Another clampdown on movie pirates

[Shotgunjim]

Well not that we havent heard this before but.....

Studios to sue net movie swappers

Dan Glickman announced the measures on Thursday
Hollywood film studios are to sue people who swap pirated copies of films over the internet.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said the civil suits would seek damages of up to $30,000 (£16,300) per film.

Dan Glickman, head of the MPAA, said the lawsuits were necessary before high-speed internet access made downloading pirated films easier.

The MPAA said it would file hundreds of lawsuits from 16 November.


We know who they are, and we will go after them

Dan Glickman, MPAA

"This was not an easy decision, but it must be done now before illegal online file-sharing of movies spins out of control," said Glickman.

"Illegal movie trafficking represents the greatest threat to the economic basis of movie-making in its 110-year history."

The crackdown will target individuals who deal in illegally copied cinema products on file-swapping networks, as well as the pirates themselves.

Glickman added: "People who have been stealing our movies believe they are anonymous on the internet, and wouldn't be held responsible for their actions.

"They are wrong. We know who they are, and we will go after them, as these suits will prove."

The MPAA claims the US film industry loses more than $3bn every year in potential global revenue because of piracy.

But Glickman said the figure did not take into account the losses from thousands of illegal online downloads that were swapped every day.

The MPAA represents the seven major Hollywood film studios.

Link HERE

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Time for a proxy soon then!

[big man]

$3bn a year losses - and i bet they were losing the equivalent when pirate videos (vhs) were doing the rounds

It's all bollox - look at films like spiderman 2 etc etc that have taken riduclous amounts of money at the cinema

Drop the price of dvd's and cinema tickets, and the piracy figures will drop (imho), but more importantly, stop making shit movies that people can't be arsed to go to the cinema to watch. I know lots of people that saw the LOTR trilogy at the cinema, have dowloaded copies, and have STILL bought the DVD box sets

Make better stuff and people don't mind paying for it - end of story

EDIT - sorry, just felt like a bit of a rant :whistle

[ABCMan]

all this from the people who the american supreme court once said were being "silly beyond belief"

these are the people who tried to get home video recorders banned in the late 70's because of the damage it would do to their industry, the same people who having lost in every court in the land suddenly decided that rental and sell through was actualy a good thing.

its realy strange how the movie companies claim they are losing billions to movie piracy, yet at the same time reciepts are going up both at the box office and on home products, maybe its because thos pirates are now going to the cinema more than ever and renting / buying dvd's more than ever, surely its only when a company makes a movie like the hulk which sucks so badly that people see the pirate copy and vote with their feet by not going to see it at the cinema or buying / renting the dvd that they have any cause to complain, and even then the complaint can only be that because of piracy they didnt get the chance to rip people off.

maybe the answer lies in the movie company making low priced (watermarked, b&w sectioned etc) preview copies available online for a fair price (say $3) so people can pay to see a full but imperfect version of the movie and use that to decide if it was worth paying full price to see properly, i know it would never happen but it would make sense and probably give the movie companies another revenue stream.

still in the meantime i guess they will continue to attack the people who pay their wages untill of course they can guarentee a profit from it.

it may be of interest to some that the mpaa is currently using its huge budget to buy more senators so they can get a new bill passed in america, the name of the act escapes me at the moment, but they say its so they can go after those responsible for running the file sharing networks rather than the individual people sharing them, which of course sounds reasonable, DO NOT BE FOOLED this new act if passed could put the electronics industry back in the stone age, basicly it allows the mpaa to prosicute those who enable video / audio files to be exchanged illegaly, you would think they mean grockster ot morpheus or kazaa but no, the law goes way beyond that, it would effectively mean they cold sue radio shack for selling a dvd recorder or vhs recorder or even a stereo with a cassette player, maybe eve a blank disc or tape, can you imagine what that would do to the home electronics industry? the only allowable products would be dvd players (to play the mpaa's movies on), tv's (to watch the mpaa's movies on) and of course cd players to play the riaa's music on, even microsoft could be sued for providing software that can make or play illegal content.

worring times indeed.

