Category: Life

EliteTorrents is down, and are displaying the following message on their site:

THIS SITE HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY SHUT DOWN BY THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AND U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

Individuals involved in the operation and use of the Elite Torrents network are under investigation for criminal copyright infringement

It is unlawful to reproduce or distribute copyrighted material, such as movies, music, software or games, without authorization – even when done for free over the Internet. Individuals who willfully distribute or download copyrighted material risk criminal prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 2319. First-time offenders convicted of criminal felony copyright laws will face up to five years in federal prison, restitution, forfeiture and a fine.

As usual I find it amusing when the sentence for killing an individual (manslaughter) is lighter than the maximum sentence for someone sharing music/movies. I guess that’s what you get when the music/movie industry pays the person in charge of US copyright laws $200,000.

The Ultra-High Quality WMV idea worked for the EYNTO show. Am now transencoding to XViD; using RAD Video Tools (free!). Those tools also saved me when I found out that the audio for the movie files taken by my digital camera were at the wrong rate, permitting me to transencode to AVI files w/o this audio hurdle.

As far as I’m aware, this is the only program that can convert WMV to XViD as well.

Update: Using VirtualDubMod to process the 2nd processing render for the XViD, as RAD can’t recognize its non-standard (maligned) output of the first. At least I can use it now, as the files are no longer unrecognizeable WMVs, but AVIs. Next up: rendering into MPG for DVD output.

Making a decently edited movie is an arduous process. I spent 3 months making the EYNTO Show. The man behind the BBS Documentary spent 3 years. I invite you all to check his work, and gain an insight into the beginnings of the modern hacking culture.

I spent $50US on the DVD set. He started shipping them out yesterday; as soon as my copy comes in I’ll be posting a review. Meanwhile Infonomicon TV has a sneak peak of the flick in their 3rd episode.

EYNTO UPDATE: I’ve been plagued with rendering problems with every format but WMV; as a last ditch effort I did a direct-DVD-render with Premiere. It failed. So I went into the presets for the WMV renders, and hacked up an ultra-quality WMV. I’m then going to convert that to another format (XViD, DVD).

I found the following commentaries on Slashdot insightful:

My friend once thought the same thing. After explaining why Bit Torrent wasn’t at fault for any of this, I decided to provide a visual demonstration. I asked him for a pencil, I took a pair of pliers, and I broke it in half. He then asked why I broke his pencil, and I told him that the pliers did it, and he should be accusing them. He said that he still didn’t understand, so I produced a pair of scissors and asked for a $100 note. He got the message.

You are still blaming the TOOL for what the PEOPLE do.

Your claim that 99.9% of P2P traffic is totally, irrefutably, undeniably illegal is ignorant, foolish, and asinine. Much like guns can be used for hunting and to commit murder, Bit Torrent is used for taking the load off of people who wish to distribute free content, but have no way to finance it. (After all, distributing free content isn’t a huge moneymaker)

Sure, there are a lot of people who use it to commit copyright infringement, much like there are a lot of people who use a gun to commit murder. That doesn’t mean that they are in the majority, especially not the huge percentage that you listed.

By banning P2P software, all you are doing is hurting those who use it LEGITIMATELY. You are not doing anything to stop those who use it illegally.

Why? Because the people who are actually behind the crime are going to commit the crime using another tool. If guns were banned, people would just use knives to commit murder, but those who hunt with guns will no longer be able to do that. Ban knifes, and people will turn to something else, but chefs will definitely be hurt by it.

Similarly, if Bit Torrent is banned, people will turn to FTP and HTTP. It’s not going to stop. It’s not even going to be HINDERED.

Tools are crafted with a specific purpose in mind, but people find many ways to abuse them or use them in a way that their creator did not intend. I’m sure that whoever invented bricks did not give a thought to people who might clobber someone over the head with them. I’m sure he only thought of how many buildings could be made with them. Similarly, the author of Bit Torrent likely didn’t think that his tool would be headline news after being used by people commiting copyright infringment, and it is not Bit Torrent’s fault that such a thing happened. It is, ultimately, the people who use it wrongly that are to blame, and MPAA is only going after Bit Torrent because, however futile it is, it’s far more easier to place the blame on Bit Torrent.

I think the $10 price of a ticket is starting to dim the “Magic” of movies more than bootlegs…

Why is it whenever anyone talks about wanting to ban guns because of the “dangers” they pose, they get laughed out of the spotlight and everyone says “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. However, when it comes to piracy these idiots seem to be making progress with their message of trying to ban technology.

I’ve just learned that WordPress 1.5.0, the version of the Blog software I use to convey you this message, had some issues correctly rendering RSS feeds. I’ve just updated to v.1.5.1.1, which is supposed to fix this.

Thanks Cypherbit for pointing out the RSS troubles.