Anti-Pirates Scare Kids with Propagandistic Comic Book

Written by Ernesto on October 12, 2009 

The Motion Picture Association has sent one of its big shot lobbyists to New Zealand to advocate tougher anti-piracy legislation, and to promote a propagandistic comic book set be handed out to thousands of local kids. Interestingly, the comic doesn’t touch the subject of copyright. Instead it uses false threats to scare children and parents about the dangers of file-sharing.

In an attempt to convince the local government that pirates don’t belong on the Internet, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) sent chief policy officer Greg Frazier over from Washington. Frazier was not alone though, as he also brought in 17,000 anti-pirate comic books, ready to be handed out to children at cinemas.

Titled “Escape From Terror Byte City” the book tells the story of two young boys who attempt to download the latest Transformers movie from a P2P website. Of course, when the two fire-up their file-sharing software all hell breaks loose.

Surprisingly, the story itself has nothing to do with the consequences of copyright infringement. The comic book that is supposed to educate children about file-sharing is nothing more than a scary story about viruses, worms, trojan horses and identity theft.

It’s quite sad really when you think about it. Apparently the MPA and their anti-piracy partners have decided to give up on the message that piracy hurts their business in the hopes that horror stories about infected computers will deter youngsters from downloading copyrighted works instead.

That aside, the risks of being exposed to viruses and malware on P2P networks have always been greatly exaggerated. If we follow the logic of the MPA we might as well ban email because of all the trojans and phishing scams that are sent around. Or stop selling USB drives because people might lose them and potentially expose personal information that shouldn’t be on there in the first place.

The comic is conveniently avoiding the word copyright, perhaps because the 10 year crusade against copyright infringement hasn’t led to any results. The propaganda doesn’t work without providing alternatives, and every parent knows that forbidding something quite often leads to the opposite result.

Still, the entertainment industry seems unconcerned with innovation and new ways to adapt to the digital era. Instead they prefer to focus on promoting new ways to punish potential consumers. Aside from pushing the comic book, the Hollywood lobbyist also lobbied for the return of the controversial ‘3-strikes’ legislation which was scrapped earlier this year after public pressure.

Will they ever learn? A scanned copy of the full comic book is available on Mininova. This one’s going to be a collectors item, for sure.

Scary viruses in “Terror Byte City”

pirate comic

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125 Responses

1 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:39 by Sendaii

How stupid do they think kids are? No one over the age of 8 would take this seriously.

2 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:40 by www.eZee.se

Oh well, people who visit TF already know the MPAA are a bunch of f¤cking morons.

3 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:45 by novichock

In real life, “Just got word, Dad has turned on his computer!” would be followed by the dad saying “How do I download this CD!”

4 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:54 by Al

“Just got word, Dad has turned on his computer!”

Everyone panic!!!!!!

5 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:55 by louis

so, where is the anti-anti-pirate comic?

“pirate badass vs. evil sissy dr. mpa”

can’t be so hard to do better than this lamo mpa comic.

go for it!

6 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:55 by StevO

Pretty damn convincing. NO wonder Im always broke. I lost all my money from online thieving. Maybe I should put a Lawsuit against the MPAA for releasing movies to the public that may end up being put on the internet resulting in my bank account being hacked. Damn the movie industry for creating material that could fall into the hands of criminals.

7 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:55 by Peter

Little do they know, most dads are in the generation that use P2P now days. MPAA are idiots, seriously.

8 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:57 by Xcel

LoL!

Thats pretty funny, are we sure they are just trying to entertain us?. I mean really….

9 Oct 12, 2009 at 23:58 by Mr.Afghanistan

Very Very Stupid tactics.

Now a days kids over 5 years old will not review this kinda SH*T.

Can’t stop laughing how these anti piracy companies can be stupid.

wasting $ on these useless comic books lmao.

Get a Life Losers – seriously :P

10 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:05 by Anonymous

At least the comics were drawn fairly well :p

11 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:09 by comics

That’s funny since torrent boy or whatever has his own pro torrent comics. I’d rather read about tpb and how it’s going down than this.

