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Sony, Universal and Fox Caught Pirating Through BitTorrent
New submitter Bad_Feeling sends in a followup to the story we discussed on Monday about a new site that scanned a few popular torrent trackers and linked torrents to IP addresses. The folks at TorrentFreak decided to check IP addresses belonging to major companies in the entertainment industry and published lists of pirated files from several, including Fox, Sony, and NBC Universal. Of course, they used the information to make a slightly different point than the industry usually does:
"By highlighting the above our intention is not to get anyone into trouble, and for that reason we masked out the end of the IP addresses to avoid a witch hunt. An IP address is not a person, IP addresses can be shared among many people, and anyone can be behind a keyboard at any given time."
So surely the companies are distributing the movies to everyone. As they are the rights holder, it should be legal to download it?
...out of existence!!!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
So their point is if IPs change, and it is hard to figure out who broke the law, law enforcement might as well just give up?
I'm all for sharing of information and media freely. Hell! I pirate the shit out of everything, but this is the worst argument for it I have ever heard.
The argument is equivalent to: A murderer used many cars during his escape, since it is hard to pinpoint which one is his we should give up.
Then obviously we should ban cars.
Didn't we discuss to death that the site www.youhavedownloaded.com was a hoax? I mean we're talking about a site that says "Don't take it seriously" at the bottom of every page. Also apparently I've downloaded a single episode of some series I've never heard of (mid-season mind you), and my IP has been static for about 8 years now.
...that if a property is doing sluggishly the PR arms of the studios put it out on the 'net to try to raise buzz. The irony is that then the legal arms of these same companies go after those very people the other side of their company want to resuscitate their ailing properties by word-of-mouth.
It's cynical, hypocritical and just downright fucked up.
By highlighting the above our intention is not to get anyone into trouble . . .
This quote is not from Hollywood studios but the author of the article on torrentfreak. This is somewhat of a non-story. It is possible that an employee of a studio is downloading via torrents without permission. After all, how many people do you know use their work networks to download pirated content. Their companies most likely do not approve of such actions. This is only a story if a high-ranking employee is pirating. If the downloading was authorized, what was the purpose? If someone from the legal/copyright department is doing so to verify that their content is on the internet, that's well within the scope of their jobs.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
FTA:
"In a response Buma/Stemra issued a press release stating that their IP-addresses were spoofed. A very unlikely scenario, but one that will be welcomed by BitTorrent pirates worldwide. In fact, they’d encourage Sony, Universal and Fox to say something similar. After all, if it’s so easy to spoof an IP-address, then accused file-sharers can use this same defense against copyright holders."
This is quite a smart move. Getting these big organisations to explain this away will only add credence to the valid reasons that the public should be able to use to protect themselves. It doesn't matter what your personal opinion is on the morals of the situation the plain fact is an IP is not a person and the clearer this is made to the judges the better. Of course there is a the chance that the IPs were added manually by the guys who set the project up, they already admitted that there is still test data in there (do a check for 192.168.*.*) so it's far from perfect.
how many people do you know use their work networks to download pirated content
None, actually. That's a really stupid thing to do... The only thing worse than being slapped with a 100k fine for downloading some music is also getting fired over it.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
It seems to me it's not so much about giving up enforcement than pointing out that ip isn't a good way to identify law breakers.
It more like, a murderer used a stolen cars ( Or the murderer give/sell the car away) and the police arrest the owner of the car...
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Actually it's pretty much a story if it's low-level employees doing it.
Come on! the MPAA and RIAA are always trying to get ISPs to police their customers and make sure nobody is using their connection to pirate stuff.
But then they can't even block their own freaking employees from going to torrents and pirating copyrighted works?
I mean, it should be easier to control employees than customers, no? So this makes the point of the ISPs that have long said that they can't monitor their customers and make sure they don't pirate.
I did a search on some IP addresses assigned to overseas US military facilities. Let's just say it turns out US soldiers like transsexuals and big girls. And possibly big transsexual girls.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Those major could have asked some of their employees to test if there was some of their own movies being pirated, acting like pirates for a few moments...
Yep. Fox was making sure that Sony movies were being pirated, by downloading them.
No doubt they were trying to help Sony's legal case by making their downloading problem look even worse.
John
Quick pass PROTECTIP or SOPA and then we can catch these companies pirating content then shut them down for a felony pirating offense since Company=Person=IP address.
It is possible that an employee of a studio is downloading via torrents without permission.
I'm flabbergasted that this is actually possible, unless the employee in question is privileged in particular ways, such as by being a network administrator.
After all, how many people do you know use their work networks to download pirated content.
None. Those who use torrents do so at home.
Reputable companies which are large enough to have an IT department will have strict enforcement of many network policies, especially those which are related to commercial risk. Where I work, everything other than ports 80 and 443 must be opened on a per-node and per destination basis. If you need ftp or ssh, you have to state the specific need and how it relates to the business. Also, even ports 80 and 443 are heavily filtered so that social media sites (youtube, facebook, etc.), name redirection sites (dyndns and its ilk), file lockers (megaupload, etc.), webmail (gmail, hotmail, etc.) and all sites hosting questionable activities are blocked. I suspect running a client for IRC or BitTorrent would get you nowhere. There are probably some ways around this, but looking for them would be stupid and might set off career-threatening alarm bells.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
If they're from the studios, they own the copyright to the properties so they have the legal right to download them. Sure, people make the argument that if they're on a BT tracker they're "distributing" the file so they're giving everyone else the legal right to download it, but that's not how IP law works. Besides, they'll say they were only downloading them to support their enforcement actions against other downloaders.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Good grief, are you really that dumb? Presumption of innocence means you are not guilty until proven otherwise (ie at trial). It does NOT refer to what the police do or who they consider guilty (a suspect). The stuff that happens BEFORE the trial is based on 'probable cause'. If your car is seen fleeing a crime scene, there is good reason (probable cause) to think you were involved. No, you have not been PROVEN to be involved yet, that would occur at trial. Same thing with an IP address. No, it does not mean the owner of the address is the guilty party, but there is probable cause to think he is, and that probable cause opens the door to the collection of further evidence and legal action. Nobody has been convicted or successfully sued based solely on an IP address.
