LokiTorrent Shut Down

wan-fu writes "LokiTorrent, a popular torrent site, has officially been shut down. After asking for donations from users for the past couple of months to fight the MPAA's lawsuit. LokiTorrent succumbed today and the MPAA took over the website with a stern warning, stating, "You can click, but you can't hide." A variety of outlets are carrying the story."

Comments

Wow - that was fast!

[bigtallmofo]

Didn't this just happen? How in the world did they get a $1 million judgement against LokiTorrent already!?

Is it just me or do the wheels of injustice move far swifter than the wheels of justice?

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[drgonzo59]

Why doesn't he move his website to some other country (except Christmas Island of course, although lokitorrent.cx would be a good url ;) where nobody gives a crap about MPAA? Then he can accept donations to keep the website running and have extra to buy candy and ice-cream instead of paying for legal fees, which is a lot more expensive.

MPAA is fighting a loosing battle and are wasting their money. If a significat ammount of people don't think trading media is wrong then they'll find a way to do that. It is just like police and society, if everyone decided all of the sudden to go out to kill and pillage, there just won't be enough policemen around to stop them. But most people don't think that killing and pillaging is not right, that keeps the order not the fear or force of the police.

And I like MPAA's little adds in the movie theatres how they show this poor set designer who claims the pimply-faced hackers stole his money. Why don't they show the billionaire owners and executives of the studios? I can almost see the add:

[Sad marimba music in the background...]
"Because of the wide-spread piracy the poor CEO of [insert name] studio won't be able to afford a Ferrari for his 16 year old daughter. Look what piracy has done! His daughter will be forced to drive a BMW now. How does that make you feel?"

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[tolan-b]

No, theft is when you take something away from someone. Get a dictionary. If I download a film then the studio is no worse off after I download it than they were before I downloaded it. Therefore it is not theft.

Now you can argue that they are not getting money that they *would* get were I not to download the film, but you're making assumptions there.

Before things like bittorrent I never bought a DVD or video. I maybe rented 2 or 3 films a year on average, which I still do.

Now I'm not saying that what I'm doing is legal or right, but no one is worse off than they would be if I didn't download films.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[superstick58]

" And I like MPAA's little adds in the movie theatres how they show this poor set designer who claims the pimply-faced hackers stole his money"

I was in the theater with my friend when we first saw this commercial. During the silence immediately after the commercial my friend burst out "Cool! I should download that when I get home." Everyone started laughing.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[tolan-b]

Just btw... Here's a note from Websters on the definition of theft...

----

Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[drgonzo59]

I like to think there are three broad categories of people that we are talking about here.

1- People who will never buy the movie or go see it. These people can download all they want (or not) they will simply not pay the money for it.

2- People that would go buy the movie or go to the theatre unless they found a copy of it they could download, then they will be less likely to pay for it.

3- People who will go buy and see movies very often regardless if they have access to the downloads or are even offered free copies of them from their friends.

MPAA has nothing to worry about category 1, since they shouldn't expect any profit from them anyway. I am in that category. Same for software. Sure, I use Photoshop, but I could never afford to pay for it, even if I had the money I wouldn't buy it.

Some people fall in category 3. My brother, a film enthusiast is in that category. He will go buy the DVD to have it in his collection. This is the category what MPAA also doesn't have to worry about.

Now category 2 is what they raise all the fuss about. They represent the expected loss from piracy, and I don't think this category is that large compared to the other two categories.

Of course, this is an oversimplification, but it gives a general idea. Over time individuals will move between categories and change their behavior.

So I agree it is not theft, but because these studios expect such and such ammount from the movie and if they don't get it they say the pirates came and 'stole' it from them. If a director or producer did a lousy job and movie is a flop - blame the pirates. If people are sick of the same boring stuff and don't want to pay for it - blame the pirates. In other words they are an easy scape-goat. And they will get the law (makers/enforcers) to be on their side since they have all the money.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[tolan-b]

I completely agree.

I just object to the use of the term theft, because it's clearly an appeal to emotion.

Incidentally, if the movie studios offered me non-DRM-encumbered films for a few pounds I would gladly pay it. I use bittorrent for the convenience.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[Mr_Silver]

No, theft is when you take something away from someone.

Actually that isn't true.

The definition of theft is what the laws of your country define, not what US law states.

In the UK for example, the act of theft does not have to be the removal of a physical object.

I appreciate the majority of Slashdotters come from the USA and therefore, for them, theft != copyright infringement but don't assume that holds for everywhere in the world.

ps. Interestingly enough, there is no concept of "fair use" in the UK either - so if you haven't bought your iPod music off iTunes, you're technically breaking the law. Strange, but true!

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[metamatic]

Sure, I use Photoshop, but I could never afford to pay for it, even if I had the money I wouldn't buy it.

If you're a pro graphic designer doing 4-color separations, you can afford Photoshop.

If you're not a pro graphic designer, you only need the features in Photoshop Elements--and that's $99, so you can afford it.

Sure, you'll probably carry on pirating it because you don't care, but I get fed up with people using the price of Photoshop pro version as some sort of bogus justification for not buying the consumer version.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[l4m3z0r]

Great. Now you should realize that what websters says has little bearing on whats enumerated in law. And honestly thats what matters not your definition, not mine and not websters(however websters may be close(r)). The lawful wording of theft is probably signifigantly different, enough so that talking about dictionary definitions because a moot point.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[Lord_Dweomer]

The thing is that while legally, its a black and white issue, however the situation is more complex than that with Photoshop. You see, Adobe owes its popularity to the fact that not only is it incredibly good software, but that it is also the number one most pirated piece of software on the net.

How does that make them money? Well, they get the REAL dough from corporate licenses, and guess what software all these graphic designers make their companies buy when they need to do work?

So I have a hard time believing Adobe is doing anything BUT profiting from the pirating.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[drgonzo59]

Of course we all know only the pro graphic designers would ever do 4-color separations. In fact they have to pass the 4-color separation test before they get the pro status. And I always thought K in CMYK stood "Kool Blue."

...And I get fed up with people telling what I can and cannot afford.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[xRelisH]

Quite wrong.

There are a lot of features that a hobbyist needs from Photoshop. I was trying to help a friend earlier with some work, she was using Elements. It was very frustrating to work with it, there is no image->canvas size, you have to use a dainty crop tool, and the ability to manipulate layers is very limited.

And yet another example, Maya. Even the educational version of Maya is too expensive, it's around $498.95 (from studioca) for Maya Unlimited. Maya PLE has lots of limits, not to mention the very, very annoying ( and ugly ) watermarks ( that are mostly opaque ) in the view panels and render view. It really ruins the satisfaction of looking at your work when you have several ugly watermarks all over the render. Not to mention that you cannot export to Maya Binary or Maya Ascii, and I see no point for this since any large graphics studios would be violating the ToS by modelling in PLE and rendering in a commercial version anyway . So for the rest of us, if you are able to afford a copy of Maya after graduation and getting a job, you can't import your old work.