12 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:11 by redmarine

Oh well… The problem here is that no kid takes comics seriously and I seriously doubt that they will actually remember any of it when they get to the computer.

13 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:13 by barakuda

This is great :) I LOLed so hard. Good to see there are no brains in that MAFIAA bunch.
Good thing ppl are not brainless zombies they used to be. Majority is thinking with their own heads now.

I actually view this as a great news. We won ppl, theres nothing more they can do.

14 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:13 by Anonymous

Not really. I’ve seen better drawn fanart on DevianTART.

15 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:16 by MrC

rofl

16 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:16 by IHeard

I’m sure it won’t take long for someone to replace the words in the comic to something p2p related.

MPAA cast as viruses? :-p

17 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:17 by Ad

Reads like a Chick Tract, but with slightly better art. I do use the word ‘art’ loosely though.

18 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:20 by Zush

Kids don’t read comic books nowadays.

Who drew that… thing, by the way?

19 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:20 by Anonymous

Wow, just got done reading it. How stupid are the people this was targeted at?? You can’t get a damn virus from downloading a movie (.avi, .mkv, etc..)

20 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:22 by kelly

so, this opens another question. is file-sharing a scanned copy also dangerous?

21 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:26 by Anonymous

Why snoopy came to mind?

22 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:30 by Nef

Downloading the occasional virus or trojan horse isn´t so bad actually.
But yesterday night, when I was downloading so po- err music, a rabid rat slipped through my firewall! No really! It almost managed to bite me! I think it´s still in the room with me.
What do i do? Me be so scared.

Seriously though, I am pretty sure kids are smart enought to google, and won´t be fooled by this insultingly silly comic.

23 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:30 by Anonymous

moral behind the story: read the comments before downloading torrents no0bs!!!1 – thanks for the tip mpaa !!!

24 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:36 by viktor

do they really think that i want to support them with my money to spam 17,000 (!) copies of nonsense shit like this??

25 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:37 by Bill Boner

Lets do the banking… “ITS A TRAP!”

The evil viruses are gonna get’cha little kids.

26 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:40 by goatslicer

really retarded comic book. an alien thing infects the computer by the dvd drive lolol which is supposed to have something to do with the fact that the kids are downloading a movie even though it doesnt and the kids get sucked into some place with viruses for no reason and some retarded tin guy tells them downloading is illegal even though its not lol and sends them back and they cancel the download at 99% lololl.

27 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:44 by [M]

The funny thing is; if I’d have read that at 8 I would have reacted with the kind of “yeah but I’m not stupid, I know a safe way to download”..

This type of thing is going to be an amusing story to the kids .. and have zero effect whatsoever except increasing the hate of the pirates as these morons have fallen as low as trying to brainwash children.

Burn MPAA/RIAA/creative industry BURN!

28 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:50 by Anonymous

What a bunch of fscking idiots. This’ll NEVER work. The age group it would influence has no idea what P2P is. Retards.

29 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:50 by the guy who came on Reasoned Mind's face

I need that comic to wipe myself.

The greedy pig usually licks it off.

30 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:51 by Anonymous

Can you provide a link to this? Looks interesting. xD

31 Oct 13, 2009 at 00:53 by Anonymous

Mac, Linux, and BSD don’t have as many security vulnerabilities, so the only relevant argument in this comic is the identity theft. Oh wait, that will NOT happen from a P2P transfer. This is total bullshit.

32 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:14 by Anonymous

@30
I assume you want a DDL: http://www.zomgupload.com/rfjif8oqiegk.html

33 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:23 by Osno

2 points:
1) If there ever where virii and trojans, they were certainly put there by the MAFIAA itself. Since those didn’t scare anyone, now they’re promoting them???
2) Their lack of understanding on how technology works will make them laughable to any 5 year old who actually does understand how all that works.

34 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:24 by Kickass_Sid

so lame!
We need to fight back! Let’s create a Captain Filesharing comic hero!

