New Round of P2P Lawsuits from Hollywood

An anonymous reader writes "There is a new story on ZDNet about more lawsuits against P2P file sharers. The catch is that Hollywood is using the log files off Bit Torrent sites like Suprnova and LokiTorrent."

Comments

Oh goody.

[DMouse]

Let's sue the customers. Because that so worked for the music industry. Instead of accepting that networked transfer of information is the new reality and going with it. There are so many ways of making money here. But no, have to defend the old way. Man, they have NO VISION. No wonder Hollywood is addicted to creating formulaic movies. Risk aversion is fatal in creative industries, ya'know.

*face desk*

Re:Oh goody.

[adam.conf]

Well with theater profits plummiting, the movie industry has few methods other than movie sales to generate a profit; and just because it is easy to do something illegally does not> mean that it is legitmate to do so, or that it is in some way unacceptable to defend yourself against these illegal actions. And just so you know, customer generally implies people who paid. These people did not.

Re:Oh goody.

[DMouse]

Yes. Because the world is neatly dividable into those good people who buy everything, and the bad people who pirate everything. Yes. Really. The world is that simple.

Did I mention that the last three computer books I have purchased, I read a chunk of them online before hand? Or that I buy cds based on what i have listened to off the web? Or that the movies I go to in the cinema are influenced by the recomendations of my friends, some of whom are downloaders?

Moron.

Re:Oh goody.

[LiquidHAL]

the movie industry has few methods other than movie sales to generate a profit that would be correct if only they didn't make huge amounts of cash on DVDs, soundtracks, merchandising, promotional tie-ins, and TV/Cable showings. there is simply no evidence to correlate a decrease in theater tickets sold to pirating. There are too many unmentioned variables to consider.

Re:Oh goody.

[Mad Merlin]

Illegal does not imply morally wrong. Not all laws are justified or "correct".

Re:Oh goody.

[Raul654]

"Providing copyrighted material for upload without explicit permission by the publisher is illegal." - no, actually, copyright infringment is a civil tort (notwithstanding the ludicrious new laws congress has been considering lately)

Re:Oh goody.

[Anonymous Coward]

U.S. Copyright Law {Title 17 U.S.C. Section 101 et seq., Title 18 U.S.C. Section 2319} Federal law protects copyright owners from the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, performance, display or distribution of copyright protected works.

Penalties for copyright infringement differ in civil and criminal cases. Civil remedies are generally available for any act of infringement without regard to the intention or knowledge of the defendant, or harm to the copyright owner. Criminal penalties are available for intentional acts undertaken for purposes of "commercial advantage" or "private financial gain." "Private financial gain" includes the possibility of financial loss to the copyright holder as well as traditional "gain" by the defendant. Under U.S. copyright law, "financial gain" includes bartering or trading anything of value, including sound recordings. The definition of "financial gain" includes receipt of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works. This language ensures that criminal liability will not turn on the technicality of whether the infringing copies were sold for money, as opposed to other valuable benefits.

Where the infringing activity is for commercial advantage or private financial gain, sound recording infringements can be punishable by up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Repeat offenders can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. Violators can also be held civilly liable for actual damages, lost profits, or statutory damages up to $150,000 per work.

Two important legal concepts, especially pertaining to the Internet, should be kept in mind--contributory infringement and vicarious liability.

Contributory infringement may be found where a person, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another. For example, a link site operator may be liable for contributory infringement by knowingly linking to infringing files.

Vicarious liability may be imposed where an entity or person has the right and ability to control the activities of the direct infringer and also receives a financial benefit from the infringing activities. Vicarious liability may be imposed even if the entity is unaware of the infringing activities. In the case of a site retransmitting infringing programs, providing direct access to infringing works may show a right and ability to control the activities of the direct infringer, and receiving revenue from banner ads or e-commerce on the site may be evidence of a financial benefit.

Re:Oh goody.

[shmlco]

Your movies suck.

Well, that's certainly a valid reason for spending a hour or so downloading them off a torrent and then a couple of hours watching one. I mean, time poor internet professionals really need to waste MORE of their time, right?

And just out of curiosity, what new business model (paid content) works when people think that they're entitled to it for free?

Re:Oh goody.

[drsquare]

You think people have a moral right to download copyrighted material? You think that making downloading films illegal isn't justified? What world do you live in?

The sense of entitlement on this site is astonishing. Now apparently it's immoral to have copyrights. The film industry should just let everyone into the cinemas for free because people have the moral right to take things for free rather than paying.

Jesus the shit that gets modded up on here... Was Slashdot always this bad? When did the freeloading teenagers take over?

Re:Oh goody.

[icedevil]

When we catch shoplifters we don't just ask them to pay for the stuff they stole right? When you catch someone in your house stealing your stereo, do you just ask them to pay for it?

Do I get replacement cost? If so then hell yes! If a burglar gave me $400 for the home theater system I bought 4 years ago then I can buy a much better system now. The current system is fine, but hey free upgrades are great.

Stealing content online feels anonymous and somehow ~okay~. But it's not. It isn't civil disobedience. It's illegal and it's wrong. The penalties will exceed the cost of the unsold movie ticket to help impress upon people that it's a Bad Thing to get caught stealing.

blah blah blah, if the person "stealing" the movie/music/software would never purchase it then its not stealing. There is nothing that was actually stolen, you have lost no goods.

Personally, I have purchased thousands of dollars worth of movies and music over the years but have not spent a dime on either since the RIAA and MPAA have started suing casual file traders. I will continue my boycott until they cease such practices.

Given the current state of movies and music in the US I don't think I'm missing out on too much.

Re:Oh goody.

[TheDugong]

This is why the go for the people sharing, not downloading, is it not?

Re:Oh goody.

[Spectre_03]

It goes so much deeper than that, since the assumption is ALWAYS that it is also illegal to download something.

Since when was it illegal to download something?

Just because it is on the net it is automatically ASSUMED that it's illegal to download it. Well news flash, but if I already OWN the film/work, then I have the COPYRIGHT to download it all I like.

This is not nor ever has been a black and white argument nor is the world ever black and white.

Both the greedy B@$T@RD$ that @$$ume that it's illegal to download anything as well as the cheap SOB's that leech everything need to shut up.

But as we should all know right now that if we paint it black and white we all fit into one of the two categories.

So which are you?

an SOB or an @$$?

I on the other hand fit right in the middle. Why do I download the few I have, because I already have them, but I would like to put them onto my server to stream them over my network onto my PS2 when I want instead of having to get up and put in the damn disk.

And why don't I rip them myself?

Because every one I have ripped doesn't work but every one I have D/L'ed has. I am still trying to figure out how to Rip my DVD's to Divx, until then, I'll D/L and be glad to ignore the rest of the ignorant one's that assume everything is illegal along with the greedy one's that want my money 4 times for the same stuff.

But you can both answer me this, why is it if you have your way I have to buy a movie 4 times to get it in all the formats I want it in? Can someone tell me that one?

