美国BT下载侵权诉讼锁定个人用户

patrickzhu

http://www.sina.com.cn  2010年07月26日 12:10  新浪科技
http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2010-07-26/12104471082.shtml

　　导语：国外媒体今天发表文章，对美国愈演愈烈的BT下载诉讼案件进行了分析。

　　以下是文章全文：

　　向私人用户发送律师函

　　一般来说，在美国版权集团(US Copyright Group)、英国的ACSaw律师行和Gallant MacMillan律师行针对文件分享者的集体诉讼中，指控方都通过大型公共BT网站收集证据。现在另一家公司加入了这场诉讼，并且将目标锁定为大型的个人用户。

　　如今，针对文件分享者的诉讼正从欧洲蔓延至美国。到目前为止，他们的行动已经很明确：收集尽可能多的文件分享者的IP信息，然后通过法律行动获得他们的姓名和住址。一旦获得了这些详细信息，他们会给侵权者发邮件，要求缴纳几百美元到几千美元不等的早期和解费，否则将面临起诉。

　　尽管德国和英国的律师(ACSaw、Davenport Lyons及现在的Gallant MacMillan)是相关诉讼的先行者，但美国版权集团对奥斯卡获奖影片《拆弹部队》的分享者的诉讼近来占据了更多的头条位置。

　　这些律师的共同之处是，他们都没有公布证据的来源。由于目前还没有诉诸法庭，因此还没有人强制他们提供这方面的信息。基于英国过去的案例和美国相关行动的规模，很明显IP信息是从公共BT服务器获得的。

　　现在，成人电影公司Lucas Entertainmen也加入了这一行动。该公司总裁兼CEO迈克尔·卢卡斯(Michael Lucas)表示：“你只需在谷歌上搜索一下，就可以知道互联网上侵权的猖獗程度。我一直不明白，有些用户不愿从LucasEntertainment.com上观看电影，却愿意费尽周折从BT网站上下载。我想，很多人总是有无穷无尽的耐心。我们感激我们的影迷，不管他们是谁。但商业毕竟是商业，我们必须通过内容赚钱。”

　　为此，该公司不仅在得克萨斯州北区法院对65名被告人提起诉讼，而且表示在一个私人BT服务器上特别追踪了几名用户。

　　BT下载的共赢模式

　　尽管相对于海盗湾(The Pirate Bay)等网站来说Gay-Torrents.net(GT)是一家小众网站，但仍然是一个很大的BT服务器。该网站成立于2001年，拥有235000名会员。现在，这一庞大的用户群体已经成为这种高利润的“不付款就起诉”行动的目标。版权所有者和律师希望从文件分享者那里赚钱，不管他们住在哪里，或者获得了什么文件。Lucas Entertainmen也不例外，尽管该公司尚未透露自己的要价。

　　所有私人BT服务器的用户对这起案件都十分关注。GT和所有私人站点一样，仅对会员开放。这就意味着，要么卢卡斯本人(或其代理人)是GT的一名活跃会员，要么积极参加了文件下载与分享。

　　当然，公共BT服务器也是如此，但私人服务器会保留很多记录，因此很容易发现哪些帐号与之进行了连接。如果某个涉案帐号被证明上传过文件，其法律影响就会十分严重。在针对文件分享者的通常案件中，只有反侵权组织会持有证据。

　　GT的一名管理员表示：“公司不愿看到会员利用自己在GT上的活动赢利，或将其用于法律用途。”同时表示GT的会员十分关注电影业，他说：“一些GT成员深入参与了卢卡斯先生的行业，他们进行文件分享是因为这符合制片商和消费者的利益，并且完全遵守了与GT的合作协议，会员起到了免费广告商和免费分销商的作用。”

　　一名GT管理员解释道：“我们的合作协议包括这样的条款，即我们宣传他们的新作品，然后在上映后的在一段时间内禁止新的制作，以鼓励销售。但奇怪的是，Lucas Entertainmen等公司采取了一种咄咄逼人的策略，而不是合作共赢的策略。”然而，抛开那些正式的协议，GT似乎是一个考虑周全的BT网站。

　　这名管理员总结道：“作为对所有制片商的尊重(包括我们的制片商成员及其未来的上传)，我们已经全面禁止了未上映影片的下载。我们的目标是与电影业进行合作，如果真的发生进一步的法律行动，我们认为一些不明智的制片商是把我们的会员看成了普通的小偷，而不是把他们看作潜在的消费者、以及免费的广告商和分销商。”

　　GT表示，涉及生活、商业和科技的很多版权法已经过时。“很明显，政府和企业需要与时俱进，我们担心即将生效的《反伪造贸易协定》(ACTA)将会推行20世纪的准则，并且阻碍创新和新兴商业模式的发展。”(钦亮)

patrickzhu

http://torrentfreak.com/mass-bit ... ate-tracker-100725/

Mass BitTorrent Lawsuits Now Target Private Trackers

Written by enigmax on July 25, 2010  

Mass lawsuits against alleged file-sharers, such as those from the US Copyright Group and lawyers ACS Law and Gallant MacMillan in the UK, are generally accepted to have been generated from evidence gathered from big public BitTorrent sites. Now it appears that at least one other firm has jumped on the bandwagon, this time targeting a large private tracker.

