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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: Torrent Sites still going strong
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David Buckley
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 525
From: Oxford, N. Canterbury, New Zealand
Registered: Aug 2004
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posted 03-28-2017 06:15 PM
In the UK there has been a recent sucessful prosecution against a seller of so-called "fully loaded" Kodi boxes, which enables one to watch pirated content without going through any hoops. Link to Daily Mirror article that muses on the issue, which links to a report on the prosecution.
Edited highlights:
A man has been hit with a £250,000 bill for selling 'pre-loaded' Kodi boxes which could screen Premier League football to pubs and clubs.
Malcolm Mayes, 65, from Hartlepool, Teesside flogged ‘pre-loaded’ boxes for £1,000 each to pubs and clubs so they could illegally screen live football and pay per view events.
The Teeside Gazette reports Hartlepool Council's authority’s trading standards department brought the prosecution.
The council say he targeted the venue through adverts in a national magazine which claimed his devices were ‘100% legal’.
A judge at Teesside Crown Court ordered him to pay the council’s £170,000 costs while a Proceeds of Crime Order was made against him for a further £80,000.
Mayes - who the court heard has assets in excess of £1m - was also handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for one year.
Ian Harrison, of Hartlepool Council Trading Standards, said: “Mr Mayes should not be seen as a Robin Hood-type character."
“In selling these devices he wasn’t stealing from the rich to help the poor. He was stealing to make himself richer.”
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 03-28-2017 10:19 PM
But that last statement does play into the rationale of people who only want to get the movie to watch it, not to sell it or to distribute it of profit from it in any way, i.e., the erroneous idea that we've all heard so many say, that if one is not profiting from it, it's not illegal.
And then again, if you go by what the studio looses by such a download -- three or four people watch BEAUTY AND THE BEAST instead of paying to see it at the movies or instead of buying the DVD or other video format, then they've personally stolen what, at most under $50 worth of "product?" That doesn't rise to the level of more than a petty crime, certainly not even a misdemeanor in the mind of the perpetrator. He doesn't even come home with so much as a stolen pair of jeans. You can see where this much more of a perception problem than one of stopping the likes of bank robbers.
I have also wondered why this industry is so loose with information about their grosses. They have been shooting themselves in the foot by routinely announcing how much this or that picture grossed in an opening weekend. This goes a long LONG way to reinforce perception of the studios as Goliath and Joe pirated movie watcher as David. And David doesn't even wind up with anything material in his possession, yet he is told he has hurt xyz studio who just said they made 140 MILLION dollars in one weekend. It really might behoove studios to play the gross cards close to the vest as this really is a war of perceptions, and the studios are losing.
What other industry treats its weekly grosses like some sort of public marketing fodder? You certainly don't hear Big Oil or Big Pharma announcing their weekly grosses on a national network news break-in every Sunday night (the MPAA does it everyone Sunday night on CBS, I think is the network). And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5brlHqQeGXY
Macy*s doesn't have a big banner as you walk in the store announcing that they made upteen million dollars last quarter while a few isles down, there is no banner admonishing that "Shoplifting is not a victim-less crime."
It's easy to see why Joe Pirated Movie Watcher doesn't think he's making any big dent in Hollywood profits by watching a big blockbuster at home rather than spending $20 to go see it in the theatre.
I can also see where people, me included, can get quite antagonistic toward a business where we, the paying customer who just purchased a ticket to see a movie in a theatre or just bought and paid for a DVD -- are constantly reminded that the business thinks of us as potential thieves. It's like they are saying, "Yah, I know you paid for your ticket, or for you DVD, but we are still not quite sure about you; to us, you are still a potential robber and we better keep reminding you of that at every turn. Eventually someone inevitably is going to say, "Hey, you know what, if they think of me as a potential movie pirate, then hell, I might as well act like one."
