dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
uniqs
15
racer123
join:2012-12-14
Hamilton, ON

racer123 to Scarecrow

Member

to Scarecrow

Re: Blog - Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

@Scarecrow - nothing, because Canipre claims that it verifies the data as well as watches the finished movie after the data has been recompiled into a working copy of the film. They'd find that your copy is a fake and they'd have no problem with you serving up a fake.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by racer123:

@Scarecrow - nothing, because Canipre claims that it verifies the data as well as watches the finished movie after the data has been recompiled into a working copy of the film. They'd find that your copy is a fake and they'd have no problem with you serving up a fake.

How can they verify this if all they receive are the few bits and pieces that you provide to them as part of a swarm?

hm
@videotron.ca

hm to racer123

Anon

to racer123
said by racer123:

@Scarecrow - nothing, because Canipre claims that it verifies the data as well as watches the finished movie after the data has been recompiled into a working copy of the film. They'd find that your copy is a fake and they'd have no problem with you serving up a fake.

Works by release.
The same movie could be released by 15 different groups.
Each one slightly different.
They would have to DL his entire movie (or a part if it was compressed etc) to check what it is they have.

As for canipre saying they re-assembled it and watched the movie in it's entirely then that means one of two things:

1) They made their own release and offered it up to whoever would take it. (This would be point A). Once someone else has it, A+B could serve it as well. on and on and on A+B+C+D+.... +infinity

So what release did these people make and offer? Someone with a notice would know.

2) Or they just chose any release already out in the wild by any number of groups. They grabbed the whole thing started serving it as well and DL'd from others (any of the billion people out there) to show they can get the same movie back (kinda lame, but that's it).

In addition, in both instances, they were getting parts from someone in Germany, Africa, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Sweden, Canada, US, etc etc etc. These 2000 people alone did not make the movie complete. Nor would removing all teksavvy users or all Canadian stop anything. It's world wide.

I believe part of their claim is to rush and get these people to put a stop to the "distribution" and ruining them (or something like that). That's a joke. A complete joke. 15 different copies of each movie is out (if not more) by 15+ release groups. All shared world wide (though I don't know anyone who would want their junk dollar bin crap).

Or Maybe their very own copy they made and shared with the world (if it's not one of the dozen releases by release groups) is their own fault. It sure as hell isn't a "teksavvy" or "Canadian" matter. It's world wide.

*shrug*

Bottom line, they are fulla shit.

But Canadian Judge Joe sitting in court is an idiot and will believe anything anyone says and will believe their claim has merit.

The whole thing is a sham and even preys on the ignorance of those who upload the law, the judge.
hm

hm to Gone

Anon

to Gone
said by Gone:

said by racer123:

@Scarecrow - nothing, because Canipre claims that it verifies the data as well as watches the finished movie after the data has been recompiled into a working copy of the film. They'd find that your copy is a fake and they'd have no problem with you serving up a fake.

How can they verify this if all they receive are the few bits and pieces that you provide to them as part of a swarm?

A few pieces will pay.

When I tried to DL some the the educational chem video's the other day I cut one off at about 20% (had to run out). that 20% played just fine.

The movie files on p2p appear to come raw, not packed. so those bits can but to say I got 1kb of something from *only these* 2300 people (which some happen to be the same person 3x)... meh. All BS.
racer123
join:2012-12-14
Hamilton, ON

racer123 to Gone

Member

to Gone
@Gone That's their angle - they use "special software" which they are not the developer for, and isolate the supposed IP's that uploaded even the smallest portion of one of the file peices. That's it. I don't know if the software can identify which bits and bytes are from each independant IP address or not.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

Oh, I know what their angle is. I am simply saying that it isn't good enough as they have no way to prove that the IP they captured was making available a 100% complete and working version of the infringing material based on the extremely limited number of pieces they capture.
Gone

Gone to hm

Premium Member

to hm
said by hm :

A few pieces will pay.
When I tried to DL some the the educational chem video's the other day I cut one off at about 20% (had to run out). that 20% played just fine.
The movie files on p2p appear to come raw, not packed. so those bits can but to say I got 1kb of something from *only these* 2300 people (which some happen to be the same person 3x)... meh. All BS.

