BitTorrent XXX Next Target For Anti-Pirates
Written by enigmax on December 12, 2007The main fear of many BitTorrent users is that of being traced while sharing copyright works. Although only a tiny minority get into trouble, that fear is likely to increase for those sharing hardcore porn on BitTorrent, as Swiss company Logistep steps in to help lawyers prise cash from the P2P masses.
Statistically, file-sharers swapping mainstream copyright material are the overwhelming target of the entertainment industries. Those sharing RIAA-labeled music and MPAA supported movies make up the greatest proportion of all those who have had legal action taken against them, with other products such as video games and applications coming in way down the litigation list. Until fairly recently, (excluding notable legal activity by Titan video), those that share adult movies have been fairly safe to do so. That looks like it’s about to change.
Here at TorrentFreak we’re getting very tired at the frequency we have to keep reporting on the Swiss anti-piracy company, Logistep. The way they operate is simple: they use a modified Shareaza client to enter BitTorrent swarms to collect data, which they sell to lawyers who use the information to discover the identity of alleged file-sharers, who they then threaten with legal action which can be made to go away – for a fee. A simple “Pay Up or Else”, no different to the recent case where they were working with CodeMasters. As we said before, Logistep’s system is unlicensed and unapproved by any official independent or government organization. Put simply, anyone could gather this data from the internet and claim that it’s accurate.
Logistep are now working with a new ally – lawyers ‘kuw’ in Germany who according to a Gulli report are representing certain producers in the adult industry to track and ‘fine’ BitTorrent users they accuse of sharing their material. After further research, ‘kuw’ appear to be emboldened after they worked with Logistep at the start of 2007 in tracking down hundreds of people who allegedly shared the game ‘Gothic3‘ and forcing many of them to pay up.
Those unlucky enough to find themselves in the crosshairs of kuw and Logistep will receive a letter. In it will be the usual legal speak, with lots of implied things and veiled threats designed to frighten. The bottom line is a demand for cash to make this issue disappear – 250 euros to be precise. 135 euros goes to ‘KUW’ for lawyers costs while 115 euros goes to the copyright owner of the movie/video clip in question by way of damages. KUW lawyers are claiming that they only target people who have already downloaded at least 30% of the movie.
Most, if not all people receiving these type of letters in previous UK cases have had no further action taken against them when they refuse to pay up.
In what appears to be a quickening shift in the porn industry to take legal action against sharers, Jon B., Vice President at porn company Red Light District (who hides his real ID because his family doesn’t know what he does) told the LA Times: “What’s happening in the industry is an unacceptable amount of theft.”
While claiming that 35% of his profits are lost to file-sharing, Jon B. described the futility of going after websites as the sheer numbers are too much to cope with. Instead, Red Light District is deciding whether to go after individual sharers, as is the case with RIAA, MPAA and Logistep-type actions.
“If it scares them enough, if it can take away 20% of the illegal downloads, we’ll be doing the best that we can,” he added.
During the next 24 hours we will publish an interview with a prominent figure involved in these cases, in which we will investigate Logistep’s dubious practices around Europe. Stay tuned.
Thanks to _bc
Previously: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk49)
Next: Behind The Scenes of the Swiss DMCA Fight
56 Responses
Geeze.. Makes me think you know, I bet soon, if not already, there will be a scam going around with fake letters wanting money for filesharing from fake legal headers etc.
Would be an amazing money maker.
Aww crap…. *shuts down porn torrent*
I was just thinking the same thing..
Those letters might not be real at all..
Someone’s going to do it i bet. Sending fake letters etc. Going to be one for those damn phishing site operators to take up this scam.
How hard would it be, do the same thing, claiming to be a lawyer etc. and asking for $2000 or whatever.
100 of these and you’re laughing.
Not that I advocate this behavior, but it’s going to happen.
‘We’ should set up a ‘phishing’ or BS radar service to out these scamming pucks.
KunfuTornado: Apparently Logistep is already doing that, posing as if the where the police handing out fines, nothing but scamming criminals.
This could be embarrassing for a lot of people, me included. Some people get all of their porn through torrent sites, hell I don’t know one single person who pays for their porn. There’s going to be a lot of parents getting letters soon saying they’ve download some hardcore XXX when it was their 14 year old son who did it.
This makes me wonder… What are the chances of being fined while downloading? How do they know who to pick? Does they just chose random or do they pick one of those that upload/download the most and with the most hits on the torrents they are watching? And what are the difference in being catched in different countries? At least here (Sweden) I think we can count the people getting fined or put in jail over the last 10 years from sharing copyrighted material (mostly uploading) on two hands. I don’t think the number goes over ten…
[quote comment="237511"]This could be embarrassing for a lot of people, me included. Some people get all of their porn through torrent sites, hell I don’t know one single person who pays for their porn. There’s going to be a lot of parents getting letters soon saying they’ve download some hardcore XXX when it was their 14 year old son who did it.[/quote]
Exactly why I just stopped my Barely Legal series torrent.
