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Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that. But I believe that pirating is related to a very fuzzy legal system regarding this top

Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that. But I believe that pirating is related to a very fuzzy legal system regarding this topic and unfair treatment by the major movie studios & music labels. I'll try to explain as good as I can. Being a european citizen, it is very frustrating knowing that pirating is illegal even though being a Netflix, HBO & Spotify customer. Pirating is a much bigger trend in EU & AUS than it is in the US, and I think that it mainly boils down to the US-based movie studios restricting and delaying access to content to non-US citizens. Some may think that this is acceptable, but I can't see how treating one customer differently from another is acceptable just because they have different nationalities. I'm paying exactly the same amount of money as the next US-citizen for the content, yet I am treated differently. One other thing that troubles me is that there are higher quality content available via torrents than via the legal alternatives. Having invested in a 7.1 surround system and a 4K 3D Android TV, you would expect that the legal alternatives would have content available for such hardware, but they rarely do. Personally I think it's absurd that the movie studios expect to be on the european market but treat those customers as second-hand customers, and I don't understand why the EU isn't doing anything about it. The EU and US relies on eachothers markets, yet music labels forces the Swedish-invented Spotify to restrict access to certain songs for non-US citizens. I do acknowledge that some people are pirating because it's free, but I don't think that the general public does so. I'd be the happiest Netflix & HBO customer if I had the same content library as my fellow US friends.

