Original Seeds: MPAA's new target

[BJ_M]

California based BayTSP are mercenaries to Hollywood, hired for their technical expertise. They track files which infringe on copyrights, wherever they may appear online. Using the gathered information, they provide their clients with the opportunity to send DMCA take down notices to anyone taking part in the infringement.

The information is also used by the RIAA and MPAA to sue individual file sharers.

The industry has so far been unable, or unwilling, to target all file sharers acquiring and sharing the latest files. With the chance of getting caught remaining low, the work of BayTSP has not acted as a deterrent.

However, new software from BayTSP, dubbed “FirstSource”, aims to end file sharer’s safety in numbers. The press release explains,

“FirstSource monitors for the first uploads of a client's intellectual property to the eDonkey and Bit Torrent networks. When the system spots a file name matching the client's content, it initiates a download to confirm that the file is what it appears to be. Once the content is validated, the system captures the IP (Internet Protocol) address and identifying information of other users downloading and sharing the pirated material.”

The software therefore acts to stop copyright infringement occurring on eDonkey and BitTorrent, rather than to simply stem the flow.

“The goal of the system is to make people think twice about being the first to upload a film or piece of software to those two networks. BayTSP's system already spots and collects information on people sharing. The main difference now is that it can spot the first handful of individuals,” Jim Graham, spokesperson for BayTSP, told Slyck.

The software is already being used by software companies and the MPAA. Graham does not know if the RIAA are among their clients using this software, though. He questions how effective it would be for smaller files such as singles and albums anyway.

“This is primarily targeted at movies and software,” he said.

The potential of the software could be devastating to the film and software sharing communities if the original seeds do not find a way to protect themselves.

“I've personally seen it spot what we believed to be the very first individual to share a film title on eDonkey and the BayTSP folks have told me they've seen what they believed to the first person offering a movie seed on Bit Torrent - I didn't see that one personally,” Graham boasted of the software. “In other cases it's been the first handful we've seen.”

“BayTSP is the first to admit you can't see the entire eDonkey network or spot every seed the minute it's uploaded,” he went on, “Basically we're saying we can spot the first handful of sharers. Particularly with large files you can spot the first person with 100% and then track everyone who's increasing their percentage.”

Asked if FirstSource will be able to identify the origin of every new file, Graham explained,

“It's a relatively new system. We know it's very good. I'm not sure how many titles it's been tested against, so I really can't give you an accurate number….I think over a period of a few months I could give you an accurate percentage. ”

Original seeders on BitTorrent have always known their vulnerability, which was illustrated by a recent study into the BitTorrent system. However, never before have they been such a high profile target.

Those who release files on eDonkey are new to this threat. The first few hundred to share the file will all be targets.

The community is forever coming up against seemingly impossible hurdles, but has ultimately continued to grow. Asked if this is the end of film sharing for the masses, Graham simply replied,

“It's not my place to speculate.”
_________________

http://www.slyck.com/

[bazooka]

Sorry, but this is old news.

[BJ_M]

well slice off his arms !!!

[VCDHunter]

well slice off his arms !!!

[bazooka]

well slice off his arms !!!

[animatron]

http://www.i2p.net

That's the future of anonymous networking and file sharing, and MPAA or RIAA won't be able to do a thing about it

[adam]

I guess its not so l33t to be 0-sec anymore.

[lordsmurf]

http://www.i2p.net

Excellent! I read the whole page and understand not a single word!

I guess its not so l33t to be 0-sec anymore.

I think l33t means "elite" but no idea what the other one is.

[doppletwo]

0-sec = first as in before the timer starts. and I understood enough of that page to know that MPAA is fighting a losing battle.


To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited Film
site, go to http://film.guardian.co.uk

To beat them, join them
Neil McIntosh looks at Hollywood studios' moves to crack down on video
filesharing, and says they would do better to embrace the iTunes model
Neil McIntosh
Wednesday December 15 2004
The Guardian


