New Blog replaces www.niteshdw.com

[Megalith]

Looks great, i use firefox so have no probs with it.

 

Its good to see you are getting it together with isohunt I hope this coalition is fruitful. It sounds like this option would provide the best outcome for all and should reduce the legal bills. United we stand (no reference to remedyu's bad taste in football teams btw lol)

 

Of course i will support this site whatever the outcome. Good Luck!

[msg4real]

I fixed mine so i can see it ok there is an option in the tools > ienternet options > acciblity> and their is one that said ignor web sizes or something like that uncheak it

 

And it sould work agian

 

[greyCell]

and dont know how many times this has been said:

 

there are 3 types of generic media online: music ,movies and TV shows.

music is doing so much better with P2P in general and bittorent, actually it is not common to get a song off bittorent for that most people fall back to traditional p2p it has much higher chances of having an older song. full albums and new stuff with bittorrent.

 

does the music industry lose money?

do they come out at the end of the year not making ends meet. hell no they male enormous profits.

do they make less than what they made last year. hell no.

do they make less than they expected. still no, it is proven that distributing via p2p means more publicity and higher sales, alot of people download and buy, i personally do that alot if i like the stuff "i mean most of the album" if it has one good song screw them".

 

no matter what happens artisits never get harmed artisits dont even get a share they get a constant rate and they get a share of the concerts, more people listining via p2p means more people at concerts.

 

TV: we pay for tv shows, that is not at all true. we pay for televesion signal transmission. Tv shows production costs are covered sevral folds by advertisments. so technically we pay for a very big network that broadcasts the stations to the sattelite and for the cable company. if all this was eliminated replaced by legal distribution of TV material through bittorrent, and embedding small ADs in the material, not thirty second cut ads more of a small symbol sort of like the TV channel symbol, most of the people will not remove this AD and redistribute the material because it is not worth the trouble the ad wont be irritating. "this is not my idea, a professor working at university in australia came up with it as far as i know, i have more details if anyone is interested".

 

now let us look at the benfits, now that the broadcasting is eliminated the studios will be fully covered through advertisment. second of all every studio will have a branch responsible for hyper distributing the content. simply a collection of servers with high speed conections seeding all the shows it has. i think there are fine details to work on, they might set a maximum upload rate for each file/episode giving higher limits to newer more popular shows. now if the show is low profile the small number of official seeds will be enough to cover the needs. if a show is high profile it will act like a popular file on bittorent now alot of people will jump on it and soon they will all be sharing it.

 

some people say what about the netwirks what will happen to them. the australian dude sais they will be limited to live stuff news sports blah blah blah.

i say to hell with them why sohuld we pay to keep some lazy ass people in business.

 

three movies, now moviews still make alot more money. why?

will first of all going to the cinema is an experiance, alot of people would like to see the movie in a thetre even if it is avaliable on DVD.

 

plus most movies except for those who escape from film festivals "thank you oscar" are not avaliable as DVD except after release by months.

 

to sum up, this is not about money, this is not about legal rights of the content, this is not about morally right or wrong. this is about control. networks control us, who doesnt remeber the stubeorn paramount decesion to kill off enterprise, it wasnt a teribble show "some see it was very good some see it was ok anyway it had decent viewing rates", plus the couple of million dollars the fans mustered up and a couple of advertisment contracts but no. it is not about money anymore, it was a reminder that it is not what the fans want it is what the network wants. most of the time they do what we want but they must remind us each once in as while that it is thier decesion. now they are losing control and they hate that.

 

here is what i hope happens, a bold studio will make a TV show, make a brand new kind of advertisment deal with some open minded companies and distribute the show through bittorrent. and it will be a break through. i know this happend in a way a star trek fan show was distributed through bittorent, but it was a fan show which means it was a poor production and it had no advertisment.

 

so what am i saying is: downloading is illegal no doubt about it, and people who say it is not "stealing" it is "sharing" should just shut up. we have a saying here in egypt: "either say a good thing or shut up".

 

companies who say we are losing money should shut up also: you are not losing money , you are making more money.

 

what do i think will happen if the networks keep doing what they are doing now, well in 15 years everybody below 40 will have the knowledge on how to use the internet effectively and then people will really start downloading every body will download, the companies will have nothing to do.

