this level of piracy by not embracing online distribution and the MP3 format earlier? ABSOLUTELY. But it doesn't justify piracy nor does it make it legal.
DJ: What about sites like www.sharingthegroove.org that offer demos and live soundboard/radio/audience bootlegs that have NOT been commerically sold?
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