Author Topic: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation  (Read 7015 times)

hyorinryu

  • mrgrgr
  • In need of a new sig
1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« on: January 26, 2011, 03:42:20 AM »
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-01-25/funimation-sues-1337-bittorrent-users-over-one-piece

Wonder if this is related to the Fractale incident a while back. That's a rather peculiar number. I'm not sure what good this is going to do though.




Was thinking about posting it in the Winter 2010 article with the Fractale one, but since One Piece is not a new anime, I figured it should have a new topic instead.

*currently under repair*
Puzzle Dragon stuff

Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2011, 03:51:23 AM »
Lawsuit?  More like leetsuit.   :V


*SupremeBogus is shot*

Drake

  • *
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2011, 04:05:33 AM »
* Drake turns on TV, watches episode of anime

* Drake turns on computer, downloads episode of anime, watches, deletes

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

HakureiSM

  • Reimu is all of it
  • I suddenly feel like I ate a crowbar.
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2011, 04:27:41 AM »
Lawsuit?  More like leetsuit.   :V
You know, I actually thought the number was "leet", and thought maybe it's some tracker I don't know about, but then I read the article.
Also huuurr they sued a thousand people that downloaded one episode out of four hundred and eighty one
I'd love to see what happens if they try to sue everyone they find torrenting every One Piece episode ever

Speaking of which
Quote
The suit also notes that users in a BitTorrent "swarm,"
Oh, you mean the "torrent".
[20:45:19] Ciryano: come and behold why they call it the Panzerfaust
[20:45:39] Hakurei Reimu: ... because it shoots once and then you throw it out?
                                                                                   .

Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2011, 05:40:38 AM »
You know, I'm increasingly of the opinion that one of the major reasons piracy happens is because the pirates offer a better service than the legitimate sources (see also: how Valve basically obliterated piracy of their games in Russia*), and the way to beat piracy is to treat them like competitors and, y'know, offer a better service. From that perspective (which is admittedly somewhat Insane Troll Logic from an actual legal standpoint), these guys are basically attempting to sue customers of their competitors for not going to Funimation's "store" instead.

*See, other game-publishers were taking six months MINIMUM to legitimately publish games in Russia. Russian pirates took the intervening time to translate the games into Russian and doing other things that pirates do, and by the time the games legitimately got to Russia, everyone was basically already playing the pirated version. And so the companies were saying "Do we even wanna try? I mean, Russia's full of pirates!" Valve took one look at this situation, and started releasing games in Russia, fully translated into Russian, on the same day as they were releasing everywhere else in the world, and suddenly their problem with piracy in Russia wasn't any worse than anywhere else in the world.

Quad City QBs

  • tumblr, tumblr, in the attic,
  • who is the most problematic?
    • maullarmaullar @ Tumblr
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2011, 06:59:07 AM »
You know, I'm increasingly of the opinion that one of the major reasons piracy happens is because the pirates offer a better service than the legitimate sources (see also: how Valve basically obliterated piracy of their games in Russia*), and the way to beat piracy is to treat them like competitors and, y'know, offer a better service. From that perspective (which is admittedly somewhat Insane Troll Logic from an actual legal standpoint), these guys are basically attempting to sue customers of their competitors for not going to Funimation's "store" instead.

Make no mistake, the piracy problem will be solved, if at all, by market actors like Amazon MP3, Hulu, etc.  But competition is premised on the idea of a level playing field, and it's hard to compete with free.  Imagine two shipping companies, Company A whose trucks obey the speed limit, and Company B whose trucks go around at 90 all the time, and thus can deliver goods faster.  Do you refuse to enforce the speed limit against B, and instead tell A to :dealwithit: and compete harder?

As for suing the end consumer, BT makes every seeder a distributor.  It's asinine, but this is the only way that a legal regime built to deal with identifiable bootleggers and plagiarists can deal with such a decentralized system.  One proposal has been to do away with copyright enforcement on the Internet entirely, and replace it with an Internet tax that would subsidize creators.  But that's a discussion for another day.

Nothing in this post should be construed as legal advice, nor as creating an attorney-client relationship, nor as an advertisement for legal or law-related services.
Art Thread | Writing Thread | Tumblr NSFWAsk.fm

Solais

  • Developer fairy
  • is working for a game developer now.
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2011, 07:08:45 AM »
You know, I'm increasingly of the opinion that one of the major reasons piracy happens is because the pirates offer a better service than the legitimate sources (see also: how Valve basically obliterated piracy of their games in Russia*), and the way to beat piracy is to treat them like competitors and, y'know, offer a better service. From that perspective (which is admittedly somewhat Insane Troll Logic from an actual legal standpoint), these guys are basically attempting to sue customers of their competitors for not going to Funimation's "store" instead.

Yeah, the only problem is, what if the downloaders/pirates where from a country where Funimation is not available, aka, the rest of the world? Is that means that they stole something what was never available to them legally? (I don't download One Piece, but I know well that Funimation is not available here.)

