Hype Backlash: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HypeBacklashHopeless Bastard said:
Or opinion. But there is a lot of Hype Backlash as well because of the Oscars.
OT: Good. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Hurt Locker Producers Suing "Tens of Thousands" of Downloaders
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
Or opinion. But there is a lot of Hype Backlash as well because of the Oscars.
OT: Good. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Sarcasm tends to be the refuge of the imaginatively derived.AngryMongoose said:
When answering someone's legitimate question, try not to insult them for asking it by giving false information in the form of humour.
Voltage is just gonna piss everyone off, and no one is going to buy or pirate their movies anymore. sucks to be them. and i still dont understand anyone wanting to get rid of pirates. most of the movie and music revenue comes from them. they download a copy, see that what they downloaded is awesome, and go buy it. wait... i see now... ever notice how only companies and bands making shitty movies and music are making a fuss about it? people are watching their movie and thinking to themselves "wow, this is horrible," and promptly delete (or, if they are real pirates, destroy) it. So, i guess the moral of the story is, make good movie next time guys. and dont give shitty movies the coveted "Best Picture Academy Award." i mean, come on. Avatar!? i didnt even like Avatar all that much, but i know deep down that it deserved it without question.
Google points you to sites that have the magic "download" button, just as torrent sites do. If you google "Avatar torrent", click "I'm feeling lucky", one more click and you have the magic button "download torrent", it's not a secret, check it. In this sense google is the best torrent search engine in the whole world, yet no one seems to care. But when a site is named torrentfreak, and does the exact same thing, everyone is outraged. Way to go, democracy!zelda2fanboy said:
And if you post a torrent file here for a video you did on your birthday party or a folder of background pictures, that would be totally okay. See, torrent technology in itself is not illegal. In fact, it's a major leap forward in information exchange. The only thing that taints this invention is the fact it's totally untraceable with proper settings. That's why it's used by pirates. Fast, decentralized, untraceable and totally anonymous = pirate heaven.
Sure, but keep in mind, that there are lawyers who can even explain away a dead body in your closet. That's the "best" thing about the legal system, that you can explain everything away if you have the money and the connections. That's why it doesn't matter how much illegal downloads or child pornography you may find on Google, they'll never be held responsible. In this case, torrent is more of an equal opportunity provider, since it treats everyone the same way, you don't get dedicated streams if you are a big fish and you don't get capped if you are just one guy in your mother's basement. It's the perfect communism, everything by everyone for everyone. In fact, the more people are in the network, the better it works.Eclectic Dreck said:
And yes, you could build a case against individual illegal downloaders, but for one, it would be long shot, since as you said, there is only circumstantial evidence, and two, you'll have to track them down first, and prove that that the download actually happened. Best case, you'll only have a IP address to prove it. Torrent trackers rarely or never keep logs of transmissions and IPs for the exact same thing. Even if you bust a tracker and physically dissect their servers, you won't find any user IPs or logs on them. Even if you did, on high-speed connections the IP address is constantly changing so it's hard to track (you actually have to pay extra for persistent IP), and people behind proxies are totally untraceable. And of course there is the sheer, mind bogging number of torrent users. It's like trying to find a special speck of dust in a sandstorm.
Legal cases against "illegal downloaders" is nothing more than a publicity stunt, it will never stick without a straight confession from the accused. Even if you manage to track down a single downloader and bring them to court, you then now need to prove they are guilty. An illegal movie on their hard drive proves nothing but the fact they possess an illegal copy, and that can be explained away easily ("I just bought this used HDD online, came in a plain package, no return address, haven't had time to format it yet."). But let's say, you managed to prove they are guilty, then what? Fine? Community service? Prison time? And again, you convicted one (that is 1) or the millions who do the same. Was it worth it? The cost of the literal manhunt to catch even a few of these illegal downloaders would cost an unbelievable amount of money, far more than what they would gain by convicting them. And of course, in this sense you'll have to convict approximately 98% of the internet, because the only ones who don't have any illegal stuff on their computers are the ones who don't know how to get them...yet.
It's nice to see that as time passes, piracy has become more and more impossible to stop. Pirates, like someone said earlier, really do determine whether or not something is a hit or a flop. Imagine the people who downloaded Avatar on the first week of its release. They loved it and just had to go see it in 3D. I know I did. So there really should be more people praising pirates. They wade through garbage finding gems, so you don't have to. Of course there will always be the sore losers, AKA The Producers of Hurt Locker.
Feversaint said:
someboredguy said:
I'm afraid I have some bad news for you guys... Piracy isn't theft; not by a long shot.fix-the-spade said:
So... Yeah.
