Feds arrest man for sharing DVD rip of Spider-Man movie with millions online(arstechnica.com)
30 pointsby ndsipa_pomu20 hours ago10 comments
  • LeoPanthera19 hours ago
    If you only read the headline you'll miss critical information:

    > A 37-year-old Tennessee man was arrested Thursday, accused of stealing Blu-rays and DVDs from a manufacturing and distribution company used by major movie studios and sharing them online before the movies' scheduled release dates.

  • BearOso19 hours ago
    > The DOJ claimed that "copies of Spider-Man: No Way Home were downloaded tens of millions of times, with an estimated loss to the copyright owner of tens of millions of dollars."

    Except those weren't prospective buyers--they were downloads, which don't have a direct 1-1 mapping. On top of that, you can only infer they were people who thought the movie was worth downloading if it was free, not that they would have purchased it at the retail price. Who's to say it wasn't downloading for convenience, i.e. to use on a plane or something, and the person hadn't already bought a license another way? The total loss was probably 10s of thousands at the most.

    • wakawaka2814 hours ago
      Did you miss the fact that he stole the movie before it was released from the DVD publisher?

      There's not a 1-1 relationship between DVD buyers and pirates but some people just want to watch the movie or save it for posterity, and don't care what format it's in. There is definitely a cost to piracy. But nobody knows exactly what that cost is.

      Wanna know what's really stupid? Some people pay $20 or more to rent or buy a digital copy of a movie through a service that can pull the content any time. Compared to that, the hard copy is a fantastic value.

  • croes20 hours ago
    > bypassing encryption that prevents unauthorized copying

    That statement is obviously wrong

    • geor9e19 hours ago
      Most English sentences can be read in different ways with different meanings, so one must always gage the probability that the author is rational and intended that meaning

      probably no: (successfully) prevents (all) unauthorized copying

      probably yes: (exists to) prevent (at least one instance of) unauthorized copying

    • readyplayernull19 hours ago
      Meanwhile encryption itself will become illegal, unless it can be backdoored.
    • conradev20 hours ago
      Why? Aren’t Blu-ray discs encrypted?
      • necovek19 hours ago
        Did it prevent unauthorized copying?

        (Not sure if OP referred to that though)

        • croes18 hours ago
          Exactly, the encryption didn’t prevent unauthorized copies.
      • Volundr19 hours ago
        Even DVDs are. It's just been broken for years.
  • kelseyfrog20 hours ago
    Using state violence to enforce intellectual property is morally bankrupt. Reserve that hammer for pastors who prey on kids.
    • ameister1420 hours ago
      Using state violence to protect property is literally one of the main reasons for having a state at all.
      • aydyn20 hours ago
        Intellectual property is not property, its a misnomer. A bluray disk is property. Do you own it or no?
        • gruez18 hours ago
          >Intellectual property is not property

          Look up the definition of "property". You'll find that it says nothing about it needing to be tangible. It literally just means "something that can be owned".

          • aydyn18 hours ago
            Then do you own your bluray or no?
            • oniony17 hours ago
              You don't own the bluray you stole from your employer.
              • aydyn13 hours ago
                Lets say hypothetically you bought it from BestBuy. You own it or not?
                • oniony2 hours ago
                  You own the physical disc, but I would imagine the content is licensed.
        • LeoPanthera19 hours ago
          He was stealing the discs. Those are actual property.
          • aydyn18 hours ago
            I am disputing the point about intellectual property.
        • ameister1419 hours ago
          He stole those too
        • 19 hours ago
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      • kelseyfrog18 hours ago
        False. It's to protect citizens first and personal property second. Private property is invalid and a legal construction and assumes the personhood of corporations. It's this false equivalency that gives these orgs power over us. Our legal system should prioritize actual people. Anything else is morally bankrupt. A lot of people get mad because hearing the truth hurts.
        • tzs18 hours ago
          > Private property is invalid and a legal construction and assumes the personhood of corporations

          Interesting claim considering that private property predates corporations by centuries.

          • kelseyfrog14 hours ago
            I simply don't care. If private property was a natural right we wouldn't need it artificially supported by governments.
            • lostmsu9 hours ago
              Like citizen rights?
              • kelseyfrog8 hours ago
                No. Like intellectual property rights. I don't do gotchas. I have no obligation to be held to someone else's idea of consistency.
        • 18 hours ago
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      • timewizard20 hours ago
        To protect real property. Violations of copyright should be strictly civil issues. Why are the people who arrest murderers and vandals involved in this?
        • floydnoel19 hours ago
          they don’t really worry about murderers nor vandals
        • jebarker19 hours ago
          I honestly don't see why the cops should arrest someone that burgles an office building (say of a film producer) and not someone that gives away the content they paid to make for free. In what way is it different?
          • timewizard19 hours ago
            If I take your property you cannot have it or use it.

            If I copy your content you still have it.

            It's not an exigent issue that requires officers with guns to solve.