Freak_NL 10y ago
> I'm paying exactly the same amount of money as the next US-citizen for the content, yet I am treated differently. Netflix' official standpoint is that you are paying for access on n screens at a time at x resolution (e.g., FullHD), not for the content. This is of course complete nonsense — of course we are paying for content — and I have no qualms whatsoever in downloading something available on Netflix US via some torrent if it is not available in my local Netflix catalogue.
anexprogrammer 10y ago
> you would expect that the legal alternatives would have content available for such hardware, but they rarely do. Nope, wouldn't expect that. It'll come slowly, and apparently very grudgingly. It took a decade or more to be able to get flac downloads commonly available. For years music downloads were low bit rate crap mp3. Pirate it or buy the CD were the only options for quality. It was like they actively wanted us to be searching for torrent sites.
- girzel 10y ago
  It's like the publishing industry and digital publishing: they just don't really want it to happen at all, so they do a bad job of it.
apa-sl 10y ago
"I'm paying exactly the same amount of money as the next US-citizen for the content, yet I am treated differently." Nope, it is even funnier because most probably you're paying more than US citizen. 1eur>1usd on exchange market (and it is a long trend) and - correct me if I'm wrong - price levels are the same for US and EU (ie. 9usd in US, 9eur in EU)?
- medecau 10y ago
  Add VAT to the mix and things even out again.
  - spoiler 10y ago
    From Netflix's point of view it does even out, but the EU citizen still pays more for less.
    - Freak_NL 10y ago
      Citizens benefit from any taxes paid in other ways though, so directly equating VAT with a higher net price is not completely fair.
    - lagadu 10y ago
      No because what we pay in tax we get back in other forms. The US citizen will have to pay for college (instead of being paid to attend), healthcare, court costs, retirement pension, unemployment, etc. Don't count the taxes as part of what you're getting back, it's very different and beyond the scope of this article :)
      - lma21 10y ago
        In which EU country you get paid to go to college?
        Nullabillity 10y ago
        At the very least, Sweden[1] and Denmark[2] have systems that pad out your student loans with government grants that apply to (almost) everyone. [1]: http://www.csn.se/en/2.1034/2.1036/2.1037/2.1038 http://www.csn.se/en/2.1034/2.1036/2.1037/2.1038 [2]: http://www.su.dk/english/ http://www.su.dk/english/
methou 10y ago
It's worse as a Chinese citizen, buying is still an option, we have none, even through technical workarounds. I used to be a Netflix/Hulu subscriber before they've banned proxy access to their content. Lately I tried to buy various TV streaming services but they did a great job in banning VPNs. This is where I stopped believing they have a good faith.
- hkjgkjy 10y ago
  Sorry if I have preconceived notions, but I don't imagine anyone running any risk of prosecution for pirating foreign movies in China?
  - AsyncAwait 10y ago
    Maybe it's about the willingness to support the content creators, rather than the fear of being prosecuted?
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      In most cases enrich is a more correct word than support in these cases. Also replace creators for owners. Individuals and small companies I support well (buy every blue ray, CD and t-shirt they sell), large media conglomerates I do not.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    Ordinary torrenting is also blocked in China. You need to run your torrent software through a VPN. Last I was there, Astrill seemed to be the way to go. But the situation evolves.
    - rahimnathwani 10y ago
      Some torrent search/index sites and torrent trackers may be blocked, but torrent traffic itself is not blocked in China, at least on the domestic ISPs I've used. I can download a debian image over bittorrent, without VPN, without a problem. In fact, it can be faster than download directly over http, as the traffic has more potential routes.
kalleboo 10y ago
> I don't understand why the EU isn't doing anything about it The problem is that right now the EU isn't one copyright market - each EU country is a separate market, with a tonne of legacy exclusive distribution deals in place. If the EU was a single market, it would be the same size or bigger than the US market and would probably get better attention. The EU is working on it, it just moves at the speed of bureaucracy (and of course each country has lobbyists in the local media which has those legacy exclusive distribution deals resisting it) Here's the page on copyright harmonization: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/copyright https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/copyright And check the "Geo-blocking" and "Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement" headlines here hhttp://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/digital/ http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/digital/
- tormeh 10y ago
  >The EU is working on it, it just moves at the speed of bureaucracy I would guess the speed is more limited by 27 governments having to agree on everything.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    Getting 27 countries to agree on something sounds like bureaucracy nightmare to me :) So, I just looked up the word "bureaucracy" in a dictionary and it says "a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives.". I always thought that was what a technocracy was. The secondary definition is "excessively complicated administrative procedure, seen as characteristic of bureaucracy" which is the only usage I can remember seeing.
    - malka 10y ago
      Technocracy is more about "experts make the décisions"
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      You seem to have a very bad dictionary. Bureaucracy comes from the French word "bureau", that means office. It names the way things are organized in an office, and was created for private offices, only adopted for governments later.
sdoering 10y ago
