Somehow I don’t think this is exactly what the RIAA envisioned in regards to an “open arms welcome” by musicians and record labels alike when the Thomas ruling was given. Granted, while music labels are more than perfectly fine charging convicted individuals unconstitutionally large sums of money, more and more of the very core of their entire case, music artists, couldn’t be more disgusted. Yesterday it was Moby calling for the disbandment of the RIAA, today it is Richard Marx has something to say. Now before you start laughing, while Richard Marx doesn’t exactly portray the image of a tech junkie who fights for the digital rights of all, his newly acquired voice is one that is surely welcome. While his voice alone doesn’t hold any legal substance and won’t cause any different outcome in any trial regarding copyright quarrels, what he has to say is enough to make your ears perk up and your attention span hone in on his core message: Suing people enormous amounts of money just to “make an example” is disgusting and stupid and will only push more people to the practice. Of course, Mr. Marx said it in a few more eloquent words…
With all of the hype and media attention (online anyway) surrounding The Pirate Bay’s trial, many individuals and groups had their eyes “opened” to one of the many widespread uses of the internet. Now I’m not talking about piracy specifically, but more about file sharing in general – legal and illegal. It seems that copyright holders and the world’s court systems are trying to increase their death grip on each respective industry they cater to by pushing politicians and local/national governments harder and harder or more laws that benefit the copyright holder. Looking at TPB’s method of indexing, hosting, and indexing illegal content, many copyright holders, music labels, etc. are now starting to look at Google and assume that they do the same thing. Could Google be up on the witness stand next?
In the world of rampant illegal file sharing, merely letting the words “The Pirate Bay”, or “torrent” slip from your mouth will draw attention and spotlights on you faster than you can blink – it doesn’t matter if it is a pro or con torrent statement. Utter the word and you’re a suspect. Pirate Bay as many of you know is in an ongoing lawsuit as to the legality of their operations. They’re accused of facilitating and aiding in mass copyright infringment as well as several other illegal deeds. It comes as no surprise then that they are trying to spread their message (and goods) by reaching out to other groups – Facebook.
Is $20+ too much to spend on a movie? Do you even find yourself questioning buying that $5 golden oldie that is sitting at the bottom of a Best Buy bargin bin? If you a movie monster, own a G1, and don’t mind doing a little pirating, things have just turned in your favor. Introducing BarTor, (formerly ScanTorrent), a torrent app for downloading movies will make the quest for free movies insanely easy. This revolutionary app allows you to scan a movie barcode which then sends the movie information such as title to your computer (which you’ve previously set up to run uTorrent or Vuze) and by the time you get home you’ll have that movie or movies that you scanned while out and about ready to watch. Granted this is highly illegal…but insanely cool. Features of BarTor include:
- Load By URL or Load By File
- KTorrent PHP and HTML Interfaces
- Support for uTorrent and Vuse
- Sort by By Seeds and Leechers (Default) or by Publish Date
- Ability to choose maximum number of Torrent Search results (25 *Default*, 50, 100, 250)
- Failed Submissions retried automatically upon application open and exit
- Purchase opportunities with Barcode Lookup/Long Click result to open Browser
Why can’t legitimate comapnies put something together like this? This is why people pirate. The record labels and movie corps continue to try and resist the digital trend and are years behind and sadly always will be. Leave it to the consumer to truly innovate the market while the big corps take all of the credit. If you have a G1 I suggest you spend the $2.99 on BarTor before it gets taken down. (We all know the MPAA will be all over this in a heartbeat).
Source: Crunch Gear, Wired
