MPAA Torrentspy bribery case
p2p news / p2pnet: More evidence that Hollywood’s MPAA paid a hacker to illegally break into the Torrentspy dbase has come in a new court document.
Last month Torrentspy’s US lawyer Ira Rothken alleged the MPAA’s Dean Garfield offered to pay the $15,000 for information hacked from Torrentspy.com, “after he and the MPAA reviewed it, if they found it useful”.
Now the hacker has been named as Robert Anderson fromVancouver in BC, Canada.
His services were, “purchased by the defendant, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA’)” for $15,000 to obtain, “confidential information and trade secrets of plaintiffs,” says the document, filed with the US District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.
“The unlawfully obtained information from plaintiffs includes (without limitation) intercepted private emails, ’screen shots’ (i.e. pictures of the computer screen) of plaintiffs’ computer servers, showing file names, indexes and file architecture, a spreadsheet of earnings and expenses for plaintiffs` business, a utility bill for one of the plaintiff’s private residence, and other sensitive and confidential information,” it declares, going on:
“A representative of the MPAA told Mr. Anderson that it wanted information about Torrentspy and its principals, and that ‘We [the MPAA] don`t care how you get it.’
“When Mr. Anderson expressed reservation regarding potential liability for providing such information, the MPAA representative told him not to worry and that the MPAA would protect him from liability for obtaining and providing such information.
“On or about July 2005, MPAA took possession from Robert Anderson of information he had hacked from plaintiffs` computers and email accounts, and, after examining it, paid Mr. Anderson $15,000.00 by wire transfer of funds to a Toronto, Ontario, Canada bank.”
Based on Anderson’s declration, it’s, “clear that private information was obtained from plaintiffs` email accounts and computer servers unlawfully and without authorization,” says the court paper.
“Such computer ‘hacking’ and piracy constituted invasions of privacy, the stealing of trade secrets and other unlawful activities as alleged in the complaint. It appears from the nature of the information, the circumstances under which it was acquired, the payment of $15,000 to the hacker, assurances made to the hacker by the MPAA that he would be protected from liability, and other facts stated in the declaration of Mr. Anderson, that the MPAA participated in the computer hacking, or at least knew or reasonably should have known it was acquiring unlawfully obtained information.”
The MPAA, owned by Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, is also accused of victimizing Sweden’s The Pirate Bay. The Bush administration recently denied threatening Sweden with economic sanctions if it didn’t go after file sharers.
Rothken is also representing Canada’s Gary Fong, the behind IsoHunt, also targetted by the MPAA.
Meanwhile, in a perverse reversal, while the corporate music industry goes after torrent sites, a purported p2p company, Sharman Networks, owner of the discredited Kazaa p2p application, and Kazaa ceo Niki Hemming, are suing p2pnet for alleged libel.
The case is becoming an international national issue centering on freedom of speech in Canada and on its dedicated Stop-the-Blogsuit campaign site, p2pnet is appealing for donations to help it carry the case forward.
Digg this story.
Also See:
Dean Garfield – MPAA hacked Torrentspy, May 25, 2006
threatening Sweden – US denies Sweden file sharing threat, June 22, 2006
IsoHunt – MPAA targets IsoHunt’s Fung, June 1, 2006
suing p2pnet – Free speech in Canada, June 2, 2006
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June 23rd, 2006 at 8:55 pm
from what i know of their takedown, the MPAA also hacked or paid hackers to gather server logs. though they deny it; im sure this wont help them at all if they take members of elitetorrents to court.
June 24th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Mr Anderson the hacker…sounds familiar.
June 25th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Is the department of justice asleep on this one r what? Isn’t it still; a crime to pay or offer to pay for someone else to commit acrime? Isn’t it still illegal to enter into agreements to undertake criminal acts or doesn’t rico aply to movie executives?