Hollywood demands shuttering of Pirate Bay Hollywood is asking a Swedish court to deliver the killing blow against the The Pirate Bay now that its four co-founders have been found guilty of facilitating copyright infringement. Although the owners of the notorious BitTorrent tracker face prison time and hefty fines, the sentence handed out in April did not include an …
They have endorced, embraced, and entered the Digital 1990's about 10 years ago. Instead like Lemmings or Ostriches they've sat on their proverbials and done SFA except whinge and moan like mad.
Serves them right -- I mean, who doesn't want to pay US$30 for a DVD that you can buy in the US for US$20....I'm sure everyone does.
Perhaps when they relinquish their predatory, fixed-price (read cartel) scheme, drop region coding (most of us already have hacked players, so it ain't working morons) and adopt a "one price for everyone everywhere" they'll pry our cold dead fingers off of P2P sharing.
Or not, Ostriches after all can't be educated......
Hmm wonder how long until they shutdown www.isohunt.com in Canadian court (always a better site imho). It doesn't matter and the suits know it. They are just justifying their big legal staffs. How long until other sites are up to replace them? Do they really think they can go back to how things were before the internet was invented? Of course they are right on paper but big media is learning the hard way what happens when they try to force DRM and court decisions down their customers throats. Ask Sony how well blueray and the PS3 are doing for their bottom line. In fact if Sony hadn't bought a movie studio how much you want to bet the iPod would be known as the Walkman digital or some such today?
You'd have thought that having an injunction against continued operation would have been at least the second item on the lawsuit wouldn't you.
Which, assuming the MAFIAA aren't inept signals a tacit agreement for the site to continue operating.
Or perhaps they're just utterly stupid.
Surely not...
This is amongst the most pointless things in the known universe. Napster, kazaa, morpheus, they've shut them all down and another has popped up instead to take up the slack. A quick search will show you a load of torrent sites, the Man is just fixated on PB at the mo'. They should try to work out a legal way of doing it or forget about it and stop giving PB the oxygen of publicity. My Mum's heard of piratebay even though she hasn't got a clue what a torrent is :)
What's the cost/benefit analysis on this?
On the downside of all this legal gubbins
- $$$$$ spent on lawsuits and investigations and what not
- Some people don't go to see a film/don't buy the DVD/CD
- Shut PB down and another will just take over, wind all this up and start again
- Millions of people watching the 10 o'clock news hear about somewhere you can get films for free
On the upside
- People who don't have a desperate desire to see a film/listen to a CD download it then like it so much they buy a legal copy
- People get introduced to material they wouldn't normally see
- People don't waste money on stuff they don't like, so, as they're confident with there choices, they spend more than they would otherwise have done
Most people obtain a copy of a film from the bloke in the pub/someone at work/someone down the market which are all physical copies imported illegally from the far east manufacturing plants from the master copies.
Downloaders may proportionally get a lot, but half the housewives in the country getting robin hood (richard armitage makes it worth the price of entry alone apparently) on DVD from frank down the pub is going to take a sizeable chunk out of the profits. And you don't have to wait for it to download, worry about getting caught or wonder what the hell a tracker is or that you'll get a virus.
The reason cinema audiences are going down is because it's so expensive and the stuff they're making is rubbish. 10 years ago you'd go to see a film if if it looked "alright <shrug>" now why should I when it costs £20 (for 2 people and car parking) and in 3 months it'll be in the bargain bin in asda (other supermarkets are available)
The only films I go to see in the pics are ones which require big screens, the one's with explosions and/or spaceships and even then I'm more choosey. The new terminator film 4 or 5 years ago I would have gone to see even though it didn't look great. Now I think, why waste the cash when it doesn't look that good.
Same with CDs, I've bought so many rubbish ones over the years with one song on I like or by someone who's other tunes I liked, so I'll get this one, "it's bound to be good if the last one was", etc.etc.etc.
Now I only buy CDs I've listened to a few times but I buy a lot more. We're all winners, I've got a better music collection and the bands I like have the cash to make more decent records, while the bands who're "meh" or "alright if I'm in that kinda mood" "Must try HARDER" as Mrs Meallor used to say
Either way, I bet mininova are getting a hell of a load of hits now.
I'm all for earning money for seeding... but the film studios are still ridiculously stubborn.
