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MPAA Sets Up Fake Site to Catch Pirates
thefickler writes "Media Defender, a company which does the dirty work for the MPAA, has been caught setting up 'dummy' websites in an attempt to catch those who download copyrighted videos. The site, MiiVi.com, complete with a user registration, forum, and "family filter", offered complete downloads of movies and "fast and easy video downloading all in one great site." But that's not all; MiiVi also offered client software to speed up the downloading process. The only catch is, after it was installed, it searched your computer for other copyrighted files and reported back."
I just told all my friends about that site. Knew it was too good to be true.
\.
This is the worst kind of entrapment....the kind WITHOUT Catherine Zeta Jones.
www.purevolume.com/martyd
Doesn't this violate various anti-spyware laws? For example, here's Illinois' law:
Creates the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act. Sets forth provisions for unauthorized collection or culling of personally identifiable information, unauthorized access to or modifications of computer settings and computer damage, unauthorized interference with installation or disabling computer software, and other prohibited conduct. Provides that certain persons may bring a civil action against a violator of the Act. Exempts willful and wanton misconduct from the limitation on liability.
Stories about MPAA shenanigans could just as easily and correctly be entitled, for example, "Sony Sets Up Fake Site..." (Or Disney, or Universal, or Paramount, or Warner). MPAA is, after all, simply their agent in these matters.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Not to defend the RIAA's actions, but I don't know if you can call it entrapment or not. Entrapment, by definition, involves the police persuading you to commit a crime you wouldn't otherwise commit. This is a private entity catching people committing a crime they would otherwise commit. I don't condone their methods, but I doubt you could successfully adopt an entrapment defense.
How did you hear about it? I'd be interested in learning how they advertised their existance. Forum posts? I've never heard about this site, and I often frequent the shady parts of town.
"Perhaps Media Defender won't use its own name on the registrar the next time around, but it just goes to show the lengths at which the MPAA is willing to go, to fight piracy." Illegally install spyware on my fucking machine, search my PRIVATE FILES, oh and then to top it off, with the MPAA the mess that it is in, they'll probably sue you for having a file named "Hostel", you may or may not have stayed in a hostel last year on holiday, but it sure does seem like copyright so we're gunna take your hard disk and have a closer inspection of my PRIVATE FILES!
Without huge data transfers, they can't fully check a file, so the best they can do is spy on your file names, and steal your documents, not any media files though, I hope people get sued for this I really do, so the MPAA gets screwed with the huge countersuit.
They knew they were going to eventually get caught. It doesnt take a genius to realize that if "going dark" after 10 hours of the article release that they were anticipating this... And I suspect if the media contacts them, then it will be the classic "the intern did it" type response.... These guys make the russian mafia look good by comparison...
The problem here is that a person may download and install the program with no intention of copyright violations. However, their computer is scanned likely without their knowledge for other, very possibly legal, files. You'd have to read the agreement, rather than click-through it like usual to know this. If they did not warn of complete scans and information being sent back to their servers, then they probably have committed some sort of computer crime.
I've ripped my CDs into .mp3 files, as have millions of others with movies and other media. What is their reaction to seeing these files? Are you going to receive their threatening letters in the near future? God only knows, but frankly, it shouldn't be tolerated in the least.
Hell, if they want to charge you with "theft," charge them back with breaking and entering.
This incident highlights what is, perhaps, the biggest reason why RIAA has already lost their battle against piracy and the imminent danger the MPAA faces. RIAA could have limited their depredations to only those pirates who mass produce bootlegs for profit. Instead, they went after the blood of their own customers and employed methods that make the pirates look like the good guys. Root kits, law suits, entrapment, price fixing, you name it. The icing on the cake was the knowledge that the only people they screwed over more than the customer was the artists!
