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MPAA Caught Uploading Fake Torrents
An anonymous reader writes "The MPAA and other anti-piracy watchdogs have been caught trapping people into downloading fake torrents, so they can collect IP addresses, and send copyright infringement letters to ISPs. The battle between P2P networks and copyright holders seems to be a never ending battle. It will be interesting to see how much the anti-piracy groups practices change once they begin begin selling movies and TV shows legally on bittorrent.com."
If you are part of the MPAA and you download a torrent from someone else just to prosecute, technically isnt the MPAA breaking the law as well??
( I know off topic slightly )
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
IANAL but surely if the downloads they provide aren't copyright protected content and are in fact junk then you're not actually breaking any law because you're not actually downloading copyrighted content.
Contrary to that, surely if it is copyrighted content then the MPAA is making the content available to you. Is it really illegal to download something from the copyright owner if they make it available publicly with no license to agree to prior to download? I'd have thought they'd have a hard time arguing that they didn't intend the content be distributed in the case that they place it readily available on a file sharing site. What's more, even if the MPAA did use this argument then surely if this became precedent then it would have the side effect of destroying any court cases against file sharers as those sharers could merely claim that they didn't intend the files they were sharing to be distributed much like the MPAA might in this scenario?
I just don't see how this really has any legal grounding, however law is a funny thing, particularly in the US so I could be wrong here!
Attempted copyright infringement?? Is that even illegal?
That doesn't stop the cops from posing as 13-year-olds online to nab child predators. I'm honestly not sure how that works in court. How can one be convicted of soliciting a minor when there is no minor? Very similar to the fake torrent scenario.
Does anyone recall the media hubbub surrounding the release of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones? That the movie had been released onto P2P networks before it had even hit the theatres in many countries? Incontravertible evidence that something _had_ to be done about this scourge of filesharing!
A cynic might think it an interesting situation that a dutiful journalist would have to admit to committing a potential crime just to verify the report. A less determined one might just settle for the query results, with the less technologically adept ones being completely convinced: ignorant of the fact that no hard coupling exists between a file's name and its content.
When the claims were tested for veracity by secret anonymous squirrels, none of the files found on the Gnutella network contained any footage of the film.
Has anyone here used PeerGuardian (a P2P IP blocker, with automatic whitelist updates)? Do programs like these actually work at blocker MPAA sniffers, or do they simply provide a false sense of security?
I recently received a message from my ISP that they had received notice alleging I was sharing copyrighted material from my connection, specifically "Mission Impossible 3" - a spanish version no less - over the eDonkey network. It showed the IP I have indeed had assigned to my home network for the past month or two, and was indeed using eMule. HOWEVER, I was only using it to download software, and in NO situation did I download ANY movies, especially anything in spanish! I know that it sounds totally typical, but I wouldn't be complaining if I got reported for something I actually did.
Getting reported for sharing something I've never even had is bullshit, though, regardless of what OTHER questionable things I had been doing. It's not a stretch to claim that their incorrect copyright infringement notice leans on illegal because of the possible harm that can come to me as a result. My internet connection could be disconnected at my ISP's will, forcing me to switch to a crappier ISP with higher prices (we have TWO broadband providers here), and my reputation could be harmed due to the false allegations made.