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TorrentSpy Ordered By Judge to Become MPAA Spy

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the watching-the-watchmen dept.

PC Guy writes "TorrentSpy, one of the world's largest BitTorrent sites, has been ordered by a federal judge to monitor its users. They are asked to keep detailed logs of their activities which must then be handed over to the MPAA. Ira Rothken, TorrentSpy's attorney responded to the news by stating: 'It is likely that TorrentSpy would turn off access to the U.S. before tracking its users. If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.'"

23 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. The Pirate Bay by Brother+Dysk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yet another reason to use the Pirate Bay - being based in Sweden, it's incredibly unlikely that much action will be taken against it, especially in the current political climate there (as a direct result of the raid). Now they just need a way to clearly mark torrents that are tracked only by them...

    --
    - Frans.
    1. Re:The Pirate Bay by tomstdenis · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How is that post interesting? You're basically saying "we should be violating the copyright using a more attractive source so we won't get caught."

      As much as I hate the douchebags in the maffia [and well actors/singers in general] I respect their right to make a living by selling their productions. If whatever you're pirating is actually worth it to you, find a way to acquire it such that the people who made it still get paid. Otherwise, your "wonderful" solution involves artists [who are at the bottom of the money foodchain] not getting paid.

      Why not get a job and just by whatever media you like.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    2. Re:The Pirate Bay by the_womble · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I respect their right to make a living by selling their productions.

      You could reword that "...make a living by being paid the licensing fees required by their government mandated monopolies."

      Why not get a job and just by whatever media you like.

      Because the only thing I have ever pirated does not appear to be available in the country in which I live. Is that a good reason? If they do not have a mechanism for me to pay them, they can hardly complain about not being paid.
    3. Re:The Pirate Bay by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Who cares? They have a right to sign up for labels [even if the terms are stupid]. You don't have a right to violate their copyright protections [I'm not talking DMCA here].

      If you don't like the media, don't buy it. But don't pirate it either.

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    4. Re:The Pirate Bay by paganizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If I don't like it, i'm not too likely to download it.
      most of the music I like, except for a couple of flukes, isn't on Torrent or P2P.
      What I do use shareaza (P2P) for is to make up for living half the year someplace where I only have dialup; shareaza works better than getright. Since I retired from the network biz, i'm also kinda a busy amateur photographer, CGI "artist", and 3d object designer, I throw my stuff out in the world using P2P, to keep my bandwidth bills down on my website. I sell some stuff at renderosity.com and a few other places...and I've seen my for-sale stuff on P2P. I'm not bothered by it. it's free advertising, and I've had people purchase my stuff then tell me that they tried it from P2P, liked it, so they bought it. I suppose the possibility exists that i'm losing sales in this way, but I really doubt it.
      I'm not a Evil money grubbing pig, so maybe that explains my attitude... but P2P is the perfect way for a lot of markets to advertise. Bands should see music downloading as a way to advertise their gigs, or other value-added product that they actually get a fair chunk of the proceeds from.
      How about this; if a band, lets say somebody who isn't famous for trying to jail their fans, put up on their band website a simple little paypal button next to a list of their songs; they could ask for .50+ for each one, as soon as the paypal is paid, you are sent a link to the ftp, edtk or .tor for the track. and no DRM, no death threats, no nothing. they would make more money in that way than they currently make from the M(af)IAA system.

      --
      Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
    5. Re:The Pirate Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      >Do you get paid for your work? Why can't your employer just force you to work for free? Because you want to sell your services? How is this any different?

      It is clearly different, as I will demonstrate for you. Why you missed this, I really don't know, it's patently obvious.

      Case a: It's 1664, and you live in New York, owner of a slave farm. You have a slave farmhand. You provide him enough so that he survives (food and a small slave hut), since even though you won't be in trouble should he die, a dead slave is worth nothing. You change your mind on this and short him the slave hut. One day he decides he's had enough, so he ups and leaves when your back is turned. You contact the constabulary, and they catch him walking towards Canada towards freedom. He is apprehended and for a modest fee the police return him to you. This time you're a bit smarter about your slave, you watch him closely and he continues to work until he is dead from exposure.

      Case b: It's 2004, and you live in New York. You own a record label. An artist is working for you, and you decide paying enough that he can afford an apartment just isn't working for your bottom line. You decide to short him his pay to the point he can no longer afford the apartment. The artist leaves. You phone the police and they laugh at you. They also remind you that if you do find him (or he decides to find you) that you'll need to send him the money your shorted him. You aren't sure where the artist is today, he could have found another job as an artist that pays better than you were willing to pay, or he may have decided to find a more stable line of work. He may even be dead. You don't have a clue!

      Case c: It's 2004, you live in New York working as an electrician for a company that produces a product. One day you are laid off work. You find out, through the local newspaper, the factory is closing due to a Chinese company making a competing product that is disturbingly similar (but not identical). You attempt to sue the Chinese company. The Chinese government laughs. You spend your life savings trying to fight the Chinese company, and end up destitute, living on the streets with no home. After a year of this, you decide that you need to find another job because your new job of fighting the way things are isn't working very well.

