RIAA gives up on suing users

old news.

riaa fucked

huh?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12...egal_campaign/

This was only announced Friday...

The record industry waited too long to start acting. Had they started suing people and and sites back when things like Napster were just getting started they may have been able to curb it, but they didn't and by the time they started acting Pandora's box was already open.

I'm curious to see what their new strategy will be.

Good point well made. Nothing was pirated before Napster.

People weren't sued and those high profile court cases that didn't happen didn't advertise P2P to people who wouldn't have known about it, thus increasing the usage.

if you searched you will see it has already been posted.

its about time

I'm not sure if you are calling me an idiot, being sarcastic or actually agreeing with me.

I understand there was piracy and music trading before napster, but napster really took it mainstream and made it part of every day society. Millions of people suddenly started using these programs and the music industry stood by and let bands like Metallica do the fighting for them.

It wasn't until after Metallica and Dr. Dre started going after Napster that the record labels stepped in and helped get them shut down. The day Napster started raising venture capitol the record companies should have gotten together and sued anyone and everyone who had anything to do with the program including the users. They needed to send a message right then and failed to do so. They were undereducated on the technology and behind the power curve on how things were transforming on the internet and it cost them.

No. I am calling gideongallery an idiot.

I look forward to the day he is time shifted off this board.

the printing press was called a piracy tool when it was first created


cable tv was called piracy when it first came out

the vcr was called a piracy tool when it first came out.

Each resulted in content industry making way more money then if they had stopped it.
smart people figuire out how to use the technology rather then fight it.

I know we have had this discussion before but there is a difference.

The printing press: Most people couldn't then (and can't even now) afford a printing press. Even if they could there was an inherent cost to operating it and distributing the material you printed with it so it was never (and still is not) a very big piracy tool.

Cable TV: This one kind of throws me for a loop. I have never heard of people saying cable TV was piracy. I have heard of it about those old satellite dishes that could pick up a ton of stuff once you had them hooked up, but Cable has pretty much always been regulated and the channels on it pay for content so I'm not sure how this was considered piracy when it first came out. And even if when it did come out they stole the content they broadcast, it wasn't long until they were paying for the content they were broadcasting.

VCR: It was a scare at first, but it wasn't long until they realized that it was like the audio cassette recorder/player. It is not a very good tool for piracy. You have to own 2 VCRs, get a copy of the movie, buy a blank tape and then spend 2 hours making one copy. Not very effective at all. You could record TV shows and fast forward past the commercials and I think this is something that they are still wrestling with today because of Tivo and DVRs and such. But when it comes to pirating movies the VCR was not a very efficient tool.

Here is the big difference. With a VCR, cassette recorder or printing press I can make a few copies at a time. It is labor and time intensive and the copy that I make is often not as high in quality as the original (with some exceptions) With MP3s and online video I can copy it in seconds and I can share it with millions. Before it would take me an hour to make a copy of a tape I bought for a friend of mine, for which he will have had to purchase a blank tape and chances are it won't sound as good as the original. With MP3s in that same hour I can download the full album in near CD quality and using my bit torrent client I can instantly share it with hundreds if not thousands of people. For example I just bought my niece Taylor Swift's new CD for Christmas. If I go to ISO Hunt and search for it I see there are nearly 1200 people seeding that album. Who knows how many thousands downloaded it and are not seeding it and at this moment there are 61 leechers. That means if I downloaded it and shared it I would be instantly sharing it with 61 people.

Back with the cassette tape it would take me 61+ hours to make 61 copies for someone. The VCR would take me at least that long to share a TV show I had recorded or a movie I had with 61 other people. In both cases I would have had to purchase blank tapes. Here it takes minutes and it is spread all over the place.

So explain to me how downloading a full CD and sharing it will 100's, if not 1000's or more is Timeshifting?

Save yourself a LOT of aggrevation Lightspeed, Robbie, and countless others have been sucked into by not trying logic with gideongallery.

