Following The Newzbin Whac-A-Mole Game
from the this-is-a-good-way-to-spend-hollywood's-time? dept
I hadn’t been following the story of Newzbin very closely. It was yet another Usenet indexer harassed and shut down by lawsuits from the entertainment industry. At some point, it begins to get tedious to try to follow all of the different sites that Hollywood gives free advertising to by suing, so we just skip over a bunch. However, it is amusing to find out that after Newzbin shut down (due to money issues from fighting the lawsuit), the site reappeared through a convoluted set of circumstances, involving some hackers getting into the old Newzbin system a while back and regularly copying the whole thing, a rent-back leasing arrangement with the domain (which allowed for it to be sold off), and some other random (but shadowy) parties. My guess is that the Hollywood folks aren’t going to believe any of this, and will insist that Newzbin is still being operated by the same folks, but it does seem like yet another example of what a useless game of whac-a-mole the industry keeps playing. It used to be whenever they shut down one such site, another similar one would pop up. These days, it might even be the same exact site. At some point, isn’t it time to realize that going after these sites isn’t stopping anything?
Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, usenet
Companies: newzbin
Comments on “Following The Newzbin Whac-A-Mole Game”
It’s like the pirate bay. They keep on shutting it down and it keeps on coming back up.
RESPONSE.P01
RESPONSE.P02
RESPONSE.P05
RESPONSE.P06
RESPONSE.P09
RESPONSE.P10
RESPONSE.P13
RESPONSE.PAR
NOT ENOUGH FILES TO RECONSTRUCT RESPONSE
“We can move faster than them, and shapeshift” loves it.
Moron in #2
But it’s nice to see that some people here are old enough to understand what alice is. However; it is a 20 year old technology and not scalable enough to handle more advanced queries sent to it.
Bravo, though… I think.
“isn’t it time to realize that going after these sites isn’t stopping anything?” – yes, hollywood should just give their movies away for free and charge $100 for theater tickets to make up for it.
Re: Re:
Do you really think that is the only alternative business plan?
Re: Re: Re:
Little ac has a problem with false dilemmas.
Re: For the love of...
What the…? You’re combining two different images of Hollywood that make no sense. Quite frankly, I’d love it if I could skip a commercial or two that they put in EVERY. LAST. DVD along with a STUPID DAMNED Infringement warning after I’ve played the movie two or three times. But saying that I want a movie for free? BS. I want convenience and ease of use. Currently, how Hollywood is doing their thing is making the pirate’s showing the superior product. Guess where most people go for that ease of use?
I have no doubt that Hollywood would charge an arm and a leg for a movie ticket if they could get away with it. It just so happens that the economics run counter to that.
Furthermore, it’s as if you want Hollywood to continue on the same losing strategy that hasn’t worked for the last 10 years. People continue to take cams into movie theaters, people still copy DVDs even though that technology (and reverse engineering of it) are banned.
Face it, the customer is still doing what they feel is right. Whatever is your opinion is just that, not the reality.
🙂
Re: Re:
Or, you could get into another business. I mean, when it’s all said and done, the governments only going to play Weekend at Bernie’s with your industry for so long. Then you either have to adjust to the reality that it’s no longer as lucrative as it once was or pound sand. It’s not the first time that someones cheese has been moved.
re: hollywood should just give their movies away for free
No
they sould make movies, more movies and make more money from them. Oh, thats what they are doing.
Piracy makes no difference.
It may feel like it should but it does not.
Diversion
These are all just diversionary tactics. Until the true goal, a mandatory world-wide entertainment tax (see e.g. ACTA) is achieved, they have to keep the “OMG pirates will kill us all” fairy-tale in the news. In fact, being able to say “See, we tried everything but to no avail” is an advantage, only strengthening the cause.
Common Sense Wisdom
You know my grandfather only went to school till the third grade but even he made a great point about economics. Something is only worth as much as a man is willing to pay for it. So yes they can throw something out there for an insane price but if no one pays for it then it is not worth that much and they will have to lower their price.
