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Retired Fireman Caught Pirating Avatar

Police have used a new file-sharing tracking system to hunt down a man sharing the movies Avatar and Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The 62-year-old pensioner and retired fireman wasn’t the first uploader of either movie. He has admitted sharing 500 movies in the last 4 years.

After the introduction of a new file-sharing monitoring system this year, Kyoto Prefectural Police Crime Prevention Office Tech 31 in Japan appeared to have snared their first victim.

Following an investigation which began January 1st, a retired fireman was arrested in Shizuoka on March 31st on allegations he uploaded the movies Avatar and Percy Jackson and the Olympians last year using the “Share” software.

Sato Mori, a 62 year-old who worked in Numazu City, was tracked down after the new system identified him as an uploader of the movies. Although the system is said to be able to find ‘first releasers’ – individuals who are the first to put new material on the Internet – this man appears to be innocent of that offense.

Mori apparently obtained the movies from other file-sharing systems and uploaded them using “Share,” a file-sharing application which claims to hide ones identity, on December 20, 2009 at 4:30pm.

“I wanted everyone to be a happy film lover,” he reportedly told police.

In addition to the two sample movies, police say that Mori admitted uploading a further 500 movies during the last 4 years. It is unknown what kind of sentence the retired fireman will be facing for the alleged offences.

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  • Kmaid

    I feel sorry for the guy. Hes clearly going to be made an example of and should never have admitted that he had uploaded 500 films. I wish him good luck.

  • Widget

    From what I understand, this has nothing to do with Torrents. Share looks like it takes a Darknet approach combined with tripcode keys used on some imageboards.

    Also, this is like the 15th arrest or so related to using Share in Japan. And when they said “first releaser” it could even be seen as simply referring to the first person to release to a specific protocol, and it looks like he did admit to being the first to distribute it through that method.

  • Anonymous

    Oh noes… Japan is doing it now too. ;_; Animu stuff won’t be distributed as openly anymore once they start getting in to it.

  • Fukpirates

    You’re stealing things!! Why do you pirate things?!?

  • Fugasmic

    Why would the daft dod admit to uploading more than he had been accused of. Even if he has 500 movies in his pocession, he should never have admitted uploading them, actually he should never have admitted uploading anything, period.

  • dncholas

    I doubt they will do much to him, after all the movies were mostly made in the US because Japanese movies suck. Why would Japan even care about copywrite laws for some US whore movie company?

  • hmm

    ooh, the japanese police is going all out arresting “criminals”
    LMFAO

    looks like the “anonymity” part of the app failed big time

  • dannyboy

    It’s Japans way of licking the US ass, oh oh we’ll do everything your omama bin bastard wants!!

  • Zush

    #6
    You’ve never heard about Takeshi Kitano or Akira Kurosawa.

  • Deman
  • Whatever

    Why would anyone admit 250 times more than actually charged for. One to about 10 more might be reasonable in some circumstances. Also there are not too many people being able to remember how many they shared over 4 years with those kind of numbers so it may probably have been a police tactic like: “Just admit you shared 500 movies in the last 4 years” (after a difficult day without a lawyer).

    Checking the wikipedia page, i conclude that the “Share” application only encrypts the data and does not hide any identity (data is not routed through multiple clients). Worse, it has IDs “to verify the identity of a person sharing the file”.

    A bit offtopic…
    Any anonimity system should have at least the following:
    - huge number of users
    - encrypted
    - send data/requests only to the next node without info on source or destination (only previous and next node)
    - encrypted caches of data without keys
    - seperate hash and decryption key caches for data where the data itself is not.
    - Open source to make sure it stays safe.

    Something like freenet but in this case one cannot decrypt their own cache without owning the whole P2P network.

  • encrypt

    Encrypt everything. No evidence, no conviction.

  • Sendaii

    Damn. I feel for him, but he shouldn’t have admitted anything. At least, not until his solicitor was available.

  • Dexter

    old man goes for Gold….

    dont worry old man, god of pirates will keep you safe….

    :D

  • Media Crow

    Media bloatware imho. It makes no sense the guy would admit (and remember) he uploaded 500 movies when he was busted because of 2…

  • unknow

    poor old man :(

  • Dia

    I’d like to see a torrentfreak article on different “anonymous” p2p networks.

  • Jo Manny

    Wow that sucks. Dude seriously needs to learn how to properly mask his IP address.

