Forum - View topicNEWS: Hollywood Wants BitTorrent Dead
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Stueypark
Posts: 116 |
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Because, by US anti-trust laws, A company can not control a film through "production, distribution, and exhibition." If the film company tried to provide films for download, or through other such means, it would be considered a monopoly (this is a very complicated history going back to the studio system of the 20's-30's-40's)
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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Because said programs are used for the theft of their property. 
Anyway, I'd say this is turning out a lot like the MP3 filesharing jazz. In other words, it took 'em long enough to notice, it's too late to get a cap on it now, and there'll be some long, drawn out struggle ultimately resulting in one or two majour BitTorrent sources getting shut down, the rest living on, and the MPAA creating some sort of legal BT service to download movies for a discounted price. The unknown factor is how this will influence the Japanese studios to act. |
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TiredGamer
 Posts: 246 Location: Florida |
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FYI: BitTorrent is hard to shut down, but easy to track individual users. So while the torrents could go on, anyone sharing is quite visible. While Verizon stepped on attempts to get at customer info without a court order, other providers are more willing to provide real names and addresses with a simple letter.
Which brings up the issue of individuals being sued over trivial copyright infringement. The U.S. recognizes trivial copyright infringement as a civil offense and allows plantiffs to sue for upwards of $250,000 per infringement. In Japan, trivial copyright infringement is a criminal offense and can result in hefty fines and jail sentences of upto 3 years. (The U.S. is currently considering laws that would expand the terms of trivial infringement to cover the same as criminal: that is, jail sentences of up to 10 years and fines of $250,000.) So what's to stop anime companies in the U.S. from going the route of the MPAA and RIAA? And will anyone care if they start suing people left and right (and grandmothers and 12-y/o kids and poor college students)? (I don't think this is about the rightness of fansubs, so please leave that over in the other thread.) |
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Meson
Posts: 219 Location: Buffalo, NY |
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Congress threw this out. It's won't happen anytime soon. |
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TiredGamer
Posts: 246 Location: Florida |
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The principals of the bill have already said they plan to bring it up again in January with the next Congress. |
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sodynaor
Posts: 10 |
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It sure seemed like it. They put BitTorrent in the same league as the Kazaas and napsters. It is not. It is not even a p2p file sharing program. In the article they called it a "P2P service" which is it not. Its just a way for hosts to save bandwidth. And it is a shame a lot of file hosting sites don't use it! Since it is only logical to save bandwidth i.e. money, at no cost at all (Bittorrent is free and open source) |
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Septeus7
Posts: 88 |
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This is titling at windmills folks...you can't invent something that's suppose to allow for the open sharing of information...aka the internet and then expect people not to sharing information in an open manner. The entire internet was invented for file/data sharing so its kinda stupid to try and put the genie back in the bottle. It should also be noted that it that the new anime market in the U.S. was created almost entirely because of the internet (although not necessarily because of filing sharing in every case for example sites like this one also help stur part of the market).
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Sir_Brass
 Posts: 476 Location: Prescott, AZ |
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Still won't happen. The new congress is just as conservative as the last one, if not more so, and if this conservative congress tossed it out, then the next one will do so as well. As long as the republicans hold congress, then we don't have to worry TOO much about extra laws being added in this arena, as such laws are seen as invasion of privacy and unless it comes to an issue of national security, republicans and fellow conservatives are VERY warry of passing laws that do such things. Liberals in congress, on the other hand, have a history of creating laws that are restrictive and also add more beauracracy. They'd be all for this kind of law, if past history is still accurate in telling us about the voting habits of the more liberal congress(wo)men. |
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zaphdash
 Posts: 620 Location: Brooklyn |
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Anime, compared to movies or music, is a niche market appealing to a very small group of people. People thought that when the RIAA started suing individuals, it would just alienate their market and further hurt sales, so it would be like they were just shooting themselves in the foot. As far as I know, that hasn't really happened yet, but that's because the RIAA potentially markets something to just about every person in the country (except the deaf, I guess), when only a relatively small minority (surveys have shown that beyond the age of 20-25, there's a dramatic dropoff in the number of people who regularly download music) faces the possibility of being directly affected by their actions. I'd imagine a much larger portion of the anime fanbase downloads anime regularly, and it's a much smaller and somewhat more tight-knit community. In other words, the alienation that hasn't really materialized for the RIAA would still be a pretty real danger for anime companies if they started handing out lawsuits to everyone. This is why so far they've only gone after fansub distributors (and even then, they haven't been terribly aggressive), but never after fansub consumers. If they start suing their customers, there could be some terrible backlash.
