Text 11184, 231 rader
Skriven 2006-05-28 16:16:08 av /m (1:379/45)
  Kommentar till text 11081 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: MPAA accused of hacking!!!
======================================
From: /m <mike@barkto.com>


Another view of a similar topic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/5019472.stm

===
The Hollywood studios are the lifeblood of the American movie industry. For the
best part of a century they have led Tinsel town down a path paved with gold,
making it into a multibillion dollar colossus.

Those same studios face a huge challenge with the advent of the internet age.

They must adapt to meet the challenges of the newly democratised digital age,
seek new opportunities and develop new business models.

Or else they will be reactive rather than proactive, trying to pretend nothing
has happened and carry on with business as usual.

Until now the movie studios have viewed the digital landscapes of the 21st
Century with great apprehension, wary of the tech-savvy generation which has
been spearheading the revolution in file-sharing.

Today, the rebellion against the entertainment establishment which started with
music has become far more all-encompassing.

Sophisticated file-swapping technologies and sites have sprung up faster than
old ones have been shut down.

Together with faster internet connections, better file compression and cheaper
storage, these are proving a lethal concoction.

Real-life drama

By some guesstimates, there are 17 million movies available for download out
there in the so-called darknet, the internet underground.

The new film Poseidon is a new remake of the 1970s classic. While it is not
even out in most territories, it is readily available for illegal download, if
you have the inclination to look and a modicum of technical know-how.

Interestingly, even among those involved in the movie industry there does not
seem to be a consensus on the cost.

The actor Richard Dreyfuss says: "It's not a question of right or wrong any
more.

"People will do what they want to do in order to get what they want. What's
that line? 'Behind every great fortune lies a great crime'.

"So the guys who started this business all cheated somebody to get there, and
now they're being cheated, perhaps, by all these crazy, geeky people all over
the internet.

"I must say, my anguish level is not great."

Director Wolfgang Petersen says: "It's always the fear: oh my God, please let
it be on the big screen and let it go a regular course. But it's
uncontrollable. What can we do?"

Alternatives

Hollywood has reacted by adding educational trailers to the start of DVDs and
cinema showings, targeted file-sharing sites, prosecuted individuals and
developed new anti-copying technologies.

That campaign has had a limited impact, so the industry is finally thinking
about alternatives.

The American internet film service Movielink is backed by several big studios.
It has been around for several years, offering downloads of rental of titles a
full two months after the DVD has come out in stores. But last month both it
and its main rival, CinemaNow, took the decision to offer users an alternative:
the option to download and keep big Hollywood blockbusters on the same day the
DVD is released, albeit at a similar price.

Jim Ramo, the CEO of Movielink, says: "Download to own is a big deal. Two
particular things are unique about it.

"First, it's the first time that Hollywood has allowed movies to be stored on a
hard drive forever, basically.

"The second thing is that we're beginning to see movies delivered at the exact
same time as they're delivered to retail stores, day and date with home video.

"Both of those are really exciting, and that's what consumers want. Both of
those are breakthroughs."

Questions

There are some serious questions about the attractiveness of the new offerings.

Any film downloaded onto your PC will come packed to the gills with Digital
Rights Management (DRM) which effectively controls where you can and cannot
watch the movie.

For the most part, any film will be tethered to your PC. You will not be able
to watch it on a TV unless you have the right connections.

Often the real thing is often cheaper and comes loaded with extra features,
which does not make the downloaded version seem particularly enticing.

What is stopping a cheaper and less restrictive offering? Part of the answer is
to be found in DVD stores.

DVDs make up almost half of a film's earnings. Making a film too attractively
available online might upset well established, real-world relationships with
big stores and cannibalise those golden DVD sales.

But there are other, perhaps even more significant, reasons why the industry is
afraid to loosen its grip on its material.

Your typical Hollywood blockbuster tends to be very, very expensive. The latest
incarnation of Mission Impossible is estimated to have cost upwards of $120m
(œ64m).

