Displaying items by tag: BitTorrent

Every once in a while a producer of pornographic content starts trying to take legal action against pirates. They typically focus on users of BitTorrent and similar protocols. Practically any person who has downloaded any content through BitTorrent could automatically be considered a pirate [Although this is far from reality as there are many legitimate uses for BitTorrent – Ed]. However, due to procedural and other errors they are somehow unsuccessful in their intentions.

There is something interesting happening in the US; ok several something’s actually and we are not sure if they are good or bad at this point. The first is that there appear to be more judges actually looking into the claims that the copyright lobby are trying to claim when they go after individuals and even corporations for copyright infringement. We have watched as precedent has been set in the form of very unusual verdicts such as one handed down recently that states Web Sites are not responsible for links posted by their members which might violate copyright. This nice ruling means that the MPAA and RIAA must prove that the links were placed on a site by the owner or that they encouraged the posting of these links. Of course we have seen that the MPAA, RIAA and other copyright holders rarely stand on ceremony and will claim a site is encouraging piracy right out of the gate (we don’t need no stinking proof).  So while the ruling was rather monumental it did not stop the unsubstantiated take down requests and certainly is not going to help Megaupload or any other site in reality.

While downloading any sort of files via BitTorrent you are sure to leave a trace, and the whole BitTorrent system is under constant surveillance. uTorrent has decided to improve their users privacy by randomizing peer-id's, but the users IP is still public and relatively easy to find. If you can’t or don’t secure your privacy via VPN (Virtual Private Network) you will leave a trail that can cause some legal consequences; that is if you download illegal material. As mentioned above, there are two ways of tracking users, via IP addresses or via peer-id's and so far the peer-id has been a constant for BitTorrent and uTorrent users.

After an announcement that they will include ads in new uTorrent client, BitTorrent faced a huge wave of disapproval from its users and have agreed to take a step back. The original plan was to force advertisements for every customer in the upcoming version of uTorrent, but they decided to make it optional. If you consider the general opinion on ads, we believe that most of users will chose not to see them.  The ads will come in the form of sponsored torrents that will reach a user base of 125 million active users worldwide. We must mention that BitTorrent asked their users what they think about the forced ads they were about to implement.

Well, well, well. It looks like a single judge in the US is finally asking the right questions and perhaps coming to the same conclusions that many in the press and the consumer advocate sector have understood for some time. What is the conclusion? Just the simple fact that the MPAA and the RIAA have been using the US Judicial System as nothing more than a collection agency.  The Judge in question is Judge Bernard Zimmerman of the Northern District of California. While looking over a case that was filed there (On The Cheap, LLC vs Does 1-5011) Judge Zimmerman began to feel that this blanket BitTorrent suit might be little more than a nice fishing expedition for some easy money.  

With this in mind the Judge asked the lead Attorney Ira M. Siegal to reveal how much he has made from threats made through the court system. Mr. Seigel failed to respond on time and then refused to respond with the information requested by the Judge (a move that would get most thrown in jail for contempt). Instead Mr. Siegel chose to bash the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a couple of others for good measure.

But more than just the monetary issue at hand Judge Zimmerman also felt that there was a jurisdictional issue. You see Mr. Siegal and the Plaintiff are both based in Southern California, yet chose to file the suit in Northern California. This would seem to be very odd, however Mr. Siegel feels that due to the way BitTorrents work, if you are in a swarm then you are under national jurisdiction. Judge Zimmerman appears to feel differently.
Now the question is what will Judge Zimmerman do? If he dismisses the case based on failure to respond then the cycle will continue. This is very likely what Mr. Siegel would like to have happen. It would remove the scrutiny from him for a while and then allow him to pick up where he left off. If Judge Zimmerman finds him in contempt, fines him and then tosses him in jail along with a nice complaint to the Bar things could be very different. It could set precedence in these cases and in some perhaps even allow for further appeals.  We hope that since Judge Zimmerman was smart enough to recognize the scam in the first place he will see the second one and take the appropriate actions.  Let’s face it most of these suits are nothing more than extortion with the US Court system’s approval and while it is perfectly reasonable to protect Intellectual Property it is not right by any means to abuse the system the way the MPAA and RIAA have done.

Source TorrentFreak
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