US Indictments and Raids of Piracy Group Members in 'The Scene' Throw Top-Tier Piracy World Into Chaos (torrentfreak.com) 70
An anonymous reader shares a report: Yesterday morning, TorrentFreak began receiving reports from multiple sources that something big was happening in the shadowy world of top-tier piracy known as 'The Scene.' From the volumes of information received, the majority of sources indicated that many so-called 'topsites' and their members had disappeared or gone into hiding. The word was that several major movie release groups -- SPARKS, GECKOS and DRONES -- had been targeted in a series of raids and as a result, people were running for cover. Precisely where these raids or actions took place still isn't entirely clear. Multiple sources point to the Nordic region, particularly Norway and Sweden, but reports of disruption and/or action in the Netherlands and even Switzerland persisted across our confidential sources, all of whom demand anonymity.
That is a big meh (Score:2, Insightful)
I’m not sure what the scene group has been doing lately with no releases.
Dipshits were busted.
I wonder if these were financial contributors or people who were sloppy. It should be very difficult to get caught if you are any good. It might been the distributors who have financial interests or just dumb asses.
I doubt I would get caught if I went to the dark side.
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I’m not sure what the scene group has been doing lately with no releases.
Just searching publicly available sites, it seems like GECKOS, DRONES stopped more than a month and a half ago and SPARKS in May?
Re:That is a big meh (Score:5, Interesting)
I’m not sure what the scene group has been doing lately with no releases.
Dipshits were busted.
I wonder if these were financial contributors or people who were sloppy. It should be very difficult to get caught if you are any good. It might been the distributors who have financial interests or just dumb asses.
I doubt I would get caught if I went to the dark side.
One of the people indicted was acquiring DVDs and Blu-Rays from US wholesalers, in advance of official release dates. Physical media. So there's a mailing address involved, as well as money. Once they track that down, dominoes start to fall.
The scene has always been too intertwined, with next to no operational security. It has to be, because it's predicated on personal reputation. Why it continues to exist in that form I'm sure I don't know. These raids (and indictments and convictions) happen every four or five years with monotonous regularity. The thrill of being elite overrides all sense. The goal should be to get it out of the hands of primary sources with as many blind cutouts (and watermark comparison and elimination passes) as possible, but the social organization of the scene is invariably the exact opposite.
When this happened in 2001, people I knew personally went to prison. Somehow nothing has changed in all that time. It's unlikely to ever change. Unlike the drug trade, there is no profit motive in the scene. The vast majority of participants are taking a financial loss, if only a minor one. They're spending time and effort without compensation to reencode and move bytes around. Without profit, a conspiracy actually worthy of these indictments is unlikely ever to arise. There's very little at stake. A handful of felony convictions is about it. In consequence, reputation is the only 'currency' involved, which dictates the organizational structure. And so it goes.
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The way they busted them last time was with watermarks in the media.
These were obvious to those who defeat drm and they didn’t release the tools to remove the watermarks.
The obvious onscreen water marks were blurred.
So, same difference, mailing addresses to people who turned on those they provided copies too and they blindly ripped the media.
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Re: That is a big meh (Score:2)
"I doubt I would get caught if I went to the dark side."
That sounds like a challenge to me. I think you should test that idea, for shits and giggles. Let's see if your prediction bears fruit.
The few people I've know who sold illegal drugs and got caught (not the sort I usually associate with) all told me the same thing: I didn't think I would get caught. Granted, I think the likelihood of getting caught there is higher because of the enormous resources and time that goes into that sort of enforcement, but m
Pretty dumb to pirate today (Score:1)
Re:Pretty dumb to pirate today (Score:5, Insightful)
I still think video games are a problem.
It used to be most games were reasonably well made when they shipped. Now they shove any old garbage out the door, and just say, "we'll patch it later:" or flat out lie - hello fallout 76 and no mans sky.
And don't get me started on how some pirated versions of games run much better than bought ones, because they have denuvo or whatever stripped out.
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Or actually take a real stand and stop buying bug-riddled games that should never have been released in such a state. Stop giving studios who charge $50+ USD for unfinished garbage and eventually the game industry would learn to stop doing that.
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Oh, I don't know. They keep a lot of angry young men with poor prospects off the streets.