This is completely dependant on the format as most use containers that require a functional header to be viewable and as a result your blanket statement that all will play with just a few pieces of data is wholly incorrect. You need to educate yourself a bit further.

Furthermore, this does not negate the argument that a few pieces of data from one source proves that they have the entire material available for infringement.
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree

Member

said by Gone:

Furthermore, this does not negate the argument that a few pieces of data from one source proves that they have the entire material available for infringement.

Does it matter if they're making the entire material available for infringement? Honest question, I have no idea. I can't see why it would matter though, whether you share 1%, 50%, 99% or 100%, you're still sharing something you don't have the rights to share.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by Ree:

Does it matter if they're making the entire material available for infringement? Honest question, I have no idea. I can't see why it would matter though, whether you share 1%, 50%, 99% or 100%, you're still sharing something you don't have the rights to share.

It does matter, because without the full material available the data is just a useless series of 1s and 0s that can't be used for anything. It would be like someone blaming you for infringing on the copyright of a book when all you have is a page of random letters.

There are different formats that can be viewed in partial pieces, but the vast majority of the stuff out there uses container formats which will not function without the full file. You are unable to prove that the infringing material was available for use - a requirement under the law - when all you do is grab a few paces of "random letters," if you will.
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree

Member

said by Gone:

said by Ree:

Does it matter if they're making the entire material available for infringement? Honest question, I have no idea. I can't see why it would matter though, whether you share 1%, 50%, 99% or 100%, you're still sharing something you don't have the rights to share.

It does matter, because without the full material available the data is just a useless series of 1s and 0s that can't be used for anything. It would be like someone blaming you for infringing on the copyright of a book when all you have is a page of random letters.

There are different formats that can be viewed in partial pieces, but the vast majority of the stuff out there uses container formats which will not function without the full file. You are unable to prove that the infringing material was available for use - a requirement under the law - when all you do is grab a few paces of "random letters," if you will.

Yes, if they just grab a few pieces that proves nothing. But somebody mentioned that they will download the entire file (from hundreds if not thousands of seeds/peers) and watch it to confirm that it's an infringing work.

So if a given movie was made up of 1000 pieces, and each piece was downloaded from a different seed/peer, then now they know that 1000 people were making at least 1 piece of a copyrighted work available.

Which is where my question about percentages comes in. Each person only shared 1/1000th of the file. Does that suddenly make it OK?

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by Ree:

Yes, if they just grab a few pieces that proves nothing. But somebody mentioned that they will download the entire file (from hundreds if not thousands of seeds/peers) and watch it to confirm that it's an infringing work.
So if a given movie was made up of 1000 pieces, and each piece was downloaded from a different seed/peer, then now they know that 1000 people were making at least 1 piece of a copyrighted work available.
Which is where my question about percentages comes in. Each person only shared 1/1000th of the file. Does that suddenly make it OK?

They can do that all they want. It doesn't prove that *you* have a full working copy of the file offered up for infringement. All it proves is that you have one or two segments of a file that, on their own, are just useless data.
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree

Member

said by Gone:

said by Ree:

Yes, if they just grab a few pieces that proves nothing. But somebody mentioned that they will download the entire file (from hundreds if not thousands of seeds/peers) and watch it to confirm that it's an infringing work.
So if a given movie was made up of 1000 pieces, and each piece was downloaded from a different seed/peer, then now they know that 1000 people were making at least 1 piece of a copyrighted work available.
Which is where my question about percentages comes in. Each person only shared 1/1000th of the file. Does that suddenly make it OK?

They can do that all they want. It doesn't prove that *you* have a full working copy of the file offered up for infringement. All it proves is that you have one or two segments of a file that, on their own, are just useless data.