      Homework assignment: Compare and contrast case a, case b, and case c. Explain which case is related to which part of your argument. Prove which case presents the best scenario for each person involved in the case. Compare and contrast specifically how closely each case is related to copyright infringement. Show which employee (the slave, the artist, the tradesman) got the best breaks in life. Detail how copyright infringement did or did not affect their lives. Discuss the rights or lack of rights of employer and employee to payment for their labour.

      Personally, as an electrician, I'm not just a bit jealous, but also a bit angry about copyright law. If I could force a homeowner to not just pay for my labour, but I could force them to pay for it in perpetuity, I'd be a richer man. But, damn, there's that word force. Just sounds so... enslaving.

    6. Re:The Pirate Bay by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Just because you benefit from copyright law doesn't make it a good idea for society. Nor do the existence of business models that depend on it justify it. If there were no copyright, things would be different. The question isn't if people would have to adjust - obviously they would. The question is this: would the overall benefit to society be greater?

      Many people who receive copyright royalties think that they have some sort of natural right to those royalties. A right to get paid long into the future for something they did in the past - regardless of the cost to society. That's simply selfish greed, and I'm not terribly interested. If you can show that some version of copyright is the best policy overall, great - let's use that. If copyright isn't the best choice, we should do something else.

      The goal isn't to make sure that artists get paid for every copy of their work. That just happens to be what copyright tries to do. The goal is to make sure that the maximum number of people have access to the greatest variety of artistic works. If we were to abolish copyrights completely today, and as a result no new artistic works were created (which wouldn't happen), there would still be more overall access to artistic works for *many years* - simply because people who couldn't afford copyrighted works before would have access to them.

      So the relevent questions are these: What is the rate of artistic production in the absence of copyright? Is it worth taking action to increase that rate? What action is worth taking? My strong hunch is that the answers end up being "reasonably high", "yes", and "not copyright". Even government art grants are likely to be a better social tradeoff, since that way we don't prevent people from having access to the art that is created - unappreciated art provides no social benefit.

      As for "wait till you don't get paid for your hard work", I write software for a living. Custom software. I bill by the hour. Many writers are like me - they don't live off royalties. They get paid either by the piece, on salary, or some other way.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    7. Re:The Pirate Bay by tkrotchko · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Royalties promote diversity."

      They might, but the circumstantial evidence does not support that theory. Of course, the problem may be that most artists sign away ownership of their music to the RIAA in order to get a recording contract. In this situation, you can make a strong case that royalties hurt diversity, since record companies are looking to maximize royalties by producing music that is closest to popular (best selling, greatest producer of royalties) music.

      --
      You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
    8. Re:The Pirate Bay by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      By your logic though, if I commission a house to be built, on land I bought from the government, I shouldn't be able to charge rent since the house has already been made right?

      Nope. The content of artistic works and land are completely different. My opinions about them are not related.

      We'd adjust? WTF does that mean?

      I mean that there are other business models, that would lead to more of some kinds of art and less of others. We'd get less artificial pop songs and more remixes. Less high budget action movies and more "art films" and low budget "cult classics". Those are both probably good trades actually.

      This would mean we couldn't have TV, movies, books or software.

      Huh? Why? The ones we have wouldn't just disappear. Advertising wouldn't stop being a good business model for TV. Movie production would change drastically, but we'd still get new movies. Selling books would still be profitable - I bet that "author authorized" editions would be enough to support superstar authors, the other authors have day jobs anyway. Software would move to an Open Source + custom work model. It'd be different, but not nesissarily worse.

      We couldn't distribute function blocks of IP (e.g. hardware designs) either.

      Mostly those aren't distributed. They're kept secret and protected by NDAs. That wouldn't change at all.

      There would be absolutely no patents either, etc.

      What? Why? We're talking about copyright here, and patents have nothing to do with copyright.

      The truth is not all business models are the same.

      That's true. Some business models wouldn't work without government granted monopolies. Any government granted monopoly will allow the recipient to be wildly profitable, but that doesn't mean that they're generally a good idea.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
  2. Privacy policy by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.'"

    You know, I heard in some countries, they can tap the phones if they get a court order, even though the privacy policy of the people talking says otherwise.

    --
    Apology to Ubuntu forum.
    1. Re:Privacy policy by Brother+Dysk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You know, I heard in some countries, they can tap the phones if they get a court order, even though the privacy policy of the people talking says otherwise.

      Surely it's the privacy policy of the telecom that's the issue in the example of a phonetap. If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.

      Also, if TorrentSpy are forced to monitor users, what's to prevent them from changing their privacy policy to reflect this, and placing it at the top of every page in big red writing?

      --
      - Frans.
  3. Howto delete torrentspy account by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    How can one delete an account on torrentspy ? I don't find a button to do so... unfortunately.

    There should be a law requiring all sites that allow you to register to also have an unregister button somewhere.

    All jabber/xmpp servers allows you to unregister.

  4. Proxy servers and IP spoofing by Zantetsuken · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ok, so if they do just "block the entire US" whats to say somebody won't set up a mirror, a howto on using Proxy servers outside the US, or IP spoofing (not sure if that would work with downloads though...) or any of a billion other ways to get around this?

