TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Wolverine Uploader Pleads Guilty, Set to See Out 2011 in Jail
- Prominent Torrent Site ‘Scamvertiser’ Calls It Quits
- Movie Studio Sues BitTorrent Swarm in Civil Conspiracy Suit
| Wolverine Uploader Pleads Guilty, Set to See Out 2011 in Jail Posted: 31 Mar 2011 03:06 AM PDT
Not surprisingly, Fox – the studio behind the production – went ballistic. The villain behind this crime would be made to pay dearly, they vowed. Eventually the accusatory fingers began pointing at Gilberto Sanchez, a glass installer and musician from The Bronx. The now 48-year-old said he bought the movie for $5 from a Korean in the street. For the hell of it and against the advice of his friends, he then uploaded it to MegaUpload. A couple of weeks later the FBI turned up and by December 2009 Sanchez was under arrest. So here we are, exactly 2 years to the day that Sanchez made his somewhat fateful ‘mega upload’ to MegaUpload (the FBI say he also posted two links to the file on public sites), and as expected he has kept his word by pleading guilty. According to the FBI, Sanchez has admitted to “one count of uploading a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution.” This felony charge carries a statutory maximum penalty of three years in federal prison. It could also be accompanied by “a $250,000 fine or twice the gross gain or gross loss attributable to the offense, whichever is greater.” But while it took the FBI a matter of hours to arrest the people who uploaded a workprint of Star Wars Episode III after it was leaked in 2005, it took two weeks to track down Sanchez and a whole 8 months to arrest him. What the FBI were doing in that two-thirds of a year is anyone’s guess, but one might presume that given 20th Century Fox’s vow to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law “the source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings” that might provide a clue. Yet Sanchez is the only person to be facing charges and he falls into neither category. The post-production studio from where the workprint copy leaked would have been incredibly easy for the FBI to identify – even more so than Sanchez himself – yet they have never even been mentioned. Indeed, someone there must’ve been directly responsible for leaking the movie out (in Fox’s terminology “the source of the initial leak”) but there have been no arrests. Unsurprisingly, though, the studios didn’t miss the opportunity to try and punish those allegedly making “subsequent postings” of Wolverine. The administrators of FileSoup were charged with conspiracy to infringe copyright on the movie but were recently acquitted. It now seems almost inevitable that Sanchez will go to jail following his sentencing by United States District Judge Margaret M. Morrow on September 19th this year. However, the movie industry source of the initial leak can sit comfortably, safe in the knowledge that his or her paymasters rarely seek to punish their own. They have a certain image to maintain. |
| Prominent Torrent Site ‘Scamvertiser’ Calls It Quits Posted: 30 Mar 2011 01:17 PM PDT Upon double-clicking the familiar white and green ‘micro’ icon, millions of users of the massively popular uTorrent client are greeted by a now-familiar message. “This program is freeware,” says the notice. “If you paid for it you have been scammed.” uTorrent is indeed freeware, but over the years untold thousands of people new to file-sharing have handed over money to companies selling this otherwise free software. So why do people fall for it?  The practice has been going on for many years and has taken on quite a few shapes during that time, but in basic terms this is how it works. People turn up at a flashy looking site which offers “Free Downloads! Free Music! Free Movies!” and after clicking through various links they discover that a “membership” is on offer. However, after signing up for a few dollars (ostensibly for access to the free media) users find themselves directed to downloads of software like uTorrent or, as was the case for many years, apps like LimeWire, Shareaza, BearShare, WarezP2P and Soulseek. Many customers also found themselves the proud owner of dubious ‘anti-spyware’ software. Once people discover they have bought freeware, they tend to shout loudly about being scammed. Indeed, in the early days there could have been little doubt that was the case, but in more recent times these companies have become more sophisticated with their offerings, often portraying the charge they make as being not for the file-sharing app itself, but for subsequent customer support or ‘training’. Many potential file-sharers, it seems, don’t read the small print. For YottaCash – one of the biggest companies in this market – these relatively ignorant file-sharing ‘n00bs’ have been the source of significant amounts of money over the years. YottaCash has been running much of its business through affiliate programs and, since it likes to attract file-sharers, what better place to find them than on file-sharing sites and forums? As a result, many genuine file-sharing sites collected good income from their affiliation with YottaCash, and vice-versa. As can be seen from this screenshot from the archive of the YottaCash website, converting a single user to a sale could yield very decent revenue.  