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BayTSP Provides Automatic DMCA Notices 306

Posted by michael from the nothing-bad-could-possibly-happen dept.
ruvreve sent in a pointer that BayTSP is promising to identify Bittorrent uploaders for the entertainment industry to file suit against. Slashdot has run numerous stories discussing what happens when you automate DMCA takedown notices - see also chillingeffects.org.
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BayTSP Provides Automatic DMCA Notices More

BayTSP Provides Automatic DMCA Notices

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  • In Theory.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Renraku ( 518261 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:16AM (#11378368) Homepage
    Rather than go after movie/music/software BTers by hand, they'll invent some kind of automated webspider to go through every website looking for torrent links. If it has a certain key word, it'll be tagged.

    Knowing them, a C&D order will be sent out without looking at it. If its not removed, they'll pull something else equally banal and stupid.

  • It was bound to happen wasn't it... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Roland Piquepaille ( 780675 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:17AM (#11378370)
    BayTSP, a leading provider of online intellectual property monitoring and compliance systems, announced FirstSource, an automated system that identifies the first users to upload copyright- or trademark-protected content to the eDonkey and Bit Torrent peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

    So, in other word, the new legal environment (the DMCA) is attracting more and more profiteers and schemers, like putting cheese attracts mold. It's sad that some people would want to earn a living hurting other people by leveraging a law almost nobody wants...

    But the good news is: if automated monitoring of P2P protocols becomes commonplace, you can bet there will be other, new exciting development in P2P technology. Perhaps some kind of "stealth" protocol will be developed. After all, it's the Napster suit that prompted the development of central-server-less protocols like Bittorrent. So effectively the people "route around" the new legal roadblocks, and are prompted to do so because of scumbags like BayTSP and their disgusting masters, the **AA.

    • Re:It was bound to happen wasn't it... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:49AM (#11378436)
      After all, it's the Napster suit that prompted the development of central-server-less protocols like Bittorrent.

      BT has trackers. They are rather central.
      Also, most people find (found) torrents at sites such as suprnova. Also central. More centras than Napster, certainly, but not "central-server-less".

    • You were doing fine up until.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by reality-bytes ( 119275 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:44AM (#11378551) Homepage
      After all, it's the Napster suit that prompted the development of central-server-less protocols like Bittorrent.


      Bittorrent was designed for efficient transfer of files via a peer to peer network.

      Bittorrent uses centralised trackers and indeed it was never intended to "go under the radar" it simply became popular for distributing copyright material when third-parties discovered that it was faster than what they were already using.
      • Indeed -- BitTorrent was never designed for evadig either corporations or governments, but probably more for its legal uses anyhow -- like downloading Linux distributions a lot more quickly, but because of stuff like this (Don't want trouble with ye olde ISP) and the risk of accidentally using too much upstream bandwidth, I don't touch BitTorrent with a ten-foot pole.
      • Doesn't this show how flawed the law is? If Bit Torrent was never intended to facilitate copyright violation, or it would have been much more decentralized, then what's the justification for a lawsuite against bittorrent?
        Your point seems to show that all those tossing out metaphors such as "It's like sueing the auto maker for making the getaway car!" are actually right.
        When can we expect judges to start chewing out litigants for wasting the court's time on rediculous claims and poppycock legal theor
        • I think it was in the early 1980's that people were suing the light-aircraft manufacturers Cessna and Piper for causing injury to people who walked into spinning propellers!

          This action, while completely stupid in every sense, was successful and effectively stopped Cessna and Piper from producing light aircraft for a number of years.

          But how could Piper or Cessna possibly be responsible for accidents involving third-party operation of their aircraft??

          The phrase "Only in America" seems apt.

    • So, in other word, the new legal environment (the DMCA) is attracting more and more profiteers and schemers, like putting cheese attracts mold. It's sad that some people would want to earn a living hurting other people by leveraging a law almost nobody wants...

      But the good news is: if automated monitoring of P2P protocols becomes commonplace, you can bet there will be other, new exciting development in P2P technology.

      I think the BayTSP service sounds pretty cool, especially the part where they would confi

      • especially the part where they would confirm the contents of the file before issuing C&D orders

        That _is_ pretty cool. And as a computer programmer, I'm kind of interested in how they do it. Since, you know, it's pretty much impossible to reliably and automatically determine the content type, much less whether or not it's copyrighted, based on a sniff of a few blocks in the middle of the file. They gonna download the whole damned file? Any idea how many terabytes of storage they're gonna need for t

  • Will folks deliberately upload... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OneDeeTenTee ( 780300 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:18AM (#11378375)
    ...misleadingly named materials in order to create false positives?

    And if enough folks do it will it make resistance via auto-notices futile?

    • Re:Will folks deliberately upload... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:21AM (#11378383)
      According to the story, they download the file to confirm it.

