MPAA sues Btefnet!

[digitalwanderer]

http://www.mpaa.org/MPAAPress/2005/2005_05_12_BitTorrent.pdf

Thursday, May 12, 2005
MPAA TAKES NEW ACTION AGAINST
TV SHOW THIEVES


Notes Decrease in BitTorrent Activity Since Recent Campaign Began


Los Angeles -- In its ongoing effort to crack down on Internet thieves who steal
the copyrighted creative works of its member studios, 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.

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

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

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. The
percent of servers that are operating have decreased by well over 40 percent.
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.†( http://www.uk-torrents.com/ http://www.uk-torrents.net/
http://www.s0nicfreak.com/ http://www.lokitorrent.com/ ) MPAA said it hopes to work
with these torrent sites to provide entertainment products legally like it does with
Napster.

“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.â€

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.

ShunTV [www.shuntv.net] ShunTV specializes in distributing recent television
shows. It has around 10,000 registered users. A regular team of users (dubbed
"TeamTV") appears to upload content on a daily basis as shows are broadcast.
The site even includes a "Calendar" of television programs showing the date of
broadcast and whether a copy is available on the server.

Zonatracker [www.zonatracker.com] Zonatracker is mostly in Spanish and has
over 2500 users. It offers hundreds of popular movies, including many movies
still in theaters. The Zonatracker tracker is also used by another Spanishlanguage
torrent site, Zonadivx.com.

Btefnet [www.btefnet.net] This torrent site and the eight associated servers
specialize in distributing television shows. The torrent site shows that there are
over 48,000 registered users seeding files on the servers.

Scifi-Classics [scifi-classics.net] This site is designed to distribute science fiction
content. Torrents are posted in the forum section and tracked by the associated
server. There are over 1600 registered users in the forum section.

CDDVDHeaven [cddvdheaven.co.uk] This site has over 8000 registered users,
and averaged over 1500 visits a day in March 2005 according to statistics
posted on the site. It currently lists over 100 torrents for a variety of movies and
televisions shows. The site profits by giving privileges to users who make
monetary contributions to the site, allowing them faster downloading speeds
without requiring them to upload torrents.

Bragginrights [www.bragginrights.biz] Bragginrights has over 12,000 registered
users and a wide variety of torrents, including those for films currently in
theaters. It solicits donations to make money.

About the MPAA:
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) serves as the voice and advocate of the
American motion picture, home video and television industries from its offices in Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C. These members include: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution; Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer Studios Inc.; Paramount Pictures; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Twentieth Century
Fox Film Corporation; Universal Studios from Universal City Studios; and Warner Bros.

Damn it, I love that site! :?

 

[SithSolo1]

Son of a...Nooooo!

 

[digitalwanderer]

Son of a...Nooooo!

I know, I panicked too until I found a torrent of the latest Dr.Who!

 

[Guden Oden]

It's a bit stupid of these MPAA people to talk about people "stealing" their precious fucking TV programs when they themselves broadcast them all over the universe through satellites and radio towers...

 

[digitalwanderer]

It's a bit stupid of these MPAA people to talk about people "stealing" their precious fucking TV programs when they themselves broadcast them all over the universe through satellites and radio towers...

Ah, but these rips lack those precious "commercials" that these suit types hold so dear.

Damn it, I like the HDTV downloads I can get too...they're better than what I can get off the airwaves! :?

 

[MPI]

Alas, my prime source of internet programming was included aswell.

R.I.P. ShunTV...

Oh well, The Pirate Bay is still up until the new "internet law" passes. It's been postponed a number of times, let's hope it's indefinitely. :-/

 

[PenguinJim]

I have Sky Digital, so there is NO extra money I could possibly pay to get TV shows "first" in the UK.

Take me to court, you lawyer types. At the moment, it's win-win in the UK: if you have Sky Digital, you can download any TV show you like, whenever, and it doesn't matter, as Sky Digital WOULD have it first in the UK, and they've gotten our money. They're currently showing "all new episodes of Enterprise" which I have seen, but they still air in front of me (I generally watch re-runs of Frasier or the Micallef Program instead, but Sky still have my money - win-win!).

I generally view piracy as "When I got something that I should have paid money for, but didn't" - which hasn't happened with me and TV, ever. Well. Unless you count me seeing a TV program, and then the channel I pay for each month airing it "first" a couple of weeks later. The end result is still me paying for that TV channel, and seeing the episode first. If anyone thinks differently, I would love an external point of view.

I don't think adverts count, as my TV is always on the side of my PC, and my left arm is ridiculously well trained to mute commercial breaks (to the point where I don't notice them because of what I'm doing on the PC - my left arm is scarily automatic in this regard).

 

[silence]

bah, noticed this yesterday, when i had to delete some bookmarks in FF. :?

 

[Guden Oden]

Ah, but these rips lack those precious "commercials" that these suit types hold so dear.