I can’t believe how insensitive y’all are being to the porn industry. You think the drugs that keep those runaways so fucked up they don’t notice three dicks going in at once come cheap?
Until you can download tranquilizers, you better pay for your porn.
You know, it’s the same story over and over again. Just like Adobe should let young designers download their suite for free, Porn makers should let the 12 year olds download all they want while they have no money to actually spend on porn, because it will raise a generation addicted to the stuff and increase profits down the road. Once these kids have money and move out of momma’s house (assuming that they ever do…) they will surely pay real money for their dick-ridden fix.
Since pornography is a serious criminal offense in many countries with fundamentalist Islamic governments, why is it that those countries are powerless to do anything about seeing the companies put away, while at the same time all countries in the world are being forced to hand over their citizens – who’ve broken no laws in their own country and who never even set foot in America – to the USA government. With the scene leaders going to prison, and al-kaida suspects sent to be tortured in secret ‘black operation’ sites.
get over it humanity is a scam
all this anti-porn torrent talk is only gonna make way for something else.
http://paidandpopular.blogspot.com
Thats why you must download Bens Guide, because then you won’t be tracked and start encrypting your porn, or else the P2P cops are after you.
dear mr leader
may i lead you here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_Protocol#Encryption
just watch it:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
Pornography tarnishes the BitTorrent reputation.
Actually, kuw doesn’t use Logistep in this case, but a different Swiss company. Read more about it here:
http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-432.html
:)
Whew glad i only downloaded 29%/
lol
big fucking deal, so w@rezing will move underground, F2F (friend to friend) like the good old days of hotliine.
fuck ‘em.
screw the casual users who brought attention to the elite.
[quote comment="237640"]dear mr leader
may i lead you here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_Protocol#Encryption/quote
this is useless, it only protects against bandwith throtteling (or man in the middle attacks)
btw there are also some lawyers called “Kanzlei Negele – Zimmel – Kremer , Grueter” who fine german scat porn downloaders xD
[quote comment="237536"]Exactly why I just stopped my Barely Legal series torrent.[/quote]
i got a letter from Schutt & Waetke (lawyers who also work with logistep) 11 months after i downloaded a piece of shit game
Jon B. better be ready for elite. You mess with this group, you won’t be hiding much anymore.
“Mess with the best, die like the rest. Hack the planet.”
[quote comment="237558"]You know, it’s the same story over and over again. Just like Adobe should let young designers download their suite for free, Porn makers should let the 12 year olds download all they want while they have no money to actually spend on porn, because it will raise a generation addicted to the stuff and increase profits down the road. Once these kids have money and move out of momma’s house (assuming that they ever do…) they will surely pay real money for their dick-ridden fix.[/quote]
“Free Porn!”
*Until age 18, when we will have to request you pay us.
[quote comment="237827"][quote comment="237640"]dear mr leader
may i lead you here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_Protocol#Encryption/quote
this is useless, it only protects against bandwith throtteling (or man in the middle attacks)
btw there are also some lawyers called “Kanzlei Negele – Zimmel – Kremer , Grueter” who fine german scat porn downloaders xD[/quote]
ooooooh, ahhhhhh; what a prestigious job you have, sir! I know, I know, sometimes its hard for all of us to find enough serial killers and rapists for each of us to defend in court; that’s why its so great to have copy-written scat porn!!!
Lawyers: scrapin’ the bottom of the barrel since 1372.
That’s bullcrap. Ironic that Americans who claim to stand for all that is good and decent have a law that also protect the profits of ‘immoral’ porn companies.
No wonder all republican politicians are closet homos.
hail youporn.com
“In what appears to be a quickening shift in the porn industry to take legal action against sharers, Jon B., Vice President at porn company Red Light District (who hides his real ID because his family doesn’t know what he does) told the LA Times: “What’s happening in the industry is an unacceptable amount of theft.”"
Ohhh, the hypocrisy …
Guess he won’t stay anonymous much longer if he takes this fight.
Can’t even watch a porn flick when you want to.. worse than marriage :D
[quote comment="238103
Ohhh, the hypocrisy ...
Guess he won't stay anonymous much longer if he takes this fight.[/quote]
Il call his family myself.
I’m glad – even though I don’t like this kind of behavior in general. This could of course have something to do with the fact that I run hardcoretorrents dot com (a LEGAL bittorrent porn site..) and it’s VERY hard to compete with sites who post all kinds of content without having the Copyright-holders permission when you yourself have to get deals with content providers..
do governments really care if we steal porn lol
Once again, please remember it this time… Logistep and their Lawyers have nothing in common with Anti-Piracy.
It is only a simple money gathering system.
Money for the lawyers and Logistep, not hunting down filesharers as a higher goal.
Thanks.
And use the f++king Protocol Encryption, but this will only help against Logistep, not against the company KUW (Kund&Wagner) is working with. This has always been a different one, called “copyright solutions Gmbh”.
Maybe they changed meanwhile and are using the services of Logistep again, but i surpose not, as there are growing logging companies&lawyers in Germany like mushrooms, none of them caring of any proves or evidences, just read the IPs and sending letters demanding money.