His M.O. is that he likes to post this shit on the forums to stir up shit with content producers who are being endlessly ripped off. Claiming the use of pirate technologies are 'his right' to use, and further claiming the VAST MAJORITY of people using tubes, torrents, among other things is their cheap ass way of backing up their programs they supposedly PAID FOR.

Gideon claims he is a programmer. I am sure if he made a tube script, CMS or something of use to the adult industry.. if his programs, were being stolen, shared, hacked, oops... time shifted, and were given away on GFY for free. He would be pissing himself, and spitting fire.

I am sure, and doubt highly, when people told him to stop charging so much for his work, and make it ad driven, or some of his other countless drivel. He would not be too happy. Or furthermore, when ONE person claims they paid for their script, and are sharing it with others as their RIGHT, and using GFY as their back up program, it would not be kosher.

Save yourself the grief arguing with him.

True. I should know better than to get sucked into his vortex.

My prediction is that he will say that Timshifting gives him the right to record (download) the material and fair use allows him to share it. Or something like that.

before the printing press the gideon bible was only available thru the church, it was hand copied and as a result very few people owned it. The printing press published the "Good book" on mass, making it available to everyone. They were called both pirates and heretics for doing it. Business finally realized that they could make money by supporting the technology and using it as a means of distribution


tv was first broadcast thru the air, unless you were in a major metropolitan area ( NY) you got nothing

some smaller communities could not get access to the signal because the necessary equipment was not made available locally (very expensive recievers and rebroadcasters).

The cable companies trunked the signal from the metropolitan areas and expanded it to local affilate stations. They charged people for the transmission and the tv stations argued that they should be the only ones who should be allowed to make money from the signal

Until the government stepped in and said it was a good thing. They pointed out that air waves that the tv stations were broadcasting on were given to those broadcaster by the government. And this private industry extending the reach without massive government subsidization. They legalized it and established the regulation you are talking about.

After this happened television stations made way more money, it increase competition (more stations) and each station could broadcast more hours of television. Their revenue went up.


i suggest you read thru the transcripts from the betamax case and the two previous rulings at to see. The act of recording a tv show that you got from the station and playing it at a later time was defined as an act of piracy. IT was legally ruled to be the fair use right of timeshifting.

The fact is we have always had the right to timeshift our content, we just didn't have the technology to do it.


what you are doing is called a circular proof your trying to fabricate a difference based on the economy of scale, some how arguing that since the numbers are greater the rights which were previously established to exist should not exist. do i have a right to timeshift a show i paid for yes.

if the power went out at my house and i failed to tape my episode of "knight rider"
Under the tape cassette model i would have to

1. call up all my friends until i found one who had the show i missed
2. trek over to the friends house
3. borrow his tape
4. trek all the way back to my house
5. watch it on my vcr
6. trek all the way over to his house
7. give him back his tape

under the torrent model i would

1. find the torrent on a site like isohunt
2. download the torrent file for the show
3. copy the show to my usb stick
4. play it on my dvd player

the fact that it is easier doesn't change the fact that i am performing the same act of timeshifting. I bought the right to watch that content at 8PM on monday night, and i am timeshifting the right to view to whenever i want to view it (ie 6 pm tuesday).

I paid for the content therefore i have a right to watch it when i want.

first of all you know that not true if i wanted to do a mass scale copying of tv shows i could daisy chain multple vcr together and record them all within one hour. That how those big piracy organizations do it when they make their bootleg copies of movies.

However it is irrelevant because we are talking about the fair use use of torrents not the illegal use of torrents.

the equivalent is borrowing of a tape from a friend to catch the show you missed. A single tape could be passed on to dozens of friends watched at different times before it ever get returned for reuse to tape the next episode.

When i download a tv show i want to watch from the torrents, i don't keep it forever, i watch it i delete it so i have space on my harddrive for next weeks episode. Since i only seed to 100% (give only what i get) it the technological equivalent to passing on the tape to the next person.

Your arguing that the total size of the swarm somehow makes it illegal, if anything it makes it more legal. I am never giving anyone a working copy of the file, if you played my pieces it would come up with the error saying the file does not work. The person giving you a complete working copy of the show on a tape cassette is giving you 1 working copy.
That tape trading act so that is legal, because i bought the right to view the content when i paid the cable bill.

