Electronics Retailer Pirates Movies to Sell Macbooks
Written by enigmax on April 22, 2009Media Markt/Saturn is Europe’s largest retailer of consumer electronics. The outlet is known for its funny, but crude advertising campaigns – its main slogan is “I am not stupid!” In the Saturn store in the Rivas H2Ocio shopping mall, Madrid, they use pirate Blu-ray rips to sell Apple hardware. Stupid – or not? You decide.
Apple is no stranger to making millions of dollars off the back of piracy. After all, rampant MP3 piracy has proven to be the lifeblood of its 160gig iPods, even if you discount the Middle Eastern Sheikh customers who can actually afford to fill one.
But there are other more subtle ways for the company to benefit from copyright infringement. Who remembers our article from 2008, when we showed an aXXo release being used to sell Macs in a John Lewis store? Well, now it looks like another retailer had the same idea – why spend money on real DVDs when you can just download them?
On a visit to the Rivas H2Ocio shopping mall in Madrid, Miguel Ángel Moro walked into a Saturn store. There, in the Apple section, he saw demo machines – and they were all running pirate movies.
Miguel told TorrentFreak, “This is not the first time I’ve seen this stuff in MediaMarkt/Saturn, a big consumer electronics store in Europe. They sell from computers to washing machines, including DVD and Blu-ray discs.”
Displaying their own DVDs is illegal without clearance, so they might as well grab a copy off BitTorrent and safe a few bucks – right? Sharing copyrighted files is legal in Spain, but not for commercial use which is clearly the case here.
Below is a photograph taken by Miguel of a ‘Cars’ Blu-ray movie rip running on VLC Media Player, on a Macbook, in the store.
Pirate Hardware
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent
Next: uTorrent Is Going to Make Money With a Toolbar
60 Responses
HaHa!! This is brilliant.
!!!!
PIRACY IS STEALING, STOP JUSTIFYING YOURSELF, YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW. COPYRIGHT LAW IS FINE AND DOES NOT NEED ANY CHANGE.
!!!!
1st let me buy it
nxt i wl make a torrent nd seed it to al possible trackers at breadth takin speep so as 2 reach max people’s heart quickly ( marketing strategy ).
after al sharing is al i do thn why make it stay in my museum .
pls help me seed
tnx
oops SPEED
RIAA/MPAA_biach, your obviously not from either of these too companys, so wtf r u doing?
good artical =)
“even if you discount the Middle Eastern Sheikh customers who can actually afford to fill one.”
why everybody thinks that all middle easterners are rich?
that only apply on gulf countries not the whole middle east.
Biach/Troll – Copyright law is bogus. The letter of the law says this store can’t show DVDs in their own store without paying rights, I cannot rip my own bought DVDs and put them on my iPod, I cannot borrow my friend’s CD and load the music to MP3 files and put them on my iPod. The list of copyright laws that need to be changed is huge. P.S. Send me to jail. Make my day.
Today on TorrentFreak….
Jimmy fials at sarcasm.
“Send me to jail. Make my day.”
I suggest you brace yourself, then. Every trend in every country says that is exactly……where you are headed.
So keep it up, Jimmy, use the internet to steal, really, if you think you are entitled.
Make OUR day.
Who do you think you are speaking for when say “Make OUR day”? You and your schizoid split personality?
I know I will, as I really have no morals to speak of, and neither have I any real need to ‘justifyi myself’ about piracy
This is the side of piracy I disagree with.
I’m more than happy to share with people, more than happy to try and show people the joy I get out of good music or an entertaining film, but I don’t agree with making money off other people’s work.
The only thing I can defend piracy with is that I want to show other people what I’ve found in media without them or me having to spend money to see what I’m on about. If you’re using other people’s work to make your own profits, then I can’t see how it’s defendable. If they were giving away DVDs for free without any need of purchasing something, then that’d be agreeable, but this isn’t something I think’s right…
RIAA/MPAA_biach
can we can this troll please?
Haha, as if they have room in jail for millions of filesharers!
