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Justice Dept. Raids Homes of File Swappers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the reasonable-suspicion dept.

Cryofan writes "Reuters is reporting that the Justice Dept. has raided the homes of 5 people in several states for trading music on p2p networks. The traders were, however, not arrested. 'P2P does not stand for 'permission to pilfer,' Ashcroft said. The Reuters story says that the 5 'were people operating hubs in a file-sharing network based on Direct Connect software,' and who had provided between 'one and 100 gigabytes of material to trade, or up to 250,000 songs.' 'They are clearly directing and operating an enterprise which countenances illegal activity and makes as a condition of membership the willingness to make available material to be stolen,' said Ashcroft."

9 of 1,173 comments (clear)

  1. A busy day for the feds... by erick99 · · Score: 5, Informative
    These were some serious downloadin' folks:

    Each of the five hubs contained 40 petabytes of data, the equivalent of 60,000 movies or 10.5 million songs, Ashcroft said.

    In order to join the network, members had to promise to provide between one and 100 gigabytes of material to trade, or up to 250,000 songs, Ashcroft said.

    200 petabytes of songs and movies! Pretty amazing.

    I wonder if the RIAA will ask the feds to turn over all of the involved parties and I wonder if the feds would do it if asked.

    Or maybe they are too busy since they just sued a bunch more customers....

    The Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday announced it had sued another 744 individuals and refiled suits against 152 others who had ignored or declined offers to settle.

    Cheers,

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
    1. Re:A busy day for the feds... by dazilla · · Score: 5, Informative

      As someone who has used the DC client before, most hubs run between 10 and 200 TB or user shares. So the idea that there was 40 PB per hub being shared is preposterous. Neo-Modus had a news item on their site when the TOTAL culmination of ALL THE HUBS sharing data reached ONE PETABYTE. I'm sure that each hub was probably sharing around 40TB.

    2. Re:A busy day for the feds... by mothz · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nice math, too.

      If 100 GB is 250,000 songs, then each song file is about 400k. But if 40 petabytes is the equivalent of 10.5 million songs, then each song file must be about 4000 MB.

  2. so if they werent charged by Comsn · · Score: 5, Informative
    what were the warrants for the raids granted with?

    Authorities made no arrests. But Ashcroft warned that those who copy music, movies and software over P2P networks without permission could face jail time.


    under what penalty of law? last i heard copying things (download) never got anyone in trouble... now sharing on the other hand, is still a civil matter. (but selling is an FBI matter).
    1. Re:so if they werent charged by DeepRedux · · Score: 5, Informative
      Sharing can be a criminal act. Under the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, sharing copyrighted works with the expectation of getting works in return counts as "financial gain". The act makes it a felony to trade works with a retail value over $2,500 in a 6 month period. It sounds like they were well over that amount.

      The NET Act was passed in 1997 to criminalize warez trading. I do not think that the act distinguishes between software and other copyrighted materials like movies and music. Sixty people have be convicted under the NET Act, with 20 sentenced to jail.

      See Warez Trading and Criminal Copyright Infringement for the details.

  3. Re:Good! by shark72 · · Score: 5, Informative

    "The DOJ should saty out of what is clearly a civil matter."

    Copyright violation becomes a criminal matter once the value crosses a fairly low threshold. This has been the case for several years now. Here's the section of US copyright law that covers criminal offenses.

    --
    Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
  4. Re:Worth noting.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's also worth noting that to catch these 5 in the act, the government would also have had to partake in illegal sharing, at least for a little while.

    This is an established, legal method of law enforcement in the U.S., and is hardly noteworthy.

    To catch drug dealers, the government buys drugs from them, while videotaping the transaction. This doesn't mean the government partakes in illegal drug dealing. It's a perfectly legal means of law enforcement.

  5. How these hubs work by highlander123 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Guys,

    I dont' think you understand the way these hubs work. Basically, if you have a certain amount of data, you connect, and your data is added to a large pool of data (everyone's files). This means the owner of the hub doesn't host all the files, it's the users that are connecting to the hub that own the files (and as such, the hardware). It certainly is possible that several thousand users are connecting to the hub, and are sharing their files. This could easily add up to quite large numbers, without needing a million harddrives in one server/cluster.

    A wee lesson, brought to you by.. me.

  6. Re:Dont they have better things to do? by shark72 · · Score: 5, Informative

    "which is a f-ing CIVIL manner anyway?"

    Sheesh. This is the fifth or sixth comment I've seen here from somebody insisting that this falls under civil law. Is this one of those Slashdot memes?

    I feel like I'm just banging my head against a wall here, but here's where you can read up on what constitutes a criminal offense in copyright law.

    Please help me spread the word. To fight the law, you must first understand it.

    --
    Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.