35 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:34 by Me

Why are we so bothered?
Let the kids get brainwashed away from piracy; leaves more bandwidth for the rest of us.

36 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:35 by ultraleetj

hahaha that made me laughh. Imma hand this out to kids to have them remake the story and use the plot over and over.

37 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:49 by prodigydancer

/fail

Hmm… No that’s not enough to describe this.

/epic fail

38 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:52 by housy

no wonder the industry is going bust, when there clearly spending there money so wisely…..

39 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:54 by /dev/null

this just made my day rofl.

40 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:01 by Anonymous

@35 Oct 13, 2009 at 01:34 by Me:

No it doesn’t, no cable or telco will stop over subscribing their services and the less bandwidth the user uses the more user cables and telcos will cram inside their networks.

Cables don’t like fiber(PON) because PONs cannot be over subscribe like cable. Fiber have a physical limit on how many people can use it and that limit is between 20 and 100 connections as cable can be subscribed to 400 to 1000s of users on the same node.

It is not your neighbor that is using your bandwidth is your ISP that instead of guaranteeing quality of service wants to cram more people into the nodes to maximize profits.

41 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:03 by Misgnomer

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. ha.

42 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:05 by Anonymous

Hahaha oh wow.

43 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:06 by knux

@1 It’s not the kids we should be worried about, it’s the parents that fall for it and then teach it to their kids all their lives that filesharing will give you worms, or viruses or crabs…

Course most people had this same thing done for drugs when they were little and most still do drugs atleast once, or four million times.

44 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:07 by IHATEGNOMES

Stay the fuck out of NZ, MPAA. You are an american company, don’t bring your shoddy laws overseas!

45 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:20 by zbeast

This little comic is all part of a stagged response to p2p..
If you haven’t noticed someone,
I expect media company’s have been putting up lot’s of torrents, with keygens, kengen’s that are infected.
If your a non-sophisticated users.
You could infected your computer with these little suckers.
While at the same time a congress creep is trying to get passed a anti-p2p bill. Calling it a p2p user protection bill.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/2140

So don’t just sit and laff at these cavity creeps.
Write Congress and let them know this crap is a no go.

46 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:23 by Anonymous

ISPs have no regulation about over subscription.

http://eepn.com/locator/products/ArticleID/32250/32250.html

They say that QoS is necessary to maintain the current over-subscription model business. I don’t see how this will enable new technologies as the whole point of oversubscribing is to make use of under used capacity and with technologies popping up everywhere that will maintain constant data rate transfer that business model is going to die but not without a fight I suppose.

By the way over-subscription is the reason when to much people use the internet at the same time things go bad pretty quickly like when Michael Jackson died.

And that is why ISPs hate P2P that turn the over-subscription model into s*** by using the bandwidth that you paid for but was not suppose to use.

Just so people understand what this means in simple terms. Airlines over-sell seats because they noticed that most of the time some passengers don’t board the planes so they started selling more tickets then they have seats for. If all passengers showed up in todays flights they have a big problem. ISP are doing the same thing they are basically selling bandwidth that they don’t have and are hopping that people don’t use it because if they do they don’t have the capacity to mantain the service and now their are telling people that is the fault of others.

47 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:28 by DeathStalker

I can’t help but be reminded of the Pirates scene from “Amazon Women On The Moon” (a MUST own!)

When the MPAA rating comes up, the one pirate exclaims “Ohhh! I’m SO scared!”

LMAO!

They’re like a chicken running around with its head cut off – dead, but doesn’t yet realize it.

10yrs (or less) from now, and they’ll be hyping the virtues of BT, just like their failed BetaMax fiasco – oh! VHS will be the END of the film industry as we know it! (to paraphrase the late (and NEVER great) Jack Valenti. (That, or another tech will have eclipsed BT by then). They’ll be going “Ah-ha! We *finally* know how to block/filter ALL BT content! (Except by then no one will be using it anymore, lol)

Morons – they couldn’t have survived WITHOUT VHS and DVDs.

