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Feds Shut Down Elite Torrents
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed May 25, 2005 05:08 PM
from the stop-sharing dept.
from the stop-sharing dept.
honkimon writes "Cnn Money reports,
"Government agents said the onslaught included 10 search warrants and
the shut down of a central Web site used to coordinate all file-sharing
activity on the Elite Torrents network. That Web site,
Elitetorrents.org, had a selection of copyrighted works
that government officials described as virtually unlimited.""
Related Stories
[+]
Technology: MPAA Scores First P2P Jury Conviction 335 comments
An anonymous reader writes "The MPAA must be celebrating. According to the BitTorrent news site Slyck.com, the Department of Justice is proclaiming their first P2P criminal copyright conviction, against an Elite Torrents administrator. The press release notes, 'The jury was presented with evidence that Dove was an administrator of a small group of Elite Torrents members known as "Uploaders," who were responsible for supplying pirated content to the group. At sentencing, which is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2008, Dove faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.'"
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Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Funny)
I definately feel safer knowing that DHS is tackling major problems like downloading movies.
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Funny)
You missed the punchline, dude.
If we don't protect the few people at the very top of society so that they can continue to rip off the common folk to make billions upon billions of dollars in profits, then by God, the terrorists have already won!
Parent
Ripoff? (Score:4, Insightful)
George Lucas sure will make a profit off that, but is all profit-making a ripoff?
Parent
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mass produced media has all but killed small theatres and live entertainment. Even the local jobs from Cinemas are near-minimum wage mcjobs, and even those are being replaced by machines. The Cinema operations are franchised so as to lock in who can operate the enterprise and how they operate it, and the distribution of film quality is even monitored to keep cinemas on their toes.
It's a vertical monopoly where studios own the cinemas and the distribution. Worse, the studios and cinemas collude to ensure minimum competition and maximum revenue from their films.
Blockbuster cinema houses starve out independent cinema houses, then for the mostpart refuse to air local content which might not fill the seats. It's a rape of our culture and funnels money out of the local economy and right into Hollywood.
The revenues are used to empower legal teams to change copyright legislation so as to artificially protect their intellectual property. The rights which copyright gave them to make their bililons of dollars is just not enough for them.
In a world of six billion people, we should see more films and creative content than ever in the history of the earth, but for some reason, all we care about is the production of a few films from these big corporations.
In other words, George Lucas is a role model for Americans to screw the little guy.
Parent
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Interesting)
People who bring baby's and toddlers to movies because they cant get a sitter that night.
The guy who translates the entire movie line by line for his spanish speaking family of 8 so they can see it in the theater.
How about removing those people, because they RUIN my $10/ticket movie going experience. Which in turn makes me download the movie and sit at home and watch in comfort. They arent losing ANY money because I didn't go to the theater and buy a ticket. I have no intention of going to theaters because of the 10% inconsiderate fucks in the world.
Parent
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually liked Revenge of the Sith, so I let others argue over whether the ticket price was a ripoff to see that particular movie. :-)
However, I don't need to argue about that. I can think of a few other ways we're being ripped off pretty quickly:
That's just off the top of my head. Anyone else care to add to the list?
So no, not all profit-making is a ripoff. But that doesn't change the fact that some of it certainly is. And no, illegally downloading and/or sharing movies isn't legal or ethical. But in the grand scheme of things, I think it's a hell of a lot less serious an offense than what the movie studios and especially the **AA are doing.
Parent
A better link for the punishment thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in a hurry to get the post on here, so I missed the link in the geek.com story to the original article [nyud.net] (non-Coral [usatoday.com]) at USA Today. That still doesn't change the fact that this kid got three months of a deferred jail sentence, three years of probation, 200 hours of community service (for those of you with a 40-hour a week job, that's five weeks off from work, or three months of weekends), $5,400 in fines, and he must take a class on copyright at the University (presumably at his own expense of time and money), and avoid file-sharing programs (I don't see any stipulation that the avoiding of file-sharing programs is limited to illegal downloads).
And in the article, it says that he was lucky that he was just a kid. If he had been older, the penalties would have been stiffer, including a mandatory three month jail sentence up front.
Oh, and I dug up [slashdot.org] the story from February 10 about the comparison between shoplifting and copyright infringement. Here is a link [nyud.net] (non-Coral [nyud.net]) to the original article.
Parent
Re:A better link for the punishment thing... (Score:5, Funny)
Sheesh, go easy on yourself for missing out on a link in your original post. Four links in one post is like the bibliography of a PhD disseration for Slashdot
Parent
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
<rant style="rant-type:soapbox;">
they can either become investors or quit
Okay, this is the last reply I'm going to post on this topic, because this is as close to a flame war as I want to get. If you want the last word, feel free to post a reply and I'll let everyone bask in your victory. I diligently try to avoid the soapbox like this, but man, you just caught me at just the wrong moment.
Your post is typical of someone who has had a relatively nice middle-class ride through life and doesn't truly know what it's like to be an ordinary working class schmoe. It's awful easy to say stuff like "become and investor" and "quit" when you have spare money to invest and could find another job relatively easily.
I'm guessing that you don't understand what it's like to have no spare money or to be forced to work a miserable job to keep food on the table because I'm guessing you can't relate. You think that you "pulled yourself up by the bootstraps" and "made yourself what you are today" because you went to college on your parent's dime and/or government-provided scholarship, grant, and/or student loan programs. If you lost your job today, I'm guessing you probably have money stashed away that you could fall back on, or at worst, a family that would find some way to take care of you. You think you've earned everything you have, and if someone else is poor, they're not unfortunate, they're just lazy because they didn't work as hard as you did.
Well, I've got some news; news that you will probably not believe because you've so successfully fooled yourself into believing that you've earned everything you have, but others reading will probably understand all too well. In America today, how hard you work has very little to do with how successful you are. I'm not saying the executives don't work hard, because a lot do. But they like to think that their sixty to eighty hours a week somehow entitles them to the lion's share of profit. Guess what: Sixty to eighty hours a weeks is a normal work week for a LOT of people who are barely making ends meet. In fact, some of the people in the corporate trenches would consider a sixty hour week a vacation.
These people would like nothing better than to find a good job somewhere else and quit, but the other company they go to will be just as bad, and they would lose any vested time in any pittance of a retirement plan they may have, vacation time they have built up for being at the company several years, and so on. So yeah, it's easy to armchair-manage people's lives, telling them to quit and lose what little they have for something worse, if you're not the one who will actually have to pay the price for it.
It's not like executives sit down with the grunts on the line and work out what everyone thinks is fair compensation for all employees. No, they TELL employees what they'll get, and that will be as little as they can get away with. These days, it's gotten even worse because many executives don't really even care about the long term well-being of the company, as long as they get their bonus this year and their golden parachute next year. As a general rule (exceptions are few and FAR between), the executives that can get away with screwing the employees the hardest will be the most lavishly rewarded for doing so. Why? It's built into the corporate culture. Their job is to maximize profit and minimize costs (i.e. things like salary and benefits for average schmoes). Being fair to the employees isn't part of the equation; in fact, it is a significant hinderance.
Bringing it back on-topic, most of the people working on the film AREN'T being paid what they're "supposed" to be paid. They're being paid the bare minimum they can be paid. Even though both are in a sad state under the constant attacks they've suffered lately, we fortunately have things like unions and liberals around to try to ensure that the bare minimum will at least allow these people to eat. They "signed up" for it not because it
Parent
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
I will admit to being the guy with the nice middle class ride through life to whom you refer. I have never in my life worked a minimum wage job, and the least I was ever paid was $6.25 an hour as a lab assistant in college. I have never had difficulty finding work as a soccer referee for over $15/hr on weekends, I have taken entry level grocery bagger positions for $9/hr and I have babysat for $7.50 an hour. During college I mostly worked internships at around $13/hr, which combined with $30,000 in government subsidized loans paid my tuition.
