MPAA sues Hotfile for "staggering" copyright infringement
 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ring-scale.ars

:thumbsup

nice try...
but question is what will come out of it...

rogue uploading

The MPAA has done their homework.

Today, what the owner makes in a day (take home pay) is what a good adult paysite owner made in a month back in 2001.

Huh? Are you crazy? All of us made a LOT more money back in the day. These idiot tube sites and file share sites are picking up pennies where we used to pick up hundred dollar bills.

It's kinda funny how paypal doesn't allow adult, yet they are the main payment processor for all these file sharing sites who profit adult.

I think he means the OWNER of Hotfile.com, not just the avg loser affiliate.

God news. More lawsuits -> less comfortable life for motherfuckers.

PayPal does process even scat, zoo and cp which is being distributed via file sharing sites. Seems these guys are ok with it. :disgust

I know what he said. He said the owner of that site makes more money today than I and many others made in the past.

Bullshit.

We made more money in a day than that clown is making in a month. I have yet to see one of those sites understand how to make real money.

They pick up pennies. I'll guarantee you I made more money just off paid spots. Hell, I was getting over a hundred grand a month IN CASH (epass) a few years back just for text spots. And then making another hundred grand in sales. These pirate sites are not only fucking everybody else...but they have no clue how much easy money they are leaving on the table because they don't know how to run a site properly

sorry but you have no clue here.

And you do? LOL

You know, it's laughable to me to see you guys talk like you know about traffic and how to monetize it. Reality is there were only a handful of us in the online adult that ever had the kind of traffic that made real money. And unless you are me, Patrick, Al, or Pierre...then you're not one of them to know how things are/were.

These pirate sites destroyed all that. They now have all the traffic. But I have eyes and can see how their scripts set up the pages. Everyone that I know who is good at what they do can run circles around that shit with 1/1000th of the traffic.

I agree with what you say a lot of the time but you if genuinely think that the owner of the Hotfile company, isn't making $100,000's from their company then you are the one that's out of touch.
The reality is there were more than handful making that sort of money and some of US still are, just because you've been around for a while doesn't make you right on everything.

I agree with you 99% of the time, but you're wrong on this one.

Hotfile is #56 on Alexa. They throttle your bandwidth and if you're a heavy user, it will be worth the $9 a month to upgrade and get unrestricted downloads (faster speed and less of a wait).

With #56 on Alexa, I'm certain there are plenty of people spending $9 a month. That $9 gets you pretty much any file you want -- without paying for it -- so there is huge incentive for people to signup.

Plus, for the people that do not pay, they rely on the advertising model to make money. Whether referring sales like a traditional affiliate (easy to match relevant ads to file names, IP's, etc.) or ad sales.

The owner of Hotfile is making a shit load of money.

There are plenty of pirate sites that make little to nothing, but Hotfile isn't one of them.

I didn't say they aren't making money. I said that any good webmaster could monetize that traffic 1000 x better.

And no. There were no bigger sites than ours and the others I mentioned. A handful. If you or anyone else had that kind of traffic I would have known you and done business with you. There were only a small group of us at that time.

And hell, we'd all still have that kind of traffic and revenue generating ability IF everything wasn't already stolen and given away for free.

Remember, we not only made big money off dating and cams...BUT we were making even MORE money off selling paysite memberships. They've pretty much turned that into a nightmare.

And again...I sold simple text links on my "What's Hot" list for 6 grand a month. I always had 9 spots to sell on there and there was always a waiting list.

And that was just one small section on the main page. I kept the top banner spot for myself because it generated at least 30k a month in paysite sales.

And then there were the paid gallery listings. I charged 5 grand a month. One link per day.

And then there were the thousands of hosted galleries which made us another hundred grand a month.

I don't care what you guys THINK about these pirate sites. They do not generate the revenue that they could with that kind of traffic number.

how much you used to make a month? they estimate rapidshare is making up to 175 million a year.