Maybe if Alias will drop the price down to $150 and $200 Canadian, more students like me who like to do this as a hobby will buy it.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[d34thm0nk3y]

Great. Now you should realize that what websters says has little bearing on whats enumerated in law. And honestly thats what matters not your definition, not mine and not websters(however websters may be close(r)). The lawful wording of theft is probably signifigantly different, enough so that talking about dictionary definitions because a moot point.

Well, let me know when people start being charged with theft instead of copyright infringement. Then maybe you will have a point.

Re:Wow - that was fast!

[yakofdeath]

From the Ohio Revised Code:

2913.02. Theft.

(A) No person, with purpose to deprive the owner of property or services, shall knowingly obtain or exert control over either the property or services in any of the following ways:

(1) Without the consent of the owner or person authorized to give consent;
(2) Beyond the scope of the express or implied consent of the owner or person authorized to give consent;
(3) By deception;
(4) By threat;
(5) By intimidation.

check out lowkee's YAHOO profile

[SilveRo_kun]

I love his favourite quote... it seems an MPAA statement reguarding lokitorrent's defeat.
From his profile:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/edwebber

Favorite Quote
"Then there will be running and screaming - Jurassic Park"

Thank god my ip address is not in the logs that he gave the MPAA.

I don't think he will answer, but from his profile you can see when he is online, and you can send him a message asking him what's going to happen to that donation you made for the lawsuit. A normal e-mail address is supplied, too.

P.S, for some reason, sometimes YAHOO says the page doesn't exist... if this is the case, try google's cache =)

Re:check out lowkee's YAHOO profile

[XorNand]

They actually took in closer to $70k.

I long predicted this, for obvious reasons. Loki succeeded in getting a lot of naive idealists rallied around the call to "fight the Man". People donated thinking that they'd have ring-side seats to an exciting legal battle. It was all bullshit... Of course it was. There was absolutely zero change of them successfully defending themselves, based on mountains of preceding case law. If you were sitting on $70k in real cash (not just discussing a hypothetical situation on the semi-anonymous Intraweb), would you really flush it down the toliet? Even if you met with several lawyers who told you to expect the exact same outcome?

I'm sorry, but this outcome was obvious to any rational observer. It saddened me to see Loki take advantage of their users like that. But, it also enraged me to see them actually monetarily profit from distributing software that was not within their rights to sell.

Re:check out lowkee's YAHOO profile

[XorNand]

One of the last announcements from Mr. Webber. Kinda shameful/funny considering what he's done two weeks later.

01/27 - LokiTorrent up for sale? (by lowkee)
I now know what it's like to be a politician. Every move, no matter how small, gets posted as news.

As some of you may have read recently on some p2p news sites, LokiTorrent.com is posted as 'for sale' on Sedo.com.

If you ran a website (and some of your do), wouldn't you be curious how much it was worth?

It's common knowledge that most people that buy websites don't buy them to continue running them. They simply nab the mailing list, spam everyone, then make the site into one big sponsored search engine and pop-up gallery. ...The exact reason selling it would mean scrapping an entire year's worth of work that I and the entire volunteer team at LokiTorrent have put into making a worthwhile community site.

If some guy offers me $75K for the domain name, he's more than welcome to it, and I'll simply move the site to a different domain. Selling the entire site will never happen. I have way too much of myself in this site to sell it for any price (well, 2 million could get me to part with it, lol.. but let's live in reality).

As for the legal fund.. if I were going to run off, I would have already. That money is for the lawsuit, as stated. Only those who would run off with the money thought we would.

The legal fund is an enormous sum, and it shows exactly who supports p2p rights. Those who called it a scam and haven't put a few bucks in don't deserve the work, money and time I and the rest of the supporters of LokiTorrent and other p2p sites have put into their projects. If it were up to them, the internet would be nothing more than porn spam and fake college degrees.

Lead by example. We're fighting for your rights, the right to run our site and up until recently I have been spending my OWN money (thousands of it!) to keep LokiTorrent running for this past year. It was only recently when we began making our bills.. just in time for them to double from extra bandwidth usage.

If there were so many who jump on the 'it's a scam' bandwagon every time we make a change or entertain curiousity, this website (and many other user supported sites) would never exist. I can't tell you how many people I've seen say 'That lawsuit is a fake, anyone can make up a bogus suit'

Yeah, tell that to the MPAA. I'd love nothing more than to make that rediculous suit vanish.

Write an article on that.

Lowkee
LokiTorrent.com

QUIT LYING!

[Emrikol]

It's copyright infringement, not theft for fuck's sake!
Quit trying to make people confuse them.
That's like saying amputation is "partial murder".
Hmm, I take that back...I don't want to give them any more ideas!

Re:QUIT LYING!

[Frymaster]

Copyright infringement is a form of theft since the rightful owners of the copyrighted material aren't being compensated.

well, that's a pretty broad definition.

is someone parks in my driveway without giving me five bucks, is that theft? no. it's trespass which is a totally different crime, even though it meets your definition of theft.

they key component of theft is that the owner is denied the use of the property. if someone boosts my car i am denied the use of it. that's theft. if someone violates copyright, the original holders still have property.

bottom line: loss of alleged, potential, future revenue is not theft of a tangible, existing asset. copyright infringement is not theft.

Re:QUIT LYING!

[Golias]

From dictionary.com:

Main Entry: theft
Function: noun
Etymology: Old English thiefth
: LARCENY; broadly : a criminal taking of the property or services of another without consent

Hmm... Sounds like your definition of theft differs from the accepted one.

Theft does not have to mean depriving somebody of their property. When you copy a movie which you did not pay for, you are consuming the service (about 90 minutes of entertainment) without the consent of the service provider. That is theft, plain and simple.

Re:QUIT LYING!

[danheskett]

Just so you know.. there was a time in this country that the ethical guidelines that people lived by were a bit more stringent. It wasn't all patina tinged 50's vision, but still...

...my grandparents never would imagine talking to a salesperson and getting information from him unless they had already decided to buy a product from that outlet. Today, people go and shop around, and talk to different sales people before making a decision to buy a something. You might go to 3-4 car dealerships and take test drives, kick the tires, and spend an hour or two at each one before you decide.

There are people who really consider that unethical. Those sales people could have lost another sale, or another opportunity by spending time with you, and it causes them have to spend lots of time with a large number of people all for no payoff. Today, it's a fact of business. Salespeople for big products will chase you down, fly to your business, whatnot.

To this day my grandmother would never walk into Best Buy, talk to the sales person about TVs, which are good, which are junky, which are just right and then go buy a similiar TV at Wal-Mart cause it's $20 cheaper. It just won't happen. She considers it theft. Clearly, it's not stealing it from the shelves, but it's costing them opportunity.

Likewise, with copyright infringement. Downloading a movie without authorisation isn't purely theft. No one is deprived of something they didn't have before. Things are net neutral in the physical property department, save maybe bandwidth, but that's not relevant here.

What you have done is deprived the people involved in that movie of a head to add to their headcount. The movie theater owner of $8 plus maybe concessions. The advertisers who paid to get their products on screen, etc. Do they have a right to your money and eyeballs? No, not at all. Just like a TV sales person has no right to sell you a TV. It's all optional.