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Technically, One Man's Lie, er, No Man's Sky, DID get SOME patches [nomanssky.com].
Sean Murray flat out lied 4 years ago [youtube.com] about multiplayer. It wasn't implemented until the NEXT patch in 2018.
But yeah, some of the stuff they never implemented.
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Its funny how its all come around isn't it?
For the longest time we had a few big providers, and everyone complained they had no choice.
Then everything fragmented and everyone is complaining about having to sign up to too many services.
I often hear the comment, if only you could have all these services under one entity. haha
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That's because they haven't thought about the problem. I don't care how many providers I have; I care how many different interfaces I have. I'm not going to become one of those people with 8 remote controls on the living room table. Nor do I want to have to switch "apps" on my screen to get different menus of shows. And I definitely don't want a lack of competition on how the front end works and looks. If I like "KDE TV" to
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Because what we need is many services with the same content, not many services with all different content.
There are hundreds of retailers which will sell you a DVD, why should online services be any different?
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Because the film you want to watch once is only available on a service to which you don't subscribe and not on any of the ones to which you do.
Which was his point.
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Ah, you thought he was offering a solution? No, he was using an analogy to highlight why the online service offerings fail to match historical media markets.
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Because what we need is many services with the same content
I think you mean to say "what we want is...".
While I would certainly prefer it as a consumer, it's hardly a right, and I can't come up with an argument for why content producers have an obligation to provide such a service.
Re:Pretty dumb to pirate today (Score:4, Interesting)
Because copyright is (or should be) an obligation to society...
In exchange for an artificial legal construct allowing content producers to profit from selling copies, they should provide benefits to society. If it's not providing fair and equal benefits to both sides then it should be changed or removed.
By your same reasoning, society has no obligation to enforce copyright, everything could be public domain.
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Re:Pretty dumb to pirate today (Score:5, Informative)
1. So that stuff will work on your equipment, instead of having to use weird proprietary equipment just to get a video to play. Piracy is the only way to get standardized format content. The only. If you want something generic, standardized, and usable on pretty everything, with a diversity of players, then you are definitely pirating because you can't ever do that with proprietary DRMed streams or proprietary optical discs. And that is simply how it's going to be, until we repeal the DMCA. Don't think we'll repeal the DMCA? Then piracy will never end, because people "need" it, in the sense that either you pirate, or you do without.
2. To be able to watch what you want to watch, instead of simply whatever's temporarily available. There is currently no existing service, where the size of the catalog isn't pathetic. But if you overlook the lameness and make do with what someone has, you then have the problem that they're missing 90% of what you want. Or you can sign up for everything legally available, and then maybe you'll only miss 50% of whatever you want. I watch plenty of shows that I don't even know how to get legally. And with movies, it's even worse. Most stuff simply isn't for sale at any price. All non-pirates are constantly missing out.
3. To stick it to the man. Because, seriously, fuck those guys. They broke TV. We wouldn't even have DRM and DMCA, if it weren't for the video industry. It's immoral to pay them, so that leaves either piracy or abstinence.
When you pirate, TV is good, instead of lame. You don't have spammy menus. You don't have ads. Your player is dedicated to serving you, instead of serving them. You get to watch anything you want to. It works. It doesn't have unexplained outages. It doesn't push things on you. You can use your existing TV. You can use your existing computer and OS. You don't have all the security problems of having to run unaudited, unmaintainable software. It's the best. And it will remain the best, until the industry drops DRM and adopts standards instead. With standards, non-piracy has the potential to be as good and convenient and low-risk as piracy, but nobody really thinks that is ever happening. Every time I go over to a non-pirate's house and see what it's like for them to have to watch TV, it's so old-timey. If I couldn't pirate, I'd probably just stop watching TV.
We're accustomed to modern convenience, so if you wanna call my family pussies, ok, but at least we're able to enjoy TV instead of having to merely tolerate it and hope it still works tomorrow.
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> With standards, non-piracy has the potential to be as good and convenient and low-risk as piracy
What kind of 'standards' would do the trick?
I'm not trying to be glib or raise an argument; I'm just very interested in the "perfect" solution, if it is possible at all.