Here in Canada, we have CRIA, which actually managed to get a tax slapped on all recordable media, mp3 players, etc.. Ostensibly, the money collected form this tax is supposed to go to the artists whose incomes are reduced by the evils of all Canadians. It's anyone's guess what CRIA actually does with the loot. Their books are not public. The last time I checked, they weren't paying out bupkiss to indie artists, but aren't they our victims too? As a Canadian, all I see is my money being taken away because I'm a criminal by default and given to the buisness equivalent of the mafia. Bravo!
I've been boycotting all RIAA/CRIA affiliated labels for years. The way I see it, every penny spent on one of their artist delays the inevitable and gives them another opportunity to do irreparable harm to our laws. However, I still go to the cinema and buy DVD's. Why am I not as concerned about the MPAA? Perhaps it's because they have, to date, not stooped to quite the same levels as RIAA in going after their own customers, even though they're already the scum of the Earth behind the scenes.
Here's a word to the MPAA. Take a look at the mess RIAA has made of its affairs. You don't want to go down that road.
"Not to defend the RIAA's actions, but I don't know if you can call it entrapment or not. Entrapment, by definition, involves the police persuading you to commit a crime you wouldn't otherwise commit. This is a private entity catching people committing a crime they would otherwise commit. I don't condone their methods, but I doubt you could successfully adopt an entrapment defense."
It's actually an interesting question... The police have successfully put out honeypot cars (attractive and maybe a bit easier to steal than normal) to catch car thieves, and those convictions have been upheld AFAIK.
OTOH, I remember in a community college class on criminal law, they discussed when the cops sent a guy out with 20 dollar bills visibly hanging from his pockets and pretending to be drunk, arresting people who tried to roll him. That was ruled as entrapment because the cops made him such easy pickings as to induce people to commit a crime.
That's why I said I'd have liked to see the site. How much the MPAA/MediaDefender did to lure people to the site and then entice them to download content would determine where it fell on the range from honeypot to entrapment.
-- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
well here comes the question - they own the copyright - they knowingly put their material out there for people to download - and even created a site that inticed people to download it.. as far as i can see they where just giving it away.
on the other hand they also installed spy ware on users computers without letting them know ahead of time - that is aginst the law in some states - it is on the same lvl as alotof the viruses out there.
and if they try to doge the the fact that "they" put it out there by saying it was this "company that does the dirty work" then you point the finger and say - hey did this company have distrubution rights? if not then they are in alot of trouble - if so then they gave the stuff away - and if they say that the company doesn't have distrbution rights but what they where doing wasn't violating the their copyright then well damn many people will be happy to see them say that cause that can be applied so many ways..
all and all this was EXTREAMLY STUPID of them - and i can only pray that they get their asses burned when they try to take someone to court from this thing
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Only on Slashdot would someone other than the MPAA/RIAA compare illegally downloading something that would cost twenty dollars to molesting children.
And if they spy on your computer otherwise with software that doesn't clearly indicate this in the license agreement, doesn't The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act come into play? Could MediaSentry go down Big Time over this little misstep?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Surely you jest. They do that in the US Congress as well don't they?
If I understand this correctly, this is something completely different from entrapment and likely to get the RIAA into serious trouble.
First, if I download copyrighted files from a site run by the RIAA, then this is _completely legal_. What is illegal is downloading such material without permission of the copyright holder. The way this was described, I would have the _permission of the copyright holder.
Second, if the RIAA installs spyware on my computer, they are in deep shit. Especially if there is nothing illegal on my computer that they could use to blackmail me.
'' No they don't. They just can't lie about it, but they sure can tapdance around it. ''
It is absolute legal for a cop to lie about it. If you are say a drug dealer, and you ask a potential customer "are you a cop", that cop can lie about it, straight to your face, in front of a dozen witnesses, and when you try to sell him drugs, he can then arrest you. Perfectly legal.
>Surely you jest.
