Slashdot Log In
MPAA Caught Uploading Fake Torrents
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Jan 11, 2007 07:18 PM
from the old-bait-and-switch dept.
from the old-bait-and-switch dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The MPAA and other anti-piracy watchdogs have been caught trapping people into downloading fake torrents, so they can collect IP addresses, and send copyright infringement letters to ISPs. The battle between P2P networks and copyright holders seems to be a never ending battle. It will be interesting to see how much the anti-piracy groups practices change once they begin begin selling movies and TV shows legally on bittorrent.com."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
is that even legal? (Score:4, Interesting)
( I know off topic slightly )
Re:is that even legal? (Score:5, Informative)
If you are part of the MPAA and you download a torrent from someone else just to prosecute, technically isnt the MPAA breaking the law as well??
The MPAA operates with the authorization of its member companies. They've presumably authorized the association to make reproductions of the copyrighted content for anti-piracy purposes, and copyright infringement is the unauthorized reproduction (or distribution, or ...) of the protected works, so, at a guess, I'd say they're pretty safe on that one.
Parent
Re:is that even legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not at all... the MPAA is authorized to distribute their own content, after all.
But THEY are the ones choosing to put it on a public network, and its pretty hard to call it copyright infringement when the person you got it from when the person you got it from was authorized to distribute the content in the first place. It's their own choice to honor any download requests, after all... granting such requests is implicitly and indisputably granting permission to copy.
Parent
But if the MPAA was distributing them... (Score:5, Insightful)
...then either it wasn't copyright infringment, or the MPAA was infringing too! The only legitimate way for the MPAA to "catch" people committing copyright infringement would be to observe the swarm without uploading anything itself.
Re:But if the MPAA was distributing them... (Score:4, Insightful)
The only catch is that I could say "You can have a free copy, but you may not redistribute." Since all downloaders of a torrent are also uploaders, you'd be violating the redistribution clause. I highly doubt, however, that any such wording was present in the torrent (although it is possible to add comments). Also, intentionally using a distribution mechanism which by default makes people distributors would seem to be a de facto exception to the clause since you knew, or should have known, that redistribution would occur through your actions.
Parent
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Though I'd wager it could be kinda hard (provided you find a judge that isn't yet caught up in anti-piracy bubbles) to argue that this isn't a setup, that they didn't want to play agent provocateur. Is that legal in the US?
Parent
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, though, I wonder if paying two people to have sex with each other is technically illegal. Again, this isn't something I work with, but it seems to me that since the parties having sex aren't exchanging money, it's not actually prostitution. I could see a number of loopholes to successfully prosecute this, but it raises an interesting question.
Parent
This just sound like scaremongering (Score:5, Interesting)
Contrary to that, surely if it is copyrighted content then the MPAA is making the content available to you. Is it really illegal to download something from the copyright owner if they make it available publicly with no license to agree to prior to download? I'd have thought they'd have a hard time arguing that they didn't intend the content be distributed in the case that they place it readily available on a file sharing site. What's more, even if the MPAA did use this argument then surely if this became precedent then it would have the side effect of destroying any court cases against file sharers as those sharers could merely claim that they didn't intend the files they were sharing to be distributed much like the MPAA might in this scenario?
I just don't see how this really has any legal grounding, however law is a funny thing, particularly in the US so I could be wrong here!
Re:It's the uploads! (Score:4, Informative)
In this case, the copyright holders gave you permission to download, but unless you can show that they also gave you permission to upload, you may be SOL. One might be able to argue that simply by making it available on bittorrent, there was implicit permission to upload, since the download/upload capability is built into the protocol, or, rather than permission, that the MPAA is estopped from pursuing uploaders due to their own actions with respect to making the content available via bittorrent.
Parent
hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
what does this accomplish? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or they're dummy files, which means you can go ahead and grab it since there's no copywritten content shifting hands.
Calm down (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect that the MPAA has these fake torrents to confuse people and waste their time downloading junk, in the hope that they'll give up using torrents. It's a very weak link to suggest that these are being used to send copyright infringement notices.
The M.O. probably since Attack of the Clones. (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone recall the media hubbub surrounding the release of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones? That the movie had been released onto P2P networks before it had even hit the theatres in many countries? Incontravertible evidence that something _had_ to be done about this scourge of filesharing!
A cynic might think it an interesting situation that a dutiful journalist would have to admit to committing a potential crime just to verify the report. A less determined one might just settle for the query results, with the less technologically adept ones being completely convinced: ignorant of the fact that no hard coupling exists between a file's name and its content.
