Little things that irk you.. (no swearing please)

[Lebowski]

This has been all over the news recently Anton Vickerman got four years in prison for conspiricy to defraud, twice the amount of what he would of got if he had been convicted of copyright infringement. The way Fact and the judge have acted really stink of people abusing there positions in society. what did this guy do then? he had a site that provided links to streams of tv shows. he hosted nothing! surely this makes google guilty too? as if I want to find the latest episode of game of thrones google can get me that for free in 30 seconds with the most basic of searches.

http://www.surfthechannel.com/

Full story on the link above its a long Read but really worth your time, If just to see how Fact conduct themselves I dident realise Fact where a plc either I always assumed they where a government funded anti piracy body.

[noobish hat]

This is dispicable. Is there nothing we can do to destroy FACT? They're a bunch of criminals!

[charlesr]

Obviously his word against theirs, but if you are prepared to take it as fact, it's incredibly, especially the bit about FACT directors having commercial partnerships with a rival company doing exactly the same thing.

[Lebowski]

Obviously his word against theirs, but if you are prepared to take it as fact, it's incredibly, especially the bit about FACT directors having commercial partnerships with a rival company doing exactly the same thing.

A lot of the stuff he talks about is backed up by evidence at the end of the email.

The thing that annoys me about this is if you want to watch a stream of a tv show any search engine can have you up and going in seconds, how is this any different to this guy. likewise YouTube is full of unauthorised copyrighted material surely there size alone makes them far more guilty than this guy.

What's the alternative if I wanted to watch game of thrones season 2 the only legal way to get it in the uk was to subscribe to sky and get sky Atlantic, I'm with virgin so what I have to change tv providers for one show?

Sky's tactics see it removing or blocking channels from other providers like it did with sky one when lost was on. they got there hands slapped and had to let other tv providers have access to sky one, so they created sky Atlantic moved all there shows and started the whole process again.

[JSR]

What's the alternative if I wanted to watch game of thrones season 2 the only legal way to get it in the uk was to subscribe to sky and get sky Atlantic, I'm with virgin so what I have to change tv providers for one show?

Either that, or break the law. Sounds like you prefer the latter.

[randombs]

I read quite a lot of it but skimmed the rest. I also downloaded the rar file and had a ganders.

I do wonder what the point is with a lot of these sites, though. He was talking like he's a hero but he was relying purely on the fact that he's only providing links to stuff. It initially sounded like his site was completely legit but then it reads like it was linking to episodes of programmes. Granted, he apparently wasn't hosting(although that's what they were trying to pin on him) but if it were me I wouldn't bother creating a site like that simply because it'd be so easy to end up like he has.

Even if the judge and others were squeaky clean, these people know bugger-all about technical stuff and that alone makes me think it's just plain risky, even if it was completely legal.

I'm not condoning what FACT did at all but, considering they're the bastards behind that ridiculous DVD intro, I wouldn't want to get on their bad side.

I just googled and found this:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-14/entertainment/sns-201208141527reedbusivarietynvr1118057813-20120814_1_tv-piracy-website-illegal-copies

It's doing what he said - just repeating the stuff without checking.

@Lebowski: I understand what you're saying but Google have their arses covered. FACT managed to convince everyone that he and his cohorts weren't just linking but were uploading videos to sites and then linking to them. Google doesn't upload Simpons episodes to Megavideo so they can get away with it.

It's the reason I don't torrent anything except Linux CDs. I use usenet for stuff(barely touched it since I joined Lovefilm, though) but if I got in trouble for that it's only in one direction(from the server to me), not like I'm sharing the file with others like a torrent.

As for Game of Thrones, you can wait for the DVD or get Sky or just not watch it(like I do), those are your only legal options I think.

[charlesr]

I agree - obviously setting up a site that points at copyrighted content (as well as legit content) is daft because of the difficulty is making people understand that essentially you aren't doing anything wrong, but just making it easy for other people to do naughty stuff.

However, it makes no sense to me that people who run sites that don't host any actual content get sent to prison, whereas Youtube is the biggest illegal "listen to whatever you want right now" jukebox on earth and no action is taken against them. Why was last.fm forced to cut clips to 30s when youtube just carries on regardless? Because it's users uploading the music on youtube? It's just all so completely screwy.

[charlesr]

Youtube has a takedown thing that seems to work with content regularly disappearing due to copyright infringement. Does that mean if these torrent sites had a takedown thing too (maybe they do?) they wouldn't get picked on? piratebay obviously revelled in ignoring takedown requests though

[charlesr]

Here's some great conspiracy stuff a little related: http://www.planetxtube.com/index.php...=1:latest-news

[randombs]

Doesn't YT pay someone something to cover the uploads? Like how certain videos won't play in certain countries? I'm sure there's a bunch of handshaking going on that lets them do it. I guess it's also down to, like you say, their takedown thing. If they're shown to be actively dealing with copyright infringement then maybe they're let off the hook somewhat.

I think their role in copyright infringement has become a lot more interesting since they moved to HD. There's so much music on there that's much better quality simply because it's uploaded as an HD video.

I think the bottom line is this: at what point are the rights holders happy with whatever a particular site is doing? I'm pretty sure they're earning more money from Youtube and its tech than they would from some site some guy made.

Here's some great conspiracy stuff a little related: http://www.planetxtube.com/index.php...=1:latest-news

The Groucho Marx photofit got me

[noobish hat]

I think everybody has pretty much missed the point on this one. Whether the guy is guilty, or if what he was doing is wrong (on any level) is not the issue at all. He could be a serial killer for all I care - I don't want the people in control of the entire process from investigation to sentencing to be the American movie industry, and that includes everybody on their payroll.

[QualityChimp]

Charles, that site is ridiculous.

ridiculous

[randombs]

I think everybody has pretty much missed the point on this one. Whether the guy is guilty, or if what he was doing is wrong (on any level) is not the issue at all. He could be a serial killer for all I care - I don't want the people in control of the entire process from investigation to sentencing to be the American movie industry, and that includes everybody on their payroll.

None of us has missed that point, that was what the whole thing is about.

I was cacking myself reading that stuff, assuming it's true, which is why I said I wouldn't take such a risk.

@QC: Post within a post to emphasise the ridiculousness?

[noobish hat]

The investigation was about copyright infringement, the website is about the fraudulent investigation. To read the story and then go on to discuss copyright infringement, rather than an American funded private profit making company manipulating the British legal system is missing the point so spectacularly it's actually demented.

[averybluemonkey]

Thing is it's not uncommon for the team representing the criminals to skew a very one sided view of an investigation. The same thing happened with a few bankers who'd committed fraud a few years ago (can't remember their names now), and like many people I was up in arms about the American "abuse" of our justice system. Years later I saw the same case in one of Charlie Brooker's shows with a couple of people revealing quite how one sided the portrayal had been and how played I was.

If you're going to go up against multi billion industries in an attempt to heavily damage their business model it's niave to think they'll play fair.

Google and YouTube are completely different to this guy. Those platforms are not there for the purpose of pirating material, companies recognise that a certain degree of abuse is inevitable. In fact YouTube have very stringent anti copyright measures in place and always air on the side of caution. Technically PirateBay and any peer to peer piracy site aren't hosting anything illegal either, but a lot of judges tend to look rather poorly on those attempting to undermine the spirit of the law on grey area technicalities. The sentence seems a little surprising though, maybe they are making an example of him. Did Fact play fair? Who knows. But was he playing fair when he attempted to damage the lifelihoods of people in that industry?