      • Re:Will folks deliberately upload... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:27AM (#11378398)
        The nature of BitTorrent means they're also uploading it and therefore taking part in an act of piracy

        • Re:Will folks deliberately upload... (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Not if they're contracted by the owners of that content.
          • I think that would only allow them to download it for evaluation of the file contents... I can't imagine it would give them carte blanche to distribute copyrighted material to all and sundry while they're doing it. I think the GP has an interesting point. Not one that I imagine would ever brought up in a legal setting of course; it still tickles me though.

            • Unclean hands....Hmmmm. (Score:5, Informative)

              by penix1 ( 722987 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:58AM (#11378608) Homepage
              "I think the GP has an interesting point. Not one that I imagine would ever brought up in a legal setting of course; it still tickles me though."

              Courts have traditionally recognized that evidence held against you must be obtained in a legal way. One of the defenses that can be used against the MPAA suit of a turrent user is "unclean hands". What this means is that the person doing the suing is also guilty of the same offense (that of sharing "illegal material"). Unless turrents allow downloading without uploading anything, the MPAA attack dogs are just as guilty of doing what they are accusing the ohter end user of.

              IANAL and all but it sounds good to me...;-)

              B.
              • Unless turrents allow downloading without uploading anything, the MPAA attack dogs are just as guilty of doing what they are accusing the ohter end user of.

                Unless, of course, they have contracts with copyright holders and their permission to download and upload their copyrighted content for the purpose of identifying unauthorized sharers.

                • Unless turrents allow downloading without uploading anything, the MPAA attack dogs are just as guilty of doing what they are accusing the ohter end user of.

                Don't take me for an MPAA troll, but before you decide to rest easy on this theory, think again. Here's how it breaks down: MPAA highers Snooper; MPAA gives Snooper the right to use files (including the act of uploading) as necessary to catch file sharers; Snooper then uses BT to snoop. In the process, some files may have been uploaded, but beca

        • It could be used as defence by anyone downloading for personal use, that the "torrentspy" acted as agent for the copyright owner and implicitly gave permission for distribution of the torrent. Someone who starts a seed doesn't have that permission, so he still can be convicted.

          IANAL, your local law may be different from mine. It is likely that copying without permission is an offence in your country too.

        • While it's going to be slow, they could hack a BitTorrent client to not upload. Perhaps more usefully, they could upload gibberish; I believe most clients would still upload in response, because they are receiving data.
        • The nature of BitTorrent means they're also uploading it and therefore taking part in an act of piracy

          They own it so, it's not conspiracy..... It's CONSENT. :)

      • Re:Will folks deliberately upload... (Score:5, Funny)

        by RichardX ( 457979 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:37AM (#11378420) Homepage
        Well I hope they leave the window open until it hits a ratio of at least 1 then!
      • Now, what if we distribute some falsely named yet totally original content that we explicitly say above the link to the torrent is licensed for free to everyone *but* BayTSP? Could we then start filing suits when their automated system starts hopping on to our torrent?

    • Wasn't one of the reasons Napster died mainly because of so many falsified names thus resulting in a very hard time finding what you are looking for ?

      And isn't this just exactly what you are suggesting ?

    • Not very likely. The risk of running into lawyers that demand money is to high.
      And false files would not help out in the sharing.

      In my little crystal bowl I see instead couriers and uploaders using troajned clients to spread the files. That would create large amounts of false positives with people that claim, sometimes correctly, that they didn't pirate The Hulk 2.

    • Well, the RIAA has been putting fake files on P2P networks in hopes for the same result. (polluting the network, discouraging the "offender")
      Didn't really work, just gave them additional problems. People just migrated to other networks of systems which aren't polluted as much valid files or just cause the new protocol is an improvement(bittorrent). Others'll just keep on trying until they found a correct version.

      Would polluting the webpages serving bittorrents, or setting up "copyright-bot-traps" discoura

  • Automatic DMCA notices? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NetNifty ( 796376 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:23AM (#11378388) Homepage
    Is this software good enough to notice the difference between a movie and 120k of source code? [slashdot.org]

  • Already got a lawsuitbot "honeypot" up here. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:28AM (#11378401)
    Lawsuit-bot honeypot [twu.net]. Check it out. It has a huge list of randomly generated filenames (with all sorts of well-known/recent game titles, movie titles, musicians, etc.). Designed to attract lawsuit-bots and give ironclad PROOF that the files are not real (they're just long strings of zero bytes) :)

    • Re:Already got a lawsuitbot "honeypot" up here. (Score:5, Informative)

      by kwalker ( 1383 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:42AM (#11378426) Journal
      That won't work with this (At least not according to TFA). It looks like their servers make the content (at least partially) available online for people to search for and download, then other servers make requests for the content and will snag the IP and content blocks that people upload to them which they verify is the content and store for later prosecution. If all you're uploading is a string of zeros they won't have evidence against you.

      • That won't work with this (At least not according to TFA). It looks like their servers make the content (at least partially) available online for people to search for and download...

        That's not how I read the article. I suspect they have a private copy of the copyrighted file which they do not offer for download, but simply compare against the file offered for distribution.