  5. Not lawful by Antony-Kyre · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't believe the courts have the power to make an order like this, regardless of whether or not it is enforceable.

    Actually, by the sounds of this, I think the judge could get impeached. Let us hope the ACLU or someone gets involved.

  6. Why isn't the MPAA being prosecuted for hacking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Unbelievable.

    One way or another, it seems that the MPAA is determined to obtain information about TorrentSpy and its users. A complaint issued by TorrentSpy suggests the MPAA paid a hacker $15,000 to steal e-mail correspondence and trade secrets. The hacker admitted that this was true.


  7. What Pirate Bay got right by ducomputergeek · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Was basing in a country with rather liberal copyright policies. I said back in the days of Napster that was their major flaw. Had they been based in a country with little or no regaurd for IP rights, what could have been done about it? That is the paradox of an open internet that governments have been trying to solve.

    It was only a matter of time before governments began trying to figure out a way to regulate the Internet. All governments like control and the internet is by its very nature hard to control, and designed to be a nigh bit diffcult because of redundancy, etc. Sure China and Saudi Arabia and other countries try by limiting the number of ISPs and including filters, but people still find a way.

    If you want to do something illegal on the net and can find a way to make money at it (the real tragic flaw of Napster), then there are a host of countries that would be happy to host for a percentage. And I'm not sure if anything can really be done to stop that. Trying to stop drugs hasn't worked.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  8. After cars arrived stealing buggy whips was legal by glrotate · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or maybe not. Your analogy is weak.

  9. Re:Quit Crying!!! by Zeussy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wouldn't really say brought illegal downloading to the masses. If you walk up to the average person in the street and ask them if they use the internet, you would probably get a yes. If you then asked do you use bittorrent, or know what it is, you would probably get a no.

    The fact is torrents are mainly used by students, the less well of or the damn right stingy, and no matter what you do to these people no will not part money unless they have to, either because they can't afford to. The stingy people you may scare into buying content, but for the students and less fortunate there really isnt any loss in sales because there wouldn't be a sale in the first place, they are getting content they like, but couldn't afford.

    If you give people a simple, organised alternative e.g. iTunes (not the best system I know) people will use it and pay for content. The MPAA should get with the times and organise an iTunes for films for the entire market (I know some studios are starting to get on the bandwagon, and I won't even touch on the DRM issue, as that will go on for hours).

    But going after students and the like is pointless, there wasn't really a sale there in the first place.

    --
    Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
  10. Re:Neat move by WaZiX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dispite all this, the U.S. economy does appear to be growing at a faster rate than Europe's

    Nominal Growth or realt growth? (inlation corrected or not).

    Does this "analysis" take into consideration the fact that the US accumulated huge exterior debt (and hence will have to pay interests on those)...

    Did you take into account that the Euro/dollar exchange rate has steadily decreased (the Euro has appreciated)...

    Did you take into account that most of the European population is more risk avers then the Americans, did you take that risk aversion into account in your analysis?

    Are people happier in the US then in the EU?

    You know, as an economist, I sometimes wonder why people have such Friedmanian views on the economy...

    In the end, it doesn't matter if the US has a bigger economic growth then the EU, what matters is that _both_ economies do well. We're talking about how well people live here, not the level of two players in some game...

    If economy (and hence the well being of the population) was just about having big numbers, do you really think there would be so much debate in the economic theory?

  11. US Court has Jurisdiction in the Netherlands? by kaos07 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Doing a quick IP trace http://visualroute.visualware.com/ tells us that Torrentspy is located in the Netherlands. How exactly does that fit into all this?

  12. Re:This ruling won't stand long, for numerous reas by Elemenope · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In that direction lies madness...

    You know, people really don't talk this way anymore, and that is a shame. Common discuorse vocabulary has lost most of its verve and spice, as we aim for ever more dull verbal constructions that, above all, avoid emotional reactions in our communicative subjects. I know this verges on off-topic, but I think that 'madness' is an appropriately gravitic and perjorative term for what most would simply describe as unfortunate or lamentable, even if they truly felt much deeper.

    Veering back on topic, I think that either of your two theories as to why any judge would rule in this way are quite plausible, and I would only add a third that judges (in my admittedly limited experience) can often be ornery and fickle sorts who can take an irrational dislike to a particular lawyer (e.g. "he was young and had a saucy tone") and punish his side with impunity under the color of prima facie legitimate procedural decisions. This could be just judical crankiness that in this particular case, due to a lack of care often associated with anger, actually overreached by a good distance the legitimate bounds of procedure.

    --
    All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
  13. This may surprise you, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You DO realize that NONE of those people get royalties, right? So they don't get a dime from CD sales.
    So the only harm they might suffer is if recordings aren't made at all.

    Guess you took that stupid brain washing ad they stick before movies too seriously?

  14. Torrentspy has backup by Khyber · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A hacker that had hacked TS and was paid by the MPAA to do so has turned double-agent and is now giving every detail out to TS. TS might likely sue the MPAA for employing someone to perform an illegal activity.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.