48 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:28 by .neo.styles|nvDX

Potential consumers? So called file sharers are already consumers (by definition.) The big difference is that they are illegitimate consumers. What needs to be understood is that just because someone is a consumer doesn’t mean they are worthy of respect. Someone who has an insatiable appetite for pilfered material and has zero regard for the hard work of others is not worthy of respect. The difference between custemors and consumers is that customers support that which they enjoy instead of just taking advantage of people’s trust. People who selfishly use others should now be showered with sympathy As for being punished, why should they not be? They don’t care about anyone but themselves. They have zero regard for the law or morality. The only thing that they do care about is that there is any easy way for them to get what they want without (or so they think) anyone knowing about it.

49 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:28 by Alexey

Ironically, it is less likely to get a virus from downloading music than from buying a SONY CD.

50 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:31 by Anonymous

The wife and I just LAUGHED… this is comedy gold…

51 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:40 by Alexey

Checked out the Netbasics site they advertise in the comic. It’s, actually, quite amusing. Stupid, but amusing.

52 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:45 by Alexey

On second look, they do offer lots of good advice: about downloading attachments and scams, and stuff. Just tried their site advisor link:

thepiratebay.org

“We tested this site and didn’t find any significant problems. In our tests, we found downloads on this site were free of adware, spyware, and other potentially unwanted programs.”

53 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:48 by amma

Disgusting comic.
I can’t believe i completed reading it. errrrrrrrrrr
and BTW:
The story in this comic can be more believable for elders if they presented it in mature way.

54 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:48 by Anonymous

“Ironically, it is less likely to get a virus from downloading music than from buying a SONY CD.”

lolol pwned hard!

anyway this comic should be considered SPAM!

55 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:50 by Anonymous

That “Pirate-Zone” website seems to be a direct download site, not p2p. More similar to rapidshare than to pirate bay

56 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:54 by Anonymous

“Is Peer to Peer file sharing safe or not?

Peer to peer (P2P) comes with with its own set of risks, just like other web technologies. The nature of P2P file exchange means that even the best computer security can be bypassed. P2P is used by some criminal communities to circulate malware and exchange illegal content.”

lol

57 Oct 13, 2009 at 02:59 by Anonymous

man just downloaded the thing its hilarious that they would actually to try and brainwash the teenagers with this crap

58 Oct 13, 2009 at 03:00 by Anonymous

man just downloaded the thing its hilarious that they would actually to try and brainwash the teenagers with this crap.

Oh noes we better not pirate their comic book lol

59 Oct 13, 2009 at 03:01 by Anonymous

If you download movies from a “p2p site” (really looks more liek a ddl site) then aliens from outer space will drive their spaceship up to eart, use their robotic eye to look at your computer, send viruses into your computer via the dvd drive, and steal all of your parents money.

lol, scaremongering, lol
also
lol, propaganda, lol

60 Oct 13, 2009 at 03:02 by Anonymous

and also, you will be sucked into the computer.

61 Oct 13, 2009 at 03:14 by Anonymous

http://drop.io/MPAComic

7zipped and uploaded directly from torrent.

Summary: If you download the Transformers movie, you will get sucked into your DVD drive and can only get out once your security software updates, then you shoot the viruses just in time to stop the download.

62 Oct 13, 2009 at 03:14 by Direct Link Man

http://drop.io/MPAComic

7zipped and uploaded directly from torrent.

Summary: If you download the Transformers movie, you will get sucked into your DVD drive and can only get out once your security software updates, then you shoot the viruses just in time to stop the download.

63 Oct 13, 2009 at 03:19 by Soundwave (Have A Cigar)

Wow, this is really pathetic. And where do they even get the authorization to hand this garbage to kids?

This will have an effect opposite the intention, I can say this with certainty.

64 Oct 13, 2009 at 03:23 by Direct Link Man

Sorry for double post mates, messed up with the naming.

