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Grandfather sued by MPAA for $600,000!!!

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Originally posted by: LordSegan
5 billion is not that un reasonable. That is only $18 for every American out there. I am sure their numbers are right, this is a mega-billion dollar a year industry.

But 5 billion or not, that doesnt mean they should go after grampas.

Are you high on crack? You're assuming every American downloads at least 1 movie per year and that they would have otherwise purchased that movie. Riiiight. :roll:
 
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Originally posted by: sixone
Originally posted by: moomoo40moo
I think the mpaa is doing this solely for publicity in order to scare others reading the article to not download. The case will w/o a doubt be tossed.

Absolutely.

That said, anyone who risks this kind of prosecution (or persecution, take your pick) for the person who allows you internet access is inconsiderate, disrespectful, and/or stupid. Anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows what kind of a rampage the RIAA/MPAA are on - causing this kind of grief for your family/friends for the sake of a few minutes entertainment is inexcusable.

It was a fvcking 12 year old.

Yeah, but this one wasn't.

And who lets a 12 y/o have that much time on the net unsupervised? What did they THINK he was doing? 😕
 
Originally posted by: Umberger
"Basically what you are doing when you use peer-to-peer software is you are offering someone else's product that they own to thousands of other people for free, and it's not fair," Bernards said.

Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a year, she said.

$5,400,000,000? I call Shens.

They just don't want to admit that the quality of films in the past several years has gone to sh!t.

For example, my netflix queue is up to 119 items. Only a handful of the movies have been made after 2002.

I used to be a 15 to 20 movies/year kinda guy (not including rentals). Now, i'm a 1 to 2 movies/year guy... OR wait for the movie to play on Starz/HBO guy.
 
Originally posted by: Reck
uh huh. every download is a lost sale. :disgust:

That's nothing more than an assumption. It's basic economics. If I can download a movie for free it does not mean that I would have otherwise paid $18 to buy it or go see it in a theater.

Potentially it was a lost sale but you can't say that for sure. I'd say maybe 25% of them might be lost sales.
 
Originally posted by: Umberger
$5,400,000,000? I call Shens.

Actually that could be a correct figure. But only if you look at it correctly. Her statement was "Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a year" I think it should really say "Piracy costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a year"
Because then you would be able to take into account all of the illegal warehouses in China, Taiwan, ect,. cranking out millions of pirated movie copies and illegaly selling them. Of course the MPAA/RIAA can't prosecute any of these organizations because of international law, mafia connections, ect. So they try to squeeze grandpa and little Sally claiming to the public that they are to blame for the industry's massive losses. Please dear God, find us an awesome lawyer who will be willing to expose this extortion for what it really is!
 
Originally posted by: Dedpuhl
Originally posted by: Umberger
"Basically what you are doing when you use peer-to-peer software is you are offering someone else's product that they own to thousands of other people for free, and it's not fair," Bernards said.

Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a year, she said.

$5,400,000,000? I call Shens.

They just don't want to admit that the quality of films in the past several years has gone to sh!t.

For example, my netflix queue is up to 119 items. Only a handful of the movies have been made after 2002.

I used to be a 15 to 20 movies/year kinda guy (not including rentals). Now, i'm a 1 to 2 movies/year guy... OR wait for the movie to play on Starz/HBO guy.

exactly, if hollywood would put out some good movies, i would go see them. i don't d/l illegally, i just don't go pay ~$20 for my wife and i to watch sh!t. is the mpaa/riaa going to start coming for people that just don't go to movies anymore next? give me a good movie and i will go see it, give me sh!t and i won't give you my $20.
 
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Originally posted by: Reck
uh huh. every download is a lost sale. :disgust:

That's nothing more than an assumption. It's basic economics. If I can download a movie for free it does not mean that I would have otherwise paid $18 to buy it or go see it in a theater.

Potentially it was a lost sale but you can't say that for sure. I'd say maybe 25% of them might be lost sales.


Probably closer to 5%
 
Look, I am NOT defending the RIAA. But its not unreasonable to say that world wide they are losing billions to pirates. I know a lot of people who don't buy any movies anymore because they pirate everything they want to watch. Those people probably cost them $100 a year easily. On average, it doesn't seem totally insane that they lose 5 bil a year.

Sony Pictures Entertainment alone had a revenue of 7+ billion dollars in 2004. Imagine all the studios and industry hog wogs combined.
 
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Look, I am NOT defending the RIAA. But its not unreasonable to say that world wide they are losing billions to pirates. I know a lot of people who don't buy any movies anymore because they pirate everything they want to watch. Those people probably cost them $100 a year easily. On average, it doesn't seem totally insane that they lose 5 bil a year.

so you are saying your friends would go buy the movies?

if ANYONE is losing any money, it is the rental stores. i think people who bootleg movies are the types of people who would watch it once and never again. people who bootleg movies aren't dvd collectors, who want all the extras and crap to watch em all over again. atleast thats what it seems like to me.

but screw it ... i see probably 30 movies or so a year, in the theatre only.
 