GET REAL, Copyright is what it is, get off your pocketbooks and get onto a real revenue model, or go broke, I could care less. I'll stick with my books over the crap that the Hollywood/Music industry's are pushing out these days.

Re:Oh goody.

[TLLOTS]

For most people they're far more likely to listen to believe their friend when they hear a movie is good than they will if they hear some random person they don't know claimed that Movie X was the best!

As for sample chapters and promo mp3's, I'm not sure if that was what the grandparent was referring to, it could well be that they infact downloaded various ebooks/mp3's illegaly, but their content encouraged him to go out and purchase legitimate versions.

It shouldn't be a hard idea to grasp, it's something I've done myself quite recently, where a friend gave me a pirated copy of Sin City which after viewing at home I chose to see it at theatre's despite the cost. Given what I knew of before I had been given that copy, it's entierly likely I wouldn't have seen it at theatre's at all, as what was shown on tv regarding it (reviews, movie clips) didn't give me a sufficient idea as to the content of the movie, and therefore I could not be sure if it would be worth seeing at theatre's.

Re:Oh goody.

[DMouse]

In small words, just for you. The hollywood movie system has had a habit of producing crap movies, and then buying their gross on the first weekend of release with lots of marketing.

But, sometimes, a product gets made that is really quite good. Like say firefly. Some friends download it. We sit around, watch the first couple. Go out and buy the DVDs. Watch the DVDs religiously. Get involved in communities pushing the upcoming release of Serenity. Go to the previews.

See a pattern here? It's all about finding the occasional signal in the wall of noise. And the nature of the meta communication that happens around the file downloads is helping to spur winner takes all for good content.

It's not the p2p file downloading which is tanking the industry, its the communities forming around movie sharing that is doing the current industry in.

This move will actually make the survivors stronger, because good content will again matter. Instead of who has the top name actors and the marketing budget.

Re:Oh goody.

[Seumas]

I'll tell you a business model that works.

I'm not willing to pay $16.99 for a CD in a store.
I'm not willing to pay $99/track via iTunes.
I'm willing to pay ~$1.00/CD for tracks from mp3search.ru

What does this say? Well, I (and many other people) are not willing to pay what the RIAA or Apple say music is worth, but I'm willing to pay something - even though it seems an insigificant amount - rather than wasting my time downloading off of p2p.

An artist could charge $1/album if they released them online and that would be about as much (or more) than they would have gotten through the traditional industry distribution and production channels. Granted, there's a good chance most of us wouldn't know who they were without the pumping done by their RIAA masters, but that's a little bit beside the point.

I'm not willing to pay $5 parking, $20 for two tickets and spend several hours of my time round trip to go see a movie that may end up being complete crap in a theater with a sticky floor, shifty seats and annoying audiences. I'm not willing to pay $25 or $30 for a DVD, either. Especially since I'm only going to watch it one time.

But you know what? Give me a site that I can download any movie from as soon as it is released into theaters (including all of your back-archive) for $3 each in high quality with DRM - but capable of being viewed on whatever hardware I want to for up to, say, 72 hours - and you'll have yourself a happy, frequent customer.

For the record, I also don't buy books anymore unless I have to. I can't find the justification in charging $10 for a flimsy PAPERBACK *FICTION* book that will give me all of a few hours entertainment.

On the other hand, with rare exception, I'm willing to pay $40 to $50 for a videogame, because I'll get plenty of use out of it and I'll have a VERY good time in the process. Of course, I have a mac now, so that's kind of a moot point. But... I sure kick ass at multi-player-text-editing!!!

Re:Oh goody.

[DMouse]

Assumption 1: you need to spend a hundred million dollars to produce two hours of entertainment to capture my attention.

Assumption 2: you do this in one off hits.

Both of these assumptions are based in the manufacturing reality, where spools of film had to be manufactured, transported, and then shown in specially built cinemas. Both of these assumptions are now completely bogus.

In fact I prefer listening to podcasts, which have a budget in the order of $50 an hour, to watching the latest block buster crap, with it's $50 million an hour budget.

Why? Because the podcasts are closer to my interests, they treat me as an intelligent, thinking, emotional human being, not a pair of eyes to be dazzled with tits and explosions.

Story telling. It's an amazing tradition. Something I'm hoping Hollywood rediscovers sooner, rather than later.

Re:Oh goody.

[shmlco]

Okay, seriously. What you're suggesting still implies that people have to pay for content (e.g. "Go out and buy the DVDs.")

Which means that complete and unrestricted sharing is still out. (Anderson even agrees in the Tail article.) So we still need something "loose" like FairPlay (Apple's iTunes DRM) for movies so that content can be produced and paid for. Especially as we move to completely electronic distribution.

Second, not everything can be a Serenity. Some movies will still suck, no matter what. But hey, people talk, no one buys tickets, and the movie sinks. (Personally, this is why I think sales are down. More independent internet reviews, blogs, and communities mean that the word gets out faster.)

Third, not everything can be a Serenity. Or a Million Dollar Baby. Or even a Batman Returns. In fact, without a large pool of profitable and semi-profitable movies being made, there probably would NOT be a Serenity movie. The harder it is to recoup your investment, the more risk-adverse you tend to become.

Which in turn only makes the problem worse. You need enough profit to cover the flops and bad bets, and to make it worth risking your dollars in the first place. And really, do you think that the producers, directors, actors, and everyone else involved all WANT to make a bad film?

Re:Oh goody.

[akac]

Doing something wrong does not justify that you purchased it later.

The only moron is the one calling others who make perfectly good remarks of their own opinions a moron. Only a moron would call others names just because you don't like their ideas or opinions. Even if the written letter and spirit of the law is on their side.

The fact is that you can steal something and then pay it back later - you still stole and still would be found guilty in every single possible court in the world.

Re:Oh goody.

[surprise_audit]

the penalty for actual theft is much less than that for copyright infringement.

Do you suppose that might be because when something is stolen, a single owner is deprived of the thing, whereas when something is illegally copied, the original owner loses out on selling multiple copies of the thing??

Re:Oh goody.

[DMouse]

Well, think of it this way. The fact that I got addicted to firefly has sold at least three box sets and ten serenity tickets. In most marketing text books the original content would have been called a "teaser", because it was low quality et al.

But, if you had your perfect world, where i couldn't get access to the pirate firefly content, you know what would have happened? I would have gotten addicted to something else. A web comic series, say...

Re:Oh goody.

[DM9290]

" You think people have a moral right to download copyrighted material?"

You have a MORAL right to do whatever you want to do, unless that action causes greater harm than good.

The question is.... does an owner of intellectual property have a MORAL right to monopolize that IP to the point of dictating what other people may do with their own physical property?

Saying they do, don't make it true.
Making it law, doesn't make it true either.

"The film industry should just let everyone into the cinemas for free because people have the moral right to take things for free rather than paying."

