Pirate Bay-probing cop on Warner Brothers payroll A Swedish policeman who helped investigate The Pirate Bay is now working for Warners Brothers, one of the big-name film companies that helped drive the investigation and is now a plaintiff in the pending court case against the swashbuckling P2P file sharing site. As reported in Swedish by the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan and …
it sounds interesting from reading the referenced newspaper site that i sure hope the kind lads @ Pirate Bay get their Brief to file a eDiscovery order for disclosure of ANY electronic communications (Email, IM/MSN, FAX, etc) to see IF (likely IMNSHE) that there's an electronic "trail" that could be helpful in catching the rats out!
1. Never buy a movie from a member of the Digital Mafia (MPAA)
2. Stop paying for any kind of enterteiment from the Major (proven criminal) studios, until thje MPAA is shutdown and all members the said crminal cartel (MPAA) are fined multi billion$ for participating in a know crminal gang
3. Enjoy Pirate Bay, if you like what you D/L send money directly to the artists, as MPAA's member have a know history of not paying residuals.
Simples Rules for the studios to compete with "FREE"
1. NO DRM (it is illegal in most country anyway)
2. Lower price of movie tickets and DVD's (with movie ticket at 5$, rental at 2$ and DVD's at 9.99$ whould be a great way to instantly reduce piracy close to 0%.
3. There is one market: Earth. Movies and TV shows should be released planet wide. (even i want to to pay or use free legal service, NONE of them let me access from outside the USA)
PS: if studios need more monay that much, how about sueing all those compa nies selling those totally useless DRM that have been proven 100% un-effective. (start with Macrovision, the one who start it all, That companies commited so many crime that it's owners are good for the electric chair)
EXACTLY!!!! In the UK and the rest of europe*, most movies come out on DVD weeks after the US release (with some its months!). Just look at the release dates on IMDB.com
*Ok, I accept for non english speaking countries, movies have to be dubbed over/subtitled in that countries local language.
Back in the 90s when people used VCRs, commercially bought VHS tapes used macrovision DRM and anyone highly experienced in electronics could build this circuit to remove macrovision when copying tapes (not that its all that relavent now). http://www.aaroncake.net/Circuits/macrovision.asp
Everyone knows it anyway (ok, maybe not the average non-tech savvy person), but that is one reason to prove DRM is 100% completely useless against copy protection.
I'm furious with these companies, they should a) treat their customers with respect and b) get with the times and the market.
The many underhand dealings we read about do nothing to stop me torrenting. It's only the good work of companies like Hulu which are breaking barriers.
When the artists are getting direct payments, they're welcome to my nickel. Until then...
... and was hemorrhage a few million (billion?) dollars in revenue for Warner Bros. and the rest of the MPAA . And the RIAA. And the Business Software Alliance members. And computer game manufacturers. How dare someone sue it!
PS: @Mectron: "if you like what you D/L send money directly to the artists" - like that's ever going to happen...
yep they all one big bunch of false story perpetrators. best to get back to listening to the rabbi ply his balderdash at the sinners-gog as well. current media is nothing less than mass exploitation on par with conscripted labor in Egypt. greed has wrought the exodus as only as another road to perdition. tales from the crypt of history provide no-one with useable fact to survive in current situations. plant some wheat, maybe u may survive.....
"Ok, I accept for non english speaking countries, movies have to be dubbed over/subtitled in that countries local language."
I don't - I do not see what prevents them from selling the movie without subs and dubs - well, except the DVD region codes, but let's ignore that great invention to reduce consumer rights (move from Europe to the Land of the Free with your DVD collection, will you?) and milk more cash from the consumers...
There obviously should be a market for DVDs without dubs and subs, otherwise there wouldn't be that many downloads of those movies, which mostly are neither subbed or dubbed....
First, there are two issues going on. You may not like either of them, but there's a civil action for damages (between the MPAA/RIAA/whoever and Pirate Bay) and a criminal action (between the Swedish state and Pirate Bay).