Added the PDF directly to the drop, so you can view it on the site.

http://drop.io/MPAComic

65 Oct 13, 2009 at 03:40 by DeathStalker

Oh, and keep in mind, there is a fair amount of face-saving to be had by the Mafiaa – they’ve consistently said how detrimental P2p (and BT) is to their industry, them make ANY concessions at this point would be admitting they were wrong and didn’t know what they were talking about. Remember, Jack Valenti NEVER recanted his comments about VHS tapes – NEVER – despite the boon to the industry that they became. Once they publicly state one position, they *cannot* change that stance – it, like politicians and their ilk, is in their very nature.

66 Oct 13, 2009 at 04:52 by Anonymous

LOL.

I agree. Let’s ban email and stop selling USB drives!

I wouldn’t trust people’s ability to think for themselves… And MPA(A) probably don’t care about software piracy (keygen).

67 Oct 13, 2009 at 05:25 by vyvyan

Has it got an episode where SONY CD installs rootkit in the system?

let’s publish one such comics. we have a lot of characters as well. Dan teaching Silly Lily to start understanding. We can really have one good comics just for the heck of it.

68 Oct 13, 2009 at 05:54 by Matheus Svensson

At least it’s better than the one from the American National Center for State Courts.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/files/propogandacomic.pdf

Didn’t we say we wanted the creative industries to show their creativity, when it comes to file-sharing? The NZFACT’s comic is certainly ‘creative’. Now, we’ve just got to convince them about the other half of the strategy: the need to work with file-sharing, rather than against it.

69 Oct 13, 2009 at 06:01 by markie

MPAA what a bunch of knobs. It’s not hard to tell what files have viruses. Are they still using the virus line to say that file sharing is bad.

Anyone in the world can get a computer virus not even associated with file Sharing.

Maybe the MPAA should buy a clue. Do the MPAA even have computers.

70 Oct 13, 2009 at 06:05 by A Kid

Reading the comic has inspired me to take a huge dump and torrent tons of pirated material. Thank you MPAA for the inspiration!

How lame can you get. Sheesh!

71 Oct 13, 2009 at 06:49 by ROFL

The kids that see this will probably get bored and go pirate a movie. LOL

72 Oct 13, 2009 at 06:51 by Jenna

This comic isn’t scary, nor are they trying to make it scary. MPAA is just trying to figure out a way to teach young people the dangers of creating, using, and/or excepting pirated media.

73 Oct 13, 2009 at 07:02 by LMAO

Wow – this is so lame I don’t know where to begin.

The MPA – like the RIAA – missed their opportunity to be part of this new way of consuming media and are desperately trying to stop the tidal wave of file-sharing with an umbrella… good luck. The kids will probably throw out the comics for being so lame… lol

74 Oct 13, 2009 at 07:10 by Uneducated Moron, aka Mike

@72
How about not trying to infiltrate our childrens minds with such blasphemy… Your right, you totally put yourself in danger by watching pirated material, you know it leads to several types of cancer too? I bet your the type of person that still believes marijuana kills more people each year than drunk driving and murder. Good to know you have your facts straight. But on a lighter note, I’m scared now knowing theirs angry little creatures (possibly affiliated with the cavity crew?) sitting in my computer waiting for me to enter my bank account number and pin. Better tell daddy not to turn on the computer before shit hits the fan.

75 Oct 13, 2009 at 07:13 by mmkay

The tactic they’re using is just condescending. Most of the youngsters that read this comic will probably have a better working understanding of technology and computers than the lumpheads that made this trash. They’ll know that surfing the internet isn’t anymore safe from viruses than using P2P applications.

Oh well, I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that they wasted money on this brainless scheme.

76 Oct 13, 2009 at 07:16 by thehive

Um ok, I didn’t see the point of the comic, the little virus guys should have been saying “I love the internet” P2P is sometimes safer since people can review the downloads before you get the stuff, whereas the open web is often more dangerous if you simply click on the wrong link. Stupid MPA.

77 Oct 13, 2009 at 07:16 by MPAAtarded

Oh. This tactic is just too downright stupid, that…i’m actually speechless.