And again, that's what my question is. Does it matter whether I share 1/1000 or 500/1000 or 999/1000 or 1000/1000 pieces? Any way you slice it I'm sharing something I don't own the rights to so I don't see what the difference is.

Seems like that would be a pretty big loophole if you had to share the whole thing for it to be infringement. If that's the case, I propose this change to the BitTorrent protocol:

Only ever share n-1 pieces of a file. If everyone picks a random piece to not share, then all the pieces will still be available, just never all from the same person, so then it can never be proved that anybody has a full working copy!

Off to file my patent now...

random
@teksavvy.com

random to Gone

Anon

to Gone
Just like they are using a "hacked" copy of torrent client for honeypot, a user can also find "hacked" torrent clients that lies about their uploads, share ratio, completion and other stats too.

Having only a few non-sequential random blocks of data in torrent is very much like a random patch of data in a CD that is partially destroyed by a microwave oven. Not until you have recovered enough of the directory structures, file header etc, you can't even make sense out of the raw data.
Expand your moderator at work

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone to Ree

Premium Member

to Ree

Re: Blog - Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

said by Ree:

And again, that's what my question is. Does it matter whether I share 1/1000 or 500/1000 or 999/1000 or 1000/1000 pieces? Any way you slice it I'm sharing something I don't own the rights to so I don't see what the difference is.

said by »laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/ ··· html#h-4 :
3. (1) For the purposes of this Act, “copyright”, in relation to a work, means the sole right to produce or reproduce the work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatever, to perform the work or any substantial part thereof in public or, if the work is unpublished, to publish the work or any substantial part thereof, and includes the sole right
(a) to produce, reproduce, perform or publish any translation of the work,
(b) in the case of a dramatic work, to convert it into a novel or other non-dramatic work,
(c) in the case of a novel or other non-dramatic work, or of an artistic work, to convert it into a dramatic work, by way of performance in public or otherwise,
(d) in the case of a literary, dramatic or musical work, to make any sound recording, cinematograph film or other contrivance by means of which the work may be mechanically reproduced or performed,
(e) in the case of any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, to reproduce, adapt and publicly present the work as a cinematographic work,
(f) in the case of any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, to communicate the work to the public by telecommunication,
(g) to present at a public exhibition, for a purpose other than sale or hire, an artistic work created after June 7, 1988, other than a map, chart or plan,
(h) in the case of a computer program that can be reproduced in the ordinary course of its use, other than by a reproduction during its execution in conjunction with a machine, device or computer, to rent out the computer program,
(i) in the case of a musical work, to rent out a sound recording in which the work is embodied, and
(j) in the case of a work that is in the form of a tangible object, to sell or otherwise transfer ownership of the tangible object, as long as that ownership has never previously been transferred in or outside Canada with the authorization of the copyright owner,
A single block is not substantial on its own in any way. In fact, with the way the Act is worded, that tiny non-substantial piece - remember, the Act requires a substantial part to be made available - in of itself isn't even a violation of the Copyright Act. Knowing this, a single unsubstantial block not only is of itself not an infringement of copyright, but also does not prove that copyright in of the entire work was made available for infringement by any specific user who may be named in a claim.
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree

Member

said by Gone:

A single block is not substantial on its own in any way. In fact, with the way the Act is worded, that tiny non-substantial piece - remember, the Act requires a substantial part to be made available - in of itself isn't even a violation of the Copyright Act. Knowing this, a single unsubstantial block not only is of itself not an infringement of copyright, but also does not prove that copyright in of the entire work was made available for infringement by any specific user who may be named in a claim.

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

So my next question is whether "substantial" has been defined (elsewhere in the act, in previous court cases, or whatever). It seems like the same thing I mentioned above could apply, but instead of sharing n-1 blocks, you share substantial-1. Not that I'm advocating this, just pointing out that it's a pretty big loophole.