If the cop _was_ talking about a job with Warner before the investigation concluded, so what? Warner doesn't direct the findings of the Swedish government, so this is only an issue if you're trying to create a controversy, possibly to mask the weakness of your defense.
Excellent points, Mectron!
I largely live by them already (e.g. stopped going to movie theatres, selectively buying movies, backed HD DVD instead of Blu-Ray ouch but still paying for cable, Netflix etc.) but I see the future when I will entirely cut this illegal mob out of my family's life and stick with indie productions with no mob connections.
I doubt anyone could pass better comment than the lads over at PB themselves...
"All your cops are belong to us / HLYWD"
I have to support PB because they're the underdog and it goes with the passport to support the little fellow, provided they're not Austrian postcard artists. Or Corsican meglomaniacs. Or Paul Daniels.
I have no viable idea as to what may or may not improve the state of the music business, but I'm looking forward to the legal shennanigans between PB and the World + Dog!
Yes, shennanigans. And I don't mean that place with goofy sh*t on the walls and the mozzarella sticks.
The Jolly Roger because... ARRHAAAR! PIRATES AHOY!
*Ok, I accept for non english speaking countries, movies have to be dubbed over/subtitled in that countries local language.
I am sorry how long does it take to translate a movie ? I mean two hours of (most of the time) crappy dialogs.
How long does it take to type that translation into a subtitle ?
I guess that a decent translation / subtitling could be done in less than 1 week.
Release your movie worldwide and provide as much subtitles as possible on your DVD and then I ll start watching movies again.
as Baldrick would say.
Go to the Movie theatres, buy the movies! Follow the rules!
So when the trailer says something like "The movie that makes every child laugh", or "the movie that make your summer complete" or whatever - do them for false advertising.
That way there will be no risk spending money in buying/seeing a film only to find its rubbish. Instead we will get - "The film that's quite good in places, but we've shown the best bits in the trailer", "The film that should have spent longer in the editing suite", "The film that we released just because we got a big name doing the main role"
Anybody know of a Media Productions company, Indie or not, that could make a Blockbuster of a Future-and-ITs-Derivatives-Moving-the-Goalposts-Program Movie, with Virtual Movers and Shakers of the IT CyberSpace, Advising and MainStreaming the Hood/Mafia/Spooks/Money Elements of the Wasted, Junked Up, Veins Collapsing, Failing Capitalist Credit is Debt for Profit Establishment Model into the Transparent CyberIntelAIgent Mutual Benefits Models ..... Alien Futures with RobotIQ Derivatives Hedging with Viking Danegeld Trusts for Thrusting Investment Opportunities with Capital Sharing 4Currency2Flow? For a Shakeup/Shakedown/Shakeout of Incompetent Crooks and Bankers, who are in Need of Replacement that Benefits All.
If they aint Able, then they aint gonna Enable and therefore it is they who are bringing the System crashing down,..... and that is exactly where we are today is it not, and exactly where you will be tomorrow whilst the Intellectually Disabled are Believed or Believe themselves to be Able to sit at the Top Table in Charge, rather than SMART Enabled to Provide, in a Radically NeuReal and SurReal CyberIntelAIgent Control Environment?
Or do we just let them Wither on the Vine and let the Sun burn them to Dust?. Do you think the Old Guard, who have none of the Old Guard left to leave everything to, are SMART enough to Realise that they are as Strong and Powerful as the Dinosaur, unless they Protect their NestEggs with AI NeuReal Home and a Change of Emperor's Clothes.
And as you know, a Wily Ole Fox has been Spun a Yarn, but whether a Minnow or a Sprat in a Sea of Sharks and Whales, we are yet to See ..... which maybe Speaks Volumes Loud Enough for All to Hear? ...... "Pa, the News C00perating ...... Is it a Birthday?" Posted Friday 18th April 2008 19:01 GMT .... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/18/el_reg_birthday/comments/
When the Gene Genies are out of the Bottle and the Fat Cats are AWOL, the Mice will Play 42 Win Win with who Dares.
Or is Market Meltdown and DisOrganised Chaos the Chosen Ones' DisCredited Way?