Regardless, I am just saying, there are people alive who believe that if you examine an action, and ask the question "what would happen if everyone did this activity?", and the answer is negative, you shouldn't do it. They would and do consider that loss of opportunity - the opportunity for a sale, the opportunity for popularity, all that - as a form of theft. Maybe no punishable like theft of a physical object, but certainly no more respectable.

Re:QUIT LYING!

[SlayerofGods]

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html

506. Criminal offenses5
(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -

(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,

shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.

Re:QUIT LYING!

[ScentCone]

It's copyright infringement, not theft for fuck's sake!
Quit trying to make people confuse them. That's like saying amputation is "partial murder".

Am I the only one noticing that the loudest, whiniest people addressing this topic are those that seem to have some personal, vested interest in preserving their ability to avoid paying for their entertainment? Actually, they can have all the free entertainment they want, as long as the entertainer is willing to do it for free. But why bitch about the MPAA? They're powerless without the entertainers that pay them to do what they do. What you're really complaining about are the artists, writers, producers, studios, and other entities that choose to be a part of the MPAA and RIAA universes.

The material that people pirate (presumably because they respect the creators' work enough to want to listen to it or watch it), is created by people who have chosen to use an established entity to help preserve their property rights and get them a paycheck. So, you like the artist, but not the artist's chosen profession or way of making a living?

Consuming an artist's work without paying what they ask for it is just like any other theft of services. Whether or not it's copyright law that has to be used to stop it, how can so many people imply that "because it's not theft" it's somehow OK? Hopping in someone else's cab without paying, just because it's going your way... that's OK? I mean, the cab isn't stolen, so why not? And, that private shuttle bus... it's driving around and around anyway, so why pay for it? Or someone spends their lifetime building botanical gardens, knowing that people will pay to experience them... but they're just sitting there, and all you're doing if you don't pay the gardener's price is using up some photons that no one else was using anyway...

I don't give a damn which law, regulation, or statute specifically addresses this issue, or by which means the artist (and their representatives) tackle the continuing abuse of the material... anyone consuming that work without paying what the artists ask is making slaves of those artists.

That's like saying amputation is "partial murder"

So, not entirely killing someone is OK if only murderers otherwise get punished? And, making only part-time slaves out of people is OK?

Re:QUIT LYING!

[EulerX07]

Main Entry: theft
Function: noun
Etymology: Old English thiefth
: LARCENY; broadly : a criminal taking of the property or services of another without consent

You have to know what the words of the definitions you use mean too. The filesharers do not "take", they "copy". The main difference being that the original still exists for the use of the person that had it. It's COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, because you COPIED something that was COPYRIGHTED without having the RIGHT to do it. If I break into a movie studio, take the reels and then leave with them, that is THEFT.

If I shoplift a DVD out of bestbuy, that is also theft, it is no longer there for them to sell. If I rent a DVD from blockbuster, rip it and then take it back, it is a COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, because blockbuster got their DVD back but I made an unlawful copy, infrining on the copyrights.

Why must some people be so god damn righteous...

Re:QUIT LYING!

[Cecil]

is created by people who have chosen to use an established entity to help preserve their property rights and get them a paycheck.

Chosen is a strong word to use. Are you a musician? Do you know any musicians? Signing with the RIAA or MPAA is not a 'choice' in the way you're probably thinking of it. They have the entire industry by the nuts. They have distribution and radio/television advertising tied up tighter than you can possibly imagine. Their grip on clubs and tours gets tighter every day. Even with the advent of the Internet, there is still no way around them. Anything that challenges them gets sued (whether the complaint is legitimate or not), then gets bought at a bargain basement price, and finally is euthanized or utterly declawed (Select examples: mp3.com, Napster, and now LokiTorrent)

The only 'choice' in signing with the RIAA or MPAA is whether you'd like to make being an artist your full-time job, or whether you'd like to continue it as a hobby while you work at the gas station. For one, you sign with the *AA, for the other you continue being an indy. If you think it isn't really THAT bad, you're wrong. Even rich, successful, well-known artists have tried to go against the tide of the RIAA, and ended up as just so much wreckage shattered on the rocks. The RIAA is a 500 ton gorilla with a massive inferiority complex.

anyone consuming that work without paying what the artists ask is making slaves of those artists.

The RIAA is making slaves out of artists, not the "Pirates". The RIAA was making slaves out of artists long before the first bootleg tape was ever made. Please understand, Pirates (capital P) and the RIAA are at war, and it's not about getting music without paying for it. At its core it mirrors the "free software" movement in many ways. It's about artist's rights and the democratization of the music industry. This doesn't mean I agree with the tactics being used, (by either side) but this whole thing it goes much deeper than mere "stealing music is bad, mmkay?" that's just the surface of the conflict. There are clearly vendettas on both sides. Open source vs. closed source is a cold war/arms race right now, but in contrast the Pirates vs. RIAA is an all-out nuclear war.

And, making only part-time slaves out of people is OK?

Yes, yes it is. Go to any software development company for all your part-time slavery needs. Except EA, they specialize in full-time slavery.

Re:QUIT LYING!

[Grishnakh]

Are you suggesting that the movie someone downloads and watchs on their computer is the same quality experience as attending a movie with a huge screen and nice surround sound? It's not the same, and doesn't have the same value.

I agree. Watching a movie on my computer, or better yet a DVD in the living room, is a far more enjoyable experience.

Here's why:
1) I don't have to get there a half-hour early, or more, to get a halfway-decent seat where I'm not craning my neck or having to use binoculars.

2) I don't have to sit through 30 minutes of commercials (didn't I pay to watch this movie?) and trailers.

3) I don't have to put up with stupid, rude teenagers.

4) I don't have to worry about some jerk with a big head sitting in front of me.

5) I don't have to listen to people's cellphones ringing during the movie, or put up with people trying to squeeze past me while the movie is playing.

6) I can get any drinks and food I want from my kitchen, and it's far cheaper than the ridiculous prices they charge at the movie concessions.

7) I can pause the movie and take a piss/sh*t.

8) I can pause the movie and talk to my companion(s) about it if I didn't hear something.

9) I can replay a scene I want to see again, and zoom in.

10) I don't have to worry about finding a parking space that isn't a 30 minute walk from the theater. I also don't have to worry about getting hit by a car in the overcrowded parking lot.

11) I can lie down on the couch with my girlfriend and the cats.

I haven't been to the theater in ages, and I don't miss it a bit.

What I want to know...

[Vann_v2]

What I want to know is, if I were to work for the MPAA, would I get a cute proto-fascist uniform? You know, maybe black or a rich tan color, with a little armband and small hat. Because if I did then I'd definitely work for them.

Death by Litigation

[slusich]

Regardless of the legality of the site, it is down now simply because they didn't have the money to fight a lawsuit. This is a dangerous trend which has been going on for far too long.