The act of downloading the show from the torrents is equally legal for the same reason.



it timeshifting when i paid for the content and i am just moving my listening/viewing rights to another time. It copyright infringement when i never paid for it in the first place.

Now if you want to talk music, there is more of a issue to discuss because there are many countries that have a piracy tax on recordable media.

When the record associate negotated the rate (offer) with the government of canada (acceptance) and they took the fee (consideration) you have all the conditions of a valid contract (licience). As a canadian citizen who paid a piracy tax, i paid for every song i choose to download. Which means for me ever download is timeshifting(assuming i listen and get rid of it ) or recovery (if i keep it forever).

That licienced right does not go away, just because i am vacationing in florida (geo targetted blocking).

The fact that i connect to 10,000 peers to fulfill that right, does not invalidate the right.
Especially if the technology prevents me from giving any of those 10,000 people a fully working copy of the file.

well said and as I said before tennis only works if you hit the ball back.

one more way to look at it

VTR were produced by sony for years for tv stations
they cost $10,000 each, the tapes cost $25 a pop and could record without degrading maybe a maximum of 10 times.

the betamax VTR (VCR) was a cheap ($999) consumer version of the product, which provided the technology to finally fullfill the fair use right of "Timeshifting" viewing rights.


when it was moved from a commercial enviroment to the non commercial enviroment, a new use came about one unrelated to the distribution use it was originally planned for.

large scale duplication systems (DVD presses) are being technlogically provided for via the torrents.

but their use in a non commercial enviroment results in a new fair use (access shifting).

I predict that when this gets to the supreme court the fact that bit torrent users never give a full working copy of the file will finally allow the fair use right of access shifting to be realized.

The right to take content you paid for (bought a cd, or paid a piracy tax) and shift it to any device you want to enjoy it on (thru the swarm) will become a protected fair use.

And when that happens there will be lot of money to be made taking advantage of the technlogy. Those that prepare for that day, figure out how to make money using the technology now will see a massive explosion in their income. Those that try and fight it will end up following all those leaders and earning a lot less.

Develop some programs of actual use to show you are even in this business at any capacity, and then share them on GFY. I will buy a license, and offer your programs, for free, to everyone.

Hey, I paid for it once right nig? So that's my right...

Prepare yourself toots.

Do you actually believe the retarded shit you just posted?

you paid for it once, if you misplaced the copy, and you went to the torrents to get a replacement that would be legal.

Of course i fully provide for your recovery rights, i let you come back to me to get the copy as many times as you want.

I don't say to sorry you have to pay me for another months charge to get the same content again.

AS i have repeatedly pointed out if you fully provided for the fair use rights of your purchasers then you have a right to block all other distributions of your content.

If you don't those other distributions can hide behind the fair use rights.

That is not the question though. He didn't say if he lost his copy. He simply said if he put up a website and gave it away for free.

if I buy a DVD at wal-mart I then lose or break my DVD can I go back to wal-mart and just take another copy of said DVD for free? I mean I did pay for it. No I'm shit out of luck. I have to buy another copy. Most people get this yet they can't understand the same concept when it comes to digital stuff.

that would be illegal, and because i fully provided for the fair use rights in question i could come after him as hard as i wanted too.

just like in the DeCSS case.

IF i did what you guys did and not provide for the fair use rights, the torrent sites could hide behind fair use/ and it protector the safe harbor provision of the DMCA.

So forget TV shows and Movies. Let's talk music. I'm not from Canada so I have no idea what kind of deal they may or may not have with a piracy tax.

Say, however, someone lives in the US. They log into their favorite torrent site and download the new Metallica album. They didn't buy the album. They have never owned the album so this download is not a back up. There is no piracy tax in the US so there is no way for them to say that they have paid for it. They now are in possession of the new Metallica album without having ever paid for it. They then keep that album open on their torrent client and anyone can download it. So they end up sharing it with a bunch of different people.

