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MPAA: Stealing Movies Is A Risk to Internet Security

mpaaThe MPAA leaves no opportunity unused to make sure that people understand how dangerous movie piracy is.

Despite breaking records at the box office year after year, piracy is costing the U.S. economy several billion dollars.

At least that’s what the MPAA claims.

But the piracy ‘threat’ is not limited to the economy. It also threatens the entire Internet.

MPAA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Policy Officer Paul Brigner wrote a small blog post explaining the problem.

Citing an article from Kaspersky, he claims that rogue websites, including perfectly legal operations such as Rapidshare according MPAA’s definition, are offloading all kinds of evil malware.

“All the more reason to keep rogue sites from reaching U.S. consumers. Stealing movies isn’t worth the risk to American jobs – or the risk to Internet security.”

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  • Anonymous

    lol I saw their stupid claim on their blog.It’s a pile of horse dunk.

    • SomeAsian

      Seriously, what the fuck are these people downloading that keeps giving them this “evil malware”???

      …I bet its the pr0nz.

      • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

        Even porn doesn’t have much malware in it today. The things that do at any REPUTABLE site (ThePirateBay, RLSLog.net, etc.) are quickly removed as soon as one person complains…. sometimes automatically removed and hidden until an admin checks the complaints if there are a certain number of complaints.

        • Anonymous

          @Christopher kidwell
          The whole purpose of me switching to linux was the endless possibilities. There are no limits just about everything you can do in windows can be done on ubuntu and the many other distros.
          You don’t even have to go on the web to get programs, when you have Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic package manager, Ubuntu tweaks, Getdeb the list goes on.
          I have programs on my computer that amaze me for software you’d pay on average around $150-2000 bucks for free!! All completely open source!!
          So you are right, though it’s all a learning curve. But once you get used to a new operating system. You open the doors to much broader possibilities then you could imagine.
          I personally merged both ubuntu and ubuntu-studios together i added medibuntu which the average user has no idea about. So who knows i might make a tutorial someday on really tweaking out ubuntu to make it a power station.
          For starters anyone who uses ubuntu get nautilus elementary or search it. Also get (globus preview) which you hover over you music or pictures and hit spacebar.
          Don’t get me wrong though christopher. I have a dual boot so i can run windows 7 when on programs that can only be run on windows.

      • Anonymous

        lol i know right lmao.PRON!! they are using kaspersky on a windows system they act as if Linux and any other operating system doesn’t exist.

        • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

          For the average computer user? They don’t! I mean it…. I’m a ‘savvy’ computer user and I NEVER use ANYTHING but Windows. I’ve ‘tried’ Ubuntu but the limitations in it that I don’t have with Windows 7 always makes me return to the latter.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Zack-Nelson/1287355169 Zack Nelson

    Those same security threats can be found surfing the web, running .exe files, or just simply not keeping Windows, Linux, or whatever operating systems up to date.

    Besides, some of the good torrent trackers like The Pirate Bay remove malicous torrents from their sites.

    • Anonymous

      You liar. Those security threats are only found in copyright infringing websites and through services that facilitate copyright infringement (like torrent clients). Lol. Jk.

      Maybe it’s just me, but anyone who’s got the word “technology” in their actual job title should probably not be so clueless. As you pointed out, those threats are found pretty much everywhere online. You can catch them on legitimate and non-rogue websites just as easy. Usually even easier, because they’re trusted sites and people who aren’t technologically inclined (as far as keeping their systems from becoming infected) will just click on anything on said sites and trust it inherently.

      Psh. Facebook is definitely not a rogue site and they have malware problems it seems almost on a weekly basis with people clicking links and then infecting their computers, which then repost said links (without their knowledge) for others to click on their pages.

      The sad part is the MPAA blogger isn’t as dumb as he sounds. He won’t allow comments on the blog. (Because then others might try and spread their propaganda on their or include facts and links to other places that the MPAA would rather people not be aware of.) Or else, someone who runs an actual IT department would point out the stupidity of what he actually wrote.

    • Anonymous

      Linux updates all the time.There are less threats on linux, as a matter of fact, I never ever had a virus on my linux system lol. I’ve been using it for atleast 3 to 4 years and never had an issue lol. EVER!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Don-Dilly/1624894683 Don Dilly

    Err, The main threat to the internet is the MPAA/RIAA and their global sock puppetry

  • hang all politicians

    Typical, deliberately misinforming propaganda piece, of 5h17.