Re:Death by Litigation

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

They had raides $45,000, which the site owner said should be enough for almost two months legal defence. As it turns out, he gave the MPAA the site, the server logs and $5-10k and walked away with a PROFIT.

Re:Death by Litigation

[SlayerofGods]

Of course it's hard for the guilty to fight back... it's always been like that.

Re:Death by Litigation

[LurkerXXX]

What else did anyone ever expect?

So you are dealing with someone who has no scruples about dealing out pirated works of other peoples copywrited material, and giving them no compensation in return...

Now you are surprised when he once again shows a lack of personal ethics and decides to sell out the people he was dealing the pirated material to?

Yeah, there's a shocker.

Lesson learned: There is no honor among thieves.

I can see the site being shut down

[Anonymous Coward]

...by a court order or something, but how can the MPAA take it over and put their own blurb on it short of an actual court decision in their favor?

Re:I can see the site being shut down

[Zocalo]

Well several of the sites are claiming it was a "settlement" between the MPAA and Lowkee/Ed Webber. The general consensus seems to be that this entails handing over of the site, any logs and an unspecified amount of money to the MPAA and a promise not to do it again, or face further more severe sanctions. A jail sentence, or even a criminal prosecution, does not appear to be in the offing, although there *is* a court gagging order in effect. However, for a different take on what "settlement" might have been, check out this article, which should be especially of interest to the suck^H^H^H^H people who donated money.

"The only way not to get caught is to stop"

[jolyonr]

- quote from their site.

So does that mean if you have downloaded stuff, and you stop, they can't catch you? Does it imply an amnesty? Or is it just sloppy wording on their part?

Jolyon

Scary Message

[bblazer]

I just checked out the hijacked site and saw their warning. It claims that downloading copyrighted files leaves a trail and the only way not to get caught is to stop. I wonder if this is the same trail that led them to the 80 year old woman that didn't own a computer that they sued (repealing the suit only after she died). I heard as she died she exclaimed, "Run, run as fast as you can (MPAA) you can't catch me I am the gingerbread man!!!!"

And the donated money will go...

[rinkjustice]

a) back to the people who donated
b) be channeled to a fund for tsunami victims in Asia
c) get LokiTorrent owner that bitchin new plasma tv at Futureshop

Re:And the donated money will go...

[bmongar]

d) be used to pay the settlement with the MPAA

TheInquirer article

[hoferbr]

Something to worry about:

What's really alarming the swapperati, though, is that Lokitorrent has agreed to turn over the server's user logs.

In a normal situation, you could make the case that agreeing to turn those over is a violation of users' privacy. In this situation, even if you could show that the site's terms and conditions promised never to disclose its users' information, you would almost certainly lose: a court that has just shut down a site for illegal activity is hardly likely to agree to protect its users. Especially not since the Supreme Court decision in Illinois v. Cabbales, which held that sending a sniffer dog to find drugs through a car stopped for speeding does not violate the Fourth Amendment (the one that prohibits search and seizure without probable cause). Around now, the MPAA is probably gleefully poring over the logs, going through IP numbers, and compiling a list of the "hundreds of thousands" of individuals it might sue next. Fun!

From http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21216

Re:TheInquirer article

[SlayerofGods]

As soon as he started recording it one would suppose but only he knows when that was. So he could have logs for the entire history of the site, or just the past few weeks.
The real question is what is in those logs. Did it record every transfer made by certain IPs. Did it just record total uploads/downloads. Maybe it was just usernames. Prehaps who uploaded what torrent.
There's only cause to worry if the site logged every transfer you made it stored it by the file you were uploading. But that would be a LOT of data and I would find it unlikely if he bothered to log all of that.
What is more likely is the logs contain total Up/Down stats listed by IP. If that is the case the logs won't help the MPAA file any more law suits since they won't be able to prove that any of your uploading activity was actually infringing.

Oh that explains..

[StacyWebb]

"The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity"

Well I guess that expains all the crappy movies coming out of Hollywood.

This is why you need to "network"

[Dancin_Santa]

They always tell you, when you are jumping into the job search fray, to Network, Network, Network. For the flip among us, it is taken to mean that one needs to get greasy and slimy and be generally fake with a bunch of people. These are typically network engineers, which is pretty ironic.

But the same holds true here. You need to be able to get onto networks that are private and trustworthy. The last thing anyone needs is to join a torrent network and have the RIAA or MPAA come in and seize personal hardware. You want to find the torrents that use GUIDs for URIs. You want to find the torrents that are so underground that only the people who are on it know of it. The way to do that is to Network Network Network.

Posting at Slashdot is one good way of Networking. Getting to know people, learning the habits of some posters, and generally being attentive and friendly and discrete is the way to become trustworthy yourself. Once you are seen as someone who can be trusted, you can then approach people about joining their underground torrents.

Re:This is why you need to "network"

[Swamii]

Dear Kind Mr. Dancinsanta Sir

My name is Julian Gilby Mulahmulah, son of the late King Abwar Mulahmulah III of Ivory Coast.

As it happens, my country's underground torrent has been taken over by evil Movie Picture Association Rebels and have taken hostage my father, the former king, and other members of the royal palace. Praise be to Allah, before the takeover I was able to smuggle out the kings royal coffers, totalling in the amount $10,000,000 (ten million United States Dollars).

Sadly and with a broken heart, I cannot deposit this money in a local bank account, as every move made in the country is done under the watchful scrutiny of the MPAA rebels. I humbly and most abashadly ask that you help me in this matter. If you could provide me with the name and universal resource indicator of your underground torrent, I will gladly offer you 5% of the royal king's coffers in exchange for your assistance in this most urgent matter.

I most humbly and anxiously await your speedy reply.

Kindly,
Julian Gilby Mulahmulah

Not american.

[LiquidCoooled]

Hold on, the MPAA can tell me what to do when I'm not even American?

I know what they are trying to do is proper, and cutting the supply off at the central source is tonnes better than the underhanded suing kids and grannies, but I'm not even American.

We need copyright to protect Linux and Open Source in general, but surely only where laws are in place?

side note, can American filesharers use proxies in remote countries to protect themselves from **AA lawsuits?

Repulsive...

[LakeSolon]

This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures. The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity. Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop.

Am I the only one who is absolutely repulsed by that message? A friend just said, after reading it, "wow... how come I feel that i was just glared at by the SS?". This kind of brainwashing is the same bullshit that got Bush re-elected. Our society requires an informed populace to function properly. All the powers that be are manipulating public perception to suite their own needs and it really, really, needs to stop.

~Lake

Re:Repulsive...

[Joey7F]

A friend just said, after reading it, "wow... how come I feel that i was just glared at by the SS?"

I am guessing your friend feels like that because he is an idiot. No I am serious, this is not flamebait, why not see what the SS did

The MPAA is full of retards, but the SS were truly sadistic, evil men and as such comparisons should be used with great deliberance... not as an off the cuff remark.

--Joey

Trite but trite

[L. VeGas]

"You can click, but you can't hide"?

This is a wonderful illustration of the creative genius of the entertainment industry. I have a few more suggestions along the same lines.

"Guys don't make passes at girls who click torrents."

