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MPAA Agent Poses As Homebuyer To Catch Pirates
bonch writes "The MPAA used an undercover agent posing as a potential homebuyer to gain access to the home of a British couple charged with running a streaming links site. UK authorities decided not to pursue the case, but the MPAA continued, focusing on a Boston programmer who worked on the site, leading to an unprecedented legal maneuver whereby U.S. charges were dropped in exchange for testimony in a UK fraud case."
So, what does that mean?
I'm confused; who was suing whom? This was a British couple in Britain or... What?
I guess even police work and evidence collection is getting outsourced these days....
On a serious note, what right does the MPAA have to place 'undercover' agents?
I don't really have an issue with piracy when the media companies make it difficult to view the content legally. I have a major issue when someone is making money off piracy. Screw these people. Throw the book at them.
what does uk say about impersonation?
What are its laws and regulations?
AND this is a lesson to you as hte cable guy drops in, the fireman to inspect firealarms, the city inspector, the home buyer , and that alien space creature that just landed in the back yard.
Fuck the **AA
This sounds a lot like the plot of a wacky romantic comedy. We're on to you, MPAA.
When discussing a case that includes both the UK and the USA. make it clear where the cities are located. Not only are there probably many cities called "London" in the USA, but more importantly, there is at least one "Boston" in the UK.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
What the hell, what does the developer of a site has to do with how its owners operate it? That's like making employees criminally responsible if their company does something unethical.
This is getting too wacky and out of hand. I mean, piracy is one thing, but playing police?
Next thing you know laws will be privatized for the highest bidder in a location. I think we need to step back and ask ourselves, is piracy really worth letting this crap slip by?
I think we should start by reducing the amount of legislation and bureaucracy and let the police do their job. Then we write the minimum amount of laws required to protect start up industries, and then we hang all the lawyers anyways because they're ridiculous and will ruin everything (as always).
for each visit they got one eighth of a cent ...but they decided to sue people and thus lost trust for all time.
and it was for traffic not selling the content there is huge difference.
IF i make you pay for each dl then its profiteering. IF you drop in do nothing i still make money so in even terms of true piracy its not the same. and i might reload a page a hundred times waiting for something. YUP hollystupid away....
50000 bucks for 800,000 visits?
in 1996 i was doing 8 million uniques or about 40 million to 50 million hits
that's not much until you build up traffic and its what the mpaa and friends should have done 15 years ago was partner with them all
OH california is broke isnt that funny guess hollywood record box office takes dont help you tax wise....
where are the laws to stop that?
This seems like a scheme James Bond would have a wet dream abut at night! The fact that the MPAA went through all this trouble to get these people seems a slight bit more than over zealous one would say. How is it that the MPAA can bring their own investigators and then invite the police along later after they made a complaint... and then to top it off when the authorities decide that their little investigation didnt pass the "sniff" test, they then convince the U.S. authorities to go after the guy who wrote some code for the site. Seems to me the MPAA is acting as their own department of justice and then just asking the goverment to go along and help when they cant get justice another way..shady as hell is an understatment
Worldwide corporations owning all politicians and sending undercover agents all over the place.
Now this is the future I was promised as a kid!
Why don't you click the link and RTFA?
Mixing these two always seems to lead to bad things. Sigh.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
And whatever happens, a few more people will buy the licensed product, and a few more entertainers will trust the MPAA or RIAA with distribution of their valuable copyright material.
time to start shooting these faggots spies in the face, and kill their families too
When you desire more information from a story mentioned in a summary, try clicking the underlined phrase in the text. This is called a hyperlink and will take you to the full article with all the details.
Wise posters of Slashdot past shortened this idea into an easily remembered acronym: RTFA
"Sufferin' succotash."
You have to realize that Slashdotters never click the links to read articles. They rely on the summary to tell them what reaction to have so they can post comments about it. Actual reading of the article or may or may not occur at a later date.
MPAA dude posed as a Venture Capitalist, not a fucking Homebuyer.
Swear to fucking god /. is getting worse and worse.
Be seeing you...
Show off exactly how f'king easy it is to provide customers what they want!
Can't have that around while supporting dumb f'king arguments from tools like the HBO CEO basically stating that consumer choice is a fad that will go away once the economy gets better. Let's rephrase that into " Once they have more disposable income, they won't mind how bad we rob them, and forget like they did before"
So far, literally hundreds of site have shown there is NO techincal roadblock to providing a la carte media programming to the masses. It's the ancient quid pro quo licensing theater they have built that needs to fall. They face the economic death of the many layers of middlemen they've built, and they are fighting that hard.
Things like this will just get worse, legal lines will be blurred, and corporate bottom lines will be protected at any cost. Even at the cost of freedom, civil rights, fairness, due process, and pretty much anything that made living in a free country worth it.
