[vyper]

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20050512214338719

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.

God damnit.

[Rictor]

I was just about to ask about BTEFNET. Honestly, just now.

Looks like they're getting serious. Bastards.

[Carl]

First TVTorrent and Supernova, and now this! Where am i gonna get illegal d/ls now? hmmm?

[Cyker]

Bollocks! Where am I gonna get those Dr Who episodes from now?!

[Rictor]

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/friday/22/ubastrds.wav

originally posted by anon from way back when Suprnova went down.

[Flipside]

I see the MPAA are indulging in their favourite cash-consuming pastime of herding cats again. :/

I wouldn't mind if it wasn't money they are ripping off of paying consumers to do it with. I buy my ****, and even I'm getting pissed off with this tantrum throwing. Why can't the record companies admit they charge too much and are ripping people off left right and centre instead of this constant and pointless exercise?

[Rictor]

Actually, this seems to be mostly targetting TV shows. The only rationale against downloading TV shows is that they rarely leave the commercials in, which is how the networks profit. But TiVO does the same thing, and it's not illegal. They should just strike up a deal with the torrent sites: leave the commericuals in, and you can stay. I wouldn't mind it, and I think the same can be said for most other people.

[aldo_14]

The MPAA didn't sue TiVO, but they managed to scare it a bit methinks;

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/18/tivo_no_skipping/

[q]Time shifting DVR pioneer TiVo will soon display pop-up ads when users attempt to skip commercials, the LA Times reports today. TiVo owners will still be able to fast forward, but will be forced to watch a billboard style ad on screen.

It's the latest in a series of compromises that threaten to leave the highly-regarded company offering little more than a generic set-top box UI.

Increasingly broadcasters are introducing restrictions on their programming. In recent weeks HBO announced that it will be locking down all its content to a specific device from next June, forbidding any copies to be made.

TiVo's jumped the gun, introducing similar copy controls on pay-per-view and VoD programming. TiVo general counsel Matthew Zinn defended the company's decision to incorporate potentially more restrictive DRM from his provider Macrovision, and acknowledged it was "a slippery slope".

"I think content owners are beginning to recognize that if you make things too restrictive, then consumers will find nonlegal ways to achieve what they want," he claimed. There's no evidence on offer to support this position, but plenty of evidence that, faced with ineffective political lobbying by the computer industry which has failed to alert an apathetic public, the freedom to copy material for personal use will disappear without too many objections.

Did TiVo ever stand a chance? Time shifting functionality, like many conventional computer innovations, turns out to be a feature of an existing product rather than a horizontal industry in itself (PodCasters, please note), and time shifting is now being built into newer TV sets. Nor were cable providers ever really likely to give control of something as strategic as the UI - and TiVo's is warmly regarded as the best - to a third party.

The company has an alliance with NetFlix to serve VoD to broadband-equipped households, and there's plenty of scope for this alliance to prosper. It might rue that with more effective lobbying from the computer industry, or digital rights advocates, it might have made good on its initial promise[/q]

[Flipside]

Thing is, the torrent sites have no say over this, it's down to the people ripping the programs. I always buy or rent movies, I don't bother downloading, because to spend 20+ hours downloading something that lasts only 2 has never appealed to me. I don't care if other people do it, the MPAA claim Piracy is pushing up DVD and other media prices. The truth of the matter is that Piracy is NOT pushing them up, what is pushing them up is (a) This ongoing battle against 'Pirates' which almost seems like the Inspiration for the 'War on Terror', (b)The fact the MPAA keep spending ****loads of my, and other consumers, money on hunting down sites which appear as quickly as they are taken down, and (c) Pure unadulterated greed. Media compaines produce generic movies and generic films for the main part. People lose interest in them in the end, this is why sales are dropping. Why is it that Lord of the Rings has been an immense success on DVD? Why is it everyone wants to buy an original copy rather than just download a version? Because it was a good movie and people knew they would get their money's worth from it.

The Pirates are neither spending or recieving ANY of my money, the MPAA and the associated record companies are, and they are always hungry for more.

Ask yourself this. If Piracy were somehow removed entirely from the Internet, so everyone had to buy retail versions of movies and TV programs, do you think that they would be a single penny cheaper?

[aldo_14]

I think the MPAA and RIAA, were they British (I don't think the BPAA are quite as bad - yet - but they're getting there), would actually make me feel guilty about buying legitimate CDs, DVDs, etc.

[Flipside]

I wouldn't mind spending the money if I felt it was being put towards encouraging new and different talent and generally widening the Media experience for all involved, but it's either going directly into shareholders pockets or being wasted on pointless exercises such as this. I don't buy movies nearly as much as I used to, partly because of price, partly because there are s few good movies to choose from, and partly because the level of greed within giant industry has got so high that they barely even bother to conceal it any more.

[redmenace]

Why would the MPAA be concerned with televised content?

[redmenace]

[Setekh]

Originally posted by redmenace
Why would the MPAA be concerned with televised content?

Televised content has a lot to do with the MPAA, doesn't it? TV is being increasingly seen as a source of revenue for the motion picture business... especially the high-budget series that come out these days.

[redmenace]

Unexpected this is and unfortunate.
                 -Yoda

I wasn't really expecting them to chase after tv torrent sites especially since they don't distribute DVDs or movies.

[Sandwich]

Can .avi or .mkv files have integral chapter divisions? If so, that's a reasonable compromise for everyone I think - leave the commercials in there, but allow them to be skipped by manual use of the "next chapter" button. After all, whenever the commercials come on when you're watching TV, do you just sit there through them? No, you either go get a snack, flip through the other channels, or completely ignore them and start talking with your fellow TV watchers.

[Windrunner]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Can .avi or .mkv files have integral chapter divisions? If so, that's a reasonable compromise for everyone I think - leave the commercials in there, but allow them to be skipped by manual use of the "next chapter" button. After all, whenever the commercials come on when you're watching TV, do you just sit there through them? No, you either go get a snack, flip through the other channels, or completely ignore them and start talking with your fellow TV watchers.

couldn't agree more on that...

looks like they are only concentrating on bringing these sites down.
if they start going after the registarnts that use these sites then they are really over their head.

[Saturn2004]

aww shucks where am i going to  get my  andromeda and B5 episodes  from ?
any ideas?

[vyper]

MKV can support that, since it's a pretty dynaimc container format. I think. Then again, the objection is that it's damned easy to reencode anything you want if you have the time and patience.

[Corsair]

Noooo... my Family Guy episodes!