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11-Nation Raid on Net Pirates
Cobb writes "The US Justice Department announce a global crack-down on large scale internet pirates distributing first run movies. According to the article: "FBI agents and investigators in the other nations conducted 90 searches starting Wednesday, arresting four people and shutting down at least eight major online distribution servers for pirated works, a Justice official said. Authorities also seized hundreds of computers in raids in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom.""
Authorities also seized hundreds of computers in raids in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
Hmm....mabye that's why I haven't been able to telnet into my server at home all day... ^_^
Seriously, though, Sweeden is conspicuously absent from the 11-nation 'coalition of the willing' listed above, which means that The Pirate Bay will be staying up, at least... =P
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I realize that most of the /. crows has an anti **AA stance and to a certain extent I do as well. However, it is people like this who cause the damages cited by the **AA types, which in turn lead to the heavy handed **AA policies. It is nice to see those most responsible for the problem caught. Good riddance.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
...to Wil Wheaton:
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"I'm no expert, but it seems like the MPAA would get a much bigger return on their investment if they stopped going after college students and went after the factories that turn out legitimate movies by day, and switch over to pirated material at night."
--From the Wil Wheaton Slashdot interview
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/
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When they raided last year in Operation Fastlink I saw some significant changes in traffic patterns. This time, I am not seeing anything.
Not only that, but they're going after people who share movies on the Internet. They use the business term distributor and try to make it sound like a money-making operation (a la street sales of pirated product), but that's not what is going on here. This is person to person sharing in its purest form. Most of these so-called first run movies wouldn't even be out there if the movie studios hadn't chosen to release them to the P-2-P networks in order to accelerate their own sales. See, for instance, the "work print" copy of Star Wars:ROTS. I wonder what Grateful Dead would have done if the Feds went after their fans?
P.S. - George Bush really needs to explain the Downing Street Minutes... an ineffectual President too busy trying to avenge his daddy and achieve "war president" status through the next election that he fails utterly to capture the person responsible for the attacks against America... a failure.
I wonder how many constitutional rights were violated by the US Justice Department and those various "authorities"...
It's time for anonymous encrypted filesharing and software like Freenet: http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
Enjoy!
Because it would be inconvenient for the war to end. It is much more convenient for the war to continue forever, the Constitutional erosion to go unabated and lavish spending to be without bonds. Go read what Goebbels had to say about presenting the aggresion war Germany perpetrated as Germans "being attacked".
I wonder if they planned this crackdown timeframe with the MPAA so that the 'big' movie releases wouldn't be 'harmed' from the piracy of their movies?
It seems a little conspicuous
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
Recently I ran across the link for The Scene, http://www.welcometothescene.com/ Yeah, I know I'm a bit slow on some things and this has been out for some time (9 episodes already available with #10 coming out very soon) It is a "made for the Internet series" whose storyline revolves around this very topic, distributing pirated movies. Available by bittorrent. Check it out.
Seriously, given the questionable legality of a lot of the movie industry (dubious contracts, the "zero profit syndrome", affiliations with drugs and prostitution rackets, the church of scientology - oops, that one's not illegal), the Governments involved are in essence assisting criminals with profiting from their crimes.
Now, I don't know about most of the countries listed, but I know the US has laws against such profiting.
Britain is a slightly different case, in that Common Law defines a "reasonable man" and largely protects anything that a reasonable man might do as, well, reasonable. I am not sure piracy, per se, could be called "reasonable", but it might be construed as reasonable for people to see what they're getting in advance of paying. I don't think all British judges would see it that way, but there's a number of fairly "innovative" and "creative" judges out there who might well do so. (Judge Pickles tended to deliver some, ummm, novel lines, for example.) As such, a prosecution in England tends to be rather unpredictable, especially on controversial issues.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think we're going to have to ammend Godwin's law to include OBL as well as Hiter - they never found Hitler but that didn't stop all law enforcement cold either. Life went on, traffic tickets were handed out, criminal rings rounded up, boys peeking thru knotholes in the baseball statium walls were chased off by the local flatfoot, and people copying dvds are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
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My wife and I manage an apartment building; yesterday the RCMP showed up at 6:30am asking for a suite master key. They had a search warrant, so we gave them the key. When I left for work later that morning, they were loading about a dozen PCs into a minivan.