Saying piracy is stealing is the same as saying that the person who invented the means to print books stole from the people who made books by hand. It's a step forward in technology and people just need to get with the times.
Whaa... I think my brain just melted. No, piracy is like borrowing a friends book, then photocopying it so you can have your own copy without paying. Either way, the person who created it doesn't get any money.Xvito said:
The analogy you used made no sense. There's nothing wrong with being able to burn CDs/DVDs... it's what you put on them that matters. If you didn't make it, and the author didn't put it out there for free, you should be paying for it.
How about you get back to reality and realize that people make the entertainment you consume, and people need money to survive. If you enjoy a particular type of entertainment and want to see more of it, you have to contribute. You are not entitled to the work of others for free. How would you like it if you spent years of your life working on something, only to have everyone just download it for free "because they can". Not to mention any time and money you invested in an education.
EDIT: The only time piracy would be REMOTELY excusable is if it is the pirating of something that is either out of print/production.
*sigh*zala-taichou said:
Yeah. I was really saddened it didn't. Hurt Locker was a good movie I guess. But I thought D9 was much much better.
OT: Wasn't the point of Hurt Locker that it had a low Budget/ And now they're money grubbing? It's not like they lost out on hundreds of millions.
Hmm.
1) So I'm guessing the law firm involved is more interested in people giving in to the "pay or get sued" letters than actually going to court with this thing. You know, because they're offering two deals. Because if people give in, I assume the firm will get a cut of the "fine" without accruing any court costs.
Which seems like a nice little racket, there. But of course there's nothing wrong with that: they're just going after evil pirates, right? And pirates who haven't been convicted of anything yet are still criminals, and criminals have no rights.
Well, okay, they do. But that only matters if they go to court because they can't afford to make a backroom payment to a bunch of lawyers who sent them a letter. Who only got their address by threatening a company.
Yeah. Sounds ethical to me.
I don't understand why studios hate pirates in the first place. Pirates steal your stuff, you hire lawyers to send them letters demanding $5000, a bunch of them pay up, and hey!, you've suddenly made a heck of a lot more than you would have if even half of those people had bought the thing legally on DVD. I'm surprised they haven't switched over to this "screw DVD, let's just threaten people for money" strategy already.
2) Don't pirates sometimes used stolen IP addresses to pirate movies? I don't know enough about this, but can't this happen? And if it can and does, and did in this case, and your IP gets tagged and delivered by your ISP to the lawyers, how do you prove you don't owe anyone money? I mean, if you don't have the movie on your computer, they'll just say you deleted or moved it. Or are you immediately guilty if your IP was tagged? Like if your SSN gets stolen and used for crime? And if all this is something that can happen, shouldn't the ISPs think about this before they just hand over personal information to lawyers with legal chainguns?
3) I didn't steal the Hurt Locker, and I also didn't pay to see it, because I don't give a crap about mediocre anti-Iraq War movies. So no one involved with this movie or lawsuit at any level gets any of my time or money (unless someone is using my stolen IP, if they can do this).
But if not, see how it works, kids? Stop mindlessly consuming crap, legally or illegally, just because you see ads for it on TV, and not only will it give you more free time to play video games and think for yourself, it will make you richer financially. Thumbs up!
4) Legally justified or not, it isn't going to play well when a multi-million dollar movie studio sues soccer moms during the worst recession since the 30s. It didn't play well for the RIAA in the 90s either, and you'd think someone would be paying attention to that.
But I guess the studios don't care if they offend the public. Because they think we'll just keep buying their stuff no matter what they do to people, right? Because they also think we're idiots.
And I would think that the more people feel like a company hates them, the more they'll be willing to steal their stuff, because they don't respect them, nor want them to have their money. So even if this lawsuit goes well for the studios, it might actually make people pirate more stuff, faster.
"Hmm," indeed.
1) So I'm guessing the law firm involved is more interested in people giving in to the "pay or get sued" letters than actually going to court with this thing. You know, because they're offering two deals. Because if people give in, I assume the firm will get a cut of the "fine" without accruing any court costs.
Which seems like a nice little racket, there. But of course there's nothing wrong with that: they're just going after evil pirates, right? And pirates who haven't been convicted of anything yet are still criminals, and criminals have no rights.
Well, okay, they do. But that only matters if they go to court because they can't afford to make a backroom payment to a bunch of lawyers who sent them a letter. Who only got their address by threatening a company.
Yeah. Sounds ethical to me.
I don't understand why studios hate pirates in the first place. Pirates steal your stuff, you hire lawyers to send them letters demanding $5000, a bunch of them pay up, and hey!, you've suddenly made a heck of a lot more than you would have if even half of those people had bought the thing legally on DVD. I'm surprised they haven't switched over to this "screw DVD, let's just threaten people for money" strategy already.