        I would be happy to offer such a service in competition with them, for a lower price, if the studios would all send me their most pop

        • Possibly, but how do you compare this in an automated fashion in real-time like they claim to be able to do? If I have a HDTV recording of a show and encode it with XviD, I'd like to know how you plan to compare that to the original and make results available immediately, with the option of firing off a C&D or filing a lawsuit without the huge liability of suing someone who's doing you a favor by poluting the P2P pool for you.

          I'm sure they want to minimize false positives as much as possible to avoid

          • ...how do you compare this in an automated fashion in real-time like they claim to be able to do?

            The important word is "claim." I can avoid all false positives by simply never reporting any copyright infringers. Who knows, maybe these guys are running the same scam that I am proposing. More likely, they will err on the side of caution and only report copyright infringement when the distributed file exactly matches the copy they got from the studio. After all, anything else is a derived work, and would

  • Dynamic blacklisting of IP's foils this idea? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:36AM (#11378418)
    I cannot see how this should impact the "serious" BT filetraders that much. Most clients used nowadays include dynamic blacklists, effectively blocking requests from services such as BayTSP to the torrent? BayTSP can't keep hopping IP's all the time without some ever increasing expenses?
    • I cannot see how this should impact the "serious" BT filetraders that much. Most clients used nowadays include dynamic blacklists, effectively blocking requests from services such as BayTSP to the torrent? BayTSP can't keep hopping IP's all the time without some ever increasing expenses?

      Blacklists don't work. Assume that I am an agent of the (MP)|(RI)AA. I contact a consumer ISP and get a dynamic IP account. I run my scanner from the dynamic IP. There can be any of three results.

      #1 because I am on a

  • DMCA used by others to screw GPL Software (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:46AM (#11378430)
    If you can use DMCA so force *GOOGLE* to remove a link to a *GPL* Firmware, it has to be seriously broken...

    http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi? NoticeID=1471 [chillingeffects.org]

  • Probably already started! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:57AM (#11378452)
    Got hit last month for downloading unaired Stargate Atlantis episodes that haven't been aired in USA. The C&D letter had BayTSP and BitTorrent references.
    • Prove it. - Scan the letter and put it on a web site.

      I've had 5 people say they know somebody who knows somebody who got a "letter" about downloading a TV show off of a bittorrent link.

      Every one of them was lying.

      Yes...web site operators that list torrents are getting letters, YES..people who set up the trackers might be getting letters. But unless you are a seeder who sits on a bittorrent for DAYS I highly doubt they are going to go after you. Especially if it's a TV SHOW.

      It's FAR easier to go after th

      • BayTSP routinely send out C&D notices to downloaders (who by BitTorrent's nature are uploaders). We (the ISP I work for) had to hassle BayTSP last month because they were sending takedown notices to customers of another ISP thinking the IP addresses were registered to us - they had their IP-to-provider lookup tables well and truly borked.

  • I'm confused... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by derEikopf ( 624124 )
    If I remember correctly, I was taught in school that the government represented the people...


    For piracy, it's just another brick in the wall.

  • Recouping Expenses? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TimCrider ( 215456 )
    Has anyone had any success in getting the RIAA/MPAA/ESA/etc to recoup any expenses you might get dinged with while doing work to prove your innocent? I know the letters aren't an actual lawsuit, but if you don't respond, one can only assume it's a matter of time until you do get sued.

  • Just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ElMiguel ( 117685 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:03AM (#11378472)
    ... that the cost of threatening legal action without any basis whatsoever is too low for these big corporations. The legal system has become a way for big corporations to push individuals and small companies around and basically create a parallel state were the punishment for any behavior big corporations doesn't like is litigation.

    • Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mpe ( 36238 )
      that the cost of threatening legal action without any basis whatsoever is too low for these big corporations.

      I wonder how often they actually follow up of these threats. Sending out a form letter is fairly cheap to them. Probably considerably cheaper than actually initiating legal action.

      The legal system has become a way for big corporations to push individuals and small companies around and basically create a parallel state were the punishment for any behavior big corporations doesn't like is litigatio

  • My personal opinion.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:10AM (#11378481)
    is that theres something wrong with society when society is breaking laws at such an extent that it requires an automated process to identify and punish those offenders. Yes, automated processes catch innocents, especially as some on this page have suggested if they deliberately make themselves look guilty when they arent (if they carried around a white powder in a bag, they would expect to get arrested by the police if its discovered - wheres the difference?). But then again, why should it be costly for the 'victim' in these cases to bring offenders to justice? Kazaa has well over several million files available for download, why should the RIAA/MPAA have to spend inordiant amounts of money just to defend their property?

    This is all a personal opinion, but if slashdot isnt the place to voice it, then where is? Copyright Law exists, and it exists for a reason. You do not own 'Britney Spears - Toxic.mp3', and you do not have a right to give it to other people. If you wanted to have that right, make your own music, distribute that, but until then dont think you have any rights to other peoples intellectual property. Intellectual property laws exist for reasons, one of which is that it may be costly to initially develop, but cheap to manufacture.

