MPAA shuts down BitTorrent sites

Suprnova.jpgMore MPAA witch hunt madness with news that some of the major BitTorrent sites are shutting down for the first time due to legal action for copyright infringement.

Last week the MPAA launched worldwide legal actions against people and groups who run the infrastructure for the BitTorrent networks. These networks are used to distribute files by copying small chunks of a file from different sites at the same time, this allows a user who is downloading a file to share the part he has downloaded to other users to download. It means there’s not a central location for the storage of the files, merely a place to store the tag to allow you to begin sharing the file.

BitTorrent, a computer program designed to distribute large files efficiently, has grown quickly in popularity this year, and now accounts for more than a third of all traffic on the Internet, according to network monitoring company Cachelogic. Much of this traffic was dedicated to full-length, high-quality movies and software.

Personally, unless there is hard evidence to say otherwise I feel that last statement is anecdotal and very reminiscent of the UK anti-pirating statement that revenue of pirated movie sales goes to organised crime and drug gangs. Surely the main use will be pornography, not that I would know anything about that!

One of the leaders in the BitTorrent hosting stakes was Suprnova, according to Xinhua, China View news:

A statement post on the SuprNova site read, “We do not know if SuprNova is going to return, but it is certainly not going to be hosting any more torrent links,” and “we are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything.”

Another site that carried BitTorrent links, N4p.com, said it had shut down due to a civil complaint that cited the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

It’s a good article and balances the story of the MPAA’s success with what is always the case with the criminalising of an act which the public do not see as criminal offence.

The disappearance of the big sites is unlikely to eliminate BitTorrent swapping altogether, but it does bring to a close an era of operating in the open without fear of legal reprisals. The resulting shift to the underground will likely make files harder to find, as traders move onto private networks or smaller communities, technology news magazine CNET reported.

Exactly. Now it goes underground and the sharing continues, if not increases, making it impossible for the MPAA to track and shutdown, so much so that they will start pouring millions into the act of hunting the sites down and closing them off, and all the time the movie go-er will be paying. Oh, and in case you are unsure where my sympathies are it’s with the movie go-er and not at all with the MPAA.

The file sharing community can now thank the MPAA for the added advertising, and let’s just watch that CNET report for the increase in sharing traffic. I’m with John on this, if only the MPAA had concentrated on exploiting the technologies instead of fighting them, embrace the music industry model or just deal with that fact that there is piracy, that’s not the problem in your over inflated salary business.

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4 thoughts on “MPAA shuts down BitTorrent sites

  1. one more thing…on kongisking.net there is an option to use bittorrent to download peter jackson’s video diaries.

    (^_^)

    just thought i’d throw that tidbit in there.

  2. seriously, i kind of agree but i really don’t. think of it this way, if going to the theatre weren’t so god damned expensive, i’d be there every night of the week (just like in the good old days watching flash gordon serials)…but because the mpaa and other hollywood elitist see piracy as a bad thing and feel that they are losing money (which they are not) they jack up the cost of your average movie going experience. why? like i said, if going to the theatre were cheaper i’d be there every day.

    now, about piracy…it’s obviously not going anywhere. accept it. first there was napster and scour and all that then torrent and whatnot but there will eventually be some new hot thing out and the mpaa is gonna crap their pants about it. look, we all got our vcrs back in the 80s and housewives everywhere were trading vhs tapes of payperview movies for their babysitters and whatnot and no one got hurt. most importantly no one lost any money…the mpaa didn’t come into our homes and cut our cable or take away our vcrs. nowadays we have our dvdrs and shit and the same thing is happening all over again…but again, no harm. right?

    so what’s the big deal? actor’s still get paid, bob and harvey aren’t starving, we all still buy dvds and go to the movies. i just went to best buy a few hours ago and believe me…somebody was making some motherfather money. so quit your bitchin.

    one more thing, if hollywood would make two to four excellent films a year instead of 20 or 30 pieces of shit the general public would value the product more and not be tempted to steal it because it would be worth paying for. you see what i’m getting at? honestly, who wants to pay good money for shit? i don’t.

  3. Hi all,
    let start first by pointing out how cool is this blog. I just love it, so keep up the updates.

    Now, I must admit that MPAA has a point there trying to protect the intelectual property rights of movies , similarly like songs. Let’s face it that if everyone was downloading and copying movies then there wouldn’t be any reason for buying dvds from shops and maybe just some wouldn’t mind going to cinema.

    However, I have to say that I agree at least with some of the reasons of this kind of piracy. Lets face it that all those famous people in film industry (directors, producers, actors, etc) are earning enormously ridicoulous money compared to the rest of us. Personally, I congradulate them for either been talented or been lucky enough to be in this business, but at the end of the line it is us (customers and fans) who make and let them live glamourously and filthy rich. Fair enough, if this is how it ended up, getting paid dozens of millions dollars for a couple of months usually work that in most cases is more fun and not compared to real life jobs. BUT, I hate the fact that I have to pay usually around £15 for a dvd, a thing after all will be used a couple of times. Why do I have to spent £8 just for a ticket, so that the film industry people can swim in the filthy earned money?

    Well, my belief is that they should try to be less provocative to their consumers and start showing some respect. How? Reduce their crazy earnings and consumer expenses. I hope they don’t actually believe that if they stop piracy and keep rising the prices, that people will go more often to cinemas or buy goods. If they do so, well yeah keep dreaming guys.

    Cheers,
    Stam

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