2) Don't pirates sometimes used stolen IP addresses to pirate movies? I don't know enough about this, but can't this happen? And if it can and does, and did in this case, and your IP gets tagged and delivered by your ISP to the lawyers, how do you prove you don't owe anyone money? I mean, if you don't have the movie on your computer, they'll just say you deleted or moved it. Or are you immediately guilty if your IP was tagged? Like if your SSN gets stolen and used for crime? And if all this is something that can happen, shouldn't the ISPs think about this before they just hand over personal information to lawyers with legal chainguns?
3) I didn't steal the Hurt Locker, and I also didn't pay to see it, because I don't give a crap about mediocre anti-Iraq War movies. So no one involved with this movie or lawsuit at any level gets any of my time or money (unless someone is using my stolen IP, if they can do this).
But if not, see how it works, kids? Stop mindlessly consuming crap, legally or illegally, just because you see ads for it on TV, and not only will it give you more free time to play video games and think for yourself, it will make you richer financially. Thumbs up!
4) Legally justified or not, it isn't going to play well when a multi-million dollar movie studio sues soccer moms during the worst recession since the 30s. It didn't play well for the RIAA in the 90s either, and you'd think someone would be paying attention to that.
But I guess the studios don't care if they offend the public. Because they think we'll just keep buying their stuff no matter what they do to people, right? Because they also think we're idiots.
And I would think that the more people feel like a company hates them, the more they'll be willing to steal their stuff, because they don't respect them, nor want them to have their money. So even if this lawsuit goes well for the studios, it might actually make people pirate more stuff, faster.
"Hmm," indeed.
The Hurt Locker lawsuits remind me of the RIAA debacle, but there are a few differences.
First, the RIAA lawsuits dealt with file sharers who offered files for download in shared folders. Their argument was that making available a song for download was copyright infringement. It didn't work in all cases. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9908353-38.html In other cases their evidence was flimsy.
The U.S. Copyright Group, which is handling the lawsuits, uses an automated program that connects to the torrent, scans for IP addresses, and attempts to download from you in order to prove that you are distributing the film. I don't know how much they download from you. But it's clear that they are not using the "make available" argument or that your mere presence on the torrent is an intent to distribute. They will probably have your IP address, your ratio, how much you uploaded to them and maybe something else. If your ISP gives them your information, then they can match your name not only to an IP address, but your ratio. I wonder if they downloaded whole copies from users. It's unclear at this point.
Second, the RIAA lawsuits were initated by a trade group, the RIAA. The U.S. Copyright Group is an organization run by for-profit attorneys. They are not a trade group in that they actually want to curb piracy. They are interested in developing a new revenue stream.
Again, their goal is not to curb piracy. Their entire business plan depends on continued and growing piracy. Otherwise, they would encourage their clients to go after the source, people who rip DVDs, people who post the torrents and initially seed, those who bootleg DVDs on the streets, and crap like that. Scaring the casual downloader (and the innocent bystanders that will no doubt get wrapped up in this), they can extract settlements through fear helped by a sizable power and wealth differential.
As stupid as the RIAA was, they lacked a profit motive, and actually lost money on those lawsuits. The U.S. Copyright Group does have a profit motive and actively solicits these small studios to join in on their racket, which means 30% for the studio and a whopping 70% for the attorneys. The studio buys into the fact that this might curb piracy, but as we saw with the RIAA debacle, it only grows. High-profile defendants practically become martyrs to the file sharing assholes.
The U.S. Copyright Group is planning to visit film festivals to actively recruit clients. How successful their business plan turns out remains to be seen.
If they send out 50,000 settlements with 40% success rate, they take in $60 million at an average settlement of $3,000. They now have $60 million to sue as many in the rest of the group as they can, extracting large statutory damages out of them. I wonder if the best strategy for defendants who don't settle is to attack the ridiculous damages they will no doubt claim.
You are better off shoplifting. Wal-Mart doesn't even charge you if you steal something under $25, haha. They found that it costs more to go after small-time shoplifters than to just let them go.
Studios, though, they want thousands. There's insane statutory damages that were never intended to be levied against individuals who are not infringing for profit. The system is broken.
First, the RIAA lawsuits dealt with file sharers who offered files for download in shared folders. Their argument was that making available a song for download was copyright infringement. It didn't work in all cases. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9908353-38.html In other cases their evidence was flimsy.
The U.S. Copyright Group, which is handling the lawsuits, uses an automated program that connects to the torrent, scans for IP addresses, and attempts to download from you in order to prove that you are distributing the film. I don't know how much they download from you. But it's clear that they are not using the "make available" argument or that your mere presence on the torrent is an intent to distribute. They will probably have your IP address, your ratio, how much you uploaded to them and maybe something else. If your ISP gives them your information, then they can match your name not only to an IP address, but your ratio. I wonder if they downloaded whole copies from users. It's unclear at this point.