    Mod this as you will, I dont care. I know slashdot is heavily biased, and I can expect damnation. What I do care about is that I have had my say.

    • Re:My personal opinion.... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In my opinion, if society is breaking laws at such an extent that it requires an automated process to identify and punish those "offenders", then theres something wrong with the laws that are being broken.

    • Re:My personal opinion.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lachlan76 ( 770870 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:41AM (#11378539)
      is that theres something wrong with society when society is breaking laws at such an extent that it requires an automated process to identify and punish those offenders

      If anything it means that society doesn't like those laws.

      But then again, why should it be costly for the 'victim' in these cases to bring offenders to justice?

      Because otherwise the *AA can use scare tactics to simply file a John Doe lawsuit against anyone, forcing them to either pay ${X}000 dollars without a chance to defend themselves, or get sued into bankruptcy.
      • As someone else has pointed out, a lot of people speed. Should we get rid of speeding offences? A lot of people think breaking into peoples homes is fair game (Im not making the theft comparison), should we amend those laws to allow it? A lot of people think gays shouldnt be allowed in the armed forces, should we amend laws to disallow them? There are a lot of laws that a lot of people break, it doesnt mean the laws should be changed.

        • Re:My personal opinion.... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Rich0 ( 548339 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @10:12AM (#11378647) Homepage
          As someone else has pointed out, a lot of people speed. Should we get rid of speeding offences?

          Not necessarily, but we should reconsider what the limits are set at. When 95% of people are driving faster than the limit, the general consensus would seem to be that the limit is too low.

          Laws are meant to serve the people, not the other way around.

          I bet if you put out a referandum to the population at large and asked what the speed limit on I-95 should be, they wouldn't come up with 55 mph.

          A lot of people think breaking into peoples homes is fair game (Im not making the theft comparison), should we amend those laws to allow it?

          If you define "a lot" as the 0.2% of any given local population which likes to steal stuff, then I guess you're right. Speeding is a mainstream practice. Breaking and entering is not.

          Again, put out a poll and ask people whether people should be allowed to just walk into people's homes at night. Any reasonable person knows what the answer would be...

          A lot of people think gays shouldnt be allowed in the armed forces, should we amend laws to disallow them?

          Ah, a personal liberty / discrimination issue. I will concede that at times the majority of the US population has wanted things which were unjust, and that it was right to set the laws contrary to majority-rules. Regardless, if you took a poll, you'd find that this is a genuine disputed issue (although I'm guessing a majority would embrace the don't-ask-don't-tell compromise - I'm not stating my opinion of the right answer to this problem here, just my opinion as to what the majority would decide). There is consequently room for debate.

          There are a lot of laws that a lot of people break, it doesnt mean the laws should be changed.

          If the majority of the population breaks a law, the presumption should be that the law SHOULD be changed. Now, if there is a really good reason not to change the law (such as discrimination, etc.), then maybe it shouldn't be changed. However, the assumtion should not automatically be that the politicians know better than the people.

          You brought up three scenarios. Two are really non-controversial issues in the eyes of the majority, and laws should be set accordingly. One is genuinely controversial, and the laws shouldn't be based on whether this year's referandum goes 49-51 or 51-49. There is room for leaders to be leaders.

          I would still suggest that if you need automation to keep up with offenders, perhaps the laws shouldn't be enforced. When criminals can be hidden because the majority of the population gives them shelter, we should probably rethink whether they are actually criminals. The police are supposed to serve the community, not the other way around. When it starts going the other way around, it tends to lead to violence, as problems build and build until you get riots.
      • If anything it means that society doesn't like those laws.

        That's true, but never forget that society is just a bunch of loosely-coupled people, and sometimes people really don't know what's in their best interests. Lots of people here and elsewhere bemoan a lack of sight in corporate America - companies going for short-term gain, ignoring longer-term prospects, etc. Same thing applies here. Make it too hard to make money creating music, films, etc, and lots of people will stop. That'll cut down on the amo
        • That's true, but never forget that society is just a bunch of loosely-coupled people, and sometimes people really don't know what's in their best interests

          I thought your country was supposed to be about what the PEOPLE want, and not whatever a minority thinks is best?

          and if you're doing nothing wrong, then you should be safe from bankruptcy, especially if the *AA has to pay your costs when they lose

          And how are you going to win when you go bankrupt and have to settle?

    • Re:My personal opinion.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      is that theres something wrong with society when society is breaking laws at such an extent that it requires an automated process to identify and punish those offenders.

      No, there is something wrong with the laws. Law is meant to mirror the morality of society, not dictate it.
    • (if they carried around a white powder in a bag, they would expect to get arrested by the police if its discovered - wheres the difference?).

      Do you have to ask??
      The difference is the defense of the vague property claims of a few by their own vigilante vs. the threat to life for many by our legaly sanctioned police.

