MPAA/RIAA caught setting torrent honey pots


Recommended Posts

MPAA gets caught laying torrent traps

Author: Brett Thomas

Published: 12th January 2007

It has long been suspected that the MPAA and RIAA might try to frustrate or even punish pirates by using bugged, dodgy, or otherwise false Bit Torrent trackers. However, it wasn't easy to catch the agency "in the act"...however, one slick admin over at btjunkie.com has done just that.

The torrent files are set up as 'honey pots' - they record the IP of the connecting pirate as he or she downloads the pieces of the files (which are bogus, by the way). They're even named smartly - many of the fakes look like real torrent names, including fake cracking groups, formats, etc. And before anyone goes and screams "Entrapment!", the MPAA is hiding behind the fact that it is not a law enforcement agency (despite that it takes the reverse of that stance in the courtroom) and that it's just offering something fakes for people who were going to do anyway, making the act legal.

Under law, it is illegal to "fight fire with fire," so the trackers that propegate the servers are actually links to dead files that will either stall close to completion or just be a mess of scrambled data. To date, nobody has had virus or malware issues with the dodgy sites - just a lot of failed downloads. The amount of servers and quality of the files being thrown out illustrates a very professional job.

The btjunkie admin recognized a pattern in the servers that provide continually deficient downloads, and the guys over at TorrentFreak have started to put up some of the server names. A combined force from both sites is combing through and flagging the files based on their host, as well. All of the hosts come out of the southern California and Las Vegas areas, and are easy to identify by IP ranges.

Just for an example of how much of this is going on, here is a current search from TorrentPortal - all of the files with a red X are fakes.

Bit Tech (Source)

Isn't it illegal?

And besides tracking you, what else can they do? Sue you for downloading fake files?

In the UK at least, attempting an illegal act, even though that act is impossible in practice, is still illegal. Examples:

1) There was a guy who went through British Customs with several bags of white powder. He believed them to be cocaine that he had bought abroad. However, he had been scammed, and it was actually talcum powder. Even so, as his intention was to smuggle drugs, he was charged and convicted.

Therefore, if you download a fake file by accident, but its clear that your intention is to download a pirate copy, then you can still be charged.

In the UK at least, attempting an illegal act, even though that act is impossible in practice, is still illegal. Examples:

1) There was a guy who went through British Customs with several bags of white powder. He believed them to be cocaine that he had bought abroad. However, he had been scammed, and it was actually talcum powder. Even so, as his intention was to smuggle drugs, he was charged and convicted.

Therefore, if you download a fake file by accident, but its clear that your intention is to download a pirate copy, then you can still be charged.

Well, that makes some sense. But, let's say the police set him up or something like that. That would be illegal right? That they "induce" you to commit a crime. That has to be illegal! Anyway, with the torrents it is another story. It is not like the riaa is posting files all over the internet screaming "HEY! DOWNLOAD ME!".

You get my point, I guess

In the UK at least, attempting an illegal act, even though that act is impossible in practice, is still illegal. Examples:

1) There was a guy who went through British Customs with several bags of white powder. He believed them to be cocaine that he had bought abroad. However, he had been scammed, and it was actually talcum powder. Even so, as his intention was to smuggle drugs, he was charged and convicted.

Therefore, if you download a fake file by accident, but its clear that your intention is to download a pirate copy, then you can still be charged.

Surely you could then go and turn this around to say that you weren't trying to download the illegal file rather see if the file was one set by the MPAA?

Well, that makes some sense. But, let's say the police set him up or something like that. That would be illegal right? That they "induce" you to commit a crime. That has to be illegal! Anyway, with the torrents it is another story. It is not like the riaa is posting files all over the internet screaming "HEY! DOWNLOAD ME!".

You get my point, I guess

I get your point, but let me explain it this way.

If an undercover police officer approaches you, and asks if you want to buy drugs for example, that wont hold up, as you wernt looking for drugs, you were offered them. However, if you walk up to someone who looks like a drug dealer (but who is actually an undercover police officer) standing by the road and ask them for drugs, you are looking for drugs, they have offered you nothing, so that would hold up.

In the case of online downloading, they arnt sending you e-mails offering you warez, you are searching for them yourself, so the evidence collected this way would definately hold up.

Hope this helps :)

In the UK at least, attempting an illegal act, even though that act is impossible in practice, is still illegal. Examples:

1) There was a guy who went through British Customs with several bags of white powder. He believed them to be cocaine that he had bought abroad. However, he had been scammed, and it was actually talcum powder. Even so, as his intention was to smuggle drugs, he was charged and convicted.

Therefore, if you download a fake file by accident, but its clear that your intention is to download a pirate copy, then you can still be charged.

In Brazil that would be an "impossible crime" since there wasn't, in fact, an element of the crime.

The crime theory says to analyse first the objective elements then the subjective ones (like intention).