"You can lead a horse to water, but you better not click that torrent!"

"Click on a torrent, break your mama's back."

"What would Jesus Do? Not click on torrents, you betcha!"

"I wouldn't click on a torrent if it were the last torrent on earth."

Re:Trite but trite

[ktheory]

"If your mouse is a-clickin', we'll come a-knockin'."

Comin' a rain...

[Doc Ruby]

But of course they can hide, as MPAA actions force torrent swarms to decentralize and truly anonymize. To the MPAA: you can sue, but you can't catch!

Before we over react

[gowen]

This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures.

Let's face it. Every single word of that is true. Loki didn't quit because they ran out of money, they quit because they were going to lose, and they knew it.

They knew copyrighted material was being downloaded illegally, and they were more than happy to help facilitate that -- hell, that was pretty much the raison d'etre of their site.

Re:Whew...

[ElGuapoGolf]

That's good for you and all, but I think there's a larger point that needs to be made...

What, really, is the difference between downloading a TV show you missed of LokiTorrent and recording it with your VCR? I've done it a few times, I'm guilty. Did I really hurt anyone? My VCR skips commercials (mostly), so that can't be an argument. It's not like the stuff I'm downloading is even available for me to purchase (or in some cases, to even see again)... but I suppose to the MPAA, I'm still some sort of terrorist.

Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, he's certainly a jerk for not wanting to be dragged through excessive litigation, bankrupted by lawyer fees, and probably having to pay a settlement anyway. He's a jerk for not wanting to be subject to more gestapo tactics from the MPAA. Yeah, okay.

And I suppose all those people who settle out of court against the RIAA are jerks for paying a few thousand dollars instead of risking a multi-million dollar settlement.

Ordinary people don't have the money to fight these things. It doesn't make them jerks.

You are a troll and need to get some sense of reality.

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[Blackknight]

Sorry, but the MPAA/RIAA is right. You don't have the right to distribute movies to whoever you want.

I'm not sorry to see this site go, we need to concentrate more on having LEGAL torrent sites.

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[DenDave]

I really would like to know how torrents break the law.

"guns don't kill, people do..."
You suggest the site's maintainer didn't mean to provide access to illegal content? C'mon, grow up.. 99% of his traffic was what?
If your logic is sound then why aren't all torrent hosting sites taken down? agha... because they don't all allow torrents of copyright protected content.. they maintain their sites and assure that the legal torrents get a spot..

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[jargoone]

Good god, when will people stop with the fucking riduculous analogies. If you give a DVD to a friend, you don't have it anymore. And obviously, this has nothing to do with multiple people, in the same physical location, watching the same copy. This is about making perfect, or pretty damn good, copies, and distributing them very easily in mass quantities.

I'm not saying I'm completely against downloading stuff from torrent sites -- I do it sometimes, too. But it is trademark infringement, and it is currently against the law. Just stop with the stupid comments, okay? They only make "us" look worse.

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[LakeSolon]

The popularity of sites like Lokitorrent are an expression of the will of the people. The fact that something illegal (but not clearly immoral) is so popular is a demonstration of how disconnected our political/legislative system is from the will of the people.

~Lake

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[Jane_Dozey]

Yes, it was distributing copyrighted content without the permission of the copyright holders, but it was also useful for finding perfectly legel content. I'm sorry to see it go, I'm just not sorry to see copyrighted content taken down.

"I'm not sorry to see this site go, we need to concentrate more on having LEGAL torrent sites."

The MPAA needs to concentrate on setting these up themselves. People want the content and will most probably pay (a reduced) fee to download it. If the MPAA set up an iTunes type service they'd probably make a lot of money without p***ing everybody off. Their current behaviour makes me want to go download a mass of stuff just to spite them.

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[ceeam]

From what you said: "I told him he should take it down. He did not. I removed his hardware. Problem solved.".

From your sig: "Hacking your Xbox? Start here".

Do you realize that what you advertise in your sig is massively illegal and when collided with your message it produces a vast amount of irony? Be careful ;)

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[XemonerdX]

And if your logic is sound, we shouldn't be able to use a browser anymore since it allows access to illegal content.

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.

[OblvnDrgn]

Actually, the answer to your questions is a pretty much universal no. The only tricky one is whether it is legal or not to make one copy for yourself. And having that one copy and giving the original to your friend, let alone anyone else, is illegal. The boundaries themselves aren't all that vague, actually, you bought a license to a particular format and can't keep it while giving a copy to anyone else. The backup copy for personal use is the only sticking point, but most likely you can make as many copies as you want as long as no one else besides you sees them.

I will absolutely agree with you that the penalty for the crime is unreasonably harsh, but I don't think it's rather obvious what you are and aren't allowed to do for the most part.

Minor correction to the story:

[Golias]

LokiTorrent, a popular torrent bootlegger site, has officially been shutdown.

Copyright infringement is a type of theft.

When you take something without securing permission to take it, even if you are just taking a copy of intellectual property, that is theft.

If you ask me to sign a petition to revise copyright law to be more favorable to consumers, I'll gladly sign it. If somebody rus for office saying he wants to make copyright more fair, I'll listen to his ideas. ... But what I won't do is support data piracy. I'm not at all sad to hear that LokiTorrent is gone. They were ripping people off, and those people were perfectly within their rights to unleash the lawyers.

Re:Minor correction to the story:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Definitions of theft on the Web:

larceny: the act of taking something from someone unlawfully

If I download a movie what have I taken? Profit? They never would have gotten it in the first place. I don't go out to movies, but I buy them on DVD if they're good (as judged by the file I downloaded)

So if I purchase their product on DVD (Where most of their profit is actually made) who am I forcing to sell their child into slavery? The stars who make $xxMillion per movie? The crew who was paid before the movie was released to theaters? Or the already rich management bastards at the movie company?

Re:Minor correction to the story:

[Znork]

"Copyright infringement is a type of theft."

No, it isnt. It is a violation of government granted temporary exclusive rights. You're not taking any property, you're violating their exclusive right to make copies.

If copyright was 'actual property', then the expiration of copyright would mean the state was confiscating that property. Not even the RIAA/MPAA's propaganda machines tries to claim that yet. I'll bet you it's coming tho, and that it's the reason they want to anchor the belief that physical and intellectual property are in any way similar - wait for the campaign where they'll try to convince us that the state is trying to steal their property, and that copyright and patents should be extended to forever.

Beware what ideas the propaganda machines try to place in your head, for their agenda is not always what they claim it to be.

Re:Minor correction to the story:

[EllisDees]

>When you take something and it is not yours, it is theft.

And I'll use even smaller words:

Nothing was taken.

>The fact that the owner still has something...

Means that nothing is gone.

Re:Minor correction to the story:

[poot_rootbeer]

LokiTorrent, a popular torrent bootlegger site

I'm a torrent bootlegger.

I download .torrent files from popular trackers, make copies of them, and then post those .torrent copies on Usenet!

Re:Minor correction to the story:

[Bloomy]

Copyright infringement is a type of theft.

