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TorrentSpy claims to have indexed over 1.4 million torrents, with an additional average of 1,000-10,000 torrents added per day.  (Source: Wikipedia)
Courts claim that Torrentspy destroyed evidence, then lied about it

The current round of TorrentSpy’s legal battle with the MPAA has drawn to a close, with a Los Angeles judge ending the case in favor of the MPAA.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper called the conduct of defendants Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker, and parent company Valence Media “obstreperous,” claiming that they destroyed server logs that were requested as evidence to be used against them. “A substantial number of items of evidence have been destroyed,” wrote Cooper, adding that the defendants “were on notice that this information would be of importance to the case.”

In the lawsuit, Cooper found that TorrentSpy ignored a judicial order to retain server logs which contained the IP addresses of its users; the MPAA claimed that TorrentSpy witheld evidence since at least June of this year. Defendants claimed the logs were protected from being turned over by Dutch law as their servers are currently hosted in the Netherlands.

In response, Cooper asked for information stored in the servers' RAM, which the defendants claimed was temporary in nature and therefore impossible to retain.

Understandably frustrated, Cooper entered a default ruling against TorrentSpy and its parent company of which the amount of damages has not been set. TorrentSpy is expected to appeal on grounds that RAM should not be considered a physical log, but only a logical and unpreservable cache.

The MPAA originally filed suit against TorrentSpy in February 2006 along with a flurry of complaints against a variety of different BitTorrent trackers including Isohunt.com and BTHub.com

TorrentSpy filed a countersuit against the MPAA in May 2006, claiming that the MPAA violated the federal Wiretap Act by purchasing a cache of private e-mail pilfered by an ex-associate that had fallen out with the site. Judge Cooper tossed the case out, ruling that the MPAA did not expose itself to vicarious liability under the Wiretap Act – as TorrentSpy claimed – by purchasing the e-mails from a third party; coincidentally TorrentSpy agreed not to sue the ex-associate in exchange for his cooperation in the countersuit.

In June, TorrentSpy began blocking all American users from its site, in a move that would soon be followed by similar gestures from other trackers, including Isohunt and the late Demonoid.com. TorrentSpy claimed it instituted the practice to protect users' privacy due to an “uncertain legal climate;” it could be inferred that they moved to protect US-based users from discovery in its MPAA lawsuit.

The MPAA said its legal triumph was a “significant victory for the major Hollywood studios.”

“The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content,” said the MPAA’s director of worldwide anti-piracy and executive vice president John Malcolm. “The court's decision is a significant victory for MPAA member companies and sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious behavior will not be tolerated by the judicial system.”

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Sometimes I wonder...
By neothe0ne on 12/21/2007 1:14:20 AM , Rating: 5
if judges, lawyers, and juries are actually competent enough to be able to judge in cases about computers.




RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By ThePooBurner on 12/21/2007 1:42:48 AM , Rating: 5
I agree. Anyone who asks for the contents of RAM to be brought as evidence in court has no idea how a computer runs, or works, and probably has a computer full of spyware. I also don't agree with his ruling against them. Lack of evidence and frustraition because you are computer illiterate doesn't justify a default ruling in the other side's favor. Sometimes Judges are really dumb.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By SiliconAddict on 12/21/2007 2:26:57 AM , Rating: 5
Depends on the competence of of the defendants. You could do a RAM dump but $10 says the judge would have slapped them for giving them random garbage that no one could use. This is why we need to have judges who have a damn clue about tech. Judges, and congresscritters. We are in a world of computers with people who are putting laws into place who have no damn idea how a computer even works.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By othercents on 12/21/2007 10:25:08 AM , Rating: 5
Well really the only thing that torrentspy needed to do was produce the ram that was in the machines and let the judge know that the data was on the ram before removing them from the server.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CvP on 12/21/2007 12:57:15 PM , Rating: 5
rofl...... quote of the day !!!!!!!!!!!


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By JoshuaBuss on 12/21/07, Rating: 0
RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By omnicronx on 12/21/2007 8:43:15 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
they didn't really NEED the logs to prove that torrent spy was involved in illegal hosting.. it simply made things look even worse for them
That probably was not the point of the logs, from what I understand the owners did not want to release logs so that the MPAA could not go after its users.