Originally posted by: purbeast0
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Look, I am NOT defending the RIAA. But its not unreasonable to say that world wide they are losing billions to pirates. I know a lot of people who don't buy any movies anymore because they pirate everything they want to watch. Those people probably cost them $100 a year easily. On average, it doesn't seem totally insane that they lose 5 bil a year.

so you are saying your friends would go buy the movies?

if ANYONE is losing any money, it is the rental stores. i think people who bootleg movies are the types of people who would watch it once and never again. people who bootleg movies aren't dvd collectors, who want all the extras and crap to watch em all over again. atleast thats what it seems like to me.

but screw it ... i see probably 30 movies or so a year, in the theatre only.

I'm saying yes, I personally know a lot of people who are costing the industry money. People who I know used to spend $30+ a month on videos and CDs and now just download 95% of what they want to consume.
 
Originally posted by: bob4432

exactly, if hollywood would put out some good movies, i would go see them. i don't d/l illegally, i just don't go pay ~$20 for my wife and i to watch sh!t. is the mpaa/riaa going to start coming for people that just don't go to movies anymore next? give me a good movie and i will go see it, give me sh!t and i won't give you my $20.

This argument I don't get... if they're not making good movies, why are people downloading them? 😕

They are still making good movies. Many movies suck, many do not... that's the way it's always been.
 
Pish posh. The only thing that will result in the event that the RIAA/MPAA tries to sue me is that people are going to get killed.
 
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: bob4432

exactly, if hollywood would put out some good movies, i would go see them. i don't d/l illegally, i just don't go pay ~$20 for my wife and i to watch sh!t. is the mpaa/riaa going to start coming for people that just don't go to movies anymore next? give me a good movie and i will go see it, give me sh!t and i won't give you my $20.

This argument I don't get... if they're not making good movies, why are people downloading them? 😕

They are still making good movies. Many movies suck, many do not... that's the way it's always been.

The movies are not good enough to pay for.
 
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Originally posted by: purbeast0
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Look, I am NOT defending the RIAA. But its not unreasonable to say that world wide they are losing billions to pirates. I know a lot of people who don't buy any movies anymore because they pirate everything they want to watch. Those people probably cost them $100 a year easily. On average, it doesn't seem totally insane that they lose 5 bil a year.

so you are saying your friends would go buy the movies?

if ANYONE is losing any money, it is the rental stores. i think people who bootleg movies are the types of people who would watch it once and never again. people who bootleg movies aren't dvd collectors, who want all the extras and crap to watch em all over again. atleast thats what it seems like to me.

but screw it ... i see probably 30 movies or so a year, in the theatre only.

I'm saying yes, I personally know a lot of people who are costing the industry money. People who I know used to spend $30+ a month on videos and CDs and now just download 95% of what they want to consume.

Most of us aren't like your friends fortunately. Last time I saw in the theater was over 3 years ago and I've never bootlegged a movie. If I want to watch a movie I'll catch it on HBO or just buy the DVD if I figure I might watch it more than once or it's on sale.
 
A few things, some of which have already been mentioned:

1. I blame the crap releases of recent years for the MPAA losing money, moreso than piracy

2. If there is a movie I really think is worth seeing, I will see it in the theatre or rent it for the simple fact that most of the leaked copies look like crap. The only ones worth watching are the screeners, which are pretty rare until the movie gets released to DVD.

3. How are they able to prosecute for so much money when if I were to go into a store and shoplift the DVDs, the penalty would probably be far less? Aren't the two scenarios essentially the same to the MPAA?

4. What evidence does the MPAA use to prosecute? IP logs from the ISP that show the file was downloaded?
 
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Originally posted by: purbeast0
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Look, I am NOT defending the RIAA. But its not unreasonable to say that world wide they are losing billions to pirates. I know a lot of people who don't buy any movies anymore because they pirate everything they want to watch. Those people probably cost them $100 a year easily. On average, it doesn't seem totally insane that they lose 5 bil a year.

so you are saying your friends would go buy the movies?

if ANYONE is losing any money, it is the rental stores. i think people who bootleg movies are the types of people who would watch it once and never again. people who bootleg movies aren't dvd collectors, who want all the extras and crap to watch em all over again. atleast thats what it seems like to me.

but screw it ... i see probably 30 movies or so a year, in the theatre only.

I'm saying yes, I personally know a lot of people who are costing the industry money. People who I know used to spend $30+ a month on videos and CDs and now just download 95% of what they want to consume.