This is a very complex, attitude-driven issue that I don't think the studios ever handled wisely, not from the hell and brimstone railings of Jack Valenti in the early days trying say the world can't have video recorders because they have only one purpose....to steal their movies, along with his claim that the industry loses 6 BILLION dollars a year (or was it a month? whatever it was, it was HUGE) to piracy which was "a cancer in the belly of the industry," to the constant bragging they do about how much money they are raking in every big opening. Which goes to what Scott points out -- claims of damage are grossly exaggerated; once the public see it's being played, the studios have lost the pubic relations war.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-29-2017 12:19 AM
When considering issues like the worsening problem of "income inequality," the richest .1% of Americans carving more out of our backs every passing year, the middle class being squeezed and many fearful of lapsing into the lower class, I think it's pretty clear there is a hell of a lot of unspoken resentment toward the people on top.
All these folks using modded Fire TV sticks or whatever to view pirated movies, TV shows, music and sports programs probably couldn't give two shits about their activity being theft. They see the movie stars, directors and producers living an extreme quality of life very few of them will ever attain. These celebrities don't look like they're hurting at all. Even a somewhat obscure American actor can go to Japan, record a TV commercial and make more on that one gig than most Americans would earn in a couple years.
Not many users of these piracy devices think of the average people being hurt by this enterprise. Few jobs in a movie theater business pay well. And there's plenty of workers in the movie industry who earn modest pay checks. Those are the people who tend to get hurt first by a downturn in the movie business, not necessarily the celebrities (although plenty of them fall into obscurity once they get too old, fat, etc.).
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-30-2017 12:22 AM
People distributing the modded HDMI sticks/boxes or acquiring/distributing the pirated content probably know the risks they're running with the law. I don't think anyone merely viewing pirated movies on these modded HDMI sticks/boxes expect to ever get busted just for watching pirated movies. So the studios try to appeal to the would-be customer's morality, by just saying it's wrong, it's stealing, yadda yadda yadda.
Not only do the freeloading viewers think "hey, I'm getting something that costs a bunch of money for free," they also think, "this isn't hurting anyone; those Hollywood types are still making millions and billions." It's still a guilt free crime to them.
quote: Mike Blakesley
Then when their theater owning buddy says "That's illegal, you know," they go "Ahhhhh, those movie stars aren't going to miss a couple of bucks" or "Sheeeeit, you're charging nine bucks for a popcorn, you make plenty of money."
I think high concessions prices add to the rationale for people seeking out pirated movies. They use the snack prices as another reason to justify using an alternative means of watching movies even if it is illegal. Sticking it to the Man is as far as they could go with the train of thought, if it even gets that far. They don't bother to see how well the movie theater manager or other theater employees are living.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-30-2017 01:16 PM
quote: Harold Hallikainen
There is a general lack of respect for intellectual property.
I'm reminded about this constantly at my day job. I can spend hours or even days working on a complicated sign project. Most customers see absolutely no value in the labor put into it. They figure it only takes a few seconds of typing gibberish into the keyboard and, bam, the project is finished. Just like in the movies!
Or someone will want me to contribute free illustrations and graphics to some publication they're trying to produce, all for the "honor" of being published. Thanks, but no thanks. If I want to be jerked off I'll use my own hand. Make your own illustrations and graphics, jackass.
quote: Frank Cox
If I copy your CD, then nothing has changed for you at all, and I'm listening to music.
Or using software. I use a few Adobe applications in my work and have a Creative Cloud subscription. The anger from users has never ended. At best it has only eased a little. If you're actually doing paid, professsional graphics work the $50 per month price is a bargain considering what all you get. But I suspect a bunch of these people want free. That even goes for the fonts.
I use the hell out of Adobe's Typekit service, which comes with Creative Cloud. They have a bunch of professional grade type families from many different foundaries that are free to sync to a computer from Typekit. A bunch of these type families cost a fortune to buy outright from a type outlet like MyFonts.com. For instance they just added the Promixa Soft family by Mark Simonson, 48 fonts free at Typekit but $734 at MyFonts. Creating a typeface, especially one featuring all the latest bells and whistles of OpenType, requires countless hours of painstaking work and script programming. Again, the average user sees zero value in that. It's just a font file.
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