back to article Copyright thieves' cyberlockers slurp MILLIONS from honest creators, study finds

An economic study of direct download locker sites has found most are used for copyright infringement – and calculates that they're highly profitable. The study looked at download sites like Mega, Rapidgator and Depositfiles, and streaming lockers like Movshare.net, Flashx.tv and Streamcloud.eu. The study, carried out by …

  1. Anonymous Bullard

    What I want to know is, who is paying these millions for advertising on these site?

    I would have thought it a waste of money advertising to free-loaders.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "slurp MILLIONS from honest creators, study finds"

      Erm - no it doesn't say that at all. It says that the locker sites make advert or subscription money from downloaders. There is zero evidence that this is at the expense of purchases via the copyright cartels. In fact studies have shown that free copying makes near zero impact on DRM infected purchases.

      1. Tapeador
        FAIL

        "In fact studies have shown that free copying makes near zero impact on DRM infected purchases."

        First of all DRMed purchases are only a subset of paid-for or what would have been paid-for creative output.

        Secondly, "studies have shown" means a study has argued. I don't agree with every argument I hear. Do you? Perhaps you'd give a citation and tell us which bit you support. Because it seems to me trite economics, virtually beneath saying, that providing something for free destroys the market for it.

        You also say there is "zero evidence that [advertising] is at the expense of purchases via the copyright cartels" - which seems to me incorrect, utterly, because the advertising money helps fund and incentivise the locker which destroys the market for goods. And in any case it's a form of profiting from theft.

        Finally, you write that there is "zero evidence"; yet as I say, not only is it trite economics, as I mentioned above, but also in part counterfactual, owing not least to the incommensurability of today's market with one un-wrecked by digital copyright theft of 18 years ago - but counterfactual or not we can still make arguments and dismiss others. Methodologically, "zero evidence" claims seem to me deeply iffy in this case - you just mean you don't have any, which given how little you've thought about in a rounded way seems unsurprising.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          seems to me incorrect, utterly, because the advertising money helps fund and incentivise the locker which destroys the market for goods."

          It might 'seem to you' - but there is in fact zero evidence presented of this. And as mentioned above, studies have shown that this is not in fact the case.

          "And in any case it's a form of profiting from theft."

          There is no mention of any form of theft. At the worst this is copyright infringement.

          ""zero evidence" claims seem to me deeply iffy in this case - you just mean you don't have any, which given how little you've thought about in a rounded way seems unsurprising."

          Pot, Kettle, etc.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The organization who paid for the report is reportedly nothing more than another copyright protection racket (possibly also in the act of protecting medical companies profits on occasion) and has very little to do with consumer protection, or citizens

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Citizens_Alliance

      It would be nice if you presented a vaguely balanced view for a change

    3. N13L5

      Hah, what I want to know is who paid the millions for this and other studies of this ilk?

      Studies in general have been found to surprisingly come out with findings that please those who ordered and paid for them.

      To me, this story is just another Big Media plant to convince people of how bad it is to have an internet that is not totally controlled by corporations and spies.

      boohoo!

      I had an idea once, so me and my clan should be able to live for generations on the never ending proceeds MY intellectual property is a suspect idea to begin with, but worse, the I.P. rights almost always end up with large conglomerates that are generally in the business of making humanity miserable with their sorry single minded goal of maximising monetary profit.

      Subservience to money is a degradation of consciousness.

  2. Andrew Norton
    Devil

    Forgot the other half of the report

    You didn't mention that while it was for the "Digital citizens Alliance" (a nice astroturfing group) the other company involved (and who wrote the report) is none other than 'NetNames' (who share equal billing with DCA). for those that don't know, NetNames is more of a corporate oriented version of Web Sheriff, and describe themselves as "Leaders in online brand protection and domain name strategy, assisting global brands to Search-Find-Stop brand abuse online."

    The 'findings 'then are totally predictable. Also wouldn't surprise me if this report had a little backdoor funding from PIPCU, as their last report basically justified the extra-judicial actions of PIPCU.

    1. Tom 35

      Re: Forgot the other half of the report

      Maybe we could have the creation science museum do a study for fox news on the age of the earth. I'm sure the answer would be almost as big a surprise as this report.

  3. Grifter

    Hmm

    So when a copyright thief thieves a copyright, does the copyright cease to be enforcable by the original copyright holder, since because it was thefted from him, he no longer has possession of it?

    1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Hmm

      You got the meaning, though.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmm

      Doh!

      Oh wait, that has a copyright also,

      Doh!