Second, the RIAA lawsuits were initated by a trade group, the RIAA. The U.S. Copyright Group is an organization run by for-profit attorneys. They are not a trade group in that they actually want to curb piracy. They are interested in developing a new revenue stream.
Again, their goal is not to curb piracy. Their entire business plan depends on continued and growing piracy. Otherwise, they would encourage their clients to go after the source, people who rip DVDs, people who post the torrents and initially seed, those who bootleg DVDs on the streets, and crap like that. Scaring the casual downloader (and the innocent bystanders that will no doubt get wrapped up in this), they can extract settlements through fear helped by a sizable power and wealth differential.
As stupid as the RIAA was, they lacked a profit motive, and actually lost money on those lawsuits. The U.S. Copyright Group does have a profit motive and actively solicits these small studios to join in on their racket, which means 30% for the studio and a whopping 70% for the attorneys. The studio buys into the fact that this might curb piracy, but as we saw with the RIAA debacle, it only grows. High-profile defendants practically become martyrs to the file sharing assholes.
The U.S. Copyright Group is planning to visit film festivals to actively recruit clients. How successful their business plan turns out remains to be seen.
If they send out 50,000 settlements with 40% success rate, they take in $60 million at an average settlement of $3,000. They now have $60 million to sue as many in the rest of the group as they can, extracting large statutory damages out of them. I wonder if the best strategy for defendants who don't settle is to attack the ridiculous damages they will no doubt claim.
You are better off shoplifting. Wal-Mart doesn't even charge you if you steal something under $25, haha. They found that it costs more to go after small-time shoplifters than to just let them go.
Studios, though, they want thousands. There's insane statutory damages that were never intended to be levied against individuals who are not infringing for profit. The system is broken.
I like your moxie, kid, but you've got things a bit mixed up. What you are saying applies to criminal court. There's a reason you don't see these cases go to criminal court. They don't have enough evidence. Civil court is where you go when you can't prove someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The burden of proof is less strict in civil court. If you have to be 99% sure someone is guilty in criminal court, you only have to be 50% sure someone is guilty in civil court.Playbahnosh said:
None of that. You simply reimburse the plaintiff for his or her damages. You might pay actual damages (compensation for your act), statutory damages (a pre-determined compensation for your act) and punitive damages (to keep you from doing it again). Or you can file for bankruptcy if you cannot pay. This stays on your record for 10 years I believe, and you probably won't be able to receive a loan to buy a boat.
This remains to be seen.
Here's a question: how come they are going after downloaders, yet they still allow their movies to be rented? I'm pretty sure that a movie gets rented by more than one person, yet it's only paid for once, and unlike internet downloading, people are making money off it. People are making money off of your work and you're going after the people who don't get anything out of it. Plus, the renters are people who actually spend money, meaning they were more likely a potential customer than the unpaying pirate (note: not saying 1 pirate = 1 lost sale, simply saying that the pirates would be less likely to spend money on it). I know they do buy your movie and rent for less than the cost, but given how many I'd say just from looking at the movie renters near my college and how many people rented the Hurt Locker (according to a friend of mine who is an employee), they easily made that money back and more.
Pretty sure the answer is hypocrisy and that they only really care about the money not that people are seeing it without paying them (after all, looking at it again, those same rentals were often for a family, meaning that a 2+ people saw the movie without paying you directly, and enough of them ended up making it so that the renter was then making money on every rental without having to pay you).
Pretty sure the answer is hypocrisy and that they only really care about the money not that people are seeing it without paying them (after all, looking at it again, those same rentals were often for a family, meaning that a 2+ people saw the movie without paying you directly, and enough of them ended up making it so that the renter was then making money on every rental without having to pay you).
Agreed, if everybody pirated the production companies would not have the money to pay their employees and make new products. So the pirates should be sued. How's that different than stealing? (I use Redbox and live with inlaws who use Netflix and don't understand why people insist on pirating).fix-the-spade said:
Also, I won't lie and say that I hate to say this...because I love to say it (I'm right so rarely) but I TOLD YOU SO!!!
If they actually go through with this investigation it's going to cost them more than they will earn.
It's pretty simple. Recieving a product or service without exchanging money for that product or service is stealing. I don't want to hear that, "But I didn't take anything, I only made a copy," nonsense either. That's not a valid point at all. Someone spent the money to create the movie, and they are entitled to be compensated when people take advantage of the work done to create the movie unless otherwise stated by the movie producers. The same is true for games and music.Xvito said: