5 ms·

Thousands of Germans get “porn troll” letters over streaming video

88 points by route66 13y ago

ikonos_de 13y ago
This is an info-graphic provided by some committed German guy. It shows the daily views of the video before and after the video-rights were sold to the swiss company. Maybe you guys notice something :) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2512901/abmahnwelle-redtube-uc-sebastian.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2512901/abmahnwelle-redt...
- atmosx 13y ago
  I wonder, on the basis of this, why can't victim get united and counter-sue? I think there are grounds for fraud and possible privacy breaches.
  - ikonos_de 13y ago
    Some people are counter-sueing. But it's risky (because not every judge understands the technical details, e.g. one court obviously mixed up streaming with ordinary file-sharing) and expensive. And last but not least it's embarrassing for many people because it's porn.
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    There's no equivalent in class action suits in germany. And then, the company claiming the copyright violation is a swiss company, so to counter-sue and receive a compensation for your costs and fees, you'd have to sue them in switzerland under swiss law. The claimed amount is low enough that it's way less costly to just pay up and leave it at that. For the general good it would be better if everybody countersued. However, what I can see coming in this case that the matter may proceed to become a criminal case against "The Archive" which then would be a different story. There's still hope.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
This is just another example that shows it is not so much the law that is broken in the face of new technology (although it could use some updating), but the utterly clueless interpretation of the law by the courts that is the main problem. Just like for instance the Pirate Bay blockades we keep seeing instances where courts can easily be tricked into implementing measures or allowing evidence that the legislature would never approve of.
WA 13y ago
I had a hard time understanding this article, so I looked up some German resources and also the original letter linked in the article. Still, the sum is still confusing. Here's what happened: 1. This swiss company got the home addresses of the people by deceiving the court in the first place. They suggested that the people in question were using a file sharing platform, not a streaming website (former is illegal, latter is not). 2. Then, they sent thousands of cease-and-desist orders to these people, claiming that "streaming a video" means that you store a video temporarily (or permanently) on your own device, which is infringement of copyright (and utter bullshit, because it isn't according to German law). 3. All in all, they probably got a few bucks out of this trolling, but they are unlikely to be successful in court, because it is not illegal in Germany to consume copyright protected material. You may not provide it (upload it). This would be illegal. But this didn't happen in the first place. The people who should get a cease-and-desist order is RedTube for uploading and streaming copyright protected material. All articles also talk about this weird software "gladii 1.1.3" without talking about how this software can collect IP addresses in the first place, if you connect to a server (RedTube) and not to a bunch of random peers. Edit: Clarification in 1.
- Syssiphus 13y ago
  The article below explains that the website of the company which filed the copyright claims and the website of the company which supposedly created the 'gladii' software are hosted on the same server, contain the same user-id's and were created at around the same time. The whole thing is a scam. http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_dd&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.kowabit.de%2Fporno-sein%2F http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&pr...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- fauigerzigerk 13y ago
  >This swiss company got the IP addresses of the people by deceiving the court in the first place. No, I think the Swiss lawyers provided the IP addresses asking the court to make Deutsche Telekom reveal the users' true identities. >Then, they sent thousands of cease-and-desist orders to these people They didn't send cease and desist letters. As I understand it they asked for money right away. >All articles also talk about this weird software "gladii 1.1.3" without talking about how this software can collect IP addresses in the first place That is indeed the interesting question. Apparently the court asked an expert to evaluate the software and the expert confirmed that gladii 1.1.3 could do what it claimed: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fabmahnung-medienrecht.de%2F2013%2F12%2Fstreaming-abmahnungen-der-kanzlei-uc-in-sachen-redtube-landgericht-koln-gibt-erste-auskunfte-zur-funktionsweise-der-software-gladii-1-1-3%2F http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre... I wonder how. The spoofed domain explanation doesn't make any sense. If you you are able to redirect users to download from your own servers you don't need any additional software to find out their IP address. Maybe what gladii does is to embed code into the movie file itself so it can be used as a honeypot. I'm not familiar with the swf format or whatever they host on redtube to know whether that is possible.
maaaats 13y ago
I don't get it. Why is visiting said website something illegal that should be paid for?
- WA 13y ago
  See my comment above. It isn't. They deceived the court to get addresses of people and then sent letters to people to scare them and make a few bucks. It doesn't hold up in court.
  - maaaats 13y ago
    Thanks. I should have hit refresh on the comments after reading the article.
fabian2k 13y ago
One very interesting aspect is how they got the IP addresses in the first place. There is some evidence that they bought traffic from a traffic broker, redirected that through their on domains and then to the final target. If it happened that way, it does seem very unlikely that they would have any chance to succeed before a court. They can't prove that the user actually intended to see the video in question, they can't prove that they actually arrived at the target site and saw the video. Some more recent information in german about this is at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Porno-Abmahnungen-Indizienkette-zur-IP-Adressen-Ermittlung-verdichtet-sich-2065879.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Porno-Abmahnungen-Ind...
- route66 13y ago
  Summarizing the heise.de article: apparently someone put links to porn-broker trafficholder.com somewhere, there the requests got redirected to the freshly registered movfile.net, forwarding to redtube.net. On movfile.net the IP addresses got harvested. trafficholder.com was primarily used to generate traffic from Germany to the videos in question. If this is what happened it seems a bit more far-reaching than just an exploit of IP law challenged courts.
mseepgood 13y ago
> from a company called Matratzensport Suitable name for a porn company: Matratzensport = "mattress sport".
- judk 13y ago
  Also a mafia reference "go to the mattresses", appropriate for a extortion scheme.
bayesianhorse 13y ago
The way I would get the IP addresses is to threaten the redtube.com website with a copyright infringement lawsuit and offer them to sell the IP addresses instead. Win-Win. Another way is to set up other websites that redtube users would likely visit (maybe even advertise from redtube), then find out if they have visited certain links on redtube. There may be certain exploits to do that, be it flash or even the css "old links" trick. Then you could at least claim that the IP addresses actually visited the videos in question even though the site did not cooperate and no wiretapping was necessary.
- perlgeek 13y ago
  > The way I would get the IP addresses is to threaten the redtube.com website with a copyright infringement lawsuit and offer them to sell the IP addresses instead. Win-Win. Not by German privacy laws. IP addresses are considered "personal" data, and selling it to a third party would be quite costly if discovered.
  - bayesianhorse 13y ago
    The IP owner and the redtube website both aren't residing in Germany.
Houshalter 13y ago
It's also kind of dickish to send letters to people's homes saying "you watched porn".
- judk 13y ago
  Not also, that's the core of the extortion scam, to threaten to violate people's privacy.
dubbel 13y ago
Flash also supports P2P: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager09.html http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplay... Maybe redtube uses this functionality to get the stream faster to everyone.
PythonicAlpha 13y ago
This whole case just shows, how incompetent many people in Jurisdiction are. Also no positive promotion for the German government.
Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago
Old stuff, here's same story by TorrentFreak. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885356

88 points by route66 13y ago

This is an info-graphic provided by some committed German guy. It shows the daily views of the video before and after the video-rights were sold to the swiss company. Maybe you guys notice something :) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2512901/abmahnwelle-redtube-uc-sebastian.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2512901/abmahnwelle-redt...

atmosx 13y ago
I wonder, on the basis of this, why can't victim get united and counter-sue? I think there are grounds for fraud and possible privacy breaches.
- ikonos_de 13y ago
  Some people are counter-sueing. But it's risky (because not every judge understands the technical details, e.g. one court obviously mixed up streaming with ordinary file-sharing) and expensive. And last but not least it's embarrassing for many people because it's porn.
- Xylakant 13y ago
  There's no equivalent in class action suits in germany. And then, the company claiming the copyright violation is a swiss company, so to counter-sue and receive a compensation for your costs and fees, you'd have to sue them in switzerland under swiss law. The claimed amount is low enough that it's way less costly to just pay up and leave it at that. For the general good it would be better if everybody countersued. However, what I can see coming in this case that the matter may proceed to become a criminal case against "The Archive" which then would be a different story. There's still hope.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

This is just another example that shows it is not so much the law that is broken in the face of new technology (although it could use some updating), but the utterly clueless interpretation of the law by the courts that is the main problem. Just like for instance the Pirate Bay blockades we keep seeing instances where courts can easily be tricked into implementing measures or allowing evidence that the legislature would never approve of.

WA 13y ago

I had a hard time understanding this article, so I looked up some German resources and also the original letter linked in the article. Still, the sum is still confusing. Here's what happened: 1. This swiss company got the home addresses of the people by deceiving the court in the first place. They suggested that the people in question were using a file sharing platform, not a streaming website (former is illegal, latter is not). 2. Then, they sent thousands of cease-and-desist orders to these people, claiming that "streaming a video" means that you store a video temporarily (or permanently) on your own device, which is infringement of copyright (and utter bullshit, because it isn't according to German law). 3. All in all, they probably got a few bucks out of this trolling, but they are unlikely to be successful in court, because it is not illegal in Germany to consume copyright protected material. You may not provide it (upload it). This would be illegal. But this didn't happen in the first place. The people who should get a cease-and-desist order is RedTube for uploading and streaming copyright protected material. All articles also talk about this weird software "gladii 1.1.3" without talking about how this software can collect IP addresses in the first place, if you connect to a server (RedTube) and not to a bunch of random peers. Edit: Clarification in 1.

Syssiphus 13y ago
The article below explains that the website of the company which filed the copyright claims and the website of the company which supposedly created the 'gladii' software are hosted on the same server, contain the same user-id's and were created at around the same time. The whole thing is a scam. http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_dd&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.kowabit.de%2Fporno-sein%2F http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&pr...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
fauigerzigerk 13y ago
>This swiss company got the IP addresses of the people by deceiving the court in the first place. No, I think the Swiss lawyers provided the IP addresses asking the court to make Deutsche Telekom reveal the users' true identities. >Then, they sent thousands of cease-and-desist orders to these people They didn't send cease and desist letters. As I understand it they asked for money right away. >All articles also talk about this weird software "gladii 1.1.3" without talking about how this software can collect IP addresses in the first place That is indeed the interesting question. Apparently the court asked an expert to evaluate the software and the expert confirmed that gladii 1.1.3 could do what it claimed: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fabmahnung-medienrecht.de%2F2013%2F12%2Fstreaming-abmahnungen-der-kanzlei-uc-in-sachen-redtube-landgericht-koln-gibt-erste-auskunfte-zur-funktionsweise-der-software-gladii-1-1-3%2F http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre... I wonder how. The spoofed domain explanation doesn't make any sense. If you you are able to redirect users to download from your own servers you don't need any additional software to find out their IP address. Maybe what gladii does is to embed code into the movie file itself so it can be used as a honeypot. I'm not familiar with the swf format or whatever they host on redtube to know whether that is possible.

maaaats 13y ago

I don't get it. Why is visiting said website something illegal that should be paid for?

WA 13y ago
See my comment above. It isn't. They deceived the court to get addresses of people and then sent letters to people to scare them and make a few bucks. It doesn't hold up in court.
- maaaats 13y ago
  Thanks. I should have hit refresh on the comments after reading the article.

fabian2k 13y ago

One very interesting aspect is how they got the IP addresses in the first place. There is some evidence that they bought traffic from a traffic broker, redirected that through their on domains and then to the final target. If it happened that way, it does seem very unlikely that they would have any chance to succeed before a court. They can't prove that the user actually intended to see the video in question, they can't prove that they actually arrived at the target site and saw the video. Some more recent information in german about this is at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Porno-Abmahnungen-Indizienkette-zur-IP-Adressen-Ermittlung-verdichtet-sich-2065879.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Porno-Abmahnungen-Ind...

route66 13y ago
Summarizing the heise.de article: apparently someone put links to porn-broker trafficholder.com somewhere, there the requests got redirected to the freshly registered movfile.net, forwarding to redtube.net. On movfile.net the IP addresses got harvested. trafficholder.com was primarily used to generate traffic from Germany to the videos in question. If this is what happened it seems a bit more far-reaching than just an exploit of IP law challenged courts.

mseepgood 13y ago

> from a company called Matratzensport Suitable name for a porn company: Matratzensport = "mattress sport".

judk 13y ago
Also a mafia reference "go to the mattresses", appropriate for a extortion scheme.

bayesianhorse 13y ago

The way I would get the IP addresses is to threaten the redtube.com website with a copyright infringement lawsuit and offer them to sell the IP addresses instead. Win-Win. Another way is to set up other websites that redtube users would likely visit (maybe even advertise from redtube), then find out if they have visited certain links on redtube. There may be certain exploits to do that, be it flash or even the css "old links" trick. Then you could at least claim that the IP addresses actually visited the videos in question even though the site did not cooperate and no wiretapping was necessary.

perlgeek 13y ago
> The way I would get the IP addresses is to threaten the redtube.com website with a copyright infringement lawsuit and offer them to sell the IP addresses instead. Win-Win. Not by German privacy laws. IP addresses are considered "personal" data, and selling it to a third party would be quite costly if discovered.
- bayesianhorse 13y ago
  The IP owner and the redtube website both aren't residing in Germany.

Houshalter 13y ago

It's also kind of dickish to send letters to people's homes saying "you watched porn".

judk 13y ago
Not also, that's the core of the extortion scam, to threaten to violate people's privacy.

dubbel 13y ago

Flash also supports P2P: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager09.html http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplay... Maybe redtube uses this functionality to get the stream faster to everyone.

PythonicAlpha 13y ago

This whole case just shows, how incompetent many people in Jurisdiction are. Also no positive promotion for the German government.

Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago

Old stuff, here's same story by TorrentFreak. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885356