Court Orders Expert Opinion in P2P Leecher Mod Case
Written by enigmax on August 14, 2009A women received a demand for 700 euros after an anti-piracy company claimed she had shared pornographic material on the Internet. However, she was using a so-called ‘leecher mod’, which means her P2P client never uploaded anything. Now a court is calling for an expert witness to dissect the supposed evidence against her.
In 2008, a German woman was wrongfully accused of distributing a pornographic movie via eD2K. She was using eMule in conjunction with what is commonly known as a ‘leecher mod’ – an addon to file-sharing software which stops the client from uploading material back to the Internet.
Using a mod like this means that no offense of distribution could have been carried out. Indeed, as we pointed out in our earlier report, the stats from her client showed no evidence of uploading, despite an uptime of 924 days.
The lawyers who sent the cease and desist (and a demand for 700 euros) didn’t withdraw the claims after she protested her innocence, so she took advice, went to court and filed suit against the rightsholder.
Unfortunately the judge in the case has no idea about IT issues and wants to have an independent witness examine the software used by anti-piracy tracking company Media Protector. Experts don’t come cheap and this one is set to cost 5,000 euros.
This is believed to be the first time that a neutral expert witness has had the opportunity to examine the software of an anti-piracy company in Germany. So, together with filesharing lawyer Dr. Wachs, Verein gegen den Abmahnwahn e.V and Initiative Abmahnwahn-Dreipage, our friends at news site Gulli have started a donation drive to raise the funds.
Lawyer Dr. Wachs has kindly given the woman 3,000 euros towards the expert but a further 2,000 must be raised via donations. Hopefully this amount can be achieved as engaging the skills of the expert witness will provide a golden opportunity to see exactly how these systems operate and have their shortcoming revealed in court.
Anyone wishing to contribute can do so here (bank details at bottom of article)
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75 Responses
And so the Kangaroo Court has spoken! LOL
RT
http://www.anon-web-tools.net.tc
I don’t know what is more suprising that a judge is not taking the word of the big corp experts and using a person that is not paid for by either side so has an unbiased view point on what is going on or the fact it took so long for this to finally happen
link for her shared material pls
EPIC WIN for sanity.
Even though the bitch didn’t share!
Dirty Leacher! :P
Serves her right for leeching.
#6, I think you missed the point.
Nice to see a judge wise up. Sad that this woman is essentially paying the fees for all of us to indemnify ourselves, so we should provide our couple dollars accordingly.
Yeah it does make a good change for a judge to realise that he is out of his depth. But as for the woman having to fork out money isn’t really any different from any other court case and shouldn’t be seen as such. Any case that goes to court usually has to have someone pay something. I don’t know about German law, but in some countries its often the case for the loosing party to have to pay court costs, court costs usually cover the expenses of the winner. Thats how it works in the U.K. Hopefully this will be the same.
Why is the defendant paying for a neutral expert? In normal legal systems the defendant only pays if the expert is defending him/her. The court or the plaintiff who is making the accusation should have to pay for the expert.
But either way she is a bloodsucker who doesn’t deserve to be helped by anyone if she even refuses to have the decency to upload to people who upload to her.
These leechers are worse than the RIAA. I have no sympathy for here.
Some of you have got to be kidding me…
Are you so small of mind that you can’t get past the fact of her leaching, enough to see that she’s become a critical pawn in this fight? Are you really so dimwitted as to throw this battle for petty spite??
You don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. It just doesn’t work.
The funds are needed.
We have an opportunity to GET A LOOK INTO THE WORKINGS OF AN ANTI-PIRACY COMPANY’S SOFTWARE SYSTEM.
I don’t care if she’s a ham sandwich eatin Jew, or a birthday celebratin Jehovah’s Witness, or a non-sharing leacher, or democrat or a republican or a an atheist or worse. Hell, she could be George W. Bush’s puppeteer for all I care. We NEED a look into the software. A few dollars from each of us WILL GET THAT DONE. I don’t give a rat’s ass who she is. Neither should you.
