5 ms·

I really hate throwing out analogies, but the closest I could think of is the "unlocked front door". If FTV, the producer of the video, shared themselves or all

by uxp 10y ago

I really hate throwing out analogies, but the closest I could think of is the "unlocked front door". If FTV, the producer of the video, shared themselves or allowed someone to share in their behalf a video that they produced in order to bait people to download that, then I would agree that they did nothing illegal. Leaving my door unlocked is not illegal. But they went further, by allowing people to download the video they then exploited the legal system by not charging the people who walked through that front door looking for things to take with robbery, but merely blackmailed those people into paying them money to remain silent, or else they would "publicly" press charges. That is what they are being accused and apparently charged for. Sure, don't download illegally shared porn, music, movies or tv shows. But if you do download that content illegally, you also have a right not not be blackmailed for the action. Two wrongs do not make a right.

joering2 10y ago
Generally I agree with you but what's the definition of "blackmail" in terms of court of law? Basically everyone that settled a case in or out of the court was blackmailed? Doubt that. I think if someone is breaking the law and you tell them stop or I sue you, then its even offensive to call it a blackmail. Again, I don't look at this case from right-or-wrong point of view, as it seems it is a scam what they did. I'm rather interested whether the lady of justice will be blindfolded and find no crime was committed, or judge will hate them because its related to pornography and blackmailing.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  > I think if someone is breaking the law and you tell them stop or I sue you, then its even offensive to call it a blackmail. They didn't tell them "stop or I'll sue you" - they said "Give me $3,000 or I'll sue you, and by the way, it'll likely cost you more than $3,000 to defend yourself."
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Generally I agree with you but what's the definition of "blackmail" in terms of court of law The grandparent post used "blackmail" informally; they aren't charged with that, so it's definition in a court of law is tangential. They are charged with perjury, subornation of perjury, conspiracy to commit both perjury and subornation of perjury, and also charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. None of which would be an issue with fact-based copyright claims against people the person suing (and offering to settle) believed reasonably were (or even might be) guilty.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
> I really hate throwing out analogies, but the closest I could think of is the "unlocked front door". I think a basket of candy set out in front of your door halloween is a better analogy - you can't credibly call the police department with a report that children are trespassing on your property and stealing your candy.
tw04 10y ago
Even that analogy doesn't really work though. This would be the equivalent to personally handing out your belongings, for free, at the market down the street where you know ill-gotten gains are often sold. Then you turn around and threaten to sue each and ever person you GAVE your stuff to for "stealing" it. Because some of the items you gave away would be embarrassing for the receiver to have broadcast (really, why is that 50-year-old single guy taking your little boys used underwear??) - some of them are willing to pay just to make you go away. You can't STEAL something the rightful owner of a piece of property willfully and knowingly gives you for free.
- uxp 10y ago
  What's the opposite of fencing? Giving away legal merchandise advertising that it's stolen goods? I agree, analogies don't really work. The fact remains that the downloaders of the movies were receiving the content from a place (the pirate bay) that rarely distributed legal content (and then, it was just mirroring distribution of things like Gnu/Linux ISOs). There is still an argument that remains that the alleged infringers had intent to violate copyright law. The other argument here is that the creators or producers of the content hired or otherwise partnered with a firm that, in order to drum up business(?) allegedly distributed that content through the pirate bay, and simply filed John Doe subpoenas against every IP that connected to them. The article links to the other ArsTechnica article that points to someone who wrote what is essentially a BitTorrent "shell" program that acts and masquerades as a genuine client, connecting to a swarm and announcing availability of a torrent without actually receiving or sending content data. This is how other firms traditionally find and discover alleged torrent leachers and seeders from what I've read. As a devil's advocate to this practice, it may be that Prenda simply didn't hire an IT consultant that knew what they were doing and in order to discover potential infringers of the content they leached the movie themselves. Over time became the primary source of the content via TPB as they had more incentive to keep seeding to catch more unsuspecting leechers while consumers of the content got bored with the same sex scenes and moved to different porn, dropping out of the swarm. What I'm saying is that it may have started with just incompetence of their part, and once they were called out on their practices, they might have thought that they weren't doing anything wrong. However, as more information became available it became more clear that they were basically baiting and extorting, and they had to continue to lie about what they were doing or else their ruse would be up (and they could go to jail). I'm glad to see some initial closure on this story with them getting charged, but I'm doubtful that Prenda went into this in the very beginning with the idea of seeding content "illegally" in order to find infringers of whom they could send bills to remain quiet and not proceed directly into litigation.