The US Supreme Court came to a different conclusion in Dowling vs. United States.

From the decision :

Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.

You're wrong.

[ShallowThroat]

When you take something from someone else, and they no longer have it, that's stealing.

When you go over to someones house (after they invite you in, of course) examine an object of theirs, and go home and make your own... That's copyright infringement. Assuming, of course, that object was in fact under copyright and not public domain or anything.

Quit buying into their shit.

Re:You're wrong.

[arkanes]

If you buy a Coke instead of a Pepsi, you just deprived Pepsi of a sale. That doesn't make it theft. Loss of a sale, for whatever reason, isn't theft. That's aside from the usual (often self-serving) arguments that very few sales are actually lost to P2P (although I'm certain the number is greater than zero).

Many people do use theft in this way, ie "That store down the street is stealing my customers". It's a common, emotional way of reacting when you feel like you're owed something. It's also wrong, because nobody owes you anything, least of all thier money or patronage.

Re:You're wrong.

[Reziac]

***
Many people do use theft in this way, ie "That store down the street is stealing my customers". It's a common, emotional way of reacting when you feel like you're owed something. It's also wrong, because nobody owes you anything, least of all thier money or patronage.
***

Some Los Angeles area courts disagree. Two businesses that I used to patronize were both hauled into court by their competitors, and forced to stop doing business with the public.

One was an individual who would sometimes provide medical services to homeless people for little or no money; his competitors took him to court for "not charging the going rate" and "depriving competitors of a chance to earn a living" (yes, the suit was worded something like that -- I saw the actual legal documents), and the upshot was that his license was suspended by the court. Right, like homeless people are going to pay anything regardless??

The other was a large vertical manufacturer who both made and sold their own raw materials and finished products, hence could sell either at a much lower price than any of the competing businesses -- who in fact usually bought their raw and finished inventory FROM this manufacturer (one of many in their field, tho they are the largest in this immediate area). Naturally word got around, and pretty soon everyone bought from the source instead of paying the small retailers' markup. So the retailers got together and dragged this manufacturer into court under some sort of "restraint of trade" charge -- and WON. This manufacturer can no longer sell to the public, by court order, SOLELY so their competitors can make money. (BTW this is why a few years ago, the local price of chainlink fence and chainlink prefabs abruptly tripled.)

legal wheel keeps on turning

[spyrochaete]

Does it really help a torrent or ED2k site if you send money to help with legal fees? I would think this would only complicate the defense - having to prove that the money was only used for the benefit of the website.

It looks like the P2P world is going to go through a bit of a shuffle until it can find the "sweet spot" country that will not prosecute, just like what happened with online bookies and casinos.

This story is getting pretty tired. Pirates figure out a smart way to distribute media, old fashioned companies too lazy to change their business model start suing the pants off of everybody, nothing changes in the long run, and in the end the company adopts the new methodologies or dies.

How many times must history repeat itself before companies learn to listen to their consumers? They know what they want better than any marketing department.

Oh yeah, and screw the proprietor of Lokitorrent for being a spineless jellyfish. He did a real disservice to his visitors by ratting them out. There needs to be a P2P code of conduct with a corresponding logo on list sites to tell users that their privacy will be protected if the site comes under legal fire.

Re:legal wheel keeps on turning

[6]

um, Television is eactly that model. Many TV movies cost that much and are indeed broadcast over the air for free.

The bigest problem RIAA/MPAA has in fact is thatradio and TV have created in society the belief that content is free.

Add to this the increase of in theatre advertising and the value proposition is becoming even more blurred in the public's eye.

Only in the USA

[lipi]

From the site:"Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop."

I'm tired reading this sort of stuff again and again. They always forget to mention that it is illegal only in the USA. For example it is perfectly legal to download music or video for personal use in the EU, even with file sharing application where you make it avaliable for 3rd party temporarily. I found even those living in the EU are not aware of this situation, probably due to the continuous MPAA/RIAA threathenings.

Distributing copyrighted content is a different issue even in the EU, but I'm not familiar with the legal side of that. All I know my movie downloads fall in the "fair use" category according to the current EU copyright law.

Re:Only in the USA

[doctomoe]

This is not entirely true.

It is true that there are several exceptions to copyright in EU laws, the most important ones being "private copy" and "private use".

The "private copy" exception only applies if the source of the copy is legal. Making a copy of a bought or borrowed DVD is legal. Making a copy of a copy is illegal if one never had access to the original, unless the original was not protected by copyright or had a licence attached to it that allows for copies to be made. Files distributed on p2p networks are always copies of an original and never an original per se.

The "private use" exception allows me to use a copyrighted content at home or within my family. I can show a DVD I bought to my family or a group of my friends. However I can't invite a group of 50 random people from the street to watch it with me. In the same way, I can't invite 50 people on the net (p2p) to watch it with me.

In short, both exceptions fail in the case of p2p networks. There are others, but they don't apply to p2p networks either (for instance copying items for educational purposes).

Library analogy

[IgD]

This is really troubling. What ever happened to the first amendment? LokiTorrent didn't host any of the illegal contact. How is this different from...?
- Hosting a list of banned books
- A library that contains books on how to pick locks

It seems like the courts often times are fast food restaurants for big corporations. I thought the courts were supposed to be object and ensure the rights of the little guy weren't trampled on??

The real troubling thing is now from new stories the movie mafia wants to "review log files" and go after people who viewed the site. That's rediculous.

Another aspect of this is hiring 3rd party companies to collect evidence. For example all these P2P so called monitoring services. Of course they are going to find evidence in favor of the movie mafia since that is what they are being paid to do. Can you imagine Microsoft doing an objective Linux story and revealing that Linux is in fact better? The government needs to collect the evidence and everything else needs to be thrown out.

How long does SBC keep server logs?

[Cryofan]

Just askin', that's all.....

You can click, and you can hide

[Laurentiu]

It will only take a bit more brains, that's all. The pure pressure of the demand is going to drive the innovation in this "field". Already the trackers go underground, and with a bit of imagination you could see how easily the sites of today could be replaced by (invite-only) IRC channels. Not to mention that the actual distribution network, from rip to release, was NOT touched by MPAA so far, so instead of going after the cause, they try to destroy the effects.

The day where zombie XP machines will be used in tracker networks is not as far as you think. The chances of stopping that are practically nil. And after a few Joe (Clueless) User types are brought to "justice" (and aquitted),the whole system will fail.

Meanwhile, MPAA can bust their heads trying to find ways to stop networks like Freenet.

That funny smell round LokiTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

On several BitTorrent and P2P forums we have noticed reports that LokiTorrent actually has been holding out hoping that the MPAA will make an offer to shut them down rather then wage on with the expensive pending lawsuit. We have decided to research this rumor ourselves to see what this popular torrent site is up to. Original this was posted on p2pforum but has vanished... We are posting this story for the public awareness.

Some things we have noticed about the popular bit torrent site Lokitorrent that have raised some red flags is that they started collecting a US$30,000 legal fund to defend their site before they even were being sued! Even more odd was once they were sued they raised this amount to US$30,000 per month in legal fees plus US$4000 per month in site costs. To us this all sounds kind of fishy. Our question is why?