By the way, one of the owner of this logging company is Axel Bindan, also activ with his company gonamic.de… who operates the usenet provider Usenext…
All just a big fake to gather money.
[quote comment="238576"]
And use the f++king Protocol Encryption, but this will only help against Logistep, not against the company KUW (Kund&Wagner) is working with. This has always been a different one, called “copyright solutions Gmbh” [/quote]
one more time, protcol encryption is USELESS, only the traffic betweend sender and reciever is encryped, as long as the sender knows who is the reciever and vice versa its possible to log the IP
what nextgen p2p apps need is an sender/receiver obfuscation like I2P or “Freenet”
heres my responce to all of this. send a letter away. i dont give a shit im gonna sit here download my movies and porn and tv shows. and not give a damn about anyone or anything. unless my ISP contacts me over anything. i will continue to do what i do best. fuck anyone else and torrentfreakfor trying to scare me. i got news for u, it dident work
The porn industry should know best when to fuck off.
[quote]one more time, protcol encryption is USELESS, only the traffic betweend sender and reciever is encryped, as long as the sender knows who is the reciever and vice versa its possible to log the IP[/quote]
Definitly not.
1st:
It is better to encrypt so the providers cannot see the exchange, or easily block the protocol.
2nd:
Logistep is using a modified shareza client, without prot. enc., so the connection is disturbed. I don’t know if they updatet their unfailable software meantime, but its better anyway.
3rd:
If you force the encrytion, you connect only to peers who know how to use a client, this may mean less
seed/leechers but safer anyway.
Phew, my mind is exploding from trying to digest that an industry that lives off of exploiting young money and fame hungry sluts for a handful of $$$ while the videos sell for tens of thousands internationally is whining about being exploited in turn…
Oh, oh, irony, oh oh…my pen0r hurts just from thinking about the poor widdle industwee wankiz.
You fuck people over, literally, what do you expect..profit from exploitation, suffer from exploitation..c’est la vie, bia.
In Europe its likely that the companies gathring this informatio are breaking data protection laws, this should be an area any BT user enquires into when confronted by economic terrorism such as practiced by logistep, are they registered with the relevant national authorities ?
If they are not then they are in most cases commiting a criminal offence, something a lot worse than the minor copyright infringement they complain about.
I think it is just as important to express our opinions say at youtube.com or myspace.com
these are a great place to socialize, rant, make friends…
i’ve been there and it is wild as jungle :D
sharing will never die
because people like me never stop sharing
Easy solution – use anonymous bit torrent type client such as dargens (www.dargens.com). It is open source, hides ip address and is very very private while still being fast.
The problem (for some of us) about being caught sharing porn compared to music or Hollywood film is that it is embarrassing.
It also can be so damaging for your reputation (especially in a repressed country like UK) that you would just pay up to avoid publicity.
[quote comment="239175"][quote]one more time, protcol encryption is USELESS, only the traffic betweend sender and reciever is encryped, as long as the sender knows who is the reciever and vice versa its possible to log the IP[/quote]
Definitly not.
1st:
It is better to encrypt so the providers cannot see the exchange, or easily block the protocol.
2nd:
Logistep is using a modified shareza client, without prot. enc., so the connection is disturbed. I don’t know if they updatet their unfailable software meantime, but its better anyway.
3rd:
If you force the encrytion, you connect only to peers who know how to use a client, this may mean less
seed/leechers but safer anyway.[/quote]
1. true
2. Logistep can easily collect all ips from a swarm without connecting ever with another (protocol encryption enabled) client
The real pirates = mpaa, riaa or corporation who owns us like we’re slaves…
down with the tyrants or dictator
freedom for the people.
never stop fighting for our freedom hangs in the balance..
those who attack our rights or constitutional amendment are the real enemy…
We the people can do anything say anything we are not stupid
we are creative and very intelligent
http://www.puretna.com
DEMONOID FOR PORN !!
Fear is a scare tactics
If you no longer then you’re free to do as you please.
Pr0n has turned its back to us.
Boycott pr0n! :D
fuck em, if they want to sue thier customers let em, once we are all in jail, there will be no body left to stock those shelves at your grocery store, to serve you coffee, to pump your gas, to serve your food, or to buy your shitty fucking products,
word of advice….
DON’T FUCK WITH US!
we are everywhere.
Porn = legitimate business.
Scare tactics = legitimate activity.
Uploading and downloading packets = legitimate activity.
All the above may be immoral, arguably and up to some degree, depending on your warped perspective. But they all:
1. Give us great fun and satisfaction.
2. Give us great fun and satisfaction.
3. Give us great fun and satisfaction.
4. Give us great orgasms. Hey, that’s how my balls swing.
[quote comment="237687"]just watch it:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com//quote
jellyfish discriminates Modula-2 stuffs ducked plucky annotate:
[quote comment="237773"]Whew glad i only downloaded 29%/
lol[/quote]
sdfa
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