Foldarn writes "It looks like MediaDefender, in an effort to quell the explosion of negative publicity over its leaked email archive, has instead done the opposite (also known as the Streisand Effect) and spread it even more widely. Ars Technica is reporting that MediaDefender has sent scary-lawyer letters to two popular BitTorrent sites, MegaNova and IsoHunt, demanding that they remove the offending content. Both sites have responded with derision. Also, Ars notes that MediaDefender seems to be behind a DDoS attack against the site that originally leaked its email." Final word to Ars's Ryan Paul: "MediaDefender's entire business model has been based on recognition of the inescapable fact that litigation cannot stop the spread of content on the Internet, so it is ironic that the company has turned to legal threats."
There are also some interesting statistics [mediadefen...enders.com] created from the leaked tracking databases. The statistics include what times of the day and week are most popular for P2P pirates and which fake files have been uploaded the most.
Can someone explain why the IP addresses are showing up as belonging in weird countries such as Algeria and the Philippines?
So they aren't as easily identified. If you read through their emails, you find a lot of talk about them getting hold of a lot of different IPs from all around the world.
Check their emails. What're they protected with? Their e-mail messages are protected by the free version of AVG -- copyrighted software that, for business use, requires a purchase to use. THEY ARE COPYRIGHT INFRINGERS, THEMSELVES! Hypocrites, every last one of them!
MovieMakerModule.cpp Line 497:// Stolen code, begin
Line 560:// Stolen code - end
If you're going to steal code, it's not a good idea to put in comments announcing it's stolen. Of course scumbag crap is what they're about, so they probably are just fine with copy/pasting code.
Oh not, the FBI isn't interested in big companies that break computer laws. They are interested in teenagers and organized crime. But flash your corporate charter, and suddenly, you aren't a hacker, you are defending the profits of a major content studio from hackers who are using deCSS.
The FBI goes after anyone who breaks laws. If MediaDefender broke the law, then, yeah, they should be prosecuted.
The question is, what law did they break? It's not illegal to post fake versions of Universal's music when Universal gives you the legal rights to do exactly that. The only thing would be, if they did do denial of service attacks. However, if the target site is outside of American jurisdiction, it is not entirely clear that this is a crime.
censorship is not possible on P2P.
speaking of mediadefender, if they do in fact execute DDOS attacks, they are breaking more rules than they are trying to protect.
Censorship is not possible on the Internet, period. Once information gets out into the wild, it will be copied and recopied (not to mention indexed by the major search engines) to the point that eliminating all copies would take inordinately large amounts of time and effort. Imagine if MediaDefender had to sue everyone who had a copy of even part of one of their emails on a server? Even Bill Gates doesn't have that kind of money! Not to mention, with so many of these copies being overseas, there's no guarantee they would win in any foreign court.
Censorship is not possible on the Internet, period.
Censorship of certain things is not easy on the Internet, but it's not impossible. If there is something that has a severe penalty for having, and few people want anyways, and even having it has a really strong stigma against it, it's effectively censored even for those who do want it. Case in point? Child pornography. Yes, there's some on the Internet, but it's very effectively censored. And the few cases where it can be found on the Internet, it's generally either 1) very carefully hidden and prot
That's why Antigua and Barbuda has asked the WTO to impose penal tariffs on U.S. products in retailiation, namely allowing all citizens of A&B to copy and redistribute Hollywood content for free.
You want to bet that they (MediaDefender) should be more worried about what their clients make of the emails about them? 'Cuz you know they have a copy, and they ARE reading them. Can't unscramble an egg.
Ironic that MAFIAADefenders business model is based on stopping content leaking out onto P2P networks.
When they can't even stop their own internal emails and phone calls from leaking you'd have to be pretty gullible to believe their claims. To make matters worse they resort to legal nasty grams and censorship to try and suppress the evidence of their incompetence which makes them look all the more the fool. To really put the cherry on the cake they're now resorting to illegal DDOS attacks, which for the most part have also failed.
If they were in any other business it would already be over for them, sadly for us, fortunately for them their clients are just the sort of gullible people who will keep doing business because they can't face the real truth. Their business model has failed.