Hollywood executives fear that without adequate digital rights management,
online content will be ripped off even more widely and easily than it is at the
moment.

Chris Barlas, from the consultancy Rightscom, co-authored a report on the
future of the industry. He believes movie moguls may not appreciate the
importance of attractive consumer offers linked to controls.

He told Click: "There is a very big push for protecting rather than trading, so
what we see is little offers being made, like the Movielink offers, like the
CinemaNow offers.

"You could say it's too little, too late, because the appetite for content is
growing. It was, after all, seeded by the music industry, and it's there now
for the movie industry."

New solutions?

There are some hopeful signs on the horizon.

The Cannes film festival may be the setting for industry back-slapping and
deal-making but this year it has also seen some head-scratching, as delegates
looked for ways to tackle piracy more positively with new business models.

There are already several rumours buzzing, and the most interesting involves
Apple.

iTunes is already setting the pace in legal video downloads. Insiders says it
would be well positioned to offer full-length features films too.

Warner Brothers, which has been aggressively fighting file-sharers, has now
teamed up with BitTorrent.

BitTorrent has long been the scourge of movie executives everywhere because
around 65 million people use it to share files, often ripped movies.

Now Warners has decided it represents a cheap way to distribute their films.
They will still be heavily copy-protected and the same kind of price as High
Street DVDs.

But the Warner executive who brokered the deal, Darcy Antonellis, believes it
will convert some of the file-sharing fraternity to legal means.

She told Click: "People do want a high quality of service. If they know that a
service is easy to use, the content that gets delivered is of high quality,
that they can count on reliability of delivery, that's worth something.

"We believe that, coupled with availability, and priced correctly, will give us
an opportunity to compete with a free market, if you will, of often not as good
product. "

Away from its own shores, Hollywood seems to be more experimental in its
thinking.

The leading British film rental service Lovefilm has traditionally sent its
titles through the post.

Now it too is offering downloads of films. For the equivalent of the
non-discounted High Street price, you get the movie online which plays on
portable devices as well as PCs, but it later send you the physical DVD too.

Lovefilm's Simon Calver says: "At the moment the early adopters are into
download.

"The early adopters are a very small percentage of the population and they're
creating a lot of noise out there.

"I think businesses that can offer a hybrid solution, both the DVD and the
downloading together, to give people choice and reliability as well as the
technical convenience that comes from download, they're the ones that are
ultimately going to win in the marketplace."
===

 /m




On Thu, 25 May 2006 11:59:05 -0400, "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@hotmail.com> wrote:

>If true, it would be nice to see some MPAA officials share a prison cell
>over this.
>
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/25/torrentspy_lawsuit/
>
>The company behind the TorrentSpy search engine has countersued the Motion
>Picture Association of America (MPAA) over allegations that it hired a
>hacker in order to spy on it.
>
>Valence Media claims the MPAA paid an unspecified individual $15K to break
>into its systems and snoop for intelligence, SecurityProNews reports.
>
>The hacker was given carte-blanche to obtain "dirt" on Valence Media by
>whatever means at his disposal by an intermediary acting on behalf of the
>MPAA, Valence Media alleges in a lawsuit
>
>http://rdir.securitypronews.com/cgi-bin/frame.cgi?http://www.techfirm.com/ts-m
paa.pdf
>
>  filed with the US District Court for the Central District of California.
>
>The hacker was supposedly promised he would never be held accountable for
>actions, which allegedly came as part of a wider "dirty tricks" campaign.
>According to the lawsuit, the MPAA's agent told the hacker that the MPAA
>planed to pay private investigators to rummage through the garbage of
>TorrentSpy founder Justin Bunnell and leading executives at Valence Media.
>
>The hacker allegedly went on to obtain an Excel spreadsheet detailing
>TorrentSpy expenses covering the first half of last year along with
>confidential emails and details of invoices sent to clients.
>

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