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Because every service has different content, having to keep changing services is inconvenient, and thats assuming they don't try to lock you in for a year contract or make it difficult to cancel the recurring billing etc.
Because these services are not available globally, if you happen to be located in a country they discriminate against you might get inferior service or no service at all.
Because most services are streaming based and don't work well with a slow connection that many people are stuck with, whe
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Once we have it, we have it. No worries about Netflix or Prime suddenly pulling it or seeing it in Criterion's "Leaving at the end of category. As a bonus we give those services less data to track us by.
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It may be easy/easier to get affordable media but it isn't any easier to actually use said media. There are still limitations on where and how you watch "legitimate" media. I could easily subscribe to any number of streaming services. The problem is that I have limited bandwidth (i.e. low data cap) at home so actually streaming in situ isn't practical. If I was allowed to subscribe and then download the shows at work to be viewed at home I would probably hop on board the streaming culture. As it currently s
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For new releases, sure - any major retailer will have shelves stocked full of Blu-Ray copies (which it’s trivial to remove the DRM from). But once you start getting into things that are a little old and/or obscure, there’s a good chance it’s out of print and going for astronomical prices on eBay.
Yeah, there’s DRM’d-out-the-wazoo digital copies, but then you’re locked into a specific vendor’s ecosystem and reliant on cloud servers which could go down and take all yo
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Re: Pretty dumb to pirate today (Score:2)
You should add "... in the United States". The world is bigger than the USA, you know. There are lots of places where pirating makes just as much sense now as it did 10 years ago.
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Collecting items from dumpsters is considered theft in many jurisdictions. Strange, but there's a reason for it: It eliminates a possible source of meager income for homeless people, thus encouraging them to go and be homeless somewhere else.
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Yes.
Maybe not in first world countries, but there are many developing countries where the cost of media is prohibitive to average people and in many cases simply isn't available at all.
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While everything slowly inches to cloud only the customer is going to be penalized. What if in 20yrs one of your favorite childhood movie or game is no longer in print and no streaming service is hosting it. Buy a price gouged 2nd hand copy off ebay or just pirate it?
Also, some shows are web only. Say, Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal. I paid Amazon their fee to cover the cost of my viewing but no physical media was produced. So my only option to have a physical copy was well; piracy.
There are some games from th
Re: You want to know me better (Score:1)
I keep missing out (Score:1)
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If I was emperor of the world (Score:5, Interesting)
I would make a law that you MUST make your content legally available at a reasonable price to protect your copyright. If you don't make it available, then it can be freely pirated.
One major example for me is old game shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. There is no amount of money I can pay (well, realistically) to be able to watch any random episode of Jeopardy that I want to watch right now.
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Indeed, this is why the British Library has copies of my dodgy erotica.
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How would you "produce it yourself" for someone else? That doesn't make sense.
Suppose I want to revoke the grant of copyright to Disney's "Song of the South" due to the fact that they don't sell it. I would produce it myself? Perhaps you mean I should reproduce it myself (i.e. copy it) and then make it available at whatever price I want. Arr, matey, that does almost makes sense: you remove a copyright by infringing it!
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Once the content has been produced and put on sale, keeping it available costs very little - how do you think pirates are able to distribute movies for free?
The idea that a dvd is now "out of print" is ridiculous. It would cost virtually nothing to make it available for download or on-demand burning to physical media. You make zero revenue from media that's not available at all, so even selling at a very low cost and low volume would still be profitable.
So a law that would make a lot of sense...
Once you ha
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I wonder if part of it is fear of competition from the past. There's a wealth of good movies and TV. Two or three generation's worth. Most of it crap, true - but there's plenty of good stuff in there. Yet all the advertising, all the promotion, all the automated recommendations, are focused exclusively on new releases. From the industry perspective, it might be better that people don't learn of the old stuff - it would stop them watching the new, where the prices to be commanded are higher.
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I didn't say cheaper. I said AVAILABLE. The answer to the question of price falls in the lines of fair market value, just like with housing.
If the likes of Amazon, Google, and the fruit company have shown that individual episodes of a show typically sell for $1.99-$2.99, with full seasons going from $15-$80, then that's where the "reasonable" price comes from.