> treat those customers as second-hand customers... If I look at content available at these services, I feel more of a third or fourth hand customer. And that is the reason I have left them for good. Scorched earth is what is left for me. But you would not even have to go to these streaming "services". I really love my classic tv shows. Take for example "Quincy, M.E.". I love this show and would pay good money to have it available at home (in DVD or BluRay format). And for my significant other have the synchronized version. The whole series was synchronized for German TV. But is it available as DVD? No it isn't. Our only chance i to wait for the reruns on any network, program our HDD recorder and ripp the low quality TV stream. If I would still be illegally downloading, I would already have the whole show at home, with self printed DVDs and such. But being a good and law abiding citizen I am pretty much fed.
mattmanser 10y ago
I'd happily bet big money that orders of magnitude more people are pirating because it's free than because they'd invested in 7.1 surround system and a 4K 3D TVs. Everyone I know who pirates is doing it because it's free. Although almost all of them pay for something (Netflix, Amazon Prime or Nowtv), they just don't pay for all of them. And these are all grown adults in their 30s. Say you pay for Netflix and Amazon, but they don't have everything. So GoT has to come from somewhere... And movie releases are still over-delayed to streaming services. You see a DVD in the shop? You can stream it for free rather than wait 6 months more for it to maybe turn up on Netflix.
- jokoon 10y ago
  Cost is an issue, although I wonder how many people pirate movies ans shows because it's "really" too expensive for them. If you want to watch the movies you want, and you're not so rich, it certainly is going to cost you more than a netflix account, but I don't think everyone is doing it because of the cost, they also do it because it's easier. It's hard to beat the torrent catalog. Also if you enter the argument of entertainment being a luxury, and that a DVD should cost around $15, you will have people pirating because they certainly don't want to spend so much for watching a movie at home. There will be people arguing over the holywood money machine and how much a movie really is worth.
jokoon 10y ago
Also the netflix catalog is not as big as people claims it is (I live in france). There are many movies missing from the 2000-2010 period (and more when you go beyond). There also are many smaller details that makes torrent more attractive, like being able to watch the movie offline, HD with low bandwidth, subtitle choice, etc. Netflix is a good step, and of course the movie industry will use it as "no excuse" argument against piracy. Meanwhile you still have other issues about net neutrality and people using VPN when they can.
- Larrikin 10y ago
  Even in America, at this point most people consider themselves lucky if they find any movies worth watching on Netflix, especially anything fairly recent. Netflix's strength is its TV catalog.
- ajford 10y ago
  Yep. Lack of availability is about the only reason I torrent anymore. It's more convenient for me to watch on Amazon or Netflix (fuck Hulu and it's commercials) or HBO than it is to torrent and manage my Kodi library. Oh, and the ability to keep my kids tablets in airplane mode (triple the battery life!) and still let them watch their favorite shows/movies on a long road trip is definitely worth the extra effort.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Haven't the media conglomerates made it clear you pay to access the content rather than purchasing it. So pay the lowest rate you find fit the content and acquire it as you please, eg torrent + subtitles + dub that you want. Surely that's entirely consistent with their position morally?
  - khedoros 10y ago
    > Haven't the media conglomerates made it clear you pay to access the content rather than purchasing it. Legally, I think they usually make a stricter claim than that: You are purchasing access to the content, but only using the method that you paid for. If you buy the DVD, you aren't licensed to rip it and play the content from files (unless you live somewhere with medium-shifting laws that provide that right). Further, say that you own a copy in some format, and you torrent an equivalent quality copy. What they'll actually go after you for is the redistribution of tiny chunks of the file to other people in the torrent swarm, because it's easier to prove that you took part in unauthorized redistribution than to prove that you didn't have the right to access the content in the format that you torrented.
dxxvi 10y ago
"Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that": torrent is a technology to share files while copyright infringement is an action that violates the copyright. What is the relation between them??? Then according to you, emails and copyright infringement is also related (I can send a mp3 song via emails). Or the steel industry and crimes are related because steel is used to make knives, guns ... used to commit a crime.
- Svenskunganka 10y ago
  Now you are just playing plain stupid, and won't contribute anything of value to a serious discussion about the problems with legal alternatives over torrenting. I can't see how you can imagine that having a discussion about this with someone high up in the movie industry acting like you do would do any good. You'd just be shunned. It's better to be realistic and acknowledge the fact that the majority of torrent traffic is related to copyright infringement, and that it is a problem and the only way to solve it is to make the legal alternatives better and more attractive to the general public. Of course, the BitTorrent protocol is not and should never be illegal, but you have to acknowledge that it is the protocol that currently plays the biggest part in infringing copyrighted content.
csydas 10y ago
The big issue is that it both is and isn't their fault, in a sense. I believe a lot of the hold-up comes from who owns the distribution rights for various locales, stuff that was determined years ago before online distribution was considered feasible. Odds are they'd gladly have you as a customer and sell you content, but they themselves are unable to because of previous deals. They still get a cut either way, so the studios ultimately aren't worried too much... так....
mikegerwitz 10y ago
