TorrentSpy Must Preserve Data In RAM For MPAA

Transient writes "Reaffirming a magistrate's earlier decision, a federal judge has ordered TorrentSpy to begin keeping server logs as it defends itself against an MPAA lawsuit. In her opinion, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper interpreted federal discovery rules broadly. ' Judge Cooper took issue with TorrentSpy's argument that data in RAM is not "stored." She noted RAM's function as primary storage and that the storage of data in RAM — even if not permanently archived — makes it electronically stored information governed by federal discovery rules.' Given that TorrentSpy has limited access for users in the US, the ruling may be moot. But it does set a precedent for other, similar cases. 'Under this interpretation, any data stored in RAM could be subject to a subpoena, as at a basic level it is a "medium from which information can be obtained" just like a hard drive. '"

Comments

Re:Put down the crack pipe and pick up a book

[BJZQ8]

That's unfortunately part of the problem. I've dealt with plenty of "justice" people, from District Attorneys to Police Officers, that think they know what technology is all about. This judge is confident in her understanding of how computers work, and no justice-evading "thief" is going to outsmart HER. I'll bet the judge can't even program her VCR.

Re:Soo....

[MontyApollo]

I think the basic argument is that Torrentspy is saying they can't provide IP addresses because they don't log them, and the judge is saying if they are in RAM then discovery applies and they are required to log them since RAM is discoverable. Basically the judge is tellling them to log the IP addresses and that the argument that they are only stored in RAM is not a valid legal excuse.

Re:Evidence destruction ?

[sholden]

#include
int main() {
        char buf[255];
        puts("Enter something:");
        fgets(buf, sizeof(buf), stdin);
        return strlen(buf);
}

where on the disk did the contents of buf get stored (assuming we have no virtual memory)?

It's not the DIMM's being subpoena'd

[Conspicuous Coward]

The commentary on this article is extremely misleading. The judge in this case has ruled that because Torrentspy can log the IP's of requests to the server it must do so and hand them over to the court. This is absolutely not about the judge misunderstanding the nature of RAM and ordering them to hand over a bunch of DIMM's, yes judges can be technically ignorant but the courts are not stupid either you know. The judge is saying that because this data can be stored it must be. This actual ruling is of course far, far more disturbing than any technical ignorance could be, as it requires torrentspy to effectively spy on their users on behalf of the MPAA, something which should surely be illegal in itself, nevermind mandated by a court of law.

Re:Soo....

[darkmeridian]

The judge explicitly narrowed the ruling to apply only to a party to a litigation only for the pendency of the court action. Such a ruling is akin to the obligation parties to a litigation have to maintain relevant documents -- even suspending their document retention policies, if necessary. The entire rule of preservation is motivated by fair play.

If this turns out to be expensive, TorrentSpy can make the MPAA pay for it. I'm not going to guess how probable that would be, but the option is certainly there to have the MPAA pay a few bucks for worthless IP information.

Re:Bah, move the servers offshore.

[hardburn]

According to United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, passed in 1982, does not allow artificial islands to become sovereign nations. Sealand may have a valid claim to sovereignty before 1982, but any new attempts at creating a new nation will have to be based on a natural land mass.

Hippie FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash 2008, the Amazon is being deforested to keep up with the sudden increase in demand for paper. Actually, no. Not at all. We get almost all of our paper from "tree farms" in the Pacific North West: Washington, Oregon, etc. The rest comes from Canada. As our need for paper increases, tree farmers plant more trees. Simple economics. There are more trees on the planet now than in the 1800s. Logging in the Amazon is very strictly controlled and licensed to have minimal impact on the environment. Of the ~100,000 sq km of forest lost between 2000 and 2005, only 3% was was from logging, more than half of which was illegal, and most of that 3%'s worth of lumber stayed in the country (so that's only ~1100 sq mi, ~600 sq mi of which was illegal, and most of it all stayed in the country).

The other 97% of deforestation is due to the locals and the Brazilian government. ~60% cattle ranches, ~30-33% agriculture (~30% subsistence, ~1-3% commercial), and ~3% urbanization. (I found a pretty good link here, which has a nice pie graph, which is where I'm pulling these numbers since I'm not at my home computer with all my bookmarks: http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html)

So anyway, stop blindly believing hippie FUD from the the 60s and do a few minutes' worth of research on Google. Shit, I just looked at the wikipedia article and even they have a pretty good section on Amazon deforestation. So yeah, go ahead and use all the paper you want, it's actually GOOD for the environment and has been for the better part of a century. (Oh, and totally unrelated, but if you're still believing the hippie FUD about nuclear power, you'll want to do research on that too. :p)