There’s a lot of misinformation about which companies and agencies can do what, and how they do it. People claim industry groups or random companies can search and send out letters at random, whereas the reality is the investigator must be authorized or they could be deemed guilty of copyright infringement themselves.

There’s also a lot of confusion about exactly how evidence is collected, with people sometimes believing that it can only be collected from corporate networks, or that private trackers are safe because investigators can’t share and so would be banned for their ratio. Much of this is untrue and these beliefs can make it easier to collect evidence.

The easiest way of all is to simply collect information from trackers. It’s an easy and quick way to do it, although as was revealed 2 years ago, it’s often quite inaccurate.

The next simplest way, which provides lots of data, is just to join a swarm and monitor. Some people believe that clients doing this will stand out, as modified clients will behave differently. The reality is that clients don’t have to be monitored at all.

Researcher Andrew Norton produced this video explaining how a vanilla µTorrent client can be used to identify and log peers without any modification or abnormal behavior.

The raw data shown in the video – all that’s needed for a lawsuit or allegation under most 3-strikes laws – is nothing more than basic communication data. However, it’s critical to note that this data, while it is evidence of activity, is NOT evidence of infringement in many cases.

We can’t testify that this is the method used by any company – they’re notoriously tight-lipped about their methods – but it’s quite possible that it’s being used and sold on as a very high priced service to customers. Selling simple and not always accurate or effective methods for thousands of dollars a week was revealed to be a key method of MediaDefender. Anyone reading this and intending to hire such companies would be advised to ask for a demonstration of their detection system first-hand.

It should, however, come as yet another wakeup call to those using blocklist-based software. Without any way to identify a client using this method, there’s no way to add its IP to the list. In fact, the public availability of block-list contents means it’s extremely easy to avoid being on them.

On the other hand VPNs, proxies and seedboxes will provide some protection, but the only real solution is to press for the peer-review of anti-P2P companies and their methods, but that doesn’t look like it will come any time soon.

Source: How Any BitTorrent User Can Collect Lawsuit Evidence

It’s no secret that universities are an easier target than commercial ISPs. To universities, Internet connections are a bonus, not their main income source. They also have a wide range of topics to deal with, not just Internet related issues. So, for a few thousand students, there may only be one or two people dealing with copyright infringement, as part of their duties. They may even be unaware of the law, often being IT people drafted to do legal work.

Some universities are fighting back, however, from University of Wisconsin schools refusing to pass on ‘pre litigation letters’ to its students, and now, interestingly, University Of California – Santa Cruz (UCSC) has put a spanner in the procedural works of the RIAA litigation machine. As explained best in the article published a few months ago by RIAA ‘nemesis’ Ray Beckerman, the John Doe lawsuits are often just a legal ploy to get names and addresses, prior to starting a new campaign, and pre-litigation settlement.

However, UCSC has successfully argued that under the law – specifically the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) – there are restrictions on the conditions for releasing student’s personal details, even in cases where there is a court subpoena. In this case (UMG Recordings v Doe), the court has ruled that the subpoena must have a ‘reply by’ date that is long enough to allow the university to notify the target of the subpoena, and their parents. This can give them the chance to get legal advice which can put them in a stronger position with the RIAA than getting a letter/demand out of the blue.

Of course this is not the first time the RIAA has had such a set back. In 2004 a similar case on the other side of the country, found that the University of Pennsylvania should send a notice to the accused John Doe targets, and give them the chance to quash the motion. If such a motion is not filed within 21 days, the identity is revealed, but if one is filed, the identity is kept hidden until it is dealt with. It would appear, though, that this is only applicable to the ‘Eastern District of Pennsylvania’ and not to the country as a whole.

It is not clear why the courts around the US do not give as much consideration to the accused as to the accuser in these cases, or why they don’t find it necessary to require a defendant to be notified about a case they are a defendant in. UCSC had to fight for what should be considered ‘bare minimum’. In a system where winning generally means having more evidence in your favor, excluding one side from participation means it will always go against them – is that really what the law is about?

Source: Santa Cruz University Fights Back at RIAA

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.

Source: Fearless Digital Pirates Don’t Care About Lawsuits