Given that TSI had 4 passes through their data, had about 50% uncorrelated ip's, and a number misidentified, that should be enough to call into question the accuracy of all their data at any trial.
It wouldn't matter even if they retained logs for 100 years - errors and missing/uncorrelated data of that magnitude call into question ANY information TSI provides anyone, and more importantly it calls into question the entirety of the data provided by Canipre/Voltage as to which IP's allegedly infringed.
Agreed.
I was also somewhat encouraged by TSI's posture today. Not a lot, but some anyway.
People are all up in arms over Teksavvy and how they are dealing with this. After today, we see they are going about this the right way, and that is make it difficult, time consuming and expensive that Voltage will move on. I like how they are doing this, better then a knee jerk reaction that most people wanted.
Based on what can be gleaned from the twitter feeds, I am rather encouraged by and thankful to Teksavvy for their active participation in today's proceedings.
Thanks, guys! (even though I'm not on "The List").
Well people should have not expected that TSI would be talking strategy on here in an open forum. I had a feeling they would make things difficult today.
I for one welcome our new Teksavvy overlords. I would like to remind them that as a trusted patron of their services, I can be helpful in rounding of others to toil in your underground fiber networks.
Anyone could be given the quality of the input data from Canipre and any errors in TSI's (or any other ISP) systems.
Considering Voltage is looking for approval to go on a court-sanctioned fishing expedition, and not pursue lawsuits, it isn't surprising that the input data is inaccurate, you could argue it was set up that way by design.
Just a point about costs and addressed to everyone who has felt that TSI is just using this Voltage matter as a money-making venture:
a) TSI has stated in court (under pain of perjury) that their costs thus far in the matter are $190k. b) Today TSI was not awarded any costs in the matter, though that could change in the future. c) Result: TSI is out-of-pocket $190k (for now, with no guarantee of recovering any/all their costs in the future) while attempting to ensure that this whole matter is given due process, that people's identities were not handed over to Voltage without them being notified, that people had been given enough time to get their own legal counsel, and that CIPPIC had enough time to get involved if they wanted to, that important points in law are given the hearing they deserve before any PI information is handed over to anyone.
Contrast TSI's behaviour with that of the other ISP's who recently simply handed over customer names, without notice to the customers, and pocketed the cash for each name. These ISP's made money on ratting out their customers.
So I say, good work TSI. Now, reduce your log retention to 2-4 weeks.
So Voltage wants the sharers to stop sharing the alleged file but to also preserve the evidence?
They are separate things. Voltage wants the logs for the time period in question (60 days in Sept-Oct?) preserved and then ongoing sharing stopped... unfortunately that argument is pure insanity since the files will continue to be shared regardless of compliance by the alleged.
That was one argument that I was surprised didn't come out... at this time the infringement is only alleged - to me cease and desist would come after infringement has been proven. Not sure how that works though... off to do some research.
Edit: Ahh... cease and desist letters are different from cease and desist orders.
It's unlikely companies keep random staff around for work like this.
They're based outside of Toronto, so add travel & hotel (At least two trips, possibly more to meet with lawyers, etc). Easily $20k+staffing costs right there.
Lawyers easily gobble up money - No idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the $20-40k range.
4 weeks of a CEO's time making $250k is $20k. Not to mention the lead guys dealing with the angry customers, checking and verifying all the data, setting up the a delivery system, etc...
Who keeps random extra staff around? Tack on overtime, and you'll easily come within range of the $190k.
>I was also somewhat encouraged by TSI's posture today. Not a lot, but some anyway.
I'm wondering if TSI has been playing opossum, seems to me they helped throw a few spanners into the TrollWorks and Voltage seemed pretty pissed about it.
If the judge is questioning the validity of the "evidence" Voltage has gathered then this all might go the exact opposite of what I thought.
We could be on the cusp of ending these lawsuits before they start.
>Uhhh..... easily? One can stop sharing files without deleting them.
Can you? I thought the way Bittorrents worked is that the files are up loaded and downloaded at the same time? I guess a user could cut the file out and put it someplace else on their hard drive.
They are separate things. Voltage wants the logs for the time period in question (60 days in Sept-Oct?) preserved and then ongoing sharing stopped... unfortunately that argument is pure insanity
When it all came to my attention I thought it was just a way for Voltage to make some easy money but after reading what the Voltage CEO said in reply to an email about how maybe suing people for watching your movies isn't a good idea it became clear we are dealing with insanity.
What's also crazy is even if Voltage wins (which is looking doubtful) that won't stop a single byte of their shite movies from being shared.
I'm assuming they can't charge for names they were unable to associate.
The work still has to be done, and costs would still be incurred, even if it doesn't result in a name - for whatever reason.
But at, say, 500 per week per person, 190k is what? 380 people for a week? 38 people for 10 weeks? Seriously. They've been at this for what, 4 weeks? Did they really have 95 people working on this full time for the last month? I think not.
This just stinks to high heaven.
Mike
Lets actually do the math here:
Somewhere between 2000-2300 associations:
$190,000 / 2000-2300 = $82 - $95 per request. Bhell charges $95 for a simple activation which is a pretty automated thing. This is a highly unusual thing with no automation (their top people had to manually associate all the data)
If anything the number is low. Once you factor in the cost of a lawyer ($5k retainer for a good one), Marc's time, the soft costs of taking your top techs off their regular duties to deal with this (ie: someone has to fill that gap = extra staffing = HR costs or overtime costs), additional support hours to deal with calls from customers, log preservation, lost productivity, hard costs (food, lodging, travel, etc for court dates), etc.
There's a lot more than just the time/pay for the individual making the associations. I was given a case study once, a simple software upgrade for a law office from office 2003 to 2007. Cost for the software upgrade: less than $10k. Actual cost to the company: $100k-160k in soft costs.
Can you? I thought the way Bittorrents worked is that the files are up loaded and downloaded at the same time?
That's correct. Though it assumes a person is still downloading the file. But even if they are, they can still stop uploading it by stopping the download.
said by Dr Facts :
I guess a user could cut the file out and put it someplace else on their hard drive.
That's not how Bittorrent works. It doesn't share everything in a specific location like some other file sharing systems do.
Worst case, someone could just turn off their bittorrent client. Any files already downloaded continue to exist, and no further uploading happens.
TSI was denied the $190K they were seeking for the IDs of the IPs that Voltage provided. Presumably because the matter of the release of the IDs is still not decided.