You'll be on a list 3 hrs after you start downloading from pirates - study File sharers who download torrents from services such as The Pirate Bay can expect to find their IP address logged by copyright enforcers within three hours, according to a new study by computer scientists. Researchers at the UK's University of Birmingham reached the finding at the end of a two-year study into how …
By taking part in the swarm, aren't these monitors offering the file for download. Presumably this is endorsed by the people asking them to monitor it, so they're offering a free download of it. Does this freely available, endorsed by the creator, download make the thing public domain?
"You can connect to a torrent swarm without uploading or downloading any data"
Yes, but to prove those IP addresses are infringing copyright you would either need to download the file and look at it (woe betide you if it was somebody else's copyrighted material in there), or be a seeder of the file (then you've implicitly given permission for it to be downloaded and there is no infringement).
Otherwise, the file could be full of any old crap. It could even be copyrighted material that the downloader already has permission to download.
@AC
"Re: Public domain
I think they avoid this by 1) Downloading the Torrent first to see if it is infringing. They have permission for this, so no crime.
2) Seeing if you are connected to the torrent/swarm thingy. They upload nothing though, so no infringement by them.
Then 3)-9) = Profit for them."
There seems to be some error in your logic here. If they download the torrent to see if it's infringing, what happens when it isn't what they expect? They have then downloaded something they do not have permission to download!! Therefore, they are pirates just as much as anyone else. Saying they were doing it for the right reasons or they immediately deleted it is not an excuse. Otherwise, it would be impossible to prosecute anyone unless you coulc prove they'd watched it. Indeed, even that would be dubious as they must watch or listen to the content to understand if its infringing.
In any eventuality, all these anti-piracy organisations are guilty of infringement themselves for the above and other reasons in their actions. Their behaviour is therefore no different to their targets. Of course, they don't care about that piracy as it's someone elses content and therefore doesn't matter!! To describe them as hypocrits is putting it mildly.
IANAL but currently no.
There are a few loons (One irritating poster on uk.legal in usenetland in particular) who believe it *should* be the case. However I suspect legislating for that could prove very tricky. By definition, you have no control over something once it is unlawfully taken from you. Even if you left the keys in your car, with the engine running, IN LAW you have no responsibility if someone steals it and kills someone with it.
The usenet loons say that it should be an offence not to secure WiFi, and that anyone using an unknown WiFi point should realise they are doing so unlawfully, To which a lot of people respond they *deliberately* leave their WiFi open as an act of neighbourlyness.
Well they would be within their rights to search your systems for evidence of the infringement, if they found none only then would they look to see if your wifi was cracked, in which case you would not be liable.
Of course if they found an encrypted drive on your system during that first search they would think you have something to hide. They would demand the password to see inside it to check for said infringing material. Fail to provide the password for it and under RIPA it will be jail time unless you can prove the volume is not yours (yeah goodluck with that one!)
I'm not happy that my IP address is being logged in this way, and just in case someone comes knocking at my ISP asking for details. I know they don't generally give out customers' details, (unless there's a court order?) but I guess this might be storing up bad karma for later on?
Any *practical* advice? Has anyone in the UK actually been picked up for this?
On a side note, I did get a letter from my ISP a while back saying that I was sharing a file - I think the file name was "Iron Man 2"... but the irony is, the contents of that file was actually a (very large) advert for some web site - you know, go to www.somecrapware.ru to download the keys for this film. Yeah, I know stupid thing to fall for... but my point is, I did not ever possess the actual content. Crap film anyway. :(
WEP can be cracked inside 10 mins.
MAC addresses are easy to spoof since they are transmitted as part of the handshake procedure.
The only way to secure wireless is to turn it off and drill cable holes in your wall (and for good measure, wrap your cables in tinfoil to prevent emissions leakage).
"WEP can be cracked inside 10 mins.
MAC addresses are easy to spoof since they are transmitted as part of the handshake procedure."
Duh. Congratulations Anonymous Coward, you totally missed the point.
In a courtroom type scenario you would be trying to introduce the element of doubt. ie an outsider was using my network.
And yes, I'm aware of the concept of MAC address spoofing.
You fail. Goodbye.