And another question. If I make all 1000/1000 blocks available, but nobody ever downloads them, is that still a copyright violation? The reason I ask is because if Voltage (or whoever) only downloaded one block to prove what I was sharing was really their copyrighted material, and that's not substantial enough for a copyright violation conviction, is it enough to ask the courts to identify me so they can investigate further (seize my PC to check if I had the whole file, or just the 1 block)?

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

The issue is that unless they obtain all 1000 blocks from you specifically and reassemble them into a working form, they have no way to verify that all 1000 blocks you made available in the swarm are actually a working version material they're claiming you infringed upon. Merely listing 1000 blocks available does not in itself constitute infringement as there's no way to verify the information was actually what you said it is. Without 1000 correct blocks of that infringed-upon material, you don't have a working copy of the file, and therefore aren't infringing on anything.

They can make whatever claim they want, there is still no way for them to prove that all 2000 of the IPs actually served up anything useful unless they downloaded a complete movie from each and every individual 2000s IPs at one specific point in time.

Now, hypothetically, even if they did do exactly that, then you get into the whole issue of being unable to prove that the person named in the suit was the one who actually made the material available for infringement.

This is why these "lawsuits" are so retarded.

TwiztedZero
Nine Zero Burp Nine Six
Premium Member
join:2011-03-31
Toronto, ON

TwiztedZero

Premium Member

Said by Gone See Profile
This is why these "lawsuits" are so retarded.

More like threat of lawsuits as by now we're aware these are extortion attempts. And if Prenda Law is any indication it could get even stickier down the road, they're using the scattergun approach down in the States now.

Said by Techdirt
So we move on to the next trick, which is that Guava / Prenda then sued all of the same people in ten different federal district courts. Yes, they basically filed identical lawsuits in ten different courts, all asking for discovery on the same exact list of 34 IP addresses.
---
The attempt to sneak through discovery without even naming the IP addresses as defendants failed in Cook County, so just file repeat federal lawsuits everywhere they can think of, perhaps hoping / figuring that at least one of the judges would agree to discovery, leading to the identities associated with those 34 IP addresses being passed over.

The article goes on to list several types of "tricks" they're employing. Its something of a bother. We really don't want to see this sort of thing moving into Canada.
funny0
join:2010-12-22

funny0 to Ree

Member

to Ree
said by Ree:

said by Gone:

said by Ree:

Does it matter if they're making the entire material available for infringement? Honest question, I have no idea. I can't see why it would matter though, whether you share 1%, 50%, 99% or 100%, you're still sharing something you don't have the rights to share.

It does matter, because without the full material available the data is just a useless series of 1s and 0s that can't be used for anything. It would be like someone blaming you for infringing on the copyright of a book when all you have is a page of random letters.

There are different formats that can be viewed in partial pieces, but the vast majority of the stuff out there uses container formats which will not function without the full file. You are unable to prove that the infringing material was available for use - a requirement under the law - when all you do is grab a few paces of "random letters," if you will.

Yes, if they just grab a few pieces that proves nothing. But somebody mentioned that they will download the entire file (from hundreds if not thousands of seeds/peers) and watch it to confirm that it's an infringing work.

So if a given movie was made up of 1000 pieces, and each piece was downloaded from a different seed/peer, then now they know that 1000 people were making at least 1 piece of a copyrighted work available.

Which is where my question about percentages comes in. Each person only shared 1/1000th of the file. Does that suddenly make it OK?

doesnt matter its still non commerical file sharing in my opinion no one is also handing out bills with each piece last i checked....
JMJimmy
join:2008-07-23

JMJimmy

Member

said by funny0:

doesnt matter its still non commerical file sharing in my opinion no one is also handing out bills with each piece last i checked....

Except that If a bill isn't at least 50% intact it's no longer considered valid currency. And add to that, it's not copyright infringement it's counterfeiting.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone to TwiztedZero

Premium Member

to TwiztedZero
said by TwiztedZero:

they're using the scattergun approach down in the States now.

