US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
1–10 of 306 posts
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#2Here are the direct links to the 3 indictments:
https://torrentfreak.com/images/1-20-cr-00018-US-v-George-Br... https://torrentfreak.com/images/1-20-cr-00018-US-v-Umar-Ahma... https://torrentfreak.com/images/1-20-cr-00018-US-v-Jonatan-C...
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#3Thank you torrent freak for putting the legal documents directly linked at the bottom. I'm not sure why some news outlets don't do this.
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#4Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain?
If anything, they're doing the media companies a service, free viral campaigns. Without pirated content, a lot of people would never hear or care about their movies, TV shows, music. If they can't afford it, they won't buy it anyway.
Microsoft and Adobe seem to have realized this, and now they're making things accessible to most people, so many ex-pirates used to their products are buying them. Not so for the media companies. Why does Netflix USA/UK/etc have different content? Why do games have region locks and ridiculous DRM?
All for the risk of being accused of fraud, causing "massive losses", and prison time. I guess sticking it to the MAFIAA feels nice, but is it worth the risk?
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#5Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain? If anything, they're doing the media companies a service, free viral campaigns. Without pirated content, a lot of people would never hear or care about their movies, TV shows, music. If they can't afford it, they won't buy it anyway. Microsoft and Adobe seem to have realized this, and now they're mak…
A good deal of it is status, like being involved in the most prolific group etc. But also the way "The Scene" works is almost gamified. Groups battle each other to obtain pre-release material and then race each other to disseminate to the sites they affiliate with. If you are first you win the PRE and your releases is the only one accepted by the whole scene. It becomes addictive.
Secondly money is involved, less scrupulous sites run pay to leech servers where people pay for slots and some groups are donated hardware etc for access. Also there are connections to various forms of cyber crime from contacts you can make from being involved.
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#6Here are the direct links to the 3 indictments: https://torrentfreak.com/images/1-20-cr-00018-US-v-George-Br... https://torrentfreak.com/images/1-20-cr-00018-US-v-Umar-Ahma... https://torrentfreak.com/images/1-20-cr-00018-US-v-Jonatan-C...
TorrentFreak messed up, here's the indictment for Umar Ahmad:
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.542945...
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#7Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain? If anything, they're doing the media companies a service, free viral campaigns. Without pirated content, a lot of people would never hear or care about their movies, TV shows, music. If they can't afford it, they won't buy it anyway. Microsoft and Adobe seem to have realized this, and now they're mak…
A good deal of it is status, like being involved in the most prolific group etc. But also the way "The Scene" works is almost gamified. Groups battle each other to obtain pre-release material and then race each other to disseminate to the sites they affiliate with. If you are first you win the PRE and your releases is the only one accepted by the whole scene. It becomes addictive. Secondly money is involved, less scr…
There's likely also the sharing is caring aspect, millions of people really appreciate their efforts - and they're aware of that.
On the flip side some people really doesn't appreciate it, which makes it even more fun I guess (unless you get caught).
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#8Thank you torrent freak for putting the legal documents directly linked at the bottom. I'm not sure why some news outlets don't do this.
Ironic that a site called 'Torrentfreak' is more reliable than most news sources.
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#9Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain? If anything, they're doing the media companies a service, free viral campaigns. Without pirated content, a lot of people would never hear or care about their movies, TV shows, music. If they can't afford it, they won't buy it anyway. Microsoft and Adobe seem to have realized this, and now they're mak…
Yep, the loss to these companies is not the price of the movie. It is not the tens of millions of dollars quoted. If you pirate a movie, the person buying it is rarely someone who would pay full price. I would be surprised if the actual loss was anywhere near the amount it cost to run the investigation.
Also, there really isn't a massive amount of sophistication when it comes to distribution. Most of the media business still feels stuck in the 90s, definitely changing but still "business as usual" (for example, the English Premier League...probably the most valuable sports league in the world, same distribution since inception in the early 90s) thinking whilst the sand is shifting beneath their feet (if you look at the late teen-early twenties demo, much of the media business is already irrelevant). But yeah: spend your time chasing down people for a few hundred thousand bucks, that will work.
Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos
#10Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain? If anything, they're doing the media companies a service, free viral campaigns. Without pirated content, a lot of people would never hear or care about their movies, TV shows, music. If they can't afford it, they won't buy it anyway. Microsoft and Adobe seem to have realized this, and now they're mak…
Yep, the loss to these companies is not the price of the movie. It is not the tens of millions of dollars quoted. If you pirate a movie, the person buying it is rarely someone who would pay full price. I would be surprised if the actual loss was anywhere near the amount it cost to run the investigation. Also, there really isn't a massive amount of sophistication when it comes to distribution. Most of the media busine…
Yeah, you are basically forced to pirate movies if you want it in good streaming quality.
Most of the 4K HDR movies on Netflix are just available as 1080p SDR even with a 4K subscription, to get 4K HDR Atmos quality streaming you gotta pirate them. It's so damn dumb.