The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping. https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t.. https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t.... I prefer the term "sharing". As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying. Some people may want backups, may have lost their copy after paying for it, may be frustrated by DRM-laced copies that don't work on their PC/devices, the reasons you mentioned, etc...
- alanwatts 10y ago
  >The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping. Precisely: >I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone. -Jack Valenti (former president of MPAA for 38 years), 1982 congressional hearing https://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm https://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm
  - mikegerwitz 10y ago
    Thank you for sharing this! This is not only a good piece of history, but an excellent example of history repeating itself. Correct me if I'm wrong---I haven't read it yet, but I'm excited to do so over the weekend.
    - alanwatts 10y ago
      It's simply luditism. Their business model depends upon the constraints of obsolete technology, so they will resist every new innovation as an evil killer until their artificial monopoly finally bleeds out.
- josho 10y ago
  Sharing is just as bad as pirating. Let's call it what it is. Copyright infringement.
AnAfrican 10y ago
You are not treated differently as a customer. The explanation is that distribution rights are sold by territory because most old school distribution channels are by territory. And content is usally financed by the sale of rights (usually before anyone has seen anything). But streaming is becoming more and more important and those deals will be reviewed. To give you an example, when Netflix opened in my country, House of Cards wasn't in the catalogue. That's a show produced by Netflix. But that was because Canal + Afrique held the rights. A few months ago, it was added. Most likely because the contract expired or because they renegociated.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  The fact that there is an explanation for this geoblocking doesn't mean that we aren't being treated differently. Fortunately, Netflix is putting a lot of effort in their own content to prevent exactly this quagmire of regional licensing. They are well aware that it is one of the biggest complaints their customers have. Oddly enough, the new Star Trek series will actually be on Netflix worldwide except for North America — usually it is only the other way around except for the local-language content. I am worried though about Netflix (and any competitors) assembling catalogues for each separate country based on what people in that country like on average. I didn't sign up for Netflix to get Dutch soap opera's and reality shows, and I do not like being limited to a catalogue focussed specifically on what the average Dutchman wants. There is whole world out there; so what if I want to watch Austrian cooking television or Japanese game shows? Just fix the damn licensing mess already!
  - Zombieball 10y ago
    > usually it is only the other way around except for the local-language content. I personally don't think this is true. There are significant amounts of content on Netflix that are only available in regions such as NLD and GBR that are not available in USA / CAN (Orphan Black comes to mind off the top of my head). The problem definitely goes both ways.
    - solidangle 10y ago
rasz_pl 10y ago
Pirating is absolutely LEGAL in my country, and covered under fair use. I can make a copy of any audio/visual copyrighted material and give it out to my friends and family, I am also free to download whatever I want (audio/visual, no software) from the internet. Uploading/sharing outside of my close circle of family&friends is illegal tho (no torrents).
odesian 10y ago
>Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that. I don't and neither does Bram Cohen. Regardless, I agree with your overall notion. The times have changed and customers want a better solution to quality entertainment. Restricting access and content will lead to piracy. Vice-versa will lead to less overall piracy.
pdabbadabba 10y ago
On one hand, I understand the frustration, and I think that copyright holders and policymamkers would be wise to keep this frustration in mind when they make and enforce copyright laws. On the other hand, however, I don't see how this frustration can serve as a justification for copyright infringement. This seems to flow from one of two premises: 1. the studios made it, therefore I have a right to watch and enjoy it or 2. the studios have made something available to some people, therefore I have a right to see it too. And I don't see how either is even arguably true from either a moral or legal perspective. After all, we're talking about movies and TV shows here, not food and water. (It would be different, of course, if the studios were targeting traditionally disadvantaged minority groups. But I don't think there's any credible argument that there is something akin to, e.g., racial discrimination going on here.)
- Svenskunganka 10y ago
  I do understand that it is not a justification, and I don't justify that as a reason for torrenting content that are unavailable via the legal alternatives due to geo-restriction or geo-blocking. What I am saying is that I believe the torrenting trends in the EU & AUS is mainly due to this very reason. And let's not kid ourselves, the copyright holders are not stupid. They are very well aware that this is a problem, maybe not the reason, but at least a problem. Yet they keep up with these practices, throwing millions at copyright organizations such as MPAA & RIAA every year to build up some form of scare tactic against normal, law abiding citizens across the globe and creating lots of unnecessary tension between ISPs, governments and enterprises like Google instead of addressing the problem at hand. There are of course edge cases where I think torrenting copyrighted content is OK. For example, my PC doesn't have a CD reader and I bought the game "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" years ago, still have the CD but no way to install the game on my PC, so... I torrented it.
emodendroket 10y ago
Plenty of restrictions apply to US Spotify users too.