Okay reasoned tard/neo.tard…the balls in your court.

78 Oct 13, 2009 at 07:19 by Proud Pirate

So thats supposed to scare kids? Where the funk are those things even at? The inner workings of my computer arent comparable to the color red, I think they’re in daddys blood stream, munching on…. Oh wait, what the heck are those things anyways? Are they supposed to resemble “data chips”?
Way to try to scare kids with the math munchers, a game I played in school as a kid anyways. What a total waste of time and paper. What are they teaching our kids with this crap anyways? That theres no more such thing as freedom of choice?

79 Oct 13, 2009 at 07:21 by Insider

I heard it through the grapevine. The idea for this comic book was inspired by a group of MPAA senior executives playing naked twister.

80 Oct 13, 2009 at 07:32 by Jim_the_debunker

Look, all you you are pirates. As such, your mind has already been warped & twisted because of the danger of file sharing. This act can lead to many physiological & psychological issues.
You’ll never get the real, true message this comic book is suppose to drive home. P2P is a great way to get a trojan and money taken away from you.
Now, I have to get back to work here at Meidadefender. Putting some great call home programs into some bogus P2P torrents. Hope you don’t want the latest linux kernel.

81 Oct 13, 2009 at 08:40 by Lothor The Evil

Damn the MPA is right!
I downloaded the latest Simpsons episode, and the next thing I knew, I was foaming at the mouth, dragging my ass across the carpet, and itching like crazy. And for some reason my pubic hair started falling out.

82 Oct 13, 2009 at 09:25 by Anonymous

That’s why you use a deadicated comp for P2P’ing, no real personal info on there, just files.

83 Oct 13, 2009 at 09:32 by Pablo

@81
Dude, the same thing happened to me ! :O
I think what they say in the comis is true ! :O
Time for panic !

84 Oct 13, 2009 at 09:33 by captain

I have one of these, its well put together. Feels like a real comic would.

85 Oct 13, 2009 at 10:15 by gigel

if i remember corectly, one of the people who started comics about piracy and the war between pirates and the information police was Mattias Elftorp. His series are called “Piracy is liberation”. 2 of the episodes are free for download on his own site, the rest are 2 pay for. I liked his idea.

86 Oct 13, 2009 at 10:20 by Dissenter

I’m already teaching my kids that Hollywood and politicians are evil liars and we NEVER buy things that we can get for free

87 Oct 13, 2009 at 11:24 by viggo

This comic is, of course, targeted at the parents of these kids. They often don’t have the knowledge, and fears viruses, trojans, etc. Therefore, they will ban their kids from downloading movies. Sadly on false premises.

88 Oct 13, 2009 at 11:50 by Shaun J

Okay maybe the comic book does not work, but the point of the matter is piracy is bad and should not be done.

My friends download all the time and it is really annoying me. Okay I have done it a few times I wont lie, but the scale that some people do it on is ridiculous.

89 Oct 13, 2009 at 12:09 by Dave

So it’s OK to download movies as long as you check that it’s virus free and only DL 99% of the movie?

90 Oct 13, 2009 at 12:38 by AnarchyNow

The record/movie USELESS industry has to die, like a lot of prehistoric industries should. We didn’t need them 150 years ago, we didn’t need them at all, and without all the brainwashing by Hollywood and TV, we would live in a much better word because we would have make the final revolution to a higher civilization level that capitalism in any form will never ever reach because it will kill us all in the next 100 years

91 Oct 13, 2009 at 12:38 by Xcel

Uhhhh, Sure I download but I dont watch…

Or originally “I never inhaled”

Give me a break, most kids I know wouldnt wipe their ass with this garbage, and if they did take any interest in it at all it would only be curiosity times 10!…

It will have negative results with most kids that do read it…..

92 Oct 13, 2009 at 13:07 by animo

what utter shit. lmfao

93 Oct 13, 2009 at 13:15 by Anonymous

just to be clear the little green man are the mpaa right?

