HBO Attacking BitTorrent

DIY News writes "HBO is actively poisoning the BitTorrent downloads of the new show Rome. In addition to an older tactic of offering bogus downloads that never complete, HBO is now obstructing the downloads offered by other people. HBO runs peers that tell the tracker they have all the chunks of the show, but then send garbage data when a downloader requests a chunk. While the bogus peers can be detected, it will take much longer to download shows."

Comments

Thankfully

[kaosrain]

Closed registration torrent sites will be able to weed out the poisoners.

Re:Thankfully

[golgotha007]

Just host the site in an eastern European country, problem solved. I know, because I live and operate an ISP in Russia, and I host whatever the hell I want, worry free.

TiVo

[CaptainPinko]

I use torrents instead of the TiVo I don't own. I've got fully legit paid for HBO but lately I've been too busy to watch Rome so I've just been d/l-ing them. I wonder how that falls under fair-use?

Re:TiVo

[tmhsiao]

To play devil's advocate, HBO is a pay-subscription service--you pay a monthly fee, you get access to their content. They're even quite nice about it--if you miss Rome on Sunday, you're welcome to watch it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday because they show repeats incessantly.

Forget to catch a repeat? They push it onto the On-Demand service for subscribers who pay for said service

So after that multitude of opportunities to see a given episode of Rome, who are the majority of people attempting to download the episode? Of course, you'll have some people who forgot to set their VCRs or only have one out of the seven HBO channels available, or who's recording got cut off if they didn't pad it correctly.

But the obvious answer: The majority of downloaders will be people who want the content without paying for it. Hence, people who do not have on-demand access to the content and therefore have no fair use rights to it.

My Infringement Notice

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an infrinigement notice from MediaSentry passed along to me just the other day by Speakeasy for downloading 2.4k worth of Rome on BitTorrent.

It might be worth noting that I was using Azureus and running PeerGuardian at the time of the download.

I'm running Azureus on a different computer now.

Subject: Case ID XXXXXXXX - Notice of Claimed Infringement
Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2005 11:56:33 -0400
To: Abe Usetonsen <abuse@speakeasy.net>
From: MediaSentry Copyright Infringement <infringements@hbo.com>
 
Monday, October 03, 2005
 
Speakeasy Network DSL
Seattle, WA 98121 US
 
RE: Unauthorized Distribution of the Copyrighted Television Program Entitled Rome
 
Dear Abe Usetonsen:
 
We are writing this letter on behalf of Home Box Office, Inc. ("HBO").
 
We have received information that an individual has utilized the above-referenced IP address at the noted date and time to offer downloads of copyrighted television program(s) through a "peer-to-peer" service, including such title(s) as:
 
Rome
 
The distribution of unauthorized copies of copyrighted television programs constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 106(3).
 
Since you own this IP address, we request that you immediately do the following:
 
1) Disable access to the individual who has engaged in the conduct described above; and
2) Take appropriate action against the account holder (if other than the individual whose access has been disabled) under your Abuse Policy/Terms of Service Agreement.
 
On behalf of HBO, owner of the exclusive rights to the copyrighted material at issue in this notice, we hereby state, that we have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by HBO, its respective agents, or the law.
 
Also, we hereby state, under penalty of perjury, under the laws of the State of New York and under the laws of the United States, that the information in this notification is accurate and that we are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive rights being infringed as set forth in this notification.
 
Please direct any end user queries to the following address:
 
Steve Rosenthal
Legal Department
Home Box Office, Inc.
1100 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
212.512.1780 phone
212.512.5854 fax
infringements@hbo.com email
 
Kindly include the Case ID XXXXXXXX, also noted above, in the subject line of all future correspondence regarding this matter.
 
We appreciate your assistance and thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Your prompt response is requested.
 
Respectfully,
 
Mark Weaver,
Director of Enforcement
MediaSentry, Inc.
 
--------------------
Infringement Detail:
Infringing Work: Rome
Filepath: Rome.S01E06.HDTV.XviD-LOL.[eztv].torrent
Filename : Rome.S01E06.HDTV.XviD-LOL.avi
First Found: 3 Oct 2005 10:28:33 EDT (GMT -0400)
Last Found: 3 Oct 2005 10:28:33 EDT (GMT -0400)
Filesize: 359,196k
IP Address: X.X.X.X
IP Port: 26495
Network: BTPeers
Protocol: BitTorrent
    Download (untitled) 2.4k

Obstructing?

[linuxmop]

That's pretty cute, the use of "obstructing" in the summary. Usually when I hear the word obstructing it is in phrases like "obstructing justice." Obstructing is usually something the criminals do. The word has picked up a pretty negative connotation.

But here, we have HBO obstructing the downloading of their copyrighted material. HBO is obstructing copyright violation. Would you say that a lock obstructs breaking and entering? Or that self defense obstructs assault? Perhaps good server administration obstructs the stealing of private data. Of course you wouldn't say that. It sounds silly. So why is HBO obstructing downloads?

Re:azereus!

[speeDDemon (nw)]

Azureus also has a plugin called SafePeer that automagically downloads a list of 'bad' IPs. Currently there are about 117,000 banned IPs in my block list, and I get good solid download speeds. Could also just add the HBO range of IP address's to the block list, thus their clients will be ignored completely.