Source: CNet News. June 30th. Check it out Here.
A week after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden Warned that the government would start cracking down on illegal file sharing, the feds swooped in and seized assets belonging to operators of accused movie-pirating sites.
The government on Wednesday also took control of at least seven of the sites in question: Movies-Links.tv, Now-Movies.com, TVShack.net, Filespump.com, Planetmoviez.com, ZML.com, ThePirateCity.org, Ninjavideo.net, and NinjaThis.net. More than a dozen bank, investment, and advertising accounts were seized, and authorities served search warrants on residences in several different states.
Authorities are searching for operators of the sites as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, according to Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The crimes that the operators are accused of committing weren't clear, but some of the sites are accused of distributing film copies prior to their theatrical release.
As of 3 p.m. PDT, some of the sites were still operating, but government officials said they anticipated the sites would come under government control within hours.
The investigation involved multiple law enforcement groups, including the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and ICE, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security.
Last week, Biden and Victoria Espinel, the U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator, told reporters that they wanted to send a message to counterfeiters and pirates that this administration was intent on protecting the nation's intellectual property. Espinel directed a statement at those people who trafficked in phony goods or unauthorized music and movies: "We have committed to putting you out of business."
ICE and the Department of Justice both suggested Wednesday that these types of seizures and investigations are just the beginning.
More to come
That's right boys and girls, the Federal Government is now shutting down websites and Law Firms owned by corporate movie makers are Suing Private Citizens who are using Peer to Peer programs like LimeWire and uTorrent. That's right, they're even shutting down Peer to Peer programs and Suing every day "Joe Blow" users who have downloaded Movies, Games, and MP3's. If you'd like the proof of this happening right now, there's some mess going on about the movie "Hurt Locker" which some guy shared on LimeWire. Now the makers of the movie are Suing the distributers such as the makers of LimeWire and even going as far as to file suite against 5,000 yet un-named people. Don't think they are, that they can't? They ARE!!! Here's Proof!!! The Government themselves have started shutting down domains and are petitioning ISP's for their users names and home addresses so that other law firms can also file suite against home users just for "watching" something online without even having downloaded it to their computer. Seen this picture anywhere lately?
Source: CNet News. June 11th. Check it out Here.
In Arizona, a law firm called White Berberian recently began advertising on its site that it will defend those accused of illegal file sharing by Dunlap Grubb & Weaver. That is the firm, which also goes by the name U.S. Copyright Group, that is filing lawsuits on behalf of filmmakers who claim their movies were pirated by thousands of peer-to-peer users.
In addition to the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker," Dunlap Grubb represents about a dozen movies, including "Far Cry" and "Call of the Wild 3D." The law firm has said that it will sue more than 50,000 alleged file sharers.
So far, it appears thousands of people have received settlement offers from Dunlap Grubb and many are confused about their rights. Typically, people learn about being accused of violating copyright law from their Internet service providers, which inform them that they have received a subpoena to turn over their identity to Dunlap Grubb.
The law firm usually follows up with a form letter informing the accused that someone using their Internet protocol address was illegally sharing one of the films. Dunlap Grubb then tells the accused file sharer that they can settle the case for $1,500 if they move quickly. If they wait, the firm will charge them $2,500 and if they decide to fight it out in court, Dunlap Grubb can ask for up to $150,000
That's right, another 500,000 people are going to be sued. That's Half A Million People!!! Not rich people. Not Hard Core pirates. Not the people who ripped the movie and put it up on the Internet. Normal users or even parents who's kids installed LimeWire and the parents didn't even know what it was, much less that it was technically being used for something "Illegal". LimeWire is just the start too. Now that the Government is in on the action you can bet that all these other Peer to Peer services will be next, and that includes torrents.
It's odd though as I didn't think "Peer to Peer" programs had "Servers" that could be shut down that would stop a program from working but apparently they do. Some how they can shut down programs like LimeWire and uTorrent as well as sue the people who made it and are using it. ISP's are willingly handing over records of everything your IP downloads and every website you visit. Chances are if you even go to what will soon be a "black listed" site your name will go onto a "watch-list" or you'll soon be getting a statement from your ISP quickly followed by a court notice that you are being sued.