This is a straw man attack. No one is arguing that. That is a matter of tresspassing on someone elses land (inside their building no less). NOT a matter of immitating something you have seen somewhere. i.e. COPYING.

"When did the freeloading teenagers take over?"

I've never downloaded a single movie or song. I've spent over $3000 on my DVD library, and something over $2000 on my CD's. I visit the theatre between 3-6 times a month. But your arguments on morality are way off the mark.

Re:Oh goody.

[Guspaz]

These people did not.

That's the problem, though, isn't it? I'm going to totally ignore any ethical questions and look at this from a technological standpoint: torrent site log files are not proof of infringement.

The MPAA has a bunch of IPs that they identified via the log files as downloading the torrent files. The problem is that the torrent files are just metadata, they don't have any copyright content in them. Downloading such a file doesn't mean a user committed copyright infringement, only that they might have. Certainly users may have downloaded a torrent file but never did anything with it. That is, just left it sitting around or deleted it.

Normally in a court case this might not be a problem. But the MPAA isn't sueing people, they're sueing john does. They have the IP addresses, and they are sueing the people behind those IP addresses. The MPAA needs to prove to the court that these IP addresses commited copyright infringement in order to get the names of the people out of the ISPs via a court order. But since the only information they have is that the IPs downloaded torrent files, they have no direct proof.

IIRC, in Canada it was ruled that such things were NOT enough to force the ISPs to give up customer/IP matches. I wouldn't be surprised if the courts in the US denied the MPAA's requests to get these IPs turned into names either.

Am I saying it's impossible? Well, no, the US courts have a tendency to not rule logically when it comes to such issues, as the cases often go before judges that really have no idea what is going on. Why is this the case? I don't know, it could be any number of reasons, but my bet is that either the US court system is overburdened and these types of cases can't get assigned to the proper judges because there aren't enough judges, or that the MPAA chooses their judges carefully.

Re:Oh goody.

[shmlco]

You just described television. Just as big a production, release this week's episode, feedback, produce, next week's, and so on along the arc.

A movie, OTOH, and to use your analogy, is a commercial shrinkwrapped product. Of one piece. Like a book, it has a start, middle, and "the end". There may be sequels, but they too, are self-contained.

What holds true for one model and process may not neccessarily hold true for the other.

Re:Oh goody.

[Jason1729]

No court in the world recognizes "copyright infingement" as theft. In the example being discussed, nothing was stolen and paid back later.

Re:Oh goody.

[hairyfeet]

They just don't seem to get that the low quality of the average "ripped" p2p item makes for an excellent teaser/promo.

I got into Joss Wheadon and bought the entire Buffy/Angel series on dvd because i got to watch a half dozen eps of each on p2p(No WB where I'm at,No cable either).That equals a very big payoff to them thanks to p2p.The same goes for games.I bought the entire Mechwarrior series because of a ripped version of Mech3.

While i don't agree with dvd iso's i don't see anything wrong with the "ripped" versions.They are either lower quality(Videos) or have features removed/missing(games) and are a great way to check out something that if your only choice was shell out cash you'd probably never try.

There is so much money they could be making.Imagine a p2p channel with all the movies over 5 years old for 19.99 a month,Or a channel with all those great games from the 9x era, All you want for 19.99 a month.If they didn't use DRM in return for no support I'd be happy to sign up.Instead they just keep beating the dead horse while wondering why no one wants their latest formula crap.Greed+stupidity+lack of vision=lousy business.Just my 2 cents.

Re:Oh goody.

[tarunthegreat2]

Wow this is a great point - it's not people - it's IP addresses. I would think they would at least have to gather evidence that a particular person was using that particular IP (proof said geek was in his momma's basement, e.t.c.). Or am I totally clueless?

..US courts have a tendency to not rule logically when it comes to such issues, as the cases often go before judges that really have no idea what is going on. Why is this the case?

Probably because there are more lawyers than software engineer explaining things to them or more lawyers with some software law. Basically I think analogies and actual studies of who downloads what e.t.c - I don't think these have been covered as thoroughly as they should be. OTOH, you have the DMCA...so why look at anything else, as in, that's the law ergo judges will interpret that and use that for their rulings. And we all know how logical and rational the DMCA is...

Re:Oh goody.

[DMouse]

Every single one of those vendors is an old vendor. Selling versions in excess of at least version 5. Where are the version 1 shrink wrapped box versions? Where are the new software startups who are selling shrink wrap software?

Apart from the two to ten person teams rolling out software on OS X, I don't know of any.

Re:Oh goody.

[FireFury03]

Well, I've said this before:

Most people, given the choice, want to pay a reasonable price for a legit copy of something. However, currently the pirated material is often "better" than the legit version (for some values of "better").

For example, the distribution mechanism for illegal movies is better:
  - You don't have to drive to get to see the movie
  - You don't have rediculously overpriced food pushed at you
  - You don't have to put up with 30 minutes of adverts before watching the show you paid an overpriced fee to see (goes back to the "reasonable price" thing above)
  - Not so much an issue these days but it used to be that a lot of movies were released here in the UK long after they hit the US - I can't see how they can complain too much about people getting impatient to see something they've hyped up (still applies to TV though).
  - You don't get accused of being a copyright infringer when you're infringing copyright, whereas you do if you go to the cinema or buy a DVD.

And yes, I fully agree with you about music - almost all the CDs I buy these days have been (partly at least) downloaded first so I could hear if what I was buying was worth it - the only people who lose out from that are the crap acts who aren't worth buying.

Re:Oh goody.

[MSZ]

I would also like to point out that laws are not carved in stone and are subject to change.

Remember the "Gold Rule"? Who has gold, makes the rules. If the laws were for people, there would be no DMCA and probably very limited copyright. Certainly most of the people believe that it's OK to download and share stuff - why isn't law following the public view? But laws are against people and for corporations. Shows clearly who's country is this (and it applies to most countries - in US it's just more obvious).

Re:Oh goody.

[xiando]

What do you mean "the movie industry has few methods other than movie sales to generate a profit"?

Why can they not make huge piles of money using BitTorrent when the adult entertainment industry embraces and utilizes the supreme BitTorrent technology in order to generate sustainable, legal returns?

Could it be that the movie industry simply have failed to accept the new technological area we are in, and therefore also fail to understand that it is oh so incredibly wise to give away some content in order to sell other content which is available for download and purchase on-line?

Could it be that hard media technology like the CD and DVD are already replaced by BitTorrent and other on-line solutions?

The main-stream movie industry could be making a lot of money using BitTorrent and other P2P technology. The adult industry understood this years ago. Just look at http://hardcoretorrents.com/ and http://xiando.com/torrents/ to understand that BitTorrent can, when used wisely, be extremely good for you, your health and your shareholders.