      • Considering in this case the MPAA isnt a vigilante, they work within the bounds of the law, I think theres no difference at all, and there are no vague property claims, there are valid property claims. If you deliberately make yourself look guilty regardless of actual guilt, then it should come as no surprise when you are approached because of it. Yet this is what these people are attempting to do, create an uproar because of it.
        • If you deliberately make yourself look guilty regardless of actual guilt, then it should come as no surprise when you are approached because of it.

          Approached, maybe. Served with C&D, subpoenas? Being sued? No. If the authorities automatically sued everyone running around on the street with a bag of flour, doing just that would be a perfectly valid form of protesting against this automatic process. It would also get people fairly outraged, except for a few dicks at work saying that this is all perfectl

    • Re:My personal opinion.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wylfing ( 144940 ) <brian@wy l f i ng.net> on Sunday January 16, 2005 @10:13AM (#11378649) Homepage Journal
      My personal opinion is that theres something wrong with society when society is breaking laws at such an extent that it requires an automated process to identify and punish those offenders.

      At first I thought you were saying something sensible. But it turns out you've got rectal-cranial inversion.

      If society is breaking a law on a scale so massive that automated processes are required to file lawsuits against them all, then the proper attitude, at least in the U.S., is that the law is broken. The government and the marketplace must bend to the wishes of the people. It may take a few years for it to happen, but it will happen.

      While I'm on a roll: I'm getting quite tired of law-worshipers like you. At one time it was illegal for women to vote. You would probably say it is therefore immoral for women to vote, because breaking the law is "wrong." Luckily, most people have more sense than that, and have a moral compass that goes beyond the way the government wants you to behave. Just because a law is on the books does not make it right. In fact it is nothing less than socially responsible to break bad laws.

    • Re:My personal opinion.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rich0 ( 548339 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @10:15AM (#11378655) Homepage
      is that theres something wrong with society when society is breaking laws at such an extent that it requires an automated process to identify and punish those offenders

      I couldn't agree more. There is certainly something wrong when a society's legislative process allows it to enact laws that the vast majority of the population is willing to endure fines and impriosonment in order to violate the laws.

      Seriously, is your next suggestion going to be that we need harsher penalties for speeding, and that perhaps if we tortured people for going 60 in a 55 zone at the Ministry of Love that perhaps society would be better-molded to the ideals of its leaders?
    • theres something wrong with society when society is breaking laws at such an extent that it requires an automated process to identify and punish those offenders

      No, there's something wrong with the laws when society is breaking them to such an extent that it requires and automated process to identify and punish those offenders.

    • Re:My personal opinion.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by spisska ( 796395 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @10:24AM (#11378696)

      Errrm.

      Yes, automated processes catch innocents, especially as some on this page have suggested if they deliberately make themselves look guilty when they arent (if they carried around a white powder in a bag, they would expect to get arrested by the police if its discovered - wheres the difference?).

      A few years ago when I was living in central Europe, I took some tie-dye chemicals back from the US to Slovakia to use at an art camp I was organizing.

      For simplicity, I took all the chemicals out of the box they came in and packed them in my backpack. The 'activator' needed to make the dyes work (I cant remember exactly what chemical) was an unmarked plastic bag of white powder, about a kilogram of it.

      Anyway, I was checked at the airport in Vienna, and the customs people were very curious about the bag.

      I told them what it was, they opened it and figured out that it wasn't drugs, and let me go.

      I was not much bothered by the whole process because the Austrian police were very polite and understanding, and the whole ordeal took less than 10 minutes.

      In this case, the authorities did their jobs properly -- asking the right questions, listening to my answers, and never treating me as if I was guilty of anything. Afterwards, they even apologized for opening the bag. I told them I understood, and wished them a good day.

      If this process had beeen automated the way this DMCA nonsense is, then I would have been tossed in jail until someone determined that the powder was not, in fact, illegal.

      Remeber, I was not trying to make myself look guilty, nor did I expect to be arrested.

      Contrast this with the situation of someone running into legal problems for sharing a perfectly legitimate file like X-Files1.21b.tar.gz.

    • If society breaks a law "at such an extent that it requires an automated process to identify and punish those offenders", then the law in question is most likely flawed. In this case "society" as decided that it's not the worst thing in the world to download a song-at least, you shouldn't get sued for thousands of dollars for doing so, when stealing the physcial CD would get you community service or something for the first offence.

      In addition, I have a feeling that, proportionatly, the cost to this is muc

  • May not be lawful in all countries (Score:5, Interesting)

    by puhuri ( 701880 ) <puhuri@iki.fi> on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:11AM (#11378485) Homepage

    One quite interesting angle is that in countires with strict privacy laws (many EU countires), it may be illeagal to record IP addresses that carry pirated content. Copyright infringement is a petty crime that does not warrant home searches or disclosing communication (IP addresses, telephone numbers) unless you ask money for it [slashdot.org].

    Thus, a company that records IP addresses of file swappers could be liable under Finnish penal law facing upto four years of physically limited freedom for management.

    • Ummm... huh? Could you reference some of these laws, to start with?