As fun as it is to paint people with broad strokes, you'll find that it's not usually terribly accurate. Actually, past history would tell us that these sorts of laws are often the product of bipartisan cooperation, and many top Republicans tend to support them. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't it Orrin Hatch who proposed a bill that would make it legal for companies to erase the hard drives by remote of people who are caught pirating their work? That's merely an example, but it's a pretty extreme invasion of privacy, introduced by a pretty conservative Republican. If you look at who's introducing the anti-piracy bills in congress, you'll find that they're often introduced by a member of each party. |
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TiredGamer
Posts: 246 Location: Florida |
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According to Nielsen, 68% of the U.S. has access to the Internet with 11% of that access through broadband. Do you believe 30-40% of anime fans download? |
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radicaledward
 Posts: 776 |
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Since the privacy involved with it is so sketchy (there is no precedence) on how much privacy you are entitled to while on the internet) they will not be concerned with that when voting for such a law. |
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Onizuka666
Posts: 266 Location: U.K |
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Well Vherub, I have to say I download anime to sample series which I'll then decide which ones I love enough to buy. Just wish other folk did more of the same. Anything I download is then deleted.
I suppose it's only ever a matter of time before Hollywood got off of it's ass and acted, but the problems for them, MPAA and RIAA will keep getting much harder. Do they really not think that the trackers haven't made back up plans incase they decide to chase them? Sites shut down and relocate all the time. You can still get mp3s off of websites to this very day after they said that they had shut them down. Now that there is no main server to obtain the files from it's getting harder for them even though they will never admit it. True, BT doesn't hide everything, but I bet some clever chap out there is already working on some new program possibly based off of BT that does. I think that Hollywood won't mention the anime side because it's very positive and goes against their principles and arguement. Fair play to them wanting to protect their interests but they just tend to go about things the wrong way. Positives may come of this though. as it may finally push hollywood studios to put their films and tv shows online for a price. I feel eventually all music, tv and film will head this way most likely within 5-10 years (that's my guess anyway), because the power of the people (and bootleg cd/dvd piracy etc) is pushing things in that direction. The major studios suing folks will make them feel good for a while, but this internet steamroller is out of their control. iTunes led the way for music, perhaps iMovies/iTVOnline will be on the cards next. It's only a matter of time and that's something Hollywood clearly has none of for it's customers true online wants. As for the effects on anime, that's down to the japanese studios. The internet has been the best advertising for anime ever and has made lots more fans than they could have ever hoped for. To pull the plug would set things back to postal of videos and cds between fans, but would not kill it off totally. But that just highlights the beauty of BT even more. Entertainment at the speed of light at your finger tips. If you wanna steer clear of the super suing soldiers don't download there film or music, just import them. It's legitimate and they get their cash even though they hate you importing too. It's the lesser of two evils. |
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Guilhem
 Posts: 181 |
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I fully understand the concerns of Hollywood and any other entity which produce items being downloadable from the 'net: it's not good bizness for them
On the other hand, I also fully understand the concerns of costumers who have absolutely no way to evaluate a product without buying it: it's not good bizness for them either What I don't get is: why do some institutions refuse to use modern ways of diffusing their products, or at least leaving the consumer a good, a real possibility to evaluate it? I mean, look at the video-game industry: they provide a demo for their games, that's a non-complete but freely downloadable version of their work which allows consumer to evaluate the product and helps them to decide if yes or no they'll buy it in the end... Where is the problem into acting the same for Hollywood and animes companies? Another possibility is: instead of providing a vague trailer and uninteresting credits sequence of their show in the extras section of the DVD they could give an entire (first) episode of a serie or OAV which would help the consumer to fully evaluate the animation, plot and translation quality. For movies, this could be the first 10 or 15 minutes or something like that... There's always room for compromise |
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jstillion
 Posts: 16 |
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I think the "unlicensoned" anime torrent servers are "relatively" safe at least from lawsuits from most anime companies for the same reason that they don't go after fansub groups that stop fansubing a series once they know / inform them it's licensed.
It's the server that host licensed anime which may become future targets or ones that have anime mixed in with the downloads of movies that are still playing in the theaters.
I've noticed that a lot of series require 3 episodes in to fully get the story / series... Excel Saga comes to mind  I also love the fact that (I forget which company) has the anime test drive dvd's and what NewType magazine does.
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Sir_Brass
Posts: 476 Location: Prescott, AZ |
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I know the current arguement for fansubs is, "Yes, it's illegal, BUT the current market is nowhere near to meeting the demand that fansubs meet." Well, I had an idea. What if there was a cable company that decided to fill that gap. To avoid harsh broadcast requirements that would require censoring, it'd be a privately broadcasted channel (like HBO) where you have to pay a bill every month to recieve that channel. What that channel would do would be to obtain the North American BROADCAST rights to certain anime series as they are being broadcast in Japan. it would satisfy the fansub community by broadcasting what was aired just a week later, but with professional-grade subtitles and karaoke. This could possibly even expand into an international thing so that those in Europe won't be waiting for forever to see their anime.
Also, about the republicans in congress. Yes, they traditionally have favored business, but also historically that didn't mean passing laws that helped business, but just leaving the businesses alone. That's why I don't think these things that just got defeated in congress will survive, because the republicans would rather create less beauracracy and just let Hollywood deal with the problem with the laws that can currently be used by prosecutors against the offenders. This isn't saying that that's what WILL happen, it's just that if the rep's act like their party historically has tried to act like, that's what will most likely happen. |
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