...

We really don't want to see this sort of thing moving into Canada.

The "layout" and procedural rules of our court system is different, so employing this kind of tactic would be impossible in Canada.
funny0
join:2010-12-22

funny0 to JMJimmy

Member

to JMJimmy
said by JMJimmy:

said by funny0:

doesnt matter its still non commerical file sharing in my opinion no one is also handing out bills with each piece last i checked....

Except that If a bill isn't at least 50% intact it's no longer considered valid currency. And add to that, it's not copyright infringement it's counterfeiting.

what i meant was with each piece of a file they aren't handing you any money you got no money from it or gave any thus its NON COMMERICAL sorry does sound off the way i wrote that.
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree to Gone

Member

to Gone
said by Gone:

The issue is that unless they obtain all 1000 blocks from you specifically and reassemble them into a working form, they have no way to verify that all 1000 blocks you made available in the swarm are actually a working version material they're claiming you infringed upon. Merely listing 1000 blocks available does not in itself constitute infringement as there's no way to verify the information was actually what you said it is. Without 1000 correct blocks of that infringed-upon material, you don't have a working copy of the file, and therefore aren't infringing on anything.

That's true, it's entirely possible someone may be sharing 1 good piece and 999 junk pieces. So at what point do they have enough pieces to say "ok court, we think they're infringing, we'd like their name so we can check out their PC to see if they had the complete infringing file or not".

Or can they only gain access to the PC as evidence after a lawsuit is actually filed (which as others have pointed out, isn't likely to happen since it won't be as profitable as scaring people into settling)?
funny0
join:2010-12-22

funny0 to TwiztedZero

Member

to TwiztedZero
said by TwiztedZero:

Said by Gone See Profile
This is why these "lawsuits" are so retarded.

More like threat of lawsuits as by now we're aware these are extortion attempts. And if Prenda Law is any indication it could get even stickier down the road, they're using the scattergun approach down in the States now.

Said by Techdirt
So we move on to the next trick, which is that Guava / Prenda then sued all of the same people in ten different federal district courts. Yes, they basically filed identical lawsuits in ten different courts, all asking for discovery on the same exact list of 34 IP addresses.
---
The attempt to sneak through discovery without even naming the IP addresses as defendants failed in Cook County, so just file repeat federal lawsuits everywhere they can think of, perhaps hoping / figuring that at least one of the judges would agree to discovery, leading to the identities associated with those 34 IP addresses being passed over.

The article goes on to list several types of "tricks" they're employing. Its something of a bother. We really don't want to see this sort of thing moving into Canada.

i'd be careful in canada doing that , your lawyer might get disbarred and you countersued....
loads a case law to prevent that and you aren't allowed in canada to basically sue me for the same thing twice let alone ten times at same time....you'd still have to alert the isp whom then could let everyone know and a serious class action for fraud could start on ya making you spend tons a cash you dont have...that is the game of these , use little cash and be a maffia style blackmail artist.

also filing hte cheapest court in cnada requires 120$
so thats 1200 bucks and you arent even in court for that 5 grand yet and then get juries on you asked by the defendant and its not financially smart to even bother...its why a load a lawsuits dont happen unless its fair chunk a money cause the time and effort and money is better spent.
JMJimmy
join:2008-07-23

JMJimmy

Member

Depends on joinder. If joinder is permitted it's 100-5,000 x number of joined defendants for the $1,200 investment. If joinder is not permitted then it's $120 x number of defendants x number of times filed for $100-5000 per defendant.

However, in Canada it doesn't work the same way as the US. Our courts system is much smaller and isn't as easily abused.
funny0
join:2010-12-22

2 edits

funny0

Member

said by JMJimmy:

Depends on joinder. If joinder is permitted it's 100-5,000 x number of joined defendants for the $1,200 investment. If joinder is not permitted then it's $120 x number of defendants x number of times filed for $100-5000 per defendant.