It is possible that an employee of a studio is downloading via torrents without permission
Well yes, naturally. The thing is these companies are the same ones telling courts that an IP address connected to a swarm constitutes positive identification and proof of guilt for whoever the IP address was assigned to at the time.
If someone from the legal/copyright department is doing so to verify that their content is on the internet, that's well within the scope of their jobs.
Again, true. And more evidence that an IP address does not equal proof of infringement.
They deserve to squirm on the hook for this one. Totally a newsworthy story.
Haha, I checked it out and found that it fakes results when you hit the homepage. It showed some British-looking women for the IP of an area with no women like that (the closest IRL version of the "women in Low Earth Orbit!" experiment). Also it allows you to sign in with Facebook credentials. What could possibly go wrong?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That's not how it works. Copyright law itself imposes the constraints.
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In a response Buma/Stemra issued a press release stating that their IP-addresses were spoofed.
A spoofed IP address does not receive return packets unless you hijack the address or PAT the specific traffic on the router/firewall responsible for the address. I doubt Buma/Stemra had an outage long enough for someone to snag some files. If someone malicious owns their router/firewall there would be more mischief than this.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that your corporate environment does not give every workstation their own public IP address.
"No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing." -Emperor Claudius 10 BC - AD 54
Good grief, are you really that dumb? Presumption of innocence means you are not guilty until proven otherwise (ie at trial). It does NOT refer to what the police do or who they consider guilty (a suspect).
Answering your question? Yes, he is.
Shit like this is why you see memes spring out of places like 4chan. An apt, pejorative nickname that describes the behavior of an internet denizen. A good example could be the "White Knight." "Troll" is so well known and obvious that the metaphor contained therein is completely dead; it quite literally means "asshole on the internet who derives increasing satisfaction from the emotional degree of a response solicited by provoking others."
I suggest we coin a new one for "asshole who takes three sentences of legal concepts, refuses to understand them, points out contradictions that hold only against that ignorance, and then proceeds to rally support from those with just as much or more ignorance (...to be fair, those people are usually called 'sheep')."
I would propose "iANALyst," but so many people fail so damn hard at finding either shift key, that the integrated puns would likely be lost in propagation. Regarding the shift-key location failure, Slashdot is thankfully the exception, rather than the rule.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
They offered their "property" up in a fashion that assumes that other people will continue to redistribute it on their behalf. No pro-corporate legal interpretation of the Copyright Act will really change that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Well then at the very least this highlights that the studios need to clean their own house before they start witch hunts elsewhere. Why they wouldn't have blocked such sites/software is baffling - it's clearly a huge PR loss in the making when they're desperately trying to win the PR war in the eyes of a largely indifferent public. There are also all kinds of laws about agency and when one is acting as an agent of one's company which it's easy to fall foul of.
That's the whole point of this story - that by their own rules these IPs show they are downloading when we all know it's not that clear cut. As someone who doesn't download from these sites but who relies on net access for a living, it's a real concern to me that big media can basically extort money from people with nothing more than a number on a piece of paper and a threat of court hassle, but it's even more of a worry when we see ridiculous "three strikes" laws starting to appear which can ruin a career with what amounts to zero real evidence.
Most civil actions are "Preponderance of the Evidence", which means more likely than not.
Some civil issues require "Clear and Convincing" evidence, which is a higher burden, this is often used for counter claims that involve having legal fees covered (for example, I sue the insurance company, claiming they need to pay, they counter sue, saying I acted fraudulently in getting the policy, I would generally only need Preponderance, they would likely need Clear and Convincing, but if they one the counter suit, I would owe them for all of their legal fees).
I've actually never heard the words "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" in a civil case, except for during jury instruction where the judge tries to explain that it is a lower burden than a criminal case.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Preponderance of the evidence does not mean more likely than not. It means the plaintiff has presented a stronger case than the defense. 'More likely than not' is a simple probabilities statement, and preponderance of the evidence has nothing to do with probabilities.
Banning cars would make more sense.
Unlike bittorrent, cars actually kill people and are a huge environmental problem.
Yeah, no kidding. My cable modem is way faster than my employer's measly little 10 Mbit link!
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
NAT and wifi are two reasons that it could be anyone in the area or household
Within the household, the head of household is under contract with the ISP not to allow any copyright infringement to happen over the ISP's wire. Within the area, the head of household is under contract with the ISP to use WPA2 with a strong password.
"preponderance" means 51%. What else would it mean?
as long as the person at the company is downloading the items on the behalf of the company who is the copyright holder
But has any evidence come to light that, say, Warner Bros. employees have permission from Universal?
all torrent downloaders are committing copyright infringement if their torrent client uploads what they've already downloaded
Yeah? I'm torrenting Mandriva, Kubuntu, Mint, and my own book right now. Oh, and two MP3s of music I wrote that my daughter performed. No copyright is being violated. But your "all torrent downloaders are committing copyright infringement" is just what the media conglomerates want you to think. So please stop it. There is FAR more legal content on BT than illigitimate material.
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