Sadly we haven't heard the last of MAFIAADefender.
I note with interest that Sheppard Mullin (generally a good law firm in my experience, irrespective of their current client) are claiming that the items are "trade secrets".
They've lost the argument before they started. The cat was out of the bag, and those emails have been seen and distributed far and wide.
As such, these are no longer "trade secrets" (like the formula to coke). Their only recourse is against the Media-Defender Defenders whoever they may be. Good luck ever finding them, and if they do then what? Odds are that their total net worth is far less than what Media-Defender are paying Sheppard Mullin (they aren't cheap!!):)
I am not a lawyer, but I am in law school... and I actually just finished a unit on trade secrets in my IP class. The following is not legal advice. I evaluate the issue from an IT perspective here [kennethpike.com].
Now, you're mostly right, but a few things need to be clarified. Trade secret protection does go away once the secret is readily available or general knowledge (depending on the state and whether they have adopted the Uniform Trade Secret Act, among other things). However, there is still recourse via legal means. Some courts will actually continue to afford legal protection to the secret for a period of time if the leak was through no fault of the company (which in this case is somewhat questionable; there may be a case for negligence on the part of the executive who violated company policy). Other courts will stop protecting the secret, but all courts will look to whoever misappropriated the secrets in assigning damages.
Here's where your analysis gets back on track--the MediaDefender-Defenders (MD-D) crew are pretty plainly on the hook for everything they own, but I'd wager you're right that they don't own nearly enough to compensate for what increasingly looks like the total destruction of MediaDefender. This is actually a problem in all areas of law--namely, how do you deal with an insolvent defendant? The answer generally is, you can't. Their credit and their assets will be destroyed, but bankruptcy protection will probably allow them to keep their home, et cetera...
This is why MediaDefender has the FBI involved. In misappropriating the trade secrets, MD-D probably broke several criminal laws, and the criminal trial system has always been the next step when looking to punish culpable, but insolvent, parties.
But they're unlikely to be found, at least in the U.S., and if they are found, it still won't bring MD-D back into business. As for the C&D letters to other torrent sites, that's where MD-D are well and truly wasting what little time they have left.
Frankly, if I worked for Sheppard Mullin (and I don't, and never have) I would have taken a long look at advising MD to cut their losses, file criminal reports, and hit Chapter 11 or Chapter 7 while they still have some assets worth liquidating. MD-D are chewing into MD's value more each passing day, and the most recent leak is probably the hardest hitting in terms of the company's IP value. But then, it's entirely possible that Sheppard Mullin did consider that option, and decided that there is still profit to be made defending a lost cause.
You may be right about the bankruptcy thing, I know a good deal less about bankruptcy proceedings than about IP (that class comes next year!). However, the most recent leak--of MediaDefender's proprietary code--makes me dubious about their future prospects, even under a different name. Their assets have been reduced to the hardware they own and the employees they can still trust and/or pay. As for debt, they probably don't have much at this point, but it will be interesting to see how their debt mounts a
Political Filtering of Email by Hotmail and AOL [slashdot.org]. M$ seems to be better at suppressing the news here than the MAFIAA is at suppressing the Media Defender story, but it won't last long.
Prof. Farnsworth: "This will not stand!" (people talking surprised together) "I'll take you on, you air balling bozos" Bubblegum: "You old man? Hu! Sweet Clive, laugh derisively at him." Sweet Clive: "Ahaha, ahaha, aahahaha."
Meganova's response says. "In case you haven't noticed, this site is located in Europe (I hope you can point it out on a map) where your stupid copyright claims have no base."
Can we see a connection between the official US government disregard of "silly" things like international treaties against torture, and now this disrespect by some Europeans of claims based in US law? Europeans just aren't following the US example any more. For instance, to the EU, Microsoft is officially an abusive monopoly; in the US they've been given a pass. So it's not just European individuals, but top government bodies which no longer respect US sensibilities and precedents.