      I'll use the Data Protection Act (1998) from the UK, as an example here. You can view it at: http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980029.htm [hmso.gov.uk]. The short version of this is that to hold personal information, you must be registered, and you must register how you intend to use that information. You also have to provide that information on request, to the person whose information it is, but that's not relevant here...

      The thing is, I don't

      • Ummm... huh? Could you reference some of these laws, to start with?

        I do not have pointer to any any official translation of Finnish penal law, chapter 38 or the communication law 121 so you must trust me. The communication law defines among other following terms:

        person identification
        All information describing a person or one's properties or living circumstances. Based on this information a single person, one's family, or people living in a same household can be identified.
        subscriber
        A person or a l

      • An IP address can very much identify you, from ISP authentication logs to static IPs with reverse DNS set to IP allocation lookup tables (i.e. ARIN, RIPE, etc). This is similar to being charged for an offence by car registration - you may not have been driving your car when it sped through safety cameras ahoy, but if the vehicle is registered in your name, you're the first person to get contacted by the authorities.

        Similarly, if an ISP gets a takedown notification based on IP address, they can then determ

  • They can't even get a whois query straight... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by C0vardeAn0nim0 ( 232451 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:12AM (#11378487) Journal
    whay makes them think they have the right to notify anyone ?

    some 3 months ago the ISP i used to work for here in brasil received a notification that someone in our network was downloading "exorcist - the begining", complete with IP address. happens that a simple "whois " returned the name of another ISP, with an IP address range in a neighbour AS (autonomous system. huge IP address ranges ISPs and network operator have). we simply had NOTHING to do with that.

    lucky them they were in US. if they were here with the threatening tone of the e-mail we could sue them. threatening a person or a company on an empty basis or based on false information is (IIRC, IANAL) ilegal here.
  • Expanding on the honeypot idear, it probably wouldn't be tough to create a Perl script using the LWP mods to grab the most popular song/movie titles every week and just automate this process.

  • guess i'll be... (Score:3, Informative)

    by ericdano ( 113424 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:19AM (#11378499) Homepage
    Guess I'll be adding all of Bay's IPs to my Azureus Safepeer blocklists........

    • Re:guess i'll be... (Score:4, Informative)

      by TheRealJFM ( 671978 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @01:05PM (#11379459) Homepage Journal
      "Guess I'll be adding all of Bay's IPs to my Azureus Safepeer blocklists........"

      If you're using either the bluetack.co.uk list, or the methlabs list from methlabs.org/sync then they are already blocked, and have been for years.

      BayTSP were one of the first groups we went after, and a cat and mouse game is played everytime they get new IPs.

      Have fun :)

      Joseph Farthing
      News Editor & Administrator
      Methlabs.org (creators of PeerGuardian)
    • IP blacklisting is not technically viable. This fact should be obvious to slashdot readers, and we need to stop modding these posts up.

      BayTSP can trivially acquire new IPs. I bet they could even get a few in the same subnet as PeerGuardian's web server. Until you figure out what IPs your opponents use, you are fully exposed. In other words, PeerGuardian and others rely on continual sacrifice of their 'sheep' userbase to figure out what IPs are being used by the 'wolves' to prosecute illegal distribution.

      A
  • How do I go about blacklisting American IPs?

    Is there a nice range, just like for blocking out spam from eastern countries?

    If I'm gonna be sued, I might as well get it from my own country.

    • Re:Blacklist America (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Taladar ( 717494 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @10:22AM (#11378685)
      Funny. I had exactly the same idea a few minutes ago. And why not blacklisting them for Emails as well. After all I know only Europeans that send me personal emails (non-mailinglist, non-spam). Perhaps the US-Government drops some of these insane laws when they are blacklisted by everyone worldwide on every port and lose big in internet business.
  • And how do they know im not just downloading the latest release of *insert oss app here* ?

    Using the technology does not automatically mean you are pirating.. This presumed guilt crap needs to stop. ( at least here in the USA, where the law states you are presumed innocent )
  • If this software works as advertised and isn't a load of hot-air, it sounds fairly acceptable.

    In theory, it checks who has what parts and if those parts are actually legit pirated data and stores that in a database. Isn't this exactly what one needs to do to catch pirates? Yes the DMCA is Bad and has chilling effects, but it doesn't seem to be abused in this case.

  • Riaa, MPAA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kurt555gs ( 309278 ) <kurt555gs@nOsPaM.ovi.com> on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:57AM (#11378604) Homepage
    I think the problem here is that any normal person can see the greed of the RIAA and MPAA and thier so called piracy is beyond any form of reasonability.

    They are like the 2 year olds screaming "mine, mine, mine" without any rhyme or reason.

    Copyright Piracy IS when you take a movie or song, duplicate it on a media like a CD or DVD, and SELL it as if it was genuine.

    Sharing a song with a friend so that friend can decide if it is really good enough to BUY, is not worng in my opinion.

    What if the movie or song is just bad, rotten, trash? You cet to decide to be a "CUSTOMER" or not based on if you like the product. Having to pay these greedy folks just because you heard the horible song or watched even some of the lousy movie is not PIRACY by any rational thought process.