This is not timeshifting. They did not own it. They did not pay for it in any way so they have no rights to it. It is not fair use because they are not incorporating this material into something of their own (IE making a video with it or using it as background music in a project or doing some type of work that involves the music) they simply downloaded something they didn't pay for and are now redistributing it all over the globe.

This is piracy is it not?

but it not the same thing, taking the item out of the store prevents the sale to someone who has never bought it.

Making a copy that of something i already bought does not do that.

HUGE DIFFERENCE

that the point i should not be force to buy another copy as long as i don't cross that line of preventing the sale from someone who has never bought it.

and before you say but by participating in the swarm i allow someone to get it without paying for it.

I fully believe THAT PERSON is commiting a crime, but that crime is committed at the instance when he puts together all the non working copies into a single working copy. Not one second before.

If you want to go after that person go ahead(if you can figuire out who that person is on a public tracker). If you want to deny that person access to your private tracker, go ahead.

If you provide me access to the private tracker when i buy your content so my fair use rights are protected, prevent every public tracker from listing your files. That 100% ok too.

assuming it was not sponsored by an advertiser (i will assume you missed one)

yes that would be piracy. (the downloading part)

Go after that person, of course you would have to do it without violating the privacy rights of all the people i mentioned (piracy tax, bought the album, etc).


the sharing after they finished downloading would not be, because they still are not giving anyone a working copy of the mp3.

YOU=RETARD

You're not making a copy you are getting it from a torrent. In which you may or MAY NOT actually have bought a copy. If you buy a CD you have a PHYSICAL copy. You have recipt. You have proof you actually purchased said product.

Maybe YOU just get copies of stuff you already own off torrent, but if you are trying to suggest the OVERWHELMINGLY VAST MAJORITY of torrents user aren't plain old cheap ass thieves then you are fucked in the head.

I'm so tired of torrents users justifying hat they od by suggesthing that somehow they

A) Are only getting copy of something they bought.

Well make the copy form the media you bought them why use a torrent?

B) Use torents to only download Linux distros.

How many fucking copies of Linux do you fucking need?

At any rate if you are seeding a torrent then aren't you basically giving access to your computer to any old asshole out there? REAL fucking smart. Like some nerd can't hack utorrent program or something and make it where they can infiltrate your system and take more than just a copy of Knight Rider. Seeding a torrent is about as smart as letting your girlfriend fuck dozens of random guys without condoms then you fuck her bareback afterwards.

The RIAA must have finally been convinced by gideongallery's timeshifting and fair use arguments.

i never said "overwhelming vast majority" i said a majority.

50% +1 is a majority

a very small majority but it is still a majority.

given the fact that 50% of all torrent traffic is for tv shows (which 99.5% of the population bought a right too)

and there are multiple countries have piracy taxes which legitimize other torrent downloads (music and movies )

The number of people using torrents non infringing purpose is a majority.

because quite simply 50% + x (authorized by piracy tax) is greater than 50% which is a majority.

because i bought it without getting the original (see piracy tax)

since i never included open source distributed content in my 50%+x numbers i don't know how you can attribute this to me

but the fact that it is 50% +x (piracy tax) +y (open source/open licienced) still makes it a majority.


well that why i have a dedicated torrent recorder setup in my house, it runs 24 /7 downloading the torrents in the rss feed i subscribe too.
Never miss my favorite shows, acts like a vcr and since the entire thing runs on linux it runs blistering fast on pentium 4 chip.

thanks for another perfect example of a legitimate use of torrents

to replace a broken record

Arguing with gideon is like wrestling with a pig.
You get muddy, and the pig enjoys it.

Don't bother.


As for the RIAA, they just decided that the individual lawsuits weren't having the deterrent effect they'd hoped for, so now they're going to work with ISP's to send warning letters and if necessary shut off internet access for people who won't stop after receiving a warning.
This seems to be a much better strategy IMO, and they have willing partners because ISP's aren't happy about the amount of bandwidth used and network congestion caused by torrent and other p2p traffic.

