War-driving mp3 thieves
p2p news / p2pnet:- “The Motion Picture Association of America has estimated the film industry loses around $3 billion each year, and the recording industry has estimated that it has lost almost $5 billion annually due to online theft and illegal file-sharing.”
So said Hollywood senator The Honorable (and we quote) Dianne Feinstein, giving testimony at yesterday’s US Senate Judiciary Committee Protecting Copyright and Innovation in a Post-Grokster World hearing.
Here’s how the thefts occur:
Four-man (or woman) hit squads of highly trained war-drivers, faces streaked with cammo-paint and equipped with state-of-the-art gear, prowl the suburbs of Toronto (sorry for missing that, Maeve ; ) New York, London and Paris, communicating with each other via custom-built VoIP headsets with super-cool wrap-around mics similar to those used by Britney Spears and/or Madonna.
One member in each team carries a Bluetooth sniper rifle (#1), one (#2) drives the team van, one (#3) uses his (or her ; ) Wi-Fi laptop, and #4 carries the latest in B&E tools.
Their mission? To steal movie and music files from the hapless record label and movie studio cartels by robbing people who download digital music or movie files.
The teams drive through neighbourhoods, stopping at regular intervals to allow specialists with the Bluetooth sniper rifle and laptops to scan for unguarded Net connections. When one is found, the team plugs in and checks to see if the user is downloading.
If that’s the case, using specially developed technology, they scan their victim’s hard drive to see if any (or all) of the files downloaded are copyrighted by either (or) the owners of the MPAA and/or RIAA.
If they are, #4 carefully and silently breaks in, opening the door to the remaining team members who overpower their victim, stealing his (or her) computer, now holding the illicit downloads.
Returning to their hi-tech HQs in the high-rent districts of New York, London and/or Paris, the war-driving teams remove the HDs and position them in special units holding banks of other hard-drives, also stolen from wicked file sharers who, of course, deserve everything they get.
The HDs simultaneously download the mp3s into Sony holding units which read the incoming files, automatically sorting them into artist / genre categories.
Then blank Sony CDs and DVDs are loaded into Sony Burners which make counterfeit discs to be sold illicitly on street corners and underground markets around the world.
Incidentally, the entertainment cartels have so far supported Feinstein to the tune of $603,660 since 2003.
Don’t trouble to stay tuned.
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NOTE: This isn’t serious! Well, it’s serious in that Feinstein really did say that. But I made everything else, except the money paid to her, up. Honest! So please, no more emails ; )
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
September 29th, 2005 at 8:50 pm
the ironic thing about this is that you can guarantee there’ll be a hollywood film in the next few years with exactly this plot..
i want my points….
September 29th, 2005 at 9:03 pm
its me again (the previous poster)
anyway, what i find absolutely incredible is that anyone believes the “losses” that they make out
“film industry loses around $3 billion each year, and the recording industry has estimated that it has lost almost $5 billion ”
thats an unbelievable amount of punters who dont go to record stores or to the movies – who wouldve gone before ?
do the sums (caveat: i hope i have) – a cd costs say $15, so that means around 33 million albums that “wouldve” been bought by people who download chose not to do so – tosh…
ditto for films – everyone knows that the overwhelming majority of ppl who download films, tv or music would not buy the same or go to the same movies etc if p2p werent there
its just not REALITY
its complete b888888s –
“xyz film is on at the cinema, do you want to go?”
“nah cant be arsed, not that bothered”
bored at 2am…. a torrent of xyz film appears on mininova
“oh sod it, start the download now, i’ll watch it sometime when i’m bored”
ade
September 30th, 2005 at 12:29 am
rofl… you had me for a minute there…. I started to get suspicious at this point:
If they are, #4 carefully and silently breaks in, opening the door to the remaining team members who overpower their victim, stealing his (or her) computer, now holding the illicit downloads.
that had me wondering if there was some sort of typo or something…
Then I read:
The HDs simultaneously download the mp3s into Sony holding units which read the incoming files, automatically sorting them into artist / genre categories.
That almost won me over again although it did seem a ridiculously useless thing to do… but that’s typical **AA behaviour so reaffirmed the story a little…
Then thankfully I proceeded to read the next paragraph which made everything else come into focus!
I can believe that tobacco companies are heavily involved in the black market cigarette trade to avoid various import/export/sales taxes but surely the cartels would have nothing to gain from this?!
Anyway, a masterful parody/lampoon type piece IMHO. But i’ll bet there are guys out there doing this for fun and not for the cartels benefit!
September 30th, 2005 at 3:44 am
amen to that.
before p2p i bought all of the cds i listen too to this day. since then i have accidentally destroyed them all.
buy them all? eff that. thank u internet for lower quality replacements i’ll only lose by mechanical failure, or some freakish magnetic accident, instead of destruction by my own fingers.
as for movies, before p2p, i never payed to see them. i still don’t, i just see them 2 years earlier than i would have before.
besides, i don’t like the fact that people in them make about as much money for one film than i will in 100 years (and thats average actors) just to play pretend. pricks.
September 30th, 2005 at 5:38 am
In the year 2000 sales of CD’s were right around 725 million $ in the US and ever since then the CD sales have been dropping to around 625 million $ yet the Riaa has lost 5 Billion??????? Sounds like Fuzzy Math to me!!!!!!!! Maybe the Riaa should go to work for the government!!!!!
September 30th, 2005 at 8:44 am
Go to hell Beatch!!!!
September 30th, 2005 at 8:26 pm
The RIAA hasn’t lost a nickel. They are an industry trade association for the recording industry. In other words, they are primarily highly paid lawyers commonly called ‘lobbyists.” They are controlled (specific ownership details are unclear, but probably organized as some kind of trust corporation) by the four major recording conglomerates who have delegated certain of their intellectual property rights and benefits to for enforcement purposes. It’s these four conglomerates who are alleging that they have ‘lost’ the dizzying sum of money claimed. Actually, ‘lost’ is a misnomer as it is money they never had. You can’t ‘lose’ something you never had possession of to begin with.
Furthermore, if they did have these staggering ‘losses’, they were never reported to the SEC as an event or circumstance that would materially impact the viability of their business. Recall the huge flap at Kevin Mitnick’s sentencing where Motorola was supposed to have lost over $100,000,000 because Kev copied the source code for their proprietary version of Unix. The Government called this copying ‘theft’ and put the value at $100,000,000 because that’s how much Motorola said it cost to develop the software in question. Yes, no where on it’s financial statements in the years in question did Motorola indicate that they experienced a $100,000,000 loss due to ‘theft’ of their source code.
Now that’s fuzzy math that even beats out George W’s version of fuzzy math.
–TG
September 30th, 2005 at 8:28 pm
Look for the Movie Premier of this exciting action adventure on Easter Weekend in 2006. It will be on BitTorrent on Palm Sunday.
–TG
October 3rd, 2005 at 4:32 am
Wardriving does not involve connecting to any networks you find, which in the U.S.A. is illegal, it is simply the benign act of logging access points.