The film industry's moves against online filetrading networks are the
opening gambits in a high-stakes game.Over the last decade, Hollywood
watched as the music business came under attack from filesharing networks
such as Napster and, later, KaZaA. The studios saw how the original
version of Napster was killed by legal action, but also observed how the
music business was still forced to accept radical change in order to
survive.That change has included providing legal downloads through
services including iTunes and the reborn Napster. Both offer cheaper access to
music than before. Both allow customers a la carte shopping for tracks,
instead of the set-menu album-or-nothing model of before. And both have
sparked a rethink of the entire music industry's business model.Movie
makers knew that, as home computers became more powerful, and broadband
became more common, the time for their own battle with the pirates
would come. With more than half of internet users in the UK and US now
using broadband, and home computers now being considered entertainment
systems as much as tools for work, that time is now.The movie industry has
long had a problem, of course, with a sophisticated chain of piracy
which saw movie-goers taking video cameras into theatres, recording a
showing and - within weeks, sometimes even days - having illegal copies on
tape or DVD being sold in dodgy markets across the world.More
disturbing for the film-makers is a new breed of piracy, via smarter filesharing
networks which make it much easier to download entire movies onto your
hard drive. The piracy process can happen in hours - not days or weeks
- and the quality of the pirated copies is often much better than those
market stall versions.One thing holding back online piracy in the past
has been the relative difficulty of getting the vast movie files to
your PC. Too much could - and did - go wrong for this to be a mass-market
hobby.But these new services make things easier for the would-be
pirate. BitTorrent works by distributing the work of sending you a file
between several computers. So, if I want the latest Spiderman movie, the
software organises a club of people who each send me portions of the file,
rather than the whole thing. My computer then reassembles the bits to
create the full version. With less reliance on single bits of a chain,
the process of getting the file becomes much more reliable, and
faster.The file-trading networks would argue that their systems are not
intended for piracy, and they are careful to promote the entirely legitimate
uses of their systems. BitTorrent, for instance, can make life much
easier for companies who want to offer large files to customers, without
having to buy in powerful servers and large amounts of bandwidth to serve
those files. Some people use BitTorrent to download entire operating
systems. And - as Napster and KaZaA did before - they argue they are not
responsible for the ways their customers use the networks.But the
Motion Picture Association of America says the networks could stop illegal
swapping if they wanted to.Will the movie industry win? It might, but
the victory will likely be hollow. In the technology world the results of
these legal interventions have little real impact, as we have seen
before with music piracy and the Microsoft antitrust case. By the time the
cases are settled, the technology bandwagon has hurtled miles down the
road.While you might stop movie lovers from pirating the latest
material on a specific network, it will be harder to quell their newfound
taste for acquiring movies and TV series on demand, worldwide, the day
they're released. Fail to offer them a legitimate alternative, and they'll
troop off to another filesharing network your lawyers haven't heard of
yet.In other words, what the movie industry now faces is essentially
the same problem that has faced the music business before them. Customers
find new control, freed from being told what to consume and when, and
discover they enjoy the experience so much they're willing to break the
law to continue doing so.They'll only start handing money over again
when the owners of that entertainment catch up with their desire to
consume it in new ways.Catching up, for the movie and TV business, is likely
to mean more uniform release dates around the world for movies, the end
of the long lag between blockbuster TV series being aired first in the
US, and then shown elsewhere in the world and - yes - legitimate movie
and TV show downloads, in the same style as today's online music
stores. iFlicks movie store, anyone?It might seem far-fetched, but then the
thought of casually buying music from vast online libraries would have
sounded far out only five years ago. Yet Apple's iTunes store recently
sold its 150 millionth track, and sales continue to soar.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

[limpy]

http://www.i2p.net

Excellent! I read the whole page and understand not a single word!

LoL That's how I feel when I read some of your guides. I'm a retard!

[animatron]

http://www.i2p.net

Excellent! I read the whole page and understand not a single word!

Ok, then let's put it in plain english
I2P is a network "within" a network, but anonymous!
Each person is actually a router, so every data transfer from peers is done through tunnels.
Already there are some forums, web sites and trackers (yes, bittorrent trackers ) in there, so just run the thing and you'll see all the stuff you'll find

[Tidy]

These articles make me laugh. First of all, I guess they need to learn that Bit Torrent is not a network it is a software and protocol system. They always say "this will be a major deterrent to file sharig networks" or something like "this will STOP copyright infringement" maybe on whatever planet they are on.

[bazooka]

The exeem program is already up and running.

[Gurm]

When is the public exeem release happening?

[bazooka]

When is the public exeem release happening?

You can already get it.

Look for exeemlite.

[Gurm]

Yeah but Novastream and the Suprnova forums say "this week sometime" still.

[bazooka]

You can get it from zeropaid.com

[Gurm]

Oh well, it has cygate in it. The other torrent sites are saying stay away.