The Empire Strikes Back!

[canadateck]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal authorities on Wednesday shut down an online file-sharing network that had the new Stars War movie before it was shown in theaters.

The Elite Torrents network was engaging in high-tech piracy by allowing people to download copies of movies and other copyright material for free, authorities said.

The action was the first criminal enforcement against individuals who are using cutting-edge BitTorrent technology, Justice and Homeland Security Department officials said.

The network had more than 133,000 members and 17,800 movies and software programs in the past four months, officials said. Among those titles was "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," which was available through Elite Torrents six hours before its first showing in theaters, the officials said.

The movie was downloaded more than 10,000 times in the first 24 hours.

"Today's crackdown sends a clear and unmistakable message to anyone involved in the online theft of copyrighted works that they cannot hide behind new technology," said John C. Richter, acting assistant attorney general.

People attempting to access the elitetorrents.org Web site on Wednesday were greeted with a warning about the penalties for copyright infringement.

The message also said: "This site has been permanently shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Individuals involved in the operation and use of the Elite Torrents network are under investigation for criminal copyright infringement."

BitTorrent has become the file-sharing software of choice because of its speed and effectiveness, especially after the recording industry began cracking down last year on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established software.

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that movie piracy cost the film industry $3.5 billion last year, not including the sharing of files online. The association assisted in the investigation, officials said.

"Shutting down illegal file swapping networks like Elite Torrents is an essential part of our fight to stop movie thieves from stealing copyrighted materials," said the group's president, Dan Glickman.

Hollywood movie studios last year sued many operators of computer servers that use BitTorrent technology to help relay digital movie files across online file-sharing networks. The group also sued six sites this month that focus on swapping television programs.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/05/25/movie.downloading.ap/index.html

[SilverBlade]

Doesn't matter how many file sharing programs or networks are shut down, another, more effecient one will open up eventually.

[BJ_M]

I guess they will have to shut down google also

[stiltman]

I guess they will have to shut down google also

No Kidding

Results 1 - 30 of about 9,500 for "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," torrent. (0.10 seconds)

[impmon2]

Just checked Google using the exact same phrase: Results 1 - 10 of about 31,300

I also checked WinMX, my favorite P2P program and got over 100 hits but it was odd. Nearly all of them were hosted by 5 or 6 different sources, which lead me to believe most if not all on WinMX are fake and possibly trap for anyone trying to download I rated movies.

[DereX888]

found it
this one is nicer than the MPAA' one:


Read here on FBI's site:
http://www.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel05/bittorrent052505.htm

From what I read on many msg boards - unlike the previous ones organized by MPAA, this one caused quite a stir among p2p networks.

Im always surprised that p2p users are so often surprised when they are got caught. Dont they know it is so easy and simple to find them? Any dumbest law official can open an account on any of those p2p networks, just start downloading and voila - he get all IPs of all the illegal file sharers.

However...

First-time offenders convicted of criminal felony
copyright laws will face up to five years in federal prison, restitution, forfeiture and a fine.

This is ridiculusly harsh punishment.
Murderers in mighty USofA often get lesser punishment...
It is wrong to steal a movie. But it is very wrong to be punished for it worse than for stealing a car or killing someone.

[Nilfennasion]

Indeed, this punishment is a bit much. I think the law has no ability to tell the difference between a hardcore piracy ring that stamps out pressed copies by the 10,000s and a hobbyist who copies the discs just because he can. Something is wrong with that.

Although I also side with Lucasfilm regarding piracy of ROTS. This is the first time in over twenty years that Lucas has made a decent film. Hell, it is an excellent film, even by the standards of the original trilogy. I left the theatre on opening night absolutely gobsmacked, and I have nothing but contempt for anyone who is too cheap to see it at least once in the best possible environment.

[impmon2]

Although I also side with Lucasfilm regarding piracy of ROTS. This is the first time in over twenty years that Lucas has made a decent film. Hell, it is an excellent film, even by the standards of the original trilogy. I left the theatre on opening night absolutely gobsmacked, and I have nothing but contempt for anyone who is too cheap to see it at least once in the best possible environment.

I agree. Before RotS came out, the last time I went to see the SW movie in theaters more than once were ESB. RotJ was good but the cutesy Ewoks kinds of spoiled a bit and the first 2 movies (TPM and AotC) were not even worth the ticket cost. I figure I spent close to $25 and I was by myself and smuggled in sugar free sodium free munchies (theater doesn't have anything that fits my dietary requirement other than bottled water :P )

[DereX888]

Indeed, this punishment is a bit much. I think the law has no ability to tell the difference between a hardcore piracy ring that stamps out pressed copies by the 10,000s and a hobbyist who copies the discs just because he can. Something is wrong with that.