Just as the law was ingnored when people kept programmes recorded on vhs for more than a week, the law will be ignored here. The police, courts, and prison system can’t cope with prosecuting every single filesharer.
haha lol genius
@Reasoned Mind;
1. stop trying to spread fud
2. Copyright infringement is not *stealing*
3. Yes, we are entitled to it.. the same way the media cartels they were entitled to extend copyright over and over again.
4. You (and your cronies) cant do sh*t, hiding behind your anonymous nick “reasoned mind”, you know my name and my website, that i am in Sweden(Europe) and know i download and upload day in and day out… still you cant do sh*t because of my proxy+VPN no matter what laws your industry has paid to get put in place.
You and your industry are dumb, we will always be smarter than you.
Period.
Lol sweet
@RIAA/MPAA_biach
I hope you get your stolen possessions back. I would like to listen to that music someday. I hate it when cultural heritage gets lost this way.
BTW
When does Kind of Blue enter public domain?
Lol, why didn’t they just rename the files to something like “D:\CarsDVD9″
Kind of Blue sucks. Plz pirate it.
I’m pretty sure all Sheikhs are loaded, not just middle-eastern ones.
“this macbook features free pirated movies! Since gaming is left for the PC’s, we’ve decided to draw in customers using other techiniques.”
This won’t last long. In former Fascist Frankoist Spain.
To the troll, its illegal in the United States, under current 1880’s copyright laws.. but not everywhere. Aka… Sealand.
@RIAA/MPAA_biach
De gustibus non est disputandum
No, seriously, when?
Or is it already in public domain, did I read that correctly in between the lines?
its not stealing, its COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, which is illegal.
and i would feel bad about stealing it (or would i)
but plain old ‘infringement’ im sure i can live with :P
when jesus made 1 fish into 40 did fishermen sue?
f* u and ur morals
@23
Jesus did not do that. The Bible is mostly fiction, you know?
But did Egyptians sue?
Or is Bible fair-use/derivative work?
Did I miss the part where we all became entitled to free stuff and the people who pay to produce the stuff aren’t entitled to a return on their investments?
oh snap!
@RIAA/MPAA_biach
this is not a place for trolls go rant somewhere else
“The Bible is mostly fiction, you know?”
“your entire brain is fiction and a half, you know?”
@tyro: Yes, I completely agree with you. But everyone has this ahborant belief that piracy = downloading, period. SO all you website owners, sue me and send me to jail because a copy of your freaking files is on my cache on the hard drive. Think about it: Would you be sued and put into jail by congress because you gave your friend 5 dollars for lunch? Would you be sued by congress because you found a dollar bill somewhere and picked it up and kept it?
According to unreasonable dim-witt over there, this would be immoral and that piece of human waste would be starving by now, though wait a second… he says the bible is fiction. So, anyway… besides this fact… the copyright law needs change big time. Using today’s copyright law to newer technology is just like trying and taking ink out of a swimming colored water pool. So, to the b*tches in the riaa and mpaa… what’s going on? why no lawsuit yet? WHY NOT this time? where is the ridiculuos sums of money? maybe you can partner up with the largest electronics retail store in Spain an make big bucks out of just giving these guys lawsuit and leave the rest of humnaity alone and stop trying to control something you can’t–the world.
@ UltraleetJ
You’re right, only one person ever should have to pay for this stuff. I for one vote that you should be the lucky stiff.
someone knows what they are doing x264 BRrips, nice
guys, mpaa biatch watches this site avidly waiting for an article so that he can be one of the first to post, post something he hopes will get people angry, and then checks back every 20 minutes hoping people will have gotten angry over what he has said, in reality it would crush him inside if he got banned from this site, leaving him with nothing to fill his time. just ignore him. he posts in every topic.
Auchan in Hungary is doing the same – high-resolution PC LCDs are being presented using BD-Rips. I have a photo of it sitting somewhere on my HDD. (I’ll upload it if I find it.)
That seems weird…how could an electronics retailer showing pirated movies? That’s really against the law – should the Spanish government be on the lookout for this?
@34
I got 3-4 different place where I can connect to the internet. /ignored
ontopic:
You pirates are all going to jail. Morals and ethics are on our side.
More lies, eh troll???
