Canadian company collecting info on millions of habitual illegal downloaders

[cwp_sedan]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/canadian-company-collecting-millions-habitual-illegal-downloaders-194151841.html




If you like to download movies and music for free, beware, because Big Brother is watching you. Well, more like Big Brother Corp.

A Canadian forensic software company tells Postmedia News that it's collected data on a million Canadians who it says have illegally downloaded pirated content.

Canipre, a Montreal-based anti-piracy company, works for the movie and music-recording industries to fight the flourishing practice of peer-to-peer file sharing enabled by sites such as BitTorrent.

The company says a recent Federal Court of Canada ruling that forced Internet providers to release detailed information about subscribers is just a first step in an industry crackdown against illegal downloading.

[ Related: BitTorrent file sharers are heavily monitored, study finds ]

"The door is closing," Canipre managing director Barry Logan told Postmedia News. "People should think twice about downloading content they know isn't proper."

Peer-to-peer file sharing has been around almost along as the Internet. Software allows computer systems to connect with each other or a central server via the web to exchange data.

That in itself is not illegal. But the software became popular in the late 1990s as a vehicle for people to share music via services such as now-defunct Napster without paying for it. The practice's supporters have used a kind of Robin Hood argument that high prices for CDs, DVDs and commercially available downloads justified their activities.

The entertainment industry, backed by government, argue it amounts to copyright infringement and piracy.

Last week, the Federal Court ordered several Internet service providers to hand over the names and addresses of 50 subscribers linked to illegal downloads to NGN Prima Production, Postmedia News reported.

The Burnaby, B.C., company alleged the subscribers had illegally downloaded copies of their movie, Recoil, a straight-to-video action flick starring ex-wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Logan said last week's Federal Court should be a wake-up call to Canadians who need to realize they could be held liable for digital piracy and face commercial penalties of up to $5,000.

Canipre is involved in another, potentially much bigger case that could snare thousands of Canadians it says have illegally downloaded movies and other content, Logan told Postmedia News.

The company has files on one million Canadians who've downloaded movies via BitTorrent over the last five months, identifying them through IP addresses.

Logan said many people ignore warnings from their service providers that they're engaged in illegal downloading and now may receive legal letters warning of possible court action against them. Under Canada's recently revised copyright law, copyright holders can seek statutory damages limited to $5,000 for non-commercial infringement, he said.

[ Related: What Ottawa's new copyright laws will mean for Canadians ]

"Canada is a very significant country in terms of peer-to-peer file sharing and illegal downloading of copyright works," Logan told Postmedia News.

"We have quite a significant evidence collection program that has been in place in Canada for a number of months, it doesn't discriminate between ISPs."

The Canadian movie industry appears to be following the lead of its U.S. counterpart in combating piracy, said Mira Sundara Rajan, formerly the Canada Research chair in intellectual property law at the University of British Columbia.

The U.S. uses a graduated system known as the "Six Strikes," initiative, she told Postmedia News. Downloaders are first warned that what they're doing is illegal and repeat offenders are then blocked from access to certain sites, with the threat of legal action from rights holders used as the final step, she said.

"I think the end game actually is to try and make a dent in the downloading activity," said Sundara Rajan. "What we are doing is following in the footsteps of an American approach here which has been to try to target individual users and set them as examples of what can go wrong if your illegal downloading activity is discovered.

"I think that it is much more than an issue of trying to get fines in place. I think it is a question of creating an idea of deterrence in the mind of the public."

Logan seems to agree, saying Canipre is looking for repeat or habitual illegal downloaders. They will be idenified only by their IP addresses initially, he said, but if legal action is taken, their names would be released in the statements of claim filed in court.

Not surprisingly, the peer-to-peer community has greeted the Federal Court ruling negatively.

A post on the site TorrentFreak says "copyright trolls" are threatening downloaders with legal action in the U.S. and Europe to try and extract cash payments.

" 'Pay us a cash settlement,' the trolls advise, 'or we'll make your life a misery.'