We need this battle. We need to take this ridge.
Fight first with your head; THEN with your heart.
Who cares if she leeched. There is something good that has come of this, and that far outweighs the fact that she was a leecher.
useless . don’t waste your time and money .
@Jack
$2000 is not very much considering how much she has to pay her lawyers anyway or how much she would have to pay if she loses.
This is not about to examine or not to examine. This is about whether a community who is being shafted by someone should support that person.
The expert will be hired regardless and that’s the point that you’re missing. But it is she who should pay, not the community of p2p which she cheated and undermined.
“These leechers are worse than the RIAA. I have no sympathy for here.”
Oh Come On! Nobody is worst than the RIAA/MPAA companies, save for things such as El Quada the Israeli and Iranian governements to name a few.
Fortunatly we have her to fuck the entertainment parasites!
Do you know that only few percent of sharers are needed to fully supply a p2P network? So we can afford a lot of leechers.
beside it is way better to leech than to go out and give money to these gansters.
We should recomand people to Leech instead of giving business to these corporate terrorists.
You see once these entertainment parasites are gone they will be no need for leeching.
Think about that!
@Jeff
TL:DR
cuntbucket
such ignorant idiots here…
sometimes i realy think you all deserve the punishment from who ever (riaa/mpaa & co)
this is an unique chance to see which kind of software media protector use to derivate the ip’s of alleged filesharers (which eventually can be used _against_ those companies!!!) and only thing you stupid bastards are able to write about is “…damn leechers…whine…blabla…”
“sharing is caring”
cannot see none of that here…egoistic teenie-bunch
Would be hilarious if the porno she ’shared’ was something like “I f*** midgets” or “Big Black Cocks 12″ lol.
Imagine listening to a judge say in court the name of some vile or filthy porno while trying to keep a straight face.
retards saying this is a great opportunity to get a glance into the software, do you not think the ‘expert’ would have to sign his life away on confidentiality? Plus no real ‘expert’ is going to share any knowledge of it.
Basically all he is going to do is go to the company, look over their records, tactics and software, then go back to court and say whether he believes the charges are accurate or not. They are NOT going to explain in court any trade secrets.
Hey guys, you´re missing some elementary points.
#11 (Jack) is totally right. I´ll get through some points of the comments.
#9, Ralph:
Why is the defendant paying for a neutral expert? In normal legal systems the defendant only pays if the expert is defending him/her. The court or the plaintiff who is making the accusation should have to pay for the expert.
Obviously you have absolutely no knowledge about german jurisdiction and haven´t even read this really great article from enigmax. The plaintiff has already paid an expert for her pc. The defendant (defendant -> anti piracy company) has also paid an expert. But both experts are privat-paid. Their opinion is therefore absolutely worthless for the judge. So he ordered: “Plaintiff, pay 5k Euros and i send an neutral court expert to MediaProtector to examine the Software, so that we can see whats going on.”
#14, Jeff
$2000 is not very much considering how much she has to pay her lawyers anyway or how much she would have to pay if she loses.
This is not about to examine or not to examine. This is about whether a community who is being shafted by someone should support that person.
The expert will be hired regardless and that’s the point that you’re missing. But it is she who should pay, not the community of p2p which she cheated and undermined.
It´s 5.000 EURO (not US-Dollar! Big difference!). The expert WILL NOT be hired if she can´t bring up the 5.000 Euros. Get this straight: Not the Anti-Piracy Company is the plaintiff, SHE is the Plaintiff! SHE is sueing THEM! If she can´t afford the 5.000 Euros (about 7.000 US-Dollar) the case ends on 28. August with nothing. The defendant can keep going on as normal, she has to carry all the costs und a chance to examine the so secret software of an anti-piracy company is gone. Nothing more, nothing less.
Thx to all the others who got things right. Especially to enigmax who was willing to inform the public about this step. For further questions, follow the last link in the article or feel free to mail me.