Although I also side with Lucasfilm regarding piracy of ROTS. This is the first time in over twenty years that Lucas has made a decent film. Hell, it is an excellent film, even by the standards of the original trilogy. I left the theatre on opening night absolutely gobsmacked, and I have nothing but contempt for anyone who is too cheap to see it at least once in the best possible environment.

I agree - SW III is excellent movie, I too saw it on the opening day, and I can't imagine how one can watch such movie at home on no matter how good copy he can get from the internet and no matter how big and good is his stereo/tv set
But in the eye of law 'decency' of any movie does, or actually should not matter.
I made a bet few weeks ago that SW III will be on the internet at least day before its premiere - I won. My other bet was that MPAA will make a huge p2p sweep once SW III copies show up on them - well, this time big guns were rolled out instead of MPAA, but I still was right.
It makes me sick that public american institutions like FBI are more and more engaged to protect interest of corporations, while in the same time public has to organise i.e. private border patrols because government cant provide decent level of its own border security. Not mentioning the level of punishment for "crimes against corporations" compared to punishment for committing "crimes against private citizens", including a murder. What makes any goddamn movie worth more than the life of any citizen! Its sick.

[EvilWizardGlick]

Indeed, this punishment is a bit much. I think the law has no ability to tell the difference between a hardcore piracy ring that stamps out pressed copies by the 10,000s and a hobbyist who copies the discs just because he can. Something is wrong with that.

Although I also side with Lucasfilm regarding piracy of ROTS. This is the first time in over twenty years that Lucas has made a decent film. Hell, it is an excellent film, even by the standards of the original trilogy. I left the theatre on opening night absolutely gobsmacked, and I have nothing but contempt for anyone who is too cheap to see it at least once in the best possible environment.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/05/25/notes052505.DTL&type=printable

May The Force Please Go Away
13 reasons to be hugely grateful that "Star Wars," the king of adolescent space epics, is finally over
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Can we just say it? Can we admit it now? Is it finally time?

Here goes: Thank the great Sith Lord above that the massive computer-driven marketing hellbeast that is the overblown "Star Wars" epic is finally over.

There I said it. Can we agree? Because the truth is, this most bloated of megamovie franchises hasn't been a certifiable cultural phenom, something to get truly excited about, for over 25 years. Admit it now, get it over with, move on to pretty happy things like puppies and porn and sunshine.

Look, I'm sorry, but I don't care how many gazillions the last three flicks have made at the box office from ubergeeks too old to get "Harry Potter" and too emotionally immature to graduate to real movies. Episodes I-III are mostly one thing and one thing only: huge exercises in CGI acrobatics, manic video games writ large, numbly awful movies full of fine actors reduced to stiff mannequins in bad monk robes and uncomfortable headpieces delivering stone-cold line readings seemingly written by that slightly twitchy tin-eared dweeb who sat next you in fifth-grade algebra, sweatingly.

It's all just a little -- how to put this carefully -- it's all just a little embarrassing.

Here, then, are 13 reasons to celebrate the end of the cute, overblown SW monster. Reasons for normal people to get back to caring about decent movies with subtle dialogue and true character development and nuanced plot lines not revolving around a monochromatic good/evil dialectic executed by barely emotive cartoon characters who have somehow been brainwashed into thinking they're making art. Admit these now, get it over with, move on to happy things like wine and sex and pleasures that have absolutely zero to do with whooshing lightsabers. OK?

1) Begone, Star Wars ubergeeks. Begone, terrifically strange and tragically lonely fan boys who camp out, weeks and months in advance, for SW tickets, even at the wrong theater. Drink the Kool-Aid if you must, boys. Your 15 minutes are way, way up. Never has a culture wished so deeply for a group of people to get deep into online porn and pop more Ritalin and stay the hell home.

2) Unfortunately, now the media coverage of such geeks will simply switch over to sad psychochristian fanatics who are already lining up for Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" sequel, "Dead Things I Pulverize with a Cuisinart and Then Smear All Over My Hairy Catholic Chest."

3) Poor Ewan McGregor. Poor Natalie Portman. Poor Liam Neeson. Fabulous actors so completely drained of nuance and character you are left wishing Obi Wan would shoot heroin and dive into a toilet and have a deformed religious experience, and that Neeson might veer off and start asking Princess Amidala what her favorite sexual position is and how many orgasms she has in a month and what she really thinks about when she sees Vader's throbbing red lightsaber.

4) Farewell, the odd and recurring hype that claims, every few years, that George Lucas might, in fact, be one of the truly great, visionary directors of all time. He isn't. Not by a long shot.

5) Darth Vader choking a giant red M&M candy. Darth Vader staring down that creepy Burger King mascot thing. Darth Vader hawking cell phones and Energizer batteries and floor cleaner and breakfast cereal and who the hell knows what else. Good riddance, odious sea of SW product tie-ins. Like the goddamn franchise needs more cash? Like seeing Darth Vader hawking tampons and aspirin and Darth Vader-branded bunion pads is in any way necessary? Please.

6) Let's just say it outright: Harrison Ford carried the first three movies, period. Carrie Fisher was amusing enough, the droids were cute and infinitely annoying, James Earl Jones' Vader voice work was nearly a character unto itself. But no one topped Ford at delivering a cynical line or expressing incredulity or offering up that famous "Who, me?" look that would later come to such wondrous fruition with Indiana Jones. "Star Wars" without Ford's dry humor and bewildered mug is like a cheesy pinball machine without the ball: all bells and whistles, few genuine pleasures.

7) Two words: Jim Henson. Next to Ford, Henson's astonishing Creature Shop gave the first movies brilliantly wacky life, silly and tangible and honest. The last three flicks are just painful reminders of how much he, and his entire Muppet universe, are missed in this world, and how much computers have drained many movies of their soul.

8) Did I mention Chewbacca? Did I mention that maddening commercial where Chewbacca is in the booth recording sounds for the new series of "Star Wars" cell phone ring tones and oh my freaking God let's just imagine that for a moment, the pale little sexually denuded dude sitting next to you in the café who gets a call on his Nokia and when it rings it sounds like that weird famous Chewbacca howl, and you turn and look at him and wonder what he might look like if he exploded into a million bloody little geek-boy pieces like, right now.

9) Enough with the dissecting of SW plot lines. Enough with the seeking of deep mythological parallels. Despite all those blogs and articles insisting SW is some sort of modern iteration of "Crime and Punishment" crossed with "Dr. Spock's Guide to Parenting," there is little of true intellectual substance to speak of in any of the SW flicks, and say what you will about old-time '60s radical Lucas' commendable desire to criticize current rabid right-wing ideology via his simple good/evil allegories, the overarching plot of SW is so basic and the execution so orthodox, you might as well be watching "The Bad News Bears," stoned. It's true.

10) The late, great master of myth Joseph Campbell loved the first three "Star Wars" movies. He saw in them a wonderful modern-day example of his favorite allegory and recurring cultural theme, the hero's journey. Joseph Campbell is dead now. Even he was ready to move the hell on.

11) This is from the recent Rolling Stone interview with Lucas, with Lucas examining a plot thread: "Is Anakin a product of a super-Sith who influenced the midichlorians to create him, or is he simply created by the midichlorians to bring forth prophecy, or was he created by the Force through the midichlorians? It's left up to the audience to decide." Note to George: You are 61 years old. Stop speaking like this before you hemorrhage something. And see item No. 9, above.

12) Raise your hand if you love the concept of prequels. Ten years of crappy CGI and 10 years of lumpy stiff acting and 28 years of waiting and you watch "Sith" where only the last 30 minutes really finds any sort of cinematic footing, and after all that screaming and all the cheeseball animation and all the slaughtered Jedis and the stilted, lifeless dialogue and heavy Vader wheezing and Yoda's irritating speech impediment, where do we finally end up at the end of Episode III? That's right: 1977. And who the hell wants to be back there?

13) I'll happily admit that the first three films were breathtakingly rich allegories for their time, landmark filmmaking, funny and quirky and cutting edge and cute fun for the kids, full of wry characters and state-of-the-art special effects saddled to a rather generic, by-the-numbers hero's journey sprinkled with the occasional subreference to Buddhism or the fine art of egolessness.

But.

But it must be stated and cannot be repeated enough and we have to admit it once and for all: The "Star Wars" films, each and every one of them and it feels like there are about 127 of them now, they remain, always and forever, movies for anxious, easily stupefied 10-year-old boys.

There I said it. Can we all just go outside now?

[Duchess]

I have nothing but contempt for anyone who is too cheap to see it at least once in the best possible environment.

Yes, but in the UK that is usually in ones own home. Most provincial cinemas are dirty, smelly, noisy (people talking) and the screens aren't much bigger than a large back projection home television. The only way to see a good film these days is to go to the cinema in a major city, and that's just too expensive. I would rather wait until the movie comes out on DVD and watch it in my home complete with surround sound etc. and a nice bottle of wine, which you can't get in any cinema.

[DereX888]

Sunday, 22nd of May – an opinion piece by PINAC contribututor BJ.

Thursday, May 12th, a press release comes out. It's from the MPAA, so you know it's going to be interesting. It's picked up by a few tech sites in the US, then later by Slashdot, and then the news is all over the web: "MPAA sues 5 television torrent sites".

[Ed. note - this is an MPAA-related article, so "them"/"they" in this case is referring to the Motion Picture Ass. of America throughout, rather than our usual target]

Alas, as usual, their press release is full of misleading, or exaggerated data, or outright plain lies, but those who regularly read here at PINAC know that by now. So, for their latest press release, let's see what lovely lies we can uncover.

The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) today announced that it is filing lawsuits against six highly trafficked BitTorrent websites responsible for the illegal swapping of millions of dollars of motion picture and television programming.

I don't know about where many of you went to school, but I went to a pretty damned good school, with all the side events that went with it. One of these was 'mock trials'. They were run rather strictly, with input from various barristers and judges (there were magistrates on the board of governors of the school) so a lot of legal input, making them accurate and challenging. One of the first things they drummed into me was "never state as fact anything that can not be conclusively proven without a shadow of a doubt to be fact". See, 'illegally swapping' is not a solid fact. US shows, swapped within the US are not obviously illegal, to my knowledge. It is exactly the same, to my mind, as if said person had used a VCR or DVR to record the show instead. This practice, called timeshifting, was upheld as legal more than 20 years ago by the US Supreme Court. Similar 'fair use' rights are conferred upon the British for UK aired shows. So, let's say the fact that it's illegal comes strongly into doubt on that basis alone. Secondly, no copyrighted data is on a tracker, nor included in the torrent file. The legality of BitTorrent has not yet been ruled on by a court of any nationality. Add that in, and you'll find that its a blatant lie to call it 'illegal' at all, when precedent counters much of the 'WHAT' and the sheer lack of precedent nullified the 'HOW'.

This is the first time that the MPAA has targeted TV-oriented sites for illegally swapping TV shows which has become a serious and growing problem.

Hands up everyone who loves these statements. They convey a sense of verbal indignation that someone might dare to interrupt their massive profits, and call into question their practices and ethics. As I said just a little bit ago, a large number of people use said sites for timeshifting. The same people argued in the early 80's that the VCR was 'a serious and growing problem'. In my last piece (http://piracyisnotacrime.com/timetravel.php) I pointed out just how much of a 'problem' that was for them now. (To recap, the home video divisions of the United States studios garnered $11.4 (£6.08) billion in wholesale revenues from the $24.6 (£13.12) billion that non-US consumers spent buying and renting home video products in 2004.) I sure wish I could turn a 'problem' into an $11billion/year income in 20 years. A problem – let me remind you – which was so serious that they sought to get VCRs banned from sales in the US, and wanted a huge compensatory cheque to boot. I bet they're kicking themselves that they didn't win that one.

An Internet-monitoring company called Envisional reported recently that TV show piracy increased by 150 percent just in the past year.

Ah, the old stand-by – the 'percentage increase'. What this says, simply, is that one company did one study, and found that some figure they'd worked out for piracy was 50% bigger than some other figure they'd worked out the year before. What they don't do, however, is give you any actual figures. Forgive me for being cynical, but a 50% increase seems a little too round of a number to be credible. Had they said "increased by 48.58% in the past year" it might be a little more believable. Heck, provide some figures – that would also be better. A vague, clearly rounded percentage alone, nope, sorry. Your pants are on fire.

"Internet thievery of all creative materials is unacceptable and these thieves need to realize they are not anonymous," said MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman. "There are thousands of people in the entertainment industry who are working to develop, produce, and promote television shows. Those shows and those jobs are worth protecting."

I've been asking around – 95% of torrent users that I've asked, do not believe they're anonymous. To characterize these users as 'thieves' shows clearly his lack of understanding, perception and more importantly grasp of the basic facts. As stated above, a large percentage are using said sites as a form of Supreme Court Sanctioned timeshifting. Dan should know better, but we'll come to why in a moment. Meanwhile, there are many in the Industry that work to develop and produce TV shows, and they should be protected (I, myself, have worked on TV shows both in the US and UK – for greater irony, the first job in TV I had, was working on a TV show for ZDTV. Their news arm was one of the places that reprinted this press release and called it 'news'; even more ironic, said show was broadcast on the web.)

Promoting TV shows though, here we get into the murky world and the reason for the lawsuits: advertising and sales.

Every television series depends on other markets-syndication, international sales – to earn back the enormous investment required to produce the comedies and dramas we all enjoy and those markets are substantially hurt when that content is stolen.

Ah, rhetoric, the staple of any politician, and yes, that's what Dan Glickman is, or was – a career politician, according to his bio (http://www.mpaa.org/about/dan/). Prior to taking up this post as head of the MPAA a little over 9 months ago, he had NOT worked in the motion picture industry, nor any related field, unless you count pandering to C-SPAN (for those that are unfamiliar with c-span, "the primary mission of the C-SPAN networks is to provide live gavel-to-gavel coverage of both houses of Congress."). He was previously head of the Institute of politics at Harvard, then Secretary of Agriculture for part of the first, and all of the second term of Bill Clinton's presidency. Before that, 18 years as a Kansas Congressman. That takes us to the late 70s. "Before his election to Congress in 1976, Secretary Glickman served as president of the Wichita, Kansas, School Board; was a partner in the law firm of Sargent, Klenda and Glickman; and worked as a trial attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission." (Taken from his bio, top of second column). Now, why would he be made head of a company that doesn't produce anything that it claims to want to protect, a lobbying firm. Could it be because of his political connections? I assume that if you spend 25 years working in DC as a government representative, you make some contacts. It certainly wouldn't be for his legal knowledge (the only other career he's had) since its clear that he's not exactly sure what is legal and what isn't, or even that he's aware he has possibly opened himself up for action with that libelous statement.