YouTube was granted a "Exception" because it actively takes pirated and copyrighted materials down and because it has plenty of content that is "User Made" and not copyrighted. Check out this article on CNet News about the differences between YouTube and LimeWire and how exactly one can be shut down and not the other.
Web copyright: YouTube up, Lime Wire down. Source: CNet News. June 30th
This is only the beginning everyone. The sh!ts hitting the fan and the common people are about to feel the pinch of the Heavy Hand of Corporate Government.
Man you got It 100%
And the irony is that if they reduced the pricing they would get more sales and more cash, but they are greedy to the bone, and want to do this the "hard way".
As I said the measures that are being taken help the big companies only, the average person/company that produces IP won't be affected at all... in fact for small companies making software, it has been proven that piracy is "free" advertisement IF the product is good, people will like it and come to your site to grab the whole deal. You should also note that the pricing for indie games is much lower than the million dollar products out there.
People should understand that this crusade originated from the rich and helps the rich only, not stardock or jafo.
The truth is that your internet connection is being watched - your civil rights are being violated, your privacy is violated, cause some rich multimillionaire guy wants more cash, so is that freedom or democracy?
OK...as long as it 'has been proven' then we are all well and good.
People can now rest assured that the world is wonderful. Don't slash your wrists or get into a hissy-fit....it's proven.
Life is good.
Jafo goes off to that happy place where piracy is good for you.
Shit. It doesn't have windows....and the walls are curiously upholstered.....
Do you have any real arguments? or ur just talk?
Yes it has been proven for a small developer that doesn't have the cash to throw at advertising, (and mind you gaming sites like gamespy and the like want cash to do a review if you're not a big guy)
Piracy helps a product by making it known. As people play your game that they got from the net, they give it to others, and voila, you have a user base. Granted they didn't pay, but then you didn't pay for advertising either
And life is not good. Why? The rich guys are forcing the government, to change the rules to something that suites them, and it looks like they are having their way.
Any questions?
There are so few games, movies, or music that are actually worth the money these days. Virtually the entire pop-culture/entertainment industry has been farmed out to infinity with the mindless "boardroom" / "bottom-line" mentality that creates sequel after sequel and re-hash after re-hash. The industry's lust for money exceeded their piddly imaginations and the skills of their so-called "artists" a long time ago.
The industry is nothing more than a cold, calculating, economic mechanism of a hyper-industrialized society. Art and imagination have by now been almost completely eradicated. The only way that the big developers can compete with start-ups/indies in through quantity, not quality. That means churning out more games, more often, and with more advertising, and that is exactly the way the industry has progressed since the 'good-old days' of gaming were over. In addition they place more regulations on the games themselves and charge for things that once were free and take away the ability of users to freely create that content. All of these things help them sell a turd dipped in fool's gold and still profit by it.
If piracy really is a huge problem (and I guess it is or they wouldn't be going after people?) what does that say about the industry itself? To me it says that many people don't want to buy the products because they view them as nearly worthless to begin with. At the minimum it means that they see them as over priced or not offering what they want or expect. That doesn't make piracy right by any means and to think that piracy is a way to get back at them is stupid and childish. The only way to get back at them is to demand quality in the products you buy, do your research, and never buy the ones that don't meet your expectations. Transforming this mindless cash-in industry starts with each one of us. Gaming...I can take it or leave it, but developers like Stardock make a quality product that I actually want and that keeps me in gaming for another 6-12 months or so...
Yes, which part of 'piracy is theft' did you not understand? Your user base didn't pay for the game, so the developer didn't have any income from their work. That's what happens when something is stolen.
I have a question on cars: The most frequently stolen car here (UK) is the Mk2 Astra. Is that why it's the most popular car amongst teenagers?
The answer is 'no', but if you can't figure out the real answer there's no hope for you...
Well 17 of those 'crime converters are now doing hard time... thanks to me. The dubious stock (initially) in that instance was my Sony Hi-8 video camera. My first wife had just left, I had 2 kids to care for, and no immediately available cash to address a crisis, so I hocked the camera as a shortstop solution to my/our needs. However, when I went in a couple of weeks later to redeem it, the manager told me that it had already been sold. Yes, I took the matter to Consumer Affairs, but 'Crime Converters' falsified the paperwork (predated to enable/justify the sale of my goods) and I was told there was nothing that could be done about it... despite my producing my original receipt with the correct date, etc.