I agree that all kind of illegal action is very bad. But no illegal action is indicated by a person having visited or used a website, even if some parts of that site may or may not have had illegal content. BitTorrent is a perfectly legal protocol and it is also perfectly legal to use BitTorrent sites, and this is specially true now because all the bad illegal torrent sites which once existed are now closed and shut down even though most of them were only trackers and did not host any illegal content at all. It is legal and safe and good for you to use BitTorrent and torrent sites and it can entertain you and make your life better.

Re:Oh goody.

[Danathar]

Doing something illegal does not mean it's wrong. It' JUST means it's illegal.

Your morals don't HAVE to coinside identically with what society deems is right via Law. If you decide to do something that you believe is right and it happens to be illegal then the only thing you need to understand it the consequences for your actions (possible imprisonment).

There are some Laws that I disagree with, but am definitely not going to risk imprisonment. There are other laws that I might think of violating because I don't believe in their moral correctness AND decide to actually commit because the risk seems low (like say...purchasing something after pirating it)

[disclamer] Of course my morals are in complete agreement with ALL the laws in my country and I would NEVER think of breaking ANY of them.

Re:Oh goody.

[JoeBar]

Wow this is a great point - it's not people - it's IP addresses. I would think they would at least have to gather evidence that a particular person was using that particular IP (proof said geek was in his momma's basement, e.t.c.). Or am I totally clueless?

This is what I wanna know. Has anyone successfully used the "I have a wireless network, some random neighbor or drive-by hacker was using my internet connection to do this -- not me"?

Re:Oh goody.

[holiggan]

Same here, except it was Futurama.

I live in a country that thinks it's very hip and cool, but it's more like a 3rd world country (no offense to them!)... So, basically, between low coverage and monopolistic practices, I only have 4 (four!) TV channels.

Anyway, I read about Futurama on the net, and I downloaded a couple of episodes (shame on me!). I got adicted! :D So much that I bought the whole 4 seasons on Amazon! (Yeah, we don't have much TV series on DVD on the retail stores around here either). And I got some seasons of South Park too! And now I'm waiting for "Penn & Teller's B*llshit" to arrive!

And you know what? If it weren't for P2P, I wound have never get contact with those shows and I would never bought the DVDs...

Like someone said, P2P would be a awesome way to distribute low-quality "teasers" of TV shows. It worked for me, and I believe it worked for many more people.

Family Guy is another example. I never saw it (I intend to download an episode or two to try it), but I read that the DVD sales were great. I guess that one might presume that an portion of those sales were directly related with people downloading episodes and enjoying it.

Maybe the media industry (music, movies, TV, and games) should start listening to their customers, instead of the army of lawyers that they have. And by saying "listening" I really mean "LISTENING", as in opinion polls and stuff.

And the games industry should really wrap their heads around the whole emulation scene. I mean, emulating a PS2 is wrong, but I sure would pay for the change to have (for example) a thingamajig that I could hook to the TV and get me to play a bunch of Megadrive games or SNES games (you know, like they did for the Atari, the controler-thingy).

Sorry for the long rant, but it ticks me that we the paying customers are being treated as thiefs, when we are actually willing to pay (and paying!) for the entertainment. Just listen to us, for real, and don't try to ram your both arms and legs up our collective asses...

Imagine...

[DrifterX79]

that after all this time they figured out how to use log files to their advantage

Re:Imagine...

[epiphani]

Dear MPAA:

Please explain how the logs you cite prove I downloaded your movie. The logs show a 28k ".torrent" file. I was unaware that your movies could be compressed to such a degree! I would now like to direct you to my large DVD collection.

Fuck You,
Your Customer.

Re:Imagine...

[jack_csk]

Exactly.
The httpd-access.log can only prove that your computer had download the torrent. It may serve as a supplementary information on where you got the torrent for that illegal download. Only the dumbest jury will find it persuasive to prove an illegal movie download / copyright infringement.

Re:Imagine...

[man_of_mr_e]

While it's true that the http logs only show that you downloaded a torrent, they also kept tracker logs as well. They know exactly how many bytes you downloaded, whether you "finished" the file, etc.. (that is, unless you were using a client that didn't accurately report that information).

Re:Imagine...

[ZosX]

That is if the tracker is hosted on the torrent site. Most of the time this is not the case. Typically all the originating site is providing a torrent which connects you to the tracker site. So the parent is correct. In 90% of the cases you are just downloading a 28k .torrent. Hardly infringement unless they can prove that you downloaded the whole file and went on to seed. See, it isn't the downloading that they typically look at, its the distribution. They want to go after the people setting up seeds and trackers a lot more than the casual person that downloads last week's episode of Deadwood.

Personally, I would love to buy things on DVD like Deadwood, but when I went out and priced Season 1, they wanted $100 for it. Since I already payed HBO to watch their channel for the whole season, I couldn't justify spending $100 to watch it again. I ended up missing the last few episodes of seson 2 and they expired on On Demand, so I was left with two choices: Wait 6 months and pay $200 for both seasons or download them all for free. It wasn't a really tough decision for me, especially considering how much more I could use the $200 for better things. I could see if it were to be like $40-50, but come on. They would probably sell a whole lot more if they dropped the price too. I mean that works out to a little less than $10 an hour for entertainment. That's more expensive than a movie ticket, nearly twice as much.

Great series though! I can't wait to see if they do a season 3 and I really hope they pick of the pieces of Carnivale because the season 2 finale was a really cheap way of ensuring there will be a season 3. All that buildup to the most anti-climatic ending of a series I've seen in a long time.

I hate to say this about IP lawsuits...

[amalcon]

GOOD!

BitTorrent is all but DESIGNED to be traceable. Maybe this will make people finally notice. That would (hopefully) do a lot to legitimize it.

Re:I hate to say this about IP lawsuits...

[Alex P Keaton in da]

From the article... "BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has warned in the past that using his technology to distribute material illegally is a "dumb idea," because the file-swapping tool is not designed to hide the identity of anyone using it."
So it is sort of like waving to the camera while robbing a bank. Don't be surprised if you get caught. I doubt these were slashdot posters of computer people, likely frat boys and jocks that didn't know any better....
My favorite stories, which happen a lot up here (Ohio) in the winter, are when the police catch thieves by following their tracks in the snow, from the scene of the crime, right to their house. Seems like the MPAA is doing a high tech version of this...

Usenet?

[Neo-Rio-101]

So, um, when is Hollywood going to go after Usenet?

*crickets chirp*

Re:Usenet?

[AndroidCat]

Could they grab the chickenhead posting his entire Star Trek video collection to alt.binaries.scooter ("pictures of scooters and related items") first? That would make me very happy!

Re:Usenet?

[rk2z]

Seriously though how hard is it to get caught using newsgroups, I assume that while the quantity of people using news groups is considerably less than the number of people using p2p services so that is probably the main reason, but does anyone know how hard it would be to figure out who is downloading what? Wouldn't your ISP have to actively snitch one you? Sounds like a good way to waste company resources and piss off your customers.

Re:Usenet?

