Info: FanEdit.org is GONE!!!!

http://www.fanedit.org/

This does not bode well.

I know. Just saw this myself. A very worrying time if the MPAA has started going after fan edits.

Lol.  I hope this site is not next but i will not say i am surpised as all torrents of preservations and fanedits are illegal if they are distributed.  The fair use clause would only protect you for your own use.

Besides going back quite a few years they have been trying to strengthen artists rights so their films, music etc are not tampered with.  Funny how this only dissalow fans from tampering but not the copyright owners or artists Like George Lucas who go back and destroy their earlier works, and fans are supposed to be happy with that.

I think the thing that hurt them was probably the fact that they linked to torrent sites.

Yet more proof that to the entertainment industry, money is just a smokescreen. What they want is ultimate control.

Remember a few years ago when the whole MP3/file sharing controversy started? Napster was at the center of it, accused by the RIAA as supporting piracy.

I saw a news special about the whole issue where one of the guys who developed one of the file sharing apps, Grokster, went to the RIAA and said "You want a legal file sharing system? We'll show you how." They turned him down.

Now look at the numbers. At its peak, Napster had about 80,000,000 users. If HALF of them signed up for an unlimited download service at a flat $10 a month, that's $400,000,000 a month - $4,800,000,000 a year - with virtually no material distribution expense of pressing CDs, printing artwork, CD cases, packaging or shipping issues.

RIAA turned it down.

They turned down $5 BILLION A YEAR.

Don't tell me they're concerned about the money, or even the "we own this, you don't" copyright argument.

I mean the MPAA is in the right as far as the letter of the law is concerned.  But i don't see how fanedits hurt their bottom line.

To me hollywoods problem is crappy shit movie making, over budget cgi laden pieces empty of creativity or imagination as far as storytelling is concerned.  Too many killing/sex movies with big explosions and no plot.  Too many comic book adaptations, too many remakes sequels and prequels and reboots.  Not much original material.

The technology of filmaking and special effects have achieved a high point now historically but over time films have gotten more mundane, less creative and less good acting and story telling.  You look back on the real gems and classics from the last hundred years or so and today films are pretty much watchable only once and as dissposable as the music of today is.  Whereas the cgi artists and animators have gotten incredibly good at what they are creating and doing and have achieved a technological leap forward.  Movies can be creative with their music, set design, makeup, and cgi and costume design.  They can be a thing of beauty in terms of craftsmanship and design but overall lacking in humanity or the thrust of the story.

I think this place is safe for now because there's no edits here to download, just talk about them.  FE had Rapidshare links and their own torrent site.

Their forums are still up though, www.faneditforum.com, just with links to FE downloads removed.  There's already ideas circulating about how to bring things back, or at least some kind of partial revival.

I really hope this doenst hinder or force anyone to stop working on a fan edit, distribution is always a tricky issue (but not impossible) but the act of creating the edit itself should be preserved and continued.

Hopefully the site can be reworked into an information website, with no distribution of files or info on how to do so. There was a wealth of fanedit specs/info on there that would be a shame if was lost.

Been talking to Boon in the chat room over there, he's already working out ways to bring the site back to life, albeit in a more secure from prying eyes fashion.

This indeed saddens me to a degree, but I'm realistic enough in my thoughts to realize to a specific degree that at some point SOMEONE was BOUND to complain.  I see this forthcoming change as a window opening near the door that was just closed....

I've been talking to boon and Ghostcut in the chat room over there.  Their plans are to move the site to hosting services outside the US, with the first priority being the torrent files.  RapidShare is already outside the US, so that's safe.  Links won't be back until the whole site can be moved to a non-US host though.  Until then, FE will be an "information resource" only.

I think there will be a way around this; c'mon folks!  If the government couldn't stop BOOZE, they can't stop fan edits.

All those rapidshare files and torrents still exist.  They CAN'T take those down.  It's just that the convenience of knowing where to go to get the links has been disabled.  I think if people want to "take a look at Dr. Zhivago (to quote Clarence Whirley)", we can figure it out.

Still, you have to wonder.  What the hell took them this long to finally close shop?  I mean, the place has been up for at least a few years.  Did someone rat out FanEdit.org?

the forum is still open.

Well, we can all speculate to no end who "ratted" out FE.org, but I don't think it matters too much in the end.  It just was finally the right person who didn't mind being a rat. 

If I had to make an educated guess, I would say it's been the recent article about Adywayn's edit where they mention FE.org and that you need to "own the original to download ANH:R."  Either that, or someone else was just searching around randomly and stumbled across it.  To that "special" rat individual:

The time may have come for people like us to stop trying to the best of our ability to interpret the law and appease the "powers that be."  Perhaps we should do something along the lines of form a committee, or two, or more (Since legal issues are different across the pond and in other parts of the world) to compile a list of arguments for our cause, and then get professional legal advice on the matter.

EDIT: We could even form a full fledged organization. Something along the lines of "International Association for the Lawful Advancement of Fan-Edits" only with a catchier acronym.

Fanedit.org is back. no more links though.

It's good to see things are back up and running. The speed of this turn around goes to show that fanedit.org cannot be killed so easily :D