[ABCMan]

Time for a proxy soon then!

hmmm
[06:56] -> *NickServ* IDENTIFY < my password>
-
[06:56] * ABCMan sets mode: +R
-
[06:56] -NickServ- Password accepted - you are now recognized.
[06:56] -irc.xxxxxx.ca- *** Your host is Masked (aaaa-101B1EA5@101B1EA5)

or maybe a decent network

[Pegasus]

Time for a proxy soon then!

If somebody wants to trace you, a proxy or ten won't stop them.

[neo2810]

If somebody wants to trace you, a proxy or ten won't stop them.

So true... The only way to avoid detection is to stay off them... They are playing on the fact that fear will cut down the amount of download, and they are probably right.
Mind you, you cant really serve a lawsuit on 4 billion people can you?

[Fusen]

all this from the people who the american supreme court once said were being "silly beyond belief"

these are the people who tried to get home video recorders banned in the late 70's because of the damage it would do to their industry, the same people who having lost in every court in the land suddenly decided that rental and sell through was actualy a good thing.

its realy strange how the movie companies claim they are losing billions to movie piracy, yet at the same time reciepts are going up both at the box office and on home products, maybe its because thos pirates are now going to the cinema more than ever and renting / buying dvd's more than ever, surely its only when a company makes a movie like the hulk which sucks so badly that people see the pirate copy and vote with their feet by not going to see it at the cinema or buying / renting the dvd that they have any cause to complain, and even then the complaint can only be that because of piracy they didnt get the chance to rip people off.

maybe the answer lies in the movie company making low priced (watermarked, b&w sectioned etc) preview copies available online for a fair price (say $3) so people can pay to see a full but imperfect version of the movie and use that to decide if it was worth paying full price to see properly, i know it would never happen but it would make sense and probably give the movie companies another revenue stream.

still in the meantime i guess they will continue to attack the people who pay their wages untill of course they can guarentee a profit from it.

it may be of interest to some that the mpaa is currently using its huge budget to buy more senators so they can get a new bill passed in america, the name of the act escapes me at the moment, but they say its so they can go after those responsible for running the file sharing networks rather than the individual people sharing them, which of course sounds reasonable, DO NOT BE FOOLED this new act if passed could put the electronics industry back in the stone age, basicly it allows the mpaa to prosicute those who enable video / audio files to be exchanged illegaly, you would think they mean grockster ot morpheus or kazaa but no, the law goes way beyond that, it would effectively mean they cold sue radio shack for selling a dvd recorder or vhs recorder or even a stereo with a cassette player, maybe eve a blank disc or tape, can you imagine what that would do to the home electronics industry? the only allowable products would be dvd players (to play the mpaa's movies on), tv's (to watch the mpaa's movies on) and of course cd players to play the riaa's music on, even microsoft could be sued for providing software that can make or play illegal content.

worring times indeed.

you mean put it back to the stone age in america? as afaik their laws don't effect us brits ;P

[jackdaniels]

If somebody wants to trace you, a proxy or ten won't stop them.

I heard a way to stop them finding you was to use peer guardian but i dont know how that works. Can someone explain please.

[Shambles]

Nope.

Google is your friend... use your friend wisely.

[ZX7R]

surely even peer guardian isn't that effective - as I understand, it only block well known/familar IP addresses owned by film compaines, etc.

Surely there's nothing stopping some sys admin in the legal department of one of those companies going home and using his/her PC to trace P2P users downloading their company's films??? Peer Guardian isn't going to block that. ?

[flumperino]

ye, it only blocks addresses that are known to be nosey...or possibly could be nosey.


Granted, we are talking about over half a billion IPs, but yeah, all they'd need is to use another pc somewhere else with a different connection or something

[unclex]

At the end of your day the ISP knows what you are doing - If I were the film industry I would buy up ISP's or do a deal with them to collect IP's for a big case. :nowords:

[ABCMan]

At the end of your day the ISP knows what you are doing - If I were the film industry I would buy up ISP's or do a deal with them to collect IP's for a big case. :nowords:

you mean like "time warner AOL mpaa riaa" or "vivendi universal mpaa riaa" (wanadoo) or "20th century fox sky mpaa direct tv etc"?

[unclex]

Yep that is it - already on the case - move to a clean ISP now!

We will have to start posting ISP's that do not have connections with the film industry :whistle