[Kythe]

Moreover, they'd have to keep logs (several major Usenet service providers, such as Giganews, explicitly say they don't) and since the copyrighted material is being hosted on their servers en masse, it seems to me that their own liability would be quite a bit higher.

Of course, this could be used to leverage them into giving up any logs they do have. But I rather think that it would open a can of worms, especially for big ISP's: it's one thing to give up logs that show infringement by a customer or two upon being subpoenaed; it's quite another to get sued yourself. And if the **AA goes after Verizon, Comcast, Giganews, etc., they're going to have a fight on their hands. Thus far, the **AA's seem more interested in picking on those who can't defend themselves.

Re:Usenet?

[Nursie]

Shshshsh!

Remember the first rule of Usenet - You DO NOT talk about Usenet.

Legal?

[wlan0]

In what ways is it legal for them to use the logs of Suprnova and Lokitorrent?

Re:Legal?

[slavemowgli]

For that matter, why did those sites keep logs, anyway? That seems like a pretty dumb idea to me really; there was at least one case in the past where a site (Cryptome?) was subpoenaed for httpd access logs but came back saying that they didn't keep any.

I don't want to advocate copyright infringement, but if you do it, then you at least shouldn't do it in a blatantly amateurish way...

Re:Legal?

[Muerte23]

One thing though, would this be admissible with regards to hearsay laws?

If I make a list of random IP addresses and add random movie titles, can I be subpoenaed and those logs used to sue people?

It's not like the police came to someone's house and found a movie on their computer - an internet lowlife had that person's IP address on their server. Was it created by a bot?

Where's the proof? Does there need to be any? I understand that civil cases have a lower standard of guilt, but does anyone know for sure?

m

Re:Legal?

[cpt kangarooski]

One thing though, would this be admissible with regards to hearsay laws?

Without getting into the details of what hearsay is and isn't, I'd say that your typical everyday logs will likely fall within the business records exception to the hearsay rule, and be admissible for the truth of their contents. Depends on the circumstances surrounding their making, of course.

If you're in a situation to make logs of this sort of activity, however, you might want to reconsider whether or not you want to do so.

Where's the proof? Does there need to be any? I understand that civil cases have a lower standard of guilt, but does anyone know for sure?

Well, evidentiary issues (such as whether the logs are inadmissible hearsay) deal with whether the jury ever gets to know the logs exist, and gets to know what they say. If they're inadmissible, the jury doesn't get to know about them, and can't make a decision based on them.

If they are admitted, however, the jury gets to decide for themselves whether or not they trust them. They can always disbelieve them.

However, the burden of persuasion in civil cases (i.e. any case brought by RIAA, MPAA, etc.) is one of a preponderance of the evidence. If it is at all more likely that something is true than it is false (a 51% rule) then it's considered to be true.

Re:Legal?

[spiritraveller]

Without getting into the details of what hearsay is and isn't, I'd say that your typical everyday logs will likely fall within the business records exception to the hearsay rule, and be admissible for the truth of their contents. Depends on the circumstances surrounding their making, of course.

Fed. R. Evid. 801(a)
"A 'statement' is (1) an oral or written assertion or (2) nonverbal conduct of a person, if it is intended by the person as an assertion."

Fed. R. Evid. 801(b)
"A declarant is a person who makes a statement."

A statement created by a computer program (without human intervention) is not hearsay because it does not contain any human statements.

However, a proper foundation would have to be laid in order to admit it. This would require an expert who could examine the program and testify as to how it functioned.

Re:Legal?

[cpu_fusion]

You're absolutely correct: the law is not prepared to deal with digital "logs" as evidence. The simple fact is that any set of bits written on a hard drive could be FORGED and placed there by a hacker with absolutely no trace as to their true source.
Its a huge problem with "digital evidence" that judges, juries, and lawyers just don't completely understand. But we, as techies, understand all too well how an exploit can compromise a machine, be used to plant something, and then every trace cleaned up. Sure, there are ways to counter this, like creating hard-copy logs on a printer as they are generated, but seriously -- who does that for their weblogs? That's a lot of paper.
People are rotting in jail right now because the law and the courts are behind the times. Technology is outpacing law in every way and the reactive nature of the legislative process is going to continue to ruin lives.
Having had an uncle go to prison because of exactly this kind of crap, it makes me bitter when I see people worrying about being sued because of bits sitting on a hard drive somewhere; bits that, again, could have been planted as easily as legitamately created.
It's only going to get worse; technology isn't slowing down, but the legal system is.

A few points

[the_macman]

From TFA: Hollywood lawyers are hoping that the fear of exposure will dissuade more people from trying to download movies for free online. "Internet movie thieves be warned: You have no friends in the online community when you are engaging in copyright theft,"

I love how the MPAA resorts to terrorism to get it's point across.
Terrorism - n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

As with previous lawsuits filed by the MPAA and the Recording Industry Association of America, this round of cases is aimed at anonymous "John Does" identified only by their Internet addresses. The defendants' true identities will be sought through a later court process.

Translation: We really have no proof of who downloaded the material but we're gonna goto court anyways

Re:A few points

[Kjella]

From TFA: Hollywood lawyers are hoping that the fear of exposure [to legal prosecution] will dissuade more people from trying to download movies for free online. "Internet movie thieves be warned: You have no friends in the online community when you are engaging in copyright theft,"

I love how the MPAA resorts to terrorism to get it's point across.
Terrorism - n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

a) Legal prosecution is not unlawful. In fact, it is the very basis of the justice system that instead of blowing your head off because I feel it is justified, you get a fair and impartial trial according to the laws agreed upon by our elected representatives.

b) If we are talking about "casual pirate" intimidation, it is purely an economic threat. Quite frankly, I don't see how that could be considered "use of force or violence". If people decided to boycott the MPAA, that would be an economic threat. Is that too terrorism? It could have been considered extortion except...

c) It is a liability suit. In other words, they do not approach you unless they have a claim that you have inflicted damage against them as the copyright holders. If I demanded money not to turn you in to the MPAA, that would be extortion because I'm not the one holding the claim. Assuming the claim is legitimate, they have every right to ignore it, settle it or pursue it to the full extent of the law.

Granted, there is a considerable amount of "Settle this or we'll rack up $$$ in lawyer's fees", plus a horribly disproporional valuation of the goods (97 billion dollar lawsuits anyone?) but those are flaws of the US legal system and copyright law. Now some at least here on slashdot feel those are corrupted, but none the less the MPAAs actions are completely legitimate as it is today.

"(...) this round of cases is aimed at anonymous "John Does" identified only by their Internet addresses."

Translation: We really have no proof of who downloaded the material but we're gonna goto court anyways

Translation: Because there's still some shred of privacy left, a copyright holder (read: everyone) can not obtain the identity of an Internet user just by making a spurious claim of copyright infringment. Once they have the court order, they could in theory demand further searches (read: raiding your house) to determine who the actual perpetrator is. So far, the subscriber information has been considered enough to get a "preponderance of evidence". Feel free to provide counter-evidence if you like...

