BitTorrent Blamed for Matrix2 Downloads 847
MartyJG writes "The BBC are running a story on how Matrix Reloaded is available via P2P. This time BitTorrent is taking the heat for the distribution - even though there's no company behind it to drag over the coals. The story speculates about the source of the copy, suggesting it's from a film or digital source rather than a cinema-screen-leech." Despite this piracy, the flick has made over $365M already. Including my tickets. Twice.
It's only a matter of time (Score:5, Interesting)
Does Anyone Really Want a Crappy Bootleg? (Score:3, Interesting)
Still making their money.... (Score:4, Interesting)
So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
So all I can say is: Bah.
That's not how it works... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bittorrent is a really clever technology... I was able to download RedHat 9.0 in minutes rather than hours when it was made available.
Re:Does Anyone Really Want a Crappy Bootleg? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Slashdotting of BitTorrent (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, the latest Doom 3 video [slashdot.org], although just 31mb, was almost impossible to get hold of by regular download, yet I found that BitTorrent maxed out my connection, giving me 60k/sec all through.
The days of smoking servers are over, Slashdot is powering the age of fast downloads.
Well, with a bit of imagination anyway.
Re:Does Anyone Really Want a Crappy Bootleg? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still making their money.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I downloaded it, then went to the theaters (Score:2, Interesting)
We wouldn't have went out to see it and have a nice night out if I didn't argue it would be good to see. I wouldn't have argued it was good if I didn't download it.
I always make it a point to try and make sure the artist gets my coin if the artist deserves it. Theres so much crap out there, I feel if more people do as I do, then more talented and original artists will be weeded from corporate respawn.
Re:Matrix???? (Score:2, Interesting)
downloaders are paying customers too (Score:2, Interesting)
This is especially true for this movie because so much of the draw is the visual effects and the whole theatre experience. It was well worth the cost of the ticket to see it in the theatre.
I would never replace the theatre experience with a poor-quality download.
A little perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's assume the worst case scenario*: Every college student in the united states downloads the movie and don't pay their $7 to see the movie in a theater. There are about 5 million college students**, so that works out to $35 million. That's ten percent of the total. And that total is still rising -- the movie hasn't been out that long, and the DVD is still far away.
* Ok, this isn't the worst case - sorry to be us-centric and imply that college students are the pirates. But, this is their propoganda and I'm following it to the MPAA's extreme.
** 1.3 mil college bound seniors [nais.org] * 4 = guesstimate
Re:Slashdotting of BitTorrent (Score:4, Interesting)
A decentralized p2p web-server network would be an interesting project, and certainly the bittorrent protocol could be a base for serving large files, but for serving small files direct connections are better. Perhaps a giant web-server pool that would simultaneously request webpages from the entire network and initiate a transfer with the first server to respond would work. However, there has so far been no development work towards this.
The Circle is an interesting project which aims to create a p2p network for
Arr, they be rich! (Score:5, Interesting)
Piracy: a crucial part of viral marketing.
Pirates have been given a bad rap, historically. History is written by the victors, remember. Many of the pirates from the great sailing age freed slaves and the indentured, set up their own kingless mini-republics and functional anarchies, and would appear more modern to us than their other contemporaries.
See this excert from TAZ on pirate utopias [sacred-texts.com] or this article [eco-action.org] or google it [google.com]. And of course if you're really into the spirit of things, you could goof around reading No Quarter Given [noquartergiven.net].
"They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment" - D. Defoe
In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
*yawn*. All things can be used for good or evil. Duh. What would be ideal would be for the BitTorrent folks to publicly denounce this. Or add a little disclaimer to their page (like Apple did with Rip Mix Burn) saying "We do not endorse or support the use of BitTorrent for illegal activities".
Now, here come the cries of "waaah, censorship, you're a fascist, etc". But think about it for just a second. All BitTorrent would be saying is "look, we created this to solve the problem of distributing things like ISO images to hundreds of people. We didn't create this to help you download the matrix. We stronly encourage you not to use it for that". That's not censorship, nor is it selling out. (Unless, of course, they really did create BitTorrent specifically for downloading movies.) They can't actively prevent you from downloading illegal files, but they can tell you that they think it's not such a bright idea.