So? I don't watch those anyway! I also won't in the future, unless some law is passed that makes it illegal to mute the sound and turn the head aside during the break, AND have a big russian with a kalashnikov pointed at me making sure I watch the damn commercials whilst my eyes are propped open with toothpicks.

Failing that, no way I'm watching all that bullshit.

 

[nutball]

I also won't in the future, unless some law is passed that makes it illegal to mute the sound and turn the head aside during the break, AND have a big russian with a kalashnikov pointed at me making sure I watch the damn commercials whilst my eyes are propped open with toothpicks.

Sssshhh, don't put ideas in Their heads !

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I also won't in the future, unless some law is passed that makes it illegal to mute the sound and turn the head aside during the break, AND have a big russian with a kalashnikov pointed at me making sure I watch the damn commercials whilst my eyes are propped open with toothpicks.

Sssshhh, don't put ideas in Their heads !

They have sued companies that offered ad-skipping technology on digital recording devices. Maybe they'll get their lapdog congressmen to outlaw fast-forward as soon as they can? I'm already seeing an increase in unskippable adverts and trailers at the beginning of DVD's I've legitimately paid for.

I guess it's not enough to make obscene amounts of money when you can screw your customers and piss them off for a little more cash.

 

[nutball]

I read an article (on one of the Red Head Brit sites) about Mr Gates vision for TV according to Microsoft.

His idea was that the best way out of this "problem" was to split the screen, to show the TV show in the top half of the screen, and adverts in the lower half (text-based, or maybe Flash-like based, not live action). This, according to him, would solve the problem of ad-skipping by FFWD.

The funny thing was that he sold this as a feature that the consumer will come to demand... it was the only way that right-thinking consumers could possibly feel at ease with themselves. Personally if TV ever ends up like that, I'd buy a can of black paint and slap it across the bottom half of my telly.

It would be fun to try to explain to a media marketing droid the idea that people would pay extra cash to watch good quality TV programming without adverts, just to watch the steam coming out of their ears!

 

[epicstruggle]

His idea was that the best way out of this "problem" was to split the screen, to show the TV show in the top half of the screen, and adverts in the lower half (text-based, or maybe Flash-like based, not live action). This, according to him, would solve the problem of ad-skipping by FFWD.

During the 96(?) world cup games in the US, the network had advertising at the bottom of the screen as you cant really go to comercial during the halves.

epic

 

[epicstruggle]

They have sued companies that offered ad-skipping technology on digital recording devices. Maybe they'll get their lapdog congressmen to outlaw fast-forward as soon as they can? I'm already seeing an increase in unskippable adverts and trailers at the beginning of DVD's I've legitimately paid for.

You buy as is.

I guess it's not enough to make obscene amounts of money when you can screw your customers and piss them off for a little more cash.

Which is why i boycott most hollywood movies and dvd's. I dont go out to p2p sites and download movies. Join the boycott and stop feading them, but at the same time do not steal from them.

epic

 

[silence]

Which is why i boycott most hollywood movies and dvd's. I dont go out to p2p sites and download movies. Join the boycott and stop feading them, but at the same time do not steal from them.

epic

steal?.... i call that advanced preview, if they made good movie, i'll go to theatre and watch it, but if they made another piece of crap (lately that happens more and more) i just stop watching it and delete the file.

trailers?.. just like with games.... you get handpicked small portion of what is coming and then when you really watch it, you go "WTF??????????????"....
same goes for games and demos....

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

You buy as is.

Really? Show me where on the box it says "unskippable commercials included in this product".

 

[epicstruggle]

You buy as is.

Really? Show me where on the box it says "unskippable commercials included in this product".

Show me where it says you can skip the commercials on the box?

epic

 

[epicstruggle]

Which is why i boycott most hollywood movies and dvd's. I dont go out to p2p sites and download movies. Join the boycott and stop feading them, but at the same time do not steal from them.

epic

steal?.... i call that advanced preview,

I go to the supermarket and start opening boxes and eating, i call that advanced eating. I mean why should i pay for food that i might not like the taste off?

I go to a clothing store and take clothes (without paying) to try out and see how others like how i look. If people arent impressed ill just throw it out, if i like then ill go back and pay.

A thief is a thief, and you are a thief.

epic

 

[silence]

I go to the supermarket and start opening boxes and eating, i call that advanced eating. I mean why should i pay for food that i might not like the taste off?

I go to a clothing store and take clothes (without paying) to try out and see how others like how i look. If people arent impressed ill just throw it out, if i like then ill go back and pay.

A thief is a thief, and you are a thief.

epic

my heart hurts......as my conn is burning dowloading torrents..... 8)

 

[epicstruggle]

my heart hurts......as my conn is burning dowloading torrents..... 8)

You think that reply matters to me? Slowly, but surely the mpaa and others will limit/stop what you will be able to acess online. It might take a while but guess what they have a ton of lawyers and money to change politians stands. They will win, we will loose. Your not helping any by being a thief, only making their case stronger. When your computer is armed with palladium and every ISP is required to block sites that host illegal content, we will see how you like it up your butt.

epic