    The RIAA and MPAA do not want customers where they have a choice, but CONSUMERS ready to be culled.

    This whole thing gets too much press, and to many good people are being called thieves because of the greed of the RIAA, MPAA.

    Cheers

  • copyright incident lol (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16, 2005 @10:20AM (#11378676)
    this is the shit my isp sent me a month ago... thought i had seen this baytsp name before. The mpaa can go fuck themselves.. i'll be using I2P bittorrent for my stuff from now on.

    > Notice ID:7957592
    > Notice Date:16 Dec 2004 01:18:22 GMT
    >
    > Dear Sir or Madam:
    >
    > BayTSP, Inc. ("BayTSP") swears under penalty of perjury that Paramount Pictures Corporation ("Paramount") has authorized BayTSP to act as its non-exclusive agent for copyright infringement notification. BayTSP's search of the protocol listed below has detected infringements of Paramount's copyright interests on your IP addresses as detailed in the attached report.
    >
    > BayTSP has reasonable good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of in the attached report is not authorized by Paramount, its agents, or the law. The information provided herein is accurate to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, this letter is an official notification to effect removal of the detected infringement listed in the attached report. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Universal Copyright Convention, as well as bilateral treati
    es with other countries allow for protection of client's copyrighted work even beyond U.S. borders. The attached documentation specifies the exact location of the infringement.
    >
    > We hereby request that you immediately remove or block access to the infringing material, as specified in the copyright laws, and insure the user refrains from using or sharing with others Paramount's materials in the future (see, 17 U.S.C. 512).
    >
    > Further, we believe that the entire Internet community benefits when these matters are resolved cooperatively. We urge you to take immediate action to stop this infringing activity and inform us of the results of your actions. We appreciate your efforts toward this common goal.
    >
    > Please send us a prompt response indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter. Please reference the Notice ID number above in your response.
    >
    > Nothing in this letter shall serve as a waiver of any rights or remedies of Paramount with respect to the alleged infringement, all of which are expressly reserved. Should you need to contact me, I may be reached at the following address:
    >
    > Mark Ishikawa
    > Chief Executive Officer
    > BayTSP, Inc.
    > PO Box 1314
    > Los Gatos, CA 95031
    >
    > v: 408-341-2300
    > f: 408-341-2399
    > paramount-picture@copyright-compliance.com
    >
    > *pgp public key is available on the key server at ldap://keyserver.pgp.com
    >
    > Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
    >
    > This infringement notice contains an XML tag that can be used to automate the processing of this data. If you would like more information on how to use this tag please contact BayTSP.
    >
    >
    >
    > Infringed Work: Machinist, The
    > Infringing FileName: The.Machinist.LIMITED.SCREENER-VideoCD
    > Infringing FileSize: 1070386415
    > Protocol: BitTorrent
    > Infringers IP Address: x.x.x.x
    > Infringer's User Name:
    > Infringer's DNS Name: x.cablecompany.net
    > Initial Infringement Timestamp: 14 Dec 2004 14:11:25 GMT
    > Recent Infringement Timestamp: 14 Dec 2004 15:45:09 GMT
    >
    >
  • What happenes if they knock at my door and claim that I have shared certain files and I decline? Well, I guess, they want to have a look at my hard drive. But what if they cannot read it because the drive is crypted? How are they gonna prove that there are the claimed files on my computer? Is there any law which says that I have to hand out the key?
    • Why would you even let them into your home if they didn't have a warrant?

    • The woes of encrypted partitions (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cpghost ( 719344 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @11:49AM (#11379059) Homepage

      Is there any law which says that I have to hand out the key?

      First of all, only people with a warrent have the power to enter your home and search your hard drive. If you let someone else in, it's your problem.

      In most juristications, you can be FORCED to hand out the key to your encrypted partitions, but only if the judge sees a reasonable reason suspicition.

      There's an easy work-around though, but it has not yet been technically implemented in GBDE, CFS or other crypto filesystems: use multiple keys for different purposes. If you provide them key1, you'll get at something irrelevant. They'll see that you're cooperating and will give up harrassing you. Once you're safe again, use key2 to decrypt the bits that really matter.

  • Auto-perjury? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ratcrow ( 181400 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @10:41AM (#11378747) Homepage
    I thought that one of the requirements for the DMCA takedown notices was that the party making the claim about copyright infringement had to declare, under penalty of perjury, that the works were being copied in violation of copyright.

    If someone deliberately put up a safe/public domain file with a misleading name and get sent a notification, could the people running this auto-DMCA service be hit with perjury charges?

    I expect that would shut it down pretty quickly. I thought that a perjury penalty was put in there to make sure that it was only invoked when absolutely justified.
    • I thought that one of the requirements for the DMCA takedown notices was that the party making the claim about copyright infringement had to declare, under penalty of perjury, that the works were being copied in violation of copyright.

      No. The party making the claim only has to declare, under penalty of perjury, that they are the copyright holder or the agent of the copyright holder.

