The people putting them on Bittorrent won't then sue you for millions for violating their own copyright; they're not hypocrites like Fox (which is a member of the MPAA!).
It's also different because they don't get any economic benefit from posting those episodes on TPB.
But I'm not aware of any law that would authorize a judge to issue a court order forcing anyone to commit a crime of theft and breaking encryption technology by stealing private keys from your computer.
I don't either; I was just discussing the technical component of the issue.
Other posters have stated that the source code for the client side is open source. So that means users would be in full control of the encryption methodology and keys.
But the problem is that you never know if you're getting the same client that was reviewed by the community, since they can ship an altered version any time they want. It's a fundamental problem with JS encryption (except browser extensions, of course).
Has any regular Joe file sharer (that is, people not involved in commercial and/or "distribution teams" (like IMAGiNE)) ever been convicted of criminal copyright infringement? As far as I know, they still need to be sued under a civil court.
If Hollywood wants to inspect someones archive they could just get legal order to have the company change the code and reveal the persons files.... and if Mega doesn't comply then they can't do business in the US. (and also, helicopters)
To which you replied:
If done right, with a warrant in hand, and a gun to their head, they still could not decrypt your files.
My point was that the way the system is set up (with server controlled JS code doing the de/encryption, they can always decrypt the files.
Why would they want to do that was already defined in the context of this conversation (i.e., they would be compelled to do so).
Meh, I don't think the RIAA/MPAA are interested in any more warrants or lawsuits; on average, they lose a lot of money on them. The Verizon deal is great to them because it cuts all those "due process" requirements and it's therefore much cheaper per user.
The fact that they don't need to possess your private key doesn't mean they can't if they want or are compelled to. How do you know if the JS code you get from them the next time you login won't just post the key to them?
They can't decrypt the files right at that moment, but they can wait for you to log in and copy your private key then (since you need to provide it to them to decrypt the files yourself).
What if I don't trust you? Is it still safe for me to use MEGA?
If you don't trust us, you cannot run any code provided by us, so opening our site in your browser and entering your password is off limits. If you still want to use MEGA, you have to do so through a client app that was written by someone you trust.
Since Mega, like any other sensible site with personal data, uses HTTPS, Verizon can't even know what URLs the user is accessing, much less the file contents. They only know the domain.
For one, much of the content is put up by the owners (go read some of the ones where the enforcement arms take down stuff properly uploaded by the marketing arms of the same company).
Any popular distribution mechanism has content put up by the owners, including TPB (see http://www.promobay.org/). But that wasn't the type of content implied in the post, which was taking about full movies. I've never seen a non-CC licensed or out-of-copyright movie legally available on Youtube.
For another, nobody is at risk of penalty for watching a youtube video.
Oh man, mentioning Youtube as an alternative to copyright infringement, you don't even know what you're talking about. Guess what: just because it's on Youtube, doesn't mean it's not infringement. It just mean the copyright All-Seeing Eye doesn't recognize it (yet).
why you would use torrent freak when there is Amazon, Netflix, (...) Hulu, and dozens of other ways to get video online.
Because of stupid geographic restrictions that ensure that those only work in certain countries? None of those works here, and I'm in Europe.
We're talking about using DNS vs manually typing IP addresses every time. Just letting stuff auto-configure is fine, but irrelevant to this particular discussion.
Heck, and what about latency for updating DNS servers with the new addresses when DHCP assigns them (remember, DNS servers cache answers, typically for days, and if you try to turn off the caching it takes too long to get answers to your DNS queries).
Uh, that's just public DNS. My dnsmasq instance updates in seconds, and all my clients use it directly, so there are no caches.
But nobody is saying we should burn all traces of IP addresses, just that manually writing them should be a negligible use case. One can just copy/paste the IP from some file if DNS happens to break.
It's an abuse of law to draw a distinction between legal and illegal? That doesn't even make sense.
And while there is a difference between legal and moral, that goes both ways; there's plenty of stuff that is illegal but moral, and I don't see any reason to think the software was in any way immoral or scammed people.
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The people putting them on Bittorrent won't then sue you for millions for violating their own copyright; they're not hypocrites like Fox (which is a member of the MPAA!).
It's also different because they don't get any economic benefit from posting those episodes on TPB.
But I'm not aware of any law that would authorize a judge to issue a court order forcing anyone to commit a crime of theft and breaking encryption technology by stealing private keys from your computer.
I don't either; I was just discussing the technical component of the issue.
Other posters have stated that the source code for the client side is open source. So that means users would be in full control of the encryption methodology and keys.
But the problem is that you never know if you're getting the same client that was reviewed by the community, since they can ship an altered version any time they want. It's a fundamental problem with JS encryption (except browser extensions, of course).