Yes he is. I never meant to say he wasn't making a lot of money. I'm saying he isn't making the kind of money we did. And he definitely isn't making the kind of money that you probably could with that kind of traffic.

I think there are a lot of guys in our industry with tons more experience marketing and working traffic and understanding how to sell than the pirates and their auto-pilot script user uploaded crap.

If I had that kind of traffic, I know I could do a lot better than those pre-paid ad spots and his $9 "membership". Not saying that's anything to sneeze at. I just think I could do a lot better.

I'm thinking that you and a lot of other guys could too.

BUT...we would all still be cut off at the knees for paysite sales. Just never gonna be able to make that kind of money on a pirate site.

Damn...it wasn't that long ago that paysite sales dwarfed cams and dating. I know those days aren't coming back until new laws are passed and treaties signed between countries etc.

But what we all think of as a lot of money now...isn't really as much as we were all making a few years ago. Hell man...we had already made millions just in the 90's. And then we made even more in the early 2000's when "reality" websites took off.

The cam and dating money that we all are basically living off of now...that was just drinking money a decade ago.

These pirates have cut off the biggest revenue generating source (paysites) just by the very nature of what they are.

Not trying to be all nostalgic and thinking about "glory days" etc. (though I know that's how it's coming off)...I'm just saying that one guy on here claimed that the owner of hotfile is making more money now than we did then. No, he's not. Nobody is.

"They" "estimate". Okay. I'll go with that. :)

I never ever ever made 175 million dollars in my whole life.

And going to rapidshare and seeing how they monetize it...They aren't either.

Bro, it ain't magic. Just because they have millions of freeloaders doesn't mean that they are selling anything. And no, the dating and cam companies are not paying them 175 million dollars a year in pre-paid ad spots. That would be insane and the worst waste of ad money ever.

Hahaha - I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you but you didn't know me as I had no interest in you. "that kind of the traffic" wasn't the only way to make and continue making those sorts of numbers.

There are 1000's of people buying their upgraded service. I've even done it!
You're just talking out of your arse.

pennies today is better than pockets full of lent.

I agree with robbie the other 1% of the time :)

No I'm not. And yes you would have loved to have done business with me when I was ampland. We would have made tons of money together. Our traffic was second to none.

And if and when the dmca and copyright laws and treaties are ever updated to stop the abuse of safe harbor...I believe that the good affiliates like myself will once again be able to regain some traffic, and then we will make money together. :)

For now, all I can do is piss and moan as far as my affiliate work is concerned. Thank God for claudia-marie.com or I'd be in a lot of trouble. lol

I think you are starting to sound like that other daft old twat on here and you're losing touch with the reality of now.

I know more people now that have memberships to 'premium' Hotfile, Sharingmatrix et al than actual paysites.

Sign of the times. For a few hundred quid a year they have access to a lot more porn than they can handle!

Crazy money in "mainstream"... lol

1. More traffic for Hotfile.com
2. Another challenge to the DMCA
3. Nothing else

No, I'm not crazy. I'm talking about the take home pay of the owner by himself, not his organizations total income. I also qualified my statement by saying, "good adult paysite owner". Some made more, some made less. I know the man, I'm not guessing his income. If you want to tell me what you made in 2001, I will let you know how you rate in comparison to his personal income today.

You know him? You realize he's a fucking thief right? What he needs is a foot in the ass. Not you fawning over him. WTF is wrong with you man? Get your head on straight and realize that every penny this piece of shit is making is STOLEN off of the real work of others.

He is a piece of shit. Period. And you should rethink your circle of people if this thief is one of them.

EDIT: And I don't know what he makes obviously...but my own net take home pay right now is $60,000 give or take a few thousand according to sales. Yes, I overpay myself...my wife is expensive. lol

Robbie, don't read more into what I wrote than what is there. I'm not defending the man nor do I care how he makes or spends his money. My initial point is that the MPAA is accurate in their statement when they stated that Hotfile "profits richly while paying nothing to the studios". I was simply giving an example of how "richly".

Sorry for going off on you. I just think we all need to stop being passive about these people and I get a little carried away with it sometimes. My apologies.

I totally understand, no offense taken, apologies accepted. He will be in Vegas for a few months and I believe you may've actually met him. Next time we have a social, I will send you an invitation.

The DMCA already doesn't offer safe harbor for the kind of activity Hotfile does, so this could be a watershed case, if it goes all the way.

512(c)(1)(b) of the DMCA says this: A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief ... "does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity"

Their business model is specifically engineered to encourage piracy, and they pay pirates to upload material. The MPAA can "seal the deal" if they can prove numerous incidents of ignoring valid DMCA complaints, but if they pursue a case based on safe harbor not applying to for-profit file sharing points, Hotfile and those like it could well be seeing their last days.

you need to get a dictionary and look up the definition of direct vs indirect.

hotfile provides a service that fileshare BOTH infringing and non infringing.
they make money from providing faster downloads to BOTH content sources
they can't tell the difference until AFTER the DMCA takedown is sent to them(couold be licienced, fair use, someone who has a right to uploading it)

there are more than 1/2 dozen including the viacomm vs youtube that make that distinction(hell in the viacomm case they actually had emails from one owner bitching out another owner for uploading copyrighted material and they still lost)

I think you underestimate how many people would pay sub $10/mo for something they'd use on a regular basis even if they're cheap bastards. Look at Netflix starting to kill the cable TV model with their $7/mo plan.

What a crock (as usual for you). Even if their they hosted a substantial number of non-infringing works, the fact that the DMCA disallows safe harbor because they 1) directly profit from the activity by selling memberships and 2) directly encourage uploading infringing works by paying uploaders to do it. A litigant need only prove a single case of infringement, for which the DMCA would not protect them, and punitive damages can be tens of thousands, and more.

But it's not like that. They have THOUSANDS of infringing works, none of which are provided safe harbor. They have selected a business model that the DMCA specifically does not protect, and this action is the first in many against these kinds of file hosts.

Here's what can be determined in discovery alone:

* The names, mailing addresses, and other personal information of any uploader of infringing material (Hotfile must maintain it, so they can pay these people).

* The IPs of downloaders of the infringing material.

* The names and billing information of those downloaders of the infringing material who have paid a membership fee

* Access to accounting and revenue information, to ascertain real and punitive damages.

I wouldn't want to be a paid Hotfile uploader or member right about now. The MPAA is about to go after you.

If like me, you lurk on the forums where File sharing Reps for these companies post - you'll see their promotions and the alarming amount of people asking any company that they want to start using "Can I upload **insert infringing content** to get my pay ratio increased? "

And the Rep of the Cyberlocker hosting company will always say "Upload what you wants as long as its not CP, Scat etc" - then they'll also add ....... "make sure you own it" - followed by a winky emoticon.

Its funny to see the Reps say "for those wishing to increase sales, upload in-demand video - like a video from your holiday for example" - like anyone is getting 1000 downloads off a Disneyland vacation video. Most of the posters put the sites they run in their sig and NONE of them have anything legitimate on them.


These douche Cyberlocker companies know exactly what they're asking uploaders to do, the uploaders know it too and have no issue uploading what they dont own so they can earn a few dollars for 1000 or so downloads. Most aren't earning anything because they cant achieve the download ratio and even if they did.....they cant reach the minimum payout but, the material is still out there (and the Cyberlocker has earned something from that uploaders memberships, even if the uploader hasn't reached min payment).

One even had the nerve to tell me "We too are victims of that uploaders crimes, have you tried visiting them if you know who they are ? Also we can't find their account so we aren't able to remove the master files. "

If it were possible to make a decent income from it, id pay affiliates per 1000 links removed - who knows, maybe it is.

Hi,

just trying to figure out if I understand what you are TRYING to say with this. Someone will have to paste this again if you want an answer btw since he ignores me <g>

You DO know that he makes more actual $$-value per month than you ever did in your life, just that compared to the TRAFFIC, the "per visitor" $$ value is much lower than what you did? Is that correct?