As bad as the school system is in this country, schools and public libraries offer sufficient resources for any interested person to obtain an education. I was homeschooled from K-12 grade, which meant that for the most part I taught myself. By buying used books online, you are looking at an investment of a couple hundred dollars a year. (And if you don't believe me I can put together a book list to show you.) It does not require a privleged middle class upbringing to obtain a quality education. I will agree though that for a kid whose parents don't really care, getting a quality education is much more difficult.
Obtaining a state college education is also not difficult for someone wanting to do so. My local state school has in-state education costs of under $500 a semester. Take your highly motivated examples who work two full time jobs. At $10/hr each job, that person is making about $40,000 a year. While $10/hr is high for starting salary, it is well within the reach of someone who is a good employee and is willing to relocate. Particularly if said party is willing to live in an inexpensive area (ie NOT San Francisco), they can very quickly have enough savings to go to school. If they can continue to work while in school, they may be able to avoid even needing much from their savings.
The real way a person gets into an untenable position is by making poor decisions. Not obtaining a quality high school education is the first mistake most people make. They then follow this by getting married or having kids they can support that family. Our society is unwilling to wait for anything or plan for the future. A person cannot end up a single mother with 3 kids working a minimum wage job without making some stupid decisions. While I do believe we should help such people recover from those mistakes, your claims that people aren't at fault for where they are in life just do not reflect the facts.
Parent
Re:Ripoff? (Score:5, Funny)
I did. He lost me when he said "How the proletariat got in my pajamas I'll never know."
Parent
Terrorent (Score:5, Interesting)
Terrorent: A terrorist who uses bittorrent to illegally distribute American Freedom ©.
Parent
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:5, Interesting)
But you can be sure it's not because of terrorism.
How much of California's income comes from the film industry and the industry that services it.
At this stage, the movie studios are nearly nothing more than specialised banks (do I get credit for quoting Neal Stephenson !) - and with the vast sums of money involved, its not surprising that the law appears to re-act quicker.
But the law folks need a semi-genuine excuse to pursue these cases without alienating the public.
For example, if their line was "Yeah, well we need to help the movie industry backers get richer" - how many people would be taken to their cause. As a matter of spite, people would swing the other way - anything to go "get the system".
In Britain, before the motto for pursuing these sites and pirates was "to fight terrorism" it was "to fight organised crime".
In the end, it's all down to money, and in the movie business there's loads of it floating around.
Every wonder how dangerous driving in some countries can only incur a penalty of a few hundred dollars/euros (if you are really unlucky) while recording a film in a cinema (which I don't condone) can incur an _unlimited_ penalty where I come from.
Parent
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:4, Informative)
I really think you people take pride in your ignorance.
I say this in another post, but Immigration and Customs, which handles copyright infrigement, is part of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security was created partly to battle terrorism and partly to combine the domestic agencies into one group. This issue has nothing to do with terrorism, even though it adding the word makes it all juicy and gets everyone all riled up.
Someone broke the law, and the government did its job by shutting them down.
Please get a grip and focus on the real issues of the day.
Parent
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Most people don't know any better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Average Joe American, is not savvy / educated enough to understand the mechanics of torrents, Hollywood (for instance that - Star Wars was an insider leak) or that this is a misuse of the DoH's resources. To them, pirates, downloaders and terrorists are one and the same.
Why? Because somewhere along the last couple of decades, peoples' knowledge of their own laws, (especially laws involving quickly changing technology) took a significant downturn. Simply try asking people on the street about the USAPatriot Act or the DMCA. Most - know nothing. Some may have a different perception of the act due to propaganda and only a few will care about it.
Unless it is directly affecting the person, it's not important to them for the most part...
Democracies, in order to be effective, require active and INFORMED citizens - something that is slowly dissappearing (for a multitude of reasons).
Parent
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the old impulse cannon you target at your heads all day long has something to do with this?
Fair and balanced, my ass!
Dear Americans:
Stop letting TV control your view, and check things out for yourselves. It might be interesting to see what is going on outside of the living room.