Between Media Defender and Media-Defender Defender, both sides are playing dirty. That's far worse for a "legitimate" corporation to do than for a loose confederation of mostly teen hackers, so in a sane world Media Defender would be stripped of its corporate charter and dissolved. But the US has tried to establish as its new norm that there is no law for corporations, no punishment for their harms to society or nature. The blowback from this, from regions of the world - especially the EU - that still have norms of law applying to all (except French leaders while in office, but that's another story), will be major.
It really bothers me when people refer to this policy as "new" as if the U.S. never had things like robber-barons and big-oil-controlled-government. The woes of the industrial revolution are coming back, just in time it seems, since most Americans don't seem to remember high school history class.
Corporations and their umbrellas are the triangle shirtwaste's of our age. Instead of being chained to a sewing machine, we are chained to our electronic devices. Of course they aren't "ours" as we are only le
When the e-mails were leaked I called for them to DMCA it as that would effectively confirm the leaked information as authentic while doing nothing to prevent its spread. I sarcastically ended that comment with "you have to outdo your own incompetence somehow". Little did I know they were actually going to be that fucking stupid. There is a reason the military, NRC, CIA etc.. has a policy of never confirming or denying leaks. Doing so would essentially confirm/debunk the accuracy of the leaked information. Good job MD, you just made a mistake most people have known not to do for more than a century. Idiots...
They use DDoS attacks against P2P and now, apparently, other sites as well. That puts them at odds with federal computer crime statutes. What do you think?
Regardless, companies should know by now that any attempt to censor or remove (in particular, by the means of cease-and-desist letters) information will backfire, bigtime.
You can't argue this was intentional, either, because MediaDefender is just drawing bad press to themselves.
Are you sure it isn't just a setup? I mean the emails were leaked somehow, It is pretty obvious about what would happen with them. Especially if they contained something juicy.
So now, they have known copy-righted works being purposely distributed on those networks which chose to ignore the legal legal remedy that is necessary before a massive lawsuit puts the file sharing networks out of business.
If you thought this outcome was obvious, what makes us think that they couldn't have thought about it too. Time will tell.
That is pretty stupid. If they go out of business, what is MediaDefender going to sell?
They want rampant bittorrent piracy, except for their customers products, where they want to be able to demonstrate they made a huge difference where law suits didn't.
So now, they have known copy-righted works being purposely distributed on those networks which chose to ignore the legal legal remedy that is necessary before a massive lawsuit puts the file sharing networks out of business.
A network can't go out of business. The company hosting a network can, or the company hosting the software for the network, but not the network itself. P2P by its very nature will not die without major government intervention, and even then it won't until the internet is behind lock and key that the government controls. Worst case scenario, all the public P2P networks switch to a darknet style of operation.
Meganova:But fair is fair you guys did suffer over the past week so here's bit of advice to you guys: F*** you! F*** you again! F*** you again and again and again!"
arstechnica:(I'm guessing that an "asstunnel" is what you get when a European whose first language isn't English tries to say "asshole." It seemed awkward when I first read the response, but the expression has since grown on me.)
I guess it's more when a European thinks about an asshole that got "F*** you! F*** you again! F*** you again and ag
Torrent fans to Mediadefender: "I've got two lots of news for you guys--one bad, the other worse. The bad news is that you're an asstunnel. The second is that we're all driving semis and buses."
As the proverb goes (Score:4, Funny)
New leak! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
More updates, leaks and news at:
http://mediadefender-defenders.com/ [mediadefen...enders.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So they aren't as easily identified. If you read through their emails, you find a lot of talk about them getting hold of a lot of different IPs from all around the world.
Screw the source code! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Screw the source code! (Score:5, Informative)
MovieMakerModule.cpp Line 497:
Line 560:
If you're going to steal code, it's not a good idea to put in comments announcing it's stolen. Of course scumbag crap is what they're about, so they probably are just fine with copy/pasting code.
Parent
They wanna play the legal game huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:They wanna play the legal game huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
What law did they break! (Score:2, Funny)
The question is, what law did they break? It's not illegal to post fake versions of Universal's music when Universal gives you the legal rights to do exactly that. The only thing would be, if they did do denial of service attacks. However, if the target site is outside of American jurisdiction, it is not entirely clear that this is a crime.