"While Canadians are known for their love of online file-sharing, in contrast they have engaged in their pastime largely unhindered for more than a decade. But a court ruling last week has the potential to change the landscape in the largely sharing-tolerant country."

The threat of court action in Canada will also be used as leverage to get case payments, the TorrentFreak post predicts.

[ Related: Appeals court raises damages award in music piracy case ]

"But while the United States has punishing statutory damages of US$150,000 per item infringed, non-commercial statutory damages in Canada are capped at $5000 meaning the fear factor will be considerably smaller.

"Will Canadians feel compelled to pay? We may soon find out."

So how does this affect you? Think it will stick?

[boyracer]

Ya, I heard about this on the radio this morning.

[brucewayne]

big deal. there will always be some other site or way... or some guy who'll do it for you an charge u $1 a movie or something.

[silverstarmazda]

theres just no controlling something like this. its not going to stop anyone from downloading things on the house. the internet itself has revolutionized everything from good to bad. especially in this economy, people arnt going to pay for something they can get for free. not to mention its somewhat an invasion of privacy to be snooping around someones internet without them knowing. since everything these days are literally dependent on the internet.


http://imageshack.us/a/img16/8392/tumblrmcue7ug4511qkxmo0.jpg

[rob3]

Use Linux and hack someone's else's WiFi!

[Aitch]

It definitely has the means to stick. However if it is monitoring IPs, isn't it possible to circumvent this via an anonymous IPs/VPNs? I.e. if you are planning to search and download something, hop on your anonymous connection first.

[Booter22]

i dont think they will ever stop the down loads. like i tunes lets you load your purchased cd for free to its program and now its on your computer. then load it to a hard drive or jump drive and over to a friends computer. its so easy to do, i have got 3 different cd books from people at work to load to my pc. mine, my parents, sisters over 10 years is now 13,000 songs. if it was a fair price to download them i would pay but even at itunes .99 per song, i would sooner find it for free then pay the same as what it would be for 12 songs on the cd and in a case. but movies is the biggest joke. i have 200+ paid for in cases new / used, and around 150 downloaded copies that a few i have done and two other hard drives from friends. but at $30+ or so per movie and then in blueray. no way i would pay that, if i could pay for them and have a digital copie at say $5 or $10 each then sure. but i dont want the cd, the case and all the rest and it takes up a full shelf + some. but still will be interested to see what they do. im sure its not going to matter for the 1,2,3 songs people download / 1,2 movies if that a week. im sure they will be targeting the heavy users and downloads every day in the 100s to 1000s/

[S.F.W.]

Don't really use torrents very often anymore, newsgroups are faster, and that much harder to track. That said, I don't think this will stick. Even if it does, I would hope they would learn from the Americans that prosecuting individuals does not stop downloading.

[silverstarmazda]

there will always be some sort of resistance and the people will find a way around a loop hole somewhere. this isnt the first time canada has tried to prosecute illegal downloaders. how many people are in all of canada? how many of them have computers? and how many of those computer owners download "illegally" for free? this is too big for the government or some company to control.

[SomeGuy]

Reasonable = Netflix price
I'd pay $10/month for unlimited movie/music downloads (NOT STREAMING and using my pitiful canadian internet cap of 60-100gbs) without commercials or other bullshit and in whatever quality I want (720p-1080p w/ DTS).

Until such a thing exists, there's no reason people would stop pirating. The entertainment industry is too god damn greedy, nobody sympathizes with them making millions-billions of dollars.

[mazdabetty]

This comment made me laugh:


"The Burnaby, B.C., company alleged the subscribers had illegally downloaded copies of their movie, Recoil, a straight-to-video action flick starring ex-wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin."

Isn't watching the movie punishment enough?

:chuckle

Anyway. I never understood how you can easily walk into Pacific mall and pay $5 for a DVD of a movie that hasn't even been officially released to the public yet... how have they gotten away with that for so long? Is that not highly illegal to openly make a profit off of CLEARLY bootlegged footage? lol... Maybe that would be a good place to start instead of going after the people who are actually not doing anything illegal per se, and simply "sharing" their content...

