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DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

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Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#101

Post by zevyoura »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #84
saganus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah. Good point. This is under the DMCA act? I guess the problem then becomes defining what exactly constitutes a tool that aids in infringement. A debugger is potentially a tool that can be used to circumvent copyright (let's say, by means of bypassing a very weak protection scheme). But it's obviously not only for this case, so you might argue that if the tool's sole purpose is to circumvent copyright it would have…

(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that— (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; (B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumve…

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the section you're quoting is about breaking DRM, which PopcornTime does not do.

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#102

Post by akerl_ »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #85
tinalumfoil wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Big Difference between Popcorn Time and Chrome or Bit torrent is that while Chrome and Bit torrent are can be made to do illegal things such as pirate movies, Popcorn Time is explicitly made with the intention of illegally pirating movies. The screenshots provided basically show that Popcorn Time is not just an app for legally playing content. It would be very difficult to argue to a judge "This app was not desig…

> From the DMCA DMCA 1201 has nothing to do with Popcorn Time. That covers DRM circumvention (and should be repealed). The theory of liability for Popcorn Time is under the Grokster ruling, if the authors are inducing copyright infringement by promoting the tool for that purpose. The notice and takedown provision is DMCA 512, which is a safe harbor for hosts like Github. It says (roughly) that you aren't liable for c…

Safe Harbor doesn't give GitHub the authority to decide whether the notice would hold up in court; they need to comply with properly formatted notices if they want to keep their safe harbor status

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#103

Post by rhino369 »

cheald wrote: post #53

It's sad that there isn't a studio exec out there who can make the leap to realize that there is a impedance mismatch in the market that they can capitalize on. Netflix resoundingly proved that there is an appetite for streaming movies and TV, and the studios' response has been to...withhold content, and when they do license it, to do so at enormously exorbitant rates. Do they actually think that if they just make it…

Netflix doesn't have enough revenue (and never will at current pricing) to create the vast amount of content it has access to.

It has so far relied on content creators treating their IP as essentially "used up" after it aired and was released on DVD. Netflix wasn't seen as a competitor but as another was to price discriminate to wring out the last drops of revenue.

But now Netflix is starting to cannibalize TV views, cable subscriptions, and DVD sales. As the revenue from traditional sources decreases either 1) nobody will make expensive content or 2) Netflix will have to pay more to make up for it.

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#104

Post by rhino369 »

cheald wrote: post #91
MyDogHasFleas wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only on-point comment so far. At some level both these apps are big time enablers of copyright infringement. Maybe you don't think that's a bad thing and all copyright laws should be gutted, or maybe you want to play lawyer or (worse) make analogies. That is totally not the point here. The point is, what some view as copyright infringement, others view as unsatisfied demand. Music has already crossed the…

> a big budget movie has to make back its gigantic capital investment, and each unit of consumption has to pay its share. I don't dispute that, but a the marginal cost of a digital copy is electricity + bandwidth, where as a physical copy costs materials, manufacturing labor, shipping and distribution costs, and because you can't print a physical DVD on-demand, you have to cover unsold inventory, which requires an ad…

Video content already price discriminates similar to how Valve uses sales to sell games.

At release: Movies are 12 bucks a person a view at the theatre. Games cost 60 bucks.

After a while: You can rent a movie for 4 bucks or buy it for 15 bucks on DVD. Games cost 30 bucks.

Year + later: It's on HBO, cable, network TV or netflix. Games cost 5-10 bucks ON SALE!

Maybe movies could be sold for super cheap after a year, but for the most part there isn't much interest in the movie.

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#105

Post by e12e »

akerl_ wrote: post #102
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the DMCA DMCA 1201 has nothing to do with Popcorn Time. That covers DRM circumvention (and should be repealed). The theory of liability for Popcorn Time is under the Grokster ruling, if the authors are inducing copyright infringement by promoting the tool for that purpose. The notice and takedown provision is DMCA 512, which is a safe harbor for hosts like Github. It says (roughly) that you aren't liable for c…

Safe Harbor doesn't give GitHub the authority to decide whether the notice would hold up in court; they need to comply with properly formatted notices if they want to keep their safe harbor status

Is it really that draconian? So, if I find a blog post on github pages that I don't like, I'll just submit a completely bogus claim of copyright infringement, and it'll be gone? (I realize that fraudulent DMCA takedown notices are supposedly illegal, in order to "prevent" such abuse).

As implied by other comments, this is clearly not a valid notice: it would either have to be a claim that the code itself was infringing, or that it constitutes a DRM circumvention tool (like DeCSS). Neither is the case here, as far as I can tell.