Torrents... (Score:5, Informative)
http://thepiratebay.org/search/mediadefender/0/3/0 [thepiratebay.org]
And the unofficial MediaDefender-Defender website.
http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/ [mediadefen...enders.com]
#MediaDefender-Defenders @ EFNet
people never learn (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:people never learn (Score:4, Insightful)
Censorship is not possible on the Internet, period. Once information gets out into the wild, it will be copied and recopied (not to mention indexed by the major search engines) to the point that eliminating all copies would take inordinately large amounts of time and effort. Imagine if MediaDefender had to sue everyone who had a copy of even part of one of their emails on a server? Even Bill Gates doesn't have that kind of money! Not to mention, with so many of these copies being overseas, there's no guarantee they would win in any foreign court.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Censorship is not possible on the Internet, period.
Censorship of certain things is not easy on the Internet, but it's not impossible. If there is something that has a severe penalty for having, and few people want anyways, and even having it has a really strong stigma against it, it's effectively censored even for those who do want it. Case in point? Child pornography. Yes, there's some on the Internet, but it's very effectively censored. And the few cases where it can be found on the Internet, it's generally either 1) very carefully hidden and prot
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
heh. (Score:2)
Always liked that phrase.
Re:heh. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:heh. (Score:4, Funny)
... evacuated?
Parent
Cat's Out (Score:2)
Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
When they can't even stop their own internal emails and phone calls from leaking you'd have to be pretty gullible to believe their claims. To make matters worse they resort to legal nasty grams and censorship to try and suppress the evidence of their incompetence which makes them look all the more the fool.
To really put the cherry on the cake they're now resorting to illegal DDOS attacks, which for the most part have also failed.
If they were in any other business it would already be over for them, sadly for us, fortunately for them their clients are just the sort of gullible people who will keep doing business because they can't face the real truth. Their business model has failed.
Sadly we haven't heard the last of MAFIAADefender.
Go ahead! (Score:2)
Pandora's box also comes immediately to mind.
Oh great, good heavens, thank you (Score:2)
These are no longer "Trade Secrets" (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't work that way... (Score:5, Informative)
I am not a lawyer, but I am in law school... and I actually just finished a unit on trade secrets in my IP class. The following is not legal advice. I evaluate the issue from an IT perspective here [kennethpike.com].
Now, you're mostly right, but a few things need to be clarified. Trade secret protection does go away once the secret is readily available or general knowledge (depending on the state and whether they have adopted the Uniform Trade Secret Act, among other things). However, there is still recourse via legal means. Some courts will actually continue to afford legal protection to the secret for a period of time if the leak was through no fault of the company (which in this case is somewhat questionable; there may be a case for negligence on the part of the executive who violated company policy). Other courts will stop protecting the secret, but all courts will look to whoever misappropriated the secrets in assigning damages.
Here's where your analysis gets back on track--the MediaDefender-Defenders (MD-D) crew are pretty plainly on the hook for everything they own, but I'd wager you're right that they don't own nearly enough to compensate for what increasingly looks like the total destruction of MediaDefender. This is actually a problem in all areas of law--namely, how do you deal with an insolvent defendant? The answer generally is, you can't. Their credit and their assets will be destroyed, but bankruptcy protection will probably allow them to keep their home, et cetera...
This is why MediaDefender has the FBI involved. In misappropriating the trade secrets, MD-D probably broke several criminal laws, and the criminal trial system has always been the next step when looking to punish culpable, but insolvent, parties.
But they're unlikely to be found, at least in the U.S., and if they are found, it still won't bring MD-D back into business. As for the C&D letters to other torrent sites, that's where MD-D are well and truly wasting what little time they have left.
Frankly, if I worked for Sheppard Mullin (and I don't, and never have) I would have taken a long look at advising MD to cut their losses, file criminal reports, and hit Chapter 11 or Chapter 7 while they still have some assets worth liquidating. MD-D are chewing into MD's value more each passing day, and the most recent leak is probably the hardest hitting in terms of the company's IP value. But then, it's entirely possible that Sheppard Mullin did consider that option, and decided that there is still profit to be made defending a lost cause.