You and the other paid MAFIAA trolls can keep saying that, and in your own puny, brainwashed minds, believe that, but the rest of us believe otherwise.
Face it, you MAFIAA-tards, piracy will never be stopped no matter what you say or do. Even ACTA won’t stop it entirely, as it will thrive once it is fully underground in Darknets.
Oh, and enjoy your so-called victory against the Pirate Bay while it lasts, which won’t be for long. The case will be tied up in appeals for years to come, and it will be just like Napster was for the music industry.
As for the topic at hand, that retailer could very well be forced to cease & desist at the very least, or have to pay fines.
Imagine losing so much money from piracy that you feel the need to come onto TF to vent. =P
@RIAA/MPAA_biach
Sad sad little man.
Maybe they had those dvds for real in the store, but they couldn’t rip them.
If that’s true, then they had the right(at least ethical) to present it to the buyers.
If i buy a car, i want first to look at it, inside and out, test it, drive it a little, see how confortable the chiar is etc.
According to copyright law, i should buy the car blindfolded, and be able to drive it in my garrage only, as if some friends would want to see it, they’d have to own a similar version.
That’s how idiotic the copyright law is.
Ethical: if i bought a dvd, and then i want to watch it on a big projector on my house, probably with some friends & neighbours i should be in complete legality.
Anyway, should it be ilegal to give my friends a tequila shot? after all, i bought the bottle and copyright says i should be the only one beeing allowed to drink it. wtf?
People with such ideeas are simply morons.
typo alert:
[...]BitTorrent and safe a few bucks[...]
Should be save not safe
sorry if this was already reported
This is not a new practice by any means. Many Radio Shack outlets in the U.S. were doing this many years ago. I ought to know, I used to work for them.
It wasn’t “sanctioned” by management (if they even knew about it), but many individual store managers would load up a laptop with a pirated movie and set the media player to repeat so it was constantly running.
@eZee
“Copyright infringement is not *stealing*”
That’s all in the eye of the beholder. To the governments fighting you on this, the software firms who have lost their goods or the entertainment companies whose inventories have been gutted or the game creators who can’t even get a game well-launched anymore because the piracy is so damaging or the artists who see their income dry up and have asked TPB to take their stuff down but are publicly ridiculed, or the indie producers who have been revenue-starved through piracy of their tracks right out of their businesses…..to anyone who has been on the receiving end of this nightmare, this looks, sounds, feels and affects them just as stealing. For now the legislatures leave it as a civil infraction, true, “infringement.” Perhaps you’d prefer this be changed to criminal charges so “grand larceny” is the proper charge. This will be interesting to watch. You may yet have your wish.
“Yes, we are entitled to it.“
You can tell that to the judge. Maybe Sunde wants to hear it. I thought Tenenbaum’s “Fair Use” defense was pretty damn entertaining, but I’d LOVE to watch a webcast of you in a court case explaining that particular line of reasoning. lol
“You (and your cronies) cant do sh*t,”
You actually know better than that. So does everyone here. We are in a very different place than even just a year ago. This is a long process that will protect freedom as much as pirates will allow, but no government is going to live with this in these kinds of numbers in the long run and you know they won’t. As the criminal charges ratchet higher and higher in the months and years ahead only the most foolish will still be involved with trackers, and you see as easily as I do that hosts and ISP’s will be part of that solution, even if it has to be required by the governments. Go ahead and host a tracker if it’s worth that kind of risk to you, Ezee. The conviction of TPB is not the end, it’s the first light of a new standard for legal online behavior and Sweden will be as much a part of this as anyone else if they want to sell their armaments to the rest of the world. And good luck without your capitalistic arms industry. Weapons have been floating your economic boat since WW2. Sweden will fight piracy because they want the money from selling their bombs.
http://i1.democracynow.org/2008/12/9/sweden_ranks_second_in_the_world
If you actually do want to dedicate yourself to a life of cat and mouse a step ahead of law enforcement with a huge downside if you ever make a mistake, hey, knock yourself out. Seriously. A life like that is ideal for a deep thinker like you. And the cops will always have something new for you, too. Sounds like a great life.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/fbi-spyware-pro.html
The fact is, Ezee, we ALL see now what will happen over time. As online crime of all sorts is taken more and more seriously and high profile convictions become daily occurrences, (and you can bet your life they eventually will), only the most degenerate or stupid will see piracy as a great idea, and online crime will drop precipitously to only the hardcore criminals. Just as IRL, the remaining tiny percentage of digital criminals will reflect the lowest common denominator of society, and the numbers will be a sliver of a percentage compared to what it is today. Just like speeding. Just like shop lifting. Just like tax evasion. Is it worth it to you, Ezee? Great. Take your shot.