Even in the face of a company willing to LEGALLY distribute and PAY them for downloads, they're stubborn and selfish to the last.
another torrent site dies two more pop up, its not exactly going to change anything piracy existed long before torrents and will be around long after. Instead of going after the people who always have and always will pirate the should be making their products more attractive to the on the fence people that only occasionally download because that gets them what they would be happy to pay for if it was available when how they wanted it.
As for declining sales well I know love film for example will be part of that I've not bought a dvd/blue ray/Console game since I signed up with them.
I'll definitely be taking the whole family (~£22 at The Odeon) along to the cinema when it gets released in the UK. We'll defo end up getting the DVD, too. A Pixar classic that'll stand many replays.
Went to see Harry Potter on the first day of its release and we now have a (very good) cam version on the PC for watching at home. Again, we'll end up buying the DVD once it becomes available.
Not making any point other than that the situation's never as black-and-white as either side would have you believe.
Paris, as I have some 'cam' footage of her on the home PC, too.
I wonder if they would understand this analogy: It's like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke (stop sniggering at the back). Except that before he sticks it in (I said stop!), there are already more holes than he has fingers, and they are further apart than he can reach with both arms outstretched. Attention cartels, NOW do you get it?
A 100 films is enough for them to say the site must be closed? Sounds like there's a lot more legitimate files there than illegitimate.
I propose boycotting all of those films listed in the complaint. Don't rent or buy either soundtracks, motion picture or merchandise for those films.
Must have been a dull day at El Reg! Or maybe you've got a new server/moderatrix to stress-test?
I can just imagine what it would be like if the PhysicalMediaDistributionTards actually had the magic wand they think they have to eliminate all these heinous criminals overnight.
Scene: $BIG_CORP and $STUDIO in pre-production meeting for a major blockbuster. (exactly where are these blocks and why do they keep busting? I suggest a review of Q.A. procedures)
PMDT: "OK great news guys! No more piracy... the world is ours! Muhaahahahahaaaa!"
$BIG_CORP: "So you mean where once millions upon millions of people were seeing this movie cos they could get it for free, there are now none. Correct?"
PMDT: "That's right! Isn't it marvelous?"
$BIG_CORP: "So you mean where once millions upon millions of people were seeing our product placements, there are now none. Correct?"
PMDT: "Errr..."
$BIG_CORP: "Marvelous indeed. We shall be revising our proposal accordingly. See you tomorrow." *door slam*
PMDT: (Breaks down in a scene reminiscent of the ending of Planet Of The Apes)
"Hopefully the perps will learn a lesson or two while in prison."
Like the lessons learned by other political activists; the ones that were incarcerated in the 60's and 70's? Like, how to interoperate with the public telecommunications network without being noticed? Like, how to embezzle and launder money almost as good as an elected politician or media mogul? Like, how to bribe/threaten a foreign country to implement laws that circumvent the populace's rights to better match your business model? Like, how the Real Illegal Ass.'s of America™ do piracy and copyright infrngement?
Yep, there's lots of lessons to learn while staying at the pleasure of His Majesty of Sweden...
Let's face it, guys. wHollyWeird want the world and, as Jim Morrison, another notable Merkan who was bent on self destruction, put it, they want it now. Beside the fact that TPB have indeed sold out, it's worth remembering that the death of one technology didn't stop the birth of another, nor did it stop the setting up of new organisations ready to provide it.
It all comes down to supply and demand. If the supplier demands too high a price for their product, or they supply an inferior product, the demand goes down. If a product can be got another way, for what the product is worth, people will pay that amount. Charging what the market will bear, a basic economic principle, is something wHollyWeird has long since forgotten, along with basic entertainment concepts such as originality. No wonder people don't want to pay for it!
Yet we hardly ever hear of companies from elsewhere in the world taking such steps. Don't be mistaken, they do it, but they don't prance around like primadonnas like the Recording Arse of Merka. But then many of them tend to focus their energy on targetting the real perps, not middle-men like TPB or their end users, so they tend not to look like prize wankers.
So, to Columbia Pictures, Disney, NBC, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, and Viacom, my only suggestion is to consider removing the bugs from their collective sphincters and start considering what realistic measures they can take to embrace the tech they scorn so much while they still have an audience.
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