I never said you said anything. I am the one telling you that the overwhelming majority of torrent users of cheap as theives. FACT.


How did this 99.5% buy a right to these shows?

Some countries you can fuck a goat. Who cares. We are talking US law.

yes yes everyone is downoading 500 GB each of linux distros every month.


I think they key word applying to you is PIRATE


Once again you are a thief. If you want to see a show there are plenty of LEGITIMATE places to view it. Anyone running torrents 24/7 is up to no good. Then we wonder why ISP want to institute caps. Good luck continuing this when your ISP has a 40 GB monthly cap.

We get it gideon, you're a proud pirate, we are all so proud of you, Yay for gideon the pirate he's so cool, woo hoo here's an air high 5 for you, and a cookie. Yay for gideon

From the arm chair I reserve the right to quarterback from I have to say that while I may not agree with Gideon in some respects I certainly can see he is actually coming from a very informed place on the issues and probably has some sort of law degree... if not a practicing, licensed attorney, and I say that because despite every insulting invective hurled at him he still comes back to rationally and with supporting facts make his argument in a gentlemanly fashion. (Excuse me if that is common knowledge - I am not on GFY enough to know everyone's biography.) I suggest instead of getting heated up and turning this into a useless fight people try harder to debate the points like business people and draw their own conclusions and adjust business accordingly.

I don't think you are correct here.

http://thepiratebay.org/top/all this is the top 100 downloaded torrents on the pirate bay (which is the largest torrent site out there) According to them the top 10 most downloaded things are 8 movies and 2 pc games. There are only about 12 TV shows in the top 100. Nearly the entire rest of the list is movies. Included in the top 20 are at least 4 movies that are still just in theaters and not on DVD yet. Maybe things are different in other countries, but when you buy a movie ticket here it entitles you to go in and watch the movie, it doesn't mean you get to then go home and download it.

What I am getting at is that I think movies and music make up a much larger number of downloads than do TV shows. Maybe you can show me something that proves otherwise.

People will continue to pirate until albums drop to a reasonable price, like $8.99. Shit if you suck live you're fucked.

summotorrent used to have an rss feed which was an agreator of all the different tracker out there.

he basically subscribed to the feed, downloaded everything and recorded the downloads from the tracker published stats.

someone did a similar study using mininova feeds, but that not considered as accurate because mininova blocks porn, which skews the numbers.

MPAA did a study using isohunts numbers and they came to 54%.

This was the lowest percentage that i could find amoung all the studies.


as for you top 100 two points you need to make you are looking at the pirate bay and ignoring sites like eztv.it/tvtorrents.com etc which obviously skews the results.

second you are looking at a torrent by torrent distribution and not a content by content distritution
what i mean by that you are not summing all torrents of the same content together

http://www.mininova.org/search/?search=heroes+s03e13

see how their are multiple different versions of the same show.

lol upload of this episode of heroes is listed 5 times before the fold.
The stats i am giving you come form the summing of all those pages of heroes episode torrents.

lastly look at your list a single episode of heroes is in the top 100 for this week.
AXXO current release is at the top. Heroes will show up in the top 100 every week it airs, AXXO spikes when he releases a new video (because people subscribe to his feed).

Something that shows up consistantly in the top 100 week after week, across multiple submitters is going to over all be much larger number then you can get from a short time spike cause by being a famous submitter (pirate) submitting a new movie this week.

Yes and if people want to watch an epsidoe of Heroes they can get it form Amazon.com or Itunes and pay the $2 for it. Or if you just missed a recent episode you can watch it on NBC.com anytime you wish in "HD" no less. No torrent necessary and its free.

You can do that now, with a lot of shows directly from the company's websites.