Now that would be Spectacularly Weird, Dude. And too Smart to Register with any Sense, which must make IT Mad and Bad, like a Mole in the System.
A lot of people are going to a great extent to capture Japanese broadcast, fan sub it and releasing the fansubs in english and other languages.
GONZO, a cartoon producer, decided to try a different route. They are now releasing at the same time as in Japan 2 of their productions on YouTube and several other places with english subtitles. If you wans a standard definition DIVX it will cost you a couple fo US dollars. Anyone can watch and buy the episodes, but the japanese, who already have other legal means to acquire the products.
Interestingly it is working quite well. There are next to nill fansubs, and they are all based on the original sub by GONZO, as well as next to nill copies floating around.
So, they are hit jackpot: people can watch for free from you tube, while GONZO gains money from the ads. People are downloading legal DIVX, paying for them, and GONZO still gets the money. And yes, there is no DRM no where but from a distributor, but you can choose where to buy your stuff from.
Let's restart the good old flamewar (where, oh where is the clueless paytard crowd again?).
When you buy a CD from a major label, maybe 5% goes to the artists (composer, writer, performer), 1 % for the manufacturing, something like 1 % for the production costs (studio, staff, ...), probably around 10% for the distribution (including the salesperson salary and all). Let's round that up to 20 % (there are no official numbers available of course, but it should be in this range).The remaining 80% goes to the label's shareholders pockets, and to the label itself. This money is at least partly used to try and crush the independant labels, to drive non-signed artists into starvation, and to reinforce the major's monopoly on music distribution. Buy a CD, kill an indy artist (and a small retailer).
I'd strongly advise the music-loving-hypster-crowd here to have a look at Jamendo (http://www.jamendo.com). I am what the pigopolists would call a freetard, because I do download a LOT of music from the intarwub. Do I rob anything from anyone? I don't thing so. I own more than 500 legally bought CDs, and I do enjoy having the original medium, with the artwork and all, packed in 1337 cases. It draws a lot of money out of my monthly budget. Granted, I don't use TPB or any other bittorrent tracker much. But I still feel empathetic. All the pirated music you can get won't beat the joy of having the clear sound of the original medium, and I'm convinced that most "freetards" use "illegal" downloads as a preview service, like I do. Sure, it might not be true for the people who dowload the latest "music academy" release, but these lame products have a very limited lifespan anyway (a few weeks, 2 month at best), and the majors should be ashamed of that obvious cow-milking crap.
As far as I'm concerned, filesharing leads to more albums being sold (and I do have many freetard friends who think and act the same. Actually, I don't know anyone who would use dowloads as an alternative to buying the album), so it might be time for the big boys in the music business to let lower-quality rips out for free as a way to boost the physical sales. Call me utopist if you want, but it does work. Most decent music stores are glad to let you listen to the album before you buy it already. I used to spend whole afternoons listening to free music in physical stores when I was a student, and I still spent a non-negligible part of my budget on buying the things I liked. Of course, people who don't like the "preview" won't buy the album, but they wouldn't have bought it anyway, so what the fuck? Most dowloads end up in the recycle bin almost immediatly anyway. This whole piracy BS is just the major labels trying to hide the fact that they are unable to come up with good business models (and, more importantly, good music) anymore.
The Swedish Government don't direct the findings of the courts, either. Judging by your spelling of "defence" you might be unaware what a "bent copper" is and the ramifications for the Swedish justice system.
Sweden is one of the few countries left with any privacy laws worth not wiping your arse with, I hope that Warner execs and rent-a-cop are publically flogged.
Be sure, if I get a hold of the lickspittle plod's name, I'll broadcast it far and wide so he can ruminate (hopefully in prison) over the importance of personal privacy.
"the most dangerous criminal organisations in the world:" ........ By Mectron Posted Monday 21st April 2008 00:55 GMT
One would have thought that the most dangerous criminal organisation in the world would also be the smartest and the most successful, and at least as smart and successful so as not be perceived as being the most dangerous and criminal in organisation. Seems like there is an Opportunity for XXXXPansion there into Greener and More Fertile and obviously Virgin Fields.
look, sorry to be a pedant but please...
