Ha! I think MPAA (and RIAA for that matter) are just scared that they might have to start producing quality work rather than just the flavor of the moment. And that they might have to charge reasonable prices too!

For reference:

Cassette tapes and VHS both now cost more to produce, store and distribute than thier modern counterparts. The branding is the same on both, the content is the same on both. Yet both idustries still feel these products are profitable at half-price. Well either movies or music comes down to a reasonable price. Screw the lot of them!


Also worth noting that the real brains (ie the writers) are some of the lowest in the chain. So basically the marketing depts are asking us to pay for them to keep increasing prices and taking it away from the people who deserve it. Screw the lot of them!


My movies and music will remain in AVI and MP3 format for a while yet. And you can all copy it off me too. Not least SWIII:RoS, they deserve punishment for episodes I and II. So I am gonna steal thier movie of the WWW, just to spite them.

i agree with mr.baggins getting it before it comes out is kind of immoral

I cant believe people would even want to download from the website, how stupid. Why dont they just go to a rental video store? and rent the movies, or wait for when star wars ep 3 comes out on dvd.

Im sorry to say this but i have to agree with FBI piracy is a crime, you are steeling. Get a job, save up and pay!.

Sorry if i might of offended some people, but im on the laws side.

P2P has it's ups and downs..

First of all, there are people that likes to spend money only on something that is worth it. Let's say 100k copies of Star Wars III were downloaded. Of those 100k users that downloaded, I bet you that more than 60% of them went to see the movie on the premier night! And the remainding 40% just said it was stupid and never touched it again. Of these users, they were probabaly 90% chance of not going to watch it in theaters anyways.. Sooo that leaves 3.6% of that group of audience cheated, responsible for the lost of ~$35 000... that's not alot considering the first weekend of the movie made over $40 million.. The box office for the movie is still rolling in the big bucks. And to crack down EliteTorrents costed the American people more than $200 000. The total operation of D-Elite (preparing, administration, etc.) probabaly costed over a million dollars.. That is staggering.. just to save Lucas Films 35k....

I agree it is ilegal to download movies, music, softwares and games, because people put their hearts into it.. But really, how much really goes to the artist? I bet you that the greedy business people up top is making more money off people's work than the actual artist are keeping money from their own work..

Argh.. pressed the sent button by accident.. anyways:

To finish things off, did everyone forget about Adam Smith's theory of the Invisible Hand? the thing that drives our market place. Sure, maybe right now, things don't look so hot for the recording or movie industries, but businesses will take advantage of the situation and will deal with the matter. Sooner or later, things will work out for everyone. It's been seen in the past, and it's weill predicted for the future. So my message to everyone is: STOP MAKING A FUSE OUT OF SOMETHING SO SMALL!

I think the RIAA is taking this the wrong way. First off, shutting torrent sites down continously will draw a lot of attention to them from the general public. This has the good effect of creating a slight dislike of the people that run them in most people, but then it also spurs on the remaining people to create better systems to do the same thing. Systems that can't be tracked as easily, or are in places where the laws can't touch them. ThePirateBay for example is not able to be shut down since they don't operate out of a country where that's prosecutable.

The other thing about them shutting down sites for sharing movies is that the movies it hosts are usually decently poor quality. Even DVD rips are reduced in resolution size so that they don't take up your whole computer to store. This mean that while they may lose a little money in the theatres from people not seeing it there, they make a lof of money from the people who see it, then go buy the DVD's so they can see it in decent quality, or just to have a physical copy of it. A lot of people download off those sites purely because they don't want to waste the $10 it costs to see it in the theatres if it turns out to be a horrible movie. A good portion of those people do end up buying the movie though or seeing it in theatres if it ends up being good.

Intelligent people? Long lost in the lawless world.
Morality has nothing to do with it.
Who makes how much profit, is the businessman's call, not the outsider's who takes no risk.
No matter how much you try to justify the illegal taking of someone elses product, it still is stealing.
Free enterprise and the capitalistic system is profit driven.
The opposite is what communism and socialism tried to do. Take from the rich, give to the poor. And they killed incentive, and they killed the economy, until the paper-tiger of socialist-communist governments collapsed. See what happened in the former Soviet controlled parts of East-Central Europe, and anywhere that communism raised its ugly head.
Do you want that here in the USA? Do you want lawlessness like in the old Western days, anarchy and a failed system? Or do you want democracy, freedom, (look it up how Jefferson defined it), including free trade and free economy?
Then don't condone stealing, and don't make lame excuses the likes for which if it would be your kids making them to you, you would be called an abusive parent.

Excuse me, stealing is in ALL states of economy, from controlled economy to market economy. From my knowledge communism could work in a nation where it's economiclly strong. From past experience, communism didn't work in war torn nations, due to power hungry people. I believe a matter like this (with the whole music and movie problem) it will never spawn communism. To steal in such large volume is a problem of a market economy.

As I said before, businesses will take advantage of the situation and it'll spawn new ways to counter ways of downloading illegally. Leave the market as it is, it will deal with it self. For those who download illegally, make use of the time, because, when people find ways to build business in the secuirity of music and movies, it'll be harder.

If you want to be rich, go into technological securities. They will grown alot because record and movie industries will pay big bucks to these guys to stop people from stealing.