Most of us aren't like your friends fortunately. Last time I saw in the theater was over 3 years ago and I've never bootlegged a movie. If I want to watch a movie I'll catch it on HBO or just buy the DVD if I figure I might watch it more than once or it's on sale.


Um, most people around here aren't like you either. Most of my friends go see a movie at least twice a month and at least used to buy CDs pretty often too. Maybe its because I live in LA and am college age? I don't know about you.
 
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Originally posted by: purbeast0
Originally posted by: LordSegan
Look, I am NOT defending the RIAA. But its not unreasonable to say that world wide they are losing billions to pirates. I know a lot of people who don't buy any movies anymore because they pirate everything they want to watch. Those people probably cost them $100 a year easily. On average, it doesn't seem totally insane that they lose 5 bil a year.

so you are saying your friends would go buy the movies?

if ANYONE is losing any money, it is the rental stores. i think people who bootleg movies are the types of people who would watch it once and never again. people who bootleg movies aren't dvd collectors, who want all the extras and crap to watch em all over again. atleast thats what it seems like to me.

but screw it ... i see probably 30 movies or so a year, in the theatre only.

I'm saying yes, I personally know a lot of people who are costing the industry money. People who I know used to spend $30+ a month on videos and CDs and now just download 95% of what they want to consume.

Most of us aren't like your friends fortunately. Last time I saw in the theater was over 3 years ago and I've never bootlegged a movie. If I want to watch a movie I'll catch it on HBO or just buy the DVD if I figure I might watch it more than once or it's on sale.


Ditto here. My wife and I used to hit the movies at LEAST once a month, if not two or three times. In the past 3 or 4 years though, there have only been a handful (like four) of movies that even warranted getting out of the house for, let alone paying $10 a pop.

The simple fact is that movies SUCK now... and if Hollywood wants to truly start profiting again, they need to quit paying hags like Julia Roberts $30M per picture and get some writers to come up with some new material.
 
Originally posted by: Tab
I am not promoting piracy, but $600,000? How did they come up with that? It's outragous.


That is based on the insane laws we have. Sometime like 100k or more per every violation of the copyright act. It's designed to deal with old school VHS crooks who sold 1000s of tapes for profit, but they apply it to individual downloaders these days.
 
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: bob4432

exactly, if hollywood would put out some good movies, i would go see them. i don't d/l illegally, i just don't go pay ~$20 for my wife and i to watch sh!t. is the mpaa/riaa going to start coming for people that just don't go to movies anymore next? give me a good movie and i will go see it, give me sh!t and i won't give you my $20.

This argument I don't get... if they're not making good movies, why are people downloading them? 😕

They are still making good movies. Many movies suck, many do not... that's the way it's always been.

Precisely. People I've known who downloaded movies at least started doing it because they didn't want to drop $20 on a DVD that turned out to suck a$$. Some of them went out and bought the DVD- others decided that it wasn't worth the money.
 
Originally posted by: LordSegan
These people are souless demons who will burn in Hell for a billion years. And the funny this is, I don't even believe in Hell, nor do I illegally download.

But trust me, they are going to burn.

Oh and by these people, I mean th RIAA/MPAA and their lawyers.

But for the record, 5 billion is not that un reasonable. That is only $18 for every American out there. I am sure their numbers are right, this is a mega-billion dollar a year industry.



Those pricks are well on the way to cornering the market in Hell 😉

Ausm
 
Originally posted by: sixone
Originally posted by: moomoo40moo
I think the mpaa is doing this solely for publicity in order to scare others reading the article to not download. The case will w/o a doubt be tossed.

Absolutely.

That said, anyone who risks this kind of prosecution (or persecution, take your pick) for the person who allows you internet access is inconsiderate, disrespectful, and/or stupid. Anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows what kind of a rampage the RIAA/MPAA are on - causing this kind of grief for your family/friends for the sake of a few minutes entertainment is inexcusable.



Sounded like you were describing my sex life as a teenager 😉

Ausm
 
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Originally posted by: Umberger
"Basically what you are doing when you use peer-to-peer software is you are offering someone else's product that they own to thousands of other people for free, and it's not fair," Bernards said.

Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a year, she said.

$5,400,000,000? I call Shens.

That's the thing. They just pull numbers like this out of their asses, the media quotes it, and people read it and go wow...that's a lot of money without ever questioning the validity of that ridiculous number.


yea, they basically destroy their own credibility when they quote such absurd numbers. shows they aren't being the slightest bit rational. its like saying a woman with 10 fake gucci handbags would have bought the 10 real ones instead if faced without a choice. never mind that it would have wiped her annual salary to do so lol🙂

just waiting for the tards to go after librarys. how about if every cd, video, dvd, book checked out were counted as a lost sale? omg the libraries are master criminals!! trillions lost! little children "stealing' stacks of books at time!
 
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