Torrents

[HumanSymphony]

They were found guilty http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html

 

[nikokapo]

But they arrived in a v& with custom painting !!

 

[FireMyLaser]

I heard there will be an DDoS-attack.

 

[weetsies]

i have downloaded 147 movies since this time last year and most of them were new or unreleased.

also downloaded every half decent pc game as they came avalible and 100GB in music.

no nasty letters from time warner or my ISP.
<3 peerguardian.

 

[Cyparagon]

Can anyone explain to me why Tivo is legal (and even marketed)? Isn't a DVR/HBO combo the same  ing thing?

 

[spyrorocks]

Usenet

 

[bschott]

Yes I suspect that too. But I still don't feel comfortable about it, and can do nothing more than wait for a while. It's like: "what if!!1one", I do this so often so I'm bound to get caught sooner or later.

Well, yeah, if you download enough you will eventually get caught. Some torrent you don't suspect, some new tracking technology you are not prepared for, whatever.

Thing is, most of the people you hear about getting dragged into court are the MORANS. For FARKs sake, most of them are caught because they are using the old gnutella networks and clients like LimeWire or BearShare. Any pirate with half their senses about them would never allow ANY Gnutella client on their network. Those clients are set, by default, to share your entire multi-media collection.

Years back, before I got smart and started using things like proxy servers, IP redirects, PeerGuardian (on my Windows XP64 machine), MoBlock (on my Ubuntu linux client), Port hopping, using a Cisco managed switch (and firewall), and using encrypted transfers I was downloading torrents without any protections.

I got nailed for downloading a DVD-rip of a movie (James Bond: Golden Eye). No big deal. My ISP informed me that my IP address at the time had been recorded downloading that torrent by the MPAA. They sent a Cease and Desist letter to my ISP, who passed it on to me (but didn't give any of my info to the MPAA). I got a 1 day suspension of my internet and had to sign a letter saying I understood that I had two more "Strikes" before they would terminate my account with them. They DIDN'T mention the fifty-two other movies I had downloaded that month...just Golden Eye. The upside to torrents are they have to WATCH EACH TORRENT INDIVIDUALLY.

So flash forward a year. I got the song "Show Me the Way to Go Home" stuck in my head. A torrent search on all the sites I knew of turned up nothing. So I stupidly thought "Hey, I'll just use limewire for this ONE download". On that moronic note, I did a fast install of the software, found and downloaded the song (took about 2 hours to do that since only one person was sharing the song) then removed the software off my computer.


A month later, I get a knock on the door and here is the FedEX guy hand-delivering me an envelope. Lo and behold, 2 hours is all it took to get my ass in a sling. See, I failed to turn off sharing and you guessed it....I shared my entire music and movie collection and yeah, I got caught...

For a stupid song, I got caught sharing ~30,000 mp3's by the RIAA. Thankfully, they only went after me for the songs they covered otherwise I would have been on the line for closer to 72,000 mp3's. Well, in their letter they basically stated that I had one of two choices. I either fight this in court and they will be suing me for multi-millions (low double digits) or I could sign a waiver saying that I admit to sharing the songs, I will never do it again, I agree to have my computer's harddrive wiped by a tech-shop of their choosing within 3 days of receipt of their letter, and I agree not to make any backups of my music folders.

Yeah, I went with the letter and wipe method. Unfortunately for them, I already had everything backed up so after their recommended tech-shop wiped my drive the next day and I took my PC home, I simply used my backups and restored what they just wiped out THEN I smartened up and started protecting myself when downloading.

It's been six years since I was caught last, and I now only use private torrents and many (previously mentioned) layers of protection.

 

[HumanSymphony]

[quote author=FireMyLaser link=1238519099/0#6 date=1238525410]Yes I suspect that too. But I still don't feel comfortable about it, and can do nothing more than wait for a while. It's like: "what if!!1one", I do this so often so I'm bound to get caught sooner or later.

Well, yeah, if you download enough you will eventually get caught.  Some torrent you don't suspect, some new tracking technology you are not prepared for, whatever.  

Thing is, most of the people you hear about getting dragged into court are the MORANS. For FARKs sake, most of them are caught because they are using the old gnutella networks and clients like LimeWire or BearShare. Any pirate with half their senses about them would never allow ANY Gnutella  client on their network.  Those clients are set, by default, to share your entire multi-media collection.

Years back, before I got smart and started using things like proxy servers, IP redirects, PeerGuardian (on my Windows XP64 machine), MoBlock (on my Ubuntu linux client), Port hopping, using a Cisco managed switch (and firewall), and using encrypted transfers I was downloading torrents without any protections.  

I got nailed for downloading a DVD-rip of a movie (James Bond: Golden Eye). No big deal.  My ISP informed me that my IP address at the time had been recorded downloading that torrent by the MPAA.  They sent a Cease and Desist letter to my ISP, who passed it on to me (but didn't give any of my info to the MPAA).  I got a 1 day suspension of my internet and had to sign a letter saying I understood that I had two more "Strikes" before they would terminate my account with them.  They DIDN'T mention the fifty-two other movies I had downloaded that month...just Golden Eye.  The upside to torrents are they have to WATCH EACH TORRENT INDIVIDUALLY.

So flash forward a year.  I got the song "Show Me the Way to Go Home" stuck in my head.  A torrent search on all the sites I knew of turned up nothing.  So I stupidly thought "Hey, I'll just use limewire for this ONE download".  On that moronic note, I did a fast install of the software, found and downloaded the song (took about 2 hours to do that since only one person was sharing the song) then removed the software off my computer.