Napster, Kazaa, and all the others really couldn't pull the "people can download anything from our networks, not just music" without the entire world laughing. Seeing as how BitTorrent has been used by RedHat and others to distribute ISOs, they actually can pull that argument and have it stick. And I really hope the BitTorrent folks don't pass on this opporuntity. Because then the RIAA has two choices: 1) accuse RedHat and others of supporting piracy by encouarging BitTorrent (which, while it would have MSFT dancing with glee, just isn't going to stick in this day and age); 2) suck it up and realize that tools can be used for both good and evil
Re:Let's see (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most important features of Bittorrent is that it is almost completely decentralized. Rather than even p2p sharing, it's just swarm downloading. This decentralization is ultimately what will protect it from the incredible litigation powers of the MPAA and RIAA.
Also of note is its noted ability to be used for non-infringing purposes, such as the download of the aforementioned Redhat 9 ISOs. I'm certain that Redhat is *gleeful* that the ISOs are available over Bittorent rather than everyone trying to pull them off of their server and their mirrors. This non-infringing use will be a saving grace when legal-types start examining bittorrent for lawsuit fodder.
Re:Slashdotting of BitTorrent (Score:5, Interesting)
BitTorrent enforces balanced downloads. If you are on an asynchronous line, expect to see download rates no greater than your upload rate.
Here's the relevant section from the BitTorrent FAQ [bitconjurer.org]:
Q: I don't want you stealing my bandwidth! How can I stop it from uploading?
A: You could hack the source to not upload, but then your download rate would suck. BitTorrent downloaders engage in tit-for-tat with their peers, so leeches have very little success downloading.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
.NET act (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL, but if a user is not sending the entire file, is she/he actually committing a crime by the net act?
The
intriguing, at the very least.
Governing Dynamics (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Slashdotting of BitTorrent (Score:5, Interesting)
Many times, i've been the only leech on a file with 2 or 3 seeds, and I download just fine, even though there's nothing for me to upload.
Also, even when I'm not the only leech, my downloads commonly go 50 to 60 k/s, while the uploads only go 10 or 20. I suppose it all depends on the popularity of the file, though. My connection is capped at 150 down and 50 up. In the past, I've had one torrent that maxed both of those
When you read that FAQ entry, it's probably more accurate to say that your client's willingness to upload will allow it to download quickly, not so much the rate at which you are actually uploading.
Re:That's not how it works... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Slashdotting of BitTorrent (Score:1, Interesting)
BTW, the only reason I cap my uploads is so nobody else in the house whines about lag. Not that it helps when the client maxes out the DL anyway... Somebody want to add a DL cap to the experimental client?
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Interesting)
I already saw the movie in theaters once. $10.
I will see it with my dad. $20
I bought the first Matrix DVD. $20
I bought the Matrix Revisited DVD $20
I will buy the Animatrix DVD -- unknown cost.
I will buy Reloaded on DVD - $20
I will see Revolutions, twice in theaters, $20
I will buy Revolutions on DVD - $20
Lets see. I spent (or will spend) at least $155 dollars on a high quality movie trilogy. I really like the movie. I might even buy the videogame.
The Matrix Reloaded has made $355 million dollars. In two weeks. It could easily make upwards of $1 Billion. The first one might have made that much when everything globally is added up.
Production costs for all 3 movies, I am guessing are at least $350 million dollars (Matrix - 50, Reloaded, 150, Revolutions, 150).
The movie studio is turning a profit from a well-made movie with a huge following. They are decrying the very themes the movie espouses (hacking -- I mean cracking
If you want to completely eliminate movie piracy, do not make movies. Somewhere, someone will use a DVcam and film a movie. Somewhere, someone will bribe a pimply-faced projection operator to transfer a film print onto a computer.
Somewhere, someone will use DeCSS to watch a DVD they BOUGHT to remove territorial restrictions. Maybe someone with less ethics will make it widely available to downloaders everwhere else.