They had told us it was a large, coordinated effort, so seeing the computers my first thought was child porn. We have two kids, 5 and 3, so at that point I wanted to know which of our tenants it was. They assured us it was nothing of the sort, however, so I declined to press further (the guy's innocent until proven guilty, after all, and while a warrant means probable cause it wasn't for something violent). I assumed it was something like this announcement -- most likely, I thought, selling DVDs of software and movies on eBay or in the local classified paper, i.e. profiting from piracy, rather than facilitating individual copying. Looks like I got it only partly right.
I know exactly what you mean. Here in NY. You can walk into any of the major shopping malls and find a pirated dvd booth setup. I know of 2 on Long Island.
:) So why bust them?
:) There was defintaly some funny and interesting footage on the local news about it showing this guys house inside and out. The feds were pulling out tons of dvds. even Playstation and Xbox pirated games.
:) I bet you they go up.
The problem is... they only sell pirated asian films... and Hollywood doesnt care about that...
No MONEY in it for them
These guys have been working in 2 malls with a booth for atleast 10+ years. Pirated VHS tapes, to now very convincing looking pirated DVDs
Hollywood doesnt give a shit because its Asian cinema and they have no stake in it...
They did bust some guy not to long ago here in NY. He had a whole setup in his house... ROOMS filled with multiple DVD/CD burning towers. He would burn and package thousands of DVDs. his house looked like a Disc duplication company
So they do bust those guys but... certainly they should be going after those guys more than the small guys on the net who do it for non-profit reasons.
These CD/DVD pirate rings on the net are more or less enthusiasts doing it for a non-profit reason. Perhaps even as protest to high prices, or corperate abuse and to give the people a stake in the buisness world, a way to protest...
However the CD/DVD pirates on the streets selling copies, are part of mafia crime syndicates. They are the real deal bad guys. They're not some teenager trying to be elite in his dormroom.
They're mixed up in serious organized crime for profit.
They're out to profit, not protest, not share freely. they're the ones REALLY taking money away from the movie/recording industry... because people are paying them for pirated copies. Which is a clear example of actual money lost and not the false claims numbers that the RIAA and MPAA make up.
In China they'll buy XP pro on CD for $5 pirated in the same shops where XP pro authentic versions are sold for $300
The point worth noting is... people are PAYING for pirated software/movies/music
The would-be customers of authentic items are PAYING for a pirated item because its cheaper.
I really thing its time companies rethink their prices.
Lets be honest. With the current state of our US economy... Lets all make a bet... Who is going to bet that Movie ticket sales will go up, or down?
They never seem to go down do they? Not even when our economy is in decline...
Greed is a bitch, legit or criminal.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/busines s/12021852.htm
I thought Real Pirates did things like taking over ships at sea and murdering their crews. This is a nasty craime that still takes place in some parts of the world. How did this term get attached to copyright violations? Should we be using it?
According to the article on slyck
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=844
The " law enforcement " were breaking the law in order to catch others , they were running servers for people to download files from and upload files to.
This is what the article said if it is true,
" The FBI had been posing for a considerable amount of time as server operators, inviting people to upload and download material. Once a solid relationship had been established between the FBI and top warez sites, the trap had been set. It was only a matter of time until the FBI had collected enough evidence to make an arrest. While the FBI has only announced the arrest of one individual, it is expected that more information will be released today implicating additional people.
According to Restless.ugtech.net, who broke this news event, the FBI ran a server name "Chud" and "Lad". They were administered by an undercover agent named "Griffen." The warrant, which was released yesterday, named "killaz, marvel/cartel, cin, sidar, dact, korax, bourbon, and burner." When more information is released today, more specific information on these individuals will be available.
"
So they allowed people to break the law ( with their help ) and helped to distribute files , then changed up once they were satisfied.
How is that legal , for them ?
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