To get back on point, from what I remember from my time in the TV industry, it's viewing figures that drive the money. The more watched a TV show is, the greater the charges for the advertising that runs during it. It's also easier to sell a program with better ratings overseas. HOWEVER it's not as cut and pasted as he would lead you to believe. Were I to go watch a TV show, or not, wouldn't make a bit of difference to the ratings, especially in the US. Ratings are calculated from a small sample selection, who have set-top boxes added for a while (ranging from 1 month up). These people (commonly called Nielsen families) have their viewing habits monitored, and these figures are scaled up to encompass the entire US. When they say that a TV show gets "22 Million viewers" they aren't counting every one of them, just Nielsen subjects that correspond to 22 million watched that program. What this means, in effect is that 10,000 non-Nielsen families could watch a show of, say, 24 downloaded via BitTorrent, and it wouldn't make a difference to viewing figures. By the same token, if 5 Nielsen families don't use their TV to watch the show, but instead download it and watch, then the ratings might be 100,000 (or however many those 5 represented) lower than they would otherwise be. As for how many, well, they answer it themselves:

How many "Nielsen families" are there?

There are 5,000 households in the national People Meter sample, approximately 20,000 households in the local metered market samples, approximately 1,000 metered homes for our national and local Hispanic measurement, and nearly 1.6 million diaries are edited each year.
(http://www.nielsenmedia.com/FAQ/nielsen_families.html)

Let's go conservative, and say that 100Million are represented by the Nielsen stats. (That is, if all were watching one program, that show would have a rating of 100million viewers). There's 26,000 metered units total. Comes out to about 3850 (3846.15 to be exact) so in our previous example, 5 families download via torrent instead of using the TV. That's 19230 'viewers lost.' according to the ratings. Now, they will have you believe that this means that torrents have cost them over 19,000 viewers, when its clear its done no such thing. It has cost them 5 broadcast viewers (or assuming a full family now isn't watching, lets be generous again, and say 25 people are now not watching). This isn't the cinema, it's a system where data, normally goes into the house (i.e. the broadcast) but no viewing data is normally sent back. This is the drawback of a "limited scale sample" - small, statistically insignificant groupings can have large effects if they do not come up with their theoretical statistical probability. To simplify, flip a coin 4 times. If it comes up heads all 4 times, you might think it's a biased coin, because something with a probability of 1/16th has occurred, rather than 2 heads and 2 tails, which is statistically the most probable. Or, simplest of all, as the author Terry Pratchett put it "as everyone knows, million-to-1 chances come up 9 times out of 10". Statistics is the one area of maths, where theory and reality are often wildly at odds with each other. To further put the above into context, it's only in the national people survey that age/generation demographics are collected and collated. The local ones just get what the TV is tuned to, no who is watching it. The 100M is also low for prime time.

"On these sites, anyone in the world can download entire television seasons in a single click."

Another lie (at this rate, his rump will be well past medium rare on their way to well-done). With the help of some cached copies of btefnet.net, I checked out their torrent lists. You know, I didn't find ANY complete seasons on there at all. The nearest I found, was the BBC's Dr Who series, where all 7 episodes of the latest season are available. However, since the season is some 15 episodes long, that's hardly a 'complete season'. This was on the site they claimed to be the biggest one. Problem is, torrents die. They're short life only. 3-4 months is about average for a torrents lifespan, and almost every television season is longer than that.

MPAA officials said they have been making progress in shutting down many of the BitTorrent sites that are dedicated to illegally swapping movies. Over 90 percent of the sites that have been sued have been shut down entirely.

How many were shut down before you sued them? That they won't answer. Again, its the percentage, with no actual hard numbers. If it's such a good number, that you feel the need to boast of it (as you are doing here) by all means, post the number. By my reckoning there's been maybe 20-30 sites sued, of which at least 1 had already been closed for a few months. Whilst on the subject of suing websites, and shutting them down, lets go through the method that is used to sue a site, by the MPAA, as my research has been able to uncover