And being located in Netherlands puts it in a grey area, one of the reasons we will probably see appeal after appeal.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Polynikes on 12/21/2007 10:12:40 AM , Rating: 2
Since when is it illegal to host .torrent files?


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Spivonious on 12/21/2007 10:41:46 AM , Rating: 2
I believe knowingly hosting illegal files is illegal. So TorrentSpy would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they had no idea that pirated movies were being transferred through their service.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By afkrotch on 12/21/2007 11:19:58 AM , Rating: 4
And that's just it, no illegal files are touching TorrentSpy's networks. They just hold onto torrent files.

Think of TorrentSpy as the a librarian. They know where you need to go to find information on books (data). They point you to the Dewey Decimal System cards (torrent trackers). The trackers also don't touch any of the data in question. They simply tell you where you need to go to get it. The shelves containing the books would be the seeders and the person getting the book would be the peers.

It's like knowing a guy, that knows a guy, that knows a hitman. It's not illegal to know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a hitman. You know the hitman kills ppl.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Samus on 12/21/2007 11:31:50 AM , Rating: 1
All your RAM are belong to us!!!!11


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By rcc on 12/26/2007 5:53:12 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Think of TorrentSpy as the a librarian


Or perhaps a pimp or panderer.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 11:09:54 AM , Rating: 2
As far as I know you would be facilitating the proliferation of the illegal content in question, which is illegal, in the US.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Christopher1 on 12/24/2007 8:11:45 PM , Rating: 3
Actually, no, it isn't. The courts have already ruled in other cases (which were hushed up) that hosting .torrent files in itself is NOT illegal.... it's only illegal to host the files THEMSELVES on the server that also has the .torrent files on it.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By darkfoon on 12/21/07, Rating: 0
RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By mindless1 on 12/21/2007 4:48:05 AM , Rating: 2
Courts that don't even understand the difficulties in showing ram contents aren't about to jump onto yet unproven theory (that it could be a reliable indicator of data up to the standards of proof). The industry itself doesn't even accept this is actually possible in practice, moreso than just *hints* of what the data used to be if it were in a steady state long enough, which it wouldn't be on a tracker.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By RW on 12/21/07, Rating: 0
RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Spivonious on 12/21/2007 11:20:18 AM , Rating: 5
So you're saying that if you were an actor you would rather give your work away than get paid for it? Good luck with that. I'll try to throw some change in your hat if I see you.

Laws are made by the government. The government is elected by the people. Therefore, all laws are made by the people.

The MPAA and RIAA are trying to not have their products stolen. To expect everything to be given away for free is not practical unless you're living in a true Communist society (which has never worked in anything bigger than a small village).


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By onwisconsin on 12/21/2007 12:07:14 PM , Rating: 2
...even though most politicians in the past 30 years have made promises, got elected, and only support bills supported by their party and campaign donors?

Just a question.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Regs on 12/21/2007 1:05:01 PM , Rating: 2
Wow, someone who speaks of fairness and truth in favour of the MPAA didn't get rated down. Yes, I completely agree with you.

The customer also has what we call buying power. If the product is too expensive or not to your liking, don't buy it. This is the legal way of telling them that:

A. We don't like your product, so change it or price it lower.

B. Support underground artists.

C. Start investing in digital transmitted media the legal way. Like how netflex is putting the hurtting on Blockbuster and Hollowood. No late fees and always have a copy for you with no wait.

Competition and buying power works more ways than one!


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By acme420 on 12/22/2007 1:36:15 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
The customer also has what we call buying power. If the product is too expensive or not to your liking, don't buy it. This is the legal way of telling them that:


We do that already, except instead of taking the hint they say its because of internet pirates then they hunt down every p2p and torrent site and shut it down. What will you do after you shut down every torrent and p2p service and you still arent seeing sales? who will you blame then MPAA and RIAA? stop rehashing garbage and get something new. No ones buying it becuase its just like everything else. if i have something thats exactly like what you're selling me already why do i need to buy it? i already have it.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By surt on 12/21/07, Rating: 0
RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Regs on 12/21/2007 2:51:17 PM , Rating: 2
How much effort did you make to let everyone you know who and why you voted for.

