Tuesday, January 30, 2007

How to Find Fake Torrents Uploaded by the MPAA and RIAA

The MPAA, RIAA and several anti-piracy organizations are constantly trying to trap people into downloading fake torrents. These torrents are hosted on trackers that are setup to collect IP addresses of all the ‘pirates’ who try to download these files.

To make these traps more visible, Fenopy just introduced the FakeFinder. The FakeFinder lists the most popular fake torrents and the latest fake trackers. It also allows you to search for fake torrents by keyword or infohash.

The actual .torrent links for these fake files are blocked, and FakeFinder serves an informational purpose only. It is actually quite amusing to browse through these fake files and trackers. The companies that host these anti-piracy trackers came up with some interesting hostnames like “dirtydevils.cyberbox.com.br” and “bittorrent.isthebe.st“.

Although most of the IPs of these fake trackers are already blocked by blocklist software like PeerGuardian, they still manage to collect the IP addresses of thousands of users who do fall for this trap. Most torrent site admins are aware of these fakes, and remove them as soon as they are uploaded. It is kind of a paradox. On the one hand anti-piracy organizations send thousands of takedown requests to torrent sites, while they upload fake files with similar titles themselves.

Some might argue that downloading a fake file is not really a criminal offense. And yes, it is doubtful if this evidence will hold up in court. However, the job of organizations like the MPAA is to scare people, and that is often enough for them. The first thing they will probably do is send a letter to your ISP saying that you tried to download so-and-so file. And even if they take it a step further, they try to settle before these things are played out in court.

FakeFinder shows that BitTorrent site admins are trying to track down these fake torrents, and it’s a nice way to expose the darker side of anti-piracy organizations like the MPAA.



Via: Torrentfreak.com

Friday, January 26, 2007

Lawsuits Against Video-Sharing Websites Begins

Lets just Kill the Internet
Universal Music, the world’s largest record company, has launched the established media industry’s first legal action against user-generated internet sites in the wake of its distribution deal last week with YouTube, the most popular video-sharing website.

In separate lawsuits, Universal alleged that Grouper.com – recently acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment – and Bolt.com had built up traffic by encouraging users to share music videos from its artists without their permission. In one incident, it claimed a video for the Mariah Carey song “Shake it Off” was viewed more than 50,000 times on Grouper without the company’s permission.

Via: FT.com

MySpace Installs Music Filters

Although unrelated to the lawsuits this is interesting as far as the whole copyright issue goes.


MySpace may be a favorite site for teenagers, but it's acting more and more like a grownup.

The social-networking site, now owned by News Corp., announced Monday that it is cracking down on users who post copyright music without authorization. It will use database technology from Gracenote to analyze uploaded songs and other material. Unauthorized material will be taken down, and users who repeatedly post such material will be blocked from the site.


My opinion: The "new" MySpace is going to choke itself to death. Killing the goose that laid the golden egg

From Cnet News.com
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