This isn't about me wanting to make my own content available. This is about people like Sony who distribute Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, but give
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available at a reasonable price
Please define "reasonable." Is your solution to the copyright problem to have some government agency or a judge dictating what content producers are allowed to charge?
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See my comment above. This isn't about dictating the price. It's about forcing companies to make the content available to begin with. Disney refuses to sell Song of the South to anyone. Game show companies refuse to sell access to old episodes. Lots of content is geoblocked.
To repeat my comment above, fair market value is an actual thing.
If the likes of Amazon, Google, and the fruit company have shown that individual episodes of a show typically sell for $1.99-$2.99, with full seasons going from $15-$8
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Reason is the dinosaur copyright industry, where copyright is handled nationally in every country by a different legal entity.
So, me watching a movie or listening to music in Belgium means the royalties go to that rusty "stuck in the 80s" legal entity in Belgium representing the media industries.
There was an indie documentary I really wanted to see. It was featured in some smaller film festivals in the US. Finally
Easily Avoided - Beware Studio Lies (Score:3)
Piracy is wrong. It either threatens the creation of future content, or increases the prices of that content should it be produced.
So if you are a studio and you want to give reviewers early sight of your latest work so that they may review it, why on Earth are you distributing that content on physical media?
Every single major film studio and television company - either directly or through parent or affiliate companies - has access to a media streaming capability. Simply set up a dedicated streaming service for reviewers.
Give them a physical dongle or device if you want to make it more secure than normal streaming viewership. Host the sample content on a service or in a channel where each title can be watched a maximum of three times. Have the review provide you with a nominated "viewing location" which would be tied at best to a single IP address, at worst to an ISP's registered address range. Use 2-factor authentication and a cell phone, so that when the reviewer wants to watch something, a 6-digit code is sent to their phone via SMS and they have to enter this before playback starts.
See? Not difficult. Nothing new or outrageous. Completely secure.
Which brings me to the important questions: why have the content companies *not* implemented these safeguards already? And why is it that, every 2-3 years, there's a "piracy ring" busted by the FBI?
Well, we *know* there are solutions the content holders could take but don't (see above).
We *know* that each time there is a raid or arrests, there is a lot of publicity for it (see linked article).
And we *know* that the industry uses the existence of these heinous, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it events to demand all sorts of concessions. Like the fact that the industry have a "tax" on recordable media, using the fact that it *could* be used for piracy to generate a nice little bit of side-income for the industry players.
Piracy is wrong. I feel this is important enough to say it again.
But I have ZERO sympathy for an industry that has been presented with a bounty of security technologies that could COMPLETELY safeguard their business and then choose to ignore them and instead cry wolf.
It was Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer who gave the world "Sherlock Holmes" who is attributed with the insightful thought that,
"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
Well, it is impossible that the film and television studios are unable to take existing technology solutions that are proven to work (see: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Spotify, etc.) and develop the means to allow reviewers to watch content in a secure manner that cannot be pirated.
So having established why there is no good reason for those studios to ignore the solutions right before them, then no matter how implausible this might sound, we have to conclude that the music, film and television studios continue to allow piracy to take place over review media because they think it is in their best interests to do so.
It would be nice to see a respected journalist or two write a few headline articles that challenge the industry on their (apathy / deliberate deception).
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Piracy (...) It either threatens the creation of future content, or increases the prices of that content should it be produced.
that's two wild claims in the same sentence that have been thrown around for decades, even in courts, and have never been backed by actual facts or data.
yet the 'entertainment' industry has kept booming like never before.
this is the reason i've been getting all my digital entertainment (except games) from torrents for decades and not given any of those fucktards a single cent, yet they somehow keep getting richer. and will continue to do so until those fucktards manage to sling us into the brave new world t
Fucking mooching thieves! (Score:2)
They shoulds top leeching on artists and do some fucking legitimate work for the first time in their rotten existences, instead of snorting cocaine on top of an "i.p" "business" and terrorizing fans with racketeering shemes!
I had hopes that the Internet would finally murder their scam scheme and then some. But their livestock did their part of presenting their asses for a few glass beads.
Re: Fucking mooching thieves! (Score:2)
stop!! not top!! I swear this combination of condescendingphone, touchscream, and rotting Slashcode makes it impossible to post a typo-free fuckin comment!