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2011, 12:51:54 PM »
You know, I'm increasingly of the opinion that one of the major reasons piracy happens is because the pirates offer a better service than the legitimate sources (see also: how Valve basically obliterated piracy of their games in Russia*), and the way to beat piracy is to treat them like competitors and, y'know, offer a better service.

This is a pretty prevalent idea, actually, and I think a valid one. The way tech is now when compared to what official sources offer is comparable to everyone using CDs when labels insist on selling cassettes.

I don't think piracy will ever be fully eliminated. People are always gonna want free stuff. But I think the more official sources catch up with the medium that consumers actually use, the further piracy will reduce.

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

helvetica

  • Arcade Maid
  • *
  • United Federation
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #8 on: January 26, 2011, 02:11:32 PM »
As for suing the end consumer, BT makes every seeder a distributor.  It's asinine, but this is the only way that a legal regime built to deal with identifiable bootleggers and plagiarists can deal with such a decentralized system.  One proposal has been to do away with copyright enforcement on the Internet entirely, and replace it with an Internet tax that would subsidize creators.  But that's a discussion for another day.
Except it doesn't stop them.  We have a media tax on recordable CDs labelled for music use meant to cover copying CDs, and in Canada they have a media tax on almost everything that is purpose built for digital media playback for that exact reason.  But they still piss and moan and try to sue people for "piracy".  On that hand though, I think until a pay structure that can be developed to reimburst content creators outside of direct sales numbers comes out, any sort of proposal that allows or otherwise legitimizes free and open downloading of copyrighted content is stupid. 

I myself personally think if it's worth the time for you to listen/watch/consume it then it's worth enough for you to pay for it.  In the case of anime a lot of shows I literally can't consume.  If it's licensed I will seek the local releases to support localization efforts.  Unlicensed stuff is a grey area but I don't really fault people who do get fansubs.  I bought the R2s for unlicensed shows I really really REALLY liked, but they're otherwise useless to me and more for sentimental value.  In the case of domestic TV shows, I already pay for DirecTV and I don't have a Nielsen Box in my house so the difference in revenue between me watching it when it airs and me downloading it is absolutely zero, so I have no qualms with people who do that.

Game piracy is really the only piracy I can't excuse, period.  You can claim "backups" or "region locks" all you want but there are alternatives that you can do that don't involve you downloading Gears of Halo 1235346 from Bittorrent.  I wholeheartedly support modding for that purpose mind you, as game hardware is oftentimes flimsy and I can see the argument to help reduce wear and tear, but get real, you downloading an ISO off of PirateBay is not "fair use".

On this note there's no real excuse in this case.  It's just a bunch of kiddies who want their crap for free.  One Piece is licensed by a local distributor and is very very easy to obtain.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2011, 02:15:26 PM by ♪ Trans-Siberian Orchestra ♫ »


Twitter: @hipsterfont | Discord: helvetica#0573 | LINE: hipsterfont

He thought that on that same day he was to take the city of Priam, but he little knew what was in the mind of Jove, who had many another hard-fought fight in store alike for Danaans and Trojans."


Quad City QBs

  • tumblr, tumblr, in the attic,
  • who is the most problematic?
    • maullarmaullar @ Tumblr
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #9 on: January 26, 2011, 04:22:45 PM »
Except it doesn't stop them.  We have a media tax on recordable CDs labelled for music use meant to cover copying CDs, and in Canada they have a media tax on almost everything that is purpose built for digital media playback for that exact reason.  But they still piss and moan and try to sue people for "piracy".  On that hand though, I think until a pay structure that can be developed to reimburst content creators outside of direct sales numbers comes out, any sort of proposal that allows or otherwise legitimizes free and open downloading of copyrighted content is stupid. 

I think the proposal here is distinguishable in that it's not a levy on the media product itself, but Internet in general.  It's a cost-spreading scheme, and a recognition of the fact that much of the value of the Internet comes from the remix culture and, well, downloading free stuff.

Of course, the problem--like most cost-spreading schemes--is that you essentially punish people for not downloading.  So obviously there's a network capacity issue, and you need to have the compensation structure in place.  Most problematically, if this idea ends up not working, it's very difficult to go back.  The proposal is mainly academic to be sure, but I thought it would be interesting to note in light of the discussion about how the Internet is affecting IP norms.

Quote
I myself personally think if it's worth the time for you to listen/watch/consume it then it's worth enough for you to pay for it.  In the case of anime a lot of shows I literally can't consume.  If it's licensed I will seek the local releases to support localization efforts.  Unlicensed stuff is a grey area but I don't really fault people who do get fansubs.  I bought the R2s for unlicensed shows I really really REALLY liked, but they're otherwise useless to me and more for sentimental value.  In the case of domestic TV shows, I already pay for DirecTV and I don't have a Nielsen Box in my house so the difference in revenue between me watching it when it airs and me downloading it is absolutely zero, so I have no qualms with people who do that.