I've got a cineworld pass and access to all films released at the cinema. Now I can watch 'The Dark Knight Rises' in the cinema as many times as i wish. But if I were to download it, i'd be considered a criminal who has committed a henious crime and who should be punished.
My point is, If big movie studios stopped producing drivel such as 'jack and jill' (which they should pay the audience to watch) and charged less for DVD's and cinema tickets then maybe, just maybe there would be less downloading taking place..
"If big movie studios stopped producing drivel such as 'jack and jill' (which they should pay the audience to watch) and charged less for DVD's and cinema tickets then maybe, just maybe there would be less downloading taking place.."
Quite.
And if they removed all of this DRM / content protection bullshit so that we can make fair use of the content we have paid for, then we wouldn't need download dodgy copies to make up for this lack of freedom. In fact, I'm guessing that a lot of people, realising that they are going to have to download a dodgy copy anyway, even though they have bought a DRMed to hell and back legitimate copy decide to skip the step of buying the legit copy altogether.
They used to claim that "home taping is killing music". That wasn't true then, and home copying isn't going to kill music, movies, tv or ebooks. What will kill them is this rabid obsession with content protection and control freakery. It gives end users such a shite experience with legitimate media that people are compelled to "download".
If they really want to beat the "pirates", they need to drop all of this content protection bollocks and accept a bit of "home taping" going on. That will get the public on-side, which will be the biggest and best thing that can be done to combat "piracy".
At the moment, Big Media are seen, most certainly, as bullying, money-grabbing, control freaks while the "pirates" are often perceived (wrongly) as some kid of latter day Robin Hoods / freedom fighters. Unless they turn that perception around then it won't matter how many lawyers they employ, how many web site they shut down, how many students they prosecute or how many laws they buy, they will only ever lose
Indeed, Mr. Cowherd. Gabe Newell said it even more simply, when he pointed out that for content originators and sellers to beat piracy, they must simply give a better service than the pirates. What's more, with his insane access to real time price/demand metrics, he was able to tell that things are less price sensitive than folks might imagine, barring outliers.
At the end of the day, torrenting a Blu Ray rip encoded to a nice sensible bit rate h.264 movie is a lot quicker and less troublesome for me than going the Netflix/Lovefilm/iTunes store route, and I have more choice about where I play it. Looking at the size of my Steam library and the amount of music I own, you can see that I have a bit of an entertainment habit, and spend too much on it- but only if the hoops are comfortable to jump through.
ISPs only have to keep records for 12 months, so any incriminating IP addresses older than that are probably useless?
Where I work installed some equipment from a company involved in this sort of thing; I found the whole thing ridiculous. The whole methodology was flawed, and even I could see it would lead to falsely inflated piracy stats. I guess that's what the "customers" of this sevice want anyway...
TOR isn't the answer. A VPN serious about privacy is probably a good start, but 99% of bittorrent data starts life on usenet anyway. Always has, always will. If you're a freetard, might as well go to the source?
I used to be a downloader, but now I'd rather not consume at all than pay what I believe are over-inflated prices for fairly crappy entertainment.
1. Costs me around £50-£60 to take my family to pictures including mindless prices for a handfull or corn and some sugary water full of air.
2. Copyright notices on legitimate material is Damn annoying. Ever started a DVD for the kids and just wanted to get on with something else whilst they where kept entertained for an hour or so..
3. I often download movies I already have on DVD, Its faster than ripping.
4. I often download movies and buy them on DVD - If I like the movie.
5. They cant have it all their own way, If I buy a kids Wii game or DVD and they scratch the medium so as to make it unreadable - I should be able to march in somewhere and get a replacement. Its not the Media I bought, It was permission to view the content.
Bananas
6. With a few rare exceptions, TV shows obtained via BT are nicely edited to remove the ad breaks, and so allow the shows to be viewed in the minimum length of time without any risk of your immersion into the latest gritty storyline suddenly being broken by dancing babies, Z-list schlebs turned cheap tat pushers, or that bloody opera singer...
Gabe hit the nail on the head. The entertainments industry business model simply has not caught up.
Do I want
A). To wait years to see Family Guy episodes, or Game of Thrones on BBC whatever channel?
