I have sent notices of this site to E-Frontier, DAZ, Renderosity, and Zeta Studios. I've also read their legal threats page. These folks are absolute scum, and deserve to be (insert heinous methods of torture here), but is it even worth pursuing? If those emails are all real, then what is the point of even bothering with these asshats? Is there really ANYTHING that can be done about internationally violated copyrights and trademarks?

Momcat, What site?

Hmmm now i want to know what this site is too, and what they have done????

wafully vague there mom, care to IM me the info?

Yikes! This not only came out without the link..which may actually have been removed by mods...and rightfully so. I tried to edit it out after I posted it and couldn't find it..anyway..I also posted it; I thought; to the Copyright forum, lol..wierdness abounds. It's a bIt Torrent site that has a bunch of Poser related files on it, along with films, music..lots of violations. It's based in Sweden apparently, and the people running it think they have found a loophole to sharing these files, and do so quite blatantly.

Chances are it is not legal. You should only get items from the original source, never from any torrent or p2p sites ot yahoo groups or anything.

Well no kidding...I know that, lol. I googled myself out of sheer boredom and found some of my own items there..along with other peoples. I'm just wondering if it's really worth pursuing at this point since it seems that they just keep going on despite letters from lawyers of major corperations demanding C&D.

They would have had to remove the link, since it's against the rules here to post links to warez sites. I was reading in the local newspaper that the major P2P method of illegal file distribution is now BitTorrent, due to its speed. I have no doubt that cooler will shut them down, assuming you contacted Daz.

Check with their ISP if you can, tho I think the whole point of Bit Torrent (something like all those other file sharing places) was to make that impossible to trace. If you can prove your case, they can be ceased and desisted..

Hey, don't dis Bittorrent. It's very useful for large files.

"It's very useful for large files." Double edged sword like all technology. If these folks are advertising that they're actually hosting some of the files and it's illegal in Sweden... Of course, how much does it cost to hire a Swedish lawyer and pursue an international lawsuit? If you've notified the biggest companies involved and they don't/can't do anything then I'd say your chances are nil.

You can't shut Bittorrent down...... It's a bit like Skynet from Terminator.. It's not centralised anywhere and there are little bits of files all over the place. I doubt you'd have much luck. I'd say they don't even host the files themselves, just links to the Bittorrent stuff.

I wouldn't worry too much about that if it was indeed "Bittorrent". Bittorrent requires people to stay logged in and uploading files, which is why it's more for larger files than small....and Poser files are small in comparisson to movies and CD's that are most often shared through bittorrents. Chances are most of, if not all of, those Poser files aren't even complete.

Bit Torrent's links are not links to warez sites, there are only definitions of the files and the files (warez or not) are hosted in personal computers, Bit Torrent is only another P2P network.

yeah, if your wanting to do something about P2P (bit, Donkey, Lime, etc etc etc) then give up now, there is no way you (or anyone really) can stop these, millions of people do it, and as long as the software is on there computer, they will download and share files with others with the same software, even if the people who released the software got whacked. if this "company" has direct download links, or is directly supplying the original 1st seed to the pirated material, then you MIGHT... MIGHT have a chance

If internet piracy was totally stopped, it would just revert back to people selling disks at markets etc.

that still happens believe me, just go to dubai (united arabian emerites - Spelt badly :P)

It happens here, too, at certain open air markets (uk).

It happens here too..at my local laundromat, lol. There's a korean chick that comes around once or twice a month with the latest bootleg DVDs.

Do a DNS search on the website name and find the hosting company that they use. Check the hosting companies TOS, the site might be violating the TOS just by posting the links.

If you're hearing about BitTorrent in the newspapers and other media, then chances are good that it'll be taken down. Remember, both Napster and Grokster became so big that people finally took notice and shut them down: Napster was bought by BMG and turned into a fully-legal music download service and Grokster was taken to court. And like those services, it's only a matter of time before companies like the RIAA and MPAA go after people sharing files on BitTorrent. Remember, once they get a court order or subpoena, it's not that hard to get the IP address of the user who's uploading the files. --John

Napster was a centralised system, a centalised system can be shut down.
Modern P2P are distributed systems, there's no central to be located or shut down, is a network where one home computer can access other home computer, unless you cut all the electrical energy on the whole planet nothing can be done, and still remain the batteries...... P2P don't download files from a single user, the files are downloaded in chunks and in some cases you can have downloaded your file from 1000 users.

Message edited on: 09/05/2005 11:52

Warez are very much illegal in Sweden - it is illegal to offer it and it is also illegal to download it. My ISP's TOS forbids offering or linking to warez, and I suspect that most others in Sweden do too.

Modern P2P are distributed systems, there's no central to be located or shut down, >P2P don't download files from a single user, the files are downloaded in chunks and in some cases you can have downloaded your file from 1000 users. Each of those "chunks" had data as to where it came from and to where it is going. With data mining software, plowing through all those "chunks" will give the user of that software a map of any P2P network. It's just a matter of how badly they want to shut them down.

It'd be quicker to go door knocking than building a "Virtual map" of the data. You're talking about shutting down about 5,000,000 computer systems.

You will got crazy trying to build a map, is a dynamic network, users got away and new ones enter. If a user goes away it doesn't mean that he turned off the computer, only that your computer cut the link from him and had established a new more favourable link with another. Most of the users have dynamic IP and not static as with sites, a dynamic IP is renueved every each hour, so it can remain the same or can be other one. Neither the Gestapo nor the KGB will be able to do the task. For ending you must remember that be linked to a P2P is not something illegal, P2P networks are like a knife, a knife is a very useful tool and also can be used to kill people!