Kjella

Downloading Torrent Links against the law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Links are all you can download from those sites.

Re:Another ZDnet Story?

[Yehooti]

The Sneaker Net may still be alive. Except it's now on DVDs instead of floppies. Is Blu-Ray next?

Solution: Offshore all Torrent sites to Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple solution would be to offshore all Torrent sites to Asia, in countries such as China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc. Such sites don't require that much bandwidth so they can even be hosted in backwards African countries such as Chad, Niger, Congo, etc.

Oy!

[marlinSpike]

And I was so looking forward to offset my higher fuel prices by downloading the summer's blockbusters (have there been any?)...

Log files?

[imidan]

The article is a bit sparse on technical details. Are they talking about using log files from web servers that distribute .torrent files? Because downloading the .torrent file, itself, isn't proof that a user has gone any further than that, which means no infringement is demonstrated.

Or is there a log file, somewhere, like the tracker, that keeps track of who's connecting and what they're getting? What if you don't succeed in downloading the entire movie? Are you still infringeing, even if the data that you've got is unuseable without the parts you haven't got?

Maximum age for logfiles 24h ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the logfiles, are they really there,
and how old were they ? 24h, 2d or what.

Dear former admins of supr.nova or else who got raided,

please publish your policy how you dealt with the logs, and even if they really exist,

so that your former users can start saving money for a good lawyer or spend the money for a glass of champagne.

From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

The group previously said in February that a Texas court had ordered that the server logs of one big site, called LokiTorrent, be turned over to Hollywood investigators. An MPAA spokeswoman said that none of Thursday's suits were related to that action, however.

OP didn't RTFA in the first place.

Re:Solution: Offshore all Torrent sites to Asia

[marlinSpike]

Finally... something nobody will get pissed off about when it's offshored!

This is stupid.

[Spy der Mann]

If people only downloaded GOOD movies from the net, they'd have much more free time and wouldn't be caught so easily.

RTFReviews.

Lawsuits

[erica_ann]

So let's see here...
Guns kill people, we sue the gun maker

The coffee is too hot, we sue McDonalds

We eat at fast food and we sue the fast food chains for making us fat.

We record music off the radio onto a cassette tape, it is ok to listen to in the car.
We download it off the internet, we get sued.

We watch a movie off a DVD and resell the DVD a place that sells used DVD's we get our money back from buying it and the Motion picture people don't get a second dime.
We download it and we get sued

So, does that mean that the ISP's connection we used should get sued too since we used that ISP's connection to get to the internet to Download what someone else put up there?

Does that mean we should sue Microsoft for making a majority of the operating systems used to DL the files we get sued for?

Does it ever end or have we just turned into a lawsuit happy world?

A way out?

[gaurzilla]

You could download the torrents from a public computer (no login) at your school/library, and then actually perform the downloading at home. How can that be traced back to you?

Re:A way out?

[imboboage0]

Well now that they know YOU do it.....

Re:A way out?

[wk633]

Your IP address is available to anyone you're in the process of sharing with.

Re:A way out?

[freakasor]

Uh, they download the same torrent you do, connect to the tracker, and NOW they have proof that someone at your WAN IP address was uploading the file. They then take said IP address and sue the controlling ISP for the name of the person using it at that time, you, who feels safe because said person downloaded a torrent file from a public computer instead of their home computer.

They don't

sit around on bittorrent hosting their own "stolen" movies

because all they have to do is connect to the tracker and ask for its list of IP addresses, and just like any other good distributed file sharing system, it gives away the list of IP addresses so that a client can connect to all of the other clients.

Walk softly and carry a big lawyer

[imunfair]

I don't think the issue for them is the file sharing anymore - they've just figured out that it's a cash cow to go around suing people who most likely can't/won't mount a successful defense.

I wonder if someone could counter-sue them for defamation of character or whatever if they were mistakenly sued by the RIAA...

I bet they'd think twice if they started losing money on suing people. I think if they do goof up they should have to award the person 100 times as much as the person would have had to pay them. You'd see them get real careful about who they sued real fast.

They don't really have anything to worry about except making money anymore, the government is doing all the dirty work running around strong-arming other countries into cracking down on piracy (Don't crack down.. we won't trade with you...) ... sorry just had to throw that in :)

Copyright theft

[P0ldy]

"Internet movie thieves be warned: You have no friends in the online community when you are engaging in copyright theft," MPAA Senior Vice President John Malcom said in a statement.

Someone stole your copyrights? Maybe that person's running a few trackers and is distributing the works as [s]he sees fit!

Don't give in...

[spiritraveller]

This new approach makes it a lot harder for them to win at trial. All they have is a file that lists some IP addresses.

In the previous cases they hired people who connected to p2p filesharers and observed what exactly was being shared.

Not a single one of their previous cases has gone to trial. It's not cost effective for them to go to trial even when they can win!

The formula is simple...

1. Send threatening lawyer letters to people you believe to have violated your copyright...
2. Wait for a response...
3. Look for an admission of guilt...
4. Profit!

Oh Man...

[thunderpaws]

It will be such a shame to give up watching super compressed ripped video with 2 channel stereo sound, and be forced into paying for a full home theater expierience. Of course Hollywood would never get any cash from me for so many of the movies available anyway. There are quite a few films that do poorly at the box office, but are popular as rentals and downloads. Maybe if Hollywood looked at the download stats along with rental figures, they might find they could generate interest in moving some product sooner onto commercial cable TV. I would enjoy watching something like "With Out a Paddle" with commercial interuptions, rather than paying cash to rent or buy it. Hollywood needs to broaden their customer based rather than push customers away.

Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Shit.

and /. is next

[jspectre]

congratulations! every one of you who complains about hollywood's ingenious move to sue their own customers will find yourself at the end of a lawsuit when they sue /. for their log files!

enjoy your freedom of thought while it lasts!

knowledge is power

[circletimessquare]

here's circletimessquare's method for defeating riaa/ mpaa AND be an upstanding member of the p2p world:

caveat emptor: this recipe assumes you are in a jurisdiction and dealing with content that is only illegal to UPLOAD (music files, for example, in the usa)

1. use emule, great program
2. load it up with porn, gigs of it. you don't even have to look at it. the point is to have something, anything, lots of it, that other people want to download and that you won't get in trouble for sharing (heh, sorry porn makers)
3. share the porn all the time. you'll have hundreds downloading from you in no time and be greatly appreciated
4. now, you've suddenly found a strange desire to download hillary duff (!?), so go ahead, search for it (assume you're getting it from someone in sweden and not hurting whoever is making it available)
4. find the the hillary duff file with the most sources (for quick download)
5. stop all of your other downloads
6. suck down hillary duff in a minute or two (heh)
7. get it out of your shared file immediately

why does this work?

the file you are snarfing is so fleeting, and you've crowded it out with a long queue of people waiting to download jenna jameson gone wild volume 2 and other such sleaze, that you're simply never going to wind up being the source for anything on the mpaa/ riaa's radar. it's a drop in a sea of masking porn

knowledge is power, use it wisely

Re:knowledge is power

[Zangief]

That{s why we need (and for other reasons) Creative Commons Pr0n.