B). Buy multiple subscriptions to cable and satellite providers to get the shows I want? Stuffed full of bloody adverts, TV logos and previews of other shows whilst I'm trying to watch a different show?
C). Pay too much to ITunes for out of date content?
D). Pay the Producer of the content a small fee, on demand for that episode when it is ready?
E). Pay for a good broadband connection, pay for a good VPN, and undertake illegal activity?
I'd rather have option D thank you, I'd rather pay the producers of the content, no adverts needed, instant global launch. It is entirely feasible with todays technology. In my humble opinion, the producers of the content would make MORE money, but like the music industry there is a huge raft of parasitic entities trying to justify their existence's at every bodies expense.
EOL EOR
B). Buy multiple subscriptions to cable and satellite providers to get the shows I want? Stuffed full of bloody adverts, TV logos and previews of other shows whilst I'm trying to watch a different show?
While I live, my household will never pay a subscription to watch TV with commercials. I swore a solemn oath when that asshat TV exec complained that skipping commercials on his (already paid for by subscription) cable channel was "stealing".
One thing I find is often overlooked is the standard of the information captured via any monitoring service.
To be acceptable in a court of law, and to provide an accurate request for an account to IP address link, they must provide not only the IP Address but also a certifiably accurate timestamp. Without such a timestamp the ISP can legitimately say they have no way to ensure the accuracy of any information they provide in response to a court ordered request based upon it.
Somehow I doubt that most of these so-called "monitors" can provide accurate timestamps and proof that they are accurate. Sonething that is much harder than it sounds.
Added uncertainty would also be provided by any ISP's similar lack of accurate timestamps in their own logs. I'm sure a decent lawyer could capitalize upon such mutliplied inaccuracies.
As far as I know, there is nothing in the law requiring that ISP's maintain accurate times in their log files. All they are interested in (probably) is an accurate enough measure of connection durations. Not the same thing at all and not nearly enough to use as legitimate "proof" or as a cross reference to some other agency's logs I'd have thought.
Then of course we have the same old issues of linking an IP address to an individual person to consider.
notes
it seems there are elements of the 'net that would love to inventory every computer attached to the 'net
particularly MUSIC and VIDEO libraries
it appears this business is in a state of flux,... it appears the New Model is: you don't own any copies. Copies are to be kept in Cloud Libraries operated by licensed vendors. when you establish an account your will be placed on the Access List and given access to those assets you have paid the access fee for...
in this model if you have any titles on YOUR computer you are ipso facto a pirate
think about it
i only noticed this recently when Amazon changed their download procedures...
I've never uploaded anything to torrent sites. I've disabled any sort of "peer" function. I've downloaded a file or two hear and there and no suits have come knocking at the door, so I think I'm safe. As for you lot sharing illegal files, start packing. Five-OH is coming for you. LOL!!!
I have shelves full of of DVDs, and a PC capable of rippng and encoding a film to a 700mb video format for a portable playback device in about 45 mins, but with my (apparently slow) 5mbit connection I can download the same film in a 700mb video format for a portable playback device in 22 mins, and it uses 40 watts less electricity to download the already ripped+encoded file than to get the PC to rip+encode from my DVD.
I'm not pirating, I'm saving money and helping the environment! ;)
, open up your routers WiFi security..Say that you give your internet connection freely for other in the area free of charge and have no control what users do on it..
Of course, it can be any old router not even connected to the network, spoof the MAC...They cant prove anything...
I see that you have sensibly decided to protect your reputation by posting your ill-informed bilge anonymously.
Piracy (of the copyright violation sort at least) is not a crime. Not everything that is against the law is a crime. Try reading The Idiot's Guide to the Law - you may learn something.
Let me know if some of the long words are a bit hard though, I'll help.
Actually piracy is a crime and typically processed under civil law. It is however still a crime,(i.e. violation of law), even if processed under civil law instead of criminal law. Soon piracy is about to become a felony crime with mandatory prison time. Pirates in denial are about to get a reality check they won't like.
Get use to reality because it will bite you in the arse when you least expect it.
Whatever is implemented, If it becomes too inconvenient for the average Joe and makes too many people criminals, it will just be modified until it isn't and doesn't. The people involved in this nonesense will have to go back to duffing up old ladies to make a living rather than sueing teenagers and bribing politicians
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