But your VPN’s and your proxies are temporary fixes and I know you realize this, too. Like every other criminal who has to live in hiding, you’ll forever need a new place to hide as the cat gets closer. And Ezee, I’d imagine that you will. These are your “principles”, right? So here’s the good news.
Once you are in perpetual hiding a step ahead of Interpol/Scotland Yard/the FBI because you are so eff’d up you cannot fit in with the rest of civilized society anymore, you’ll live your life on that proxy+VPN hoping no one has cracked it yet while rubbing elbows with every common VPN-using pedophile, but you won’t mind at all. You’ll be “home” with your allies of “principle”, right?
Welcome Home, Ezee.
Yeah, you’ll always be smarter than me.
“Morals and ethics are on our side.”
Nah, all you got is a big pointed stick. And you use it to frighten the people that feed you (consumers and artists). You’re a moral equivalent of a child-abusing priest.
Maybe they should have changed the file name before they actually went and displayed these.
@It’s main slogan is “I am not stupid!”
No, MediaMarkt’s main slogan is “Not for idiots”, usually accompanying a video showing some idiots… at least where I live.
Couldn’t a customer browsing / testing the hardware have put it on there?
“even if you discount the Middle Eastern Sheikh customers who can actually afford to fill one.”
“why everybody thinks that all middle easterners are rich?
that only apply on gulf countries not the whole middle east.”
Learn to read. Or if you can read but dont know the words, look them up before you look like a retard.
Shiek: The title is sometimes more informally used to people who have a certain financial or political influence, but especially in relation to royalty and other nobility. In the Persian Gulf States the title is used for men of stature, whether they are managers in high posts, wealthy business owners, or local rulers.
@Reasoned Mind: Unlike many other retards here I’m willing to acknowledge the most likely possibilty – you are NOT paid by any anti-piracy agencies I’m certain. It’s funnay how whenever someone posts something disagreeable to the masses here it’s instantly out with the “paid troll” line, what a bunch of idiots: they can’t see past their own groupthink as to how ridiculous that is and see the possiblity of someone merely disagreeing with their viewpoint.
I take issue with several of your points though:
1. VPN encryption has not been cracked yet and is highly unlikely to be. The only known way is brute force key finding which is not feasible. Therefore anyone routing traffic through a VPN is safe from any action, legal or otherwise.
2. What that article regarding the FBI “spyware” trojan fails to mention is that whilst it’s been used often enough in the past it requires an attack vector to get it onto the victims computer firstly and if the user is behind a VPN this still wont matter – all internet traffic is routed through the VPN.
3. Fully anonymous and acceptably fast P2P is already here, it just requires a larger bulk of people to move to it for content. One of many solutions is Freenet, which whilst it has drawbacks such as incredibly high latency it does offer very high transfer speeds fopr large files – faster in many cases than crap public trackers.
Sorry bud, the future your predicting will not happen – it’s not even a matter of “if”, the technology is already here now to deal with any escalation of the legal or otherwise actions by anti-p2p.
Oh and BTW, as well as “rubbing shoulders” with pedophiles any VPn user is also accompanied by the largest users of VPN tunnels: government and big business. Nice try at associating the right to privacy with child molestation but no cigar.
@ Reasoned Mind
Your always comming out with this pedophile crap, where’s your proof, show up some numbers eh?
I don’t doubt alot of people here make crap arguements for defending piracy, but yours are fairly ill thought out aswell.
In my oppinion your idea of a ‘controlled’ internet is absurd and rather offensive. The internet was designed as a free system for the flowing of information, not a tool just for corperates to pedal their crap.