Parent
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:4, Interesting)
God, that patriot act of yours is darn scary. does anyone know if there is an equivilant in Britain? I hope not, I like to think that British norms are more informed than American norms (Though the results of our last election seem to suggest otherwise.)
It scares me that any body, even governments, can have such power. I like to think that in the modern age, people are protected by bodies like the UN. It pisses me off when the governing bodies of countries like America ignore UN rules because they think they are above the international law. In a perfect world, no one would have such extreme power over anyone else...
Screw it, maybe I'll just give up the real world. People are always saying that nerds like me have 'poor social skills'. What a load of crap! Sure, in their world I might be considered a bit strange, but in the world that is most important to me, the internet, I am a good member of society. But I am off topic, so I'll stop.
Parent
Re:Most people don't know any better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you kidding me? You guys don't even have a Constitution to provide an foundation to object to laws like PATRIOT. Have you ever checked out the UK's anti-terror laws? Check out the "Anti- Terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001" (which, BTW I'm unclear whether its anti terrorism, crime, and security, or only anti terrorism and crime; I would presume that it is pro-security, though the title is a bit ambiguous on that point.) Its chock full of fun bits.
Better yet, check out the laws in the UK in the 1970's and 80's to deal with the IRA--I'm not defending any group or act here, just pointing out that many of those laws make PATRIOT look benign. Just a hint: indefinite detention without any trial, and there's more where that came from.
Far from what the rhetoric of
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Re:Department of Shitty HTML involved? (Score:5, Funny)
Sweet mother of God, what an ugly page. View source and it gets even scarier...
I need to wash my eyes now.
Parent
Re:Department of Homeland Security was involved? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Santa Claus was the first through the door w/ m (Score:5, Interesting)
The government underwent a massive reorganization in the last two years. 22 agencies-- including big departments like the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, Coast Guard, Customs, and FEMA; have all been moved to, or are in the process of being moved to the DHS.
This is a BIG change... it's the most signifigant restructuring of the US government in the last 50 years.
You really, really need to know this stuff.
Parent
Re:Santa Claus was the first through the door w/ m (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps the people that are modding this as "interesting" should ask themselves whether or not the comment is, or is not, BS. As an example, the CIA is not a piece of DHS, and is not being moved to DHS. Rather, we've got a new office (now occupied by Negroponte) that is coordinating the intelligence output (though not necessarily operations) of several disparate agencies or units within other agencies. While DHS has a strong interest in coordinated intelligence, it is not an intelligence agency, per se. The FBI, likewise, is still part of Justice, and neither are, or will be, part of DHS. Get your damn facts as straight as your tinfoil hat.
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infinite? (Score:5, Funny)
Curses! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Curses! (Score:5, Funny)
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Had copies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Had copies? (Score:5, Informative)
Regards,
Steve
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Re:Had copies? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Had copies? (Score:5, Funny)
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Hydra (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hydra (Score:5, Insightful)
So they shut down a site that was trading in illegal stuff. What is the big deal? (other than the fact that the feds are concerned with THIS and not so much things that really hurt human beings)
Parent
Re:Hydra (Score:5, Insightful)
Torrents wouldn't be so bloody popular unless the current distribution model for media was a source of widespread dissatisfaction. Despite a plethora of laws passed to uphold aging business models, the number of Americans (just Americans) engaging in illegal downloading activity passed more than an estimated *70 million* last month. When a quarter of your citizens consistently and repeatedly break the law despite the imposition of relatively harsh (even ludicrous) prison sentences then there's something seriously wrong with the law - by definition. The citizens supposedly define the law, and if a good chunk of them ignore it (with the numbers rising every month) it's a fair bet that the law they're dismissing doesn't reflect their own interests or goals.
The RIAA and MPAA refuse to adapt to changing market conditions. Just plain, flat-out refuse. Probably because they know that in this case while adaption might very well preserve or even increase profits, it'll almost certainly strip them of the non-economic power they've acquired over the last fifty years - power that the tin-pots in the industries love more than money itself. So instead of adapting and avoiding this whole mess they buy laws and send Americans to jail over COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, which is just fucking stupid.
