The Two Towers Hits the Net

tfreport writes "The Drudge Report is reporting that The Two Towers has already began to be file swapped online. This is four months before the movie is set to debut! An executive in New York promised if this is indeed part of the film that they would be punishing anyone and everyone that downloads the film or distributes it to the full extent of the law."

This isn't good

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is indeed the real film, this isn't good. Piracy online is at least understandable if not excuseable when the movie has been out for 4 months in theatres.

Now this is crap...

You'll only screw yourselves...

[bushboy]

Well, if you want to see a really shoddy quality movie on a small computer monitor with more than likely bad quality sound and some stupid warez logo covering part of the screen, your screwing yourself.

I'd rather wait 4 months and pay my money to see it the way it is intended ! - BIG SCREEN, dolby surround sound, comfy chair, popcorn etc.

Re:This is just pathetic...

[technix4beos]

The real question is this: "Where did the material come from in the first place?"

If this is legit material, than perhaps the movie industry should worry more about security than howling after the fact.

It's been said countless times, that the internet as broadcast medium could do far more positive things for the movie industry than harmful, if handled correctly. We all know how dense the people at the top are though...

I don't know what is more tragic. The fact that someone has the balls to smuggle this out, or the fact that the movie industry is too stupid to not capitilize on a medium that obviously their fans use daily.

Cracked or leaked?

[jukal]

It would be interesting to know whether the movie file was leaked by someone who is part of the team - or if someone cracked into their system and stole it. I quess the cracker possibility could be quite potential too, because: they clearly use a lot of digital/computerized technology - even probably for communication within the team (so there probably would be the possibilities to do it) and because I doubt that the one who leaked the previous episode would have had the balls to do it again. If it was stolen by a system cracker - I would not like to be in the shoes of their sys.adm / infosec specialist who did not take enough action to make sure it does not happen again.

Attributing blame.

[FyRE666]

Shouldn't the movie studios/recording industry pour all their efforts into finding the source of these leaked files rather than blaming everyone else on the 'net for their lack of basic security?

You know, simply NOT allowing their staff to send emails full of huge mpg files, or carry out CDRWs full of company assets would seem to be a good idea, would it not? It'd certainly be easier to stop this sort of thing at the source.

Imagine if the mints (places that "make" money - not the sweets) had security this lax? Everyone in the country would be a potential criminal. Mind you, the RIAA already think this, so...

Maybe the movie industry really *isn't* worried...

[SimplyCosmic]

... maybe they deliberately leaked it, knowing full well that the extra hype would only help the movie, the fanatics would still go to the movie theater to see it ten times and would buy all six versions of the DVD, even after seeing it from a downloaded P2P copy.

[ conspiracy mode ]

Additionally, intentionally releasing a relatively clean copy of a movie that they know will be heavily traded provides them a great bullet point in presentations to Congress about how those eterrorist hackers are trading complete movies online and legislation needs to be immediately enacted to give them full search-and-seizure rights to your computer.

[ /conspiracy mode ]

Re:Maybe the movie industry really *isn't* worried

[technix4beos]

You know what would be even scarier to contemplate?

If they leaked different sub-versions, each with a special "marker" in it to track how far they travelled online.

Think of the potential marketing statistics and numbers they could churn out the next time they want to justify exactly what you stated, namely how all the eTerrorists are infiltrating their industry and causing such a downturn in the economy... (my heart breaks... ;)

I'll say it again. The United States is NOT the center of the universe.

These people need to grow up, take a good look around at this world we live in, and realize that money doesn't solve everything.

Re:Useless

[acceleriter]

No, they serve no-knock warrants on two or three each in a few different countries, confiscate everything, jail the users pending trial, sue them and their parents (if applicable). This would be sufficient to scare of 90% of those 4,500,000 Gnutella nodes. And it's going to happen--have you heard the shoe-banging rhetoric Ashcroft's been spouting about NET Act prosecutions? And do you think other Western nations dare not tow the line?

Re:In other news...

[stevey]

Normally I'm against blatent plaguarism; but in this case it's ironic - so no need for the mod-downs.

Admit it you just wish you'd thought of it first; I know I do ;)

Re:You'll only screw yourselves...

[Inda]

Not a great downloader of movies, are you? The quality is perfectly watchable most of the time. I personnally hate subtitles on the bottom so I wait an extra week for an un-subbed version. I've never seen one with a warez logo apart from maybe a 3 second intro to the movie. In the UK, I would have to wait six months for this movie. That's two months after I've read all the reviews on the net and chatted to my Yank friends. Wonderful. Also, people don't watch all their movies on their little 14 inch monitors. MPEGs work great on most DVD players. I love the cinima too. I love uncomfortable chairs, sitting in the dark, no talking!, music too loud!, can't go for a piss, expensive popcorn, watered down cola that they say is Coke(TM), talk bloke with large hair in front of me, no rewind, my back hurts...