That’s right the 2nd most effective invention (only after the electronic computer) in the world is of a liberal design. Life changed once we all went online.
“The outlet is known for its funny, but crude advertising campaigns” … you call that funny? Maybe the first time you see it. Atm MediaM/Saturn have a flamewar going on here in austria (not sure about elsewhere) which is just plain stupid & annoying. Makes me tune out on tv and radio.
Also (a little more on-toppic): Interrestingly I’ve never seen a MM around here play videos on it’s computers. Anyhow I’m not going to buy anything big from those companies, ordering online is cheaper even with COD in 90% of the cases (Or I go to a small electronics store, I like them more)
nothing new, we did this at dick smith electronics.
They are using a blue-ray rip to show off the macBook, which is cool…
Would they be leading consumers into believing that its a perfect piece of hardware to use for playing pirated movies? I don’t believe that is their intention but it does smell funky!
I don’t find this surprising at all.
Infact i think it has just now been highlighted in a popular website.
London, New York or Taiwan..I have seen big electronic retail giants playing an amazing HD rip of The Bee Movie or Madagascar or Transformers in their Laptops…you can easily makeout..sometimes the file name shows up in the player with extension with the rippers name ..LOL !!!!
Fact is that they have such a huge inventory to display that it will cost a huge extra bucks to display each an every unit of laptops and desktops with HD content…And bear in mind they have LCD,Plasma,Home Theatre, big monitors for display..
This is nothing new…
And about IPod success…even Apple knows the truth !!!! This is just so fucking true…millions of 160 and 200 gigs ipods are sold each year all over the world…most of these countries does not even have itunes or any legal music download service in their region…don’t tell me that the kids are all buying cd’s and then ripping and stacking up their Ipods :)
Hey Nub#49:
I appreciate a vote of confidence from one of the other good thinkers here. It’s always a chuckle when some braying moron accuses us of being one and the same, or paid by some government or industry to embody loyal opposition. We all love this network and we are all in this together. It’s just a fact that piracy has always existed, it’s always been wrong and it’s momentarily benefitting from a technical boost. The “revolutionists” here are just dumb.
It would have been cool if we had organized and stopped buying long before the internet and effected genuine change to these exploitive industries. Instead, the TF fanbois approach this as a drunken smash-and-grab and then whine when they get precisely what they earn. I still say the jury is very out on whether this approach to business will gather much real traction. In the bigger picture, the industries go on as before with government and law enforcement at their side as always. Given the mindset of piracy, I predict this is going to get WAY MORE adversarial and insanely punitive before any real change occurs. A drunk—- intoxicated on his own self-importance and chestbumping the LEO rarely goes well for the drunk and that’s about where we are at the moment.
Your points are well considered as always but this time short sighted, perhaps. Pull back and see a larger, longer picture.
The innovation cycle is 1000 times shorter than it was in the 18th century when the mere thought of radio was absurd. It won’t take long for VPN’s and proxy’s to be the cute tech equivalent of our old 14.4 baud dial-ups. The cat and mouse game never changes. I lol at the pathetic mouse self-image most pirates embody but they have that correct and they will live furtive, anxious online lives if they are dumbass enough to take a criminal path in pride. Serves each one right, in my view. Poor quality thinking leads no where worth going.
The growing misuse of any tech will only lead to the licensing and eventual public loss of that tech. It’s a fact of life that private online illegal activists have the VPN anonymizer in common, Nub, so the associations that I mentioned already exist. To remind me that “they all wear pants and drink coffee, too” is just sophism. Eventually VPN will be synonymous with criminal intent if this keeps going as it is. There is no “right” to privacy anywhere: the closest some countries founding documents get to that are the “right to the RESPECT” for privacy but not the privacy itself. Why? Because rights are RIGHTS and privacy evaporates in a finger snap when “reasonable suspicion” of wrongdoing does documentable harm to others. The reasonable suspicion doctrine–and the documentable harm— has been on the table in online activity for almost a decade and I think a “right to privacy” is a non-starter in this issue. Personally, I don’t think government needs to know what I do in my cellar, either, but if similar trends around the world set up cellar counterfeiting operations or hashish manufacturing in these kinds of numbers, “Cellar Inspection Initiatives” would be instituted and carried out all over the globe and you know it. History shows this time and again, Nub. Weave on the highway? Take a breath test. Hide your bag from the camera? Get searched on the way out. You might as well argue for your “right” to illegal pharma manufacture or to posses an assault rifle. VPN privacy to demonstrable harm? Never gonna happen.