What rightsholders have lost sight of, I think, is that copyright has always been about incentivizing creation.  Where the only market harmed is a market that the rightsholder cannot or will not exploit for himself, I don't necessarily see a moral issue.  Legally, however, the courts have been willing to credit speculative future uses in finding market harm.  In Castle Rock v. Carol Publishing, the Second Circuit found that making a Seinfeld trivia book was an infringement because it hurt the producer's prospective market in Seinfeld trivia books, never mind that Castle Rock had no actual plans to publish one.  In short, the cornerstone of copyright is some monopoly on the part of the creator, but right now that monopoly is being extended to any use* of the work, anywhere, and that's more monopoly power than is probably needed to keep the creator going.

* Subject, of course, to fair use and some other rather cabined exceptions.

Nothing in this post should be construed as legal advice, nor as creating an attorney-client relationship, nor as an advertisement for legal or law-related services.
Art Thread | Writing Thread | Tumblr NSFWAsk.fm

helvetica

  • Arcade Maid
  • *
  • United Federation
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #10 on: January 26, 2011, 04:31:49 PM »
Well a lot of the problem is the overinflated value of content.  It's hard to settle for less when you're used to making millions.  And then you have a whole slew of actors and singers who are all used to making hand over fist rather than the median wage they in reality should be making.

Any sort of cost sharing measure won't work until the value of content generated is brought back in line with reality.  It's starting to happen mostly because the barrier to distribution has more or less been shattered (for now at least).  A lot of people are going into self publishing instead of being forced to make millions to pay the ransom the traditional studios charge..  Once prices get down I think then we can seriously negotiate some sort of shared pool (like ASCAP) for other works.


Twitter: @hipsterfont | Discord: helvetica#0573 | LINE: hipsterfont

He thought that on that same day he was to take the city of Priam, but he little knew what was in the mind of Jove, who had many another hard-fought fight in store alike for Danaans and Trojans."


AuNaturel

  • Winter is incoming...
  • Identified Romantic Flyer
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #11 on: January 28, 2011, 12:04:48 AM »
Lawsuit?  More like leetsuit.   :V


*SupremeBogus is shot*

Hahaha!

I wonder if they meant to sue that number of people!
[img width= height=]http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/8426/sig1xu.jpg[/img]

Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #12 on: January 30, 2011, 05:15:13 AM »
Hahaha!

I wonder if they meant to sue that number of people!
I think it's more likely that this result is due to the hackers intentionally forming a group with that number rather than by Funimation's decisions.

Letty Whiterock

Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #13 on: January 31, 2011, 11:08:43 AM »
I think it's more likely that this result is due to the hackers intentionally forming a group with that number rather than by Funimation's decisions.
Knowing what I do of FUNi's marketing department, this was an attention grabber, plain and simple. The lawsuit is definitely real, but the number was most likely deliberately chosen by the company.

There's no way a group of people on the internet would get together, specifically gather 1337 individuals, computers, or otherwise, and download a specific 720p episode of One Piece (the hash code shows that it was released by a group called Yibis, who happens to be pretty popular, getting thousands upon thousands of downloads with each episode) just to get notoriety.

FUNi chose that number to get the story out; otherwise, it would've been just another "oh noes animes got sued" story. Really, this deserves the attention, because I don't think people really understand the state of the industry or that FUNi is not some sort of devil trying to screw the internet out of anime; they were specifically asked by the Japanese companies to which they ultimately answer to start helping crack down on that sort of piracy or lose their distribution licenses.

helvetica

  • Arcade Maid
  • *
  • United Federation
Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #14 on: January 31, 2011, 07:42:27 PM »
Oh I'm definitely on Funi's side here.  They have the US license, there is no excuse to not purchasing the show either from them or from a third party provider like Crunchyroll (ugh) or BOST (I have no clue if One Piece is on these sites, just examples).

There's no moral grey area here like unlicensed shows.


Twitter: @hipsterfont | Discord: helvetica#0573 | LINE: hipsterfont

He thought that on that same day he was to take the city of Priam, but he little knew what was in the mind of Jove, who had many another hard-fought fight in store alike for Danaans and Trojans."


Letty Whiterock

Re: 1337 sued over downloading One Piece by Funimation
« Reply #15 on: February 01, 2011, 04:38:43 AM »
Oh I'm definitely on Funi's side here.  They have the US license, there is no excuse to not purchasing the show either from them or from a third party provider like Crunchyroll (ugh) or BOST (I have no clue if One Piece is on these sites, just examples).

There's no moral grey area here like unlicensed shows.
Apparently, Crunchyroll really improved when it went legit, and the 720p streaming pay service they offer supposedly isn't so bad. Not that I've checked them out myself, but they have Eve no Jikan up there, so I send people that way whenever I recommend it.