NEWS: MPAA Angry as a Third of Internet Traffic from BitTorrent.

That's quite a statistic. Last year, one third of all traffic on the internet was from the popular file sharing protocol, BitTorrent. The Motion Picture Association of America is now starting to shift its focus from shutting down individual torrent sites (as many of us users have noticed), to the program/protocol itself.



The owners of www.elitetorrents.org have experienced the wrath of the combination of the MPAA, US Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security. Take a look.

As a user of BitTorrent, this angers me. Of course, there is the perspective that we are stealing from honest people by downloading. I say, the record labels/media companies are stealing from us, charging ludicrous prices for sales, when relatively little of that money actually goes to the artists/actors themselves.

It's fair to say that the movie industry is rarely first in line for a sympathy vote. It claims that piracy costs it $3.5bn (£1.9bn) a year, a figure that doesn't include the losses from internet file sharing. However, the very thing that lays behind the dramatic increase in piracy - the arrival of the DVD - has also brought the industry some quite spectacular dividends. The DVD market in the US last year was worth $21.2bn (£11.6bn); with the retail market alone up year on year by 33%. And it continues to grow every year.

That about sums up how greedy these people are. $21.2 billion, from two years of profits like that, forget erasing African debt, you’d be able to pay it off, with a couple of billion on the side. The way media is being distributed is changing, people are no longer willing to pay for their music when they can get it for free. The media companies need to accept this, and find alternate ways to exploit the masses, oh did I say that? I meant to generate revenue. Being the idealistic person I am, I’d like to think that the media tycoons could accept that they won’t make as much money anymore; but that’s not going to happen, is it?

Related News Links:
www.bittorrent.com
www.mpaa.org

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Homeland Security involved in p2p arrests?
NEWS: MPAA Under Investigation for Illegal NYPD Payoffs

One third seems awfully high. I mean, most people only know about peer-to-peer file sharing like Kaaza. The average pc user doesn't seem saavy enough to figure out how to download torrents (I know it's not hard, but it's usually safe to underestimate the intelligence of the public).

How much does porn take up? At least a one third, so does that mean only 40% of net usage is not used for porn or torrents? I think the MPAA may have fudged the numbers to make it seem like more of a problem than it is. People can make a report say anything.

Blaming torrent for movie downloads is like blaming food for Rosie O'Donnel being fat..

The MPAA tried to shut down the video recorder. The music industry [I tend to lump the MPAA and the RIAA together] sued radio stations for playing music. It would seem their immediate response to any new sharing medium is to sue. They ended up embracing these mediums and profiting quite well from them despite the small amount of piracy involved.
Besides, holding bittorrent software accountable for piracy is like holding a gun accountable for murder. I happen to know that bittorrent shares a lot of non-copyrighted material as well.

That's 1/3rd of BACKBONE Traffic my friends, very different from overall traffic which ammounts to around 1/10th of all traffic, yes it's still quite allot but one thing is for sure someone is making allot of money of all this extra traffic(namely the ISP's ) ... This article is very misleading and was debunked to death on slashdot a while back. Take with a huge grain of salt...

[edit on 17-6-2005 by sardion2000]

They tried to stop the video recorder
they tried to stop the tape recorder
they are trying to stop P2P

Each time they said the poor people who make films and music would be put out of work and each time they were wrong. Perhaps they wont be able to afford to pay actors or musicians $20m to make a record/film and my heart doesnt exactly bleed for them!

The fatcats dont like it that the power has turned to the people, I havent bought a cd since they went to £18/$30+ and will never buy one again, Ill support my favourite artist by seeing them in concert where they get the bulk of the money, not some leeching, corrupt exec.

The greedy get greedier!!!!

How much does the MPAA make from legal movie sales and theatre profits per year? Well Star Wars III has already made $678,702,187 alone since its release.

www.the-numbers.com...

Global Film Industry - Origin of Revenues

* Global annual film production > 3000 films.
* Annual revenues exceed $180 billion*, and are forecast to increase at a rate of 20% per year to
an estimated $450 billion by 2005.
* Hollywood films currently account for about 35% of total industry revenues by value (almost $63 billion).
* Annual Global box-office revenues amount to $21.4 billion, across 205,000 theatres, with total seating capacity of 13.6 million#
* source: Screen Digest
# source: UNESCO report

Movie revenues originate not only from the box office. Video and DVD sales / rentals, network and cable TV, pay-per-view, and on airplanes are all important sources of revenues.

Films continue to generate revenues for their production studios across all of these platforms, known as "windows of exhibition," for years after their theatrical release.

www.factbook.net...

A loss of $3.5 billion in one year for the MPAA doesn't look like much now, does it?

CPYKOmega, the Movie industry also is developing a symbiotic relashionship with the Video Game industry as well and that revenue stream for the studios is still in an embryonic stage with room for massive growth despite ease of piracy.

[edit on 18-6-2005 by sardion2000]

This is really stupid. This is like putting a bandage on an amputation. They cannot stop the P2P network. It is just too big.

Originally posted by SeekarOfTruth
This is really stupid. This is like putting a bandage on an amputation. They cannot stop the P2P network. It is just too big.

