Forum - View topicNEWS: Torrent Site Crushed by MPAA
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4471 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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I'm with the MPAA on this.
Crush the freeloading parasites, I say! 
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Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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In general, copyright infringment is mostly a civil matter, punishable by fines and lawsuits. But, if a copyrighted work is distributed or reproduced without permission for profit, or if the total retail value of everything that is distributed is over $1,000 (and more then 10 copies are distrubted), then it is a criminal case under the No Electronic Theft Act. "The reproduction or distribution of 10 or more copies of 1 or more copyrighted works which have a total retail value of $2,500 or more constitutes a felony, with a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000. The reproduction or distribution of 1 or more copies of 1 or more copyrighted works which have a total retail value of more than $1,000 constitutes a misdemeanor, with a one-year maximum sentence and a fine of up to $100,000." http://www.cybercrime.gov/netsum.htm |
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TiredGamer
 Posts: 246 Location: Florida |
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Fansubbers and torrents seem to be the forum's big nasties, eh?
FYI, LokiTorrent's owner was ordered to pay $1 million as well as turn over all logs for the last two years. Depending on the ease of gaining access to user records from ISPs (who rarely keep logs stretching so far back), there'll probably be several hundred lawsuits resulting from this and other takedowns. LokiTorrent built a user database and had tracking services, hence the logs. The anime scene is less apt to surcomb to this sort of problem. The biggest pains for domestic distributors right now are those groups that offer DVD rips of the local releases including the use of the localized subtitle tracks. There are some bad feelings with Japanese companies because some fansub groups use R2 DVD rips which can feed back to Japanese fans. The only company that seems to have objected to foreign groups hardsubbing TV captures is Media Factory, which is regrettable since it is doubtful many Japanese fans really download these releases. I don't think LokiTorrent's shutdown affects anime fans that much. The MPAA isn't going to go after those fans. |
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Necros Antiquor
 Posts: 571 Location: Funny in a car crash sort of way |
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I probably should have put 2 and 2 together and realized that many bittorrent sites keep logs, but I didn't. I'm glad now that I've only downloaded a couple of files from sites like Suprnova, LokiTorrent, and ISOHunt. I deleted them anyways...
I agree. It seems like the big anime sites, like Anime Suki, have not had any negative actions taken against them, unless you count the small issue of Media Factory requesting their work to be taken down, which was reasonable. Even if the major players on the torrent scene fall, the forces behind their death are not going to go after a relatively niche group of anime torrent sites. |
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OrsonHyuri
 Posts: 35 Location: usa |
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It's great isn't it? Someone should make that pic into an avatar! |
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Vukir
 Posts: 66 Location: California |
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They always seem to be. 
And thank you Kazuki-san for the answer. Aside from that, if we have noted anything from the RIAA and the MPAA, people who download them are not so much the targets as the people who MASSIVLY distribute them. When the RIAA launched lawsuites against Kazaa users, they went after the ones that had great amounts of content to distribute to other users. Its the same with Torrents. They attack the trafficers of the material, not the recievers. Granted, this is prone to change, and I think the original napster lawsuites targeted just a bunch of random users. Also, I do not know how much the MPAA has its hands in on Anime, but since most fansubs come from Japan themselves, it seems a little out of content for an Association of America to deal with. |
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Lost_Toys
Posts: 50 |
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Unlike most Torrent sites, Animesuki is very dilegent in removing content that has been licensed either in Japan or in the United States. You get yourself into a sticky wicket if you allow content that has been licensed in any form [especially in the US]. The MPAA cracks down mainly on sites that carry movie rips [everything from cam to DVD screeners and retial ISOs]. When it comes to anime, most sites get in trouble by individual companies [like ADV has in the past] if you continue to torrent/host files that have been licensed by their companies.
If you follow the law, you have nothing to fear. Those who break it, had no rights in the first place. PS The RIAA are asses. So far, there have been no large legal battles on individuals by the MPAA. |
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UltraManiac
Posts: 14 |
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The MPAA cannot go after the torrents sites which only contain anime torrents. The MPAA can only go after those with Hollywood movies but not anime.
Only anime companies can go after those with anime torrents since the MPAA has no jurisdiction over anime. 
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Lost_Toys
Posts: 50 |
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They have no jurisdiction over television programming, but any films that are submitted to the MPA/MPA for review [ie. to get a rating] does. Therefore, some anime does fit under their umbrella. |
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Sword of Whedon
Posts: 683 |
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Thus far only one major site, Loki has gone down because of MPAA action. Suprnova pretty much collapsed under its own weight. The people running it knew that they'd get sued sooner or later, and they got sick of the servers overloading every 2 months and spending a week of their lives putting it back together. It's pretty much that simple.
Yeah, and you know what? Every year the cost of making a move increases by huge percentages, the cost of TV advertising, and most importantly, the ticket price. Right now I pay $9 a ticket. When that theater opened in 2000, I was paying $7.25.
Totally incomperable. The TV had no method of permanent storage at ultra high quality.
Yeah, you still aren't addressing the fact that people still had to go out, pay a rental fee, assuming the tape was even in. This is not the equiv of Video on Demand here, nor were tape copies generated identical to the original.
It's more the question of "Gee, I already saw it, why should I pay $10 and spend the time to drive to the theater". Again, incomperable.
Guess how many pirate copies sold every day on the streets of major US cities directly taken from these downloads? I see multiple people daily making the rounds on the subway. And since the MPAA is paying for the protection of their copyrights, which by the way they LOSE if they don't enforce, yes it is a big deal.
Never paid attention to FBI warnings before have you
Thank the difficulty of overseas lawsuits. Don't worry, it's coming. The anime companies for the most part are not MPAA members (except Dreamworks, Sony, Disney, but they only have a few titles), but pretty soon they are going to be doing some major crackdowns.
Anyone can submit a film for a rating. You must be a paying member of the MPAA for them to have juristiction. Basically it's a central office so the studios don't have to be redundant internally. You host Ghibli films (Which Disney has an option on or owns outright here), Bebop movie, Metropolis, Ghost in the Shell 2, etc etc, you can bet the MPAA can smack you. There used to be a pseudo MPAA started by Viz at Kodansha's request back in 95 called JAILED, that really didn't do much since their biggest threat was "Show fansubs and you can't show Viz titles", most cons chose fansubs over Viz. Now that anime is an industry worth hundreds of millions, it's 10 years later, and times have majorly changed. I seriously doubt most of the download sites will exist come 2007-8. |
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s_j
Posts: 162 |
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I really can't understand how one can complain about the heavy-handedness of MPAA's response, when everytime there's a thread about fansubs/scans/rips, the rippers say "well, they're not doing anything about it, so we can keep doing it." This is, in all practicality, daring companies to commit more decisive action.
It's because of this kind of attitude that the MPAA and RIAA has to do the legal equivalent of grabbing people by the hair and shouting in their faces to get their point across. Warnings and threats just don't work when they aren't backed up with force. |
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KingKoopa
Posts: 3 |
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I don't really think people downloaded movies to preview them. The way I understood it was that people would watch a movie in the theater and then download it if they liked it.
I don't think ticket sales would be hurt from bittorrent so much as DVD sales. Especially for people like me whos only DVD player is the computer. |
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Vekou
 Posts: 329 |
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Well-said. Slowly but surely, the line between criminals and regular citizens is being blurred. Likewise, I have no beef with the MPAA. I am no fan of Hollywood productions but the MPAA is definitely not "going after the little guy," despite some of the sensationalist conclusion-jumping you're going to inevitably see attached to this news. [The RIAA, however, is a different story, but I digress...]
Yes, I agree entirely and have been trying to articulate this point for years. I'd also like to note that the same concept (actions speak louder...) applies to government, social structure... hell, life in general. The point here is "talk is cheap." You need to make an example out of someone if you want to make an effective point to everyone. |
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Gamelore
 Posts: 76 |
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I use bittorrent as a method for previewing, personally, so you can't categorize everyone that way. I buy about 20-30 dvd's per month now, and I don't have the opportunity to watch everything I hear "good things" about before buying it. Thus, bittorrent is a good way to download questionable purchases, watch the first 5 minutes, and then delete them (the only problem comes when trying to keep my share ratio up, forcing me to keep from deleting it for a while). Of course, this applies mostly to unlicensed movies in my case, so it's not illegal. Though I will usually examine one or two films under the MPAA umbrella per year. Sueing people is very unfortunate for everyone. It scares me away from an expected purchase, instead putting the title on my "list of dvd's to rent when I settle down and get Netflix", and by then the original hype is no longer there and I'm unlikely to buy it. It's unfortunate for me because I lose a little freedom. But it's their films... If they don't want me evaluating or buying Hollywood movies, I'll respect that. |
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