And yet despite this, the increasingly stiffer penalties, and the crackdowns, the number of Joes and Janes breaking these laws is climbing faster than at any other time in history since the Prohibition! That should tell you something right there about how well the law reflects the will of the people it supposedly serves.
Max
Parent
And this ended piracy for all time... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fewer pirates will offset the new income... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Footage (Score:5, Funny)
RTJKJAS? (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess somebody didn't like the FBI and HS insignias... Is this an indication of HS abusing the power it gained after 9/11 ?
Re:RTJKJAS? (Score:5, Funny)
then i had sex with sandra bullocks and my day was complete
Parent
Re:RTJKJAS? (Score:4, Funny)
Return of The Jedi King, Jar-Jar Against Spiderman.
It's the next epic hollywood blockbluster which was leaked early and led to the site being taken down.
Parent
It seems unreal... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Cost of Idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
Amount of downloads: Aprox 10,000
Amount Star Wars grossed in just the first weekend: $158.5 million
I suppose that somehow, somewhere that extra $95,000 that they may or may not have made anyway is worth all this.
I'd bet that 9K out of the 10K downloaders actually paid to see the movie anyway.
MM... looks strange (Score:4, Interesting)
FBI:
http://elitetorrents.org/Shut%20Down%20By%20FBI%2
http://elitetorrents.org/Shut%20Down%20By%20FBI%2
So they shut it down, and the ip is:
192.31.21.68
And although ping do not respond. Who is throws:
OrgName: San Diego Supercomputer Center
OrgID: SDSC
Address: P.O. Box 85608
City: San Diego
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 92186
Country: US
NetRange: 192.31.21.0 - 192.31.21.255
CIDR: 192.31.21.0/24
NetName: SDSC-APOLLO
NetHandle: NET-192-31-21-0-1
Parent: NET-192-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS1.SDSC.EDU
NameServer: NS0.SDSC.EDU
Comment:
RegDate:
Updated: 1994-12-20
TechHandle: TH60-ARIN
TechName: Hutton, Thomas
TechPhone: +1-858-534-5136
TechEmail: hutton@sdslug.org
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2005-05-24 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
interesting domain no?
Interesting Verbage. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Federal agents launched a crackdown on users of a popular new technology used to steal the latest "Star Wars" movie..."
Download instead of "steal" would have worked fine in that sentance. I guess steal just conveys a more sinister idea. Like roaving bands of junky Bit Torrent users are going to break into your home at any moment. The will "steal" anythign to get their fix!
"Within 24 hours, more than 10,000 copies of the "Star Wars" film had been swiped."
Ahh yes "swiped" the files were swiped from the servers, depriving the poor innocent children of their Star Wars!
I really hate CNN, they are getting as bad as Fox News.
-Orcspit
I saw 10 minutes of a pirated version (Score:5, Interesting)
Bunch of us watched the first 10-15 minutes. Everyone said "Ok, so far it doesn't suck. Let's go see it."
Remember when Apple let the first 7 minutes of "Chicken Run" loose on their trailer site? Good move, I say. I'm fed up with biased movie reviews and trailers that show the only cool parts of the whole movie. I'm still pissed off that I wasted $30 + 2 hours of my life to see "Mission to Mars" after seeing the trailer. Bastards.
Re:homeland security (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:seems to be fake (Score:5, Informative)
This is what the actual irc channel topic is:
* Topic for #elitetorrents is: Site is down forever. please part. > http://www.ice.gov/graphics/index.htm [ice.gov]
* Topic for #elitetorrents set by SithLord- at Wed May 25 13:00:56 2005
Parent
Re:Thepiratebay.org (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, just a thought. You can throw words like "illegal" and "rape" around all you want, but when Elite Torrents has more than a hundred thousand members alone... the people have spoken. It's time for something new.
Parent