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MediaDefender and the Streisand Effect
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Sep 20, 2007 08:41 AM
from the making-it-ever-so-much-worse dept.
from the making-it-ever-so-much-worse dept.
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."
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Leaks Prove MediaDefender's Deception 230 comments
Who will defend the defenders? writes "Ars Technica has posted the first installment in their analysis of the leaked MediaDefender emails and found some very interesting things. Apparently, the New York Attorney General's office is working on a big anti-piracy sting and they were working on finding viable targets. It also discusses how some of the emails show MediaDefender trying to spy on their competitors, sanitize their own Wikipedia entry, deal with the hackers targeting their systems, and to quash the MiiVi story even while they were rebuilding it as Viide. Oh yes, they definitely read "techie, geek web sites where everybody already hates us" like Slashdot, too."
[+]
MediaDefender's BitTorrent-Based DOS Takes Down Revision3 426 comments
Sandman1971 writes "Over the long Memorial Day weekend, Revision3 was the target of a malicious Denial Of Service Attack which brought R3 to its knees. After investigating the matter, it was discovered that the source of the attacks came from MediaDefender, the famed company hired by the MPAA and RIAA to try and stop the spread of illegal file sharing. The kicker? Revision3 was taken down for running a bittorent tracker to distribute its own legal content."
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As the proverb goes (Score:4, Funny)
New leak! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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
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
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.
SCO Merger? (Score:5, Funny)
Potential Nasdaq symbols: STNL, ASST, ASTNL
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...
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
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: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: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: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:heh. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:heh. (Score:4, Funny)
... evacuated?
Parent
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:First post ... (Score:4, Funny)
what he meant to say was asssombrero.
Parent
Re:"Asstunnel"... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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