Most of time people just tell me, "I'm not saying".

If you like somebody or dislike someone in an election, speak up! Or don't complain, like me.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By djkrypplephite on 12/21/07, Rating: 0
RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Armorize on 12/22/2007 12:20:35 AM , Rating: 2
not necessarily have u ever heard of the word lobbyist. the people who are sent in by these p.o.s. wannabe alphabet boys. they pay congressmen/women and senators to put in a good word for them and vote in their favor.

when the tech generations begin to move into the government and these money hungry older politicians are out of office, things will most likely be different. I'm no psychic though, i only play one on tv.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Alexstarfire on 12/22/2007 1:24:09 AM , Rating: 2
I don't believe that's what he was saying. I don't believe anyone would say that downloading movies and games is legal. You'd be a fool to argue that is was perfectly legal.

Many people argue that the MPAA and the RIAA are severely miscalculating the losses that they have suffered. Not everyone who downloads there stuff would have bought it if it weren't available for free. I'd never purchase an actual CD. Perhaps 2-3 songs are good, but the rest are usually pure crap. The RIAA needs to get into the digital age.

As for the MPAA, they just needs to stop making crappy movies. How many more Uwe Boll movies do we need to sit through? They've met with lukewarm reception at best, with most of the watchers being the fans of the game. They also need to lower the price of their DVDs. I'd rather go rent a movie every time I wanted to watch it rather than actually own it, most of the time anyways. I only watch a movie a couple of times unless it's really good, like the Matrix and Curse of the Black Pearl. Those are few and far between though. Costs me $1.50 to rent a movie, and if I usually watch a movie 2 times that's $3.00 in rental fees, or $15+ for owning it. Even going to see it at a theater 2 times is cheaper than owning most movies.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By NullSubroutine on 12/22/2007 7:43:40 AM , Rating: 3
By the people if you define 'the people' as a select few rich persons who lobby law makers...then sure this government is 'by the people'.

The MPAA and RIAA do not represent the rights of the artists, they represent media conglomorate that steals the artistic rights away from the artists then acts as an advertising corporation so they can pwn money from us simple minded space monkeys. After plugging artist after artist down the throats of popular media they then reuse the artists works (which they now own) to artifically create 'artists' that fit 'societies' view of beauty or popularity.

Almost all artists make the majority of their money not from record sales but merchandising and concernts. Money from record sales primiarly go into the pockets of elite executives of the media conglomorate.

You are obviously ignorant to the understanding of a communist society. NOTHING IS FREE. Communism works on the principle that what is produced by the community as a whole is equally shared among its workers.

In a capitalist soceity like ours the fruits of ones labor is not directly proportional to production of that labor. Those who 'monitor', 'manage', or 'own' the labor workforce recieves highly dis-porportion of the fruits that the loborers produce.

It is exactly like Fuedualism but instead of 'land ownership' it is 'production ownership'.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Darkskypoet on 12/22/2007 12:31:55 PM , Rating: 4
Further;

A couple points:

1.) The WGA is on strike, The SAG will soon be on strike, and the DGA will more then likely also be striking soon. These three groups represent the 'artists' far more so then the MPAA which represents 'corporate' interests. If it was any of these three guilds coming after the torrent sites, perhaps it would be better received by us the consumers, then it being 'corporate' that is coming after everybody.

Obviously here we have a disconnect between 'corporate' MPAA protecting the artists, and the fact that those guilds are either striking, or on their way to it, because they are getting screwed by 'Corporate' on New media (the internet and other new avenues of money making).

So If the artists are being screwed, and we the consumer are getting screwed by high prices and a majority of crap content; then just who the hell is the MPAA helping?

2. The American type of democratic government ONLY WORKS when the various players, be they elected officials, branches of government, and those able to influence such are relatively weak, and similar in power.

The people all get one vote, this way every non apathetic tard should get some say in who is elected in their polling district.