So the bigger picture is what digital industry really wants but all they are actually entitled to is the same quid pro quo, “one product possession/one purchase”, that any other material industry is entitled to. You can bet governments want their cut in taxes, too. So my feeling is that this is all part of a very long term strategy that pushes to a breaking point of some sort and then governments grant digital creators the levies they need to keep going, imposed on all of us and permanently institutionalizing the entertainment cartels. And what an achievement! No more speculative risk or return on investment, now they just sit back fat and happy and collect their cut while we pay regardless of what they do or not.
And at that point they will have outmaneuvered every mouthbreather on the network, eZee and company included, too excited stealing the latest illegal copies of Wolverine and Demigod to think that far ahead.
I’d do the same thing if I owned a shop in spain.
@Reasoned Mind
***********
“Copyright infringement is not *stealing*”
That’s all in the eye of the beholder.
***********
Drinking a lot of the RIAA cool aid, are you?
*******
“Yes, we are entitled to it.“
You can tell that to the judge.
*******
Dont need to, its not a crime to think so, and your buddies have not had success in making it into a crime… yet.
****
If you actually do want to dedicate yourself to a life of cat and mouse a step ahead of law enforcement
****
There is no cat and mouse…the mouse in a separate house as is the cat, you are the one still hiding behind a nick, while I am pretty open about who i am, what does that say?
As for your fantasies of a closed down internet, while it might be good and give you wet dreams… its never going to happen.
Governments will bend backwards due to corruption.. but they are not going to break their back for you.
And piracy is on the rise, not the decline… and has been for years, your dreams of pirates being an absolute minority are just that… dreams.
***
But your VPN’s and your proxies are temporary fixes and I know you realize this, too
***
Unlike the content industries we evolve immediately, *IF* one day VPNs are no longer the safest place to voice your opinion against oppression,corruption and injustice, it will be replaced by something else…which will be as good or better than how VPN is today, you do realize that dont you?
**
Once you are in perpetual hiding
**
Again you talk about hiding, and again i ask you…. who is really hiding, you or me?
**
you’ll live your life on that proxy+VPN hoping no one has cracked it yet while rubbing elbows with every common VPN-using pedophile
**
HEHE, first people like tried to associate p2p with organized crime and terrorism (loved that video by the way) now its VPNs with pedos?
good luck with that.
I’ll be sure to tell all the businesses and govt agencies using VPNs who they are “rubbing elbows with” :)
As for how hard it is to “hide” behind a VPN, here’s how it works, double click VPN icon, click connect, heck… thats even easier than logging into my email account!
***
Yeah, you’ll always be smarter than me.
***
If I was not, I would be behind bars (and you would have a big smile on your face)… thats where you want people “like me”, right?
PIRACY is MAKING money from copying and SELLING copyright material.
SHARING Stuff does NOT make you a Pirate.
@Common Sense:
No, that’s bootlegging.
It’s hilarious how disconnected the RIAA/MAFIAA are from reality. They think copyright infringement is the MINORITY ? Yeah right. It’s bigger then EVER before thanks to fast internet and evolving technology like iPod, PMPs, ect. As everyone has said, it’s here to stay. If you want people to pay for your products you should provide a service that is BETTER then piracy for a good price. For instance I am signed up at Netflix and I use it to stream movies that I’d otherwise have downloaded with bit torrent. If they had a better selection of movies, television shows, and quality, I’d use them ENTIRELY and not have to store all the crap on my hard drive. So, if you want Piracy to stop you have to give people a BETTER option then what they currently have, not a WORSE one! Get your head out of the clouds and get with the times. I actively spread knowledge about BT, public and private trackers, FTP, et all and this only creates a larger and stronger base for us.
Get with the times and deliver us something that we are WILLING to pay for!
4 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.