I wonder how many people read the article and saw "The Expendables" and breathed a sigh of relief.
I just checked Wikipedia and realized that "The Expendables" was a pretty big hit (80 mil USD to make, 103 mil USD made domestically, 274 mil USD world-wide). Who knew...
When they sue you, isn't it actually for the uploading (the "posting" of copyrighted material by allowing other torrent users to download bits of the file from your computer) and not the actual downloading?
Is that why they don't target DDL users of sites like Rapidshare and Hotfile, because the file is only downloaded but not uploaded by the user, unlike on torrents? I'm sure trying to seize the user logs of DDL sites through some form of legal action might be difficult as well.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I'm now wondering if they can sue you for just downloading from DDLs or USENET (without the uploading activity inherent to torrents,) couldn't they theoretically also sue users of youtube or other video sites for the playing of copyrighted material, which I imagine from a legal perspective is essentially the same as downloading it from a DDL?
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Film companies pay snoops to troll BitTorrent sites, dip into active torrents and capture the IP addresses of the peers who are downloading and uploading pieces of the files.
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This is a very vague way of gathering evidence. I am sure that the ISPs don't hold logs of the actual connections each IP is making, so I am wondering how is it possible to prove that the accused person actually downloaded the files in the torrent. Unless the snoops use a hacked BT client that downloads a whole file from only one specific peer, which is highly unlikely and will take a huge amount of time for all 23000 people.
I'm fairly certain that deep packet inspection would be required for an ISP to connect customer to IP address to visited resource. That being said, it would be trivial for an ISP to log the date and time each customer held a given IP address. If a plaintiff were to provide that date and time information, it seems at least technically possible to link that activity to a subscriber account.
What I don't see though is how you prove that the person listed on the account was the one performing the activity. Then again, all it takes is convincing a few people (6 for a civil trial jury?) who weren't clever enough to get out of jury duty.
Peers in a bittorrent swarm advertise which pieces of a file they have, it is very easy to see which IP addresses in a swarm have 100% of the data (and thus have downloaded the complete files).
Proving that a particular person downloaded those files is an exercise left to the reader ;)
Apparently you missed the direct download movement a couple years back. BT is history for the leading edge consumer pirates, DD sites are the next wave and are not long for this world given how popular they have become.
$3K claim letter to 23K defendants is $69M in potential revenue. The defendant has potential liability of $150K and probably has to pay more than $3K in legal fees to defend themselves. My SWAG is 10-20% pay for a $7M - $14M payday for the lawyers.
[+] [-] jrwoodruff|15 years ago|reply
1. Make a terrible low-budget porno that few would ever actually buy.
2. Wait for it to hit the torrent networks
3. Harvest IP addresses
4. Sue for millions
It's possible some of these firms will make more money this way than they would have from regular sales.
[+] [-] lutorm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] officemonkey|15 years ago|reply
I just checked Wikipedia and realized that "The Expendables" was a pretty big hit (80 mil USD to make, 103 mil USD made domestically, 274 mil USD world-wide). Who knew...
[+] [-] bane|15 years ago|reply
http://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-not-a-person-bittorrent-c...
[+] [-] lutorm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnphillips54|15 years ago|reply
Is that why they don't target DDL users of sites like Rapidshare and Hotfile, because the file is only downloaded but not uploaded by the user, unlike on torrents? I'm sure trying to seize the user logs of DDL sites through some form of legal action might be difficult as well.
[+] [-] barefoot|15 years ago|reply
http://twit.tv/twil
Although I can't remember the specific episodes.
[+] [-] johnphillips54|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lini|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yock|15 years ago|reply
What I don't see though is how you prove that the person listed on the account was the one performing the activity. Then again, all it takes is convincing a few people (6 for a civil trial jury?) who weren't clever enough to get out of jury duty.
[+] [-] ZoFreX|15 years ago|reply
Proving that a particular person downloaded those files is an exercise left to the reader ;)
[+] [-] hessenwolf|15 years ago|reply
Erm, what should I be using instead?
[+] [-] josefresco|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geoffc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] funkshanker|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Trufa|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tripzilch|15 years ago|reply
(I know for sure because he's a vocal proponent of copyrights)