Crackdown on BT Users in Hong Kong

griffinn writes "100 BitTorrent users in Hong Kong are about to receive legal threats from the MPIA (Hong Kong's equivalent of the MPAA), BusinessWeek reports. The users were randomly selected from more than 6000 IP addresses collected by investigators. Customs officials are also following through on their previous arrest of a 38-year-old man who allegedly uploaded three movies." From the article: "If convicted, the suspect faces up to four years in prison and a fine of 50,000 Hong Kong dollars ($6,400) for every illegal copy."

Re:So... this is China sucking up to US Senators?

[MissingIntellect]

Although Hong Kong is now technically under the control of China, it is not a part of China. If you've seen the term SAR, it's an acronym for Special Administrative Republic. (One country, two systems) In all reality Hong Kong basically just an independent state. So China != Hong Kong.

Re:Bloody typical

[quax]

The article says:

Separately, a Hong Kong movie industry trade association said it plans to send letters to 100 BitTorrent users through their Internet service providers threatening legal action unless they stop using the software.

Apparently the Hong Kong movie industry does not bother to make the distinction either and the headline ins entirely justified.

Re:This is HONG KONG!!!

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Pirated DVDs and VCDs are no longer as ubiquitous as they once were.

The HK police and Customs Department have been cracking down on these vendors because of increased pressure from other governments and because many of them were linked to triads.

Also, the widespread use of BitTorrent and other P2P systems have made them increasingly redundant.

Re:Legal download of copyrighted material.

[cpt kangarooski]

Is there such a thing as legitimate download of copyrighted material?

Yes.

For a copyrighted work, downloading it is legitimate if it is done 1) by the copyright holder, 2) with the authorization, express or implied, of the copyright holder, 3) in a manner that is not infringing pursuant to relevant law.

For example, most of the content of this web page is copyrighted, but it's pretty certainly not illegal to download it, at least not to read it.

For instance, if I own a DVD, would I be within my rights to go and download a rip of that dvd?

Maybe. But likely not, and you'd want to be carful to just download, and not do something else in the process.

If so, doesn't it become very difficult for authorities to prove who is and is not violating copyright by downloading from services like Bit Torrent?

No. Usually it is extremely easy to successfully claim copyright infringement. Defendants in an infringement case have a very hard time. Plaintiffs have it pretty easy.

Also, Bit Torrent downloads and uploads simultaneously, and these are two different kinds of infringement, and what serves as a justification or excuse for one might not for the other.

Re:Tracking BT?

[SerialEx13]

It's the part where you use the torrent file to connect to a tracker to download the contents from other users. All they have to do is get a listing of users who are uploading/downloading the file from the tracker.

It should be noted that torrents offer some of the worst privacy amongst p2p applications since there is nothing preventing a person from seeing who is uploading and downloading a particular file. With the exception of registration agreements and sometimes needing to have the torrent first -- minor problems.