Fearless Digital Pirates Don’t Care About Lawsuits
Written by enigmax on October 13, 2007The year 2005 saw the first person sentenced to prison for sharing a movie. In 2007, the possibility of being fined huge amounts became a reality as a music sharer snared by the RIAA picks up a $222,000 bill. So presumably file-sharers are in hiding? Hardly. This fearless internet breed never stops sharing.
Once it became clear that the ‘Grokster Decision’ was actually a win for file-sharing and not the golden bullet against sharers that the industry had hoped for, it became increasingly clear - sharing was simply not going to go away. Today, if one visits the Grokster site, you’re greeted by this message:
There are legal services for downloading music and movies.
This service is not one of them.YOUR IP ADDRESS IS 83.233.168.134 AND HAS BEEN LOGGED.
Don’t think you can’t get caught. You are not anonymous.
Apart from the fact that I am anonymous (the IP is owned by the anonymous Relakks service), this message is typical of the type of useless scare tactics employed by the industry. Time and again the message is “Don’t think you can’t get caught” and “You are not anonymous” or “You can click but you can’t hide”
Millions upon millions of file sharers are responding to these slogans, not with words, but with actions. They ARE clicking and the vast majority simply don’t care about hiding. It’s true that when you use a standard connection on the internet you aren’t anonymous and of course, it’s certainly possible to ‘get caught’. However, as ever more serious headline-grabbing events come and go, file-sharers are getting wise and making their own risk assessments, probably based on: “I’m clicking every day, they never find me. Or any of my friends. Or their friends.”
When Scott McCausland and a handful of other people went to jail for uploading a pre-release movie in 2005, the industry put out the message: You will go to jail for sharing. Well, it’s 2007 now and surprise, surprise - no one else did. It was a special case, it doesn’t apply to 99.99% of file-sharers and it’s useless in the battle against them.
Today in 2007, we hear about Jammie Thomas, the most famous of the 26,000 recipients of legal action at the hands of the RIAA. Sure, she really got hammered with that huge fine and it will deter some from sharing, but the overwhelming majority either haven’t heard about the case or don’t think they’ll be caught - and they could be forgiven for thinking that.
Even if we super over-compensate and say that 100,000 people worldwide had legal action taken against them (it’s nowhere near), this number pales into insignificance when put alongside the conservative estimate of 100 million worldwide file-sharers. Furthermore, take away the legal actions in the United States and the chances of being ‘caught’ edge ever closer to zero. The odds of being ‘caught’ in the rest of the world aren’t quite zero but they’re substantially slimmer than in the States.
Whatever the reality, it’s the perception that really matters and the perception among file-sharers is that while they’re downloading the latest blockbuster movies or millions of TV shows every single week, the chances of being ‘caught’ are close to zero. Therefore the chances of paying a ‘fine’ are close to zero and the chance of going to jail, closer still.
So maybe digital pirates aren’t fearless, brave or even reckless. Maybe they just like to gamble when the odds are hugely - massively - tipped in their favor.
Previously: Anti-Piracy Organization Domain IFPI.com Now Owned by The Pirate Bay
Next: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk41)
109 Responses
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 » Show All
[quote comment="186707"]13yearoldwrote
Yap ! I Knew That Too .. And Once I Visited Edonkey site (to Download the client ) .. .And I saw .. My IP was Blah .. It was logged Blah .. Piracy is Bad Blah Blah …
I just dont care !
LimeWire/FrostWire, Mininova , piratebay and isohunt …. these are enough for me ..
uhh, you do realize that the faggot RIAA closed down isohunt, right?[/quote]
I can still access isohunt and when i read the news it said they blocked access to all US visitors ..
Im Not in US And Sorry For My English .. Im Sure There Will Be a dozen of spelling and grammar mistakes. .
IsoHunt is still accessible to users in the U.S. HOWEVER, the trackers that are run by IsoHunt are not. You can still search from the hundreds of other trackers that IsoHunt indexes, but you can’t connect to those that they control directly.
I’m from Europe (Romania, to be precise). I am never anonymous.
I have had social fobia and other illness for many years and internet has become my means of input.
I get help 2 times a week just to be able to do things, like buy food and get out of my flat.
So i could care more about smacking a fly to the wall then worry about getting cought making my life more enjoyable :D
And many flies have i smacked..
Seriously i see pirating as a equalizer, the rich artist drug addicts that spend 45mill in a few months partying (Lohan news lol) gets a mutch needed reality check, why support REAL criminals??
They dont deserve support if they need to resolve to criminal actions.
We pirates dont do anything criminal, friends share music with me and i with them.
Its absurd how that is spread by lobby organisations as being more criminal then buying and using drugs, their clients even skip jail times and punishments for their criminal actions.
WHO wants to support sutch things? sure smoking some weed aint to bad! but realy just for the sake of “criminal” pointing..
Lobby organisations and their clients are more criminals then we will ever be for sharing our property with our friends.
I support Radiohead and their idea, thats the future, their adapting to the world and not forcing world+dog to adapt to them.
I donated to their paypal and didnt even download their music, giving away money for a cause is alot easier then giving it away to have it get used for drugs by the artist or terrorism from the artists record labels lobby organisation..
If you Americans really care about these issues, you should encourage everyone you know to vote for Ron Paul for President. Don’t let his Republican affiliation fool you! He is actually a Libertarian (he ran for President as one in 1988), but third parties have zero chance of being elected in America, and coming from Texas he had a better chance running for Congress as a Republican as well. Party affiliations are just labels; the overall message of his campaign is FREEDOM in every form, from social to economic. I know many Democrats who have registered as Republicans purely to vote for Ron Paul, and will be changing back afterwards — that’s how strong his message is. Don’t be fooled by the Clinton message; dependence on Big Government to fix all your problems is NOT freedom, it is Socialism.
gestapo tactics
Arrggg……I never let them see me IP address unless me Parrot says its OK argg!!!!
Ahoy matees!
torrent freak, please try to answer me this — i’ve always been curious, if you get caught in a worst case scenario situation like jammie thomas, and are to be charged for several thousand dollars PER pirated song/movie . . . can’t you just argue that a substantial amount of the songs/movies you were involved in pirating are available for FREE at the local library?
I’ve seen literally 1000s of free movies thanks to the library free rental service, so i would think that unless the cd or movie being downloaded is relatively new, it shouldn’t even be illegal in the first place when the library also offers the files for free.
obviously when you download you get the movie or song permanently, so it’s not the same thing as a harmless week long rental for free, but i dont see why the most excessive penalty for downloading older material isn’t forcing a deletion of the file and a small fine at most.
i would appreciate it if you could give me a layered answer on how this is or isn’t the right expectations of the legal matter to have, and how close it is to the legal truth. i realize that downloading a movie that’s still in box office is pretty much a blatent crime, but other than that i think most cases shouldn’t even be illegal at all. please help me better understand the current laws and their reasonings.
thank you. keep up the good torrent reporting work!
They want to put us all in prison for downloading then I hope they are ready to copy the movie escape from LA. No prison is ever gonna be able to hold Millions.
I was wondering when TorrentFreak might write an article mentioning the shocking news about that poor single Mom file-sharer getting whacked for $222,000! They eventually came out with a good article.
I notice “Relakks” gets mentioned
here and also in the article on
how to file share anonymously.
But Relakks charges $.
Many of us would prefer FREE anonymity.
-If I use some of the many other free proxy sites instead, am I LESS safe than if I used Relakks?
[quote comment="187144"]if you get caught in a worst case scenario situation like jammie thomas, and are to be charged for several thousand dollars PER pirated song/movie . . . can’t you just argue that a substantial amount of the songs/movies you were involved in pirating are available for FREE at the local library?[/quote]
Absolutely not. It’s the unauthorized (attempted/actual) uploading/distribution of copyright works which is the problem, legally. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the availability of copyright material elsewhere.
[quote comment="187164"]I notice “Relakks” gets mentioned
here and also in the article on
how to file share anonymously.
But Relakks charges $.
Many of us would prefer FREE anonymity.
-If I use some of the many other free proxy sites instead, am I LESS safe than if I used Relakks?[/quote]
Anonymity for free is available - FAST anonymity for free, is generally not.
Most proxy sites are good for browsing other sites. However, most don’t make your sharing anonymous, especially if its a web based service.
don’t let the government use fear to control you.
You’re all a bunch of Nazis. You’re stealing, and justifying that it’s not wrong just because a lot of other people seem to be marching to the same tune.
Stop stealing. It’s immoral.
Sharing music is not analogous to killing innocent people, I hope IRL you really don’t think they are the same.
In the world of business, technology innovation changes supply and demand. Either the music companies adapt and lose their gay prices, or they can be left behind while more and more ways of sharing music are invented
karlfet (41) wrote:
> And to compare changing copyright law to that which was changed by sitting at the front of the bus just shows how greey filesharers are–to even dare compare validating copyright infringement with human equality rights shows exactly how cheep and out of whack your argument is. Someone else has written and recorded the music you so love to get for free, but they do own it. How about *you* write, record, market and advertise some music which then gets freely distributed by millions of greedy little “it’s my right-ists” and then I will take you opinion seriously.
I don’t know if this guy is serious or just yanking our chain, but he very well COULD be serious, so I’ll answer.
If you think this way, get the fuck out of music.
I write and record music, and I’m totally fine with it being shared/”pirated”. I encourage people to copy my music as much as possible. And looking around, I keep finding again and again among people who:
1) actually make music/art and KNOW what it’s like, and
2) are not entrenched, i.e. they’re not some big-shot major-label act selling 10,000 CDs a month,
that most of them feel the same way and WANT their music shared.
Anyway, the answer for you is quite simple. If something gets released (and anyone cares), people will copy and share it. Don’t like what happens to music that gets released? Don’t release music.
I won’t miss it. I suspect that you’re not that good of a musician to begin with if you have this back-asswards attitude. People voluntarily support music they actually like.
There are legal services for downloading music and movies.
This service is not one of them.
YOUR IP ADDRESS IS 209.200.19.180 AND HAS BEEN LOGGED.
Don’t think you can’t get caught. You are not anonymous.
….Well no Dude! This IP address is not mine cause I use a proxy LOL!!!
[quote]You’re all a bunch of Nazis. You’re stealing, and justifying that it’s not wrong just because a lot of other people seem to be marching to the same tune.[/quote]
The word stealing is not applicable on the internet where things are COPIED and SHARED, not stolen.
Why do you hate freedom?
F**K you rich ass FBI+RIAA, we all not even in your dump country, catch we if u can, jail we if you can even see me, catch we and we will boom your ass back to stone age, thoese jerk that you catch, is a moron in the year of 2003, we not even use stupid windows, how could you think could possible find us all?????????
Fearless Digital Pirates Don’t Care About Lawsuits because most of them are either 1) kids, and/or 2) got nothing to lose, and/or 3) intentionally want to pick a fight with the big old fat idiot
you can’t take money from someone who hasn’t got it, and most of us who don’t have it know a court cannot take what we dont have. fine me $500,000 and i will pay you $1 a week forever
and in addition to the fact i will spit on every dollar as i hand it to the cashier at the court house, it is gonna cost you more to collect because you never gonna recover your legal fees nevermind the rest
what kind of a joke is this? the most illegal thing most people ever do it speed in their car and download a mp3. the **AA is educating the people in how to disrespect the law … guys when you are in a hole stop digging! honestly i dont think they are in control of themselves
I just clicked one zillion time on the link just for fun! Oops! I clicked again! Hooo! I clicked again and again! Oops again!
Every one click on it again for fun!
They can sue me for 10$ or one zillion gazillion dollars will not make any difference.
I will not pay.
The parasites will get zip. I have nothing and they can seize nothing!
What’s a pack of Morons!
I am a professional DJ and I was browsing torrent websites when I found, to my surprise MY MUSIC on a torrent website!
I was so happy, Its great that people like my music enough to share it!
Ahh,
what would we do without the media mafias suits (law and otherwise) ?
We’d still be using Napster or FTP-like download sites.
And without all the free advertising our numbers were relatively small and so would be the content diversity.
In fact, for filesharing as a whole the lawsuits were a blessing.
There is nothing better than a hungry wolfpack to drive forward evolution.
Today we are on the brink of widespread anonymous and fast p2p networks (a BIG soutout to the media mafia) and the wolves are facing extinction.
:)
Well, a few rabbits got eaten.
That’s life.
I wouldn’t even steal content from the RIAA or MPAA anymore after the Jammie Thomas decision - forcing a single parent to pay 3-4x her annual wages? Why do people want their trash? The best way to make the RIAA and MPAA go away is to ignore them. Don’t listen to or watch their content. Get a life.
[quote comment="186707"]
uhh, you do realize that the faggot RIAA closed down isohunt, right?[/quote]
uhh, you do realize that no they didn’t…isohunt came back…promptly.
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 » Show All
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.