            • jebarker19 hours ago
              Ah, yes, that's a good argument for property definition. I agree that it seems excessive to use armed force to enforce this, I was more questioning how to differentiate the two situations in law so cops don't have to exercise that judgement.
    • kyrra20 hours ago
      All adults in a position of power over kids can do this. Many children are abused by teachers as well.

      https://www.pennlive.com/news/erry-2018/05/5e56fa19a94444/ch...

      • EA-316720 hours ago
        While true, most groups of adults with power over children don't have a wealthy, trans-national organization that spent decades shuffling them around, hiding their crimes, and silencing victims.
        • sdsd20 hours ago
          If you read the article in the comment you're replying to, the whole point is that despite having a wealthy, transnational organization, the Catholic church is not an outlier, and in fact, abuse is higher in many orgs that don't do the things you describe (eg, evangelical churches, sports, and school).
          • EA-316719 hours ago
            I did read the article, but the obvious rebuttal is that "abuse is higher" really translates as "abuse is more frequently reported, confirmed and punished." It's not shocking that an organization which has dedicated a vast amount of time, effort and money to hiding its misdeeds has... hidden some of its misdeeds.
    • pipes19 hours ago
      Do you see any potential down sides f the state decided not to protect intellectual property?
      • 18 hours ago
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      • ForTheKidz19 hours ago
        Large swathes of the US economy are based on holding and licensing IP. Why would anyone subscribe to Disney+ if they could get the same service for $1 a month from anyone?
      • kelseyfrog18 hours ago
        We would return to normalcy. That makes some people angry.
        • 18 hours ago
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    • tiahura20 hours ago
      don't do the crime if you can't do the time

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sHA7Uuz4oY

    • varelse20 hours ago
      [dead]
    • ranger_danger20 hours ago
      You're not wrong, but I would say this is a little bit more than just IP theft, as these charges are technically criminal in nature. Physical theft and fraud, bypassing encryption explicitly for unauthorized copying (regardless of what it was), etc.
      • fibers20 hours ago
        that logic can be applied broadly to the unbelievable amount of ip theft that LLMs train on
        • ranger_danger19 hours ago
          I'm pretty sure courts have already ruled that to be fair use, and either way I don't think it's appropriate to compare the two like that, I consider it a false equivalency.
  • markus_zhang20 hours ago
    Shouldn't do that without enough protection.
  • ranger_danger20 hours ago
    Worth nothing that this wasn't some teenager who casually downloaded a movie and left it seeding overnight. They were stealing DVDs from the factory and ripping those, even selling them for profit, and people found enough evidence left behind to even get him arrested in the first place for it... so monumental levels of stupidity and provable intent are here.
    • qwerty45612719 hours ago
      Nevertheless this seems a waste of resources for the feds to bust as long as there are many really dangerous criminals, doesn't it? Gangs terrorize the streets, corrupt politicians ruin the economy, foreign nation states operate huge covert operation networks but the feds rather hunt DVD rippers LOL
      • LexGray16 hours ago
        If every book, video, and painting is ripped off and shared for free why would any sane person pay? Of course the feds are going to act to defend the big budget spectacles which distract us from the corrupt clown show that is our world.
      • ranger_danger13 hours ago
        Why are chefs baking bread? There's buildings to construct.
      • 17 hours ago
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    • joshuamcginnis20 hours ago
      And he was doing it for movies that hadn't even been released yet.
  • catlikesshrimp20 hours ago
    I am more interested in the malware by russians distributed instead or along the movie rip than in the movie.
    • redrove20 hours ago
      An MKV file is virtually safe for all intents and purposes.

      Sure there could be some kind of vuln in the media player you’re using to open it and it could contain a payload but there’s so many media player and OS combinations that this becomes extremely unlikely. I have never heard of this happening.

      • progbits20 hours ago
        Aren't most media players (by market share) just wrapper around, most often out of date, libffmpeg? Famously a huge pile of old C/assembly? I'm not shitting on ffmpeg, it's a great project but let's call it what it is.

        "Virtually safe" is nowhere near accurate.

        • vagrantJin19 hours ago
          Haha, you are most certainly shitting on ffmpeg, however politely you might go about it.
          • progbits18 hours ago
            I meant it like: it's the best we got, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.
    • HPsquared20 hours ago
      Official media is more likely to come with malware. Sony rootkits being one infamous example. Or, depending on perspective, all the "telemetry" and advertising built-in to Windows these days.
  • rad_gruchalski20 hours ago
    Poor man, oppressed by the rich of Hollywood. Maybe Carlson interviews and Trump pardons him. /s
  • ndsipa_pomu20 hours ago
    This does raise the question of whether Meta (and others) will face any fines for training AI on copyrighted books etc.
    • zamadatix19 hours ago
      This is about a guy stealing pre-release media with the intent to sell it and then distribute exact copies prior to release. I wouldn't extrapolate too far what that means in regards to the AI training story just because both involve movies as, even if it were considered the same type of copying, the rest of the situation is very different.
    • CursedSilicon20 hours ago
      Corporations facing meaningful consequences for their actions? That'll be the day
    • 19 hours ago
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    • varelse20 hours ago
      [dead]