Once again, in trying to answer the question of “Who cares if I was ‘seen’ downloading?  Doesn’t everyone use bittorrent anyway? Why is this illegal?” in the ME2 Productions Lawsuit Q&A article posted last night (this is a difficult question to answer because the answer is ‘yes, everyone does it, but it is still illegal’) I ended up on a tangent which deserved it’s own article, which I posted below.

If you are looking for the juicy conspiratorial content, skip down to the last paragraph after the reference to ‘The boot of government crushes the skull of its citizen’ when it comes to encryption and anonymity, which caused me to come to a jarring conclusion that perhaps it was the plan of our ‘copyright masters’ that all of the adult film bittorent-based cases from 2010-2016 were planned to be a precursor to the growing number of movie cases we are seeing today.

THE EVOLUTION OF PIRACY IN OUR GENERATION

In our modern society (mid-1990’s- ~2020), especially with the younger generation, even we Gen X’ers (born in the 1960’s and 1970’s) found ourselves with “Peer-To-Peer” technology which showed up in our dorm rooms and offices in the mid-1990’s.  File sharing sites such as eDonkey, Morpheus, LimeWire, Grokster, Napster were all names common to the early file sharers, and the ability to share music and pictures was a pretty cool concept (especially for those who remember 300 baud and then 9600 baud modems before DSL, Cablemodem, or even DISH Network was made available to residential ISP customers).  Later, as bittorrent become popular and Napster and Grokster got sued, software platforms that used bittorrent (e.g., uTorrent, Azureus/Vuze, etc.) became more popular.  Sites like The Pirate Bay, KickAssTorrents, and many others who have now shut their doors provided unlicensed copyrighted material to hundreds and thousands of students.

EARLY ON, BITTORRENT WAS NOT MONITORED BY COPYRIGHT HOLDERS

At the time, while downloading copyrighted movies at the time were just as illegal as it is now, nobody had the thought or the desire to monitor the bittorrent networks.  Today with the copyright holders and movie producers throwing out recycled garbage and politically motivated comedies, much of what is out there is junk and many people no longer spend the few dollars or the time to view the movies in the theater.  So they turned to Netflix, who delivered recent movies to their door each day via a little red envelope which gave so many people so much pleasure.  But then even Netflix got greedy, and they reduced their selection of available films, increased their prices and switched to their streaming platform.  Many people turned to Redbox, the kiosks in their local stores as a last resort replacement for Netflix.  But then when Redbox did not keep current as the movies came out and their selection dwindled, many people turned to piracy.

PIRACY IS THE RESULT OF MISMANAGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RESOURCES BY THE MOVIE COMPANIES AND THE TV AND CABLE NETWORKS.

Piracy came about because the companies who formerly had us as committed customers (I know I used to go to the movies at least once/week) lost our trust and our dollar.  Then Netflix lost our dime to Amazon Prime (which for the moment in my opinion provides better content than even Netflix, and it provides the free shipping that we all love).  Sure, we are always a season or so behind the TV viewers, but being able to binge-watch shows from our living rooms at night to get the full theater experience is something that even movie theaters could not provide in a two-hour movie, and quite frankly, it is nice to do so in the privacy of our own homes without the annoying advertisements.

But just as there is Netflix, Amazon, and legal ways to pay for slightly dated content, some people want the most up to date movie, or the most up to date show.  Not willing to pay for a movie ticket or purchase the video outright, they look for other sources to view the film, the movie, or the TV show.  At the time I am writing this article (early 2017), TV networks have not realized that “Cable TV is dead” and that many have ‘cut the cords’ years ago because of their obscene prices.  Personally, I would still pay a few bucks to be able to access Cable TV content (e.g., to see the current seasons of shows as they come out), but I am unwilling to pay the high costs these TV companies (e.g., HBO GO, etc.) charge to access their content online.  For some reason, they still think they can charge us “Cable TV” prices when there are such cheaper alternatives available.  [Second thought, perhaps Hulu provides current TV shows, but they have done such a pitiful job in marketing even I *who lives and breathes in this industry* have no idea what service they are providing these days, and last I checked, I was unwilling to pay their $9.99/month or whatever subscription when Netflix and/or Amazon provided better content and value for less.]

When Hulu did have our attention (when it was free), viewers were willing to watch paid ads in return for the free content.  However, this was likely not profitable for them, and they turned to a per month subscription model.  I haven’t followed them since them because they lost me as a betrayed customer, and I am happy with my Amazon subscription.

However, after the failures of the movie theaters, the cable and TV providers, the Netflix providers, and then the Hulu providers, there grew a large segment of the population who were never taught nor do they understand or care that movies and shows are not free, and that they cost money to produce.  These individuals grew up with the understanding that “ads will pay for the cost of our watching,” but as ad-supported content dwindled, they blamed the TV and Cable companies for not providing the content they desired at a cost they were willing to pay.  As a result, a large segment of our population has turned and will continue to readily turn to piracy when the other alternatives do not provide them access to the content (e.g., “current” TV shows) they would otherwise pay for.  Thus, without thinking, this segment pirates the film or the TV show using bittorrent or Popcorn Time thinking that nobody will see them.  The only difference is that they copyright holders have caught up with technology and they are able to track those who use bittorrent, and thus these individuals get sued.

So yes, copyright infringement is something that is ‘socially acceptable’ because so many people do it.  But it is still illegal, and as technology advances and as governments find more and more creative ways to serve their lobbyist masters in return for favors, free trips, and donations to their PACs / re-election funds], copyright holders continue to grow in their appetite to sue those who get caught downloading the copyrighted films.

And with hindsight, and after reading the

‘The boot of government crushes the skull of its citizen’ when it comes to encryption and anonymity,

*WASN’T IT CONVENIENT AND COINCIDENTAL* that the set of cases that were brought between 2010-2016 to blaze the trail in order to allow current movie companies to sue downloads WERE PORNOGRAPHY / ADULT FILM CASES?

That’s a very deep concept which requires some reflection and thought in order to grasp the enormity of it.  It makes you wonder whether it was planned that the MPAA / RIAA would sit back and let the porn cases blaze through the courts (because what person accused of downloading pornography would make noise defending himself in court when as a result of the legal battle — just by being named and served as a defendant, even if he won the case and was vindicated (namely, that he was found to have never downloaded the adult films in the first place), — his name and reputation forever would be tarnished by being associated with someone who was accused and sued of downloading and stealing copyrighted pornographic content without a license, only to have legitimate movie companies step in their place and file most of the copyright infringement cases we see now.

For years we have been seeing common thread between the cases filed in the federal district courts across the US.  Similar names and German companies, such as Guardaley, IPP, and other common entities kept creeping up behind the scenes (until recently, I thought the shadow entity was Voltage Pictures, Inc.).  But when those same entities popped up for the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC lawsuits (based on a legitimate movie), I did not make any connections, and I remained oblivious to the idea that perhaps the same entities behind the pornography lawsuits (e.g., Patrick Collins, K-Beeck, NuCorp, Malibu Media, LLC — essentially, the former set of “Keith Lipscomb” lawsuits) were also behind the movie-based lawsuits.

Conspiracy-level thinking at this point, yes.  It would be a huge scandal if one set of masters planned the pornography-based bittorrent ‘copyright troll’ lawsuits for the purpose of later giving credibility to real-movie lawsuits when they stepped in place of the porn lawsuits and made the same filings.  I am made angry just thinking about this, and quite frankly, I don’t want to connect the dots because I do not want to notice that perhaps the same entities behind the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC movies were the same entities behind the Patrick Collins… Malibu Media, LLC cases.  That would be just too horrible.

—
CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.