 

just look at the battle so far, they spent millions to shut down napster, and in month uncentrallized p2p networks popped up.

 

they treyd to kill p2p by shutting down trackers, now we have DHT trackerless torrents, the torrents themselves can be made avaliable anywhere, this will never be a problem.

 

greedy companies are set up who offer services to networks to "prevent" sharing of thier content online, and what is the brilliant wa they use. they dilute the swarm early on its life by false seeders that send out bogus data, practically milions were invested to make the siftware needed set up servers acting as pseudoseeders with high bandwidth lines, and what, now we have peer gaurdian and automatic block for any one who sends more than 5 bad pieces.

 

this war will never end all it is effectively doing is costing the stupid companies millions because they wont get a hint. oh now they are making legal napster where you pay practically nothing for download. hah ppl that doesnt work. yeah alot of people use napster and itunes but if they had actually legalized napster from the get GO there wouldn't be any other p2p online sharing like warez kazaa and the rest of them, but now there are and now we know they are begging so #### em.

 

one last point, i do not consider that this post is "about" bittorent, however if niteshdw sees it violates the rule of not mentioning that which must not be named, i do not mind at all he deleting it "not that it really matters if i do mind" just saying that i do not.

[NeoJuno]

a very long speech greyCell, with a valid point. You are right, it is about control and its about time we stand up and fight rather than giving up( not directed in anyway, towards nite). This coalition being formed by isohunt is a bold move in the right direction. It ends now, we should take it to them and take it hard and if we are to fail, at least we tried! Running away never solves any problem, we need to face our fear and see through it. In the old saying of the Klingon Empire "Perhaps it is a good day to die".

[greyCell]

good point yes fighting back

 

i think that the bittorrent comunity has done a great job passively fighting anti p2p

now it is time to strike back

i do not think we can lose

this is gorrila warfare

we have no faces no fixed ips"i mean fixed in the terms of years any sniffed ip we drop".

we need to propagate the new model of studio->advertiser->viewer

in stead of the current studio -> network -> advertiser -> viewer

we need to show that this works

and why not

it worked greatly for years since TV was first made untill they made subscribed Tv channels

i m not saying this was bad thing

it was good for its time

computers were not advanced enough back then. not enough ppl had high bandwidth.

the picture has tottaly changed now even me a son of a middle class egyptian "third world country" has a 512 kbps ADSL line.

 

im not sure though what would fighting back be like. i think this is a public fight rather than a legal one, right now they have the public and the media on thier side, because most of the 30+ cetizens think of us as a big unknow they cant even get what is it that we do, we need to change that big time.

 

and we need to make a number of good example of high quality production tv series distributed legally via bittorrent with embedded advertisment.

 

those i think should be 2 imkportant pillars of fighting back.

 

one more thing what we do is illegal but for how long?

lets not forget that when the VCR was first publically produced it was illligal to recored a show and watch it later.

[dva2082]

I agree with greycell as well. Except on one point.

 

They want us to think it's not about money. They want us to think that it is about the "legality" of it.

 

Well, let's take a look at another industry. The airline industry.

 

Currently, Delta Air Lines has been in trouble. MAJOR Money trouble. They keep demanding concessions from their polits and flight attendants and whatnot. But the execs don't take pay cuts. They still get their mulit million dollar bonuses and get to live in luxury.

 

Back to the lawsuit:

 

It's all about money.. The execs want to make sure they recieve larger bonuses every year, and the "Artists" want to keep getting their check. They don't want even $1 to be missing from it.

 

I agree, it's time to fight back. It's time to show the RIAA/MPAA that they can not continue to pull the crap they do, and get away with it.

 

To quote Picard: "THIS FAR, NO FARTHER"

 

Chris

[greyCell]

it is about the money ,but not about the money!!

 

what i meanis i think both I and dva2082 are right.

i think that it is not about the money, because they know that stopping p2p will not increase sales, because alot of people who download will not buy anyway, and alot of people download and buy.

 

but it is about the money from another point, they want to totally control the field they are in. music for instance large music companies used to totally control the industry, if an artist wasnt with them he wouldnt be heared of in any big scale and he would never get a covarege on a big radio station. however the internet changed that.