Re: Common Sense Wisdom
…and if free wasnt an alternative, what would they pay?
Re: Re: Common Sense Wisdom
…nothing…they wouldn’t consume it…and that’s (one of) the point(s).
Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.
Re: Re: Re: Common Sense Wisdom
yet reality proves you wrong. they go out of their way to consume it. they will spend hours online just to steal a copy to consume it. they will pay to rent it or see it in a theater if they need to. they only go free because it is there. remove free, do they stop consuming, or do they enjoy the product enough to change their spending habits to fill their desire for the products? history shows that they will pay for it if they have to.
Re: Re: Re:2 Common Sense Wisdom
How do you remove the free option? Isn’t that impossible at this point?
Re: Re: Re:2 Common Sense Wisdom
no, reality does not prove that idea wrong.
reality is that i will spend my money at a theater if i feel the movie is worth it (which few are these days).
I will spend money on the DVD if i like the movie at all.
I do not want to spend money on a movie that forces me to sit through 15 ads, two federal warnings and three interpol warnings each saying the same exact thing but in a different language with none of them given the ability to be skipped over every single time i want to watch a move.
my reality disproves your statement.
what history actually PROVES is that the majority of people will pay for it if you give them a compelling reason to pay for it and there will always be criminal activity by a minority in order to avoid paying for anything at all.
any product in any market is only able to sustain itself given two principals.
1) they are staple items you cannot survive without such as food.
2) the market price is commensurate with the determined value. (in other words, no one is going to pay $4000.00 for six ordinary paper plates when you can get 100 of them for $2.00 at any grocery store). Once the perceived value drops to zero for any given product, its only a matter of time until that product is gone and removed from the market place.
How any company stays in business is to find new ways to give added perceived value to its aging product lines.
Re: Re: Re:2 Common Sense Wisdom
Reality – movies come out in movie theaters. Pay X amount of dollars and watch
Reality – Go to a friend’s house, watch movie on big screen on DVD, possibly buying your own. Free? Advertising through Word of Mouth is usually the best.
Reality – Netflix for watching through your computer and your own convenience. Even this is contested because Hollywood didn’t want to play movies through their service. Source here – http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162054151330.htm
Fiction – Every last dollar needs to go to a product in order for the entertainment industry to be profitable.
Rather, people will make smarter decisions about where their money goes and the internet promotes that.
Of course, they could become fans since that’s been the way of TV shows for the last few decades and consume other products. It’s all in how you want to make your reality.
“…history shows that they will pay for it if they have to.”
Stop reading History For Dummies!
Re: Re:
not even history for dummies is that wrong.
must be reading “Everything you need to sound like an MBA without actually knowing anything – an illustrated guide for morons”
@8 Diversion- until we all just unplug
the true way to fight them is to UNPLUG entirely and trade amongst friends off the net
gt a few buds move form city to city hear and there
the cops have a hard enough time with drug movements
AND this ends the solution
YOU CANNOT STOP IT
one idea right off the hop is to stop going after big sites or put that into media
IF YOU DONT ADVERTISE what people are doing fewer find out
and gives you time to adapt price wise, if you’d not have made 30$ CDRS of new music do you think piracy would have got a start when the blank back then was 25cents?
TOO LATE all they can do now is sue and whack a mole
let em spend into non existence and note NONE seem to want to buy up MGM , ya notice that, even GE which owned a huge chunk of universal DUMPED it. THE INDUSTRIES main investments are saying also its bad business and pr to be investing in hollywood anymore.
THE true future will start when copyright is abolished and opensource movies and entrainment rides. WE are decades away yet form it cause first we have to get the worst
NO PUBLIC DOMAIN FOREVER COPYRIGHT
Re: @8 Diversion- until we all just unplug
Uhhh. Thats what we did in the 80s. Lot of gas and long distance charges used.
@12 what proves the above guys form you wrong?