Government branched have to fight and bargain with each other to pass legislation ( Executive fights Legislative fights Judiciary. This keeps the state from getting too powerful, and too able to dominate the people. This however is getting trashed by the continued attempts to empower the Executive, neuter the courts, and well the legislature gets bought off anyway.

Lobbyists were never supposed to have the access and power they have now. However, Lobbyists and corporations have more power, access, and influence then the people. This is the worst breakdown in the diffuse power system that American Democracy is supposed to represent.

Government by nature was to be weak, yes have authority, but weak in gaining concensus to utilize said authority. Now we have weaker diffused government, with a very strong corporate and lobbyist presence... Countering this, a not so benevolent (to the people) crystallizing executive, that seems to love corporate...

Because the system is breaking, and the players ( some of them) are getting relatively much stronger, the laws in the U.S can not really be claimed to be made by the people. Simply put the people don't have enough influence, power, or money to put a dent into the special interest / corporate lobby presently owning the two parties that exist.

So No sir, the laws are not made by the people, even indirectly as you surmised. The laws are bought and paid for by lobbyists and special interest groups that get to have lunch with the lesser evil we have no choice but to elect. There are only 2 parties, not hard to buy them both.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By mindless1 on 12/21/2007 4:37:45 AM , Rating: 2
I would've peed my pants laughing if the judge ordered that and they waltzed up and handed the judge a couple of DIMMs they pulled out of the server.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By FITCamaro on 12/21/2007 8:08:57 AM , Rating: 2
Seriously. They should just give them the RAM and be like "Good luck with that buddy."

Do these lawyers not read or do any research? RAM = Random Access Memory. Hell the wikipedia article on RAM would tell them all they need to know.

I would love to have the video footage of the the TorrentSpy guys reaction and response when they were told they needed to give the lawyers the data in the computers memory. If it were me, I would have had a "What are you f*cking stupid?" look initially and then just started laughing at them.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By michal1980 on 12/21/07, Rating: -1
RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By ThePooBurner on 12/21/2007 9:10:01 AM , Rating: 3
Oh, i'm not ignorant of that. In some linux setups you can mount your ram as an accessable drive (new someone back in highschool that did this). The thing is that the current information in the RAM would be totally usless to the case at hand. They wanted logs of users from america. American users have been banned for sometime, so any trace of their IPs, or even that they used the site, is LONG gone.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 9:17:30 AM , Rating: 3
Yeah you can dump the contents of ram. But the problem is you don't know what all the 1's and 0's mean. Hundreds of programs could be running and using the ram so it would extremely hard to make anything out of the data. You would need to know what programs are running, what they were doing, where they were writing and reading from in RAM, and what data types the data was. The programs them selfs don't always know where they are writing to in memory. Even if you managed to know what all the data in RAM said it would be data that would vary from maybe 5 minutes old to recent, not really much of a log of past users.

The case should not have been given a default judgment because they could not provide the contents of the RAM in a readable form. The judge should have been removed from the case because of a lack of understanding on the subjects need.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 9:26:34 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
The case should not have been given a default judgment because they could not provide the contents of the RAM in a readable form. The judge should have been removed from the case because of a lack of understanding on the subjects need.


Why? All the judge asked for was the contents of the RAM. They just needed to give it to him. It's not up to the defendants to make sense of the data just to make it available. If a judge asks for you something no matter how silly you need to give it to him. The fact that they made a big deal about it was an indication to the judge that they were trying to hide something, therefore the default judgment. Better luck in the appeal.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 9:48:12 AM , Rating: 2
OK how would you give it to them? There is not away built into most OS's that a user can use to get the contents of the RAM. It is like asking for moon dust. Sure it can be done, but how do you expect them to do it. A judges request should at least be reasonable which this was not. The reasonable request would have been for the judge to ask to send some experts over to copy the contents of the ram at some point in time.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 10:14:50 AM , Rating: 2
It's relatively a simple process to dump RAM contents to disk. The UNIX program dd can get to that pretty easily. There's a Windows port of dd as well.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By michal1980 on 12/21/2007 10:20:44 AM , Rating: 1
you never even want to give more then the judge asked.

if they want a dump file. give them just that. dump the ram in whatever format you can get it with, put it on a dvd, hand it over. Done.

