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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."
Only in this case, no actual theft has occurred. If it's fake, there is no crime. Sure there may be intent, but how exactly are you supposed to infringe on the copyright of a nonexistent work?
The MPAA still holds the copyright on the sequence of bytes it did upload... but it also gave permission to copy by the act of uploading it! (This is necessarily the case, because otherwise I could just as easily say that you were infringing my copyright by reading this post.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Either they're uploading the real file which means they're in violation of copyright law, which seems unlikely. Or they're uploading the real file but they, as the copyright holder, have deemed it OK to distribute - which means it's OK to go ahead and grab it.
Or they're dummy files, which means you can go ahead and grab it since there's no copywritten content shifting hands.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
The MPAA still holds the copyright on the sequence of bytes it did upload... but it also gave permission to copy by the act of uploading it!
The MPAA didn't upload any copyrighted material. They're seeding garbage files that are labeled as actual content and collecting IPs.
There is an allegation that article about the use of fake torrents by the MPAA to harvest IP address so they can use them to send out infringement notices, which has then been converted to a fact by the submitter.
I suspect that the MPAA has these fake torrents to confuse people and waste their time downloading junk, in the hope that they'll give up using torrents. It's a very weak link to suggest that these are being used to send copyright infringement notices.
Waking Up - There must be a better way to start the day.
1. These aren't cops, or law enforcement of any kind.
2. If you put your own car out by the road with a "free car" sign on it, you can't accuse someone who takes it of GTA.
3. If the cops actually plant a "fake car" like you describe, the perpetrator is not guilty of Grand Theft Auto, as no car has been taken.
And AFAIK, copyright infringement requires unauthorized *distribution*. . .
No, unauhtorized distribution is a requirement for copyright infringement to be deemed a criminal matter, but the law is called copyright, not distribution right. The right to distribute is a corallary right of the right to copy, since the former depends on the latter.
If you are the legitimate owner of the physical media you may distribute at will. You do not need any special authorization, the person who created it did. CD stores are not licensed, they just buy "stuff," property, and resell it.
So what exactly are they claiming when they "notify" the ISPs?
That their copyright has been violated, because it has. The downloader is making a copy, without authorization. Yes, it's a trivial civil offense. That isn't at all the same thing as saying it isn't an offense.
KFG
They can have my IP. I just use whatever wide-open wireless network is available. Often, that's my town's free wireless program. Have fun, MPAA.
AFAIK, nobody has actually gotten around to forcing the **AA into proving anything in court.
And again, AFAIK, the **AA hasn't had anything more than screenshots of alleged sharing as evidence
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
66.172.60.XXX,
66.177.58.XXX,
66.180.205.XXX,
209.204.61.XXX,
216.151.155.XXX
From the article:
The anti-piracy servers use hostnames like 101tracker.dhcp.biz, aplustorrents.qhigh.com, bitnova.squirly.info, bittorment.ocry.com, and pirate-trakkrz.leet.la. All these hostnames can be traced back to the same IP Ranges, these ranges contain possibly hundreds of fake trackers, so feel free to block them
OMG the cops were also caught planting fake cars waiting to be stolen so they could catch car theives!!
Grr, Copyright Infringement ISN'T THEFT!
REPEAT AFTER ME!
Copyright Infringement ISN'T THEFT!
It would be more like the cops planting a fake car and then someone copying the design of the fake car, so they could catch people copying their design.
In my opinion there's a huge difference here. Even if the MPAA put up real files they still should not be able to do anything about you downloading them because they are the copyright holders. This is the same thing as when an artist puts up a song for free download on their website. You can't get in trouble for downloading it because the copyright holder is the one offering the file.
> attempted copyright infringement
No, it's called "conspiracy to conspire about thinking about thinking about a thought crime". Just turn yourself in now.
My other car is first.
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 don't have a lot of time to work with, but there are a few points going around here that I think ought to be collected in one place:
/dev/unrandom. They are fine with that.
Entrapment: No, it's not. Entrapment, in order to work as a legal defense, is when the government takes action that induces you to commit a crime that you would not otherwise have committed. Walking up to you on the street and offering you $100 commission to steal a Rolex is entrapment. Putting up a website that purports to sell illegal machinegun parts is not entrapment, because you would have found some website to buy the parts from anyhow. Sending you a brochure to advertise child pornography and waiting for you to order some is questionable. This activity is somewhere between the child porn brochure and the machinegun parts website, but it is not government action so entrapment isn't a defense. It also doesn't matter, because the MPAA is interested in suing you into oblivion in civil court more than it is interested in seeing you behind bars. (After all, behind bars you can't make any more paychecks for the MPAA to garnish.)
MPAA consent to downloading content: Nope. They're uploading fake torrents. You are downloading something else, maybe a dump of
Downloading fake torrents is legal: Yep, it is. It's just that they're logging your IP address and will file a lawsuit that alleges, "[o]n information and belief, the Defendant has infringed the Plaintiff's copyright by downloading an illegally distributed copy of [the movie you were trying to download when you got the fake torrent]." They know you are going to find a real torrent later and download it, or at least some other movies. They know all they need to: you are a person using a given IP address to attempt to download their copyrighted material and you probably didn't give up when you found out that the torrent they fed you was fake.
Grabbing your IP address from the fake torrent download doesn't help the MPAA: See previous paragraph.
Did I miss anything? These seem to be the main issues being covered in the comments so far. The simple fact is that this tactic will probably work for the MPAA.
Pirates used to sail around the ocean until they saw a pretty looking ship. Then they would copy its design and build their own pretty looking ship.
That way they could avoid paying a naval architect to design such a ship.
It drove all those poor naval architects nearly bankrupt.
We mustn't let it happen again.
Help stamp out piracy - don't make illegal copies!
That's why copyright infringement is technically piracy.
I am anarch of all I survey.
To be completely correct the scenario would be like this.
The MPAA are sitting on their porch with a large bag labelled "Free Money, Come & Get Some" so you go over and ask them for some. They give you something which looks like money until you've got a bit further down the road when you realise it's only fake money.
The MPAA then follow you down the road back to your house and call the police asking them to charge you with stealing their money except rather than demanding just the money they pretended to give you back to you they ask for 100 dollars back for every dollar you didn't get because if you had have got it then you might have given it to anyone of your 100 friends. If you had it, which you didn't because the money was fake.
I hope that makes the situation crystal clear !