In what appears to be an escalating incursion into a user’s digital privacy, a collective of film companies continue to implore the court to compel Reddit to surrender its users’ personal details. This move is part of an ongoing piracy liability case against Internet Service Providers. Reddit, however, steadfastly resists, staunchly defending its users’ rights to anonymous speech.
How are they gonna prove he really did and he’s not just bluffing?
Simple: Lie, cheat, steal, and the mafia.
The only party that wins is the law firm charging as many billable hours as possible.
Movie studios: “This is definitely the most important thing we have to deal with right now”
deleted by creator
Not the shitty movies we’re pumping out as if there were no tomorrow.
With the writers and actors all in strike, they won’t be putting out any movies until they decide to be less shitty and come to the table in good faith, or all the writers starve and come crawling back because they have families to feed. I’m not holding my breath on a happy ending, honestly.
I was talking more in general but yeah, there’s also the strike.
Sir, you have a message from someone called, “A.I.”
Here’s the plan, gentleman. Where’s my cigar? Now listen up! We ain’t gonna be making another movie the whole rest of duh year, see? Fuck dem writers. Don’t even get me started on the talent! So here’s what we do. We get the moneys from this kid dat donloided one of our movies 12 years ago. It’s brilliant! Where’s Harvey?
“donloided” lmao
Harvey: *shaking because he knew that was the one on reddit /r/piracy 12 years ago, drunk posting for shits and giggles
Seriously. The kid could just say I lied. I wanted to look cool.
You could say that it was an Avengers level threat
I confess. I was the 2nd gunman on the grassy knoll.
I logged your IP: 127.0.0.1 - police are on their way
No, no, it’s 198.162.0.1!
The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is a hotbed of illegal activity.
(spider man pointing at themselves)
Bravo!
☝️this guy right here, personal FBI agent! He basically admitted to pirating the JFK movie with Kevin Costner!! 💀
They think that bullying one user is going to setup an example of what happens when you fuck with them.
Fuck 'em.
IIRC they aren’t prosecuting these users, instead they want to make them be witnesses in a case against an ISP they want to say wasn’t doing enough to stop piracy. The Reddit posts were about whether the ISP takes action against pirates or something like that.
I don’t think ISP’s have any duty to prevent piracy, or anything else for that matter. Their business is providing internet to their customers, not policing each and every action
If you use encryption (I always change the settings from “prefer” to “require” encryption on every install), the ISPs literally can’t identify what you’re downloading.
So the IP enforcement companies send the ISP a letter saying “this IP was illegally downloading our stuff. We don’t actually have proof, but trust us and punish them.”
Big surprise, a ton of ISPs just ignore them.
Edit: to be clear, I’m only saying encryption prevents your ISP from seeing what you’re downloading. IP (intellectual property) enforcers who participate in the torrent are the ones who inform your ISP, but their letters to the ISPs have no teeth. Some ISPs care, but a lot just ignore the letters. You still definitely want to use a VPN for all public trackers.
I don’t think that’s true. I’m pretty certain they simply hop on a torrent client with an illegal torrent for their movie and record the IP addresses they see seeding and leeching. Then simply compel the responsible ISP to reveal which of their customers currently has that IP leased.
That’s what I said though.
Your ISP can’t see what you’re downloading if you encrypt, but the IP (intellectual property) enforcers still can if they’re participating in the torrent. Then they find out which ISP that IP (address) belongs to and sends them a letter saying “we caught your subscriber downloading XYZ illegally.”
However, at least one US district court has ruled that just catching an IP address downloading a torrent illegally isn’t proof that any particular person illegally downloaded the IP (intellectual property). As a result, some ISPs simply ignore the letters the IP enforcers send, while some of the bigger ones count “strikes” against the subscriber with that IP address.
That is exactly what happens. Encryption on the protocol doesn’t do anything but hide what you’re downloading from your ISP. It doesn’t prevent someone from downloading the same torrent and matching your IP to it. That’s why people recommend that you use VPNs if you’re going to do this from your house.
That sounds even worse. You killed two flies in a shot. Did he cooperated in the case?
Oh in that case I admit to pirating hundreds of movies while connected to the wifi on holiday at Disney Land. I’m happy to be a witness in a case if one of these scum bags wish to take on The Mouse.
Disney owns so many media companies, for any given movie pirate it’s likely it was Disney content.
What if it was Disney movies lol
Every day that does by and /r/piracy isn’t shuttered is a surprise
They moved to lemmy though
Well we did at least.
honeypot…
Yup. And in 12 years they’ll be able to spring the trap on another one! The perfect plan.
lol who said that means they’re any good with usage?
What do they even have to gain from this? Going after small fry individuals worked out so well for their image in the early 2000s.
I don’t think they care about their image. How many people decided to not see Avengers: End Game because the studios are greedy
I think the Western IP holders saw what Sony was doing, and had dollar signs in their eyes
Maybe I’m missing context, but the article doesn’t mention what this admission looked like. Was it just a use saying “yeah I downloaded the new ghostbusters movie, it sucked glad I didn’t pay for it”, or was it someone admitting to camming/distributing/facilitating piracy at a base level? Surely they are not going after someone for just casually mentioning they pirated a movie?
You’re talking about the people that sued a single mother for millions because she uploaded a video of her child with a Beyonce song faintly in the background. These people are psychopaths.
Yeah it’s not that I think they’re above this kind of petty bullshit, but I don’t get why they’d go “fuck this guy in particular”.
That said, even if the guy admitted to running the world’s biggest pirate ring, screw them anyway
Friendly reminder that piracy is not theft
Well, digital piracy.
But ye olde Black Beard and the modern Somalian type is very much theft.
Nah. Haven’t you heard about how the lack of pirates is causing climate change? /s
That also typically includes murder, abduction, rape and general violence…
what proof do they actually have it occurred though? 12 years is a long time - I dont think I have any electronics that are 12 years old, let alone digital media
Not only that, but their insane demand may not even be possible to comply with unless the user has been active semi-recently.
Its a surprise to me that a reddit post or any kind of random text blurb can be used as an admission of anything. What if the guy simply says I made all that up for fun? There is no requirement for text written on the internet to be under oath. Edit: fixed spelling oauth -> oath ;)
Wait a minute. Are you saying people can lie on the internet?
This changes everything!
Nah, they wouldn’t
Hold on. Let’s test this.
I knew you could lie on the internet.
Edit: holy shit it worked! I have a giant penis!!
I’m a billionaire. I have my own private island that floats above the world and I can also teleport anywhere in an instant and open portals into other dimensions. And I have a pet dragon named Sparkles.
I am a human penis with arms and legs, and I just learned how to use The Internet
Shit I didn’t know oauth means you got to tell the truth on the internet.
Wait until you see oauth2…
The film companies have singled out a Reddit user, “xBROKEx,” citing a 12-year-old comment admitting to pirating the movie The Expendables.
Reddit counters that this attempted breach of privacy is unwarranted, given that the statute of limitations for copyright infringement is just three years.
How ridiculous. Someone admitted / bragged / bullshitted on the Internet 12 years ago. The statute of limitations expired 9 years ago. But, the film companies are still trying to get the information on a poor xBROKEx.
even knowing it will be thrown out, the companies want to go after them. they want to hurt xBROKEx as much as they can, as an example to others that you’ll never get away with it. That they’ll hound you decades later.
Yeah, that’s the thing. Even though xBROKEx would probably win in court, it would bankrupt them in lawyer fees.
What a ridiculous case. You can’t prove anything based on a comment made online. Defence will just be “i just said that to sound cool, I’ve never pirated anything and wouldn’t know how” probably doesn’t even need a lawyer as there’s no evidence.
Oh fuck that. If those type of words are spoken in court you better have a lawyer or it’s going to be twisted against you with some sort of proof that you do in fact know how to pirate stuff. Straight to jail.
But what for? His guilt expired years ago.
Yup. They will use the fact that a user said they pirated a movie as a starting point. If Reddit capitulated and handed over the user info that could be used to hunt for more evidence and possibly connect them to other pirates. It would open a juicy can of worms for these bottom feeders. Good on Reddit for standing up for their users.
“Good on reddit for standing up for their users” I mean, you can’t abuse them for cash if they’re in jail.
Could the selection be intentional? A silly unenforceable case to open the door for a more comprehensive invasion of privacy on platforms to make discussion and hosting discussion of piracy into a riskier endeavor?
This is what I’m thinking. This is just a case of them seeing how far they can take it. Once precedent is set they can start to litigate based on a user merely mentioning that they pirated a movie.
Could be that they’re seeking exhaustion so that can push more of their privacy breaking bullshit in international trade agreements.
Exactly what the trick is. Once the precedent is set, they can exploit the hell out of it.
These comments are why I love this community.
I also have committed the dangerous felony of pirating movies
Go ahead call the cops, I’m a gangsta yo
This is fucking pathetic.
I, too, downloaded movies 12 years ago. Fuckin losers. I also used Napster, come at me.
Instructions unclear. *cums
Shhhhhhh bro facebooks watching come on bro don’t be like that
I did the most egregious thing back in the day and rented DVDs from the video store, ripped them, then returned them.
I used to do the same with CD’s from the local library… and then seed them
Netflix dvds in the mail, 3 dvds at a time…practically daily ripping.
removed by mod
I am wracked with guilt every day.
Just don’t look at the server over there pulling half a TB of new 4k rips from usenet at a gig a second…
Every time it amazes me that noone give a fuck about usenet since before the internet existed 😂
Back in the early days you wanna download a movie or some warez it would be like 358 parts and you would always miss some and have to ask for reposts. Hey anyone have parts 28, 34, 78, and 212-229 of “Dizzy Princess And the Shaven Dwarves?” Then you wait a day or two, watching replies. It was really an accomplishment when you get that final piece and decode the file(s) successfully.
You don’t need to feel guilty, copying onto your own blank media is why we all have to pay a levy on all blank media, even when they’re not being used for copying videos. That backup of your own stuff (family photos etc) you want to do? Pay the RIAA-tax.
I don’t even really understand how usenet works tbh let alone finding a place for 4k rips.
FBI!!! OPEN UP!!!
I’ve been pirating my whole life!
How can I pirate your life as well?
I, too, choose this user’s life.
You’ll get the chair for Napster.
Zapster amirite
I could say that I took a dump on Joe Bidens face while he soundly slept 12 years ago doesn’t mean I actually did it. ;) ;)
Found Hunter Biden’s account…