But for the owners of YottaCash and their affiliates, all ‘good’ things come to an end. “We have taken the important and unfortunate business decision to shut down our services and DISCONTINUE ALL related products and affiliate programs,” began the announcement from YottaCash last week. “We are unable to continue offering the level of service that our customers are expecting and it has become impossible to verify all the links and promises posted by our affiliate traffic sites.” An additional part of the announcement, which appears to have since been removed, read as follows: “Recent events, changes as well as challenges in the online landscape are forcing us to take this drastic & regrettable decision.” No further explanation for the sudden closure has been offered by YottaCash in public or in private but it’s hard to come to a conclusion that selling free products suddenly became an unprofitable business in itself. Other factors are at play here but what exactly remains to be seen. It will be interesting to see how the other players in the market react and adapt as they quickly (and probably very easily) take up the slack. But are there people left on the Internet these days who are incapable of using the wisdom of Google before handing over cash to companies like this in future? Yes, of course there are. Absolutely millions of them. |
| Movie Studio Sues BitTorrent Swarm in Civil Conspiracy Suit Posted: 30 Mar 2011 06:28 AM PDT
In January we reported that the studio wanted file-sharers to hand themselves in and pay $1000, an ‘amnesty’ scheme that mysteriously appeared to work. In addition, the company has started over a dozen (mass) lawsuits against thousands of BitTorrent users who allegedly shared their content without permission. In a recent case filed on Monday, Liberty Media and their lawyer tried something new. Instead of simply joining the various defendants in one suit, the company is actually suing a BitTorrent swarm in the case tiled: “Liberty Media Holdings, LLC v. Swarm of November 16, 2010 et al.” In the complaint they explain: “The defendants are a group of BitTorrent users or peers whose computers are collectively interconnected for the sharing of a unique file, otherwise known as a ‘swarm’. The particular file a BitTorrent swarm is associated with has a unique hash,” Liberty Media’s lawyer writes. “The torrent swarm in this case is not an actual entity, but is rather made up of at least 95 individuals, acting in concert with each other, to achieve the common goal of infringing upon the Plaintiff’s copyright both by illegally duplicating the Plaintiff’s Motion Picture and illegally distributing the Plaintiff’s Motion Picture.” The lawyers then continue with a very detailed reconstruction of how the swarm came about. For every defendant they list the IP-address and the exact time when they joined the swarm. As the title of the case already suggests, all infringements took place on the same day – November 16, 2010. Liberty Media’s lawyer then continues the complaint by describing how BitTorrent works, and how the alleged defendants worked together to distribute the files. Not only for their own pleasure, but also to the benefit of the entire swarm. “In the BitTorrent world, there is honor among thieves. Those who merely download files, without publishing and sharing files, are derisively called ‘leechers’,” Liberty Media’s lawyer writes. “Being a leecher is not only negative due to the pejorative terminology, but leechers are also punished by the torrent swarm.” According to the complaint the swarm and the 95 ‘does’ are, aside from copyright infringement, also believed to be guilty of a civil conspiracy. “The center of this conspiracy is the scheme to traffic in infringing content,” the complain reads, adding that the role of the torrent swarm is essential in this process. Although it’s not explicitly stated, we assume that the emphasis on the swarm and the conspiracy are an attempt to circumvent the jurisdiction and improper joinder issues that led to the dismissal of previous suits. By arguing that all defendants shared bits and pieces in the Southern District of California, even those who live elsewhere, the plaintiffs claim that the Court has jurisdiction. Similarly, it is argued that, since all defendants were part of the same swarm on the same day, joining them in one case should be justified. Despite this innovative “sue a swarm” approach, the end-game of Liberty Media is the same. They want to know who the people behind the IP-addresses are, to kindly ask them for a few hundred or thousand dollars to settle the dispute. Pay up or else… |
By now the beginning of the Wolverine leak story is a well-worn tale. In April 2009 an unfinished ‘workprint’ copy of the movie 
The movie outfit 
| You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment