Posts Tagged ‘piracy’
BitTorrent Malware Strikes Again
So, you pirate? Have you seen this notice yet?
In a blog post from Wired:
The code displays a box with the message “Warning! Piracy detected!” and opens a web page purportedly run by a Swiss company “committed to promoting the cultural and economic benefits of copyright.”
The fake company, the ICCP Foundation, also claims to be backed by the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America and others. “It appears to scan the user’s hard drive for .torrent files and displays these as ’evidence’ of an earlier infringement,” wrote TorrentFreak, which first disclosed the malware.
You can supposedly get rid of the warning by paying the “RIAA, MPAA” and other copyright companies $400.
So, same ole story everyday, don’t pirate. You can get infected with viruses, spyware and even be tricked into paying $400 to a fake company. Be safe online, folks!
BitTorrent isoHunt Lite
I wrote a week ago about BitTorrent search site IsoHunt, saying that it was to be brought down by a court order in the United States for offering illegal torrents to its visitors. This website, much like the famous The Pirate Bay, does not store actual illegal data, rather the torrent file used to download said illegal data. Many would argue that this type of service is legal because they don’t host the content, but on the other side, people think that giving people access to these illegal resources is wrong.
A new development in the IsoHunt case has now come up. IsoHunt is offering a “lite” version of its service. As I understand it, the website will not offer torrent files, rather offer a search engine for torrents on other sites. IsoHunt owner Gary Fung had the following to say:
“Although we bring this new search engine to you with a burden from the lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we hope you understand the reason why we are making this change. It is to address concerns Judge Wilson has over inducing copyright infringement in the US. Though inducement is never our intention and we have evidence to support it, with isoHunt Lite we want to affirm publicly that isoHunt’s function is nothing more than a search engine with all the net neutrality it affords and should be afforded.” – Gary Fung
He states also, that IsoHunt will be a rival to Google’s search engine:
“Why would you still use isoHunt you ask now that it’s just like Google and Yahoo and you can search for torrents with those? While we won’t dispute there’s fundamental difference, on isoHunt Lite you get ranking by seeds/leechers and ratings besides search relevancy and age. A general search engine also do not group as one for identical torrents spread on multiple websites on the Web.”
I guess this may mark the end to IsoHunt serving torrent files and begins a whole new era where they are a Google rival in terms of torrent searching. I believe IsoHunt users will still be loyal to the service to a certain point, but if torrents are brought down, people will turn to other places to get their fix of illegal data such as movies, music and software. Is this type of court hearing and reports starting to show that Internet piracy may be coming to an end in the near future? I’m not sure. I am sure however, that stopping total Internet piracy is hard to do because there are so many mediums in which illegal data can be shared and exchanged. Including those private trackers and services.
Internet piracy…is it coming to an end?
I leave you with that question.
IsoHunt to Go Offline (BitTorrent)
Credit: Technabob.com
IsoHunt…a popular torrent site, has been requested to either bring down all .torrent files or to shut down the website all together. If the .torrent files are legal or not, they have to be brought down. This comes after an order from the MPAA last week. The site’s owner tried to rebuke the takedown by stating that his site is another “search engine” that picked up copyrighted material. But, it has been revealed that his searching code is specifically tuned to find copyrighted material within the website.
This means that the basic search functionality of IsoHunt, Torrentbox, or Podtropolis would no longer be permissible under the injunction, not to mention that it would be nearly impossible for Fung to actively investigate every single file to see whether it’s legal or not. Fung believes this goes outside of the DMCA and that the MPAA should provide a list of links to files that it wants taken down instead. “We’re discussing the mechanics, the process that is reasonable for an injunction. We’re still trying to hope that the judge will do the right thing,” Fung told Wired.
The MPAA returned a call to Ars Technica stating that Fung needs to take down the site to comply with their demands.
Read the official post here: Ars Technica
BitTorrent Users Sued
You’ve surely heard of the RIAA, right? If not…the RIAA is a corporation that deals in lawsuits against people pirating software, music and movies. In six years, they have sued 30,000 people over illegally downloaded content. But now, Indie recorders and producers are being more harsh than the RIAA. Indie filmmakers are suing 10,000 people over illegally downloaded content and are adding another 30,000 users to that list very soon. All of this taking place THIS YEAR alone. The RIAA is no one’s friend, but now the no-name movies you are downloading could land you in jail or with a big fine.
A consortium of independent filmmakers has launched an RIAA-style mass-litigation campaign, suing thousands of individual BitTorrent users whose IP addresses were detected feeding and seeding films like Steam Experiment, Far Cry, Uncross the Stars, Gray Man and Call of the Wild 3D.
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/bittorrent-legal-attack/#ixzz0jpFgJanm
Another difference between the RIAA and the Indie filmmakers is that the RIAA does more old-school lawsuits, reports Wired. Software like Limewire usually got people put into jail because they might not have known that while they were downloading music, they were also uploading and sharing the music as a side effect.
BitTorrent file sharing is more complicated, with downloaders and uploaders collecting in transient swarms of so-called feeders and seeders. ”Bits and pieces are contributed by many users of the swarm,” said said Ira Rothken, a California lawyer who is representing TorrentSpy and Isohunt in lawsuits brought by the MPAA. ”To me, that seems like a harder case for content owners to bring. But it’s still doable.”
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/bittorrent-legal-attack/#ixzz0jpGHUxEl
Hopefully all these 40,000 cases can be settled out of court…meaning you delete your content, promise to never illegally download again and then you are monitored by your ISP for a few years to see if you break your promise. ISP’s are being requested to hand over identities of it’s IP users soon and court hearings will begin with some users filing back at the Indie filmmakers.
Stay tuned, I intend to keep you updated as more on this massive lawsuit develops.
Side note…don’t pirate 