A month later, I get a knock on the door and here is the FedEX guy hand-delivering me an envelope.  Lo and behold, 2 hours is all it took to get my ass in a sling.  See, I failed to turn off sharing and you guessed it....I shared my entire music and movie collection and yeah, I got caught...

For a stupid song, I got caught sharing ~30,000 mp3's by the RIAA.  Thankfully, they only went after me for the songs they covered otherwise I would have been on the line for closer to 72,000 mp3's.  Well, in their letter they basically stated that I had one of two choices.  I either fight this in court and they will be suing me for multi-millions (low double digits) or I could sign a waiver saying that I admit to sharing the songs, I will never do it again, I agree to have my computer's harddrive wiped by a tech-shop of their choosing within 3 days of receipt of their letter, and I agree not to make any backups of my music folders.

Yeah, I went with the letter and wipe method.  Unfortunately for them, I already had everything backed up so after their recommended tech-shop wiped my drive the next day and I took my PC home, I simply used my backups and restored what they just wiped out   THEN I smartened up and started protecting myself when downloading.  

It's been six years since I was caught last, and I now only use private torrents and many (previously mentioned) layers of protection.[/quote]
You have something called BAD LUCK

 

[bschott]

You have something called BAD LUCK

Nah. I just had something called STUPIDITY but I remedied that.

 

[HumanSymphony]

[quote author=HumanSymphony link=1238519099/40#55 date=1241133385]
You have something called BAD LUCK

Nah.  I just had something called STUPIDITY but I remedied that.  
[/quote]
Mmm no. What happened to you was a freak thing. Doesn't happen that often. You also seem to have a HEAVILY monitored ISP :-?

 

[bschott]

[quote author=bschott link=1238519099/40#56 date=1241133699][quote author=HumanSymphony link=1238519099/40#55 date=1241133385]
You have something called BAD LUCK

Nah.  I just had something called STUPIDITY but I remedied that.  
[/quote]
Mmm no. What happened to you was a freak thing. Doesn't happen that often. You also seem to have a HEAVILY monitored ISP :-?[/quote]


One of only two high speed providers in Fargo Sucks but what can you do? ADSL sucks in this town...and cable sucks almost as bad.

CableOne=evil

 

[mikeeey]

You uninstalled limewire but it still continued to share the music? How can I be sure this isn't happening on my computer? I still have frostwire on my hardrive but I never even use it.

 

[HumanSymphony]

You uninstalled limewire but it still continued to share the music? How can I be sure this isn't happening on my computer? I still have frostwire on my hardrive but I never even use it.

No, they busted him for WHEN HE USED IT. The program sends no info while it isn't open.

 

[pseudolobster]

...sign a letter saying I understood that I had two more "Strikes" before they would terminate my account with them...
...I could sign a waiver saying that I admit to sharing the songs, I will never do it again, I agree to have my computer's harddrive wiped by a tech-shop of their choosing within 3 days of receipt of their letter...

Wow. What country do you live in? As far as I know there are no countries that have enacted the "three strikes rule", though Australia has proposed one, UK has proposed one, and I think a couple of EU countries have proposed similar ideas.. In each case there have been mass protests over the unfairness of the proposed laws, people have mentioned they need no proof, only an accusation, to get your internet canceled forever.. They've also pointed out that major movie studios often end up using a song in their movie before getting it cleared etc, and have had hundreds of copyright violations themselves.. By the letter of these laws, EVERY movie studio and record production company would be permanently be banned from the internet.
The whole thing with wiping your harddrive is completely over the top ridiculous... Who's to say you don't run your business from your home computer, meaning them wiping it causes you to lose years worth of records etc? I imagine you could countersue them for that kind of thing.. I've never heard of such stupidly overreaching copyright laws in any first or second world country. Do you happen to live in China, the UAE, or Qatar?

These copyright laws these days are really getting my goat... For some reason a couple of US companies with large chequebooks seem to think they can write laws in other countries, and they're getting away with it.

 

[bschott]

You uninstalled limewire but it still continued to share the music? How can I be sure this isn't happening on my computer? I still have frostwire on my hardrive but I never even use it.

actually during the 2 hours I had limewire on my machine is when they caught me. You have to have the program running to have it share.

 

[bschott]

[quote author=bschott link=1238519099/40#54 date=1241132827]...sign a letter saying I understood that I had two more "Strikes" before they would terminate my account with them...
...I could sign a waiver saying that I admit to sharing the songs, I will never do it again, I agree to have my computer's harddrive wiped by a tech-shop of their choosing within 3 days of receipt of their letter...

Wow. What country do you live in? As far as I know there are no countries that have enacted the "three strikes rule", though Australia has proposed one, UK has proposed one, and I think a couple of EU countries have proposed similar ideas..

[/quote]

Actually my ISP's internal rules. No laws but my provider has a 3-strike policy.

The whole thing with wiping your harddrive is completely over the top ridiculous... Who's to say you don't run your business from your home computer, meaning them wiping it causes you to lose years worth of records etc? I imagine you could countersue them for that kind of thing.. I've never heard of such stupidly overreaching copyright laws in any first or second world country. Do you happen to live in China, the UAE, or Qatar?

USA. This was a few years back when the RIAA was trying a 'we aren't so bad' image change. They sent out a couple thousand of these letters to pirates they had caught. I think EFF has a section on their site that talks about that campaign that the RIAA tried for a few months.