Oh come on its porn.. seriously..
so ridiculous..
@11 im right behind you man.. so you’ve donated right?
Wow! A useful leecher!
How many inocents have been found guilty with this so called evidence?
Oh come on, I bet $1000 that all of you have leeched at least once in your time. The moment you download an mp3 or vid or app from Rapidshare etc then you are leeching. Get over it you spiteful hipocryptes.
Somepeople here think they are GOD almighty. Nope your just a leecher like everyone else.
Now how can we make sure that we identify how the Anti-App works
@19
Her lawyer has already payed 3000 euros. Considering the average salary in Germany, 2000 is not that much.
Your premise -that we should give her money because if not an expert won’t examine the software- is false.
She WILL pay out of her own pocket if people don’t send her money.
Spend your money on something useful. My contribution to p2p is the $50 a month I spend on a seed box. If you have a few bucks to donate to the p2p cause, hire a good seed-box.
Leeching is just the way it is now..Look at all the metered connections that are out there.there are millions of people who cant even seed back anymore. I leech the shit out of stuff.So what Fuck you I say. Awesome epic battle going on I hope she breaks it off in the ass of her acuser. Leech Leech Leech Its just the way it is…
or rent one…
Help this case, we need to stop MediaProtector!!!
Some of the users here on TF are morons. You are so close-minded that you can’t see past the leeching. Sometimes, I feel ashamed to call myself a file sharer.
The fact that she was leeching doesn’t matter a damn. What does matter, however, is that we could finally get a good look at the anti-piracy group’s inner workings.
@26, Jeff
No idea what you think the average salary is in germany. She´s a normal employee. Perhaps she could get the money in six months. But theres only a time-windows until end of august.
She won´t pay because of a simple reason. She can´t. It´s a chance that can be taken.
yeh im not donating to a leecher. its the rest of us who pick up her slack just so she can try get off easy in court.
Best scenario? You all donate towards her expert and then he finds her culpable for taking without paying for online merchandise intended for sale, which is exactly what she did, regardless of whether she uploaded or not.
Could happen. Fingers crossed!
At least she’s standing up and suing the MAFIAA, which is more then can be said for all those “good sharers” who simply cough up the extortion fee.
So that’s got to be worth something, if only just for the entertainment factor!
This is not America, shalalala…
Hmm. Not best culprit for P2P cause. Still interesting case and I think I may donate a little just for a reason of being tired from bs that right holders do in court. Like in this case accusing for distribution even tough she was not distributing (according to her words of being leecher).
So can someone point me to how to donate? On site there is such info:
Empfänger: Spendenkonto Dr. Wachs
Kontonummer: 649988854
Verwendungszweck: Gegengutachten
Bankleitzahl: 20030000
Institut: Bayerische HypoVereinsbank ex Vereins und Westbank
Can someone translate as I am not shore what is what. Would be good if it was some kind of found-riser and not personal expert bank account number (what it seems to be).
924 days uptime i would like to see her rig are you sure you got the uptime right? uptime being from when the computer/program was first started till shutdown thats nearly 3 years. Even so she should still have to pay both parties should have to. and after 3 years of solid leeching 2000 euro isnt nothing compaired to what she saved by being a leech
DONT DONATE why the hell should we help her when 1 none of us know her personally 2 shes a leecher its not like she is even a file sharer she is a taker i could understand if she was hsaring for 3 yers solid but she didnt all she did was take take take and thats her whole argument that she didnt share. so yeah go ahead and pay for a leecher when there are 100’s of REAL file sharers out there. if you really want to help someone give the donations to the people that have been fined by the riaa/mpaa like that single mom or that mix tape dude this women doesnt deserve your money as she hasnt helped the sharing scene in anyway.
