Adam Frucci over at Gizmodo has put up a descriptive article concerning private torrents.  Here are some excerpts:

People serious about downloading pirated music, movies, TV shows, software and other media aren’t interested in getting a letter from their ISP or the RIAA/IFPI/MPAA/CRIA. They’re also not interested in getting viruses or fake files, often seeded on public trackers by copyright enforcers looking to make piracy annoying. So they’ve built up hundreds of private sites that only trusted users can access.

A private BitTorrent tracker is a site that you can only gain access to via an invite from a current user. Some of them are very basic, featuring merely a searchable list of torrents people have uploaded. Many feature forums with the trackers for people to announce and discuss files that are available. The most sophisticated feature gigantic databases that organize the files like the greatest online downloading store ever built, but with no checkout.

The RIAA told me that while both public and private trackers are “enormously damaging,” they’ve handed the reigns over to the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) to go after these sites. This is probably because many of these sites are hosted overseas. The IFPI told me that “it focuses resources on the top of the illegal supply chain of music, regardless of whether that is a public tracker, private tracker or other source.”

Read it here.

Disclaimer: Mobile Local Social does not condone downloading, sharing, or trading any copyrighted material that you do not personally own.

It'sa me Ma"aaarrr"io !!!

 According to Kotaku, a man in Australia was ordered to pay 1.3 Million USD by the courts for uploading the first pirated copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Ouch.

Last November, Nintendo says it was able to “employ the use of sophisticated technological forensics” to catch the man, James Burt, who has been convicted of uploading the word’s first pirated copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii onto the Internet .

Burt – a single man, not a company or group – now must pay the Japanese publisher and platform holder AUD$1.5 million (USD$1.3 million), “to compensate Nintendo for the loss of sales revenue caused by the individual’s actions.”

Image courtesy Hubpages most pirated games in 2009 article.

That said, a good argument can be made for “free”.  As I wrote yesterday, since getting rid of cable, I have been exploring the alternative methods of watching TV.  Being that I had a Netflix account, I watched LOST via Netflix’ streaming “Watch Instantly” feature.  And, before long, I was at Best Buy, purchasing seasons 1 through 5 on Blu-Ray.  I didn’t even manage to get to the second season before I liked the show enough to buy it on Blu-Ray.

At the same time, I had decided on the recommendation of a friend to check out Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  It was a spur of the moment type thing and I didn’t feel like waiting the day or so to get a disc in the mail.  So I fired up my browser and downloaded a few episodes.  I put them onto my PS3 and watched them.  The next day, I bought the Blu-Ray set. Did Lucasfilm, Ltd. lose out on any money by my watching the copies that I had downloaded first?  I honestly don’t think so.

Consider that iTunes sells episodes of shows at $1 apiece.  That is a fairly high price to hook a new viewer.  Sight unseen, I probably would not have paid the first dollar.  Moreover, while some shows will give away one episode for free, in the case of serial drama, that’s not nearly enough to really get someone hooked.  The “pusher” model needs a little tweaking.

The picture quality of LOST on Netflix streaming was about on par with the cable broadcast.  The picture quality of The Clone Wars, even though it claimed to be 720p, was about 480p.  Why buy the cow when the milk is free?  In this case, I knew the cow was good even if the milk quality wasn’t.  In the case of LOST, its replay value is fairly high.  The same goes for some of the other serial dramas of the last decade, especially those from FX and HBO.  In the case of The Clone Wars, I fell in love with the art style and wanted to see it better.

There is also a bit of a hassle in getting purchased content to the TV.  As it stands now, I have an XBox and a PS3 connected to the TV.  The XBox won’t play DRM-content from iTunes such as purchased shows.  The PS3 also has its hiccups and, while it does have a browser, it’s a pain to use with just the controllers.  What I’ve found is that the easiest method is simply transferring content from my media server to the consoles via thumb-drive.  It’s especially simple to do on the PS3.  But it needs to be a format that the console can handle.

As it stands now, I’m going the quasi-legal route (quasi because the MPAA and RIAA have stated that they will go after uploaders only, not downloaders).  I will not vouch for the legality or illegality of downloading, nor will I render any opinion on whether it exposes one to civil liability.  From an ease-of-use standpoint though, torrenting TV shows remains easy and, to be honest, a good substitute.  If you have qualms or otherwise feel uneasy about torrenting, that is for you to decide.

Will I torrent regularly?  No.  Will I do it to see if I really like a serial TV show in the knowledge that if I do, I will purchase it?  There’s a good chance.  And yes, I do “leech”, meaning I do not allow uploads from my computer.  It may be somehow undemocratic but I’m the only who will be paying my fines and legal fees.

I’m on the fence about Caprica.  I adored Battlestar Galactica (again, I got hooked after watching four episodes off of Netflix) enough to buy it.  And if I like Caprica, I’ll probably buy it, if only to rewatch it in conjunction with BSG.

So who is losing out by my torrenting the odd handful of shows?  The studios (and by extension, creators) are getting fully compensated by my purchasing it.  It appears that the only one left unpaid is the cable company.

"Porn Piracy is Immoral!!!!!" OMGWTFBBQ!!

by Sylvie Barak

Porn is not immoral, but piracy is, was the firm message being delivered by Adult industry star Ron Jeremy as he spoke to TG Daily in Las Vegas.

Jeremy noted that whilst the Internet was once useful, it is now damaging the industry by allowing people to host free or pirated porn on sites like YouPorn and PornTube.

“People don’t care because they say, ‘ah, well, it’s just porn,’ but piracy is piracy, whether the film is PG, R or X. We deserve respect too,” said Jeremy, clearly unhappy getting ‘screwed over’, so to speak.

“Nobody cares,” lamented Jeremy shaking his head as he decried both the sites that hosted pirated content and those who downloaded it illegally, adding “The future’s not that bright. It will get brighter eventually but we have a big problem with piracy.”

Jeremy went on to lambast internet scammers and streamers alike, singling out Nigerians and Russians as the source of most Internet related woes.

“How many people fall for that? For those letters from Nigerian banks? You have a checkingaccount? You’re rich? You’re still not safe. Someone asks you for the details you probably won’t give it to them but your grandparents, your grandparents might fall for that,” he said, adding “it’s the saddest thing I ever heard.”

“A lot of foreigners, and I won’t mention names, Russians, are coming to America and there are a lot, a lot, a lot of people who know how to use Wi-Fi, Internet, satellite to gather personal information about people and scam or steal. Russian.”

To clear up any misunderstanding, Jeremy added, “I don’t want to sound racist, because I am Russian, or at least my ancestors were Russian.”

But back then, we can only assume there was no Internet in the shtetl for great grandfather Jeremy to download pirated porn.

Curses of this modern day world, indeed.

Sylvie Barak is a good friend and wanted to repost this EPIC article originally posted on TGDaily.