In other words, the person should "do" exacly what the law describe as a crime. "Powder" is not drug so... The "MPAA/RIAA" is not pirated material so... :)

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • The proportion (or number of iterations) has nothing to with this aspect of Copyright I am describing. In short, it doesn't matter how many times the manager tells you to change something or how. Your work product is always YOURS until and unless you then assign that to the person representing the client/company, usually for financial compensation -- either in salary or as a subcontract work for hire payment. if iterations determined copyright, then businesses would have learned to just keep making changes until they could claim they owned the copyright, without having to compensate the artist for their work. And that would be BAD. The only place where the amount of changes does have a role is in how much does a human modify a previous public domain work (from any source) before it is considered fair use or their own work, etc. For example, if a human makes substantial changes to a public domain (re: AI, by definition) work, then they can then claim that derivative work as their own...but NEVER the original version, of course. That's why anyone can make a movie about Dracula, for example, as long as it is based on the public domain novel, but not if they take new ideas from copyrighted movies made afterwards. As one of the people who personally advised the US Copyright Office on their recent ruling on these very issues, be assured that I specifically used the terminology precisely -- though I made it simple enough for laymen to understand it. If I made this confusing by doing so, I apologize. But, to be clear regarding your assumption that I would agree to your second statement that I quoted above -- the answer is NO. If AI does the work, no matter how much "direction" you give it, it cannot be copyrighted. All AI generated content is in the Public Domain and therefore the copyright cannot be assigned to ANYONE, even you -- until and unless substantial modifications are made to it BY A HUMAN BEING (yourself or a contracted artist/writer/etc.) and then that copyright on the derivative work is legally (in writing) transferred to you. This is a critical distinction. And it is important that people, especially AI sloppers, understand this. For example, YouTube is not paying AI slop generators for the copyright, etc. of their AI slop. What YouTube is doing is sharing AD REVENUE for permission to publish your AI slop. Copyright/ownership/rights never come into it. Importantly, that means that anyone can copy any AI slopware on YouTube, etc. and rehost it anywhere they want, even back on YouTube, and there is nothing legal that YouTube can do about it with regards to copyright protections, ownership, DMCA, etc. Anyone is legally free to use any AI slopware in any way they want. When this ruling was pending, I warned Disney legal of all of this before they did their OpenAI deal -- that it would literally dilute their entire IP portfolio forever. They ignored that warning for the PR and stock bump. But that is why, when the ruling came down last year, Disney quickly extricated themselves from that OpenAI deal, even eating the initial upfront fees -- followed closely by OpenAI ending their entire AI video generating business model. They adjusted their PR release dates to make this less obvious to shareholders, of course. Phew. I hope that this clears up the key distinctions for you and anyone reading. If you have any additional questions or even hypotheticals about AI and Copyright, please feel free to ask.
    • Each of the devices displayed on this page now has a little volume meter next to it to show if there is audio actively playing. About time.
    • Owing to the nature of Windows feature enablement updates, it was distributed over Windows Update services as a complete system upgrade rather than as an ordinary cumulative update
    • Microsoft confirms Windows 11 26H2, urges IT admins to prepare for release by Usama Jawad Windows 11 typically follows an annual update cycle, but Microsoft recently broke that tradition a bit by releasing a "26H1" version in the first half of this year as a "scoped" build for select new silicon PCs only. This version was not available for customers using 24H2 and 25H2 builds, as Microsoft is busy preparing version 26H2 for them, confirmed officially for the first time. In a Windows IT Pro blog, Microsoft has urged IT admins to prepare for the upcoming release of Windows 11 version 26H2. The company has confirmed that this will be a small enablement package (eKB) that will simply light up certain disabled features that are already present in the operating system's code base. This means that the "refined" Windows update and deployment experience will be simpler and quicker, with minimal disruptions, as the feature update will simply toggle a few flags rather than performing a complete replacement. Microsoft has explained that this is all possible because the standard Windows 11 releases share the same servicing branch and hence, the same source code. However, this also means that Windows 11 26H1 users won't be able to upgrade to 26H2 as that is a different branch, but this is something we have known for a while now. Similar to previous annual feature updates, Windows 11 26H2 will offer the following support cycles: 24 months of support for Home, Pro, Pro EDU, and Pro for Workstations editions 36 months of support for Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise, and Enterprise Multi-session editions Microsoft has not confirmed a concrete release date for Windows 11 26H2, but noted that it is "coming soon". If we go by the ongoing release cadence, we can expect it to begin rolling out in early October 2026. As such, IT admins have been encouraged to begin validating Windows Insider releases in the Experimental Channel, plan rollout rings, and strategize the utilization of their existing deployment tools.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Collaborator
      ryansurfer98 went up a rank
      Collaborator
    • Week One Done
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Year In
      Skeet Campbell earned a badge
      One Year In
    • One Month Later
      Sharbel earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      576
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      188
    3. 3
      Michael Scrip
      79
    4. 4
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      77
    5. 5
      neufuse
      72
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!