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Following up on Torrent Shutdowns

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the whats-going-down dept.

dantheman82 and others have submitted a number of links about the recent closure of torrent mega sites like suprnova and torrentbits. The Unofficial Suprnova Closure FAQ comments that some torrent site maintainers have been arrested and that Suprnova was closed over fear of similiar fate. DeHavilland notes that the finnish police raided an unnamed torrent site. There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.

20 of 1,166 comments (clear)

  1. What does mobilizing foreign police actually mean? by enoraM · · Score: 5, Informative

    > There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is
    > that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.
    This would be scary, if you think that taking sites down was not just and legitimate. I don't know the facts about finish rights, but under german right suprnova could have been shut down.
    It's not always the US pushing and picking on people and maybe it is not in this case. At least I believe, that the finnish police made it's own independent decision.
    With Indymedia It actually seemed to be some tougher mobilizing:
    http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/10/07/204217.shtml? tid=153&tid=219 This may or may not be the case with suprnova.

  2. Donvitorrent by Tribbin · · Score: 3, Informative

    I find this one a good substitute:

    http://www.donvitorrent.com/

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  3. unnamed finish site by f4k3r · · Score: 5, Informative

    the "unnamed site" that was raided was FinReactor, there was a video (of something) about it on thepiratebay a few days ago

    1. Re:unnamed finish site by Keruo · · Score: 5, Informative

      and despite of MPAA claims, it had absolutely nothing to do with the raid
      National Bureau of Investigation(KRP) made announcement that they(MPAA) were trying to fish off free publicity from their investigations, and had nothing to do with the shutdown

      --
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  4. MPAA had nothing to do with the finnish raids by edgrale · · Score: 5, Informative


    Actually it has been reported that MPAA had NOTHING to do with the finnish raids.
    The KRP (Keskusrikospoliisi = FBI?) has publicly said that the MPAA has not been in contact with the finnish authorities. Here is a site (in finnish) that says it all.

    --
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  5. Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me by ultrabot · · Score: 5, Informative

    At least I believe, that the finnish police made it's own independent decision.

    That's what the Finnish police themselves say. What's interesting is that MPAA has been attempting to take the "credit" for the raid. Sure, everyone knows they are lying bastards, but one would expect them to pick lies that are not so easy to check...

    --
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  6. This isn't new. Remember anon.funet.fi? by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 3, Informative

    Everyone remember when anon.funet.fi was raided at the request of scientology?

    With enough money to fund attorneys you can apparently get other countries, especially the Finnish, to comply.

  7. Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me by SlayerofGods · · Score: 5, Informative
    I don't know the facts about finish rights, but under german right suprnova could have been shut down.
    That's kind of funny, because under American law (yes the dreaded DMCA) suprnova was safe from lawsuits because it just acted like google as a clearing house for information and didn't actually run the trackers with infringing material.
    --

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  8. Re:BooHoo by DeathFlame · · Score: 5, Informative

    Last time I checked, US law doesn't apply everywhere.

    So they are not CLEARLY offering illegal content, as...

    Wait a minute. Let me actually look this up. I'm applying patent law thinking to this...

    *looks it up*

    Oh fuck. Okay, so copyright protection usually DOES apply in foreign countries, assuming they signed the Berne Convention, are members of the WTO or signed the WIPO Copyright Treaty.

  9. Criminal copyright law is not entirely new by Kaseijin · · Score: 5, Informative
    Until recently, copyright law in the US was a purely civil matter....
    The bar has been repeatedly and drastically lowered in recent years, but copyright infringement for commercial gain has been criminal since the 1800s.
  10. The facts on copyright and international relations by JonKatzIsAnIdiot · · Score: 4, Informative
    When confronted by mindless Slashbot tripe such as:
    There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.
    I find it refreshing to look at the pertinent facts:
    • the Berne Convention, which first established the recognition of copyrights between sovereign nations, was the brainchild of Victor Hugo, a French author.
    • The aforementioned agreement was first adopted in Berne, Switzerland. - Berne Convention
    • The European Union extended copyrights to life of the author plus seventy years in 1993, a full five years before the US did with the Sonny Bono act - European Copyright Harmonization
    • As mentioned elsewhere, the Finnish police acted independantly, with no input from any of those 'evil American copyright owners'

    The anti-American whining is making you look stupid. Stop it.
  11. Annan has not been accused of taking money. by ChessHacker · · Score: 5, Informative
    then ask why Kofi Annan and company were personally involved in the Oil for Food scandal.

    There is absolutely no evidence that Kofi Annan has personally profited from the oil-for-food program.

    Remember, this program was set up at the behest of the US, with support from the UK and was, according to UNICEF, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Sectio nID=15&ItemID=6861

  12. Re:Exactly by Rei · · Score: 3, Informative

    Oh, for God's sake, not this tired old tripe again.

    Kojo Annan worked for Cotecna, *In Nigeria*, and left before Cotecna had the Iraq contract. He had deferred comp (like Cheney has from Haliburton), but has done no work for them since.