Agreed. They tried to stop file sharing back when Napster was shut down, and they failed. They cannot stop the future. And online file sharing is here to stay whether people like it or not!

God people, it pisses me off to no end when people blame the music and movie industry for costing them more, OH NOES THEY COST TO MUCH LETS STEAL AND SAY ITS JUSTIFIED LOL!!!!!!!!L!L!L!L!!, its not what they do that pisses me off its their freaking justifacation

I say, the record labels/media companies are stealing from us, charging ludicrous prices for sales, when relatively little of that money actually goes to the artists/actors themselves.

I think that's more of a truth when speaking of the music industry; as for the motion picture industry, that's not at all true.

When concerning big name hollywood films like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie cost $40,000,000 of the film's $110,000,000 budget. That is only the production budget. Often times, the marketing and publicity for big hollywood films will far exceed the production costs.

So then you have the choice to spend $13.99 on the new Coldplay CD or $13.99 on "The Pantom Menace" - which one of these do you think have a higher production cost? Which one of these do you think will sell more? (Coldplay sells millions of records by the way.)

I used to pirate music and movies online, but then I grew up. I'm for downloading some gas, though.

Originally posted by Bly Magister
When concerning big name hollywood films like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie cost $40,000,000 of the film's $110,000,000 budget. That is only the production budget.

Fair point, but thats just down to Pitt/Jolies greed, nothing more.

Yeh dont we all remeber the recording songs from radio to tape crisis? that nearly bankrupt the music industry...oh wait it did'nt, neither will this, this is just pure greed on the recording companys . If they manage to shutdown bittorrent/p2p something else will just take its place , shutting napster made it better right ? Wrong it pushed file sharing into the mainstream ,pushing programmers to find better ways of sharing files eg bittorent.

So on a closing note , if bittorent gets a slap on the wrist its only gonna push people to new heights for file sharing,

Merkz out

It seems to me that the true question at hand is not how much money the motion picture or music industry makes on a flick or a CD but, more properly, is downloading the movie or music without paying for it legal and proper???

Most of what I've read in this tread are attempts at justifying an illegal act - "The studio is making a bunch of money so it's only right that I can rip them off for all the movies I want!!" and "file sharing is so big they'll never be able to stop it!!!"...

Well, so what??? Does it make downloading music of flicks without paying for them right? No... not at all...

filesharing has always been around one way or another as soon as people could make copys of tapes people were recoring from the radio ,swaping music with friends. The same went with video tapes, has anyone here ever recored a film from television or copy a audio cassette for a friend if so your guilty of filesharing/piracy.The law actually go as far as to say you cant lend people dvd's or cd's or watch/listen them with an audance more than 3 (not sure on the number) hence no having music played at partys unless everyong has bought the track or watching films unless everyone owns a copy of the movie. P2P is just pushing this futher and the difference now is they can see us do it track us do it and see the potential for more profit.

Merkz out





[edit on 19-6-2005 by Merkeva]

[edit on 19-6-2005 by Merkeva]

Originally posted by Merkeva
The law actually go as far as to say you cant lend people dvd's or cd's or watch/listen them with an audance more than 3 (not sure on the number) hence no having music played at partys unless everyong has bought the track or watching films unless everyone owns a copy of the movie.

Ummmm... I don't think that's quite correct... Take a look at this:

"The First Sale Doctrine entitles the owner of a particular copy of a work to dispose of that copy in any manner the owner chooses without violating the copyright owner's exclusive right to distribute one's work. Thus, the purchaser of a work may sell, lease, loan or give away the copyrighted work as he or she could do with any other piece of personal property."

www.rmslaw.com...

Well I live in Ireland on on the back of all dvd's here it clearly states the following:

The copyright propierter has licened this DVD (including its soundtrack) for private home use only.Unless otherwise expressly licenced by the copright,all other rights reserved.Any unauthroised copying,editing, exhibition,renting,lending,public performance,diffusion and/or broadcast or any part therof,is strictly prohibited.This DVD is not to be exported,re-supplyed or distrbuted by the way of trade outside the EU with a proper trading licence.

Anyone from uk/ireland can verify this.Therefore i must assume here in the EU copyright laws are different.

Looking through my stack of DVDs this is the common statement:

"For sale or rental for private home use in the USA and Canada only. Federal law provides severe penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes or video discs."

Yep... quite a bit of difference...

Just wanted to let you guys know that a judge recently ruled that making files available for downloading in a shared folder does not equal distribution.

www.webwarrior.net...

Judge Marilyn Patel issued a ruling www.svmedialaw.com... Wednesday that settles an important question in the ongoing Napster (yes, Napster) case -- whether under the law, simply offering copyrighted material to others (say, by listing it in an index) means you're distributing it.

Judge Patel suggested this in denying summary judgment to the recording industry, but has now granted summary judgment to the other side....In other words, copyright holders have to prove that someone actually downloaded the file from you before you can be found liable for distributing. The simple act of offering isn't enough.

If done through an encrypted P2P format which by law cannot be decrypted.. well read between the lines.

[edit on 19-6-2005 by sardion2000]