However, in Canada it doesn't work the same way as the US. Our courts system is much smaller and isn't as easily abused.

on this type a suit in canada COULD have a mass lawsuit BUT Must apply to make it so....and thats up to the judge and i cold find no such case law or examples of copyright joinder for mass lawsuits like this cause no one has tried i suppose?....so
its not the usa

ontario quebec and bc have the most types a class actions and this is not listed ....enjoy....

that's if it were small clams ---120 just to file and if judge awards you and your lawyers costing you per day about 3 grand
you show up and ill ask you what if all 2300 want to be hear din court , law states they have the right
2300 half days
1150 days ?
at 3240 per day to get 100-5000 back that's awful risky business on non commerical and when this was files as commercial and it isn't and cant be proven....the joinder issue is moot.

btw its the provincial courts that do class action lawsuits perhaps someone needs to teach a lawyer WHERE TO FILE.They have filed for federal courts.One might argue that by doing so they cant mass sue people.BUT then they might at least be heard about there commerical aims bit which should still fail .

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl ··· n#Canada

OH BUT in may we had a decision that raises the bar on cases of class action and if you look down a bit to this section you will see the following which may apply to this type a case

The claim failed to specify which of the four corporate defendants had committed which impugned acts. Instead it improperly conflated them all as one entity, such that no defendant had sufficient information to know the acts alleged against it.

- does the ip address specifiy for sure it was a specific person?

THEY also to get class action status according to this ruling need to show evidence that these ips did the same thing....

The plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient evidence that "two or more" persons asserted the common claim. The Court cited an absence of evidence that others who had taken the drug were interested in pursuit of the claim. In any case, the class was defined too broadly in that it was not limited to any time period.

my example here would be if IP A downloaded 20% of file 1 , that is nto same as IP B downloading 30% of file 3 and so on...

also all i see is provinces that allow for class actions NOT federal courts...they filed in federal court for this information on mass to sue on mass .....i see no federal judge ever certifying them....and whatever province does do it usually would then make them all in one place....that might also fall under cruel and unusal punishment charter violation to do if a disabled ontario person cant afford to travel to defend themselves ....and thus is penalized more harshly then otherwise would happen..if at all saying they might even be innocent.

DSF2
@teksavvy.com

DSF2

Anon

Just curious for those affected, did voltage target a specific torrent site/tracker ?
funny0
join:2010-12-22

funny0 to JMJimmy

Member

to JMJimmy
said by JMJimmy:

Depends on joinder. If joinder is permitted it's 100-5,000 x number of joined defendants for the $1,200 investment. If joinder is not permitted then it's $120 x number of defendants x number of times filed for $100-5000 per defendant.

However, in Canada it doesn't work the same way as the US. Our courts system is much smaller and isn't as easily abused.

i bet the rules on that would also allow all 2300 and there lawyers to have a say as most class action lawsuits have taken years i doubt that once that happens and everyone poor gets legal aid
voltage will drop it cause htey know it will drag on for a long time.

personally you have a right to hear the charges against you...
in most class actions that are the other way around the mass of people get ONE lawyer and speak for them against ONE defendant usually some big evil mean corporation.... imagine if tomorrow there was a class action versus 2300 corporations they stuff there lawyers into court and make it take 50 years....you get the hint mister voltage....

people need get tactical and go HEY YEA if they want a mass lawsuit then lets all gets lawyers and show up NOT ONE for all, but each get one lawyer ergo 2300 lawyers and make this last ten years and cost voltage millions in court fees and the legal aid system millions of tax payers dollars and i'll bet the law gets changed right darn fast cause tax payers dont want to be screwed Voltage woud go bankrupt....JUST LIKE WHAT HAPPENED TO SCO UNIX.
funny0

funny0 to DSF2

Member

to DSF2
said by DSF2 :

Just curious for those affected, did voltage target a specific torrent site/tracker ?

no evidence of voltages has been presented other then a list of ips they claim with a 3rd party to have gathered....