Step 1) Find a site. Doesn't matter where the site is, or what it does.
Step 2) Send threatening emails via contact link on site (sometimes omitted, might be replaced by "release a press statement saying you intend to sue people, and commit libel during said statement", which is where we are right now).
Step 3) Go to a friendly judge in the US and file a John Doe (persons name unknown) suit, claiming vastly inflated damages. Jurisdiction or court picked isn't important, see why later)
Step 4) use said suit to force ISP to hand over a person's name.
Step 5) Send someone to serve John Doe papers on non-named person, the alleged defendant.
Step 6) Issue more press releases.
Step 7) Contact defendant and say "well, you can settle out of court, for $40,000, which is cheap since we're suing for 3750x more (say about $150,000,000) and because we'll easily spend more than that 440k on lawyers, and with that much money spent, and all the lobbyists, you've not got a chance" (also known as intimidation, this is why jurisdiction of the court selected to hold trial doesn't matter, its intimated that they can throw enough money at the case to ensure a victory)
Step 8) (this is a new one, because only one case has gotten this far, and that was in the last week) finally have the case changed from a john doe suit, to have a named defendant.

The intimidation is easy enough. $150Million – how many of us make that in a LIFETIME? For the members of the MPAA, it's barely a day's profit. Thus, the gracious offer to settle for $40k seems a welcome load off their mind. Problem is it then removes it from the court system, to the MPAA's advantage. If for instance, someone is in the UK, and hasn't left it for 4 years, it's kind of hard to see why he would fall under the jurisdiction of, for another instance, the federal court in Illinois for actions allegedly committed the previous year. There are even strong indications that at least one 'target' of the MPAA will be sending a case of extortion against the MPAA for actions very similar to those described in Step 7 above.

On some of these torrent site's original homepages like Lokitorrent, UK Torrent and s0nicfreak there now appears the MPAA warning message: "You Can Click But You Cannot Hide."

To the best of my knowledge, these sites all succumbed to step 7. This was part of the 'deal' for Lokitorrent. Indeed, evidence backs that up, by the fact that domain whois hasn't changed. Indeed, some people, I hear, are considering filing fraud charges over this, as money was collected for a legal defense fund (some $40,000) and if this money has gone into paying a settlement, then that may constitute fraud.

"Since we began shutting these sites down, the time that it takes to download a file on BitTorrent has increased exponentially which means the experience of downloading copyrighted films and TV shows is not what it used to be," said Glickman. "We intend to make it even worse. Protecting the television industry is essential."

Again, lack of understanding – he should stick to telling farmers how to grow crops. Each torrent is separate. Actions to one don't affect another. Secondly, limiting the numbers of torrents means more peers per torrent, and with BitTorrent an increase in peers means an INCREASE in overall speed. There is an easy way to protect the industry – increase the QUALITY of programming. The industry will be in a lot of trouble in a year or three, when the Reality bubble bursts, and the cheap shows (Reality shows are really cheap, a series of Friends is a lot more expensive to make than Pop Idol (which probably costs half a million at most to make). As part of my duty to you, my readers, I can assure you TV shows aren't that hard to get hold of, even today, a day after these 6 suits were announced, and whilst I can't personally comment on the 'downloading experience' many have said it's unaffected. Indeed, I can't see how different it is; you still get a torrent file (containing no copyrighted data) and leave it to run for a few hours. To use a symbolism that they MIGHT understand a bit more, let's compare aircraft and cars. If a country's ATC (Air Traffic Control) system is shut down, then it's very hard to fly an aircraft. This is centralized p2p, such as the old Napster, etc. services they're used to. BitTorrent, however, is more like cars, or railways. A shutdown of the system, no matter how complete, in Washington DC, or London, won't make a damned bit of difference to those transport systems in Atlanta, or Liverpool. These systems are separate, locally regulated and not massively interconnected. There is no centralized infrastructure. Take down one tracker, and all you affect are torrents using that tracker. Torrents NOT using that tracker are completely unaffected. This is why press releases such as these are needed, because how else would people not using these torrents know?

Below is a list of the six BitTorrent sites being sued by the MPAA. Together, these sites facilitate the illegal swapping of copyrighted material to over 100,000 people daily.

Being sued, or GOING TO BE SUED? See, as of the time of writing (7pm GMT on Saturday 14th May, 2 days after the press release was issued) There have been no details on where its been filed, no papers have been issued to the 2 sites i have contacted, and indeed nothing is known other than what is in this press release. When they decided to sue Alexander Hanff (owner of dvdr-core.org) they made a big fanfare about John Doe suits, then before naming anyone, they'd served him. How they're naming, and have yet to serve them. Indeed, this could also be construed as attempting to prejudice any trial through extensive publicity. As for the '100,000 people daily' claim, it's one last lie. According to sources at btefnet, they have no idea how many peers a day they have, or indeed how many actual people that corresponds to (45,000 peers, could be only 15,000 people, if each person is running an average of 3 torrents). Their claim of 100,000 people daily would and could only be true if every peer was a unique person, only had one torrent, and was on for one day only. Each of these 3 are unlikely even singularly, the odds of all 3 being true for 2 days are terrible. You have a better chance of winning any 6-ball lottery's grand prize twice in a row.

