Steal This Film!

[Pavan Dave]

Well, as of recently OiNK [a big, private, p2p file sharing network] was shut down. After hearing of this news I finally got time to look up some stuff about OiNK and about different organizations and their views towards copyright laws as well as the copyright laws of other countries. Anyways after reading up on some of this OiNK madness I came up across some neat websites as well as some neat articles. I just wanted to see what the community thought of some of this stuff.

Has anybody seen "Steal this Film"? What did you think about it? I just saw it and was amazed. I enjoyed the documentary and I do agree with many of the things stated. After watching it I looked some of the people up that started this as well as the people that are associated with both the film makers and TPB.


If you haven't seen this film you can obtain a copy of it at their site or you can watch it on Google Video.


Steal This Film Official Website
Google Video Link
Interesting Blog Entry

[whitetiger0990]

Yup yup. I saw it awhile ago.

It's a very strange gray area.

Jammie Thomas was successfully sued for quite a lot of money simply for making the downloads available. There was no proof that any file transfer had taken place.

How do they know it was even the real songs that were made available? I don't know.

Another thing is that Bit Torrent trackers don't actually contain any data. They just point to peers who have the data. You rarely download the entire file(s) from one person. But RIAA and others are still able to go after you simply for advertising on the tracker for having the file. No proof that you have the real file needed. =)

I mean, what? The moment OiNK shutdown, people switched to different private trackers. I think ex-members were given free invites to waffles.fm (if you apply and give proof).

They can always try and go after major public (and apparently private) trackers. But they'll never be able to shut down all the minor private trackers (or just generic darknets. Darknets are pretty much the same as trading CDs and making copies among a group of friends. The RIAA isn't going to come over and stop you. Most people don't even see it as a crime. *shrugs*


Then there's DRM. Which is basically saying you don't actually buy the music, you buy a limited license to listen to it. There's AACS with HD-DVDs which is basically cracked (now it's just a cat and mouse game). The production key was found (the friendly little 09 F9 number, you know the one). Since the key constitutes a circumvention technology (it circumvents AACS), it's "illegal" to have under the DMCA.

Illegal numbers sure are.. nice. Some people might remember DeCSS. Yeah.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime


Like I said, it's a gray area.