After several failed attempts to reach Lokitorrent site admins looking for answers we went and contacted the MPAA which was more than happy to state that yes Lokitorrent and the MPAA were in negotiations and that the current offer could not be disclosed nor could the terms if the deal were to be reached.

We all know bit torrent site admins take pride in their grassroots, non-profit image however most sites make huge amounts of money. Suprnova which claims to have shutdown due to MPAA pressure and to finish working on their Exeem project for their client is completely just lies. Suprnova was making alot of money. Figure if they had 2,000,000 visitors per day (which is what lokitorrent claims to have, suprnova many estimate had closer to 5,000,000) they would have made close to US$90,000 per month just from per-click ads. Do the math, (all you blog site admins will be kicking yourself because you know this is true) if even only 1.5% (my blog site even gets about 6%, so 1.5% is really low estimate) click an ad, even if by mistake they get an average of $.10 per click so they would be making US$3000 per day times 30 days, not to mention those annoying high paying popups. So now you are asking why would Suprnova shutdown if they were making so much? Well the answer is simple, with Exeem they have much lower costs as their whole system can run on 2 or 3 servers and their effort to maintain those 2 or 3 servers is alot lower as well when you consider they had more then 25 servers going at their peak. Exeem also will make them a ton of money through Cydoor. Some estimate they can easily make $1 per user per day which would put them at close to US$300,000 per day with their current user base. Cydoor is a information harvesting company. They harvest the users info to either sell to marketing companies and spammers or to use your info to hit you with ads directly for their clients. By using Exeem these companies know everything about you just by monitoring your online actions. You go to your email, they now know your email address, you fill in a form they have your name and home address, the information they can harvest is limitless and it is totally legal because when you install Exeem the user license informs you of this if you were to actually read it. If you dont believe us click here and read the part about Cydoor carefully.

So why do Lokitorrent and Suprnova care so much about the public knowing about all this? They care because if you knew about it their image as being modern day Robinhoods would be tarnished and they would not be able to sucker you their user into donating Thousands of dollars to them.
Our prediction is this Lokitorrent will sign a deal with the MPAA to shutdown, they will claim to shutdown saying that do to lack of donations they ca not afford to fight the case. The Lokitorrent admins save face with the BitTorrent community and continue their mufftorrent porn site and everyone goes on thinking they were just underdogs that could not afford to fight.
We would actually like to hear a reply from lokitorrent or suprnova on this actually and we welcome their reply. Again this is all just still brain food and speculation at this point.

[BitTorrent News, 30 jan]

what a lame message....

[supergwiz]

If they REALLY wanted to scare people this would have been better: D1Z S1Te was PWN3d Bi Da R1AA Cr3W!!! K33p Stealing Our Sh33t n U B3 n3Xt!!!

Catch as catch can

[Doc Ruby]

Where are these BitTorrent servers located? The Internet is "virtual", but the MPAA raids are physical, in one country or another. Loki, SuprNova, others - in which countries are the MPAA moviecops raiding offices? MPAA claims to operate police in at least "Austria, Hong Kong, Finland, France and the Netherlands as movie industry cops". Which countries now retain their jurisdiction sovereignty, and which are now just muscle for the US adfotainment hegemony?

Anonymous P2P

[Sheepdot]

The day has come for Anonymous P2P.

Why not use technologies like Tor (funded by the US government for FBI and CIA intelligence gathering anonymously), ANTS, Entropy, and Mnet?

Re:BOLLOCKS! NOTHING ILLEGAL ABOUT TORRENTS

[Nuskrad]

A tracker site is easy to moderate to check for illegal content. It's hard to argue that the main purpose of Lokitorrent wasn't to distribute copyrighted material. How many of the torrents were for free files? 5, maybe 10%. The site was facilitating the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials without making efforts to stop it, when they could have easily been made (it's much less easy for decentralised P2P systems).

Re:Whew...

[fatmonkeyboy]

Furthermore - 80% of the movies I download I don't watch more than 15 minutes...

So...80% of the movies you watch are porn?

Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down

[pluke]

i shouldn't really reply to this but

"...C'mon, grow up! It's not a speeding ticket or a parking fine, it's copyright violation."

are you suggesting that file sharing is worse than speeding or parking in dangerous places, both which can be strongly argued as a risk to peoples lives? Compared to these, screwing major corporations out of a few dollars is absolutely meaningless, sort your analogies out. And from what i believe is having a more objective view than most americans of their political system, the government is heavily influenced by the corporations, you can't have a go at people for trying to stand up against them.

Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down

[Warped1]

I was reading this book (Stiff by Mary Roach) and it mentioned how airline companies determined if they should deploy certain saftey devices on airplanes. The formula was like the one rattled off in Fight Club, based on the cost of the settlement payouts for those who died or were injured.

I think it was something like 2 or 4 million USD a human life was worth in a settlement. And the number shown on the FBI warning screen says something like $250k for violating the copyright. So basically, in monetary value, a human life lost due to neglegence or whatever is worth about 8 to 16 video pirating charges. Kind of sad.

This is all based on my memory of the book quote of the settlement price, so I may ... will ... be off a bit, but the concept holds I think. I googled a bit to try and find the numbers, but didn't net anything. If someone wants to correct the numbers, feel free. ;)

Stifles creativity?

[Spy der Mann]

From TFW:
"The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity."

Oh boy. I can't wait 'til the MPAA go after the patent offices!

Re:LA Times has more

[Spy Handler]

February 11, 2005

'Tracker' Site Loses Piracy Judgment
By Jon Healey, Times Staff Writer

The major Hollywood studios have drawn their first blood in court against a popular new type of online piracy, obtaining a $1-million judgment against a website that steered people to downloadable copies of bootlegged movies.

Edward Webber, operator of LokiTorrent.com, agreed not only to pay the damages to studios and shut down his site, but also to give the Motion Picture Assn. of America voluminous records his site has collected over the last two years.

These records could lead investigators to tens of thousands of people who distributed and downloaded unauthorized copies of digital goods, said John G. Malcolm, head of the MPAA's anti-piracy efforts.

Malcolm said the site had more than 750,000 registered users and helped distribute more than 35,000 movies, songs and other items.

"It will have a lot of records as to who these people are and what they provided, and that information will be of great interest to our members," Malcolm said. He said the MPAA would turn over information to prosecutors "in appropriate cases," but did not elaborate.

Webber did not respond to a request for comment. His website describes him as a 28-year-old computer-network consultant in New England whose main hobby is building websites. He agreed to the judgment to settle the lawsuit the MPAA brought against him, but there was no indication Thursday that he could afford to pay the $1 million in damages.

The judgment, which a federal judge in Dallas signed Thursday, came less than three months after the MPAA launched an international crackdown on "tracker" sites for people using the BitTorrent file-sharing software. The effort in December also targeted people offering bootlegged Hollywood movies on powerful computer servers connected to eDonkey, the most widely used file-sharing network.