Billions of dollars. Many hours involved in a fictional story by millions of people. That money could have easily have gone elsewhere, whether the movie was "pirated" or not. You made a good movie. Be happy. We are paying to see it. Laugh to the bank. Gleefully. Keep making good movies and you will have our business. Just accept the fact that some people will redistribute copies of movies. If it gets people to be bigger fans of movies, then its just a cost of business.
Microsoft doesnt care too much about piracy. Why? People get hooked on their software like drug addicts. When they get in a corporate environment, its what they know. Their companies want to be properly licensed, so they pay for software.
Look at Macromedia. People download and crack trials of their software. They learn how to use it. When they get into corporate environments, they have users who will put it to good use and put it on a corporate expense account.
Piracy will always happen. Get over it and spend money on making GOOD movies, not inane shit. Your industry has the luxury of making people pay for movies before seeing them. True, somone can download a crappy cam version, but to see it in full cinematic glory on a digital projection screen is well worth the money being charged. Be happy. For your own sake and bottom line.
After all, the Matrix is not ISHTAR
Re:Social Event (Score:3, Interesting)
The cinematic experience is not a shared social event. It is a event shared between you, the viewer, and the screen, the performer. Seating in cinemas is designed so that you have a face on view of the screen and minimal peripheral vision of the rest of the audience. It is all about you going to watch the screen.
The theatrical experience, aka live perfomance, is more of the shared social event that you refer to. There is back and forth shared experience between you, the audience, and the performer. Likewise, the seating in a theatrical venue is designed with a degree of peripheral vision to include the other members of the audience around you. The whole of the audience is pushed forward to bring them closer to the stage/performer. Back in the history of theatres, it was actually more important to go to the theatre to be seen by the rest of the audience than to actually see the show.
Compare that to a dark cinema with stadium seating wider than the average arse in the US (pretty wide!).
Now, I prefer to see a movie in a cinema..in the dark, with the click of the projector humming in the background under the THX sound. (I suspect they will have to artificially produce that projector hum when digital projection takes over. Mark my words!!!)
Thanks for the rant.
'nuff said
MPAA needs to clean its own house (Score:4, Interesting)
How do movies get leaked? Who has access to them? What potential fines/penalties/criminal charges can and should be levied aginast people who actually have physical access to prints or digital copies?
If it was a digital copy leak... how was it done? If it was copied over a network, why wasn't it secured? Why wasn't in ecncrypted to prevent this in the first place?
Seems to me that the MPAA has much bigger problems than a few people who want to copy semi-decent quality rips of their products to watch on little tiny desktop monitors after they've already gone to see it in the theatres and helped make the movie a huge sucess.
It doesn't matter if there's a spoon or not.
Re:Problem is, its EQUALLY distributed. (Score:4, Interesting)
Worldwide releases (Score:4, Interesting)
The best example is Star Wars I. When this movie was released there were actually people in Europe that FLEW OVER TO THE USA to watch that movie. Can you believe the insanity?
That was also the movie that really rocked the internet for being on the internet _before_ it was released officially.
I downloaded SW1 two days after the USA release and watched it in the public computer room at my university where I drew a huge crowd. Including 2 guys who _had_ tickets already to fly over. (I thought SW1 sucked though. I'm happy I didn't spend money on tickets)
I'm pretty happy P2P movie leeching happened so that I was able to see LOTR in the theater right away. I did buy tickets for that one, and enjoyed it a lot.
I haven't downloaded the new Matrix film nor did I get it on the net. I'm pretty sure the internet version is of low quality so that doesn't tempt me too much. I don't have the need to go to the theater because I think it's probably going to be pretty mediocre if you don't count the fighting scene, so I'll just wait for a DVD release at the movie rental.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Interesting)
Two things. One, it doesn't take days to download it, it takes hours. Three hours on a broadband connection, if you had actually read the article before speaking ignorantly. Second, the people that rent the DVD for $5 from Blockbuster or at an even lower price from Netflix aren't going to buy the DVD, either.
Oh yeah, one more thing. The guys that download the film can do something else while it downloads. They can click the link, then walk away for three hours while it downloads, and then click the file to start it up. What were you doing while the trailers, commercials, pathetic trivia questions, and advisories not to talk during the movie were playing before the movie started?