    3. Infernoz Bronze badge
      FAIL

      Re: Hmm

      I love your ironic cynicism :)

      As you allude to, it is nonsense to suggest that you can steal ideas, because they are intangible and can only be copied.

      It is always deceitful sophistry to associate the word thieves or theft, with copyright e.g. the headline.

      Copyright is just a discredited state granted monopoly privilege on ideas which serves no useful purpose for the public, hampers the market with artificial scarcity far worse than any private earned monopoly, and contradicts real property rights.

      The use of the word Pirate with reference to copyright rebels is also toxic double speak and it is shameful that some dictionaries support this abuse of the word definition.

      The study authors are obviously just mercenary trolls for rentier corporate use of a destructive state monopoly privilege.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Tom 13

          @ Larry F54

          Thank-you for saving me much time composing my thoughts on his error.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmm

      Copyright infringement is not theft, it is copyright infringement, and it certainly has nothing to do with robbing large container ships, and holding their crews for ransom money

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Perfect breeding grounds for scamsters ...

    Entice the punter with the lure of ill-gotten media, take their money, and do whatever you want. After all the mark won't complain ..

    "Dear Trading Standards, I lost <x> with a site that promised me fast access to stolen files.!"

    1. Aslan

      Re: Perfect breeding grounds for scamsters ...

      Excellent comment by Andrew Norton thanks for calling out the source of this "article" and their prejudices.

      RE: Anonymous Coward addressed in title

      If you're serious and smart, ie you don't fall for fishing scams you join a forum or IRC channel interested in such sites and the group there will track these things, ie know who does what they say and who doesn't. If there's a new site you hear about their reliability from members of other groups that are members of your group, or you have a member of your group make a first buy and see if they do what they say. With a combination of a web of trust, logic and game theory and a payment service that follows set rules, Paypal, credit cards there's little risk to the downloader. I you pay for a month of Access and a month of access is not provided it's not difficult to get a refund through your payment provider it just takes time and follow through, just focus on the issue of access or no access, not access to what. The biggest risk is the site disappears after you pay for a years membership. A year is a long time on the internet for such a site.

      When you evaluate the utility of such a service, you must consider the liability from downloading files people are getting sued over or might get sued over verses the the cost of a months subscription, $6-15. If you're not penniless file lockers win. Add to that higher quality files of the titles you download from such a service than you get from Netflix streaming, Star Trek Deep Space 9, My Little Pony Friendship is magic and even titles from the 1980's restored by amateurs, such as The Mysterious Cities of Gold. If one pays to access content through Netflix or any other legal service I'm of the opinion that the content one could pirate should never be superior to what I've paid for at worst it should be equal. After all if one doesn't even own the content one has purchased on a DVD or Bluray, if one only licenses it, then shouldn't that license include the best version of content available in a given media? Of course I know that isn't the way it works, but it's frustrating trying to rent your movies legally when you know the pirates have the best version.

      In conclusion smart people will not be falling for scammers, and always remember to use one or more av scanners.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Perfect breeding grounds for scamsters ...

        "When you evaluate the utility of such a service, you must consider the liability from downloading files people are getting sued over or might get sued over verses the the cost of a months subscription"

        Not in the UK. It is not illegal to only download / stream here - only to 'distribute'.

        Pretty sure that's the same in the US too. If it isn't - find me a single case of someone successfully prosecuted for just downloading?

    2. Tom 35

      Re: Perfect breeding grounds for scamsters ...

      There are scams but that's not how they work.

      You search for something and a few sites will say they have it*, click and you get a page of ads and a link, that takes you to another page of ads, and another link. It's always one more click for what you want. Even if you make up total random crap that never existed, they have it.

      *I was looking for a manual for something that was no longer made and the company only existed as a trade mark for cheap Chinese crap.

  5. noboard

    Hmmm

    "Not so with the cyberlockers. In the same way as Propeller Media, the infringing sites use complex corporate structures based offshore in locations including the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles, and Cyprus."

    So the crooks are Google, Star Buck, Harriet Harmen, plus every other large corporation, businessman and politician as they all employ these tactics.

    Feel free to lock them all up.

  6. Maldax
    Mushroom

    Appendix A is great!

    Read Appendix A...or as like like to put it..how we made this shit up!

    The only thing I think the copyright owners should take away from this is users are more than happy to pay if you give them what they want!

    In the UK until NowTV arrived it was IMPOSSIBLE to watch Game of Thrones unless you had Sky TV...they even kept if off Virgin's Cable service by sticking it on Sky Atlantic. Guess what I didn't have to download this year! (Not that I ever did of course!)