If after that they ask you to decode it for them, argue that decoding is impossible.

You still complied with the order, and thats the point, if judge says do something. And its legal, and possible to do, do it. Dont jump 5 steps ahead of them.

for all we know, is that if they handed over the dump file, the judge could have ruled it meaning less and worthless, and told the mpaa to jump in a lake on that data. But we will never know because they made the choice not to even try.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 10:25:36 AM , Rating: 2
Of course I don't know the details of the case. Most probably the big sticking point here was the destruction of the server log files that the judge asked for in the first place. The fact that they refused to hand over a memory image was the last straw.

It would be up to law enforcement to make sense of the image.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 10:40:12 AM , Rating: 2
What if they didn't know about DD or that it would dump the RAM? I knew about DD, but didn't know it would dump ram. I still hold that a judge's request should be simple like give me your gloves something that anybody can do. Not give me the contents of your RAM.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By michal1980 on 12/21/07, Rating: -1
RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 11:00:16 AM , Rating: 2
Knowing how to setup torrent spy and how to run servers doesn't require you do know about DD or other memory dumping tools. Those are used more for digital forensics or programmers. And in your example you might can jump 15 feet in the air. Don't poll vaulters jump several feet in the air under their own power. They just have to learn how or hire an expert to teach them.

Are you suppose to learn or hire someone to meet the request of a judges? It seems the courts should have to meet the request with the help of the defendant if the defendant doesn't know how to do it.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By michal1980 on 12/21/07, Rating: -1
RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 4:43:31 PM , Rating: 3
So, if a judge says give me some moon dust. Tough luck, you loose because you don't know how or have the money to pay someone to do it. That is just wrong. Glad we have appeals.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Armorize on 12/22/2007 12:26:00 AM , Rating: 2
yes im sure that they were running windows xp on their servers lol.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By mindless1 on 12/22/2007 6:42:05 AM , Rating: 2
No, because the whole point of your hibernating is you are done with the system, vs their use of constantly using the memory to DYNAMICALLY update. Memory contents aren't static, that's why there's the "D" in front of "ram".


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 9:21:25 AM , Rating: 2
I've taken classes in digital forensic investigation and RAM contents are indeed valid pieces of evidence which can be submitted to court. As I saw mentioned it is actually quite easy to dump the contents of RAM. The hard part is actually getting to the RAM while it contains useful information.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By FITCamaro on 12/21/2007 9:39:04 AM , Rating: 2
Yes anyone can do a RAM dump. But all they were trying to do is tell the judge there wouldn't be any pertinent information for the case there. They wanted info on American user IPs. They weren't going to get that from RAM since American users haven't been using the site for weeks.

To me the fact that RAM contents can be used as evidence is silly, pointless, and shows how our court system hasn't kept with the times. In all likelihood the information you're looking for is long gone considering memory is constantly being written to and read from.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 9:41:57 AM , Rating: 3
I agree. The only way to get useful information from RAM is during a raid and imaging the memory right then and there.

But as I said, why didn't they just give the judge what he asked for? Or produce an expert witness to explain that the contents of the RAM were irrelevant in this case?


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 9:51:17 AM , Rating: 2
There was never any chance for a witness. I think default judgment means the judge ruled without it going to trial.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Maluno on 12/24/2007 10:12:50 AM , Rating: 2
What relevance does raid have when it comes to imaging RAM? Just curious, because I'm not very familiar with this topic.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By PlasmaBomb on 12/24/2007 10:19:52 AM , Rating: 2
There was a case a while back where police raided a company associated with TPB and lifted all their servers.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Maluno on 12/24/2007 10:29:41 AM , Rating: 2
That was my fault for incorrectly interpreting the parent post; I assumed that their use of the term "raid," was referring to "RAID," as in: redundant array of inexpensive disks... Now it makes much more sense to me. Thanks for the clarification.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By PlasmaBomb on 12/24/2007 10:41:35 AM , Rating: 2
You are welcome, and a Happy Christmas to you :D