When the claims were tested for veracity by secret anonymous squirrels, none of the files found on the Gnutella network contained any footage of the film.
They can have my IP... (Score:5, Funny)
No, they don't (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Use peerguardian and block the following ip set (Score:5, Informative)
66.177.58.XXX,
66.180.205.XXX,
209.204.61.XXX,
216.151.155.XXX
From the article:
The anti-piracy servers use hostnames like 101tracker.dhcp.biz, aplustorrents.qhigh.com, bitnova.squirly.info, bittorment.ocry.com, and pirate-trakkrz.leet.la. All these hostnames can be traced back to the same IP Ranges, these ranges contain possibly hundreds of fake trackers, so feel free to block them
PeerGuardian? (Score:5, Interesting)
IP-holders don't think international (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no legal possibilty to obtain those shows legally here. Of course I could wait until they dub it and release it here but this usually takes up one year. Of course with crappy dubbing and no chance of getting the english voice track due to increased cost in licensing - even on pay-tv. Or wait even longer for the DVD release.
So the only way to obtain those shows is via bittorrent. I know several ppl who do that so there's definitely a market there... but noone is stepping in.
I know from a legal standpoint I should just do other stuff instead of watching pirated TV shows, but still its quite strange: The mechanisms of the free market somehow don't work here.
Getting fired for downloading fake data??? (Score:4, Informative)
Under this law, you can get fired for downloading literally anything. All the lawyers have to do is say any data at all, from a slashdot comment to a DNS entry, was deliberately put there by a client for the purpose of trapping pirates.
According to Google, there are anecdotes of people losing their home internet access for using BitTorrent, but they don't say if they were busted for downloading fake data or using too much bandwidth.
There have only been 3 arrests linked to BitTorrent usage. They were all people who made the first copy and who administered the tracker. The MPAA boasts 4 but you can only find 3 names. No-one has been busted for running a client.
General Recap (Score:5, Informative)
Entrapment: No, it's not. Entrapment, in order to work as a legal defense, is when the government takes action that induces you to commit a crime that you would not otherwise have committed. Walking up to you on the street and offering you $100 commission to steal a Rolex is entrapment. Putting up a website that purports to sell illegal machinegun parts is not entrapment, because you would have found some website to buy the parts from anyhow. Sending you a brochure to advertise child pornography and waiting for you to order some is questionable. This activity is somewhere between the child porn brochure and the machinegun parts website, but it is not government action so entrapment isn't a defense. It also doesn't matter, because the MPAA is interested in suing you into oblivion in civil court more than it is interested in seeing you behind bars. (After all, behind bars you can't make any more paychecks for the MPAA to garnish.)
MPAA consent to downloading content: Nope. They're uploading fake torrents. You are downloading something else, maybe a dump of
Downloading fake torrents is legal: Yep, it is. It's just that they're logging your IP address and will file a lawsuit that alleges, "[o]n information and belief, the Defendant has infringed the Plaintiff's copyright by downloading an illegally distributed copy of [the movie you were trying to download when you got the fake torrent]." They know you are going to find a real torrent later and download it, or at least some other movies. They know all they need to: you are a person using a given IP address to attempt to download their copyrighted material and you probably didn't give up when you found out that the torrent they fed you was fake.
Grabbing your IP address from the fake torrent download doesn't help the MPAA: See previous paragraph.
Did I miss anything? These seem to be the main issues being covered in the comments so far. The simple fact is that this tactic will probably work for the MPAA.
You miss an important fact (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I'd bet they are smart enough to realise this and this isn't for court cases, they just send the ISPs threatening e-mails to try and get accounts canceled. I don't know that the MPAA is doing lawsuits, that seems to be the RIAA's thing. Most groups just send takedown notices. We got one from the ESA. One of our users had downloaded Quake 4. They didn't file a lawsuit or even ask their name, just asked us to get rid of the file and "take appropriate action as per your terms of service."
This will work fine for that, since there's no real legal burden. However I can't see it going anywhere in a court of law with a competent defense. There's no actual damage so it's hard to say you deserve any money.
Parent
How about fake piracy reports? (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting reported for sharing something I've never even had is bullshit, though, regardless of what OTHER questionable things I had been doing. It's not a stretch to claim that their incorrect copyright infringement notice leans on illegal because of the possible harm that can come to me as a result. My internet connection could be disconnected at my ISP's will, forcing me to switch to a crappier ISP with higher prices (we have TWO broadband providers here), and my reputation could be harmed due to the false allegations made.