    How did Cotectna get the contract - string pulling, right? WRONG. The previous contract holder was Lloyd's Register. Lloyds left on almost no notice, leaving all inspections of goods held up until a new company could be found. An incredibly short bidding period was consequently given, and whatever companies bidded had to be able to start work immediately. As a result, and due to the very limited number of inspection companies, only one company offered a bid; Cotecna. When you have only one bid and all good shipments into a country of over 20 million people are held up until a contract is granted, the choice is obvious.

    Furthermore, OFF did not benefit Saddam to the tune of 23 billion dollars. Kickbacks through OFF contractors are estimated at around 5 billion dollars; the rest (of which the amount is controversial; some US investigations have said only 5 billion) are from oil smuggling, which is outside the scope of OFF.

    FURTHERMORE, OFF's 661 committee, which was in charge of blocking contracts, had absolutely no authority to either investigate companies for giving kickbacks to the Iraqi government, or to block them even if it knew about this. Their charter authority was only to block banned items from getting to Iraq. There was a body that could block contracts, but it wasn't an OFF body: it was the UN security council. I.e., *our government* could have investigated and blocked contracts (it only took one government). It didn't. The 661 committee actually complained about suspected kickbacks to the security council; it didn't act.

    Also, you seem unaware of how kickbacks work. The kickbacks aren't kickbacks to the company; they're kickbacks to the Iraqi government. In order to get the contracts, the company would have to raise their prices. On paper, the company would have been making a much larger profit as a consequence, but in reality they were only paid for what they initially would have charged, and the Iraqi government would get the extra money. Kickbacks are almost standard in many 3rd world countries, but Iraq was just a particuly sensitive case.

    Next: Your claim that Kofi is ineffective, and that you think the world will cheer when he's gone. Well, lets just do a quick search:

    "Kofi Annan and Pope John Paul Top the List of Most Popular World Leaders in Five Largest European Countries"
    http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/ allnewsbydat e.asp?NewsID=821

    "Person of the Week: Kofi Annan
    For turning the fight against AIDS into a world war and for his popular reelection as U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan is our Person of the Week" (many more details about his tenure follow)
    http://www.time.com/time/pow/article/0,85 99,165905 ,00.html

    Whole bunch of links related to him, his policy platforms, and why he's so popular in the world (outside America)
    http://www.globalpolicy.org/secgen/

    Kofi's win of the Nobel Peace Prize:
    http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/200 1/10/12/ un_nobel011012.html

    I could easily keep on going.

    Lastly, for Reagan. You claim:
    "... used the proceeds to fund essentially anti-Communists during the Cold War"

    Go read a summary of what the contra war was like, for starters.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras (general summary)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_t he_America s (used to train the contras, among others)
    http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/icases/inus /inus_iju dgment/inus_ijudgment_toc.htm (world court judgement against the US)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte (covered up abuses in Honduras so that we could train Contras there)
    http://www.wakeupmag.co.uk/articles/cia5.

    --
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  13. Wrong by DarkMan · · Score: 5, Informative
    This particular fallacy needs to die.

    Under the DMCA, specifically the section 512(d), sets out the criteria under which the 'search engine ' examption applies. The following key points are worthy of note:

    Section 512, paragraph (d),
    A service provider shall not be liable ... if the service provider :

    part (1)(A) does not have actual knowledge that the material or activity is infringing;

    (B) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or

    (C) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;


    Thus, this can only apply if the site owners are never aware that the material they are indexing is infringing.

    A simple look at the front page of Suprnova.org is enough to belie that.

    If a site wished to claim 512(d) as a defense, they would have to demonstrate to the court that they did not know any of the material they indexed was infringing.

    Now, there might be a defense, under the multiple layers of abstraction, in that Suprnova indexed .torrents, which were merely pointers to the infringing data. That's nothing like a 'I'm just a search engine like Google' defense, however.

    Simple rule of thumb: If it's common knowledge that a site is were to look to find infringing materials, and is of little other use, 512(d) won't apply (on the grounds that it beggers belief that a site owner would have no grasp on _why_ so many people were using thier site).

    Disclaimer: You're not paying for this, this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice, contact a lawyer in your juristriction.
  14. Re:Not a balance of power issue. by mOdQuArK! · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not exactly - the U.S. Constitution says that the U.S. Congress can allow you to temporarily restrict other people's use of the expression of ideas, for the purpose of promoting the progress of Science & the Arts.

    It _doesn't_ say that you actually "own" the expression of those ideas - that's just the meme which has been encoded into laws by the special interests pushing for the corporate control of what should be a free-flowing exchange of ideas.

  15. I almost agreed with you by PCM2 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Giving away your fair-use copies CAN also be legal fair use as well in some circumstances; it can also be illegal copyright infringement in others. It is a legal grey area -- giving a copy to a relative is unquestionably OK. Giving a copy to 10 casual accquaintances is probably OK. Giving a copy to everyone in a class you are teaching might be OK. *SELLING* a copy is *NOT* OK.
    You almost had me, up until the paragraph quoted above. Unfortunately, your opinions sound very nice but they don't have much of anything to do with the law as it actually exists. In particular, your idea that selling a copy of something is the only clearly defined form of infringement is one of those hoary old fallacies that needs to go away, just like the story about mailing yourself a copy of a manuscript in a sealed envelope to "prove" copyright. They're nice wives' tales, but they just ain't fact.