Freak_NL 10y ago

> I'm paying exactly the same amount of money as the next US-citizen for the content, yet I am treated differently. Netflix' official standpoint is that you are paying for access on n screens at a time at x resolution (e.g., FullHD), not for the content. This is of course complete nonsense — of course we are paying for content — and I have no qualms whatsoever in downloading something available on Netflix US via some torrent if it is not available in my local Netflix catalogue.

anexprogrammer 10y ago

> you would expect that the legal alternatives would have content available for such hardware, but they rarely do. Nope, wouldn't expect that. It'll come slowly, and apparently very grudgingly. It took a decade or more to be able to get flac downloads commonly available. For years music downloads were low bit rate crap mp3. Pirate it or buy the CD were the only options for quality. It was like they actively wanted us to be searching for torrent sites.

girzel 10y ago
It's like the publishing industry and digital publishing: they just don't really want it to happen at all, so they do a bad job of it.

apa-sl 10y ago

"I'm paying exactly the same amount of money as the next US-citizen for the content, yet I am treated differently." Nope, it is even funnier because most probably you're paying more than US citizen. 1eur>1usd on exchange market (and it is a long trend) and - correct me if I'm wrong - price levels are the same for US and EU (ie. 9usd in US, 9eur in EU)?

medecau 10y ago
Add VAT to the mix and things even out again.
- spoiler 10y ago
  From Netflix's point of view it does even out, but the EU citizen still pays more for less.
  - Freak_NL 10y ago
    Citizens benefit from any taxes paid in other ways though, so directly equating VAT with a higher net price is not completely fair.
  - lagadu 10y ago
    No because what we pay in tax we get back in other forms. The US citizen will have to pay for college (instead of being paid to attend), healthcare, court costs, retirement pension, unemployment, etc. Don't count the taxes as part of what you're getting back, it's very different and beyond the scope of this article :)
    - lma21 10y ago
      In which EU country you get paid to go to college?
      - Nullabillity 10y ago
        At the very least, Sweden[1] and Denmark[2] have systems that pad out your student loans with government grants that apply to (almost) everyone. [1]: http://www.csn.se/en/2.1034/2.1036/2.1037/2.1038 http://www.csn.se/en/2.1034/2.1036/2.1037/2.1038 [2]: http://www.su.dk/english/ http://www.su.dk/english/

methou 10y ago

It's worse as a Chinese citizen, buying is still an option, we have none, even through technical workarounds. I used to be a Netflix/Hulu subscriber before they've banned proxy access to their content. Lately I tried to buy various TV streaming services but they did a great job in banning VPNs. This is where I stopped believing they have a good faith.

hkjgkjy 10y ago
Sorry if I have preconceived notions, but I don't imagine anyone running any risk of prosecution for pirating foreign movies in China?
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  Maybe it's about the willingness to support the content creators, rather than the fear of being prosecuted?
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    In most cases enrich is a more correct word than support in these cases. Also replace creators for owners. Individuals and small companies I support well (buy every blue ray, CD and t-shirt they sell), large media conglomerates I do not.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  Ordinary torrenting is also blocked in China. You need to run your torrent software through a VPN. Last I was there, Astrill seemed to be the way to go. But the situation evolves.
  - rahimnathwani 10y ago
    Some torrent search/index sites and torrent trackers may be blocked, but torrent traffic itself is not blocked in China, at least on the domestic ISPs I've used. I can download a debian image over bittorrent, without VPN, without a problem. In fact, it can be faster than download directly over http, as the traffic has more potential routes.

kalleboo 10y ago

> I don't understand why the EU isn't doing anything about it The problem is that right now the EU isn't one copyright market - each EU country is a separate market, with a tonne of legacy exclusive distribution deals in place. If the EU was a single market, it would be the same size or bigger than the US market and would probably get better attention. The EU is working on it, it just moves at the speed of bureaucracy (and of course each country has lobbyists in the local media which has those legacy exclusive distribution deals resisting it) Here's the page on copyright harmonization: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/copyright https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/copyright And check the "Geo-blocking" and "Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement" headlines here hhttp://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/digital/ http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/digital/

tormeh 10y ago
>The EU is working on it, it just moves at the speed of bureaucracy I would guess the speed is more limited by 27 governments having to agree on everything.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Getting 27 countries to agree on something sounds like bureaucracy nightmare to me :) So, I just looked up the word "bureaucracy" in a dictionary and it says "a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives.". I always thought that was what a technocracy was. The secondary definition is "excessively complicated administrative procedure, seen as characteristic of bureaucracy" which is the only usage I can remember seeing.
  - malka 10y ago
    Technocracy is more about "experts make the décisions"
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    You seem to have a very bad dictionary. Bureaucracy comes from the French word "bureau", that means office. It names the way things are organized in an office, and was created for private offices, only adopted for governments later.

sdoering 10y ago

> treat those customers as second-hand customers... If I look at content available at these services, I feel more of a third or fourth hand customer. And that is the reason I have left them for good. Scorched earth is what is left for me. But you would not even have to go to these streaming "services". I really love my classic tv shows. Take for example "Quincy, M.E.". I love this show and would pay good money to have it available at home (in DVD or BluRay format). And for my significant other have the synchronized version. The whole series was synchronized for German TV. But is it available as DVD? No it isn't. Our only chance i to wait for the reruns on any network, program our HDD recorder and ripp the low quality TV stream. If I would still be illegally downloading, I would already have the whole show at home, with self printed DVDs and such. But being a good and law abiding citizen I am pretty much fed.