No I don't - and I told you, don't call me Shirley.
it searched your computer for other copyrighted files
Practically 100% of the files on your computer are copyrighted. Even if those files are music or movies, their mere presence doesn't indicate a breach of copyright. And unless they're transmitting a significant portion of those files back when "phoning home" - and thus running afoul of copyright law themselves in the process, to say nothing of computer trespass laws - merely mentioning the title of a work in a filename or in metadata doesn't authenticate that file as containing what the filename or metadata suggests that it does.
Listen: Entrapment is only entrapment when performed by a law enforcement official.
The MPAA is not a law enforcement official - as much as they want to be.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Not really, stealing a car is straight-up theft no matter whose car it is (even a family member's, if you don't have their permission). It's a bit different when a copyright holder is saying "Hey, downloaded our copyrighted material for free! Simply writing this statement is us giving you written permission to copy my copyrighted material! BTW we're going to scan your computer for files and store in our big database about everything you've got on your computer!" ...
Your naivety amuses me.
In this case it is the MPAA doing the spying. Most of the MPAA's content content is distributed on DVDs encrypted with CSS. So unlike CDs where you can legally rip CDs you own to your harddrive, you can't do this for most movies without violating the DMCA by cracking the encryption. So they probably feel pretty safe that if they find any MPAA content on your harddrive (DVD rips), that you've committed some kind of crime.
Any discussion about US copyright must start with the fact that these folks have paid lawmakers to subvert copyright to make it effectively infinite: 70years + life of the author, or 95/120 years depending on circumstances. These terms are completely absurd and they change the reasons for ALL the behavior in the marketplace of copyright-protected IP.
There is no rational discussion that can occur about "fair", "legal", "right or wrong", until this time scale for copyright is corrected. It is my opinion that the term should be about 20 years max regardless of circumstances.
Depends on where in the world you are and how you formulate the question. If you are in the Netherlands you simply ask for his ID. If he's a cop he legally has to show his ID and identify himself as a cop. If he isn't, he doesn't have to do anything. Which is exactly why the police use non-cop informers for this kind of thing.
Your answer is that it doesn't matter, they'll come after you anyway.
Are you innocent? They don't care. It's completely irrelevant, because you'll be given a choice: Pay us a couple of thousand dollars and this will be over with, or go hire a lawyer that is much more expensive and defend yourself. Pay attention the the news here, and read up on their tactics. The RIAA/MPAA has a history of going after people that it knows are innocent.
If you choose option #2, you'll waste all kinds of time and money, possibly even face financial ruin as a result of paying dozens of thousands of dollars. In the end, after the RIAA/MPAA's lawyers have extracted as much money from you as they can, the RIAA/MPAA will drop their case. It will all just silently go away, except for the bills from the lawyers.
You've mistakenly assumed that it's all about your guilt or innocence as an individual person. The real point is to keep up appearances for their extortion ring to continue to be effective. The real point is to scare the shit out of people so badly that whether you're innocent or guilty, you'll still pay up.
Let's not fool ourselves, this is organized crime, plain and simple, except that for now, it's still legal. (Organized "Legal," I guess you'd call it.) What can you do about it? Well, if the thought of paying a lawyer to defend you and, if you actually want damages from the RIAA/MPAA for screwing around with you, paying $114,000 to a lawyer (the amount that is at stake in the most famous to date case of Capitol v. Foster), then you need to support organizations dedicated to changing the laws to make this type of extortion illegal. I would suggest the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who has a pretty good record of success, but at the very least, you need to write to your Congresscritters and let them know that the current situation is unacceptable.
If you are thinking about molesting children then it is the same as molesting children, DUH.. eventually you would find a child and molest him/her, better to stop you now before a child is hurt.
This is great proactive behavior on the behalf of our government but i think we can do better, statistically speaking there is a percentage of people who will go to jail, the percentage is higher in some cities than others.. we could pro actively round up that number of people each year and put them in prison and save tons of police manhours.
OR even better put everyone in jail from age 8 on, and then the ones who exhibit good behavior can be released after 10 years or so (when they can become productive members of society, re:consumers/wage earners). Problem solved.