    "Fair use," in and of itself, is nowhere clearly defined in the copyright law, and its interpretation is largely left up to judges in individual cases. Whether or not a given case of suspected infringement constitutes Fair Use is determined on the basis of several factors, including the nature of the work infringed and the purpose for which it was copied.

    I can assure you that several of the examples you cite are most certainly not Fair Use; checking a book out from the library does not give you the right to give a copy to a relative. ("Unquestionably"? Are you so naive you actually believe that?) And I certainly hope you don't teach any classes, because if you do, you might want to do a little bit of research before you find yourself in a mess of trouble with your boss.

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  16. Re:Doing their bidding by Qrlx · · Score: 3, Informative

    Copyright infringement is now a criminal matter. It's criminal even without causing any economic harm. See the No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act) of 1997.

    I'm not sure if you're aware of this, or arguing against it. Couldn't tell from your post. But the way it is now, if I burn a copyrighted CD and just plain give it to you, the FBI could make a federal case out of that.

    And yeah it sucks. However it's completely predictable esp. considering that "IP" is pretty much all America manufacturers anymore. Well and food and cars. But IP has the biggest margins.

  17. Re:OWNED!!!!!! by CowboyMeal · · Score: 4, Informative

    Interesting. If you view the source, the FAQ is still there, they just commented it out.

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  18. Re:Where do you draw the line? by UltraDerek · · Score: 3, Informative

    I dislike comments such as these because they are not fair to the pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies can be cold-hearted, conceited, self-centered, and money-driven, which in no way differentiates them from any other corporation on this planet. Furthermore several of the giant pharmaceutical companies rank amongst the most charitable in the country (see a recent BusinessWeek for the list, the criteria used by Businessweek was not great but got the point across that a few of them donate a LOT). Moreover with your particular case of citing AIDS drugs, Merck - the company recently villified for their problems with Vioxx, donates AIDS drugs to poor African nations at cost, meaning they don't make back any of the many millions they have put into R&D for their AIDS drugs (mostly vaccines). Merck also has a program, where they will provide for free any of their drugs prescribed to patient's on Medicare who have gone over their drug limit. I just like to point out that pharmaceutical comapnies are no worse than any other companies, and in some instances are a good bit better.

  19. Re: C&P of source by JustAnotherBob · · Score: 3, Informative
    Last updated 21/12/04 5:50:14am GMT

    PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU ARE VIEWING THIS FAQ AT ANY OTHER LOCATION THAN HTTP://WWW.SILENTDRAGZ.NET/SUPRFAQ THEN IT IS NOT AUTHORISED. PLEASE REPORT IT TO THIS ADDRESS, THANK YOU.

    Forums Link Contents:
    1. Has SuprNova.org really closed?
    2. When will SuprNova.org be back?
    3. What about the torrents I'm currently downloading/have queued, will they still download?
    4. Will joining the IRC channel and spamming about some random nonsense and/or "BRING SUPRNOVA BACK UP" help at all or bring SuprNova.org back?
    5. Where can I download torrents from now?
    6. Who is the owner of SuprNova.org?
    7. Is BitTorrent closing?
    8. Does the current situation mean I can break the channel rules in #SuprNova.org and use "!list" and "@find"?
    9. You know this HTML code is very sloppy, right?
    10. Where do I send additions/corrections?
    11. Why has SuprNova.org closed?
    12. What's happening with eXeem?
    13. How do I turn off the joins/parts/quits?
    14. Are there any plans to release the SuprNova.org source code?
    15. What does MPAA stand for?

    1. Has SuprNova.org really closed? top Yes, it has. 2. When will SuprNova.org be back? top Never as it was. If it eventually does come back up, it won't feature ANY links to torrents at all. 3. What about the torrents I'm currently downloading/have queued, will they still download? top Maybe, probably. However if they don't, it has nothing to do with SuprNova.org's closure. If the tracker for that particular torrent is still online and there are seeds, your file will still download. 4. Will joining the IRC channel and spamming about some random nonsense and/or "BRING SUPRNOVA BACK UP" help at all or bring SuprNova.org back? top NO. So don't. Really, don't. 5. Where can I download torrents from now? top http://www.tvtorrents.tv
    http://www.btefnet.net
    http://www.fulldls.com
    http://www.tv-swarm.com
    http://www.bi-torrent.com
    http://isohunt.com
    http://torrentspy.com
    http://thepiratebay.org
    http://uk-torrents.com
    http://torrentreactor.net
    http://filelist.org
    http://newtorrents.info
    http://demonoid.com
    http://elitetorrents.org
    http://lokitorrent.com
    http://www.lickmytaint.com/bt.html
    http://www.420joint.com/bt/
    http://www.torrentsearch.com
    http://www.bitconsole.com/
    http://www.uknova.com/
    #BT-GM on EFnet
    6. Who is the owner of SuprNova.org? top Sloncek is the owner. I advise you leave off mailing/PMing him for now, he will be flooded with t