Parent
Bankruptcy may be premature (Score:3, Insightful)
You may be right about the bankruptcy thing, I know a good deal less about bankruptcy proceedings than about IP (that class comes next year!). However, the most recent leak--of MediaDefender's proprietary code--makes me dubious about their future prospects, even under a different name. Their assets have been reduced to the hardware they own and the employees they can still trust and/or pay. As for debt, they probably don't have much at this point, but it will be interesting to see how their debt mounts a
SCO Merger? (Score:5, Funny)
Potential Nasdaq symbols: STNL, ASST, ASTNL
Another Explosive Story Suppressed (Score:2)
Political Filtering of Email by Hotmail and AOL [slashdot.org]. M$ seems to be better at suppressing the news here than the MAFIAA is at suppressing the Media Defender story, but it won't last long.
Torrentspy E-mails (Score:5, Interesting)
The courts recently ruled that the MPAA did no wrong when obtaining Torrentspy private e-mails: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/31/1334245 [slashdot.org]
How is this any different aside from the fact that it is now the torrent sites gaining access to "Big Business" e-mail? Oh, right...
Necessary Futurama quote (Score:3, Funny)
Bubblegum: "You old man? Hu! Sweet Clive, laugh derisively at him."
Sweet Clive: "Ahaha, ahaha, aahahaha."
US disrespected (Score:3, Interesting)
Between Media Defender and Media-Defender Defender, both sides are playing dirty. That's far worse for a "legitimate" corporation to do than for a loose confederation of mostly teen hackers, so in a sane world Media Defender would be stripped of its corporate charter and dissolved. But the US has tried to establish as its new norm that there is no law for corporations, no punishment for their harms to society or nature. The blowback from this, from regions of the world - especially the EU - that still have norms of law applying to all (except French leaders while in office, but that's another story), will be major.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Corporations and their umbrellas are the triangle shirtwaste's of our age. Instead of being chained to a sewing machine, we are chained to our electronic devices. Of course they aren't "ours" as we are only le
MediaDefender Anti-Piracy Tools Leaked (Score:5, Informative)
MediaDefender Anti-Piracy Tools Leaked [torrentfreak.com]
Media Defender...it's a series of ... (Score:5, Funny)
FTFA: "Dearest little asstunnels"
Is it a tunnel within an ass or is it a tunnel made of asses?
"You are in a series of twisty little asstunnels, all alike. It is dark in here. You might be eaten by a gerbil"
--
BMO
Oh my god... they are stupid... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Are they the good guys or the bad guys? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Are they the good guys or the bad guys? (Score:4, Funny)
Not much by the looks of it. I doubt he could find his asshole with both hands.
Parent
Re:Are they the good guys or the bad guys? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
apparently an ass-tunnel is just an ass-hole that's bigger and has more traffic entering and exiting it...
Re:Are they the good guys or the bad guys? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, you... I know you're thinking about it.
Leave the goatse link out.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Are they the good guys or the bad guys? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't argue this was intentional, either, because MediaDefender is just drawing bad press to themselves.
Parent
Re:Are they the good guys or the bad guys? (Score:4, Insightful)
So now, they have known copy-righted works being purposely distributed on those networks which chose to ignore the legal legal remedy that is necessary before a massive lawsuit puts the file sharing networks out of business.
If you thought this outcome was obvious, what makes us think that they couldn't have thought about it too. Time will tell.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They want rampant bittorrent piracy, except for their customers products, where they want to be able to demonstrate they made a huge difference where law suits didn't.
Re:Are they the good guys or the bad guys? (Score:4, Interesting)
A network can't go out of business. The company hosting a network can, or the company hosting the software for the network, but not the network itself. P2P by its very nature will not die without major government intervention, and even then it won't until the internet is behind lock and key that the government controls. Worst case scenario, all the public P2P networks switch to a darknet style of operation.
Parent
Re:Are they the good guys or the bad guys? (Score:4, Informative)
I tried to download the torrent, but all I got was a bad rip of Fight Club...
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:First post ... (Score:4, Funny)
what he meant to say was asssombrero.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I guess it's more when a European thinks about an asshole that got "F*** you! F*** you again! F*** you again and ag
Re:"Asstunnel"... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent