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Patriot Act Used to Enforce Copyright Law?
iter8 writes " The Stargate SG-1 Information Archive is reporting that the Feds filed charges against Adam McGaughey, creator of SG1Archive.com. The website is a fan site for the television show Stargate SG-1. The charges allege that Adam used the website to engage in Criminal Copyright Infringement and Trafficking in Counterfeit Services. Two interesting things about the charges are that they were apparently set in motion by a complaint by our friends at the MPAA and the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. Is copyright infringment now a terrorist act?"
Site seems very slow already, so here's the article text.
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Federal charges were filed against Adam McGaughey, creator of the popular SG1Archive.com website - a fan website devoted to the MGM-owned television show Stargate SG-1. The charges allege that the website engaged in Criminal Copyright Infringement and Trafficking in Counterfeit Services. The charges were the culmination of a three-year FBI investigation, set in motion by a complaint from the Motion Picture Association (MPAA) regarding the content of the SG1Archive.com website.
SG1Archive.com is one of the most popular fan-run websites among the Stargate community. In addition to providing very active fan discussion forums, broadcast schedules, production news, and episode guides, the site heavily promotes the sale of the show on DVD. As of this writing, direct links from SG1Archive.com to Amazon.com have resulted in the sale of over $100,000 worth of DVDs. Many more DVDs have been sold to international fans of the show through sites like Blackstar.co.uk. Upon hearing this news, Stargate executive producer Brad Wright called the site "cool" - which Adam took as an endorsement of his work.
However, instead of thanking Adam for his promotion of their product, officials at MGM and the MPAA have chosen to pressure the FBI into pursuing criminal charges. Adam was first tipped off about the investigation when the FBI raided his and his fiancee's apartment in May of 2002 and seized thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment. Adam later received a copy of the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant, and was shocked to discover that this document, prepared by the FBI, contained significant amounts of erroneous and misleading information. For example, two social security numbers were listed for Adam, one of which is not his. References were made to a cease and desist letter sent by the MPAA to an email address that did not exist. His online friendship with other Stargate fans across the globe was portrayed as an international conspiracy against the MPAA. And perhaps most disturbing of all, it was later revealed that the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. The FBI's abuse of its powers did not stop there. When they seized Adam's computer equipment, he was given written documentation stating that it would be returned within 60 days. The equipment that they did return did not arrive until more than 8 months later, and only then after much prodding from his lawyer. Much of it was damaged beyond repair - one laptop had a shattered LCD screen, an empty tape backup drive was ripped apart for no apparent reason, his fiancee's iBook was badly damaged when it was pried apart with a screwdriver. The FBI's computer crimes staff is either incompetent (at least when it comes to Macintosh computer equipment) or else they just don't give a damn.
Adam has has received positive feedback about his site from multiple members of the Stargate cast and crew at fan conventions. In addition, a representative of MGM's fan publication interviewed Adam about his website several months prior to the FBI raid. As a result, Adam sincerely believed that the show's creators did not have a problem with the content of his website. Many other sites are currently serving content of questionable legality, without promoting the sale of DVDs or offering a community for fans to discuss the show. Why the MPAA and FBI have chosen to ignore these sites and target SG1Archive.com is unclear.
Up until this point, Adam has been fortunate enough to receive pro bono legal counsel in his current hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. However, the charges were filed in Los Angeles county. The cost of travel, trial, bond, etc. is likely to be quite high.
Join the Free Software Foundation
It was invoked in an embezzlement case against a strip club -- hardly a matter of national security if you ask me, Tony.
Metafilter has some comments too. Apparently the site had downloads of episodes available, despite their claim that it was just Amazon links that got them in hot water.
Firstly, as one of the comments on the MetaFilter page on the article points out, Secondly, other comments on that same page (as well as the US DOJ press release) point out what the somewhat self-serving press release does not: sg1archive was hosting copies of Stargate episodes for download. Directly; apparently Mr. McGaughey wasn't even smart enough to use an peer-to-peer intermediary so he could claim he was just linking, not hosting.They were apparently low-rez rips intended to allow fans to catch up on missed episodes but not something you'd want to keep, but I'm afraid that's not a positive defense to copyright infringement. Neither is "But we were helping sell the DVDs" (despite what peer-to-peer folks would have you believe) or "Gee, but the people who made the show liked my site, really!"
It's a shame that his computer equipment got trashed, but the FBI (and other law-enforcement agencies) are somewhat prone to do that over the course of an investigation. If you don't even check online FAQs about what constitutes copyright infringement (anime fansub and fanfic FAQs were doing an adequate job of covering that more than ten years ago; I'm sure there are even more comprehensive ones out there by now that would have told him this was Not a Good Idea) before you go ahead and do it anyway, you deserve what you get. This is not another Steve Jackson affair, folks.
And I won't even go into what a Google Groups search on Mr. McGaughey turns up...though if you click on that link, the blurbs from the posts it displays are fairly instructive without even clicking on any of the articles to display the full text.
I only wish I hadn't kicked in $5 to the guy's legal defense fund before I found out about all this. Oh well, it'll teach me to do a little research first next time.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Gee hosting episodes of a show on your website never causes any problems. How evil of them to enfoce thier copyright.
Remember,democracy never lasts long.It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. John Adams (1814)
Uhh, the reason for all this is that the guy offered every episode for download, from his site, in ASF and DIVX format.
Just see the Internet Wayback machine for proof.
We are defending this guy why?
from boingboing:
& scoring=d&q=%22Adam++McGaughey%22&btnG=Search)
Matthew sez, "There's a press release on the US DOJ site from April 2004 describing the charges. From this, you can learn the guy's name: "Adam Clark McGaughey". (link: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr2004/050.html)
The funny thing is that after searching google groups for "Adam McGaughey", you find a bunch of people that seemed to have been ripped off by him around 2002 on some SG-1 sites (as well as ebay) (make sure you sort by date to get more recent stuff). (link: http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
I won't comment on any of the stuff here, but it's some interesting extra information that adds to the story.
So lets clap the horses...
What rimes on recursion What rimes on recursion What rimes on recursion What rimes on recursion
Looks like up until Jan 2002 he was actually linking copies of all the shows as ASF and AVI files. It's hard to tell if he hosted any of them, but the site does claim some of them came from the site itself.
a rchive.net/
In Jan 2002 the site "changed" into a fan site/info site.
http://web.archive.org/web/20011012011922/www.sg1
Incorrect.
Copyright infringement can be either a civil or a criminal matter, partially depending if someone was making money from the infringement.
"You all have a clear choice this November."
/.'ers convieniently ignore the fact that Kerry isn't repealing the PATRIOT Act. Go to JK's website, do a search for "patriot act". There's no talk of repealing it, only "enhancing" it. And we all know what "enhance" means to a politician: take out the obviously scary stuff, and put in less-obvious scary stuff. I mean, the talk of "intelligence sharing" and "terrorist lists" should be raising big red alarms in your heads, but since Kerry's not Bush, it doesn't... or something like that.
2 00 4_0417a.html
Do we? I keep forgetting that
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_
If you think Kerry is just going to hand you everything you wanted on a silver platter because he's "not Bush", you're foolish and naive. You'll have civil liberties and rights with whomever wins. I find it repugnant how members of both parties have resorted to scare tactics at this point.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Ummm - no - what he did was host
It seems you don't have to dig too far to find out this is a scammer, and shouldn't really be an argument about the PATRIOT act. And worst of all, now he's been hit by the FBI, he's making a scam out of it and asking us to donate to his "defense fund". How many slash dot reader have already donated without reading the comments below? Couldn't the main text could do with an edit?
Although you'll likely say it has no relevence, I would like to point that the "complete episodes" he hosted were generally about 15 to 20MB in size for around 43 minutes of video.
I've seen one of these damn things. You can barely tell which of the grainy figures is which (or if it even is a person) and you can't make it any bigger than like 160x120 and still be able to watch it. They're basically only good for the audio.
Since these are vastly inferior copies and he did not charge for their download, I call bullshit on the MPAA.
Well, you'd be wrong about that.
Before blindly jumping on this guy's bandwagon run over to BoingBoing to read about how this guy started ripping people off on eBay and newsgroups starting in 2002. You may think twice before buying a shirt or contributing to his legal defense.
While I don't think this is an appropriate use of the law, this guy is surely no angel. Terrorist? No way, but he doesn't sound like a real nice fellow.
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
What the summary and the biased sob story from Adam, otherwise known as "Arcady" leaves out is that he was hosting full length versions of every SG-1 episode for download . This isn't some nebulous copyright infrigement case of him using logos or names improperly. He was unabashedly and blatantly hosting copyrighted content, i.e. the shows themselves, for download. Somehow he neglects to mention that in his little bullshit "summary", and that when he was ordered to stop, he moved the episodes to a server overseas (and of course slashdot swallows the PATRIOT garbage hook, line, and sinker). The charges were felony trafficking of counterfeit goods and misdemeanor copyright infringement.
If that isn't a case of the pot calling the kettle black I don't know what is. Have a look here, at the episodes of the show that Mister McGaughey kindly put up on his site for download. I certainly do not see this as a case of busting fansites; it seems to me that the MPAA has a legitimate complaint here.
How he has interpreted the feelings of the show's creators/actors does not matter; their feelings and opinions count for nothing if they don't hold the copyrights to the show (which they clearly do not).
Perhaps the FBI did step over the line here, but from reading the Patriot Act (which you can find here) one can see that the FBI is simply using the tools they've been given to bust the bad guys (the ranks of which this gentleman belongs to). If you feel that the Patriot Act is a bad thing, write your congressman. Join the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But don't sit here on Slashdot and bitch, you're not changing anything.
Fraud is not however. As pointed out by a previous poster, the site owner has allegedly commited fraud Several Times
I suspect that he stands accused of Copyright infringement for hosting episodes on his server, but also for fraud.... However, he wouldn't get much sympathy or paypal donations for your fraud legal defence fund...
This is true. But, I would consider it more than a "Spin". The Document Comprising the USA-PATRIOT states:
(a) SHORT TITLE- This Act may be cited as the `Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001'.
From the first section: An act To deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes.
I guess this isn't outside the scope of the law, is it?
More drama on Slashdot when you mention Patriot Act or Bush than in Fahrenheit 9/11.
Third click after typing his name into google I find a forum on sg1archive.net. Quote: "The creatior of that web site,Adam McGaughey (aka Arcady) has frauded me and at least 1 other person i know of out of $265 each for a dvd player he was selling. I am posting this so that if anyone else has been frauded by him you can countact us at urs234b@yahoo.com If you could take 20 minets of your time to help me get back at him pls email me. Thanks ChrisR "
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
If the Google Groups archive is correct, he appears to have been defrauding international customers by selling them region-free DVD players and not delivering. Sounds like an international conspiracy to me (which would be a conspiracy to defraud that reached across national borders).
SYS 64738
Obviously you've not heard of the Futurama site "The Leela Zone" which has survived at least 5 Cease and Decist letters from FOX to their ISP and are still going. No-one knows what content isn't allowed on the site still.
However the site doesn't want to work now!
Actually, when the Patriot Act was passed there was considerable discussion regarding this exact issue, and assurances were made that the PA wouldn't be used except for clear-cut cases of terrorism.
Here's an excerpt from the Patriot Act Myths government site:
If the Patriot Act were invoked in this case, it is a clear abuse that should be quickly corrected. The FBI personnel involved should be severely reprimanded or fired. That is, I suppose, unless viewing SG1 DIVX movies is potentially fatal... ;-)
However, this is an obvious example of the "slippery slope" problem the Patriot Act represents. Once new repressive legislation is enacted, people get used to it. Then the government starts to push the envelope. As long as this process is gradual, the public will be too caught up in "bread and circuses" (what is Jessica Simpson doing today, eh?;) to notice...at least that's the theory. Are you asleep?
Remember, Income Tax was originally supposed to be temporary. The government is not your friend. This is the case whether it's controlled by Republicans or Democrats.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Organized crime associations derive a large part of their incomes from a number of shady economic activities-- sports betting, sales of pornography, cigarette smuggling, the numbers game, and the production of counterfeit goods. Under the RICO laws, the penalties for such minor crimes could be vastly increased, if the prosecutor could show that this activity was somehow tied to a certain predicate acts and a pattern of illegal activity.
Terrorist organizations are believed to sometimes engage in similar activities. It's easier to prosecute such cases and easier to secure funding if the case is treated as a "potential terrorism" case.
Remember those anti-drug tv advertisements that ran a few months back. The odds are that ones local drug supplier are not connected to a terrorist organization. But the remote possibility raised by that series of ads might have convinced some that they might "just say no..."
Because you fudged the URL. The Leela Zone is still there, at http://www.leelazone.com.ar/
Urban Nilsson, http://bonk.nu/blog
For those that aren't aware, the poster is referring to the 9th Amendment which states:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Actually, Kerry just wants different scary stuff. He's all in favor of things that even Ashcroft was against. Which is kinda scary, if you think about it. Check out: http://www.reason.com/hod/jb072604.shtml for some starter info. You can find a lot more if you bother looking at his voting record. Sorry, but under Kerry it'll be Reno all over again. And there isn't a whole lot to choose from between Reno and Ashcroft. Me? I'll vote Libertarian.
You are misinformed. The mayor of Boston is a Democrat. The governor is a Republican, and went on record saying that his job was to make sure the convention was safe, and that the participants had a good time. He then joked that he also wanted them to ultimately be unsuccessful.
How can the eyes be the Windows of the soul when they never blue screen?
see?
Google searches for many hot button issues including the DMCA often return a Slashdot comment as a top hit. Here is one awesome search that returns nothing but wisdom, by the way.
It only indexes the cached version, not the dynamic version, as you (tried to?) point out. HTH HAND!
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
Do we? I keep forgetting that /.'ers convieniently ignore the fact that Kerry isn't repealing the PATRIOT Act.
You, sir, are full of shit.
Kerry supports letting the PATRIOT Act expire, Bush supports renewing it.
May we never see th
Has anyone here actually read the PATRIOT Act? It was kindly linked in earlier in the thread. Here's some relevant parts: 18 USC 2516 was amended to permit wiretaps relating to computer fraud and abuse. There's no language in this amendment limiting its application to terrorism. 18 USC 2703 was amended to permit the government to obtain a significant amount of information from a "provider of electronic communication services," including name, address, connection times, length of service and type of service, phone number or IP address, and credit card number or bank account. All it takes is an administrative subpoena. There's no language in either the amendment or the statute itself limiting its application to terrorism. (This one is one of the provisions exempt from the sunset clause). Not all of the PATRIOT Act was designed to deal with terrorism. Some of it was designed to allow the FBI greater access to information they couldn't get elsewhere. You might well point this out to your Senators and Representatives when you write your letters. That said, there's little point in raging that they're using "provisions of the PATRIOT Act" in a non-terrorist case. The powers they're using aren't limited to that purpose. They're part of the expanded powers of your government. --AC
CNN is owned by AOL-Time Warner, which owns major movie and music labels.
Fox is one of the MPAA's largest members, and...
...MSNBC is a joint venture between a television broadcast network and Microsoft, which has a vested interest in working with Hollywood on the widespread distribution of DRM.
They have no reason to tell you about this, for the same reason that the murderer doesn't inform the cops of the crime that just happened, and the adulterer doesn't inform his wife of his little "business vacations'" true purpose.
The following letter is hereby placed in the public domain. Please feel free to copy it, make what modifications are needed and send it to your Congressperson.
--------
The Hounorable (insert full name of your representative)
(insert Rm.#),(insert name of)House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative:
I am writing to you about the recent use of the Patriot Act by the FBI to execute a warrantless search and seizure upon Mr. Adam McGaughey, owner of the SG1Archive.com website at the behest of the MPAA.
While I do not endorse copyright infringement as allegedly practiced by Mr. McGaughey, I deplore the use of my tax-dollars being used on the behalf of the MPAA rather than having them pursue their litigation through civil means.
However, what I am most concerned about is that the FBI has used the provisions in the Patriot Act to execute a warrantless search and seizure in a case where there was no imminent or life-threatening danger or possibility of terrorist activity. This is an abuse not only of the Constitution of our great land, but also of your good word and trust as you were assured, and so assured me, that the Patriot Act would never be used for the prosecution of ordinary criminals.
I am making you aware of this situation so that you may take action on my behalf to ensure that this does not happen again, and that I may feel secure in my choice of voting for you in the next election.
Thank you for your time.
(insert signature and full name & address)
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Actually, when the Patriot Act was passed there was considerable discussion regarding this exact issue, and assurances were made that the PA wouldn't be used except for clear-cut cases of terrorism.
That's not quite true. The Patriot Act made a lot of changes to how law enforcement works, only some of which had to do with terrorism. For those portions relating to terrorism, you're correct. But much of the Act was things like "the FBI can have roving wiretaps on cell phones in addition to landline phones," which is not specific to terrorism.
The problem is that the story says "a provision of the USA Patriot Act" but doesn't say which one, and we don't know if it was one relating to terrorism, or not. So there's really nothing intelligent we can say about what happened, since we don't have enough information.