Can US politicians perhaps adopt some counter-terrorism laws to prevent this sort of thing?
</irony overload>
I'm sorry, what? How is the MPAA legally allowed to pursue these people in THE UK by the British government? Oh right because they're all the same new world order fascist technocrat assholes.
Not only were Hollywood representatives taking part in the questioning, they also brought along investigators who were allowed to examine the equipment.
Why on earth are they allowed to look at the equipment? Can company X allege something now against company Y in order to look through Y's internal files?
Its obvious that the movie industry is too flushed with cash. They have been able to get fines and punishments in the laws that far outweigh the size of the crime. Like making the fine for say a speeding violation $20,000.
The is a principle that has been lost here that the punishment needs to fit the crime.
The other red flag is all the independent detective work by them which ain't cheap.
We have a classic case of unstable wealth divide where when the wealthy get enough extra cash to start to heavy handedly suppress any competition or threat to their profits, we end up with more of a seperation of weath and things like debtors prisons.
We sort of have that now with private prisons who have a vested interest in keeping people in jail, not rehabilitating them. Or hospitals that are for profit that either cut you up and send you out so they can turn over beds and fees rather than whats best for the patient. The profit motive does not always benefit society as a whole, just those with a money interest.
There were two MPAA dudes. The first was a Venture Capitalist, the second was posing as a Homebuyer. Did *you* read the article?
MPAA dude posed as a Venture Capitalist, not a fucking Homebuyer.
Swear to fucking god /. is getting worse and worse.
RRRRRR! This makes me SO ANGRY that /. does this! It makes me want to STAY HERE and CONTINUE USING THE SITE, day after day! And whine about it! That'll show 'em! RRRRRRRRR!
It's only a crime if the people in power say it's a crime. Right now, the people in power are the MPAA.
Mod PP +50 Bingo! (maybe just until after the US elections).
authority to:
- operate a private military, pledge allegiance to only to **AA
- power to issue arrest and search warrants, no judge's approval needed
- using the above-said military to execute these warrants and seizure of property.
New Economic Perspectives
"The profit motive does not always benefit society as a whole, just those with a money interest."
This is what you got for capitalism.
New Economic Perspectives
In most states it is considered a felony to engage in any kind of private investigation without being licensed. Is this the same for the U.K? If an MPAA agent tried to do that to me, I would go after the MPAA and demand to see their license to conduct private investigations and persue this to the fullest extent of the law. Guarranteed they aren't licensed to do such work and their employee would be operating outside the scope of his responsibilities. Therefore the employee posing as the agent is subject to arrest and being charged with a felony. A separate civil pursuit of the MPAA would be the next step.
It funny too with the Republican party trying to capture the center of the religious board with the DOMA and anti gay and anti woman (see Roman church's suit against contraception and the health insurance), at the same time abandoning the least of us Social Security, Medicare , Medicaid, food stamps, national health care. Seems like a selective reading of the religious texts. But then we know Heaven won't be crowded by fat rich people, only those skinny enough to get through the eye of a needle.
The profit motive is greed which leads to avarice. Those in the markets say its run on Greed and Fear. What a sand pit to build our economy on.
In the UK, if you are an accountant doing private work you are registered as a tax agent. And you have a number to call if you suspect someone is money laundering. Sadly, my wife hasn't found an excuse to try it yet.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
While this is true, there is no possibility of confusion. Just about everything that happens in real Boston (Mass.) could never happen in Boston UK, which is slightly more isolated, bucolic and generally hopeless than Ultima Thule. Boston UK is in Lincolnshire, compared to which Lincolnshire the Chicago suburb is paradise. The only interesting thing about Lincolnshire, England, is that it has a village named Mavis Enderby.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Trust no one. At all.
And for Pete's sake, if you are doing anything even remotely illegal don't show some random stranger your 'stuff'...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It used to be "separation of Church and State". Now it should be "separation of Corporation and State". Unfortunately it likely will take another war for that to happen.
Let's see how funny they think it is when their families are being pummeled by the **AAs. Anonymous, you out there?
For the record, I do not condone or promote any illegal activity. I reserve the right to find things in life to be funny, however.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Against the MPAA, of course.
Right?
what's to stop all police from just hiring people to do this and do away with all those pesky warrants? hell, we could get the d.a. involved to readily drop b&e charges and just have people break in! think of the children!
... if this were some random Joe Tech using social engineering to retrieve his stolen iThingamabob, then we would be singing the praises of the craftiness of the scheme and the cleverness of Joe Tech. But since it is the black hat of our spaghetti western that was doing the social engineering, it's evidence that they're little more than hoodlums and bullies.
This is human nature. We do the same thing with James Bond movies. We laud Bond for the same behaviors for which we castigate the spies on the other side.
That lost opportunity to sell your house which is worth £250,000, therefore you have LOST £250,000.
Easy-peasy.