mattmanser 10y ago

I'd happily bet big money that orders of magnitude more people are pirating because it's free than because they'd invested in 7.1 surround system and a 4K 3D TVs. Everyone I know who pirates is doing it because it's free. Although almost all of them pay for something (Netflix, Amazon Prime or Nowtv), they just don't pay for all of them. And these are all grown adults in their 30s. Say you pay for Netflix and Amazon, but they don't have everything. So GoT has to come from somewhere... And movie releases are still over-delayed to streaming services. You see a DVD in the shop? You can stream it for free rather than wait 6 months more for it to maybe turn up on Netflix.

jokoon 10y ago
Cost is an issue, although I wonder how many people pirate movies ans shows because it's "really" too expensive for them. If you want to watch the movies you want, and you're not so rich, it certainly is going to cost you more than a netflix account, but I don't think everyone is doing it because of the cost, they also do it because it's easier. It's hard to beat the torrent catalog. Also if you enter the argument of entertainment being a luxury, and that a DVD should cost around $15, you will have people pirating because they certainly don't want to spend so much for watching a movie at home. There will be people arguing over the holywood money machine and how much a movie really is worth.

jokoon 10y ago

Also the netflix catalog is not as big as people claims it is (I live in france). There are many movies missing from the 2000-2010 period (and more when you go beyond). There also are many smaller details that makes torrent more attractive, like being able to watch the movie offline, HD with low bandwidth, subtitle choice, etc. Netflix is a good step, and of course the movie industry will use it as "no excuse" argument against piracy. Meanwhile you still have other issues about net neutrality and people using VPN when they can.

Larrikin 10y ago
Even in America, at this point most people consider themselves lucky if they find any movies worth watching on Netflix, especially anything fairly recent. Netflix's strength is its TV catalog.
ajford 10y ago
Yep. Lack of availability is about the only reason I torrent anymore. It's more convenient for me to watch on Amazon or Netflix (fuck Hulu and it's commercials) or HBO than it is to torrent and manage my Kodi library. Oh, and the ability to keep my kids tablets in airplane mode (triple the battery life!) and still let them watch their favorite shows/movies on a long road trip is definitely worth the extra effort.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Haven't the media conglomerates made it clear you pay to access the content rather than purchasing it. So pay the lowest rate you find fit the content and acquire it as you please, eg torrent + subtitles + dub that you want. Surely that's entirely consistent with their position morally?
- khedoros 10y ago
  > Haven't the media conglomerates made it clear you pay to access the content rather than purchasing it. Legally, I think they usually make a stricter claim than that: You are purchasing access to the content, but only using the method that you paid for. If you buy the DVD, you aren't licensed to rip it and play the content from files (unless you live somewhere with medium-shifting laws that provide that right). Further, say that you own a copy in some format, and you torrent an equivalent quality copy. What they'll actually go after you for is the redistribution of tiny chunks of the file to other people in the torrent swarm, because it's easier to prove that you took part in unauthorized redistribution than to prove that you didn't have the right to access the content in the format that you torrented.

dxxvi 10y ago

"Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that": torrent is a technology to share files while copyright infringement is an action that violates the copyright. What is the relation between them??? Then according to you, emails and copyright infringement is also related (I can send a mp3 song via emails). Or the steel industry and crimes are related because steel is used to make knives, guns ... used to commit a crime.

Svenskunganka 10y ago
Now you are just playing plain stupid, and won't contribute anything of value to a serious discussion about the problems with legal alternatives over torrenting. I can't see how you can imagine that having a discussion about this with someone high up in the movie industry acting like you do would do any good. You'd just be shunned. It's better to be realistic and acknowledge the fact that the majority of torrent traffic is related to copyright infringement, and that it is a problem and the only way to solve it is to make the legal alternatives better and more attractive to the general public. Of course, the BitTorrent protocol is not and should never be illegal, but you have to acknowledge that it is the protocol that currently plays the biggest part in infringing copyrighted content.

csydas 10y ago

The big issue is that it both is and isn't their fault, in a sense. I believe a lot of the hold-up comes from who owns the distribution rights for various locales, stuff that was determined years ago before online distribution was considered feasible. Odds are they'd gladly have you as a customer and sell you content, but they themselves are unable to because of previous deals. They still get a cut either way, so the studios ultimately aren't worried too much... так....

mikegerwitz 10y ago

The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping. https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t.. https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t.... I prefer the term "sharing". As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying. Some people may want backups, may have lost their copy after paying for it, may be frustrated by DRM-laced copies that don't work on their PC/devices, the reasons you mentioned, etc...

alanwatts 10y ago
>The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping. Precisely: >I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone. -Jack Valenti (former president of MPAA for 38 years), 1982 congressional hearing https://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm https://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm
- mikegerwitz 10y ago
  Thank you for sharing this! This is not only a good piece of history, but an excellent example of history repeating itself. Correct me if I'm wrong---I haven't read it yet, but I'm excited to do so over the weekend.
  - alanwatts 10y ago
    It's simply luditism. Their business model depends upon the constraints of obsolete technology, so they will resist every new innovation as an evil killer until their artificial monopoly finally bleeds out.
josho 10y ago
Sharing is just as bad as pirating. Let's call it what it is. Copyright infringement.