    • Re:Auto-perjury? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @03:03PM (#11380101) Homepage
      The perjury clause is very deceptive. In fact it is completely worthless. If you are ever confused about any portion of the DMCA the first thing you need to remember is that it was literally written by lawyers employed by the publishing industry. As such, they had two primary goals in mind when drafting it:

      Primary Goal) Any copyright holder making use of the DMCA shall be immune to any and all prosecution or liability, no matter how stupid, reckless, or abusive their behaviour.
      Secondary Goal) Nail anyone and everyone as easily rapidly and effectively as possible, guiltly or not.

      So what about that "penalty of purjury" thing? Sounds nasty, right? Sounds like a good and balanced law, right? To protect you from frivolous and abusive attack, right?

      NOPE! It's freaking WORTHLESS! Any DMCA takedown notice filed by a lawyer with an IQ above 2 is going to be immune. Why? Let me make up a simplified sample DMCA takedown notice:

      I am the copyright holder of X
      Person Y is distributing Z
      I think Y distributing Z is infringing my copyright X

      Now, what's covered by the "penalty of perjury" clause? Well, just remember the primary goal: copyright holder immunity no matter how stupid, reckless, or abusive they are. Well if they are stupid, reckless, or abusive, the claim of copyright infringment might be false. So that's not covered. And if they are stupid, reckless, or abusive, person Y might not actually be distributing file Z. So that's right out too.

      What does that leave? I leaves the claim "I am the copyright holder of X". And even an abusive reckless IDIOT can fill in something that they are actually the copyright holder of.

      And just in case it wasn't 100% crystal clear, there is absolutely no requirement that the target of the takedown notice - file Z - actually have any connection at all to the claimed copyright X. In fact file Z can be - and at times HAS BEEN - a public domain file. For example Universal Motion Pictures stated they had the copyright on the movie U-571 and issued a takedown notice on the PUBLIC DOMAIN file 19571.mpg because it contailed the digits 5 7 and 1 on a video filetype. [chillingeffects.org] Yes, they were indeed the copyright holder of the movie U-571. Everything else was a load of crap. Therefore Universal Motion Pictures is immune to any and all liability.

      See how easy it is to read and understand the law once you know who literally wrote it?

      -
  • As a techie friendly ISP, does anyone know what Speakeasy's stance is? Will they go to bat for the customer, or do they give up info?

  • BayTSP is already at it, but can be simply foiled. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can tell you for a fact that BayTSP is already offering this service. If you use BTEfnet to obtain your torrents you may have already been identified. Right now they are only looking at very new torrents, so if you wait a couple of days then you are likely safe. The way I know this is that PeerGuardian has been picking up BayTSP quite a bit on fresh torrents but not at all on older torrents.

    Now making it difficult for BayTSP to identify your IP is quite easy. First, use a proxy to connect to the tracker

  • Another Company Born in Porn (Score:3, Informative)

    by lperdue ( 46135 ) <lperdue@idea[ ]x.com ['wor' in gap]> on Sunday January 16, 2005 @12:58PM (#11379425) Homepage
    Like so many other technologies, BayTSP's was born in porn as I detailed in my book, EroticaBiz: How Sex Shaped the Internet (available for free at: eroticabiz.com [eroticabiz.com].

    BayTSP is in Chapter Nine.

    Please note: the full-text search works, but the aautomatic links do not ... you can search, but tthen need to go back to the index page and click oin the appropriate chapter. (sorry! And apologies for the MSWord thing ... since offering it for free, I have not had the time to go back and change the search program code or get rid of the microsoft evil-format. Open with OpenOffice.

  • where FirstSource falls down... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @01:22PM (#11379545)
    FirstSource monitors for the first uploads of a client's intellectual property to the eDonkey and Bit Torrent networks. When the system spots a file name matching the client's content, it initiates a download to confirm that the file is what it appears to be. Once the content is validated, the system captures the IP (Internet Protocol) address and identifying information of other users downloading and sharing the pirated material.

    They have to be able to download it from the bittorrent network first in order to ascertain that it actually IS their copyright material... more and more bittorrent networks are going "members only" where you have to actually join and log in to the server in order for your IP to be authorised for that torrent... Any sensible network runner will have several clauses in the joining procedure where the prospective new member will have to be reccomended by an existing member or else they'll have to declare that they are not acting for or as agents of RIAA/MPAA etc.

    All they're gonna do is drive users with any sense underground... whilst only the newbies with no sense will get picked on...

    Expect to see more closed torrent networks springing up... rather like speakeasies did back in the old "Prohibition" days... Prohibition didn't work very well now did it... all it did was make normal people lawbreakers and give an opportunity for organised crime to fill the void created by the lack of easily available drink.

    In fact, all the RIAA and MPAA members have got to do is to actually take advantage of bittorrent, and create a perfectly legal means of people getting their hands on movies early in the distribution cycle by making them available on pay per torrent servers, where you actually pay for the privilege of getting the movie first, well before it hits the cinemas.

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