So, in theory, bittorrents should no longer be used in the case of GG's argument. Oh, that's right. He doesn't want to have to watch the commercials that PAY FOR the show you are watching.

right so you expect me to buy the right to view twice, once when i pay my cable bill and again from itunes.

that the point i am making, i paid for it already, i should not have to pay for it again.


or maybe it because NBC.com doesn't broadcast heroes to canada, and globaltv.com doesn't have a HD streaming option.

personally the reason why i use bit torrent is because i don't want to be teathered to the internet. Stream is great when i am watching it on my laptop, but with a bit torrent i can watch it anyware, i can put it on my ipod, i can move it to 52 inch projection tv by copying the file on my usb stick and plugging it into my dvd player.

if i recorded it with tivo i would be able to skip the commercial, even if i watched every commercial neilson does not count them for the advertising metrics, so they don't pay for the show at all.

the arguement that i am costing the show money by using torrents intead of tivo is total crap. The arguement that i should be forced to stream simply because i choose not to use tivo, while tivo should continue to have the right to skip the commercial.

my cable bill is the licience for my right to view, and no where in that agreement does it say i must watch the commercials. I can go to the washroom during the break, i can get a snack. So arguing that i must be forced to watch commercials because i bittorrent for shows i paid for is insanely irrational arguement.

stats please , i have presented the studies that come to those numbers,
i even quoted from mpaa studies
where do you get your stats that prove that more than 50% of people using torrents are theives.
I ask because your claim is the exact opposite of mine
and while i have backed mine up you still have not backed your up.


US census 99.5% of the households owns at least 1, 97% own at least 2 tvs.
the number is actually higher, because only 60% of the population has internet
since to use torrents you need to have internet
and poor people in the projects who cant afford a tv would not have internet (100% would fall in the .5% who have not tv, and 40% who have no internet)
and amish who avoid all technology would also have neither.

Assuming that distribution is equal across the internet/non internet community is flawed assumption based on these facts, but since the census does not give the composite stat (percentage of the population who has both vs only internet). It is a statistically valid assumption (all be it overly conservative).


well i am canadian so

never said that, they why i defined it as +y (it could be .00001% ) it doesn't matter because 50% is tv shows.


but the tax meets all the conditions of a licience (offer acceptance and consideration)
when it is licienced it not a copyright infringement
hense it is not piracy.
the piracy tax turns what would normally be piracy into a legally licienced activity.


if i called you a theif because you didn't pay me for your existing hosting. (pay your hosting bill, and then pay me a second time) would that be legitimate.

I paid for the content, i have a right to timeshift it,

if tivo is legitimate when it doesn't count the commercial (pay for the show) because you had to pay for the cable bill to get access to the show (paid for the content). Then doing the exact same thing (shifting the viewing time) using torrents is just as legitimate.

Unless you want to argue that tivos and pvr should be made illegal because you can buy the shows from amazon, or watch them from stations site.

The problem with that statement is that betamax case clearly stated the copyright holder did not have a right to make such a demand.

and this case legitimized using a cloud to timeshift

we are hairs breath way from explict legitimization of swarm (which is really just a cloud) as a timeshifting device.

Seriously are you retarded? because you pay your cable bill doesn't mean you have the right to everything on TV for free. That's like saying since I pay my ISP everything on the interent should be free.

A) first of all you do not have the right to do that.

B) guess what I rent stuff all the time form Amazon.com and I can stream it to my TV via the xbox 360. So there goes that excuse. I never watch movies I rent from Amazon on my computer.

So your logic is if you want something for free it should be free. If I want a porsche for free I should get a porsche. If you don't want to PAY for content either with cash or by putting up with a few ads you do not DESERVE to watch said content. PERIOD. Think about it this way if Heroes didn't make NBC money guess how long it would be on the air? It wouldn't. NBC is not going to lose money just so you can be entertained. If there is no financial incentive for companies to make movies, Tv shows, music then there simply won't be any new content out there. No one works for free. DO YOU? Of course not. To expect others to do so it's stupid.

No you don't have to watch, but inevitably you will see SOME commercials. You're not going to the bathroom every time a commercial break comes on and come back into the room at the exact moment the show comes back on. Also you forget all these networks get money form the cable companies. For example ESPN get nearly $4 from you cable company( well in the US at least ) per subscriber. So even if no one is watching commercials on ESPN they are getting paid.