Has any regular Joe file sharer (that is, people not involved in commercial and/or "distribution teams" (like IMAGiNE)) ever been convicted of criminal copyright infringement? As far as I know, they still need to be sued under a civil court.
Mind the context.
You replied to a comment that said:
If Hollywood wants to inspect someones archive they could just get legal order to have the company change the code and reveal the persons files .... and if Mega doesn't comply then they can't do business in the US. (and also, helicopters)
To which you replied:
If done right, with a warrant in hand, and a gun to their head, they still could not decrypt your files.
My point was that the way the system is set up (with server controlled JS code doing the de/encryption, they can always decrypt the files.
Why would they want to do that was already defined in the context of this conversation (i.e., they would be compelled to do so).
Meh, I don't think the RIAA/MPAA are interested in any more warrants or lawsuits; on average, they lose a lot of money on them. The Verizon deal is great to them because it cuts all those "due process" requirements and it's therefore much cheaper per user.
The fact that they don't need to possess your private key doesn't mean they can't if they want or are compelled to. How do you know if the JS code you get from them the next time you login won't just post the key to them?
They can't decrypt the files right at that moment, but they can wait for you to log in and copy your private key then (since you need to provide it to them to decrypt the files yourself).
They actually cover that in their Help:
What if I don't trust you? Is it still safe for me to use MEGA?
If you don't trust us, you cannot run any code provided by us, so opening our site in your browser and entering your password is off limits. If you still want to use MEGA, you have to do so through a client app that was written by someone you trust.
So, yeah, it's possible if you use the site.
To add to that, they do have API and let you build clients with it, although you need to have it approved with them.
Since Mega, like any other sensible site with personal data, uses HTTPS, Verizon can't even know what URLs the user is accessing, much less the file contents. They only know the domain.
I don't make a living off copyright. I make a living off copyrighted works, which is a different thing.
My works are all GPL licensed, and most are freely available online for download. I don't sell them, I get paid to develop them in the first place.
They're copyrighted because any work is nowadays, but copyright could be abolished tomorrow and I'd still get paid. I don't live off copyright.
No. There's nothing wrong with charging for things.
A better analogy is if the workers forced their clients to sign non-compete agreements, and yes, I'd find those abusive too.
Have you actually read my posts? I'm against the copyright model.
Specifically, all my works are freely redistributable.
For one, much of the content is put up by the owners (go read some of the ones where the enforcement arms take down stuff properly uploaded by the marketing arms of the same company).
Any popular distribution mechanism has content put up by the owners, including TPB (see http://www.promobay.org/).
But that wasn't the type of content implied in the post, which was taking about full movies. I've never seen a non-CC licensed or out-of-copyright movie legally available on Youtube.
For another, nobody is at risk of penalty for watching a youtube video.
Which doesn't make it legal.
I know. But I make my living from producing copyrighted works.
Oh man, mentioning Youtube as an alternative to copyright infringement, you don't even know what you're talking about. Guess what: just because it's on Youtube, doesn't mean it's not infringement. It just mean the copyright All-Seeing Eye doesn't recognize it (yet).
why you would use torrent freak when there is Amazon, Netflix, (...) Hulu, and dozens of other ways to get video online.
Because of stupid geographic restrictions that ensure that those only work in certain countries? None of those works here, and I'm in Europe.
We're all entitled to accept what others are sharing with us.
The question is why do copyright holders feel entitled to prevent people from sharing the content they bought.
As a copyright holder myself, I find this offensive.
And they would wipe their asses to the reports, since personal file sharing is not a crime (in the US).
Having more than one parent in the home doesn't require marriage. Plenty of people live together without marrying.
One can be malnourished and overweight, or even gaining weight. There's more to nourishment than calories.
We're talking about using DNS vs manually typing IP addresses every time. Just letting stuff auto-configure is fine, but irrelevant to this particular discussion.
if the DHCP server goes
You use the failover.
Heck, and what about latency for updating DNS servers with the new addresses when DHCP assigns them (remember, DNS servers cache answers, typically for days, and if you try to turn off the caching it takes too long to get answers to your DNS queries).
Uh, that's just public DNS. My dnsmasq instance updates in seconds, and all my clients use it directly, so there are no caches.
But nobody is saying we should burn all traces of IP addresses, just that manually writing them should be a negligible use case. One can just copy/paste the IP from some file if DNS happens to break.
It's an abuse of law to draw a distinction between legal and illegal? That doesn't even make sense.
And while there is a difference between legal and moral, that goes both ways; there's plenty of stuff that is illegal but moral, and I don't see any reason to think the software was in any way immoral or scammed people.
Yes, cases like this were there awful things happened, like (gasp) gambling! Uuuh!