 

there are alot of artists that support p2p and we saw some new bands who only distribute thier stuff through p2p, and they are doing great and thier concerts have a great attendence. the companies are in panic, they feel they had a great power and lost it, not the power to make money, the power to control the situation, if a producer wanted to burry a new artist even if he is good he could if he wanted to. the same point a movie can be killed, and we all saw how mil gibson had to go to canadian distributer to distribute passion of the christ "im not discussing the movie im discussing the idea of burying a movie it self".

 

HBO killed of a fantastic show called carnivale in its second season without even a decent ending. it is all about control, they need to feel they control the situation.

 

RIAA\MPAA ppl wake up you no longer control the situation and you will never again.

i truly think this is a case where people think something is illegal then years later it will be made legal as is "as in the example i said before of recording TV shows via a VCR"

i really think that when we subscribe to a TV network via cable we pay for something we do not want, we pay for cables sattelite dishes etc......, when all we want is TV shows and movies and options.

 

i think that the idea of making a show and releasing it via bittorent is possible within 5 years because graphics has really advanced, i think we soon will see animated series that can actually be on par with live series. that would be great because graphics is getting cheaper all the time.

[msg4real]

i KNOW THAT MANY artist have some songs avilble to dl for free others have the full album

[Jasta]

On a somewhat different note... Id like a way to be able to comment on the blog, either by conventional comments or maybe by a forum thread to this effect?

 

I just came to think of it now, wanting to express my continued support to nite, with the settlement plan.

[greyCell]

I've now official retained a lawyer from Madson & Austin here in Salt Lake City. The goal is to settle the case with the most favorable outcome for both parties.

 

While some of you may be disappointed, or just plain angry, at my decision to settle, I hope you can at least appreciate my reasons.

 

First, I do not have the funds necessary to fight a prolonged legal battle. NiteShdw.com was never about making money. I wanted a place where science fiction fans could come together and enjoy their favorite shows together by discussing them together. If I am unable to obtain a satisfactory settlement, I always have the option to continue with litigation, even if I have to do so pro se

 

Second, my first priority is to my family and especially my 8 month old daughter. As a father my priority is to provide for her before anyone else.

 

In my negociations, I am trying to propose a business plan to the MPAA and/or its members. I want to take this lawsuit as an opportunity to share with them what we as consumers want and how they can actually make money from it rather than push us away. People have freely donated to help NiteShdw.com pay for its server costs. That proves that people are willing to pay to get the TV shows they want when and how they want them.

 

i really would like to comment on these points, first of all when i say fighting i do not mean personal small battles like this site, i not only appreciate what niteshdw did and is doing, i would have recommended it to him.

 

about what niteshdw is, it is truly one of the sites i love because it is a community built on sharing and common cooperation, and these are the best ways to share files, when you have on the other hand torrentspy and other sites which are great and all but in the end are file despencers.

 

you have greatly succeded nite in creating a community, or more closely to attract an already existent.

 

the idea of communicating with the mpaa is a great idea, we must not under any circumstances make this war turn us into the mpaa but on the other side, our greatest quality is that we listen to everyone, i do think you should talk to them about the possibilty of them adopting the new model i mentioned 4 posts back of studio -> advertiser -> viewer, and tottaly supporting the shows by Ads, but not any ads smart ads, actually the ideas i said back there about embedded ads are not mine they belong to the autralian professor i talked about , but yesterday while attending the process design lecture [sorre couldn't resist saying that, the thing is i double major beside computer science (software engineer) i major in chemical engineering] i had a flash, what about a new kind of Ads ,smart Ads , the look like the proposed embedded water mark type ads but are actually dynamic.

 

here is the idea as i see it after a little development, let us say that a couple of companies would be set up to handle the link between the companies wanting to place thier Ads in a TV show. the first time anybody downloads a show that has embedded Ads via company A, would be asked to download some sort of advertising client, the job of which would be to figure out what the user prefers "sort of like google Ads" and it would show small embedded Ads , but at the moments whee traditionally conventional Ads were shown all that would hapen is that the small Ad would go from its half trnaparency to fully colored for like 5ive seconds, an interested viewer would click on it and watch a 30 seconds Ad. i hear the people say and you think people would voluntarily watch an Ad, yeah i do, unlike movies , TV shows are not written and produced in a way that makes it a must to have a contiues expereince, alot of people like the Ads intermission , it gives a moment to scratch your cortex and do some quick relaxing, when i watch an episode ive downloaded i never watch it with no pauses i pause at least 3 times, and take a minute to do something else.

 

this model seems wierd at first but here is how it would work after figuring out what the user likes the advertisment agent uses the idle time on the internet to downloaded some 30 seconds Ads from its server, which would be shown on any episode that has its adevertisment handeled by that company A. the fantastic thing is that we would never need long Ad intermissions where they show 5 or 6 consequative Ads because the only reason they have to do that on TV is that everyone watches all the Ads but with targeted Ads one 30 seconds Ad would serve the purpose.

 

here are some fine details that need working out:

i cant reenforce how much that the Ads either the water mark or the 30 seconds Ad should never be embedded into the media file. we need not to mess around with media types to maintain the state of compatibility we have now. people would ask then how will ads be added, well i like the idea of a small field inside the media file like the one that currently contain the codec used and other information on the file the fields would contain the client responsible for advertising of that show. next i though on how the Ads would actually be shown. the small half transparetn things would be shown using the same mechanism the Divx codec shows subtiltes automatically "if you place them in the same folder and give em the same name" in the same manner our little advertisment client would be tied in with the codec and it would kick any when any show it is reponsibble for and would overlay the small embedded ad over the show.

 

the 30 minutes ad would be shown in a totally other way. inorder to not to mess around with he file, once you have clicked on the small ad the 30 seconds ad assosiated with it and stored as a tottaly different file that is not in any way downloaded with the actual media would be shown over the actual full screen window where the episode is shown, the episode it self would be paused for 30 seconds.

 

let me clarify this last point it is built on the way VLC works you how in vlc when you full screen what actually happens is that it luanches a sub form inside the VLC app;ication that is shown in full screen mode. will i would have the Ad client respond to the click in the following manner:

the episode would be paused. and another full screen sub form would be shown over the one containg the episode where the ad would be shown. after the ad is over the new fullscreen ad subform would dissolve away and the episode window would unpause.

 

anyway there are still alot of fine details to work out not really thier place here. i would propose sharing these ideas with the mpaa all i request that i retain over the idea, not finnacially all i ask is that i get the credit for it. but sadly i do not think they are gonna listen, experience taugh us the never do. the legal napster/itunes wasnt addopted except after the music industry tottaly lost the war. "even though they are stupid enough to say that they won since napster was first closed then legallized. the only thing lower than a loser that sais that he didnt lose is a loser that sais he won.

 

i think the only way this model would be addopted is by de facto. as i said before a small venture studio would make a show specifically for bittorent advertisment supported, and make a bang of it. it would take sometimes to convince the companies that would place thier ads on the shows, but i think that unlike tv networks companies placing advertisment are really flexible and have always been. look how fast they moved from radio to tv then from tv to the internet.

 

now comes a very important part, i know some companies would addopt another model where ads would be mandatory, this would be dissaster, we must under all circumstances never break these rules:

we must of never mess with the actual media file, we must keep the current file formats and codecs, tha ads must never be actally embedded in the file.

 

the 30 secs must never be mandatory, we the p2p fans are reasonable, everyone here at niteshdw welcomed google ads but i bet you that none of us would support pop up or a scheme where you must click on an ad to continue viewing the site, p2p people are reasonable we wouldnt remove a nice clean ad, but we will tear the hell out of an annoying ad and files released with mandatory ads would be downloaded by someone edited and redistributed, mandatory ads would never work.

 

i think this is the longest post i have ever written in any forum. sorry if the post is too long and too chaotic, i will come back tommorow at the most and spell check this post.

[NiteShdw]

That's a very well thought out plan, much along the same lines that I have been thinking. I don't think that this is a new, fresh idea to either of us. People around the world all think that this is the next step of TV/entertainment.

 

Can you post links back to the other comments you made about this? Perhaps we should start a new thread dedicated to discussing this type of business proposal.

[greyCell]

i know the general bittorent advertisment supported plan is not new i was talking about the details like the dynamic ads when i talked about getting credit for it, i never saw this idea anywhere.

 

the earler posts actually only post singular is the last post on the first page of this thread.

pretty much all the info is in the last post the other post was a short one i think i repeated everything here with greater detail.

 

[Megalith]

Great news that a lawyer has been found and that you plan to talk to the MPAA about a 'New way'. I can however see several problems with this proposal made by greycell.

 

Firstly if a film is distributed in a form with adverts as a subtitle file then a media player will become available that will turn these new form of subtitles off thereby removing any business advantage that this has. The only way that these ads would work in reality on a business level would be that they were embedded into the media.

 

Secondly Greycell suggests retaining currant media types, this would imply that any existing media player would play the file without adverts. Even if a new codec was created to do this a codec would be easily constructed to get round it. Kind of the same as the first point but the other way round.

 

The only real way to achieve the goals that a business perspective would find acceptable would be to embed the adverts dynamically onto the media from the server side and on an unused codec and player for this format that would allow areas of the display to be clicked to show the adverts.

 

This tho brings me to another point which i feel will not be acceptable to these businesses if a tiny box is displayed in the corner of the screen then the viewer would simply not click on it. I'm sure you all notice these things for a short period of time, after which they become invisable to the peripheral vision. if the advert constantly held the attention then people would simply not use this.

 

Therefore as an alternative proposal that they are more likely to accept but i would not be happy personally about them adapting it, too stream the files adverts included in the same way as we get on television, every x amount of time a series of short adverts would be transmitted before the program resumed. if you dont want the adverts then you can purchase the DVD or record it removing them as people do with VHS the advertisers would pay for the content and we would get our product in a way we are already familiar with.

 

There of course is the option of adapting a napster/ipod style and pay to view. I for one again would not be happy to pay for it in direct digital format as i believe this to be a bad thing because it is either stored on a hard drive or burnt onto a lower quality disc than the movie makers use, which implies a limited lifetime but it would still be better than VHS. the problem with this however is that the media would still be in a digital format that could easily be transfered from one computer to another as we have now.

 

In conclusion i would reitterate a point i have made in several posts already, enough people would pay for this service to justify its use and of course the MPAA would get there money from the advertisers using this new technology.

 

I though for one would still use torrent files to get data i wanted. This is ultimately one that they cannot win whatever they do there will be ways around it.

 

Going back to Nites initial statement tho, i would not tell the MPAA that people have freely donated for the server, this sounds like paying for content. I for one thought donations where for legal costs.

[NiteShdw]

My statement about donations for the server costs was referring to donations previous to Feb 23. Since the torrent site didn't even have a donation button, the donations were to support the forum. Everything that is in my PayPal account has been used, and I'm still short at least $500. The donations have never been used for my own personal gain. It has always been used to help this community. I feel a certain obligation to make sure that people's hard-earned money is not frivolously spent.

[Soulreaper]

Yes, all the donations since the "Help Nite Campaign" has strictly been for the case & if need-be, family support (worst case scenario) and the previous donations before that has been to strictly maintain the forum/server/Internet - but I have a lot of faith in Nites idea on how to work with rather than just go straight at in a clash.

 

I think this is a great opportunity to at least try and make some change so this a welcome new turn on things!

 

=)

 

 

[greyCell]

i wish that everyone reads my post twice before answering.

 

i subtly replied to the point of removing the advertosment

 

even if we did embedd them inot the file itself and even if we did some kind of protective technologey to make it hard to remove people will find a way.

 

instead we rely in our knowledge with the people.

 

for instance i could write a mod for firefox that would remove all the google ads from niteshdw and i would never see them.

 

we i do not do that is that im not annoyed by them

people do not remove ads because they hate ads they hate annoying ads.

if we make ads a good thing most of the people will not only accept them they will like them

imagne a targeted ad that fits what you need and like.

imagine a dynamic ad that allows you the full freedom if youre watching a suspense and decide you wanna watch it without interuption it will set there like a tiny transparent thing. but if youre watching a comedy it is nice to take a break and it helps make it an more enjoyable expereience i certainly like scrubs with ads because you laugh the same amount over a longer time.

 

secondly current media players would play the ads because the ads will come from the codec not the media player or the file. perhaps we would need a slightly altured version of the codec we would have to work that out. main point is the file distributed by bittorent must be universal. no has to suffer downloading a file and it not working not because his pc cant handle it but because of some piece of sostware. by making the files same media type and same codec "or a slightly altered codec with backward compatibility.

 

actually invisible advertising is one of the most powerful ones. notice how most succeful advertisimints are those were the product actually is shown very little in the 30 secs and the rest of the ad is a stroy that doesnt directly involve the ad.

 

a small box maybe seem like it is invisible which make it great because it will not annoying at all. but subconcously it is a powerful tool, your brain will pickup the slogan next time youre at market once you glance at the same slogan you will feel that this product is familiar to you but you propably wont even remeber where you saw it before which is better because it gives you a feeling that you like the product it self not that someone told you so which propably means a higher buying rate.

 

there is another point people are missing

because actually most of the money we pay goes to the network not the studio. once there is no network the studio can make the same profit with much less income from advertisment.

 

i strongly stand agnaist pay per view for a moral reason. it is morally correct and in another situation imwould gladely pay reasonable amountsd to watch it. the problem is the mpaa will do the same the riaa did and claim that this proves that the payed p2p is the same as free p2p "not true even on a technical level" and would use the very small number of people "small in percentage of all people downloading" and claim they won. we cant allow that, our fight with them is a publicity war, the only reason they are still here after all we did to them "we technically wiped the floor with them" is that they publicize what happend in sleeky way claiming they won. and that is why alot of the public is with them.

 

im not saying we should do that because they will win they will never stop us and we can go on forever like this. the reason is that the new system will be easier to use "sponsered downloads" will have support and warranty and more reliability with official seeders for every episode that are garanteed to be there beside of course the usual people who will participate by uploading while they download and also seed if they want, and most people in my opinion willl still see in sponsered situation because our system will not be a corporate system, it will be the first legal system that will retain the spirit of the community and sharing.

 

i personally am not designing this system because i think that without it we might in a few years find that mpaa has shut down bittorent they will never be able to do that.

 

thank you megalith for your great post which helped me make the sytem clerer from another point. and people remeber this is a system that hasnt been made yet it will go through major changes before it is ready, and even if it does succed it will never be the only bitorent way, there will always be the usual bittorent, we cant force people to follow our model, but ours will have a great feature it is official, episodes will always arrive on time, will be highly organized , you are always sure what you get "no fakes". and it would propably have better speeds speicially in cases of old shows.

[Megalith]

I must admit Greycell a lot of this idea does sound appealing youre post has opened my eyes too. The issue here is not about the likes of us, who have used the net for years, but its about joe and jayne bloggs and their family who use a computer in a way that many old hands dont, or even have never used a computer, this media of course for that matter doesnt even need to be a computer and it could be a hardware device you connect to your adsl/cable connection and to the tv and i agree with you completely that what you are suggesting is not impossible.

 

Small text adds or icons that dont flash away in bright colours but when clicked bring up pages of graphical content(call them hyperlinks if you wish) and are partially invisable is an idea worth consideration. I agree also in the 'subliminal'(perhaps the wrong word as subliminal advertising is illegal) aspect of this form of advertising.

 

It's all interesting stuff. I wish Nite the best of luck in this endevour and fully support it. Oh and i am glad you explained the Point of any donations, dont want to give them ammo to let them shoot us all down at the first hurdle ;) our community needs somewhere to live :)

 

 

[greyCell]

another excellent point megalith:

 

im betting that if we just place a very little script with the media file we distributed and told people that this plays the file with advertisment and that they could play it without advertisment if the want by going through a very small list of steps, at least 50% will not even think about it, just look at the comment system on any torrent site, alot of people do not know how to play files if just a little complication appears so if wa gave them a simple way garanteed to work with unannoying dynamic ads they all go for it. even people like us would watch the ads, because they are dynamic and targeted, and because if we are able to keep the sense of community and cooperation we have now, people would see watching with ads as helping out the "cause".

 

btw on the issue of donations, paypal is great if you live inside a country of maybe like one of 20 countries covered by paypal, however for example i live in egypt which is not covered and i think that at least 30% of the people here are not covered, so anyway you could accept western union money transfer or money orders sent via mail.

[msg4real]

er the DOnate link on the blog page is down

[NiteShdw]

The donate link seems to be working fine, I just clicked on it.

 

Regarding donations, if you want to donate via an alternative means, just contact me directly and I can give you any details you need.

 

UPDATE: The blog now interfaces directly with the forums. There is a new forum "Blog" inside the "Announcements" forum. Every topic that I make there shows up in the blog as a new entry. In addition, there is a "Comments" link on the blog page that takes you directly to the Blog forum where you can post replies.