MediaDefender Emails Disprove MPAA Claims
Written by Ernesto on November 04, 2007Last Month The Pirate Bay filed complaints against some of the key players in the entertainment industry for corrupting and sabotaging their BitTorrent tracker. The MPAA has now responded to these claims and deny that they worked with MediaDefender. Unfortunately for the MPAA, we have proof that they did.
MPAA attorney Espen Tøndel told the Norwegian newspaper Dageblatet that the companies represented by the MPAA never requested MediaDefender to do the things The Pirate Bay claims. This is a lie of course, and there is an archive of leaked emails to back this up.
To give an example, Universal Pictures - a company represented by the MPAA - contracted MediaDefender to protect movies, which basically means that they pollute BitTorrent sites with fake files to make the real files harder to find. There are several emails that prove this, and quotes such as “can you jump all over this swarm and try to kill it?” leave little room for speculation.
Universal Pictures is not the only MPAA movie studio MediaDefender worked for, the emails clearly show that they were also hired by Paramount, 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures. I would suggest Tøndel to go through these emails before making ungrounded claims like this again.
Brokep, one of the Pirate Bay founders told TorrentFreak earlier that they decided to file complaints because they want to make these big media companies aware of their own wrong doings: “I want them to take their crappy methods and stop their wrong-doing. They are going around accusing the pirate community for doing immoral stuff, when they do illegal stuff,” he said.
It will be interesting to see how this case develops. One thing is for sure, it will be hard for these media companies to deny their involvement with these emails as evidence.
Previously: Canadian Study: Piracy Boosts CD Sales
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[quote]First of all, you ARE represented by congress. You pick them, they represent you.[/quote]
No. You pick them, they represent their corporate buddies.
[quote comment="203264"]whats are the laws for evidence in sweden? iirc in america leaked emails can’t be used as evidence because their easily faked. Would they be able to get copies from media defender during discovery or something[/quote]
In Sweden, anything that has come up can be used as evidence outside some very particular circumstances where it cannot. This is called “free evidence gathering”.
If the accused parties wish to argue that the e-mails aren’t genuine, then can certainly do so in court. This sort of argumentation doesn’t have a good history however, considering the “evidence machine” case and all.
(Oh, and the very particular circumstances I mentioned above? Those basically can’t ever apply to you unless you’re a cop, a doctor or a lawyer. The latter two have x-to-client privilege, and the first is an official of the state.)
Cheers Torrentfreak, whatever is going on is going on smooth like Chivas
Angelina Mina
http://www.happy-funtime.blogspot.com
There is actually a lot going on here, much more than first meets the eye. It isn’t just that the MD were engaging in immoral and illegal behaviour, they are functioning within a capitalist logic, and as such not doing anything unusual or unprecedented. The problem with the analysis so far of the MD leak is that it operates within the capitalist logic, and thus explaining the existence of an MD is difficult and problematic. Capitalism is about power, and MD was merely exerting this. If anyone is interested I am currently working on a full interrogation of the leaked texts and a subsequent analysis, implicitly providing a critique of capitalism. It isn’t finished yet, but come December you may want to check out http://iqdupont.com/essays/ .
Well it’s important that we keep an eye on this story, we need to get the whole p2p community involved eventually. The Pirate Bay can’t carry all of the weight!
Two wrongs just don’t make a right.
The MPAA (US Based and focussed) and the MPA (US Based, but Internationally focussed) are Trade Associations, which, although the 6 major Hollywood studios make up the membership, are wholly separate legal entities from those studios. Each entity, trade association and studios, are entitled to act independently to pursue means of anti-piracy, HOWEVER one major exception is that Trade Associations are not allowed by US law to engage in “interdictions” the very kind of services MD sells. Sure every Hollywood studio and most major record labels (RIAA members) contract with firms, including MD, to conduct interdictions, but the trade associations as separate entities, and by their legal nature are strictly prohibited to do likewise by US anti-trust law.
You might see them as one monolith or as a cartel perhaps, but US law sees them differently. I cannot comment on Swedish Law. Nonetheless, what is the real penalty that Universal and the like could face if found in violation of Swedish Law. If it’s just a fine and some embarrassment, perhaps that was part of the risk assessment made by these ‘evil’ capitalists. So, ultimately they see the result as just the cost of doing business.
By the way, Capitalism is about opportunity. Power is about ego. Abuse is abuse. And Idealism has nothing to do with Reality. Thank God everyone is entitled to an opinion…and I’ll take capitalism anytime.
Man this is just like a case where a crack dealer goes to the police because some crackhead owes him money. Its just stupid shit.
[quote comment="203488"]Two wrongs just don’t make a right.[/quote]
3 lefts do though.
Unfortunately, stolen data is not likely to be accepted as evidence in any court of law. Also, emails are plain text that can be easily modified and/or forged entirely. I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but all they need is plausible deniability. To be honest they don’t even need that.
Fortunately, Swedish law is mostly built around justice, not lawyer wars or company interests. This is why the filed complaints are against companies with a swedish presence and thus must abide by swedish law. If you commit a crime, you will be held responsible even if the evidence aginst you was obtained illegally by another criminal - why should you go free if you broke the law? Also, the content was confirmed by MD wasn’t it? So if it isn’t forged it’s as good evidence as the screen dumps the anti piracy organisation used as evidence against a “pirate” recently…
Back to the congress representing us analogy. Isn’t suing the MPAA for something that the people it represents did Kind of like suing congress because a random person (someone they represent) nicked your car?
I think that was the original point trying to be made, not that congress doesn’t represent us.
Have a look at Mediadefender http://mediadefender-defenders.com/
“2007-11-09 11:00 Had a HD crash, new disks are orderd and hopefully will arrive soon!
2007-11-09 14:00 The disks will arrive monday (2007-11-12), so the webserver will be down until then =(
Mail and databases are still up and running. ”
They have just one server? When I was network admin I had mirrored servers. They dont have RAID hard disk arrays to stop data loss if one drive crashes? Tape backups and spare hardware on the shelf?
Amateurs or liars they are.
They have incriminating data files they wish to claim “lost”?
Chosse one from above that seems most likely.
[quote comment="202952"]Never thought that doing something a corporation doesn’t approve of gives them the right to break the law… repeatedly, consistently, and irrevocably[/quote]
Sums it up well
[quote comment="203344"]“which basically means that they pollute BitTorrent sites with fake files to make the real files harder to find.”
that’s illegal?[/quote]
Yes, it’s called cyber crime, and it’s an invasion on the rights and paid activity of untold millions of people.
Class action suits should be organized all over the World on multiple grounds.
Not to mention the fact that if you delete the decoy files, your tracker will get DDOSed, even if your tracker is for legitimate files only.
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