There are legit reasons for using leecher mods, for instance, ISP monitoring traffic, downloading stuff in a country where UL is illegal but DL isnt
Anyway, I dont care who I share with, If they go on to upload something to me that I want or they never upload ever again, I dont care as long as I can download and share
http://www.scientology-cult.com/secret-history-of-david-miscavige.html
It’s well known that these companies simply log the IP addresses from the ed2k queue and declare all those IPs as infringing. No matter that when queue times are very long, many people give up waiting and log off eMule (and get the file by other means) and in their time on the network never downloading or uploading a single byte of the file they are accused of “trafficing”.
@36 Aug 14, 2009 at 19:26 by wonderwhy-er
Translation
Empfänger: Spendenkonto Dr. Wachs
recipient: donation account Dr. Wachs
Kontonummer: 649988854
account number
Verwendungszweck: Gegengutachten
designated use: counter assessment
Bankleitzahl: 20030000
bank code number
Institut: Bayerische HypoVereinsbank ex Vereins und Westbank
bank: ..
““These leechers are worse than the RIAA. I have no sympathy for here.”
Oh Come On! Nobody is worst than the RIAA/MPAA companies, save for things such as El Quada the Israeli and Iranian governements to name a few. ”
Really? The only freely democratically elected government in the middle east, that has a ministry of communications that has taken a positive stance on net neutrality (upheld it when it was discovered that a cell provider was blocking VoIP on its 3G internet packages), has equal rights for all its citizens (no matter what ethnicity, race, sexual orientation ect.), that has/ a provision in its copyright laws that copying a tape and giving it to a friend is OK, that helps keep you safe whenever you fly on an airplane (no, not the retarded TSA checks), that helps 3rd world countries with irrigation and farming is worse than the RIAA/MPAA and equal to or worse than the terrorist group Al-Quaida and the brutal fanatical Islamic regime in Iran? Give me a break and get a clue.
I was planning on donating but I really don’t know what to do with her bank account and stuff. She should have made it easy and setup a paypal donation.
Media Porn Protector !
She could of saved herself 5,000e by using a proper iP blocklist and firewall. I’m guessing she wasn’t using either. I’d rather give my money to my w33d dealer :P Leech to live….mane.
Women download porn? That’s one uglyass chick.
surely the whole point of what this person is trying to do is to show that there are a lot of possibly falsely accused people, not just her, that are denied the right of proving it, because, although the courts allow the copyright industry to have an endless number of ‘expert witnesses’ and so called evidence, to back up their accusations, the actual accused is not allowed to call expert witnesses on their own behalf. that, coupled with the lack of knowledge and understanding that the court seems to have of how the internet and in particular, file sharing works, puts the accused on an immediate loser. hopefully, it will also expose once and for all that the methods used to obtain the ‘evidence’ are seriously flawed. just because the copyright industries have an endless supply of money, certainly doesn’t mean that they should be able to pick on the most vulnerable members of the public, particularly when nothing has been physically stolen, simply copies have been made.
i am willing to seed for her
surprising their willing to sue someone over a porn vid, and their only seeking a 700$ fine. this seems to me like a huge waste of resources,time and money. this case looks to be completely ridiculous when observed with common sense.
one porn video for 700$? court costs are going to be 3,4 times that much,even before the “special examiner”.
what a waste. i feel sorry for her as shes now been publicly exposed as a horny leecher.
hope some good comes from all this as a womans name has now been smeared for a lousy 700 euros.
Jesus, some of the posters on here are driving me mental. Can people please READ the article properly. SHE is taking THEM to court! She gets a letter asking her to pay 700 euros, she says she never uploaded, they don’t back off, so she sues them! She says she has proof that she didn’t upload. but is still accused of doing so by “reputable forensic experts”, so non of this “leechers are scum” crap, please!
and @ 49, SHE has exposed herself. That takes a lot of guts. Could you do that?
to @43 Second that…
Even after translation it does not seem as mm easy to use adress to send money. Not shore how it is there but here bank account numbers written two letter for counter 4 letters for bank + account number. Not even shore how to send anything there on such info. Also as I am not from Germany it may cost me more to send it then I want to donate… Kind of waste of money…
@ 2 Aug 14, 2009 at 15:12 by Arb
That’s what came to mind. Words failed me hahaha.
