MPAA Expected to Target BitTorrent Trackers
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In order to thwart the growth of this network, the MPAA will be pursuing BitTorrent indexing servers known as trackers. While trackers function somewhat differently than traditional indexing servers found
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The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) stepped up its fight against the illegal downloading of copyrighted films over the internet yesterday, with the announcement that its members had filed suit against BitTorrent server operators.
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Movie pirates were warned Thursday that they are under surveillance as potential targets of copyright infringement lawsuits that the MPAA will begin filing Nov. 16.
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The first prosecuted copyright-infringement case involving BitTorrent technology could lead to up to five years of prison time and a quarter-million-dollar fine for the Pennsylvania man who pled guilty.
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The Motion Picture Association of America is in talks with the Internet2 research consortium, hoping both to test next-generation video delivery projects and to monitor peer-to-peer piracy on the ultrahigh-speed network.
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Over the weekend there were several reports that confirm that Comcast is interfering with their customers' use of BitTorrent. This raises several more questions and concerns. 1. There are infringing uses of BitTorrent, for sure, but why is Comcast taking the role of enforcer against the interest of their customers. Just a question, but not likely to get an answer, because Comcast officially denies they're doing anything, even though employees (apparently) are confirming, not for attribution, that they are. 2. What about non-infringing uses of BitTorrent? Can their algorithms tell if someone is using BitTorrent to share mamterial that they have the legal right to distribute? If not, how do they justify interfering with their customers' use of the Internet? 3. And perhaps most disturbing, what does this say for the future? Perhaps someday it will be deemed inappropriate for people to publish content to the Internet, if so, could Comcast take steps to block that activity? How different is this from interfering with BitTorrent?
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BitTorrent Inc., makers of a technology often used to trade pirated copies of Hollywood movies, is launching a Web site that will sell downloads of films and TV shows licensed from the studios
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KaZaa is still finding themselves in court, explaining what&#39;s going on, and Hollywood is already finding a new target: BitTorrent.
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Hollywood stepped up its battle against internet pirates yesterday when the Motion Picture Association of America launched a legal battle against the filesharing networks BitTorrent and eDonkey.
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BitTorrent Inc., developer of a popular online file-sharing tool, said Tuesday it has reached licensing deals that will boost the number of movies and TV shows it can offer as part of a video download service launching next year.
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BitTorrentÂ has acquired ÂµTorrent, another file-sharing application that uses BitTorrent's software protocol, it announced Thursday.
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The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has won a lawsuit against the operators of&#160;TorrentSpy.com, with the judge ruling in favor of the MPAA because the Web site operators tampered with evidence.In a ruling that could have implications for the privacy of Web site users, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, ruled that TorrentSpy has infringed MPAA copyrights in a default judgment against the operators of the site.Cooper, in a ruling made public Monday, agreed with the MPAA that defendants Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker and Valence Media had destroyed evidence after another judge had ordered them to keep server logs, user IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and other information. TorrentSpy billed itself as a central location to find files distributed on BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) networks.The defendants&#39; conduct was &quot;obstreperous,&quot; Cooper wrote in her decision. &quot;They have engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence and have provided false testimony under oath in a effort to hide evidence of such destruction,&quot; she wrote.TorrentSpy had located its servers in the Netherlands and argued that Dutch law protected them from having to turn over server logs and other information. In May, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian ruled that TorrentSpy must preserve server data logs held in random access memory, or RAM.That decision was widely criticized as being an unreasonable standard because information held in RAM is temporary, but Cooper, in her new ruling, said TorrentSpy destroyed or altered several types of evidence, including user IP addresses, discussion forum postings about the trading of movies and moderator identities. &quot;A substantial number of items of evidence have been destroyed,&quot; she wrote. &quot;Defendants were on notice that this information would be of importance in this case.&quot;TorrentSpy&#39;s lawyer Ira Rothken said his client had concerns about protecting users&#39; privacy. TorrentSpy will appeal Cooper&#39;s decision, he said.&quot;It&#39;s not a ruling on the merits of the case,&quot; he said. &quot;One person&#39;s willful destruction of evidence is another person&#39;s willful attempt to comply with customer privacy policies.&quot;The ruling, if it stands, could expose private information about Web site users in many civil lawsuits, Rothken added. &quot;This doesn&#39;t apply only to TorrentSpy, but to anyone who operates a Web site,&quot; he said.A ruling on damages in case will happen at a later date.The MPAA, which filed the case against TorrentSpy in February 2006, applauded Cooper&#39;s ruling. &quot;The court&#39;s decision ... sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious behavior will not be tolerated by the judicial system,&quot; John Malcolm, the MPAA&#39;s executive vice president and director of worldwide antipiracy operations, said in a statement. &quot;The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content. TorrentSpy is a one-stop shop for copyright infringement.&quot;
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Arts & entertainment: Industry calls on internet service providers and governments to take action against digital piracy
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Blog: Advocacy group intends to file court papers in support of TorrentSpy, accused by the movie industry of encouraging illegal file sharing.
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Hollywood&#39;s biggest movie studios are to sue people who share films through internet file-sharing networks. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced on Thursday that it will sue unnamed individuals
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In a surprise move this week, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has launched a multi-pronged legal attack on movie downloaders.
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Swedish prosecutors have until Thursday to file charges against The Pirate Bay, one of the most widely used search engines for locating music and movies on the Internet.The deadline was set by a Swedish court last year after&#160;The Pirate Bay asked the authorities to return servers seized in a raid, said Peter Sunde, one of The Pirate Bay&#39;s operators, on Monday.Prosecutors may charge up to five people associated with The Pirate Bay with aiding copyright infringement, Sunde said. However, Sunde maintains the Pirate Bay does not violate Swedish law.&quot;There&#39;s nothing that says what we are doing is illegal,&quot; Sunde said.The Pirate Bay is a search engine for torrents, which are small information files that enable content to be downloaded via the BitTorrent protocol.The content isn&#39;t hosted on The Pirate Bay&#39;s servers but instead on users&#39; computers. The torrent, when dropped into a BitTorrent software program, will initiate the download of a file from other computers sharing it on the BitTorrent network.Torrent search engines have come under legal fire before, and the Pirate Bay has since set up servers outside the country to avoid further trouble with Swedish authorities. Sunde said he has received 4,000 pages of material from the prosecutors documenting their investigation.The Pirate Bay has been targeted by music and movie industry associations, which say it enables piracy of content under copyright and should be shut down.BitTorrent itself is now a fledgling company that legally uses p-to-p&#160;(peer-to-peer) technology. In 2005, it reworked its search engine, removing links to torrents that pointed to copyright content.The Pirate Bay generates money from advertising on the site, although Sunde said the revenue only covers hosting and hardware costs. The site recently announced it has reached 10 million users with about 1 million torrents.It&#39;s not the only legal case involving The Pirate Bay. Last September, The Pirate Bay filed a criminal complaint against content companies that hired MediaDefender, a company that specializes in disrupting P-to-P networks in hopes of making file sharing too frustrating.The Pirate Bay alleges that MediaDefender attacked its operations by distributing fake torrent files and other methods.&#160;