Thats interesting

That is the stupid statement i have ever heard, if was saying because i pay for basic cable i should get everything for free your arguement would be valid, but
i have never said that

i said pay for everything i want to watch, i pay for bbc canada, i simply want to use whatever technology i think is most useful to timeshift my viewing rights to a different time.

really i have produced the court cases that say i do. If you are saying i don't produce the court cases that explictly say that i have no right to use a swarm as a timeshifting device.
1. i don't own an xbox 360
2. i am canadian so even if wanted to amazon will not sell me a stream



but even if i were american you are now arguing i should buy $200 so that i have the privilage of paying 1.99 for content i already paid for, and the courts have said i have a right to timeshift for free.


absolutely not, I have never said that if you want something for free it should be free. I have repeatedly said that i paid my cable bill and i bought a right to view the show.

i was saying that tivo/pvr screws the stations over equally. When you tivo a show none of the commercials "recorded" count. The tv stations get no money from the advertisers for tivoed copies of the show.

http://eztv.it/index.php?main=tvnews&show_news=3027
lipstick jungle, pushing daisies all got cancelled because they are tivoed to much.

tivo and the pvr industry wash their hands of the damage they are causing pointing to the betamax case and saying "see we are legal"
they are spending nothing of the $15/month in service charges to help solve the problem they cause.

vs torrents

while i am arguing that it is legal for the EXACT SAME REASON as tivo justifies their ass raping of the tv show producers
at least we are trying to solve the problem.
http://blog.mininova.org/articles/20...ew-technology/

a couple of year ago when stargate sg1 was cancelled by sci-fi i was involved in a project to try and save the show using concept argued in speach "piracy is good"




i spent a good 5k of my own money trying to get this rolling. While there was no problem in convincing the show to try (free money, save you show). The advertisers were not interested because what described as a solution was infact inferior to paid product placement.

The paid product placement would give all the benefits of the "ad bug" but would exist for all airing of the show (tivoed, live, bit torrented). So it was in their best interest to reject that solution.


product placement take all those viewer into account, that why companies like coke paid $1 million an episode to american idol even though commercials cost only $350 k each. Because when you added up all the people who watched it the internal product placement it was more valuable then buying ads that would only be scene by live viewers at a much lower rate.

But that point the same product placement that pays for the uncounted tivo ads pays bittorrent distribution as well.

I still believe the solution will come out of the bittorrent community quite simply because the traditional tv model take 22 out the 26 commercial spot for the distribution companies. The real producers of heroes only get 4 commercial spots in liciencing fees. A torrent solution would pay these producers directly (like product placement)

when i was paying $15/month for a pvr that was exactly what was happening. I never watched a single commercial. I would simply wait for 15 minutes, let the show buffer and start watching. If i need to go to the washroom i paused the show. When the commercials came on i would press a button and skip ahead 30 second. never had to see a single commercial.

I am watching no more or no less commercials now.

While watching the show itself i see the product placement but that is all i see, my commercial viewing habit s have not changed since i replace the pvr with a torrent recorder.

hense my point about how i am paying for the right to view the content when i paid my cable bill.

For the record none of that money goes to the actual show producers. Even though NBC gets paid $4 for every subscriber, none of that money goes to tailwind productions. They must succeed or fail on their live commercial success. If the liciencing fees they ask for falls below the 4 commercial spot level they stay on the air. If the rate goes above that they get cancelled.

As long as tivo/pvr do nothing to solve the problem caused by time shifting
as long as the torrent community keeps trying to solve the problems cause by timeshifting. I will put my money with the people who are trying to help rather than the company who are just putting it in there pocket.

I am fully aware that the torrent sites are trying to help because they are fighting to legitimize their business model, but i don't care, because the end result is that my favorite shows will be saved.

There is no one good excuse for a torrent site to even exist EXCEPT FOR THE PROLIFERATION OF THEFT... Period.

What these companies need to do, or somebody START a company, that first targets the ISP or the offending user or both. Send their info to the local law enforcement and go pick them up, get a warrant, etc. I mean you can't walk into walmart and walk out without a cd without paying and NOT expect to get arrested.