Nothing could be done about it?? BULLSHIT!!!! I enlisted the assistance of a couple of CIB/Fraud Squad detective mates, a few biker mates, a few wharfie mates from my seaman days, and a couple of thugs who had no qualms about the sound of bone being pounded to a pulp. NO, violence was NOT used as a means to an end, but the 'crime converters' needed to be convinced no punches would be pulled to bring them down. Anyhow, the upshot of it all is that enough evidence was gathered to implicate the manager who ripped me off (and the others eventually convicted) in a major stolen property ring.
It's like I said to the bloke when he informed me that he'd ripped me off: "Don't f**k with me... I F**K back!!! I bet now he's seeing the inside of a cell for the next several years, he actually believes me.... cos he obviously didn't that day.
Me, a nasty streak??? Yeah, I guess... just a little one.
Sure...plenty, however there's an entry exam oft called an IQ test.
It tends to disqualify pirates and their proponents...
Oh come on, please disclose your arguments. Don't do it for a person such as me that can't pass an IQ test, do it for the rest of the world...
After all this is a discussion forum, and afaik, calling someone stupid or more importantly calling entire groups of ppl stupid, is the purest form of trolling, and I will not partake.
What do you expect me to do? Post a big wall of text reply? Become angry at you and thus feed the troll in you?
Enjoy your day!
You've yet to show how it was "proven" that piracy helps the small developer. Let's see it
No....hope you go all ballistic so I can remove you from the site...
Seriously though.....have you read the "one or two" comments I have already wasted my time making...in the entire 6 pages of this thread?
If so there's no reason to elaborate/elucidate/illuminate or even explain.
If someone somewhere said that piracy is good as it is free publicity then quite frankly he is yanking your chain.
If I'm driving a stolen VW through the streets of SanFrancisco [unlikely...I'm not American] I am NOT doing the local VW dealership a whole world of benefit....that he will run after me and thank me for such a noble, selfless act.
It is so fun to watch outlanders ramble on. Here in Sweden we have a Pirate Party that intends to legalize distribution of stuff on internet. Ie piracy. I won't vote for them (since they have a lot of funny ideas about other stuff), but we have enough people with internet connections (according to some sources (guiness I think) worldleading in per capita) and knowledge of torrents for them to have a large chance to make it into the "riksdag" [Parliamentish].
Right now we have several laws that violate civil privacy so that corporations can demand information about th user if they can provide an indication that the user has downloaded illegal material that they hold the right to. This resulted in quite a hot debate as for why it was included and the fluffy definition of what the indication is. What has happened is that Pirate Bay has gone to court (not for that law though) and a few random people have received fines for a few thousand swedish kronor (7000 skr ~ 1000 usd). The law actually did lower downloads and so did the guilty verdict for TPB, but only for a month or so. Nobody I know has been warned or prosecuted for piracy and it is a few cases a year at max.
Oh, and not every pirate would have bought the product but someone already provided the excellent link from Wolfire above. So it might hurt their sales by a few % but in the end, a lot more people would enjoy it... for all that counts in the corporate world.
Oh, and yes it is a crime. No one can change that. Except our votes, but I feel a bit awkward about voting soo something illegal is legalized. We won't be far off to dictatorship or nationalsocialism. (Sweden has got a party for that too. Go democracy )
Gwakamoli is quite right, of course...
Yes they didn't pay but, they will play it, they will enjoy it, and they will advertise it to their friends, and guess what, I as a gaming studio I will make tons of money out of them, cause a pirated copy is not the full deal.
They will need patches,
They will need support,
They will need a multiplayer service,
They will need a community forum,
They will need Game V2.0,
They will eventually want the printed manual, the nice box,
They will want the special edition minipet, mount, jewelry components for the ship editor, mod,
I can go on...
So why are you talking about theft? I didn't loose anything, in fact I gained potential customers, go and check other industries and how many Millions they spent to gain potential customers. They know this, the market knows this.
This is also how stardock works, all of their games are on torrent sites with everything else, just search, I don't see them shutting down cause of piracy, instead they are growing.