Epic win indeed.
I’m seeding for her too, so now donate up, you bunch of hypocrites.
And if you download from me, enjoy!
My man pawned me out to her with her leeching machine.. It hurt my butthole..
Not sure of the rulings in Germany, but couldn’t a win here establish some sort of precedent for future cases for pro file sharing or at least kick the anti-piracy butt a little?
At least she’s suing back instead of yielding like most others have.
This is too WTF for me to have any comment.
No comment.
Just give me an ISBN account number and money is on the way..
You leech, you lose.
And people still doubt that the internet is for porn LoL
There’s no expert willing to do this pro-bono for the precedent? Lame.
as long as there are compu-tarded people… the justice will not be served properly
Wow, i guess a lot of people still need to be educated about computers
Even if the Media Protector software is examined the details won’t necessarily be made public, all we’ll be told is the courts opinion on whether or not the evidence it supplied was applicable in this case.
Yeah, I can’t wait for the next generation of judges and such who understand technical things. Of course, by then technology will have advanced even further and they’ll be outdated again. We need people who can keep up with the times.
Fuck her! I really hope she lose the case and need to pay a big bill!
DiE FUCKiNG Leecher!
So, will she get the 5000 euro back when she wins the case?
Else it seems a bit silly to pay an expert 5000 euro, instead of just paying that anti-piracy company 700 euro.
BTW, why does the woman has to proof she is not guilty? I though the anti-piracy company had to prove she was. And if her leecher mod was working, they can’t.
just replace the old judge with a tech savvy younger judge
I sure hope the pirates of today can strive towards greatness and in the future make biased decisions against those damned copyright whores.
TPB judge was biased!
Yet all you who download from Hotfile etc., don’t consider yourselves leechers? Think about it.
No way I’m giving money to a leecher. ;)
Or she takes the 2 grand and then some, pays off the 700 euros and calls it a day – Nothing worth pirating in the past year and a half anyway.
damn u leecher, sharing is caring!!
No money to u woman
She’s a damned cheat who’d be banned from any private tracker lol
39 Aug 14, 2009 at 19:59 by Anonymous
There are legit reasons for using lecher mods, for instance, ISP monitoring traffic, downloading stuff in a country where UL is illegal but DL inst
Anyway, I don’t care who I share with, If they go on to upload something to me that I want or they never upload ever again, I don’t care as long as I can download and share
A lecher is (i am defining as such) someone who takes from a network that has to have sharing by peers to exist & not ever giving back.
If everyone was this, there would be no network.
If a program is designed as a leacher program such as newsgroups, cool. Only then should one leach instead of leaching off of networks that require users to share to stay alive.
Even sharing anything at all is better than nothing at all.
Just to think that there are many more of these “bad” lechers out there, so sad.
Thankfully, this will hopefully help file sharers in some way with this court case. Hopefully someone will tell this chick that leaching is bad and she should be ashamed of herself also. She should also be required to upload for “924 days or use a emule (ed2k client seed box). These seed boxes are rare as so it seems but they are available just like bt seed boxes.
People don’t leach!!
63 Aug 15, 2009 at 14:16 by Necrowizard
So, will she get the 5000 euro back when she wins the case?
Else it seems a bit silly to pay an expert 5000 euro, instead of just paying that anti-piracy company 700 euro.
BTW, why does the woman has to proof she is not guilty? I though the anti-piracy company had to prove she was. And if her lecher mod was working, they can’t.
http://forum.emule-project.net/index.php?showtopic=135083
emule seedbox one of 3.
I think OvernetUser on slyck.com may know. Maybe when the emule section gets updated again (sites) on slyck, he will post the seedbox providers for the ed2k network like he did for bittorrent.
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