‘MPAA engaged in piracy’
p2p news / p2pnet: The MPAA, the Big Six movie studios’ pseudo cop squad, has apparently been caught red-handed trying to get confidential information by hiring someone to hack into Torrentspy.com, as p2pnet reported yesterday.
But, “After hearing about the MPAA’s lawsuit, the hacker came forward, told Torrentspy what had happened and apologized,” says the San Francisco Chronicle.
The site’s owners want the MPAA stopped from using material it obtained through the hack.
In the centre of this new scandal is MPAA director of legal affairs Dean Garfield, who, says a court document, offered $15,000 for information stolen from Torrentspy.com, “after he [Garfield] and the MPAA reviewed it, if they found it useful”.
Isohunt.com, BTHub.com, TorrentBox.com, NiteShadow.com, Ed2k-It.com and Torrentspy.com were all sued by the MPAA and in March, Torrentspy.com filed to dismiss the action.
Now, ” It’s particularly notable that the MPAA has not denied the allegation they entered into an agreement with the informant, signed by the MPAA’s Dean Garfield, to acquire information about a number of torrent search sites including Torrentspy.com,” Torrentspy lawyer Ira Rothken told p2pnet.
Garfield, “expressly told the informant, on behalf of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), regarding the information that he requested, ‘We don’t care how you get it’,” says a complaint filed by Torrentspy.
“He assured the informant, when the informant expressed concerns about potential liability for obtaining or providing such information to the MPAA, that the MPAA would protect the informant from any liability for obtaining or providing such information.
It continues, “The informant intentionally gained unauthorized access to Plaintiffs’ private email accounts, and caused emails from and to Plaintiffs to be forwarded to an email account he set up for this purpose. Through obtaining Plaintiffs’ private emails, he gained access to login identifications and passwords for Plaintiffs’ Torrentspy.com computer servers, which he used to gain unauthorized access to the servers.”
However, “These claims (by Torrentspy) are false,” MPAA spokeswoman Kori Bernards says, quoted by CNET News.
“Torrentspy is trying to obscure the facts to hide the fact that they are facilitating thievery. We are confident that our lawsuit against them will be successful because the law is on our side.”
Rothken told p2pnet, “The MPAA by calling the ‘hacking’ suit ‘baseless’ is obscuring the fact that the MPAA engaged in piracy and corporate espionage when they paid a hacker for getting trade secrets from Torrentspy they were not authorized to have,” he says.
“The MPAA in saying the Judge didn’t dismiss the copyright suit against Torrentspy failed to mention that for purposes of the motion to dismiss that was brought, as a technical exercise, the Court was only allowed to look at the four corners of the complaint filed by Hollywood and she must construe everything they alleged - hyperbole and all - as true. In other words the motion to dismiss only tested the formal technical compliance with legal procedure in the complaint and not the truth or falsity of the alleged facts.”
What’s his view of the situation as it stands?
“Frankly, we’re optimistic,” he states. “When the judge is able to review the real admissible evidence that dot torrent files don’t contain copyrighted works, she’ll understand that this case is not about alleged secondary liability like Grokster, but some form of attempt at tertiary liability insufficient as a legal claim against Torrentspy.”
Also See:
reported yesterday - MPAA hacked Torrentspy, May 24, 2006
San Francisco Chronicle - Lawsuit says movie group hired hacker, May 26, 2006
sued by the MPAA - MPAA launches massive attack, February 24, 2006
NOTE: p2pnet is being sued by Sharman Networks and Nikki Hemming, ceo of p2p application Kazaa. “The suit is a little odd, since P2PNet.net is a champion of peer-to-peer file-sharing, which is the same business that Kazaa is in,” says The Globe & Mail. If you’d like to help p2pnet, or find out more, please go here.
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May 26th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
MPAA a pirate?? you’ll never hear that mentioned in the mainstream media. what’s interesting is that I read a mainsteam news article about a rapper accused of copyright infringment but when a 10 year old girl downloads a song to listen to the same media calls her a theif and pirate.
I hope Torrentspy nails them but sadly even if they do, the world will never know.
Rick
May 27th, 2006 at 1:07 am
How about economic espionage, conspiracy to steal, tortious interference etc, does the Department of Justice need an invitation here or what? How about raiding MPAA before the evidence disappears DOJ?
May 27th, 2006 at 2:09 am
Surely, you must be kidding! The DOJ would never DREAM of chopping off the fingers from the hands that fill the warchests of elected officials and others appointed by person or persons who have been the recipient(s) of such largesse!
Besides, they are too busy collecting information on private citizens to have any extra time to devote to the actual enforcement of the law!
May 27th, 2006 at 3:07 am
where’s the EFF on this? Not enough publicity for them to write the one letter that needs to be written to the DOJ, don’t forget the DOJ still has egg on its face after Judge Patel found that the record companies have deceived them into shutting down the anti trust investigation a few years ago. I think you’ll find the chief DOJ investigator at the peak music publishing body now
May 27th, 2006 at 6:40 am
Why not walk into the offices of the FBI and lodge a formal complain under the economic espionage laws. No ‘real’ law enforcement agency could do this without warrant or specific legislation.
Alterantive is to file a RICO action against Garfield and his cronies?
May 27th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Everyone is getting a little ahead of themselves on this one.
Several other posibilities here:
1. Both suits might have merit and be left unconnected (i.e. there is sufficient other evidence to pursue MPAA claim v bittorrent even if evidence from espionage is not permissable). In this case the MPAA might win an award of $50 million on their suit and in the espionage case bittorrent might prevail for a $2 million dollar award.
2. Both could lose their suits or it could be win/lose or lose/win respectively
3. There could be a spy/double spy element where the espionage agent really was orginally an agent for bittorrent. It seems interesting that he/she would agree to take a chunk of money for a known illegal act and then immediately and openly renounce it publically instead of lawyering up and “no commenting”
May 27th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
There’s an old saying that goes:
“(S)He who smells the fart first… DID it!!!”
RIAA/MPAA squealing like stuck pigs…FIRST!
Me thinkst they BOTH ‘protesteth too much’.
May 27th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
There’s an old saying:
“(S)He who smells the fart first… DID it!”
Both the RIAA and MPAA are squealing like stuck pigs.
Me thinkst they BOTH ‘protesteth too much’ in the FIRST place.
Think about it…………………………………………
May 28th, 2006 at 7:50 am
not really, while the suits might be unconnected and capable of standing alone my original observation was that the mpaa actions are so obviously criminal as to warrant the intervention of a law enforcement agency. I just didn’t get the fact that all the mpaa think they need to do is have a pr guy come out with some lame cliches. Is everyone at the doj asleep or are they waiting for their job offers over at the music industry like the guy who went to the publishing body?