AnAfrican 10y ago

You are not treated differently as a customer. The explanation is that distribution rights are sold by territory because most old school distribution channels are by territory. And content is usally financed by the sale of rights (usually before anyone has seen anything). But streaming is becoming more and more important and those deals will be reviewed. To give you an example, when Netflix opened in my country, House of Cards wasn't in the catalogue. That's a show produced by Netflix. But that was because Canal + Afrique held the rights. A few months ago, it was added. Most likely because the contract expired or because they renegociated.

Freak_NL 10y ago
The fact that there is an explanation for this geoblocking doesn't mean that we aren't being treated differently. Fortunately, Netflix is putting a lot of effort in their own content to prevent exactly this quagmire of regional licensing. They are well aware that it is one of the biggest complaints their customers have. Oddly enough, the new Star Trek series will actually be on Netflix worldwide except for North America — usually it is only the other way around except for the local-language content. I am worried though about Netflix (and any competitors) assembling catalogues for each separate country based on what people in that country like on average. I didn't sign up for Netflix to get Dutch soap opera's and reality shows, and I do not like being limited to a catalogue focussed specifically on what the average Dutchman wants. There is whole world out there; so what if I want to watch Austrian cooking television or Japanese game shows? Just fix the damn licensing mess already!
- Zombieball 10y ago
  > usually it is only the other way around except for the local-language content. I personally don't think this is true. There are significant amounts of content on Netflix that are only available in regions such as NLD and GBR that are not available in USA / CAN (Orphan Black comes to mind off the top of my head). The problem definitely goes both ways.
  - solidangle 10y ago

rasz_pl 10y ago

Pirating is absolutely LEGAL in my country, and covered under fair use. I can make a copy of any audio/visual copyrighted material and give it out to my friends and family, I am also free to download whatever I want (audio/visual, no software) from the internet. Uploading/sharing outside of my close circle of family&friends is illegal tho (no torrents).

odesian 10y ago

>Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that. I don't and neither does Bram Cohen. Regardless, I agree with your overall notion. The times have changed and customers want a better solution to quality entertainment. Restricting access and content will lead to piracy. Vice-versa will lead to less overall piracy.

pdabbadabba 10y ago

On one hand, I understand the frustration, and I think that copyright holders and policymamkers would be wise to keep this frustration in mind when they make and enforce copyright laws. On the other hand, however, I don't see how this frustration can serve as a justification for copyright infringement. This seems to flow from one of two premises: 1. the studios made it, therefore I have a right to watch and enjoy it or 2. the studios have made something available to some people, therefore I have a right to see it too. And I don't see how either is even arguably true from either a moral or legal perspective. After all, we're talking about movies and TV shows here, not food and water. (It would be different, of course, if the studios were targeting traditionally disadvantaged minority groups. But I don't think there's any credible argument that there is something akin to, e.g., racial discrimination going on here.)

Svenskunganka 10y ago
I do understand that it is not a justification, and I don't justify that as a reason for torrenting content that are unavailable via the legal alternatives due to geo-restriction or geo-blocking. What I am saying is that I believe the torrenting trends in the EU & AUS is mainly due to this very reason. And let's not kid ourselves, the copyright holders are not stupid. They are very well aware that this is a problem, maybe not the reason, but at least a problem. Yet they keep up with these practices, throwing millions at copyright organizations such as MPAA & RIAA every year to build up some form of scare tactic against normal, law abiding citizens across the globe and creating lots of unnecessary tension between ISPs, governments and enterprises like Google instead of addressing the problem at hand. There are of course edge cases where I think torrenting copyrighted content is OK. For example, my PC doesn't have a CD reader and I bought the game "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" years ago, still have the CD but no way to install the game on my PC, so... I torrented it.

emodendroket 10y ago

Plenty of restrictions apply to US Spotify users too.