If you actually think the total $$ amount hotfile makes a month is not a lot compared to the total $$ amount you made in 2001, you are completely out of touch... I estimate hotfile makes somewhere around 40 million USD profit a year.

And yes, I hate the site and the concept, its much worse than tubes.

Corbin Fisher also suing Hotfile. Let's hope some judge finally gets what's happening and decides file sharing hosts have no safe harbor protection.

they are much worse than tubes, i've been saying it for years now while everybody's fixated on tube this tube that.

a 9 dollar Hotfile subscription is a username/password to every paysite members area on the Net.

They havent listed designated agent on their website as required (name, adress etc) so they do not qualify for safe harbor.

do you even understand what a safe harbor provision is

if safe harbor disappeared the secon an infringement was proven, then it would be a safeharbor

non infringing act are always safe, the point is to grant them immunity from infringing act to prevent the host having to censor the free speech legitimate uses.

imagine the world you trying to claim exist, if you make one single cent of profit offering a service that could potentially be used as infringement you could have yourself driven into bankruptcy.

the entire economy would grind to a halt, hell isp charge money based on bandwidth they make money when people use bit torrent to pirate moves.

let go after them too.

did you even read the viaccom case, viacomm asked for similar information, they got redacted copies only.

they would have to pierce the safe harbor provision before they could ever get to that point to justify such an invasion of privacy.

More ill-conceived nonsense. Do you even think about what you write before you write it?

An ISP clearly has no direct benefit from its users uploading to torrents. The YouTube/Viacom (learn to spell the company's name at least) case was completely different. Google is smart enough to put ads only on content from a verified source. They don't have an affiliate scheme that pays people to upload.

You may not agree with the wording of the DMCA, but the bad comes with the good. The law exempts safe harbor to service providers if they receive a direct monetary benefit, and they have (as all file sharing companies do) the ability to individually control what content is made available from their servers.

These file sharing companies have taken off because RapidShare (wisely) no longer offers an incentive to infringe. When they ceased their per-download affiliate payment model, precisely because of the potential for loss of safe harbor, the ill-informed hosters jumped in to fill the void. Now that their businesses have grown to something worth protecting, you watch: they'll either change their business model, or be sued to the last dime they have.

Host qualifies here:
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/ag...lemuricomm.pdf

as does hotfile
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/ag...otfilecorp.pdf

yes they do, you can share in the advertising revenue from poste videos.

You may not agree with the wording of the DMCA, but the bad comes with the good. The law exempts safe harbor to service providers if they receive a direct monetary benefit, and they have (as all file sharing companies do) the ability to individually control what content is made available from their servers.
[/QUOTE]

no they don't they INDIRECTLY profit from piracy

the fact is that hotfiles makes exactly the same amount of money per download if i put up a movie as a PARODY of a movie.

that the point there is no 1:1 relationsip between dollars and piracy
that what the court have repeatedly recongized as the limit need to void the safe harbor provision.



right and how many of your previous predictions have come true?

The information must be publicly available on their website. I can't find it here: hotfile.com/reportabuse.html

*here*?






8char

Don't be silly.

You'll be accused of living in the past. :1orglaugh

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ht...2----000-.html

want to point out the section of the safe harbor provision that actually states that rule.

they just have to put it on their web site in a publically accessable way, they don't have to link to it.

a completely hidden page, that you could get too if you MANUALLY typed in the url in a browser would meet the DMCA conditions.

well its a public upload all they can do is delete on request just like youtube does. just my 2 cents

sure.

(2) Designated agent.? The limitations on liability established in this subsection apply to a service provider only if the service provider has designated an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement described in paragraph (3), by making available through its service, including on its website in a location accessible to the public, and by providing to the Copyright Office, substantially the following information:
(A) the name, address, phone number, and electronic mail address of the agent.
(B) other contact information which the Register of Copyrights may deem appropriate.