Re:knowledge is power

[bloo9298]

Oh, they're already working on the "Open Sauce" porn series. Eric Raymond is up first, with some transexuals and hermaphrodites. The title is the "The Bazaar and the Bizarre".

Re:Solution: Offshore all Torrent sites to Asia

[epiphani]

Hi.

Or Sweden.

The Pirate Bay

Rather Amusing legal threats page - including responces

Unsecured WAP

[quokkapox]

How on earth are they going to prove that the "John Doe" who was using a particular IP address was actually doing the downloading? There have to be countless apartment buildings nowadays with clueless, naive, rich grannies who got a wireless router to go with their spiffy new laptop which they actually only bought to get online and read emails from the grandkids.

Surely some of these WAPs are located in buildings where the neighbors are leeching free broadband using granny's DHCP server and downloading all sorts of copyrighted torrents.

I wonder how many of these innocent granny types are going to be getting nice subpoenas from the MPAA. If they are senile and ignore them they might get default judgements when the case goes to court. Is the MPAA going to take away their money/home/valuables when they win by default?

Hell, my own home WAP was temporarily wide-open and unsecured for a while when I first set it up. Do I deserve to get potentially sued for being temporarily clueless?

What will the logs actually contain?

[adrenaline_junky]

It seems to me that the logs from SuperNova can contain two things:

1) The IP addresses of people hosting bittorrents
and
2) The IP addresses of people being redirected to download from the above people

In both cases I fail to see how there can be any effective legal case. Unless the MPAA actually went to the sites in question and downloaded the files, they can't prove that "Matrix.avi" was actually the movie Matrix. And they certainly can't prove that the downloaders ever actually completed their downloads, regardless.

I call "bullshit". No way any guilty verdicts can ever be reached here.

UNFORTUNATELY, however, with the FUCKED UP legal system in the U.S., some people might not have the resources to actually hire a lawyer to point this out, even though doing so would guarantee an innocent verdict. So expect a few po' folk to negotiate settlements...

I have a list...

[E8086]

I have a list! A list of 57 communists in the State Department. (or was it RIAA/MPAA?)
err...I mean a list of seemingly random numbers grouped in four sets of one to three numbers separated by periods and I have no way of proving the authenticity and/or credibility of the list or tell you anything about it and only vaguely explain how it was made and I got it. But I will say that you're on it but I won't let you look at the list to verify that you're accually on the list.

Sure, that will work. Yes, I'm sure enough people who visited those sights did so for legally questionable reasons, but they may have had forums, like slashdot, but also having .torrent files. That would be like guilty through association. or something like that. Showing that a list created by people doing illegal things showed someone visited a website doesn't carry much weight with me. For all we know the operators of those sights could have made a list of every IP in California or Texas and turned that over.

You're missing the point

[HBI]

They are suing customers because they want to pressure Congress into passing laws criminalizing file sharing beyond the extent which it is right now. They figure the people sued will complain to government. Their lobbyists will deflect the complaints by saying they'll stop if they get what they want legislatively. Otherwise, they'll whine, they will be put out of business eventually.

The politicians cave and we lose more rights. It's really rather masterful if you think about it. In a really evil way.

Keep your own log

[BCW2]

Show up in court with your computer that has 8 different versions of Linux (all downloaded) with up to date torrent patches. Oh you thought that amount of traffic had to be movies? The counter suit will be for 10x what you tried to get.

Betrayal

[Kaorimoch]

The ultimate betrayal. First Lokitorrent collects donations for a legal defense fund, then rolls over for the MPAA and contributes all the logs to them for downloaders. His idiocy costs the community even today. I must admit, its enough to scare people using current sites away if they think they are getting logged for later. Anyway, I hope all the other sites keep NO logs after this event.

why do they need to get logs?

[v1]

If you connect to a swarm, you soon get a list of alll peers in the swarm. Why do they need to get log files from the servers when they could have sampled all the swarms at any time and gotten a complete list live? (AFAIK this is what they did with suprnova before it got closed, because ppl got letters from RIAA a few weeks before it was closed)

Only thing I can figure is they are technically inept and can't figure out the protocol so they have to rely on logs? Or there is some information or coalation/summary in the logs they are interested in?

Why Not Offer A Competing Service

[Bin Naden]

People like to watch the latest movies from the comfort of their homes. What about doing like iTunes and offer them an internet showing of the movie for let's say 5 bucks a movie? You get better quality than torrents, faster downloads, no people getting up in front of the camera all the time all from the comfort of your home. The movie studio saves on distribution costs and get extra income from the geek crowd who would never dare be seen in the bright daylight but prefer to bask in the warming glow of a computer monitor. Everyone wins.

I call BS on the "suprnova logs" claim with reason

[plasmacutter]

Suprnova closed down on it's own. The MPAA/RIAA were never involved. No law in it's hosted nation at the time allowed any of these organizations to lay hands on the logs. The admins responsible destroyed the site and began working on exeem.

Any questions or comments?

it may be unpopular but...

[xenomouse]

It may be a good idea to switch to trusted file-sharing. Remember the days of old (pre-napster) when one had to search out a good ftp site or hotnet server, contact the admin by email, etc. Did you ever worry that the admin was some RIAA/MPAA agent setting a trap? Did you worry that an RIAA/MPAA agent was sniffing packets between you and that ftp server? Did you even know that the RIAA/MPAA existed for a purpose other than putting warning labels on your entertainment?

Too many of us have bought into the "my way, right away" mentality, in which if we can't find what we want in less than five minutes, someone's done us wrong. To many, this is a way of life, and they have stopped caring (to the point at which they routinely risk the longterm health of themselves and their society) who provides them a service or product just as long as it is provided right away. Now, i appreciate the immediacy of (some) file-sharing utilites as well as the broad range of content available on their networks, but is the risk really worth it? Why would anyone in their right mind risk a heavy fine for downloading dukes of hazard or the latest jason mraz album? Anyone who uses any of the top five file-sharing protocols takes that risk each time they download something that someone in california happens to care about.

If you really want the "phat loot," make sure you know who's providing it to you, or at least make sure they can never find out who you are. I've found that the best way to get anything free is to personally know someone who has direct access/control over it. Next chance you get, go visit the helpdesk or IT department or whoever's responsible for installing software onto the machines where you work/go to school. If you don't have a job or go to school (get a job, hippy!) then go visit the local community college during the next open house (and then visit the IT dept). Those people are (or will shortly be) your friends. Chat it up with them, talk about your favorite video game/author/movie/pet - you will have something in common with them (it's inevitable, Mr. Anderson). Any place with a respectable IT department has either site licenses or several extra licenses for just about anything you could ever need/want. Guess what... if you need a software package - and your newfound friend has a few extra on hand - he will share with you (unless he's a total tightwad).