Mass lawsuits against alleged file-sharers are spreading like a plague of locusts from Europe over to the United States. By now, their action is clear. Gather IP address evidence against as many alleged file-sharers as possible and take legal action in order to discover their names and addresses. Once those details are learned, pressure the recipient by post with threatening financial ruination unless an early settlement of a few hundred dollars up to a couple of thousand is forthcoming.

While lawyers in Germany and the UK (ACS Law, Davenport Lyons and now Gallant MacMillan) have been doing most of the pioneering work for this business model, it is the US Copyright Group and its pursuit of Hurt Locker file-sharers that has grabbed most of the headlines.

What all these lawyers have in common, is that none of them reveal where their evidence has been gathered from and since no cases have ever gone to court – that’s none, zero, nada – then no one has ever forced them to. From our dealings with specific and verified UK cases and from the scale of the US operation, it is fairly clear that the IP addresses used have been collated from public trackers.

Now it appears that adult movie company Lucas Entertainment have bucked the trend.

“You only have to conduct a quick Google search to see the rampant piracy all over the internet,” says Lucas Entertainment President/CEO Michael Lucas. “I am always surprised that users would deal with torrent sites and all the hassle that requires instead of streaming through LucasEntertainment.com, but I guess there are many people out there who have endless patience. We appreciate our fans wherever they are but business is business and we have to make some money off our content.”

To this end, not only has the company announced the filing of a lawsuit in Texas Northern District Court on July 19 which targets 65 defendants, but they have also uniquely revealed that they tracked the ‘John Does’ on a private BitTorrent tracker.

Although fairly niche when compared to the wide appeal of say, The Pirate Bay, Gay-Torrents.net (GT) is still a very big tracker. In existence since 2001 with more than 235,000 members, its users have now become the latest target in these lucrative ‘pay or else’ schemes. Copyright owners and lawyers want money from file-sharers, no matter where they live or what material they choose to obtain. And Lucas Entertainment are no different, although they are yet to announce exactly how much money they want.

This case should be of unique and special interest to all private tracker users because it raises some very interesting questions. GT, like all private sites, is a members only venue. This means that either Mr Lucas in person (or potentially one of his agents) is an active member of GT and must have actively participated in swarms.

Of course, this is true of public trackers too, but private trackers keep records – lots of them – so discovering the account connected with that can prove a trivial process. If it’s discovered that the account in question has been uploading, the litigation waters could get muddied significantly. In regular cases against file-sharers only anti-piracy groups carry evidence. Evidence on private trackers cuts both ways.

TorrentFreak spoke with an admin at GT who told us that they “would be somewhat displeased with any Member who sought to make a profit or take legal advantage of his torrenting activities via GT.”

That said, we are told that other GT members are indeed connected with the movie industry.

“Some GT Members are heavily involved in the same industry as Mr Lucas and also participate in filesharing because it is recognised that such activities are to their mutual benefit as movie producer, consumer and, in full agreement with GT and with our collaboration, as free advertiser and distributor,” TorrentFreak was told.

“The latter agreement would include a term that we advertise their new title and ban new productions for a specific period of time following release in order to encourage sales. Rather strangely some producers such as Lucas Entertainment appear to prefer a more litigious route rather than one of mutual cooperation,” explained a GT admin.

Nevertheless, more formal agreements aside, GT appears to be a somewhat considerate tracker.

“As a general courtesy to ALL studios (including our producer-Membership and their future uploads), we already impose a blanket ban on ALL pre-release titles regardless of Membership with GT. Our aim is to work in cooperation with the industry, but if the recent stories of further litigation are well-founded it appears some poorly advised studios stubbornly choose to view our Membership as common thieves rather than with respect as potential customers, and as free advertisers and distributors,” the admin concludes.

GT told TorrentFreak that they lay the blame for these lawsuits firmly at the door of outdated copyright laws applied to 21st century life, business and technology.

“Quite simply, governments and businesses worldwide need to catch up but we fear ACTA (the impending Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) will apply 20th century principles and shall deter innovation and quash new business models otherwise fit for modern societies.”

In the meantime copyright holders are making the best of it. Show them the money.

y12345678

唉，该是转用USENET的时候了