Fireside Copyright Discussionus

[legionofangels]

Pardon any typo's my cat Joker is being ruthless at the mo.

Anyways, I've been thinking of copyright laws in regards to music and things like that and I've found a few sites out there that seem to be in my opinion breaking copyright on others material.

Obviously Youtube and Google do it, and while the industries have done what they can to remove that copyrighted material from those sites, it's just going to be uploaded by another user if they try. Yet some videos especially one's that are popular get millions of views before they are removed or they aren't removed.

It's as if the RIAA and the Movie industry want to pick and choose who they want showing there material and when they want to claim copyright infringment and when they don't. I read an article of someone saying the lawyers hate it but the producers love it. For TV shows that aren't doing that well, exposure on youtube or other sites can increase the possibility of additional viewers and profits, etc. Yet with a show that is doing great, such as House for example, they don't want those episodes shown that much on free sites like Youtube.

Enter in a few variables to this puzzle before you give your opinion on the subject:

http://www.movies-on-demand.tv/

http://www.dizzler.com/

Seriously here, both sites are doing different approaches to the illegal and copyrighted material. Movies on Demand claims that all videos they embed are from other sites, they use a weak disclaimer on the bottom of the page, but does that make it legal? They say, hey...not our fault...the other sites is where the information is posted. But still, does that make it legal?

How is that not an issue of being an accomplice or committing a crime secondhand. As far as I'm concerned it's like buying a car with money from a bank robbery. Sure, you could use it to make a legal purchase, but the means of which you get the new car is illegal as the money was stolen from a bank.

I've thought about this for about 2 days now just getting a headache going...how? How can they do this? Is this a site about to be sued or are you telling me that all we have to do is host videos of DVD's we buy on big sites like Google with deep pockets and good lawyers and let them have the legal struggles for us?

On to Dizzler

They use a similar and ridiculous set up to try to excuse themselves from what they are doing. They designed a damn code that supposedly searches for mp3 material out there. They say they have no control over the code and can't tell whether something is copyrighted or not. Are you fuggin kidding me? They promote all the famous bands such as Nirvana, Metallica, Nelly, etc. What...and you don't know those superstar musicians copyrighted there music. They are fully compliant with removal of the material but you had better be the copyright holder apparently as they warn you in there FAQ of someone who wasn't or some company who was countersued for 100K, but still... They created a code to find and embed online MP3's without any control as to whether or not it's copyrighted or not. Therefore stating like Movies on Demand, NOT OUR FAULT, we didn't do it, the other sites did.

In both cases I reach the same conclusion, even though you're not doing it, you're creating a portal for people to access that copyrighted material, and you're creating a hub of it. Hosting material even in an embedded format allows for it to be used, and that use is prohibited under copyright.

If I'm wrong in this statement, please correct me, I'd love to hear opinions on this.

[Boofo]

Posting a warez link is just as bad as hosting the warez itself, no matter what they claim. They all sit back and think, "we don't host the files, so how can they come after us?" If you give someone a gun, knowing they are going to kill someone, you are just as guilty of murder as they are. The courts have been tested with this time and time again and it is always the same. A disclaimer doesn't protect you from squat. Saying you aren't responsible doesn't mean you aren't. How many prisoners claim they are innocent? 99% maybe? Of course there are always exceptions to any rule, but warez has no exception when you have a multi-million dollar company, like Microsoft, coming after Joe Blow's website in Peoria, Illinois.

Sorry for the rant, but I get tired of them claiming that little text protects them from doing something they know damned well is wrong and illegal.

[legionofangels]

Well thank God, because we never hosted anything from these sites and I kept thinking, this is wrong. If it was that easy to sidestep it would have been done already. With enough intelligent minds there should be a way to use that material though.

I've always considered like, why not a one time fee for members of a site, 30 bucks, 50 bucks etc. All access to music, movies or whatever you're paying for.

I have emailed sites before making this post and NONE have responded. I checked with a site like http://netmoviedownloads.com/?hop=silkefine to ask them how 35 dollars for unlimited downloads makes it legal that I watch and download movies for the expanse of my existence. 35 dollars isn't nothing, but still how does that pay for thousands of movies I'll watch over time. That is the site that movies on demand links to if you want to download the movie.

I'm just sitting here thinking, with even the Christian in me set aside, that this is damn wrong.

The question I ask to many of you ontop of the thread question is, how could any of this be made legal?

A one time fee, high enough to support the times you play music?

Or a small but continous fee for listening to music or watching movies legally?

I mean American Gangster is 1 dollar rental at your McDonalds, why can't we do that on Forums or Websites, 1 dollar you can watch it, set up a paypal account and watch what and when you want to.

EDIT: The Future is Internet Television and probably Internet Movies and media such as music as well. They just need to make it reasonable enough so that many can afford it and that many will use it. I tell you, the future is the laptop being the cable box, you plug it in when you get off work to your flat screen monitor and it's your cable box.

[Boofo]

When you have a company as big As Apple, or Microsoft, with unlimited resources coming after you, you better have more than a line of text to protect you. These warez sites are only fooling themselves hoping to get users to click on the little links so they can get their advertising dollars, which in turn, will go right back out to the same companies that own the warez they are linking to. And, whatever you do, don't be a member on that site when they take it down.

I read a while back that the RIAA nailed the mothers of a music downloader for over 30,000 dollars as the kid who downloaded the stuff was under-age. And she has to pay it. Court ordered. They aren't playing. That is a drop in the bucket to them but can you imagine all the names they got from the site that he got the music from? It just isn't worth it these days.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

From a legal P.O.V. linking to warez might be legal, depending on the laws of the country that has jurisdiction over the website.

[Boofo]

I know alot of these warez linkers think that, but I don't think most of them are protected like that. If Microsoft comes after you, it will end up costing you more to fight them than you can afford in most cases. And alot of countries aren't putting up with that as much as they used to. It ends up costing them money too. Even China has started cracking down somewhat.