In any case, if this software is illegal under the DMCA, so would the "cp" command be -- as it can be used to make copies of copyrighted contents (note that neither tool circumvents DRM).

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#106

Post by e12e »

darkarmani wrote: post #79
eli wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools designed to circumvent copyright are illegal too.

You mean circumvent access controls to copyrighted material. I'm not sure this circumvents access controls, does it?

> I'm not sure this circumvents access controls, does it?

Not at all. It allows searching third party apis (including google) for torrents and subtitles, and allow watching media from a torrent.

An argument could be made that it facilitates copyright infringement -- but that is different from circumvention (that'd be stuff like DeCSS).

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#107

Post by e12e »

buro9 wrote: post #35
nvk wrote: post #24

And it's back http://blog.popcorn-time.se/

Is that real? On the main domain: http://popcorn-time.se/ > Our user's safety comes first!! Therefore we added a free Built-in VPN so you can use Popcorn Time ANONYMOUSLY! Have they really built in a VPN? How would one know it is operating? Does the VPN re-route all traffic? If so, how isn't that malware?

> Have they really built in a VPN?

Look at the source?

> How would one know it is operating?

Look at the source, and verify by sniffing your own network?

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#108

Post by ObviousScience »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #94
vlunkr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a similar to gun control arguments. Some guns are more for self-defense, or hunting animals, other guns, like assault rifles, are designed for war. The reason I said a DCMA takedown doesn't make sense is because they are usually to take down actual media, like a youtube video, not the source code to a tool. But I think they didn't really have options and wanted it done quickly.

> Yes, it's a similar to gun control arguments. Some guns are more for self-defense, or hunting animals, other guns, like assault rifles, are designed for war. This is actually a surprisingly good analogy. People want to ban "guns that can kill people" but revolvers and hunting rifles are no less capable of killing people than an AR-15, so instead they ban "guns that look scary" regardless that they use the same bull…

"assault rifle" has a particular meaning, and generally specifies that it be capable of multi-round firing on a single trigger pull, which is a useful and meaningful distinction in weapon operation.

I think you're referring to "assault weapon", which was a buzz-word for anything that scared people during the last major gun debate.

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#109

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ObviousScience wrote: post #108
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, it's a similar to gun control arguments. Some guns are more for self-defense, or hunting animals, other guns, like assault rifles, are designed for war. This is actually a surprisingly good analogy. People want to ban "guns that can kill people" but revolvers and hunting rifles are no less capable of killing people than an AR-15, so instead they ban "guns that look scary" regardless that they use the same bull…

"assault rifle" has a particular meaning, and generally specifies that it be capable of multi-round firing on a single trigger pull, which is a useful and meaningful distinction in weapon operation. I think you're referring to "assault weapon", which was a buzz-word for anything that scared people during the last major gun debate.

You're completely right about the definitions (and it's probably not worth getting any further into the gun control debate to argue about whether "multi-round firing" is any more harmful in practice than "pull the trigger more than once").

But it doesn't really change the point; a firearm that isn't an "assault rifle" or an "assault weapon" is still a completely effective killing tool.

There is no way to make a generic tool that can only be used for authorized purposes. The tool has no way to determine what purposes are authorized.

Re: DMCA Takedown Notice for Popcorn Time and Time4Popcorn

#110

Post by ObviousScience »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #109
ObviousScience wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"assault rifle" has a particular meaning, and generally specifies that it be capable of multi-round firing on a single trigger pull, which is a useful and meaningful distinction in weapon operation. I think you're referring to "assault weapon", which was a buzz-word for anything that scared people during the last major gun debate.

You're completely right about the definitions (and it's probably not worth getting any further into the gun control debate to argue about whether "multi-round firing" is any more harmful in practice than "pull the trigger more than once"). But it doesn't really change the point; a firearm that isn't an "assault rifle" or an "assault weapon" is still a completely effective killing tool. There is no way to make a gener…

Oh, I agree with your point.

I just try to correct the language (and complain about it) when I see it used, because people picked "assault weapon" to conflate things that aren't assault rifles with assault rifles. Setting aside merits of the ban, the ban on assault rifles actually targeted a particular technology to ban. We could (in principle, I don't really want to) have a discussion about if that technology makes a difference in the effectiveness of a weapon.

The "assault weapon" ban was just meaningless cosmetic features because people felt scared. I don't necessarily agree with all the gun legislature out there, but if we're going to make it, it should at least be specific and about specific technologies rather than nebulous surface appearance.

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