Hollywood Wants BitTorrent Dead

KingFishKingFish
edited April 2006 in Science & Tech
Hollywood movie studios launched new legal action Tuesday against operators of sites that help connect people to movies on three major peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, the Motion Picture Association of America, the main lobbying arm of U.S. film studios, filed civil lawsuits against more than 100 operators of BitTorrent "tracker" servers that point to locations where digital files of movies, music and other content can be found.

The MPAA also targeted operators of servers for the eDonkey and Direct Connect networks. The group's actions include criminal complaints and cease-and-desist orders issued to ISPs on four continents. Acting in cooperation with the MPAA, French law enforcement authorities took related action Monday, and actions by authorities in Finland and the Netherlands followed Tuesday.

BitTorrent, eDonkey and Direct Connect allow millions of internet users to share copies of movies, music, software and games. The services don't host the files themselves; instead, they point users to other users who have the files available for sharing. In BitTorrent's case, users tap tracker sites that keep dynamic lists of where files are stored and available for download. The MPAA is trying to cripple BitTorrent and its peers by suing people who host the tracker servers. Because of its efficiency in helping users handle very large files -- such as digital copies of feature-length films -- BitTorrent has attracted the enmity of Hollywood.
Well this is the big test that BitTorrent will face. We'll see if its totally decentralized way of distribution will hold up or not. This will certainly be interesting to follow and will have great implications for the future of P2P and the crazy lawsuits flying all over the place. -KF

Source: Wired

Comments

  • GobdGobd Seattle, WA
    edited December 2004
    Connect to a torrent and you can easilt get every IP address connected and sue them all. Seems to me it should be easier to stop than other forms of file-sharing. Bittorrent is by far my favourite. I hope with the threat of these suits the next version is encrypted so that it's tougher to catch people. I don't really know how it would work but IP addys would be encrypted as well as the data.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2004
    These things come in waves. One moment they were targetting Kazaa and now Torrents. Im sure they do want it dead but will they be able to stop it? I don't think so...
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2004
    Can't wait until the bittorrent protocol is updated and IPs are masqueraded via SSH or another secure function.
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited December 2004
    how would it be easier to stop than other forms of file sharing? theres no central network that you can take down, no real company to target
  • JimboraeJimborae Newbury, Berks, UK New
    edited December 2004
    Hollywood wants BitTorrent dead?
    Hollywood can go screw itself!
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited December 2004
    Yeah. BT will be much hard to to take down than Napster or Kazaa or any other big site. There are so many smaller behind the scenes BT sites that it will be impossible to shut them all down.
  • JimboraeJimborae Newbury, Berks, UK New
    edited December 2004
    Suprnova is no more! :bawling:
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited December 2004
    Yep. :shakehead
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited December 2004
    Almost EVERY torrent site is gone. Even punktorrents.com, which I figured would be one of the LAST to go, is taken offline until further notice. This is ridiculous.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited December 2004
    Even Tokyo Toshokan (http://www.tokyotosho.com/ an anime torrent website) is down, however, Baka-updates, Animesuki, Boxtorrents, and a.scarywater.net is still up.

    First it was anime.mircx.com, then www.mirkx.com took its place, and http://www.tokyotosho.com/ took mirkx's place. You can take a bittorrent website down, but another will always take its place.

    --EDIT--
    http://www.tokyotosho.com/ is back up now.
  • C-Blossom
    edited April 2006
    It's kind of scary if you ask me. When I went to Tokyo Toshokan, a huge picture appeared of the US seal. Is Tokyo Toshokan really back up? I don't even want to go take a chance. >_< I don't dl anything that is in English. I just dl Japanese things and then buy the DVDs when they come out. *cries* I just want to keep in touch of what they are seeing over in Japan. Is that so bad?
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