by uxp 10y ago

joering2 10y ago

Generally I agree with you but what's the definition of "blackmail" in terms of court of law? Basically everyone that settled a case in or out of the court was blackmailed? Doubt that. I think if someone is breaking the law and you tell them stop or I sue you, then its even offensive to call it a blackmail. Again, I don't look at this case from right-or-wrong point of view, as it seems it is a scam what they did. I'm rather interested whether the lady of justice will be blindfolded and find no crime was committed, or judge will hate them because its related to pornography and blackmailing.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
> I think if someone is breaking the law and you tell them stop or I sue you, then its even offensive to call it a blackmail. They didn't tell them "stop or I'll sue you" - they said "Give me $3,000 or I'll sue you, and by the way, it'll likely cost you more than $3,000 to defend yourself."
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Generally I agree with you but what's the definition of "blackmail" in terms of court of law The grandparent post used "blackmail" informally; they aren't charged with that, so it's definition in a court of law is tangential. They are charged with perjury, subornation of perjury, conspiracy to commit both perjury and subornation of perjury, and also charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. None of which would be an issue with fact-based copyright claims against people the person suing (and offering to settle) believed reasonably were (or even might be) guilty.

pavel_lishin 10y ago

> I really hate throwing out analogies, but the closest I could think of is the "unlocked front door". I think a basket of candy set out in front of your door halloween is a better analogy - you can't credibly call the police department with a report that children are trespassing on your property and stealing your candy.

tw04 10y ago

Even that analogy doesn't really work though. This would be the equivalent to personally handing out your belongings, for free, at the market down the street where you know ill-gotten gains are often sold. Then you turn around and threaten to sue each and ever person you GAVE your stuff to for "stealing" it. Because some of the items you gave away would be embarrassing for the receiver to have broadcast (really, why is that 50-year-old single guy taking your little boys used underwear??) - some of them are willing to pay just to make you go away. You can't STEAL something the rightful owner of a piece of property willfully and knowingly gives you for free.

uxp 10y ago
What's the opposite of fencing? Giving away legal merchandise advertising that it's stolen goods? I agree, analogies don't really work. The fact remains that the downloaders of the movies were receiving the content from a place (the pirate bay) that rarely distributed legal content (and then, it was just mirroring distribution of things like Gnu/Linux ISOs). There is still an argument that remains that the alleged infringers had intent to violate copyright law. The other argument here is that the creators or producers of the content hired or otherwise partnered with a firm that, in order to drum up business(?) allegedly distributed that content through the pirate bay, and simply filed John Doe subpoenas against every IP that connected to them. The article links to the other ArsTechnica article that points to someone who wrote what is essentially a BitTorrent "shell" program that acts and masquerades as a genuine client, connecting to a swarm and announcing availability of a torrent without actually receiving or sending content data. This is how other firms traditionally find and discover alleged torrent leachers and seeders from what I've read. As a devil's advocate to this practice, it may be that Prenda simply didn't hire an IT consultant that knew what they were doing and in order to discover potential infringers of the content they leached the movie themselves. Over time became the primary source of the content via TPB as they had more incentive to keep seeding to catch more unsuspecting leechers while consumers of the content got bored with the same sex scenes and moved to different porn, dropping out of the swarm. What I'm saying is that it may have started with just incompetence of their part, and once they were called out on their practices, they might have thought that they weren't doing anything wrong. However, as more information became available it became more clear that they were basically baiting and extorting, and they had to continue to lie about what they were doing or else their ruse would be up (and they could go to jail). I'm glad to see some initial closure on this story with them getting charged, but I'm doubtful that Prenda went into this in the very beginning with the idea of seeding content "illegally" in order to find infringers of whom they could send bills to remain quiet and not proceed directly into litigation.