  • John Space

    If you masturbate too much, you can go blind! The Pope said so!

    • bong

      masturbating causes gonorrhea

    • merethan

      Viruses do pass condoms, too.

      Oh, and home fucking is killing prostitution!

  • noko

    >It also threatens the entire Internet.

    No, MPAA, that’s you.

  • Guest

    Where can i hire him for the next pirate party xmas party.

  • FREEDOM

    how much does he get paid to say crap again. if it wasn’t for people downloading or streaming, they put the prices higher and higher. how much does it cost for a dvd, they want to control you. in what music you listen too or films you watch

  • Bushwick

    Everyone is free to correct my line of thinking if I am heading in the wrong direction here with my train of thought. The way I see it, there is an inherit risk to download anything off the Internet. However most of the laymen people (okay some) use some sort of Internet Security Suite, and while I know those are not 100% fool proof they do come with some sort of website scanner / validation service to help protect against some of the more important risks that could arise from visiting “questionable” sites.

    The way I see it there is a risk of downloading audio and video files (a risk most people myself included) and while the risk isn’t the files themselves, there is a slight risk of something being embedded in the file to take advantage of certain rendering engines, such as Windows Media Player, Winamp and other third party applications that if exploited correctly could cause some sort of short term denial of service attack.

    I haven’t heard of any malicious trojan, worm, root kit coming from the audio / video format file, although I have seen a root kit embedded in rendering agents (think Sony).

    But I do agree with this consensus in that this is just propaganda spewed by the MPAA because they are figuring out just how cost inefficient it has become trying to sue every living and dead person.

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  • Raff

    Make movies cheaper, more people will download legal versions and increase the market. Add adverts you you need too but piracy will never be eradicated as some peeps will always steal but if the cost of a movie is reflective of demand, in a truly capitalistic system they would earn more than they currently do.

    Piracy is popular and acceptable as people believe companies rip them off and profiteer.

  • Anonymous

    lol, a big middle finger salute to the MPAA! Boo yah!
    http://www.anon-toolz.tk

    • Anon

      Just take your spam and FUCK OFF

    • Anon

      Just take your spam and FUCK OFF

      • NamblaRogerYoung

        take a dick up your ass and you fuck off bitch

      • Guest

        keep FLAGGING!

  • Gayboy

    It is only a threat to the profit margin…kill corporate whores!!!

  • Fucksony

    This type of crap makes me puke…pirate bay was RIGHT

  • babbott

    I’m always confused with the way they throw numbers around and it’s not just this article. When ever someone says “…is costing the U.S. economy several billion dollars”. Since the economy is doing well when money exchanges hands or foreign currency is brought in by tourism, I would assume anything that “costs” the US economy would restrict money from exchanging hands causes tourism / overseas currency from being introduced into the economy.

    So how does this “cost” the US economy. I mean, if I pirate something it’s not like I’m going to be fight fisted with my money or burn it. I’ll just spend it elsewhere (Like an ipod? laptop? save up for a new car?). I would think that piracy just diverts where the money is spent rather than “costing” the US economy.

    I see this all the time and I don’t get it. I can appreciate maybe someone in china pirating a US movie and instead using that money to purchase something that won’t be introduced into the US economy, but several billion?

  • Anonymous

    Copying movies will cause AIDS and the 3e World War.

  • http://twitter.com/maruawe WilliamJohnston

    Crap This is a scare you tactic from MPAA because they do not have the intelligence to overcome the piracy of their movies. Maybe if they listened to customers about the ridiculousness of prices to see movies. And if they would understand that paying an actor/actress millions to do a movie that will flop and that they cannot watch the world go hungry to pay $20.00 for a dvd that cost them .50cents to make,and maybe $3.00 to distribute. May the light pulse find a dark place to enter as they reach down for their check.

    • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

      It costs even LESS than that when you take into account digital downloads, which they can do in h.264 and stream for almost NOTHING in mp4 or avi format.

  • http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

    MPAA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Policy Officer Paul Brigner is liar and tosspot.