A) i spend 5 secs acquiring the access to gt what i want
B) it takes only as long as my max bandwidth to acquire something and you act like i’m sitting here watch each byte download
C) when downloading im off out there in the world or doing something else, so that BS about go do something else with your life is pure crap.
D) i won’t spend as i haven’t the cash to throw away at 30$ anything let alone a DRM’d anything that could cause my box to be more hackable and or screw me for not affording a net connection ( which i already share in the over priced expensive insane Canadian about to opened to american greedy fucks market )
E)ONLY time in 15 years Ive been to a theater was when i got a free pass form social assistance for being the top interview skills guy. and it made me feel creepy and right poor. 17.07 pop n popcorn ( 1$ off savings WOOT )
and there was two of us watching aliens vs predator
and i with my long hair was being stared at the whole time
WHILE some other kid 30 feet form me ( LAUGHS) was actually cammng the movie ( ILLEGAL THEN IN CANADA )
AND i’m to enjoy this bullshit?
i get a card like that ill throw it in face a whom hands it too me. UM and on consumption ill just goto the 50+ year mvoies tv and music and just wait till im legally able. IF YUO DRM it all in canada OH well ill just have to go without.
ILL be happy won’t i…… you can’t remove free its the ultimate price in capitalism or any market. LINUX is free.
BSD is free. WHY not movies , TV and music.
THEY HAD 1000 kernals guys doing that for free, and still there are over 300-400 doing it freely without any compensation or donations.
HOW many people did it take to make the parody IRON BABY
google it guys its wicked, the guy is getting asked to do something real with that. ONE MAN…..
Ten like him and you got serious doings FOR FREE.
NO history shows us that if you rise prices and take peoples rights away they revolt and hit you in head with a hammer and shove a pitchfork in your ass, or revolt and slaughter a few roman legions and will fight to the last man , because death is preferable to slavery.
P.S. its also why
my grand father fought in kapyong north korea and was one of a few hundred canucks that stopped a 10000 man division of Chinese form over running the front lines.
ITS why we all fought against nazi tyranny in ww2.
AND its why i fight for civil rights and speak my mind on these issues cause there is a wider angle all the time to everything as they all fit like a puzzle to the question:
HOW DO YOU WANT YOUR SOCIETY TO LIVE?
Can someone estimate for me...
Can someone estimate the time and money wasted by ordinary citizens, just from the amount of time spent watching copyright infringement warnings at the begginning of every DVD?
Not to mention the productivity lost in actually trying to work with copyright protected media, and actually getting your software or hardware to play this “protected” media.
It seems like it would far outwiegh the losses to pirating, backup source protection, and “ease of use” applications.
Can you imagine if innovation in distribution techniologies, relied solely on the corporations that control content to implement? We should leave content distribution in the hands of those that use the content, so that they can build a system that works properly for themselves.
Do you really think that those that listen to the music, don’t want the artist to be recompensed for thier efforts? Seeing artist profit from writing great music, creates better music, and better artists. Companies profiting beget bigger companies, who need bigger profits.
The Television and Recording industries are not losing money!!!! They just cant grow as fast as they used to, probably because thier distribution method is flawed.
They want to take thier much needed profits from those that can least afford it, the poor and uneducated, who a $10,000 fine will put into virtual slave labor for years to pay off.
A modern day enslavement, by economic warfare.
Hollywood needs a new business model
Want to compete with P2P Hollywood? It’s simple:
1. Release movies online at or very near release date
2. Charge a reasonable fee based on user selected service
3. Fee options include: watch online, download portable device / apple tv / media player version and download DVD image
4. Embed some form of user ID into media to discourage piracy
If I could download a new movie “legally” for a reasonable fee vs. crappy pirated versions I’d do it but people will take what they can get and obviously, quite a few people reject the movie theater as a primary release vehicle.
The internet is about “instant fulfillment” – the sooner you embrace that fact the sooner you will profit from it. In fact, allow the movie theater chains to handle the internet distribution side of the business and you keep everyone in profit and happy. All you are doing with your current business model is alienating the consumers and ruining your brand image.