Irony....

[_Spirit]

The first US paperback edition of the LOTR never earned Tolkien one cent because of the shady state of copyright law in those days. A US company (ACE Books) could get away with selling Tolkiens intellectual property without consulting or paying him.

And now US companies are educating the world on the ethics and legal consequenses of infringing on their copyrights. Wherever the money is eh ?

Re:"The Two Towers"

[bourne]

Please expand on this. Who is "they", and what are your sources?

Following the attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, and because of the similarity between the buildings' nickname, "The Twin Towers", and the movie's title, "The Two Towers", the director and producers briefly considered renaming the second movie in the trilogy. They eventually decided against it, Peter Jackson's main reason being that, "fans would kill me".

From IMDB [imdb.com], the Internet Movie DataBase.

Re:these are not movie lovers..

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of you who download movies off shitty p2p networks, ya it'll be a crappy divx.

But for people that actually have a clue...

The last LOTR movie was released on the net as a SVCD which is basically DVD quality. A perfect screener. No you won't find it on some assinine p2p...

And of course you can watch SVCDs on your big TV in your DVD player assuming you burned it properly...

As long as the crappy movies on the p2ps stay shitty asfs and whatnot it means it wont piss off the studios enough to really crackdown...so i say more power to the morons putting low quality encodes of cams on p2p. thanks for taking the heat off. haha.

Salivating Thieves: Stealing A Movie Not Fair Use

[reallocate]

For all you who imagine that electronic shoplifting is somehow different than walking into a local shop and pocketing a DVD, here's the text of the fair use clause from the U.S. copyright law [copyright.gov]. You will notice that "wanting to see a movie prior to release" is not listed as an example of fair use.

...the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal?

[PjotrP]

Well mr self-righteous... for me it IS an act of noble protest. And yes i do NOT believe in the "whoever has the money to make and enforce laws, should... and the rest should abide by those" system... actually i dont believe in intellectual property AT ALL... i believe in paying for the paper its written on, the bandwith its carried on or even the entry-fee to a concert but i do not believe creativity in itself can be property of anyone... as if Tolkien could have made his masterpiece without the world/culture/people around him... i believe in the work of art that as soon as its introduced to the world becomes property of the world.

Re:Why do SLASHDOTers think is is okay to steal?

[NMerriam]

Anonymous civil disobedience (even in commercial ventures) is hardly a new thing to the United States. The Boston Tea Party is the most famous example.

There is no requirement in American law than a crowd of protesters sign in at the beginning of their march.

Re:You're starting to think like them . . .

[fuxoft]

"How about sending just the script instead of the actual movie to translators, for a start . . . idiots . . ."

First of all, the __SCRIPT___ would be completely useless for any sort of translation because the dialogue in the resulting movie almost NEVER corresponds with the script. Movie translators are getting special "DIALOGUE LISTS" that are made AFTER the movie is completed (which is sometimes too late).

When you are translating for the dubbing, the Dialogue List is needed but not sufficient for doing the translation, because you have to see which actor's mouth is visible in which shot and consequently decide how much the dialogue must phonetically match the original dialogue. Not to mention that you have to get the timing right, i.e. the translation must not be shorter or longer than the original. I'm not talking about number of characters but about the time it takes to say the dialogue which you cannot know from the Dialogue list.

Re:Postest with the mostest?

[uncoveror]

If The Two Towers is really out there, it is because a studio insider put it there. No one else had access to the film. Why would they do this? To convince Congress Hollywood needs more protection from Piracy. I hope they don't fall for this rouse.

Re:Bullsh**!

[Snaller]

>Who's the greedy one? the movie and music industry are just asking for compensation...

NO! They are not! They are trying to rake it in, again and again and again!

I thought StarTrek:TNG on VHS - Does this mean I'm allowed to download an episode from the net? NOO. But I thought I had payed for it - what did i pay for? The tape? The plastic box? Very little it seems! Then they issue it on CD - I can't get them for free... ok i suppose its costs them a bit to make the cd, but the price is still very much more than what i payed for the tape! I think that's greed - and no amount of And no amount of rationalisation on your part is likely to change that.

And i don't know about your friends or whatever, but for myself, i support what i like: They have been showing The West Wing, and next month the first season will be out on DVD (here in Europe), and I have already preordered it - I know they are probably going to fleece me again, but this is such good tv from a country not really know for that, so i just have to support it.

At least this time I can be fairly certain the material will last for a long time..