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 9:56:47 AM , Rating: 2
Anyone can do a RAM dump? I don't think I know of anyone who can. Where is the RAM dump option in XP? :-) Sure most people can be given a CD and told to run the a program on it that would dump the RAM, but that is not what happened. The judge said I want the contents of the RAM. Now who has to figure out how to do it? Did he even say it had to be in human readable form or would a couple of hundred pages of 1's and 0's be OK.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 10:22:51 AM , Rating: 2
A RAM image would look the same as any hard drive or floppy image. You would use a forensics data carving tool like EnCase to make sense out of the data. Digital forensics tools like these are pretty advanced and law enforcement are every adept to conducting these investigations.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 10:51:28 AM , Rating: 3
HD and floppy images contain files which most of which are designed to be human readable. You just have to figure out how to decode it. Memory doesn't not always contain human readable data. More than likely it is bunch of numbers, strings, true false flags, and the code for the programs which are running. Nothing that means anything without knowing what program was using what data and for what. So you would have to convert the program code from binary back to assembly this includes the OS along with the other programs running. Then read the assembly and figure out what each program was doing and going to do with the memory it was accessing and where that memory is at. I don't think EnCase or anything else does this.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 11:06:28 AM , Rating: 2
Incorrect for the most part. If the judge wanted IP addresses it is a pretty good bet that many IP addresses would be present and human readable inside main memory if a web server is actively accepting connections.

All information that programs use, web servers included are at one point or another stored inside the program stack in main memory. The information in this stack is human readable for the most part. This is how buffer overflow exploits work. A malicious users exploits a bug in code to overwrite part of the stack to get the computer to run arbitrary code.

This of RAM like any other disk. Program execute themselves in memory not on the hard drive.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 11:07:31 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
This of RAM


Think

oops.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 11:24:27 AM , Rating: 2
So you find list of number that look like IP addresses or other information in the program stack. You don't know how the program generated that data or how it is used without looking at the program code.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 11:29:05 AM , Rating: 2
Yes. Now you can understand why a proper investigation can take years and costs thousands and a trial can take months.

You get the code or subpoena the developers to explain whats going on inside the stack. etc.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By CU on 12/21/2007 12:20:33 PM , Rating: 3
All for IP addresses that have been blocked from the server for months and will not be in RAM short of a miracle. Glad my tax dollars aren't wasted. :-(


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 10:40:33 AM , Rating: 2
Here's an interesting resource for dd

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applic...


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By The0ne on 12/21/2007 6:08:22 PM , Rating: 2
They are not dumb. They use computers/internet to get their prostitutes!..errr enjoyment. :D


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Darkefire on 12/21/2007 2:37:31 AM , Rating: 4
The judicial system in this country still sees computers as a quaint way to store large amounts of documents and an easy way to search them. The inner workings of the systems are about as obvious to your average judge as the inner workings of a space shuttle are to a passing seagull. That said, any competent team of lawyers would have a slew of experts on hand to testify about the complete impossibility of retaining anything important in RAM for periods longer than about five minutes. The thinly-veiled arrogance of torrent sites about the nature of their business and their perceived immunity certainly isn't helping their defense against the MPAA, so it's no wonder a judge would get fed up with them for stonewalling a trial. Ignoring a judicial order is a sure way to make your life miserable in court.

What I find funniest about all this is why the MPAA et al. persist in pursuing relatively harmless torrent sites while the big honking Pirate Bay albatross sits relatively unscathed despite its best efforts. So long as they remain up and running, the fight against piracy will forever be a losing one. It also means that the entertainment industry will keep up their siege against torrents for another decade or so, and draw their attention off IRC and Usenet, the true origins of most pirated material. When fighting a cancer, you want to cut out its core, not scrape at the surface. Lord only knows how long it will take before they realize that.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Treckin on 12/21/2007 2:47:59 AM , Rating: 2
yes, however, distroying the 'core' would not do this justice... the internet is established on that principle -- shutting one thing down would not shut the operation down. Closing pirate bay would have no -NO- effect on the pirating community. Users would simply establish more websites than the MPAA can shut down, or they will shift protocols. Already, many pirates are shifting to the old binary codes, with central file hosting servers.