Most of the users have dynamic IP and not static >Neither the Gestapo nor the KGB will be able to do the task. Dynamic IP's are issued in blocks as assigned by ARIN. Data analysis will show which blocks are used and if the Gestapo or the KGB had the computer power that is out there now ... you get the idea :) True, being on a P2P is not illegal but the actions of a few who use it for illegal purposes will have ramifications on those who use it legally.

P2P is a new hot technology for businesses who are realizing it's benefits. As, always, anything the authorities can do to shut it down is soon matched by very smart and determined people who have access to the dame technology. You can start blocking protocols and such but you end up shutting down too many legitimate users as well. It's also about more than piracy and commerce. There are countries where the internet is the only free medium of speech available. Newspapers, radio and television are rigidly controlled by the state. Even groups of people meeting can be banned. These days, government and big corporations seeking to curry government favor are a real concern as media power becomes increasingly centralized in a few hands. The internet is definitely anarchy and there are negatives associated with that. At the same time, I prefer that to Big Brother having his finger on all the buttons.

It is more complicated, first at all nobody knows how many P2P users there are, 5,000,000 is only an estimative and probably there are many times more, 20,000,000 ??? who knows? 1) When you are conected to the network you are not conected to those 5,000,000, you are connected to only some hundreds or thounsands users, your neighbour that is also conected is conected to other hundreds or thounsands of users that not neccessarly are the same, can be other subset of the 5,000,000., and who is connected to you is always variable, some last for a long time, others for only few minutes, is a very dynamic scenario. 2) It is common to see users with IPs 0.0.0.0 or 0.0.10.0. 3) You are connected to users all around the world, what is illegal in one country can be legal in another country. Downloading MP3 is legal in some countries. For porn, in some coutries the legal age is 18 years, in other countries is only 16 years. 4) How do you or the local law can know if a file is illegal or legal, some file are obvious as Microsoft XP, but other not so common files how anyone can know? 5) Even if you are downloading the illegal Windows, you are downloading by chunks, and how anyone can know that you are downloading the Windows or a junk file with the name Windows. There's a lot of junk, trash and virus that people put trying to fight P2Ps. 6) There are many files with the names changed or wrong names, you only can know once you downloaded it. 7) If you do a search for "kawecki" with some P2P software, you will find many mine products and many of them start with Renderosity, but you will found products that were never sold at Renderosity, someone added the name Renderosity to my name. You can find mine freebies that look as if were products, someone downloaded and changed the name. And I don't put any restriction of distribution to my freebies, I also uploded some for test purpouses. 8) Many artists upload MP3 of their work, so many MP3 are not illegal.

Why we must look always at the negative parts, most of people of the Poser community don't look at P2P because they think that is evil, here you have a possible good use for P2P: I have done Poser animation with 100Mb size and I want to share it with the community. Where do I put 100Mb for downloading, I need to have a site. You know that anything that is for free people download so you can expect 1000 dowloads, this will give 100Gb of Bandwidth for your site, so the bandwidth will kill you. I have 1Gb per month in Renderosity's file locker, if I put such a file there within few hours my file locker is gone and I shall need to wait until the end of the month for the file locker will be accessable again. Here come the P2P solution, I host my video in my computer and I post, for example, the Bit Torrent definition of the movie. My computer will remain conected to the P2P network 24 hours per day and the P2P application will run in background, so I can use my computer normaly. Well, it is working and people start downloading from my computer, but my conection is only a simple DSL and is not fast, so 1000 person to download will take monthes! Here enter the miracle of P2Ps, the downloading is done by chunks, once some started to download from my computer, when another user start to download he will download from my computer and from the other user that started to download, when a third person enter he will have three sources to download, fouth person four sources and so on... Normaly it don't grow so fast because you put some limits to the number of users that download from you ( 3 or 4), so the multiplying factor of the tree will be three or four. The result is that within one or two days all 1000 users downloaded my movie. Interesting idea, isn't it? Well, I only need to make a movie and one day I shall do it.

CGnetworks use bit torrent for downloading video files. As I said earlier, getting rid of bittorrent wont get rid of piracy, it will just change the form of the piracy.

Don't blame the tools for the ethics of the users. If you cheat on copyrights, don't. If you know someone who does, tell them what you think. Turn them in if you feel the need. (In the case of MS, I wouldn't particularly. Wolves eat dogs.) But don't surrender or turn in your freedoms to buy a mess of secure pottage.

People use phones to set up bank jobs, drug deals, and corporate takeovers. They use cars to run over cats and kidnap children. They use candy to get the kids in the cars. Banning ships to stop piracy might have worked, but we'd live in a different world. Banning phones -- which is to say, allowing only the powerful to have them, the way they have their whores, drugs, and lawyers -- would have made most of your world impossible.

Tchnologies like BitTorrent are your ace in the hole as your freedoms disappear and your governments turn the screws on to control your lives. Read Wm. Gibson. That may not be where we're going, but freedom of information is crucial to survival. The fax machine put Tiananamen Square in the international forum, the Internet took down the USSR, and blogs will pull the theocons out of their positions of power. The PTB have no more chance of stopping this than they do of stopping cockroaches. The Lord of the Flies is Lucifer, lightbearer and morning star, folks.

M

Message edited on: 09/06/2005 08:53

First at all is the question, what is legal?
A law to become a valid law is not enough that someone did the law and published.
A valid law must fulfill other requirements:
1- To be accepted by the population.
2- To be enforced.

If a law is not accepted by the population is not able to be enforced and those few persons that are enforced will be considered by the population as victims of an injust system.
If you look at copyright laws, specially dealing with music, I can see that the laws are not accepted by the population.
If were accepted, who download, copy, burn cd, exchange with friends would be a rare exception and not a common actitude!
If the laws were accepted the millions of CDs manufactored in China would have no purcharsers.
Who is able to throw the first stone?????

Message edited on: 09/06/2005 12:27