Re:Slashdotting of BitTorrent (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's not how it works... (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal opinion is that, since BitTorrent is taking away from IRC based file transfers, a few powerful IRC trolls are mad that they are losing influence, and therefore they are trying to destroy BitTorrent through the use of DDOS attacks, hoping that most IRC users will stick to IRC file transfers as opposed to switching over to BitTorrent, after seeing that most popular BitTorrent trackers keep timing out.
Re:Social Event (Score:2, Interesting)
I didn't realize there was such a high demand for theatres that you can design several every day.
The cinematic experience is not a shared social event. [...] It is all about you going to watch the screen.
Bull. Utter bull.
Consider this:
- When Star Wars was re-released in 1997, people around the world flocked to the cinemas to watch it again, even though everyone had seen it many times before and most probably owned the videotape. Did people go to watch it for the piddling of new footage? Maybe a little. Did people go to watch it because the screen was really big? Maybe a little. Did people go to watch it because of the shared experience of watching it with a lot of other people in a cinema? Hell yes.
- Mystery Science Theatre 3000 - The Movie. Watching it at home is nothing -- NOTHING -- in comparison to experiencing it with a hundred others who are laughing with you. Watching it at home simply paled in comparison. I'm sure most comedies are the same way. This is why a lot of TV sitcoms have a laugh-track (and historically a live audience). It simulates a shared audience where there is none. The experience somehow feels hollow without it.
- People tend to feel uncomfortable watching a film in a cinema when few people are there. I know that's certainly true in my case. If it was just about me and the screen, people wouldn't care in the slightest how many people were there with me.
- If it was just about me and the screen, why have cinemas at all? Why wouldn't the cinemas have faded with the advent of the VHS player and DVDs? People certainly predicted it -- and yet the growth of the box office continues, with attendance and box office gross records being broken every summer it seems.
Re:Slashdotting of BitTorrent (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How much is enough? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, would you want your company to be sued into the ground and lose your job because someone may possibly use the product you produce for some illegal purpose or it may harm someone? Would you want to be denied the ability to ever use the product or any similar one because someone may use it for an illegal purpose or it may harm someone?
This is exactly what the MPAA and RIAA are doing. I doubt you would like it if you were on the receiving end of their crap. Just about any product can be a scapegoat in this way. Even their movies and music. Some people claim sex and violence in movies and music cause real crimes. By the {MP,RI}AA's logic, they shouldn't be in business either.
Bit Torrent Project dead? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~halm/offline.html [uiuc.edu]
It looks like the MPAA came by and shat all over the project.
Where oh where can I find install links for Bit Torrent now?
Studio careless with MATRIX? Disgruntled Gofer? (Score:3, Interesting)
The DVDs are in production now, getting all the "extra" content together, subtitling and dubbing, coding digital copies for the scene selection jumps, etc. It's a lot of work to get them ready to send to the pressing plant.
The film has to be converted to DVD file format first, because everything else depends on it, and multiple people will be using various copies of this file as they do their bit. All it takes is one low-paid studio gofer in a state of disgruntlement to slide a disk into his/her pocket and walk out the door. Burn a copy and upload it to somewhere and they have their revenge against the PHBs at the studio.
They are missing their marketing opportunity... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, people know the file is floating around, and know the name of it. You provided even more information, yet you probably aren't able to download it at all.
With Gnutella, instead of a link to a file, you would have posted a SHA1 hash of the file, and those with Gnutella installed could simply search the network for files with that hash. No matter how many systems went offline, changed IP addresses, etc., nothing would stop Gnutella nodes from downloading/sharing the file, unless every single node that had it was shut down.
That said, I think Gnutella has just a couple things to learn from bittorrent. It would be nice if Gnutella could share pieces of partially downloaded files, and it would be nice if Gnutella incorporated some anti-leech system like bittorrent has. Those two things are the only things bittorrent has, that Gnutella doesn't, yet Gnutella has many more great features on top of that.
Wake up, MPAA (Score:2, Interesting)