Hollywood gets tough on copying: 'Takedown' letter campaign targets movie swappers

MSNBC ^ | 7/12/02 | By Bob Sullivan

[Vidalia]

I guess they've never heard of mulitple accounts?

Or changing ISPs?

This is pissin' against the wind, maybe even on the 'lectric fence...

It's sure gonna hurt later.

[Lazamataz]

It will work in an area with one highspeed service provider. With two, one could reasonably switch between the two providers at will. Comply for a few days, put the content back up, get the notice, pull the content. When kicked off the provider, get the new provider, rinse and repeat.

Additionally, ISP's are more interested in revenue then in serving as CopyCops.

[Lazamataz]

There was a GREAT acoustic performance on Howard Stern by some chick named Edna Swap. I guess she wrote the song 'Torn' that was then sung by Nancy Umbruglia.

But Nancy did the song in this peppy, upbeat manner, and the song is NOT peppy and upbeat. It's about a very destroyed woman, devastated by some jerky guy.

Nancy sings it peppy. Upbeat. Happy. The song was performed by Edna in a haunting, angst-filled way on Howard Sterns show -- and she said that was how it should have been performed. I looked for it everywhere. The only place I could find it was in the Gnutella world. I never could have found it anywhere else.

Xcrew the record companies. They are as bad as liberals, and in most cases, are one and the same.

[Brian Mosely]

Most, if not all of the stuff I get off the networks is material they will never release...like raw rehearsal tapes, early "before they were known" recordings and out of print movies. Disney will never reissue Song of the South, but it's there for the taking if you want it. Supply and demand. If they won't supply what the people want, they will just go somewhere else and get it.

[Lazamataz]

Offshore sources will also make this scheme unworkable. The record companies are panicking because they know their monopoly is over.

And it is absolutely over.

[Drew68]

Xcrew the record companies. They are as bad as liberals, and in most cases, are one and the same.

Oh no. Now you've done it! There's gonna be a whole army of FReepers heading over here making accusations that downloading music/movies from the internet is no different than beating up grandma and running off with her Social Security check as happened on this thread.

[elbucko]

Disregarding the technical aspects, in light of Sept. 11th., isn't this offensive. The movie industry has more security than the nation. Whenever I see the "WARNING! FBI!" at the beginning of a video, I have a sickening feeling that the FBI cares more about helping the Dems in Hollywood get their bucks than in getting Al Qaeda.

It pays for politicians to pay a lot of attention to H'wd, and H'wd has certainly gotten a lot of bang for their buck from the FBI.

[Brian Mosely]

And beside...if the movie companies really want to stop the bootlegging of movies, they should take a close look at who they are sending their "screener" tapes and DVD's to. Most of the boots out there now are of pretty high quality and are being leaked to the file sharing networks from people with access to prints and digital copies of the stuff.

[DrDavid]

How long does it take to download a DVD on DSL or cable-modem? A DVD is 7+ GB and high-speed DSL (over 700Kb/sec) is just able to do video (TV quality) in real time. Most people still have 56Kb/s dialup!

Downloading quality video is still a long way off, or a job for very patient people. You could go to the video shop, rent the movie watch it and return it before the download finishes!

[Brian Mosely]

A lot of these are converted to a format called DIVX...which crunches the file size down quite a bit. There are files out there of full movies they call DVD rips that are about 700 meg. (enough to burn onto a CD-R)

[stands2reason]

Nah, nothin' like that. Just good old fashioned theft.

[DoSomethingAboutIt]

part of Kevin Costner’s new movie “Windtalkers.”

Just for the record Kevin Costner is not in Windtalkers. And the movie is not good at all.

[Egg]

Piracy of intellectual property is why all of the big movies, movie stars and most of the musicians are American brands--we're one of the few countries that, up until recently, didn't participate in the media black market. In countries where piracy is unchecked, such as in Asia, there is little incentive to invest in entertainment or software-related endeavors.
Having said that, the liberals in Hollywood have been preaching the virtues of relativism for long enough now to be able to enjoy the fruits of their philosophy, and they don't like it one tiny bit. Maybe I can summon up a crocodile tear or two...

[L`enn]

I saw Edna Swap 4 yrs ago in a club in Syracuse. They mentioned the fact that Natalie Imbruglia basically ran with their song and hit it big while they languished. A group called Stretch Princess appeared with them also. I came home and searched the web for info on them as they both were very good. The only place I found anything was on file-sharing FTP sites. This was pre-Napster.

The moral of the story is that file-sharing is good for the little guy and bad for the big-guy. The file-sharers get the bands the Corporate Recorders don't want to promote, or sign, out in the public eye.

[eno_]

Same here. I don't have time to download what I could easily buy. I download concert bootlegs and rare tracks. And, of course, all the self-published stuff from MP3.com. The best surf rock never makes to to HMV.

[HairOfTheDog]

How long does it take on cable? The answer is about 6-10 hours per 700 MB file depending on the rate it is sending, which is entirely dependent on the quantity and quality of senders at the moment... if that makes sense.

I have done it, it is dirty business and it is most definately stealing. The quality of the stuff out there varies from outright fakes to cheap poor quality to excellent DVD quality. It is a smoke filled room full of liars and thieves, and sometimes they cheat you. It is part of the business when you deal with liars and thieves.

Of course, I have only downloaded one movie when it was not yet available, and will legitimize myself and ease my guilt by buying the real thing when it becomes available. The particular movie I have was broken into two 700 MB files, downloaded over two different nights. Another One-file DivX 700 MB version is available, at considerable loss in quality. I have seen them both.

I do think it is stealing, and I do think the producers of movies deserve to be paid for their work. So I will buy it.

I don't know if I will do the same thing again. KaZaa is an extremely insidious place, and I uninstalled the software immediately, only to find a nasty infection of spyware that had to be cleaned off. My machine needed penicillan, and I needed a shower and a confessional.

Next year, the pre-release bootlegs of my next favorite movie will be available... it will be a test. Aw heck, who am I fooling.

[HairOfTheDog]

Here is the thread here that discussed the spyware installed by KaZaa when you use it. It is insidious stuff, hidden virtual networking stuff that makes you part of a big bandwidth pool. They borrow your unused bandwidth and pass information through you, supposedly...

This is in addition to the files you download from them, which remain in a shared directory that can be accessed by others seeking the files, which is how they operate, and is not insidious, that is the name of the game.

Within the thread are instructions for getting rid of it.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/675512/posts

[10mm]

[dheretic]

Explain to me how you can make the logical connection between duplicating a CD and walking out the store without paying for it. There is only one true definition of theft and that is taking property without compensation or permission (copying a CD is creating new property). Oh $hit, the government does that to 90% of the population every day. Who is going to arrest the government?