UK Police Launch Campaign To Shut Down Torrent Sites 244
An anonymous reader writes "City of London Police inform TorrentFreak that they have begun targeting sites that provide access to unauthorized content for 'criminal gain.' The initiative is part of a collaboration with Hollywood studios represented by FACT and the major recording labels of the BPI. In letters being sent out now, police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau further warns that the crimes carry a jail sentence of 10 years."
So what now? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are magnet links a crime?
Are they only criminal if I have advertising alongside them?
Re:define "serious" (Score:4, Interesting)
If the studios really wanted that profit then why don't they distribute it online for free in a ad supported fashion (just like they do/did with traditional television) themselves?
the networks could make lots of money with ad supported "official legal" torrent site and set it up like any other torrent site (just less porn ads and more normal ads) with every episode available in multiple resolutions drm free and in every imaginable format, hell they could even embed ads in the episode like the do with tv. they would say "oh but people block ads with adblockers but then again so do viewers with tivo or other time delay setups. it would cost them less bandwidth than trying to stream every every episode to everyone and their dog separately, they would not have to license any drm they, they could have links to where you could buy the the physical disks and merchandise, they could quickly and accurately judge popularity of shows based on number of people torrenting it. they would argue that others would simply copy their torrent remove ads and redistribute them but they have problem as is anyway.
but they would rather prosecute other people then sell goods the way masses want them in the vain hope that they will somehow get back to the glory days of pre-internet.
If the tables were turned (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though neither site is located in the UK, police believe that sites’ operators are committing crimes there.
Wonder how the UK police would feel if China, Iran, or North Korea accused them of commiting crimes against them... even though theyre in the UK
City of London - Corporate Haven (Score:5, Interesting)
watch this and you'll understand why this is nothing more than monied interests trying to protect their own. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc [youtube.com]
Re:define "serious" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Police privatization (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes---the police have been going under privatisation, and this is not a good thing.
However, the City of London police, and the Corporation of London (aand its polive force) are not good places to look as indicitave of the whole. The Corporation is a very odd beast: for a start, it's older than a unified England and it's charter has been lost (but that's OK, since it was given another charter in 1067).
It's always been semi-private and not really part of the government.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:2, Interesting)
Official bodies in UK often act as if they think industry associations are lily-white, now it seems to be a police force doing that too.
The concept of abusive and overreaching claims may be too complicated for Mr Plod to grasp. Maybe he should be invited to see it in its true colours as a kind of conspiracy to commit offences of unlawful harassment and intimidation on the public.
(And someone should caution him against becoming an accessory to those offences himself). It's a tragedy if a potentially respectable police force allows itself to become the stooge of sleazy lawyers.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:4, Interesting)
All of them. There are some exceptions with utilities (e.g. local water company) but even those are less exceptional than the video industry thinks they are.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:4, Interesting)
The potential victims are just huge multinational conglomerates that many people do not give a crap about. Whether or not any actual harm occurred is an entirely different conversation.
Re: What are they trying to achieve? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Victimless?"
Tell that to the families of, oh, i dunno, pick an niche industry.. Makers of add ons for microsoft flight simulator. Their industry was basically wiped out by piracy despite a clear huge demand for their high quality products. Why should the police protect say a jewelry shop that was robbed but not them?
Not even a good try at re-writing history. Most small tool vendors for "Windows" have been put out of business by Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, etc... and not by piracy. The anti-trust suits can show how absolutely false your assertion is, though you probably won't let facts get in to the way of your bullshit.
Average users used to pay very well for PK-Zip, Cybersitter, NetNanny, Disk compression tools, Encryption tools, etc... Each of those was put under by massive corporations (disclaimer: Cybersitter is still around, but no longer a dominant company in web content control). Once those were squashed by big corporations and their integrated yet limited versions of the same thing, people no longer spent the money.
Look, nobody here should be a moron. Everyone would agree that real piracy happens, but what is real piracy? You getting a copy of a movie/TV Show from a friend on a recommendation would probably be the most common. At least half of those cases are a result of a movie/TV show not being available by the producers. The same could be said with songs. People don't want to purchase a full CD for 15 bucks when they only like 1 song on the record, and yet they can't just buy 1 song because the artist hates iTunes or want's more money than the one song's value.
Computer software is often pirated because people don't trust games to be good. Office and productivity apps may be needed to open 1 file or perform 1 task, where a user sees no value in spending hundreds of dollars on a full application. It could be to learn what an app is, or if they really want to purchase it when there are no trials available.
In the end, most of the people using things end up purchasing if they really like the product (which includes movies, songs, and software).
It's a very tiny portion of pirating that actually damages people. Those things have been around as well, and are prosecuted. I guess you never heard of Rusty and Eddies BBS? I doubt anyone would complain about places like that being taken down and taken to court. Those places are not the financially strapped single mom's being taken to court by the RIAA/MPAA are they? It's the latter that people take offense too, which causes them to not care about the RIAA/MPAA.
You can either believe your fantasy, or check just a few goddamn facts before spouting off. Of course you posted as AC (big surprise) so don't care about facts. "Just Shillin" right?