    Zipper
    anon-resources.at.tc

  • Barry

    “Kyoto Prefectural Police Crime Prevention Office Tech 31″

    Talk about a long-winded name for an organisation :s

  • Anon

    Use your neighbors wifi. Laugh hysterically when the MPAA goes after more innocent people.

  • Sendaii

    @20 Anon: Or just use a VPN and save an innocent person a lot of expense and pain, you douche.

  • markie

    Going after pensioners now. And a retired fireman no doubt. How low will these companies sink.

  • bleh

    Share has been cracked long ago. PerfectDark also is said to have been cracked and no longer protects your identity, Taichou, it’s time to come up with something else ^^

  • bleh

    Kaichou*
    We really need an edit function

  • slap

    @4

    obvious troll is obvious…

  • Trelew

    Sadly Big Business knows no borders and respects no authority but their own. They will bribe governments to do what they want, corrupt courts for their “show” trials, and abuse the media to spread their corporate propaganda. What a sad world we live in.

  • roger wilco

    Rule #1

    Never admit to anything ever. Ever.

    EVER.

    When they say ‘Anything you say can and will be used against you’. There is no ‘Anything you say can be used to help you’.

    NOTHING YOU SAY CAN HELP YOURSELF WHEN BEING ARRESTED. NOTHING.

    NOTHING!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik

    Great video explaining from a lawyer and cop what to do.

  • Chatney

    #4

    I travel the world quite a bit supporting troops. I used to buy everything many many years ago, but when then it all changed.

    1) Media companies massively increase cost of DVD’s. At one point they were 10GBP then all of a sudden it’s 17GBP or more for new releases yet in the US it’s really cheaper than NAAFI/UK. Why apart from to rip us off.

    2) Most stuff is available elsewhere but not here.

    3) Good old region codes, designed to rip off people and prevent me buying a DVD in one county and playing the DVD in another country.

    Rip and convert to Divx, I can play in any county on any of my devices I like.

  • PLASMARIFLE

    another sad day in the piracy universe.
    what are the odds this retired fireman will turn to morphine to ”cope”?

  • hmm

    “In addition to the two sample movies, police say that Mori admitted uploading a further 500 movies during the last 4 years.”

    Interesting… can they actually charge him for those 500 though?

    For example… If I get caught by the police sharing an ounce of cocaine with people on the street and I tell the police I’ve had 500 ounces of that this year and shared it with others… can they really go after me for the other 500 ounces that I claimed to have obtained and shared?

  • Ninja

    wow, jailing a retired fireman, a person that must have saved lives and helped many people. Truly a major criminal.

    Disgusting.

  • I hate COPS

    I’m with you Roger Wilco! Don’t talk to cops, cops are bad. Period! Everybody knows that! Whenever I see news like “cop killed by wreckless driver while writing ticket” I laugh and say “chalk one up for the team”

    Everytime a cop dies an angel gets it’s wings!

  • Anonymous

    I use Share, this is pretty disturbing.

    Some system like this was implemented a while ago, but there were plugins created by people to prevent them searching your files and so on. I hope something else better is created to stop this one too.

  • 4forty4

    it’s nice to see that the police are doing their jobs by arresting the pirates.

    you can share but you can’t hide.

    hehehehehehehe

  • academic worm hole

    thief

  • Ron

    @34 and 35

    Only a few billion left

    hehehehehehehe

    Retards.

  • Dan Glickman

    Their greed has them going after the wrong people, they’re actually continuing to harm their image in public when they do stupid things like this. The Jews think everyone is a Nazi now and they’ve become too powerful it’s time they forgive a little and stop this “hate” they’ve been passing on for generations.

  • nWo

    @25 find a new line

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  • XeN

    Should have used bittorrent & a VPN/seedbox and this would have never happened.

  • Unauthorized Content Consumer

    The man has literally saved peoples lives, and this is how he is repaid?

    Come on now. So he was downloading/sharing entertainment. It’s not like they found 20 dead bodies buried in his basement.

    Seriously.

  • Share Bear

    Can someone explain how so many people have been nailed when they are using a supposedly “ANONYMOUS” P2P system?

    Winny’s weak link was the bulletin board, which did not obscure a poster’s IP address, allowing copyright police to easily hunt down message posters (but not ordinary users).

    Is this the same situation with Share?

  • Alex

    Lol, good for him, gov’t needs to realize that we’re not bad ppl.