Point being that TPB has little to do with the overall propagation and expansion of movie downloading.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Darkefire on 12/21/2007 6:07:24 AM , Rating: 2
That was roughly the point I was trying to make (which proves that trying to think straight at 3 in the morning is never a good thing). Torrent sites are by and large the "public" side of the piracy rings, the places where most casual users get their fix. The true scene is buried much deeper, in places the MPAA either hasn't deemed important enough to bother with, or don't even know exists. Hence my cancer analogy. Also, the fact that they can't even take down one pain-in-the-ass torrent site (TPB) kinda undermines their whole crusade.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Christopher1 on 12/24/2007 8:16:51 PM , Rating: 2
Really, they should just ignore these things. By making a big fuss about it, they are actually INFORMING people about these websites, when most of them wouldn't know about them.

Heck, I found out about torrents myself on a totally disconnected website.... I believe it was AOL's website, when I was looking for a legal/legitimate download of a old cartoon.
When I realized how much legal or quasi-legal stuff could be had on torrents.... BOOM! I was on it like a fly on a pool full of honey.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By mindless1 on 12/21/2007 4:58:46 AM , Rating: 2
HOw does one define something as relatively harmless if only a (I'm assuming) lower volume? Wouldn't it stand to reason that if the larger volume site gets knocked off the 'net then the others just pick up the slack?


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Darkefire on 12/21/2007 6:14:12 AM , Rating: 2
They're relatively harmless because they're not even doing much right now. Both Torrentspy and Isohunt.com are more or less completely closed off to USA visitors, and Isohunt is nothing more than a search engine. Going after them is like going after Google and Yahoo, and the only thing it accomplishes in the entertainment industry's war on piracy is some PR bull. The last major accomplishment was getting Demonoid taken down, and you're right, their slack will be picked up very soon.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By mindless1 on 12/22/2007 6:48:00 AM , Rating: 2
You act as though the greedy parties involved don't care if only non-US residents trade files.

I feel that's a big, US-centric, mistake.

Truth is, most piracy doesn't take place in the US. They're just the soft target which certain groups like to target. If there were global "fair" justice, street vendors in the orient would have been the only target up to this point.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By DBZLuisD on 12/21/2007 3:01:15 AM , Rating: 2
They are not.
That's why the MPAA can win cases like this.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By Bruce 1337 on 12/21/2007 3:25:57 AM , Rating: 5
I sometimes wish there were a way for the MPAA and RIAA to succeed in completely ending piracy in all forms, just so I could see them try to explain why movie/DVD/CD sales were still slumping.

I know they'll never blame the industry itself, or the poor quality of mainstream music and movies, so it would be fun to see what they'd come up with. Cell phone ring tones destroying the market for full-length songs? ADHD? South American fruit bat?


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By kyp275 on 12/21/2007 5:54:50 AM , Rating: 2
definitely the fruit bats


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By fleshconsumed on 12/21/2007 9:10:43 AM , Rating: 2
They'll blame the economy probably...


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By shurpajack on 12/21/2007 12:02:04 PM , Rating: 2
Until they see the latest growth numbers from the last year...which debunk the myth of an 'apparent' recession.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By novacthall on 12/21/2007 7:02:52 AM , Rating: 5
It's not just limited to computers. Below is an actual transcript from a conversation held in court between a doctor and a lawyer:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By FITCamaro on 12/21/2007 8:21:36 AM , Rating: 2
Do you by chance know what case that is from? I would love to show this to my friends and be able to prove it.


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By novacthall on 12/21/2007 8:53:54 AM , Rating: 2
That little gem is an excerpt from "Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History" by Charles Sevilla. I do not have the case reference, though the book may. You can similarly Google "things people have actually said in court" and you'll find a treasure trove of ridiculous excerpts, many of which will get you in trouble for laughing out loud at work.

Amazon sells the book, found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Disorder-Court-Fractured-Mom...