    Give it up son.

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  • An Unwashed Heathen

    There’s only one word to describe this MAFIAA announcement:

    BULLSHIT!!

  • Xult

    What total and utter horseshit.
    Every time I think something absurd as been stated then we get this.
    The threat to internet security are these pisspots.
    They upload more malware than anyone.
    Spending Artists money on court and government corruption.
    I am using a VPN.
    Two months ago I didnt understand what one was.
    More people like me are using VPN and are virtually untracable.
    Internet security hahahahahahahahahah.
    Making more people go underground.
    Mafiaa = Skynet =Borg!

  • Lothor The Evil

    “Citing an article from Kaspersky, he claims that rogue websites, including perfectly legal operations such as Rapidshare according MPAA’s definition, are offloading all kinds of evil malware.”

    #1. I’ve heard complaints about Kaspersky having too many ‘false-positives’ and being a lousy anti-malware software all together.
    #2. Since when did the MPAA define Rapidshare as “being perfectly legal”?? They’ve suded RS and been trying to take them offline for a while now. Only a court had ruled RS complying with DMCA notices and operating legally.

  • Joel Maika

    Honestly, truthfully, if they could not pirate these movies, they WOULD NOT WATCH THEM. 80% of the time. Sure, there is some loss, but they take it to a ridiculous level. And a lot of the time, it’s advertising the product by getting it out there in the public consciousness.

  • Guest

    Who cares what MAFIAA says… They want to destroy the Internet and we want Internet to be free and neutral.

  • Anonymous

    porn all day torrent sites all day its the stupid ads off the side. the advertising companies need to check there shit

  • lolololol

    Dear MPAA,

    Stealing movies is awesome, and so is intentional copyright infringement (on both small and large scale.)

    Deal with it, nerds.

    Love,
    Toby.

  • Anonymous

    Real people either use Unix.. or a decent virus scanner.

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  • -= 1_L1k3_1N_T1T5 =-

    Dead shit with them, those motherfuckers should be shoted to the mars.

  • J.T.

    Problem 1: You’re using Kapersky :-P

    Problem 2: The MPAA are the ones most likely planting viruses in the first place.

    So I guess this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. MPAA says viruses from ‘rogue’ sites are malicious and present a threat to US consumers. Informed citizens cry bullshit. MPAA hires more people to plant viruses until cries of bullshit are mitigated.

    MPAA keeps planting viruses until the right people get infected and legislation passes. Eventually web use will be subject to government approval. Blocking ads will become a felony and the scene where Fry in Futurama has his dreams interrupted by an underwear ad will become a reality.

    I’m going to move to the island of Nauru and wear a tin foil helmet. :-D

    • Anonymous

      That won’t save you. The only thing that will save you is wearing a helmet made out of solid concrete. Or just staying in a nuclear shelter.

      • J.T.

        I can still dream, right? :-)

        • Anonymous

          No. They will infect them. :)

          Verstuurd vanaf mijn HTC Wildfire
          Op 7 jul. 2011 13:35 schreef “Disqus”
          het volgende:

    • Anonymous

      There already are websites that make it so you can’t view them if you use any kind of ad-blocking software. Add-ons. Extensions. Etc. Which really grinds my gears. Firefox loads up quick for me on most pages BECAUSE I block all the goddamn ads. That or the sites will have a huge pop-up onscreen (because I have a pop-up blocker as well) telling you that you can’t view the site til you allow an exception for that site through your ad-blocker or disable it entirely.

      • J.T.

        Oh, tell me about it! It’s the ad blockers that make some websites actually usable!

  • J.T.

    Problem 1: You’re using Kapersky :-P

    Problem 2: The MPAA are the ones most likely planting viruses in the first place.

    So I guess this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. MPAA says viruses from ‘rogue’ sites are malicious and present a threat to US consumers. Informed citizens cry bullshit. MPAA hires more people to plant viruses until cries of bullshit are mitigated.

    MPAA keeps planting viruses until the right people get infected and legislation passes. Eventually web use will be subject to government approval. Blocking ads will become a felony and the scene where Fry in Futurama has his dreams interrupted by an underwear ad will become a reality.

    I’m going to move to the island of Nauru and wear a tin foil helmet. :-D

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