Outraged Virgin slaps IP trolls over dirty movie download data demands Virgin Media's lawyers have seen off a group of IP trolls who were trying to force the British ISP to hand over the personal details of people downloading allegedly copyrighted smut flicks. Mircom International Content Management & Consulting and Golden Eye International both tried to force Virgin to hand over the details of …
Really ? Well, let's see what the GDPR has to say about that :
For example, if Acme Co. sells widgets to consumers and uses Email Automation Co. to email consumers on their behalf and track their engagement activity, then with regard to such email activity data, Acme Co. is the data controller, and Email Automation Co. is the data processor.
So, in this case Virgin is the supposed data controller, and the IP trolls are supposed to be the data processors. Except that it is not Virgin that is asking them to do anything, they are demanding the data for their processing. The example is not applicable, the IP trolls would indeed be the data controllers.
The judge got it wrong, that's for sure.
> Really ? Well, let's see what the GDPR has to say about that
Err… if you want to know what the GDPR says, here's the address: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32016R0679.
I do not quite understand why you linked to the website or eTorch Inc., an American email solutions provider.
And the deluxe model is the one with the real hair.
And what's the entry-level model like? Repliee Q1Expo?
If I've read the judgement right, the main reason the case was thrown out was the evidence was lost, the expert evidence was outdated and the judge told them to do it right in a new case:
'a spreadsheet attached as Exhibit 1". But there was no Exhibit 1.'
'I do not accept that I should simply assume that a 9 year old expert report remains up to date, particularly one given in the field of computer software.'
'Thus the defects in both the fact and expert evidence are so fundamental that I will dismiss these applications. If it is simple and straightforward as the Applicants say to prepare and serve acceptable evidence then this dismissal will not present them with any great problem.'
So, remember your backups, and keep up-to-date.
Well it worked for Prenda Law. But I guess any client in a bittorrent swarm knows how much other members of the swarm have downloaded, because you'd need to know which blocks peers have available. So your presumably modified torrent client would probably download a torrent link, immediately pause the download, and start logging IP addresses of peers and what blocks of the torrent they have downloaded. If my rudimentary understanding of how bittorrent works is vaguely corrent anyway.
"Well it worked for Prenda Law. "
Until it didn't - to the tune of 14 years jailtime for one of the principals and 5 for the other (because he cooperated)
Perhaps the judge should be made aware of those shenanigans as well as similar ones in Australian courtrooms.
The issue of "guardaley" - a rather shadowy "german" outfit which seems to be the real power behind all these 'lawsuites' needs to be addressed too.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140603/18021127448/international-men-mystery-how-discredited-german-anti-piracy-company-may-secretly-be-behind-malibu-medias-copyright-trollery.shtml
"...partly downloaded..."
Not speaking from personal experience of course but I would speculate that once the masturbation has reached its conclusion there would be no need to watch the film to the end. Unless the story is really gripping, surely the conclusion of the film is rather predictable.
Just tweak some torrenting code to allow you to you prioritise what gets downloaded in what order
.. Though I seem to recall some torrent clients allowed varying degrees of prioritization in download order, but its a long time since I used a torrent tool*
*with better broadband speed these days just download my Linux distros via .iso download directly instead of messing about with torrents, so not sure how much the software has improved
I would have thought the situation outside of the court case is that Golden Eye are collecting personal data and therefore are required to be registered and have a statement of how the intend to use that data and the lawful basis on which they are doing so. I don't know what impact this would have on the case but there would definitely be an interaction between the two as their lawful basis would have to be compatible with the request made of Virgin.
The *Person* Ben Dover is an English (well, British, anyway) porn producer of many years' standing.
LMGTFY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Dover
Heh... quote from above article: "In 2012, Honey was nominated by the Internet Service Providers Association as an Internet Villain for his involvement with his company Golden Eye (International) in speculative invoicing".
Recall a similar case a while back where some folks bought up all the rights for long-expired electronics magazines then started sending out "Enforcement!" notices to anyone uploading or downloading them.
Didn't get very far, but scared a lot of folks who in many cases legitimately had old copies they'd purchased in paper form.
Copyright trolls are a pain.
Getting an IP address would usually be sufficient to get a search warrant (or civil equivalent) for someone to do a forensic analysis on a person's PC. But by itself it is usually insufficient to prove (even on balance of probability) that any particular *individual* was responsible for the infringement. And as much as many companies try to argue otherwise, the person who is paying the ISP bill is *not* legally liable for any unlawful use a third party may make of that connection.
And the burden of proof is on the claimant to show that the individual is responsible, not on the respondent to prove he wasn't. Maybe your neighbour leaches off your WiFi. Or your kids, or kids' friends. Such things are well within the bounds of reasonable possibilities, so the company wanting to sue you needs a lot more evidence than just an IP address.
So if you get such a letter, just write back saying, "Sorry, but it wasn't me, guv."
If you lucky enough to get a letter demanding cash, just reply asking for the name of the person who downloaded the film. As long as you are not stupid enough to give out any new information or admit anything, they will drop the case as they cannot prove who committed the 'crime'.
It didn't end well for the plaintiffs. Some shady attorneys had come up with a scheme where they plastered well known download sites with copies of porn films that they had obtained the copyright for. They then went to various ISPs, demanded as the copyright owners contact information and then sent out batches of letters demanding payment of a couple of thousand dollars "or else". They eventually got busted for extortion. See...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/two-lawyers-charged-porn-fueled-copyright-extortion-scheme-n697046
Anyone who actually reads the judgement will see that neither side's lawyers exactly covered themselves in glory.
In particular it is quite wrong to say that Virgin's lawyers saw anybody off. If anybody did that, it was Counsel for the Applicant.
The judge presented a (characteristically) clear judgement. It's unarguable.
This must have been a pretty expensive waste of everybody's time.
Don't you just love the Internet?
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