Now if you're making games that suck big time... don't blame piracy for your downfall. In fact you can't download games that suck from torrent sites cause no one is interested in seeding them!!! (The irony!!!)
Also all that talk about right and wrong, black and white, legal or illegal, Good and bad, is just plain silly. Everyone has their own sense of right and wrong, excluding the psychopaths.
I think that the governments and law enforcement agencies, should have more important things to do, than tracking down and locating who file shares "Avatar","Diablo II" and the like causing a mild drop in sales of products that have made their creators millionaires.
The police said that they don't have the resources to track down the people that burgled my neighbor or help him get his stuff back, leaving him in distress. The US government spends millions of the taxpayers money to do what thing? Make Bobby Kotic richer, Hollywood moguls fatter, and give golden boys more dough... now that's theft in plain sight for me.
Yes, because someone who easily downloaded it for free is going to tell his friends to pay for it, instead of giving them the same link. That's totally how it works in the real world, not just in your head.
Still waiting for proof of all your nonsense, btw.
No no that's not what I meant at all... ahh
Just checking here.....you know how Stardock works....and you're telling....us?
Thanks for that.
Fact.
Once your friendly pirate has that game...he's not going to spend shitloads legitimately on updates....he's going to move on to the NEXT pirated game...or new version of the old one.
No-one really gets all conscientious and rushes of to make the bastard child legitimate....they go off to find something/one else to screw.
Reality....a potential customer is a nobody.
He is a tomorrow that never comes....[they don't].
Actual living, breathing, current customers are half of a commerce system....the other half is the producer.
There isn't even an itty-bitty nano-percent in the equation for pirates...and even smaller for reformed ones.
Also, fun fact: when Sins came out, a bunch of us were sending torrent links to Yarlen, who would (probably with help) dig up info on the seeder and send a C&D. In a couple of cases they got their home addresses on 'em, it was great fun.
In short, don't pretend to know how it works
1. No, of course I don't know how stardock works. I was referring to how the full deal is bigger than Galciv V1.0 from a torrent.
2. The bastard child that doesn't become legitimate is not your lost sale! That guy would have never bought your product if he saw it in the self. The fact that he downloaded and played it for a few days was your free chance to hook him up, and you didn't have to pay anything for that chance!!! In the old days he would return the product to the store and get his money back.
3. The other half of the commerce system always needs to understand the value of your product. Half arsed attempts to make a game/movie passable, intimidating the client base with DRM, Intimidating the populace with mass lawsuits, and pushing for new legislation, will get you no customers, and make you look like a clown, an Activision-Blizzard-EA-UBI clown that is.. Am I allowed to say that stardock understands this as well? or am I being too omnipotent again...
Heres some info and NOTE I am NOT for pirating
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/05/wolfire-programmer-poor-pc-ports-not-piracy-hurt-business.ars
It's simple to say that piracy is a problem in the game industry, and particularly so in PC gaming. No extra hardware (like a mod chip) is required to pirate a PC game—just a fast Internet connection or a burnt disc. What isn't simple is finding out how many real-world sales are lost due to piracy (a problem that has bedeviled the content industries for some time). The question: if a pirate couldn't get his or her game for free, would he or she pay for it?
The head programmer at Wolfire Games goes by the name of David, and he has some thoughts on the matter. What follows is some heavy conjecture mixed with common sense, but it leads to a single conclusion: pirates may grab a large number of games, but lost sales due to piracy are much lower than everyone assumes.
The industry may believe that every pirated game is a lost sale, but that stance makes little to no sense. "From personal experience, I know this is not possible—most pirates that I've met have downloaded enough software to exceed their entire lifetime income, were they to have paid for it all," David wrote. "A more plausible (but still overly optimistic) guess is that if piracy was stopped the average pirate would behave like an average consumer." The truth lies somewhere in between, where piracy does cause developers to lose some money and sales, but not on a 1:1 basis with games pirated.
To illustrate how this works, David turned to iPhone games. iPhone developers claim that 80 percent of the copies of their games on phones are pirated, but only around 10 percent of iPhones are jailbroken, allowing illegally downloaded games and non-Apple-approved applications to run on the hardware. "This means that even though [developers] see that 80 percent of their copies are pirated, only 10 percent of their potential customers are pirates, which means they are losing at most 10 percent of their sales," David concludes.
