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Feds Shut Down Elite Torrents
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed May 25, 2005 06:08 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 273 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)
Parent
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
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
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: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: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
infinite? (Score:5, Funny)
Curses! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Curses! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Had copies? (Score:5, Interesting)
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
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.
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
Re:homeland security (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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: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