  • Share Bear
  • Beware!

    http://torrentfreak.com/retired-fireman-caught-pirating-avatar-100407/#comment-651635

    And was is equivalent to 20 dead bodies? A speed ticket, killing 30 prostitutes?

    Massive criminal piracy
    Cuts his internet for 12 months
    when he gets out after 2.5yrs in juby

    And fine him $15 a movie on top

  • toto

    Ive never heard of share til this article and the 50 were just trying to point out that the software is not secure and to use a vpn with it when you use it folks. Glad they got the message out. I think if the 50 ask me how many movies I have downloaded, I would say, here is a link to the site (virus ridden site that spews Trojan and malware with every click.)

  • Rboy

    I was always curious about Japan. They have had cheaper higher speed internet then most of the world yet I have never seen or heard of any major warez or torrent or any other file sharing site in Japan.

    Sony practically owns and rules Japan so it is not surprising I guess,

  • Stoned

    It amazes me to see people saying.. he should have used VPN, etc, etc…

    I quote:

    “The 62-year-old pensioner and retired fireman”

    He just wanted the world to love cinema…

  • CapnS

    I honestly disliked this story. Sure another person busted for P2P but the retired fireman status has NOTHING to do with it.

    Don’t be a sloppy reporter like mainstream media and try to pull on the heart-strings of readers, report the news without the fluff please.

    I recommend your site to people ignorant to P2P information but if you keep posting this crap I’ll be saying otherwise.

  • MM

    Drain all his blood and throw him in a fire, o wait that’s what big biznaz does…

  • Jake

    Probably better he admitted to it rather than let them find out later on down the track and sting him AGAIN

    Good luck guy

  • Anonymous

    Share was compromised a while back, then it was replaced by Perfect Dark. But recently even PD was compromised. The Japanese P2Pers really need to learn about VPNs.

  • Anonymous

    Idiot

  • STEALTHNET

    Use StealthNet, it’s the best and open source

  • Freeleech

    Now that’s the willpower I admire.

    See, he’s just a normal, sane person. And since nobody in his right mind can accept the very existence of such thing as so-called “intellectual property”, he obviously doesn’t think he’s *guilty* of anything (and indeed he isn’t).

    If I were him I’d do the same. I have no fear.

  • Anonymous

    #6

    Japanese movies suck? Japan have made some of the highest appraised movies of all time. Old westerns are build on a Japanese famular and Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are greatly inspired by Japanese movies.

    I pitty anyone who havn’t looked into some of the great Japanese movies I would suggest to start with Akira Kurosawa, all of his movies are superb.

    Also Hong Kong and South Korea make some fantastic movies.

  • Beware!

    Don’t understand how being a retired fireman who MAY have saved lives makes a difference.

    If he was a Prostitute killing lorry driver, camming & Pirating AVATAR, I presume he would have been rightly jailed for about , oh lets say, 99 years?

    Sloppy reporting indeed
    upto DAILY MAIL standards

  • meh

    the lesson is.. never be happy

  • Anonymous

    :( I hope they don’t start policing anime stuff real heavy, I watch it seasonally and have no way to pay for it even if I wanted to without importing it which would cost tons, and the anime “industry” in america is a middleman that takes their work slaps a shitty dub on it and calls it a product

  • Mad.Sr

    This hero has another trophy as a
    Pirate god bless him *****

  • Dwight Stegall

    Anyone that pirated that movie has already been punished simply by watching that awful show.

  • Cody

    [After the introduction of a new file-sharing monitoring system this year, Kyoto Prefectural Police Crime Prevention Office Tech 31 in Japan appeared to have "snared their first victim."]

    LOL

    THEY BEAT UP AN OLD MAN!

    this sounds like a scene from a National Lampoon movie

  • TomTomSmith

    Is there more information about the “new” file sharing monitoring service?

  • hms-one

    “I wanted everyone to be a happy film lover.”

    Well there’s your problem right there. You thought of others. You’re supposed to be selfish and keep things for yourself.

    Fellow citzens: Do your duty. Consume and make waste.

    Honestly, when mass distribution is so easy that a 65 yr. old retired fire fighter can be a threat to your business model, it’s time for a change. There is profit to be made gentlemen. Instead, you chose to harass the elderly and pass new laws in defence of an antiquated status quo. Others more deserving will profit in the new media landscape while your companies stagnate and fail. History will look on this behaviour as the death throes of a doomed industry. Your oligopoly of distribution and the control that came with it is lost to you. Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way.

  • redboi

    cops are faggot asses no matter the country..

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