The reason for the disparity is that pirates download a huge number of games, but apparently play very few of them. On the other hand, gamers buy fewer games when they pay for them, and generally spend more time playing them. If jailbroken iPhone users couldn't get these games for free, they would either not buy them, or simply buy one or two.
Imagine yourself at a restaurant where you could dine for free and eat as much as you want. You may order the highest-priced dishes on the menu, but you're still only going to eat as much as your stomach can hold. The software industry is, in effect, looking at your hypothetical plate saying "If that guy had to pay, he would have bought the pork chops, two steaks, and the lamb!"
David gives a simple reason for the problems in PC gaming: developers do it poorly. "It's easier for these developers to point their fingers at pirates than to face the real problem: that their games are not fun on [the] PC... they are not fun to play with a mouse and keyboard, and don't work well on PC hardware. Their field of view is designed to be viewed from a distant couch instead of a nearby monitor, and their gameplay is simplified to compensate for this tunnel vision."
He points to Blizzard as a success story, a company that focuses exclusively on PC and Mac gaming, and has been wildly successful as a result. "If developers spent more time improving their PC gaming experience, and less time complaining about piracy, we might see more successful PC games."
He knows what he's talking about. Wolfire is hosting the Humble Bundle, a sale of five independent games that work on the PC, Mac OS X, and Linux. No DRM, so you can install each game on all your systems. You pay what you like, and you can split the payment between the developers and two charities. This may not be a strategy that would work for new releases, but it does make a point by putting all the power in the hands of the gamers: if they want to spend one cent for everything, they can. If they want to pirate, they can.
As of this writing the bundle has earned $363,000, from around 46,000 customers—in just a few days. "Would we have seen this much support if the games were console ports that only worked when connected to a secure online DRM server?" David wrote. "We'll never know for sure, but somehow I doubt it."
If pirates truly are gluttons that would never buy most of what they download, and if treating non-console gamers like adults instead of thieves leads to more sales, it may be time for companies to begin reevaluating their stances on PC gaming. Less DRM, combined with more polish, may do a lot to improve their bottom line.
Yes...you can say that.
Stardock knows its industry, and clearly better than some of the commenters here who have a fantasy model of commerce.
It's probably wise to remember that gaming may be a business...but business isn't a game.
While a game producer is 'hooking him up' all the people who financially BENEFIT from the warez...namely entities such as The Pirate Bay and the downloaders of their warez who are doing what IT IS ALL ABOUT----namely getting something for NOTHING are profiting with no gain to the property owner.
Why should game coders/companies see their efforts unrewarded while others profit from their sweat?
Fair?
Not in this reality.
I respect this. Any attempt to protect that game was well worth the effort. "Unfortunately you can't catch all sites, and all torrents" a Hollywood rep will tell you.
What I don't respect is them (huge IP owners), lobbying with the government over my Privacy. That changes the lay of the land in their favor, and also affects me regardless if I'm downloading stuff or not.
In my remark above about the robbery, where is the legislation that helps victims of burglary? Nowhere, why? thats an average person you're talking about m8, no billions of $$$ are involved...
As I said in another post, the justice system and the law maker should be **impartial** "justice is blind". The fact that we ended with this bunch of laws makes it illegal, and to this end it is illegal I agree. I'm not arguing about it, I look at the big picture, the reason behind the law.
Wow....$8 dollars average for 5 games.....buck sixty a game.
Time to retire.
There's a truly viable business model.
Ford and GM going broke?
Easy as pie to fix....flog the things at 50 dollars a pair.....the cars will be sailing off the lot in no time.
Success...no workers laid off.
Share out the fortune to all the blokes....they'll all get a wage.
50 cent won't be a rapper...it'll be a paypacket.
As far as torrent sites are concerned, don't forget that they also have costs, and they are just connecting the dots together. It's more of an indexing service with many hits that can support itself using ads. As far as warez is concerned I don't know how that works.
If your efforts are worth it you will be rewarded, but this is an imperfect world. Just like an oil company spills oil on the sea because that's out of it's control, some % of sales will be lost in the IP world that's a reality.
The big IP owners have factored this in their costs, the fact is if they win and file sharing goes bye bye the prices will not go down!!
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