This is not stealing. The senario i see used alot is, you walk into a movie store and steal a DVD is that legal then why should P2P sharing be legal for sharing movies. P2P sharing for movies or CD's is more like you asking your freind to borrow a movie then you end up getting rid of it "giving it back". i just borrow episodes 4,5,6 or star wars from my freind and gave them back. is that illegal? no. EX. say I was to download those same episodes from a person who bought them. I watch them then delete them or "give them back" . If some one uses this to make profits for them selves then yes i beleive they should be charged for there actions. And the movie industrys have lost next to nothing with this P2P sharing. They just add up the total sum of tracked downloads and uploads of there movies and estimate. which is way way off. Its the future people get with it.

I don't think P2P sharing is an offence. As a coin has two faces, everything has advantages and disadvantages. I knew downloading such copies of movies, games, softwares, etcetera are illegal. But can't we use it for good purposes.

I don't know whether FBI did right or wrong by shutting that website.

What will happen if they are allowing download of Star Wars Ep III to some people who wish to watch it in their PCs. They are giving them free of cost because they are friends of people.

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Excuse ME, but with all due respect, which is none to RIAA 'lamers' is it?; I will now rehash my oft-stated position with regard to file sharing. Be it software, music, movies, or other files. I also am on the side of the law, and endeavor to be honest in all things, not -unless I think I can get away with something, as is the case with many. Whether sharing copyrighted works is wrong, I don't believe so; ever heard of fair use? Of course you have -anyhow, music and movies are broadcast either freely (paid for by advertisers) or by cable networks (consumer pays). Thus to view or listen to the media has been paid for and the recipient is entitled to do so, and also to make a recording if he chooses to and share with friends. Nothing has been taken or stolen, and no harm done to anyone, except maybe by the content itself. If people copy a hired movie, then so what? Everyone except the end user has already profited from that copy, who then pays for the hire.

With software, if people don't want it shared around, then don't make it available and encourage people to share it in the first place. But that's the shareware concept. If people choose to take control of their own PCs by extending it's crippled life, rather than let every piece of software junk do so, which only allows the user to use his own PC for it's intended purpose, then that's his free choice.

I don't condone actual pirating, but is it really done for profit? In countries where people have no money, is a 60 cent professionally finished pirated copy really profitable? And who ever got rich by honesty? Did all you multi-billionaires in media industries get rich from honest dealings? Or did it happen through ceaseless greed, ripoffs, outright theft, lying, deception, fraud, money-laundering, tax evasion (which is theft), and all the rest of the immoral and illegal acts that you call "resourcefulness", and now most hypocritically cry foul???

Your propaganda war falls on deaf ears by many, even entire civilized nations, as well as many authorities. You hope to harm the consciences of honest people. Well I am not one bit bothered by your propaganda, and there's millions of others who don't care as much as me, not to mention many more millions who actively oppose you, many of whom couldn't care less about the law and honesty anyhow.

I'm sure however, that a great many file sharers consider themselves honest, but how many have you scared off or affected the consciences of? Not many, considering the explosion of file sharing in recent times. You do give it a lot of publicity though, which adds to it's popularity due to the curiosity of non-users.
There are various opinions too about your relationship with THE media. The latest one being about all the large entertainment and media corporations being headed by Jews. We won't mention the sexual prefererences which they are known for either.

If now some consumer group demanded that you desist from your involvement in the entertainment industry because it is rife with corruption, and thus you are implicated in illegal activities, would you concur, or continue regardless? No doubt you would do the latter, and probably either totally ignore, or lash back in some way. Well, you're not going to win, because although you have the wealth and influence, the people have the numbers far exceeding yours, and we control you through buying choice. Also time will run out on you.

Many people including myself, have stopped buying CDs due to unavailability, controlled mindless unmusical content, low quality copy protected trojan crap, and your insistence on greedy over-pricing. Don't tell people they're cheap, when many have nothing, or are on welfare where one lousey CD would amount to over 15% of their weekly income. Don't hit on this statement as being an excuse for 'theft' either. It's just a genuine part of the file-sharing reasoning.

As for movies, people are buying less now because their collections are up-to-date, you make less and less good movies which you charge the earth for, they already have cable which they can record from (BTW you also market all the recording equipment you hypocrites), people are diversifying their activities, getting more involved in real living, and are put off of you by your "legal" threats and your referring to ordinary consumers as thieves, at the start of every movie.

Come out of fantasy land, we all know who are the REAL thieves and criminals here.

Just wanted to add that I didn't mean to come in so late, but I just came across this on Google, and this stuff really gripes me. Also I agree with Piro who said that people are downloading small sized movies which generally are of poor quality, (and neither will they normally play on DVD players), and most are leeching anyway, so they will never share it, and probably not even with friends or family, as people like to watch movies on their TV, not their PC. These are usually camcorder2theater screen types, as most people can't afford to DL too many larger sized movies (700Mb or more), and it would be uneconomical and not worth it. Anyway, I would would have thought the FBI/RIAA type mentalities would give those kind the knowing nod, the sly wink, as it can generate the kind of publicity they are known for. That is, people can preview a poor quality sampling of the product, and may then decide to buy if they like it. A free advertising campaign! I know I'd buy some of the ones I've seen if I had opportunity and they were a reasonable price, or copy a hired copy/copy a shared hire. One further thing about pricing, even if money were no object to me I wouldn't pay their over-inflated price on principle. And how many entertainment industry moguls buy their own product? Don't they get them free, or for favours/payola? How many DJs have paid for their huge music collections, which are bigger than mine ever will be, or than I would ever want?