    1. Jack 12

      Re: Appendix A is great!

      IMPOSSIBLE to watch, unless you, ahem, paid for the service. Isn't that what is supposed to happen? Sky buy the rights to a popular show in the expectation that people will pay for the Sky service to access it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Appendix A is great!

        But Sky isn't available for all platforms. For instance it's not on Windows Phone - which is about 10% of the UK mobile market - so your only choice in that case is to download it from TPB, etc. .

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Appendix A is great!

          But Windows Phone is a minority, next you'll want it on VHS.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Appendix A is great!

        IMPOSSIBLE to watch, unless you, ahem, paid for the service. Isn't that what is supposed to happen? Sky buy the rights to a popular show in the expectation that people will pay for the Sky service to access it.

        Except Sky are not the copyright holders, in the case of the GoT Tv series i think the copyright holder is probably HBO who funded it

        So the previous posters argument is from what i can gather that HBO would make more money selling the show to the people who want to watch it via a digital service instead of relying on outdated parocial methods of network syndication. Which is propbably an accurate argument based on how popular it has been on p2p etc etc

      3. Maldax

        Re: Appendix A is great!

        But its not always possible to pay for it...can't always have a satellite dish fitted! If you can't have a dish you CAN'T have Sky

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Appendix A is great!

        Cheaper on DVD.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Appendix A is great!

        Sky just take the p...

        As well as charging a monthly subscription (about £30 minimum), they have the audacity to insert 5 minutes of adverts every quarter of an hour.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Appendix A is great!

      more than happy to pay

      ...unless you had Sky TV

      But you're not willing enough to pay for Sky TV, who were actually giving it to people are more than happy to pay?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blah! psuedo evidence for more site blocking

    First off, from their own study, clearly the best way to stop streaming sites would be to bill the advertisers. The ad company must have been shown the site before handing any cash over and if it was via a third party then they must have vetted the infringing sites and condoned the use of pirated content.

    As to the survey itself, how do they determine the percentage of pirated content on the file hosts servers via links. Most people who want something they created hosted tend not to blurt the links and so I can only assume that the survey showed that whilst trawling pirate movie sites there were some links to the particular file hosts. Duh! not exactly a unbiased sample then is it.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: Blah! psuedo evidence for more site blocking

      Right conclusion, but the logic is off a bit. Neither the company selling the ad nor the third party vendors necessarily HAS to vet the sites to which they sell. Particularly with resale sites I expect "You have the cash? Have some ads." arrangements which at this time are perfectly legal. But as you correctly observed, that means those companies are profiting from the piracy and therefore are liable under common understandings of the law.

      From the way the article is written, I think they're basing it around actual accounts that were seized/compromised from the relevant site type. But again, that means you potentially have a serious selection bias. Assumes the population as a whole reflects sites that were seized as a result of having probable cause. Not acceptable in my opinion.

  8. JP19

    So much money being made from....

    freetards.. how can that be?

  9. shyted

    70% income from subs

    Err, call me silly but if 70% of income comes from subs, then these users are paying for something they want...

    Build it and they will come? How hard can it be.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If infringement is theft

    Then copyright is racketeering.

  11. raving angry loony

    Answer?

    So the answer would seem to be that if the content "producers" (really the middle-men who don't produce anything but are more in the business of legally ripping off the actual artists) were to create sites that make it easier to access the music, films and books people actually want, they would profit more? Alternatively, impose a levy on the advertisers on those other sites?

    Because closing their fists tighter and tighter on a broken business model seems to not be working very well, especially for the artists themselves. With a few exceptions of course - just like the lottery, if they can keep the hope alive, there's always fools who will flock in to get fleeced.

  12. ecofeco Silver badge

    Wait. What?

    Damn. I'm in the wrong business.

  13. Robert Helpmann??
    Childcatcher

    Follow the Money

    If PayPal can do it, why can't Visa and Mastercard stand up and enforce their own anti-piracy policies?

    Because BitCoin. I am not familiar with PayPal's efforts in this regard, but as they are associated with eBay which has a dog in this fight, it makes sense for them to be concerned with copyright infringement. I do not believe there is similar motivation for Visa or Mastercard.

  14. Blitterbug
    Unhappy

    Well-known astroturfing group

    I am generally against illegal activity, but quoting these famous astroturfers so much kind of devalues what could be a powerful argument.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I never understood the logic of pissing away life by paying for ways to kill time. The best memories in life can obtained for free.

  16. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    No El Reg readers use these sites?

    Can't anyone say who the advertisers are? Come on, someone must know...

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