LEARN TO SPELL AND USE PUNCTUATION!
Allow me to translate:
"It is worse for tv shows. Not only are you months behind the U.S.A in release times, you are sometimes years behind in dvd sales.
eg I can download series 2 or 3 of a U.S show and not yet buy series 1 on dvd."
as opposed to
"it is worse for tvshows not only are you mounths behing usa in relise you are sometimes years in dvd sails
eg I can down serise 2 or 3 of a us show and not yet buy series 1 on dvd"
which is barely comprehensible.
Paris because even she can spell better than that.
Actually it's perfectly comprehensible, there's studies that have shown that usually you only need some context and the first couple and last couple of letters of a word to work out its meaning. It's quite obvious what he's saying, if he's say, from Sweden, and doesn't speak much English, it's pretty well written. Better than my Spanish or German or Polish.
It may not be very good English technically, but you'd have to be ridiculously thick to fail to comprehend what he's saying.
ITV's recent decision to drop Episode 2 of Pushing Daisies means that I will be practically forced to download it in order to afford myself the missing 45 minutes' worth of Anna Friel-coated goodness. I'm sure the friendly chaps at TPB will be more than happy to oblige...
"I guess that a decent translation / subtitling could be done in less than 1 week."
That depends. Having worked in translation, it is not easy. You'd think it is, but it is not. Subtitles have to be shorter, more concise, and must be contextually correct. They have to stay on the screen long enough for people to read.
That kind of process does not just take one week. For one character perhaps yes, but not all the dialogue in the movie.
OK, so you come across like evey other tedious blinkered activist ever, but if you practice what you preach then fair enough, I respect you. Except you don't. Point 3 is where you fall down.
"I don't like what I have to do to enjoy the fruits of someone else's creative effort, so I'm going to steal it"
Even if you are "sending money to the artists" it's still stealing. Distributors have to live too, y'know.
The thing that increasingly annoys me about digital piracy advocates is that their argument essentially boils down to "it's up to someone else to solve the problem we've created"
No, my argument boils down to the fact that I get paid shit wages, get no pay rise without having to go on strike (then presumably loose) and to top it off - movie and music companies try to rip me off with extortionate prices and false advertising, i.e. saying something is superb and when you go to view or listen to it, it is CRAP!
So I feel fully justified to download these items. Also, I am not going to punish myself because I am poor. I enjoy listening to music and watching films too!
Besides, it's all relative! There ain't much else to do in this fake little society we have built around ourselves.
"Even if you are "sending money to the artists" it's still stealing. Distributors have to live too, y'know."
Big hairy straw-man argument. Of course distributors have to live and they are welcome to "add value" to a product. Unfortunately they don't so in effect they are just theiving off both the producer of works and the consumer. This is even more true if the product is distributed by, for example, bittorrent.
And I find €10 a very sensible price to pay. Any more than that and I don't bother. If that was the going price for new stuff I'd buy that too. But apparently the customer is no longer right...
As for "distributors have to live too" - nope, they don't, not on my money anyway. In this day and age they're about as necessary as blacksmiths. Welcome to Amazon/eBay + decent postal service. Now if the distributor actually added value I'd have no qualms about paying up but RIAA/MPAA do nothing but invest conservatively in all kinds of non-artistic crap - I think the world has had all the boy bands it needs. Real art and real entertainment happen despite the dinosaurs these days.
The biggest problem for the corporations in RIAA/MPAA is that the market has finally started to work with the advent of cheap, worldwide communication. eBay is a bigger danger to them than anything TPB or other small fry present - a low-cost well-functioning used goods market will put pressure on any market for physical goods. Boohoo-bleeding-hoo. Time to study Chapter 11, boys and girls...
Baen Books has been doing an experiment where they post full novels for download on their webstie. They've been tracking book sales and comparing those sales to the books that are available in the Baen Free Library for the past few years. They have found that their sales have increased for the books that are available for free online.
"eg I can down serise 2 or 3 of a us show and not yet buy series 1 on dvd"
which is barely comprehensible."
<sensabile hat> I am very sorry for your inability to understand my sentance I am severley dyslexic and I am trying my best </sencaible hat>
<flaming hat> WTF do you mean arely comprehensible I admint that there is no puncuation and 1 in 5 words are misspled but I submit to the panle that that is the fault of the riductlus rules of english and not mine my point is valid and I have as much right to put it as anybaody else </flaming hat>
chouse witch ever verson sutes your tastes
for pepols infomation I do speek english as my only language but I do not read or write it very well (the dyslexica again)
Everyone seems to hate big labels, but everyone approves what they produce. Most artists are the bitches of the labels they pimp themselves to and don't deserve better than to get screwed. Not getting their share? Hmm- don't look that poor to me...
And yet everyone runs to the record store and chucks out their cash when another drug addicted bimbo releases another piece of audio torture.
Or tries to get exactly that piece of music without paying. So everyone is looking for an alternative channel- to get the same old crap. How about looking at alternative content instead?
The labels own the content they spill out, that's a fact. So they have a point with those legal issue, in most countries at least. And they unfortunately have the right to charge for it as much as they please.
If You don't like it, why can't You leave it altogether? The only way to execute our rights as consumers is to show them, and the artists that sold their souls to them, the finger- not our approval or even wallet.
I stopped buying music on CD years ago. 80% of all music I hear is downloaded for free from the web- 100% legal. Ever heard of Podcasts, Creative Common License, Archive.org, ...?
The other 20% I actually pay for, to small independant net labels where I trust that the artist get's a fair share. And the prices are lover than in I-Tunes or any other "we are so different" consumer milking machines.
You might say "yeah, but the quality". True, the quality can be dubious, but a lot is also brilliant. Most of the stuff produced by enthusiasts rather than full time celebrities is classes better than most of the shite the radio drools all day long.
The Moloch can keep that overpriced conveyor belt "art" altogether. There is no need to even go into illegality. There is plenty of legal and in every way better alternatives around.
> Mine is the one with the built in MP3 player (and no, it's for sure NOT an I-Pod) <
1) Region coding exists for one simple reason: every studio wants to release their blockbusters during the peak movie-going times of the year. Only one problem - each area of the globe has DIFFERENT peak times! In the US the months of June through August are peak...but in the EU most people avoid the movies and go on vacation. The peak in the EU is actually around the winter holidays. In the southern hemisphere, things are of course reversed again... It has nothing to do with subtitles or production issues - it is PLANNED. Anyway, as much as I hate region coding, I can understand why studios do it - to support and protect the cinemas from extinction in areas that lag the US in their peak times. (BTW - if you all didn't know about peak viewing times across the globe, get off the computer and do some travelling...)
2) Watching a documentary on The Who the other night, it re-iterated that they had an absolute shite contract for much of their early career, even by the standards of the day. Hmmm. They still all drive much better cars and live in much better castles than I do (R.I.P. Keith Moon however). Saying that you refuse to pay for your music in "protest" of how little the artists get is just laughable coming from a bunch of guys that couldn't even afford to pay their bar tabs for a weekend if given a year to do it.
3) As mentioned by AC above, EVERY artist now has the total ability to opt-out of the record company system. EVERYONE can self-record, self-promote, and distribute content via the internet. The fact that so many artists still opt to be involved with record companies indicated that a) artists need the financial investments that record companies make early in their career and b) desire the long-term stability that a contract can give with a label later in their careers. Look at El Reg's IT readers : how many of you are genuine contracters for yourselves, working for your own company rather than working for someone else? Why is that, given that contract positions generally pay more? Why do you think musicians are any different in their outlook?
If musicians thought that recording contracts are such bad deals, these days they would opt-out of the system in droves. The fact that only a handful of high-profile artists have opted-out (and like consultants, it's usually very established ones) shows that most ranting here about "artists rights" are really about "freetards rights". So shut up and pay the people that wrote, funded and produced the content you are enjoying...or it won't be there forever, at least not as you know it now.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