In short, we have a press release, full of lies, omissions, exaggerations, and libelous statements. Neither bad, nor unexpected coming from a career politician.

The news coverage for this press release has also been remarkable. San Francisco based ZD news and CNet (both well known tech news sites) have reported on it, as have the BBC (and if you don't know who they are, which planet have you just arrived from) and in all 3 occasions, their 'news story' was quoting and expanding on the press release. According to the contacts at two of the named sites, who only agreed to talk with me confidentially, in a secured and anonymous setting, no-one else had even attempted to approach them to get any information. Are these three places turning into a press-release reporting service? Odds are they won't report or even reference this article, or even read it. Does make you wonder where their journalistic ethics are though, when they blindly report a press release from a lobby-group without bothering to check any of the 'facts' contained therein. Shame on you three.

As more information is received from either side, expect to see further updates here. Alternatively, if you see something here that is clearly untrue then by all means contact us for a correction, just be sure to include some sort of verifiable proof.

BJ.

**Bootnote** This article was written on 13th+14th May. I held off on publication of this, certain to hear that a lawsuit has been filed, either by another press release, or one of the sites receiving paperwork from a court. It's now 12:15am GMT on Sunday 22nd, and no-one's been served anything, no news about the lawsuits from the MPAA, no response from Envisional about that report, despite having contacted them, as they state. A blatant example of F.U.D. here then, from a group of shady lawyers and politicians. BJ.

http://www.piracyisnotacrime.com/tvtorrent.php

[ROF]

You can debate filesharing and it's legal or illegal purposes all you want. The 1.44gb file of Star Wars Episode 3 was purposefully posted to the net by someone very close to George Lucus and his production company. This wasn't someone who recorded this film in a movie theatre and decided to distribute it upon the net. This is a VHS Quality Workprint that was posted and distributed, possibly for advertising purposes.

Just visit any news organization and you will find a related article about this shutdown or the distribution of this workprint file. It's free advertising for the studio, plain and simple.

The FBI should be spending their manpower to find the real criminals in this case, if that's what you want to call them, however, when it comes right down to it, Is the FBI going to arrest George Lucas? Nope, it's much easier to create a scapegoat and arrest them.

[BJ_M]

it was much better than vhs quality - and looked like, in the screen shots posts everywhere, like a copy made for soundtrack or effect purposes ...


how come "homeland security" is also listed in that screen grab above ? How did they get involved?

[ROF]

The dept of homeland security got involved because it is their job to supervise all the other law enforcement agencies.

or

because the movie involves bringing down a democractic government from within.

[Laddydaddy]

BJ_M wrote;

how come "homeland security" is also listed in that screen grab above ? How did they get involved?

Check out this article about file sharing and a link to terrorism;
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/3/14/234939/956.

Four "experts" gave testimony to a Congressional subcommittee on file sharing, piracy, and terrorism. Although no specific link can be drawn to P2P file sharing and terrorism, it apparently is implicitly implied that they are connected. Witnes John Malcom's answer to the question of whether there was an actual case where file trading was connected to terrorism. His reply was "It would surprise me greatly if the number were not large."

Also take note of Florida Congressman Robert Wexler's thoughts: "If more American parents understood the connection between the pirating of intellectual property and organized crime, I think then there'd be a much more effective public relations response in our own country to better appreciate the disastrous ramifications."

Obviously no criminal organizations can make money from freeware distributed on the internet, but this doesn't stop the powers that be from lumping P2P networks with bona fide criminal syndicates.

[canadateck]

I guess we wait for the topic to get locked,Thanks,

No politic, religion or war discussions

[ROF]

the real question is: Will they catch the criminal who distributed the workprint? if not, they will have not stopped the criminal. The equivalent would be to arrest a druggie outside of a drug hous, then throw the drugs back onto the drug houses front lawn, and walking away.

[BJ_M]

I would suspect that the person responsable for leaking that copy will get caught .. workprints for a movie such as this are, (supposed to be), tightly controlled - and it would be a short list to have a complete finished copy with all audio ...

[shelbyGT]

I'm not trying to start an argument or condone what people did, but:

I do find that watching a movie in my own home theatre is comparable and often more enjoyable than watching it on the big screen.

That being said, there is something about the theatre environment that you can't duplicate at home.

[computerchuck]

What are the chances of them doing the samething to an adult bittorrent website and its members?

[ROF]

I'd say the chances are pretty high, depending on the copyright status of the material being shared.

Last week, it was TV Torrents. This week it's Star Wars. Next week . . . . .

and Yes, beyond the feeling of togetherness with the probably the most annoying people in your local neighborhood, you can easily duplicate the experience of a movie theatre and in most cases the sound and video quality are, to borrow a space term, light years ahead of your local theatre.