Also Thursday, the MPAA announced that it had filed a second wave of lawsuits against BitTorrent tracker sites in the United States and more lawsuits against individual file sharers. The organization also said it filed more notices asking Internet providers to shut down eDonkey servers on their networks and lawsuits against four websites that sold file-sharing programs. The MPAA also prompted authorities in Austria to raid operators of BitTorrent trackers and eDonkey servers. Malcolm declined to say how many individuals or sites were reached by the crackdown.

BitTorrent has skyrocketed in popularity over the last year because it can deliver large files faster than other file-sharing technologies. But the software has no built-in method for finding files; instead, users rely on people who run tracker websites such as LokiTorrent that act as directories.

These tracker sites compile links to digital files that are being shared online as "torrents," the format used by the BitTorrent software. The links connect users to the Internet addresses of the people supplying copies of the file.

Charles S. Baker, Webber's attorney, said at least parts of LokiTorrent were defensible in court. In particular, he said, Webber offered to drop links to any pirated goods that copyright owners found on the site.

But the studios had plenty of money for legal fees, and "there was nobody coming to the table willing to write a check for him to defend this lawsuit," Baker said. "Like a lot of David vs. Goliath situations, he's got stones to throw, but he didn't have any money to go get a slingshot."

He was going to bail out anyways....

[TheKubrix]

According to the google cache he was putting the site up for sale.

Aha. "Depriving" someone of a sale

[fnj]

If you buy a Coke instead of a Pepsi, you just deprived Pepsi of a sale.

Bull. I didn't deprive them of anything. I made a choice favoring their competitor. They can't "lose" a sale they never made. They may be unhappy, but they should get over it.

I agree with your conclusions 100% in principle, but the example is no good as an analogy. I will give you one that is more applicable:

Buck Rogers builds a duplicative liquid synthesizing machine. Whenever you pour in a sample of any liquid, it can produce an unlimited quantity of that liquid for very low expense per unit of liquid.

Now I legally purchase an ounce of Pepsi, pour it into the machine, and cause the machine to produce 1000 gallons of a liquid which is indistinguishable from Pepsi. I drink some of the produced liquid, and sell the rest.

The question is, does Pepsi have a case against me? Obviously they do in US law, but I submit that they do not have a case in natural law. To tell me I cannot do what I just did is restraint of free human activity. I did not steal any physical material which they own, and if the law attempts to criminalize me for stealing some fiction in the form of "intellectual property", the law should be rethought.

My message to intellectual property law is "get over it". You have been overtaken by technology. Adapt or disappear.

MPAA doublespeak

[payndz]

The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood

Wait, if a film's being downloaded, then it's already been made... so surely all these thousands of people have already been paid?

and stifles creativity.

Hollywood's managed that all by itself without any help from downloaders!

Re:MPAA doublespeak

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

JMS (lord master of all things B5) wrote an interesting USENET article on how these folks actually get paid. Don't get me wrong, the RIAA/MPAA are still talking out of their arse in many ways, but it does give some perspective.

Re:The Donations

[the arbiter]

God, where to start with your post..."stuck his neck out"? More like stabbed everyone within reach in the back. It goes beyond simple fraud to tell everyone that you plan to "fight this thing all the way no matter what it takes", solicit donations to do exactly that, and then turn around, take the cash, and run. If I were Mr. Webber I'd move to an undisclosed location. There are going to be some very angry donors out there today.

The MPAA confirmed in late January that they were in negotiations with Edward Webber for at least a month prior to the "shutdown". That's why he put the site up for sale...he wanted to see how much financial leverage he was going to have with the MPAA.

So he ended up with a nice chunk of change from the MPAA to turn over his server logs and membership list, he got to keep the donation fund, and he fucked over a lot of people in the process.

I'd have a completely different view on this if he'd taken the route Bram did with Suprnova...just shut it down and be done with it. That's the honest and the right thing to do. (Frankly the honest/right thing to do would have been to never get into this in the first place, but that's another discussion) But he didn't. He saw an opportunity to commit a massive fraud on a lot of people who thought that he was going to stand up and defend their interests, and he did it.

(I think anyone who donated was a complete idiot, by the way, but commiting fraud on people who are stupid enough to be conned is still morally indefensible)

I look forward to the day Ed Webber ends up in prison for fraud. He may have cut a deal with the MPAA, but the RIAA and BSA can still go after him, as can any individual copyright holder. And if I were a donor to his "legal fund" I'd be on the phone with a lawyer this morning instead of posting this on Slashdot.

He's a criminal of the very worst sort, not a hero. Don't make him out to be one.

No matter how hard they try, they'll never stop it

[Xeleema]

This is exactly the kind of thing I love.

The RIAA/MPAA have worked so hard to master the art of "The Fad", now their cumulative work over the past 50-odd years is biting them in the ass.

Think about it; Anyone remember the BackStreet Boys? How about the posters, toys, clothes, and the rest of that flood of crap that swallowed every retail outlet? All RIAA's doing.
Now, people have found a "Bigger, Better Deal" in P2P networks. "No more CD Exchange for me, it's all on P2P, and blank CD-Rs are less than a nickel a pop!"

The **IA cannot control the horde of consumers they've created, and all their billions cannot curb the tsunami-like tide.

When Lars of Metallica raised a shitfit over Napster, what happened? Napster died, others rose to fill its place. Some were born out of hate for Lars' hypocrisy, other for the hell of it.

The point is; It will not stop, it will not collapse. The **IA will either go broke fighting this, or they'll turn a SCO and use it as a business model (which I fear is what has already happened).

The Problem: Apathy

[Mitaphane]

I thing a big part of the problem is apathy. No one cares what the government is doing so long as it's not stepping on them.

We invaded a country under the pretenses of self defense against a madman with WMD. A few months later it turns out he didn't have them. Did this hurt the president's reputation in anyway? Only to the people that already hated him. Most people didn't care. In fact, the majority thought he was good enough to relect...

The RIAA and MPAA are suing the hell out of people downloading their material even though they're content with letting people selling bootlegs of their product(which is actually stealing money from them). Do people make a big fuss about this waste of the court system? Only to the people who already have grudges against the MPAA/RIAA. The majority people don't care...

A substanial portion of americans (of all classes) use recreational drugs despite their illegality, especially Marijuana which is less harmful than the legal alternative of cigarettes or alcohol. Yet the people jailed for these crimes are mostly lower class. Furthermore, the "war on drugs" benefits both sides such that neither really would want it to end. The DEA people have nice government jobs and the drug cartels benefit from selling their product at black market prices. The only people that really get hurt are the small dealers or users who don't have the money to defend themselves in court. Do people care that a huge portion of their tax money is spent housing non-violent criminals? The only people who do are the same drug de-criminalization advocates who've been around for a while. The majority of people either don't take part in illegal recreational drugs enough(or at all) to care about this problem because it doesn't step on them.

People being jailed for insane amounts of time for dealing drugs? People getting killed by bombs we bought? People being sued for ludicrous amounts of money for "damages"? The majority of people in this country do not care about anything outside the scope of their own lives.