A New Zealand example? (Score:4, Informative)
http://nzdsl.co.nz/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-479.phtml [nzdsl.co.nz]
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, unauhtorized distribution is a requirement for copyright infringement to be deemed a criminal matter, but the law is called copyright, not distribution right. The right to distribute is a corallary right of the right to copy, since the former depends on the latter.
If you are the legitimate owner of the physical media you may distribute at will. You do not need any special authorization, the person who created it did. CD stores are not licensed, they just buy "stuff," property, and resell it.
So what exactly are they claiming when they "notify" the ISPs?
That their copyright has been violated, because it has. The downloader is making a copy, without authorization. Yes, it's a trivial civil offense. That isn't at all the same thing as saying it isn't an offense.
KFG
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:4, Funny)
When you buy a bootleg DVD, you are buying whatever someone put on there, be it a copy, or original content.
Now, when you play that DVD, you are streaming data, a small amount at a time.
At no time, while playing it, did you have an *ENTIRE* copy floating around somewhere.
All you've done in essence, is taken *FAIR USE* clips, and very neatly strung them together to where "ZOMG" you can *watch* the whole thing.
Parent
Yeah. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The MPAA are sitting on their porch with a large bag labelled "Free Money, Come & Get Some" so you go over and ask them for some. They give you something which looks like money until you've got a bit further down the road when you realise it's only fake money.
The MPAA then follow you down the road back to your house and call the police asking them to charge you with stealing their money except rather than demanding just the money they pretended to give you back to you they ask for 100 dollars back for every dollar you didn't get because if you had have got it then you might have given it to anyone of your 100 friends. If you had it, which you didn't because the money was fake.
I hope that makes the situation crystal clear !
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Informative)
AFAIK, nobody has actually gotten around to forcing the **AA into proving anything in court.
And again, AFAIK, the **AA hasn't had anything more than screenshots of alleged sharing as evidence
Parent
ie. It's just a FUD campaign. (Score:5, Insightful)
No RIAA case has ever gone to trial, either they scare the defendants into handing over some money or they drop the case when real lawyers get involved.
The only important thing is that ISPs get accustomed to handing over user account details and that the press keeps on reporting that people are landing in court because they downloaded stuff.
i.e. It's a FUD campaign.
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The MPAA still holds the copyright on the sequence of bytes it did upload... but it also gave permission to copy by the act of uploading it! (This is necessarily the case, because otherwise I could just as easily say that you were infringing my copyright by reading this post.)
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The MPAA didn't upload any copyrighted material. They're seeding garbage files that are labeled as actual content and collecting IPs.
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's called "conspiracy to conspire about thinking about thinking about a thought crime". Just turn yourself in now.
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Digg has gotten even worse. It's a pro-piracy haven where they even actively spread piracy tips to help others steal artists' stuff.
It's akin to a shop setting up a bin somewhere labeled "free samples", and then siccing the cops on those unsuspecting customers who "steal" from that bin...
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd better hope you're wrong, because otherwise you owe me (pinky to mouth) one million dollars for having illegally downloaded and read my post! I never explicitly gave you permission to view it, just as the MPAA didn't give people explicit permission to download its torrent. I merely made it available, and you just assumed that it constituted permission. So ha ha, sucker -- you're screwed now!
Now, do you realize how stupid that argument would be? I mean, I realize that copyright law is fucked up, but it's got to give way to common sense sometime!
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Soliciting != doing (Score:4, Insightful)
Many crimes however require that you actually do something. I beleive that copyright infringement is like that.
Parent
Re:that's why there are courts, juries etc (Score:4, Interesting)
My INTENT was perfectly legal. But good luck I'll have trying to prove that to anyone.
IANAL...
But it doesnt matter as much if the actual illicit item/activity is not itself illicit, so long as your actions go to support only that they are illicit. By that I mean if you are caugh selling ziplock baggies of oregano, but are going around telling people its really pot, and charging like it is, they can arrest you for solicitation. Directly from a (googlecache) NY Bar Practice test [209.85.165.104], question/answer 2: "solicitation is the asking, inciting, or requesting that another commit a crime with specific intent that the crime be committed." By this reasoning, as long as you make the first contact to the undercover officer posing as a 13yo and are first to bring up meeting them or doing stuff with them thats illeagle if she really is 13, meaning they did not join the chat room and start talking to everyone in there about how they should meet her and do stuff even though shes only 13, etc, you are guilty of solicitation. You have asked the girl, posing or not, to perform an illeagle act with you, ie: statutory rape or contributing to the delinquency of a minor or any of a handfull of those "think of the children!!" laws that might apply. Your "roleplaying" excuse would only hold up if you specifically ask the girl if she was doing so, and confirm that she is really of-age (at which point she, as an under-cover, would probably stop talking to you or blow you off somehow and sit around and wait for another target).