As for movies and music... be honest with yourself. The tripe that has come out within the past few years (White Chicks? You got Served?? Catwoman???) is far below you, and you don't need to watch the whole movie (or listen to the whole cd) to figure that out. Invariably, any movie or music worth experiencing is also worth at least a rental if not an outright purchase - otherwise, don't waste your time. Indie movie makers and musicians probably don't care (and might even like it) if you download their stuff, so go wild on that one.

Trust is good. Patience is good. We could all use a little more.

Wow...

[PorkCharSui]

Did anyone actually read the article?

The group previously said in February that a Texas court had ordered that the server logs of one big site, called LokiTorrent, be turned over to Hollywood investigators. An MPAA spokeswoman said that none of Thursday's suits were related to that action, however.

So what's up with the Tor network?

[ZosX]

When will they start allowing UDP traffic so we can get bittorrents anonymously?

How did you get modded up?

[jgoemat]

Do you really think it is morally wrong? People aren't 'TAKING' things for free, they are COPYING them. Copyright is not a moral right of someone, it is a right established by the government to assist in the development of the useful arts. It is not 'PIRACY' or 'THEFT'. That means taking something, not copying it. Taking something is removing it from one place and putting it in your posession. Copying is not the same thing.

If someone copies something I did, it in no way diminishes what I have done. I could more easily argue that keeping knowledge from people is morally wrong than putting people in jail for sharing knowledge is wrong.

I have such a friend... and he'll probably be sued

[Kamiza Ikioi]

He's a big Star Wars fan (as in actually owns figures, not just a movie fan). He's seen the latest one 5 times that I know of. At a minimum of $8 per ticket, he's given the franchise $40 + drinks/popcorn/milkduds. This is on top of the 3 or 4 collectable box sets of the originals he owns (mucho dinero). He also got one of the downloaded copies of Episode 3. He hates the quality of it, but it's a piece of Star Wars history to him.

I on the other hand saw the movie once, really liked it, but won't fork over any more money to see it again. I'll wait for someone to loan me their DVD to watch.

Now, who should the studios more likely sue, him or me? What's ironic though is that if I'm correct, I'll be the one 100% legal. He'll be the one committing a crime, even if Hollywood benefitted much more from him. It's people like my friend that they are in business at all.

Give them a dollar, and they'll suck you dry. I'm almost scared to use anything but cash at the theater for fear of what other craziness they may come up with next if they had my name on a reciept.

Server logs...

[purplepaste]

BitTorrent clients periodically ping the tracker (announce url) with statistics that include the number of bytes uploaded and downloaded to/from other peers. Standard web server logs would record this data, as it appears in the querystring. So it would be possible to determine from the logs whether a specific IP had downloaded the complete torrent, how much data they had shared, and an estimate of how long they had continued to seed the file.

Absolutely stupid that the admins of these sites kept the logs. Suprnova was possibly the largest torrent site on the web, somebody really dropped the ball.

Re:Server logs...

[xiando]

BNBT, as used on http://xiando.com:6969/, does not log anything if you leave these settings blank in bnbt.cfg:

bnbt_access_log_dir =
bnbt_error_log_dir =

BNBT is very fast and does not store any non-needed information about anything. It logs how many people have totally completed the file but does not waste the oh so valuable storage space available to store who happened to transfer what ages ago. This tracker is easy to install and uses virtually no resources.

Suprnova used a completely different tracker and perhaps it logged a lot of useless information. That would have been very stupid and unwise, specially because they had no control what so ever over the content available there (at least, that is the general attitude all the now closed sites hid behind).

Detailed logs over the tracker usage would not be need or required or desired so it sounds highly unlikely that any logs would contain anything useful to anyone or even exist. Detailed logs over tracker usage would generate a huge amount of data useful for no practical purpose what so ever, so it is highly unlikely such logs were ever created.

Logs over the website usage are useless for any legal purpose because whatever the hash of a torrent and it's purpose when used with a bittorrent client, it still remains a simple torrent file with some hash code in it - perfectly legal to download by anyone. This is probably just some big pr-stunt to try to make people think bittorrent is bad. BitTorrent it not bad, it is excellent and you should try it today.

Re:Server logs...

[Guspaz]

Notice the use of the words "sites like". The MPAA isn't using Suprnova's log files because Suprnova shut themselves down, and didn't have any reason to give log files to anyone.

Webserver logs wouldn't record the information you refer to, because the trackers usually run their own web server; you're not going to have it as part of your standard Apache log.

Furthermore, even if you did have webserver logs from the tracker, it is still not direct proof. I can send requests to the tracker that say whatever I want. I can send a requset to the tracker indicating that I have uploaded 100GB of data even though I'm not even running a BitTorrent client.

Log files are really not going to help them here, the only way to prove it would have been if they connected directly to the swarm and seen if the IPs sent them any copyrighted data. Since the swarms are long dead this won't work.

Big log

[slushbat]

This reminds me of an old girlfriend of mine. Sometime after we parted she got into dealing amphetamines for extra cash. Not being the sharpest tool in the box, she was caught at it after a while. She was so popular with everybody when the police found her diary with dates details and names of all her friends.

Re:I have such a friend... and he'll probably be s

[Kamiza Ikioi]

It's a hypothetical statement to make a point, though it is also a statement about a payment option I may opt for in the future if the MPAA continues on their current path. Or, did you not read "almost". Nor did you make the connection, probably obvious to everyone else, about how movie/library records can be used in criminal investigations, and a CC receipt would give your name, whereas cash wouldn't.

Ever since they made it a federal crime to video tape in theaters, how long before the MPAA starts pushing for a database of movie goers to connect to the IP numbers (and subpoena'd names) they see in P2P programs. They won't sue anymore. If you are caught sharing the same movie you went to go see, well, then, you had to have been the video taper, and thus, you'll go to federal prison. But, why stop there, if you support P2P and don't download movies, I'm sure they can get the Piracy Czar on your ass anyways.

I don't have a credit card, I have a debit card, which can act as a credit card. Last movie I saw at the theater was Batman Begins. The last DVD I saw was A Walk to Remember (not by choice). The next movie I plan on seeing on DVD is Constantine. My sign is Gemini, and I like long walks on the beach. You asking me out, or you trolling me?

Public face on Slashdot? This is my public face everywhere on the Internet. I am the Ikioi. This is the same me that is on my personal site I8-D. This is also me, and this, and this, and this. Your slashdot face is the top result on a search for your name, and you have no real info in your profile.

Let me guess, because you have a low UID and I have a high UID you thought that'd I'd make a good newb target to troll on. Sorry to disappoint you, but my online presence, and recent mod history, is better than your's pal. Try trolling the 900,000's.