94 Oct 13, 2009 at 13:49 by pink panther

“The comic book that is supposed to educate children about file-sharing is nothing more than a scary story about viruses, worms, trojan horses and identity theft.”

So it teaches kids to use Linux!?

95 Oct 13, 2009 at 14:05 by gorehound

Fuck You MPAA.You will go down and so will your corrupt industry.

96 Oct 13, 2009 at 14:05 by Anonymous

if u want the comic strip, its on a torrent site near you :)

97 Oct 13, 2009 at 14:29 by daviddanut

I think I just shat my kidneys out laughing :-S

98 Oct 13, 2009 at 14:50 by Happy P2P User

lol… oh dear.. that the best they could do…. I prefered Jack Blacks Anti Piracy video.. still wont stop me downloading what i need though.

99 Oct 13, 2009 at 15:37 by Trelew

What blatant propaganda! I’m betting that any kind given this book will never read it or if they do won’t give it a second thought. Of course Big Business doesn’t want to express the facts of P2P because it will invite debate and expose themselves. It’s much better to use groundless scare tactics.

100 Oct 13, 2009 at 16:33 by talorthain

Just reminds me of the mircosoft adverts where the young kids are doing things on computers….

The only ones that would fall for this are technophobes and kids that can read orwalk and are called babies and need to read to them…

But in the words of the Advert I am 5 years old and I am a PC (Pirate Child)

And as for the dad turning on a computer, its the kids they ask to sort it out….

101 Oct 13, 2009 at 17:32 by SNF

This is pre-emtive strike. They “educate”(scaring) young people to not use filesharing/P2P so less people later in life will pirate and the young ones doesn’t begin at all.

A good buisness decision(in theory) but penetration level of this campaign probably will be less the satisfationally. People that age already have their ideas on stuff like internet, “piracy” & these kinds of things. Another failed(or soon to be) campaign by CR-industy, what a shocker!(*ironic*)

SNF – Stupidity Never Fails

102 Oct 13, 2009 at 17:34 by Kapcha

OMG LOL =) Thx for link on mininova )

103 Oct 13, 2009 at 17:56 by venderr

man, like most other comics books this will be soon be made into a movie.can’t wait to dl that via p2p.

104 Oct 13, 2009 at 17:58 by Anonymous

MPAA, thanks for something new to seed

105 Oct 13, 2009 at 19:22 by ethana2

Moral of the Story:

Practice safe piracy.
Do it with Ubuntu.

106 Oct 13, 2009 at 21:37 by lverona

I do know people who seriously believe that buying licensed cds is good because the quality of the recording is better. And a lot of non-tech people seriously believe that. There are also urban myths that pirated cds have noise in the background of the music which is bad for your health. These things do stay around. And good luck explaining that digital copy is identical to people who since 5 had been taught otherwise.

As for viruses, I would suggest promoting linux. No viruses and great torrent clients.

107 Oct 13, 2009 at 22:43 by Netbasics Operative

@105

You promote linux to those who believe licensed CDs are superior in quality? well, from the same viewpoint linux is not a Licensed OS made by big corporations, uh, like microsoft – and therefore, is inferior. there might be full of holes and other malicious exploits. I knew that from the beginning, new Ubuntu Beryl-thingy made my eyes soar. Now i’m on Windows Vista, and thanks to Bill Gates and the amazing progress of technology he’s done, My eye no longer hurts – Because my legitimate copy of windows vista has AERO on it.

108 Oct 13, 2009 at 22:59 by Some Dick from new zealand

WTF our shit government is letting this shit fuck with the mind of our youths.
I can see a sudden rise in domestic violence as little Timmy tells mum and dad that download is wrong.
New Zealand is not American

109 Oct 13, 2009 at 23:26 by me

I can imagine it now, plot twist at the end: THE MPAA were the ones who put the viruses in the files! Dunt..dunt..dun….!