RE: Sometimes I wonder...
By JarvisTheGray on 12/21/2007 9:18:02 AM , Rating: 2
I read through the preview pages... pretty funny stuff.


how about...
By Gul Westfale on 12/21/2007 1:13:21 AM , Rating: 4
... you start making movies that are actually worth $10 to see? wouldn't that help with the fight against piracy?




RE: how about...
By xsilver on 12/21/2007 1:44:04 AM , Rating: 5
too hard
easier and cheaper to sue

also easier and cheaper to make you:
1) see the movie at the cinemas
2) make you buy it when it comes out on dvd
3) make you buy the "special edition"
4) buy it again when it comes out in a "trilogy" pack
5) make you buy it on hddvd
6) make you buy it again on blu ray when you realize that hd-dvd is no longer supported.
7) probably buy it again once the next gen disc comes out

lets not also forget
1) buy the soundtrack
2) buy the phone related item, be it ringtone/trailer etc.
3) buy it for your ipod


RE: how about...
By just4U on 12/21/2007 4:25:14 AM , Rating: 2
My uncle was really ticked off with the scenario you mention. He picked up the Fellowship of the Ring. Then 3 months later they released a extented version that was cheaper and had more content then the one he'd bought.


RE: how about...
By eye smite on 12/21/07, Rating: 0
RE: how about...
By FITCamaro on 12/21/2007 10:00:16 AM , Rating: 2
Seriously. Shut up.

quote:
I got nothing against Jewish people


Yeah of course you don't. You're just an ignorant bigot who thinks Jews are at the root of any corporation.


RE: how about...
By cochy on 12/21/2007 11:18:22 AM , Rating: 3
See it's these kinds of posts that should be down rated.

http://www.dailytech.com/Matchcom+Makes+Some+Roman...


RE: how about...
By Gul Westfale on 12/22/2007 1:45:13 AM , Rating: 2
i used to fall for that... but not anymore. i buy something when i think that it is worth its money, even when someone else considers it too expensive; but i never shell out a penny for the largely useless crap that hollywood&co try to stuff down my throat.

my phone ringtone sounds like a phone ringing (gasp!), i still haven't bought a bluray/HDDVD drive/player (not until i can get a combo burner for under $100, anyway the difference in quality between bluray and DVD is muuuuuch smaller than it was when we moved from VHS to DVD), i don't buy special editions because i know that an even more "special" edition will be released for easter/christmas/whichever holiday they're trying to push now, and soundtracks generally suck anyway.

now this would all change if these guys actually offered good value for money, but they don't, and they never have. and then they complain that people don't waste their money on this crap anymore... they only have themselves to blame.


RE: how about...
By NullSubroutine on 12/22/2007 8:03:06 AM , Rating: 2
your movies dont 'go bad' when one format wins over the other, nor would you have buy them again.

how would my collection of 30 HD-DVDs lose their value or ability to be watched if somehow Blue-Ray won tomorrow and HD-DVD died?

all I would have to do is go out and buy a new (cheaper) Blue-Ray player and buy the rest of my movies on DVD or Blue-Ray.


RE: how about...
By PlasmaBomb on 12/24/2007 10:17:57 AM , Rating: 2
OK, assuming HD-DVD dies tomorrow, and the manufacturers stop producing HD-DVD players, what happens in a month or a years time if your player breaks? How much would you HD-DVD collection be worth then?

Are you going to try and buy a replacement HD-DVD player? Are you going to try and sell your HD-DVDs? Or are you going to have to buy them all again on another format? (with an appropriate player?)


RE: how about...
By Christopher1 on 12/24/2007 8:20:32 PM , Rating: 2
How many DVD players actually 'break' in normal usage? None, that I know of. Most people just get rid of them because they are 'old' or 'too big'.

Personally, I am thinking of doing that myself, I saw a thinner DVD player at Best Buy and Walmart that was less than 1/3 the thickness of my current DVD player for only $40 dollars.

The old one works fine..... but I am really not happy with the size of it and the heat that comes off it.


Anyone else...
By JWalk on 12/21/2007 2:00:05 AM , Rating: 2
looking forward to all our resident "Legal Experts" who will soon be weighing in on this ruling? I always find it amusing when there is a story about a legal case, and people who know nothing about the laws involved begin