[EvilWizardGlick]

This was mainly due to someone stealing and sharing a workprint.
No matter what the RIAA/MPAA does they will never stop filesharing.
A couple of years ago, at a speaking engagement in Europe, one of the media bigwigs admitted they have already lost. That file sharing will become more decentralized with more protections.
If they were truly intelligent they would come up with w new marketing strategy or business model that works with p2p.
But like the turn of the century robber barons they want to squeze every last drop of profit they can from badly flawed work.

[Dr_Layne]

I'm not trying to start an argument or condone what people did, but:

I do find that watching a movie in my own home theatre is comparable and often more enjoyable than watching it on the big screen.

That being said, there is something about the theatre environment that you can't duplicate at home.

Is it the rude people talking during the move, or the one's who do not turn off their cell phones.

[ROF]

Is it the rude people talking during the move, or the one's who do not turn off their cell phones.

. . . or those extremely rude individuals who make you go outside and 50 feet away from the enterance to enjoy a cigarette after the clones turn against the republic.

To quote Jar-Jar "How Rude."

[shelbyGT]

I'm not trying to start an argument or condone what people did, but:

I do find that watching a movie in my own home theatre is comparable and often more enjoyable than watching it on the big screen.

That being said, there is something about the theatre environment that you can't duplicate at home.

Is it the rude people talking during the move, or the one's who do not turn off their cell phones.

Actually it's the fact that I enjoy watching movies in my boxers while drinking a Whiskey and Coke with the girl. Can't get that in the theatre!

[adam]

EvilWizardGlick, just to clarify the MPAA didn't do anything to these guys the government did.

Also I'm certain that the RIAA/MPAA are not trying to stop filesharing, even illegal filesharing, in the same sense that the DEA is not trying to stop illegal drug use/trafficking. Its not about eradication its about control.

[ROF]

Also I'm certain that the RIAA/MPAA are not trying to stop filesharing, even illegal filesharing, in the same sense that the DEA is not trying to stop illegal drug use/trafficking. Its not about eradication its about control.

That comparison is so nieve, if not false.

More than 1/3 of DEA budget is dedicated to eradication policies.

[adam]

Actually you just neglected to read my post in context. I was referring to eradication of the problem, not eradication of any given illicit drug seized.

If you look at the DEA's eradication policies they refer to their policy of scouting out drugs during production and PHYSICALLY destroying them. It does not mean they are trying to wipe illicit drugs off the face of the planet entirely. Sure it'd be nice from their standpoint, but its just accepted that its impossible.

My point is that none of these organizations are trying to eliminate the problem, only control it. The fact that copyright infringement and drug use can't be stopped doesn't mean you shouldn't still police it. No kind of illicit activity can ever be stopped entirely.

So once again, its not about eradication (solving the problem entirely) its about control (do what you can to limit it.)

EvilWizardGlick suggested that its futile to go after illegal filesharing since it will always be a problem. I countered that the point is to police the activity so as to control it, fully acknowledging that the problem will never be eradicated. I do not think its naive or false to compare this to drug policing.

[ozymango]

I'm not trying to start an argument or condone what people did, but:

I do find that watching a movie in my own home theatre is comparable and often more enjoyable than watching it on the big screen.

That being said, there is something about the theatre environment that you can't duplicate at home.

Is it the rude people talking during the move, or the one's who do not turn off their cell phones.

For me, it's the little kid (or big jerk) who keeps kicking the back of my chair. If I had a lightsaber, limbs would be flying.

I like watching movies in a theater, I like watching 'em at home, it's all cool with me. My preference of late is to rent (or buy) DVDs for my (very modest) home theater for several reasons:

1) When you didn't quite catch what somebody said, it's cool to be able to go back and repeat that scene instead of leaning over to my wife and asking, "Hey, what the hell did he just say?"

2) Aformentioned seat kickers are completely absent on the home front.

3) On longer movies (e.g. LOTR, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.), I love being able to pause for intermission. I do enjoy the occasional sip of liquid refreshment during a movie and during long films, this can be a serious issue as I have diabetes and am also on blood pressure medication that's a diuretic (i.e. makes me pee a lot). In a long movie at a theater I seriously cannot drink anything before the show or I'll pay for it, halfway through the flick.

Anyway, not to get too much off topic there ... I'm all for breaking up piracry rings, but in terms of this specific movie (ROTS), though I have no problems with the pirates getting busted, I'm guessing these downloads won't really hurt Lucasfilm's profits much -- I'll bet many of those who "illegally downloaded" a copy of this movie are rabid Star Wars fans who will not only see the film in the theater, they'll buy the M&Ms and the Darth Taters and a copy of the DVD when it's released, then the copy of the Special Edition DVD (with bonus footage!) and then the superbit ediition and so on. :P