110 Oct 14, 2009 at 00:00 by lister

Other problems I found:
If the kid say’s that was cool, his reaction would probably be “Lets download another!”
Also, IF there is a virus, it will most likely be in an executable file. Also, the most glaring at me is, that THE FILE MUST BE DOWNLOADED FIRST. You can tell this was written by people who I would not call retards, because in this case I would not want to insult retards.

111 Oct 14, 2009 at 01:14 by Everybody

Read the comic. Found it hilarious. It’s projecting stuff into the DVD drive. I’m safe though, cause my netbook does not have any DVD drive.

112 Oct 14, 2009 at 01:16 by caFfiend

thanks for the link, tossing it on my facebook.

the whole time i was reading the article i was hoping it had already been posted somewhere :D

113 Oct 14, 2009 at 04:14 by Xcel

@108, get that aero out of your eye and find a penguin to play with, you’ll be much happier….

114 Oct 14, 2009 at 05:23 by aXXo

LOL!!!

It is also believed that the newly mutated swine flu virus also spreads in the same way!

115 Oct 14, 2009 at 09:06 by .neo.styles|nvDX

Everyone bashing the comics needs to shut the hell up! Somebody worked really hard on it and deserves to be paid excessively and repeatedly over at least 100 years for their work, so they can afford their hookers and heroin, even if their work is utter fucking fail(see also: MPAA/RIAA). Furthermore, if you downloaded that comic without paying for it, the boogeyman living in your closet is going to blow your dad every night this week and he will enjoy it very much, leading to the divorce of your parents and the ruination your life and you wont have any internets to steal comics anymore!

I think MAFIAA is a pretty cool guy. eh brainwashes children in New Zealand and doesn’t afraid of anything.

“You wouldn’t download a car.”
-MPAA

“Fuck you! I would if I could!”
-Everyone else

116 Oct 14, 2009 at 15:48 by johannesfaust

@116
someday I will!

117 Oct 14, 2009 at 21:54 by S-Mac

LOL, I’m ROFLing at some of these comments.

Here are some things I have learned.

–Since downloading that Comic, I have already had a High School Musical pop up on my computer.

–If you have a DVD drive, you are at risk of attack from little green aliens(Martians??)

–Downloading 99% of the movie is OK. I agree. The last 1% is just the end of the credits that show the MPAA and copyright logos, I didn’t want that shit anyway…

–Telling kids something is bad means they will not do it.

–Being sucked into your computer and going to Terror-byte city is really scary(even though some kids would think it was pretty cool)

–The moral of the story seems to be about virus protection. Updating your security software means your completely safe from downloading movies.

118 Oct 15, 2009 at 09:36 by Dave

I’m now pirating anti-pirate content. MPAA: You’re welcome. I’m helping you share your message with the world…

…Along with 162 other torrents that haven’t yet reached a 4:1 ratio.

A piece of advice: You don’t get to create a product that has no market value to the consumer and then complain because consumers are treating it like it has no value.

119 Oct 15, 2009 at 12:41 by cherryz

The MPAA have hit a new low.

120 Oct 15, 2009 at 21:46 by Julius

Pathetic. Epic fail.

121 Oct 16, 2009 at 02:33 by DfizzleShizzle

Loved the book, pretty illustrations
Hahaha,
I wonder if they’d send me a copy if I sent them a letter asking for one?
I could offer to trade them the pirated Transformer DVD in exchange for it…That seems like a fair trade

122 Oct 16, 2009 at 03:34 by L@L +1

http://rapidshare.com/files/293064535/tbcty.pdf

In soviet Russia Terrorbyte city comes to weblogs

123 Oct 19, 2009 at 07:19 by They r losers

Heck before I got into torrents I was able to accidently block the ICANN from doing a port scan when I was getting illegal wireless interent for 3 months good luck stopping me boys.

124 Oct 20, 2009 at 01:11 by Prima

Good one. Read more on impact of comics at http://rare-book.net/do-comic-books-have-negative-effects-on-kids/

125 Oct 25, 2009 at 18:24 by Part two!!

We need a sequel! It was funny as heck :D

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