As it applies to the MPAA's actions, they are trying to setup their own sting operation. By requesting an illeagle download, be it the real thing or something that just looks like an illeagle copy of a movie, you are guilty of solicitation. Their ground is a little more shaky though, since they themselves are not officers of the law, and by advertising the fact that they have said files available (by posting to trackers or whatever), they themselves become accomplices, which if you follow that practice exam I posted above, could get at least the MPAA's testimony based on their actions thrown out, or even get the whole case tossed. As I see it, the only way they would/should (who knows what they tell the judge) not be held as accomplices is if they put their files on their own torrent server and nowhere else. Like standing on a street corner posing as a prostitute. But, if they dont post to a tracker, or send out where their torrent site is, no one would know to go there. If they DO post or whatever, they are encouraging people to go there, similar to a prostitute holding a sign over her head advertising her services.
Tm
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
2. If you put your own car out by the road with a "free car" sign on it, you can't accuse someone who takes it of GTA.
3. If the cops actually plant a "fake car" like you describe, the perpetrator is not guilty of Grand Theft Auto, as no car has been taken.
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Grr, Copyright Infringement ISN'T THEFT!
REPEAT AFTER ME!
Copyright Infringement ISN'T THEFT!
It would be more like the cops planting a fake car and then someone copying the design of the fake car, so they could catch people copying their design.
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Funny)
That way they could avoid paying a naval architect to design such a ship.
It drove all those poor naval architects nearly bankrupt.
We mustn't let it happen again.
Help stamp out piracy - don't make illegal copies!
That's why copyright infringement is technically piracy.
Parent
Re:ZOMG!! (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder what the value of random digital garbage is.
Well, Madonna seems to be raking in the bucks.
Parent
Re:Today's word is entrapment (Score:5, Informative)
A better name for entrapment would be inducement.
If you're willing to engage in a crime, it isn't entrapment for the police to offer you an opportunity to break the law. So in your example, the policeman who does nothing more than offer to sell you drugs and who does sell you drugs, is not breaking the law and is not entraping you.
If you aren't trying to break the law, and you're more or less strongarmed into doing so -- i.e. induced by something more than a mere opportunity to do so -- then it can be entrapment. So if you didn't want to buy drugs, and refused the offer, but then the police threaten you into doing it, you'd have a decent entrapment defense.
Parent
Re:Today's word is entrapment (Score:4, Informative)
"...the defendant has the burden of proving either that he or she would not have committed the crime but for the undue persuasion or fraud of the government agent, or that the encouragement was such that it created a risk that persons not inclined to commit the crime would commit it, depending on the jurisdiction. When entrapment is pleaded, evidence (as character evidence) regarding the defendant that might otherwise have been excluded is allowed to be admitted."
This is why a police officer posing as a prostitute won't ask for money, or make the intial offer.
Parent
Re:What's law breaking about this? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.cpcc.ca/english/index.htm [www.cpcc.ca]
Click the link, see how happy that canuck is for paying tax on something he might not even use for piracy? Paying a tax on backup media is fun!
Parent
Re:If the MPAA uploads to you then it is legal (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you are missing his/her point. The MPAA can't do anything to these people. The ISPs don't have to release any information to them either.
The MPAA is just trying to scare people.
Any how, most people trade content now by hand. Kids trade CDs and DVDs full of content all day at school. Adults trade at the office or gym. People are using one-time-use heavy encryption and sending stuff through the mail back and forth with Europe, South America, etc.
The MPAA is loosing the battle.
Besides, at some point the Indie labels will all just distribute in the clear as a marketing gimmick to try to get a leg up on the biggies. At some point one or two of them will stick. The economy will change.
Parent
Re:If the MPAA uploads to you then it is legal (Score:4, Informative)
Giveaways are much more likely to affect the willfullness test than the whole law. Since without willful intent to infringe, damages per instance are limited to $30,000 U.S., this doesn't matter much - typical settlements are for less than $30,000/instance already. The RIAA is still able to threaten a bigger loss than most private citzzens can afford to risk, so the excess above that doesn't have as much significance.
Parent