TorrentSpy Ordered To Pay $110 Million to MPAA

[JMcEntegart]

A Los Angeles federal court has ordered BitTorrent indexing web site, TorrentSpy, to pay copyright infringement fines of just over $110 million to the MPAA.

TorrentSpy Ordered To Pay $110 Million to MPAA : Read more

 

[Guest]

If this is what the movie industry is doing with the $10 I give each trip to the theatre, I just won't go anymore. How about, movie studios put a leash on the MPAA and invest into other forms of distibution? The RIAA is learning this lesson the hard way, so why is hstory repeating itself with the MPAA, and probably next with the game industry? All these DRM, copy-infringment, and filesharing conlficts seem to have no resolution anytime soon...

 

[Guest]

I would like to thank TorrentSpy for deciding to fold up shop instead of rolling over on everyone that used the site. I'm sorry you didn't win.

 

[Guest]

This is exactly why I do not buy or rent movies anymore. And I haven't been to a Theater in over 3 years. The entire entertainment industry is stained with greed. The future I would most like to see is one where the key players of the entertainment industry are ones filing bankruptcy. Why should a brain surgeon spend half of his entire life learning his profession only to make a tiny fraction of what some airhead actor makes in 20 minutes of film? Same thing goes for professional sports...

 

[Guest]

"The entire entertainment industry is stained with greed."

So stealing copyrighted material isn't greedy, These guys turning a profit by facilitating said infringement isn't greedy?
No the real reason you don't buy or rent movies anymore is because you're stealing and don't want to part with your money that is greed.

 

[Guest]

You are an idiot paying customer. No I don't steal them. I just don't watch them. I have learned to live without them.

 

[aroth]

"The $110 million is divided up into $30,000 for each of the 3,699 incidents of infringement"

Yes, because $30,000 is what it costs to go out and buy a DVD. Wtf was that judge smoking???

 

[kutark]

Honestly, i disagree with anything involving the RIAA, because they truly are greedy. But as for the MPAA, and the movie industry in general, i have to agree with this. Here is why. CD's generall sell for $14-20 USD. DVD's at most are $22, but mostly 16-20. Movie producers invest usually 10's, sometimes 100's of millions into the creation of the movie. Music companies on the other hand, have stupendously low operating costs. Music companies have operating rations better than 10:1. I dont mind paying 20 dollars for a movie, because all the actors are generally paid accordingly, they're not getting screwed like the artists are. Why do you think so many artists support digital distribution, it eliminates the middle man, allows them to actually make the money they deserve for creating the product. Anyways, im rambling.

On a side note, this particular incident of making torrentspy pay is a bit ridiculous. If torrentspy touted itself as a "Movie Torrent Site" then i could see it. But where do you draw the line, are they gonna start suing comcast and cox, and all the other internet providers because they are enabling pirates? Seriously, where do you draw the line.

 

[Guest]

Society will make a choice. Will we allow a means of free and open exchange of any and nearly all information to flourish on its own popular support? Will we crack down on the grass-roots created information sharing networks in the fear that copy-right infringement will cut into profits and diminish the quality of human culture produced?

If we pick profits/freedom then we will have an unpleasant crackdown on average people sampling the vast information pool.

If we pick freedom for any information then the old businesses around the distribution of information may go out of business and regular people may take a more active role in creating our culture.

The way I see it is that its a war we can't win completely. If they do have a crackdown it will be as effective as a crackdown on the drug trade has been. The enablers of the behavior simply adapt. We will end up with new software that adds annonymity with extra bandwidth cost. The load would go up more than 100% for each file you get, but it could truly be anonymous. The software simply would act as a inter-proxy for peers. The downloaders' IP addresses replaced by the proxys' and each downloader acts as a proxy for others.

Its time to choose what we believe in and how we want our future to be.