[Slade]

Usenet.

That is how you stay a ninja.

[midnightfxgt]

This comment made me laugh:



:chuckle

Anyway. I never understood how you can easily walk into Pacific mall and pay $5 for a DVD of a movie that hasn't even been officially released to the public yet... how have they gotten away with that for so long? Is that not highly illegal to openly make a profit off of CLEARLY bootlegged footage? lol... Maybe that would be a good place to start instead of going after the people who are actually not doing anything illegal per se, and simply "sharing" their content...

PacMall has been raided a few times on this. I think some pretty heavy fines were passed down and places out of business. Not to say 10 more arent waiting to do the same thing in the vacant spot lol

[Booter22]

Reasonable = Netflix price
I'd pay $10/month for unlimited movie/music downloads (NOT STREAMING and using my pitiful canadian internet cap of 60-100gbs) without commercials or other bullshit and in whatever quality I want (720p-1080p w/ DTS).

Until such a thing exists, there's no reason people would stop pirating. The entertainment industry is too god damn greedy, nobody sympathizes with them making millions-billions of dollars.

your right netflix isnt bad. but the canadian one sucks and has not many choices or things that are always all that new. my sister switched hers to the american one on the PS3 cant remember how but there is much better selection.

[silverstarmazda]

PacMall has been raided a few times on this. I think some pretty heavy fines were passed down and places out of business. Not to say 10 more arent waiting to do the same thing in the vacant spot lol

well as an asian thats grown up around pmall, i can say its had its fair share of police raids. they now primarily stock legitimate asian movies. they just look cheap because they were packaged that way from china. there may be a few downloaded copies here and there but i find thats a bit hard to find now at pmall. if your looking for burnt copies of DVDs and movies that havnt come out yet, you have to look into the small shops run by like 1-2 people in secluded asian malls. im not gonna list the locations cuz i love my movies :chuckle

edit: i think pmall has the burnt copies behind the legit copy. that way at least its hard to find

[Booter22]

just go to the flea market. i think its 5 for $10 or $20 some are really good. and some are.. well not so good.

[Unoriginalusername]

if the courts can't process parking ticket volumes, how are they going to process 1M offenders?

[paulabreu]

use proxy, create vpn, do not seed and you're in the clear...they are not going to stop me :P

[Kiyomi]

the government or these kinds of companies will never win, when hackers like anonymous are out there.

[silverstarmazda]

if the courts can't process parking ticket volumes, how are they going to process 1M offenders?

+1 they cant even process the people of theyre city now they want to take on the country? good luck with that. to be honest this is all bs, theyre (Again) spending time and money that could go into something beneficial to ALL of us.



the government or these kinds of companies will never win, when hackers like anonymous are out there.

http://imageshack.us/a/img31/8806/anonymousmaskt2.jpg

[SilentJay]

Where there's a will, there's a way - I'm guessing VPN/Usenet/SSH/Packet Encryption isn't going to save your hide 100%

[SilentJay]

if the courts can't process parking ticket volumes, how are they going to process 1M offenders?

I'm sure the gov't will find a creative way to make some money out of this, likely in the form of kickbacks in exchange for unfettered access to ISP customer use records.

Extra dough infusion to "encourage" court system based hiring = presto! Instant prosecution.

[asyed]

. Not that I 100% support piracy , i believe that there is no way to stop this and the government is just wasting their resources in trying to pirate.. people will pirate....nobody cam stop that. What they should do is lower prices based upon quality of content... I mean no way will I pay $30 for a game that could turn out to be crappy. And demo's dont do it justice must. Also Im confused, is this article saying that every single person who downloads will be fined $5000 or only those who share it with others. For the latter people will just hide behind proxies. Overall I am not so worried since I do my best in supporting those companies who actually make good content. I havent bought a single Need For Speed game in ages because of its general crappiness, on the other hand I have bought other titles such as Minecraft since they actually needed the money to run and actually made a better product :chuckle


TLDR; it wont work

[McGuyver_3]

torrents are simply files that people have and they are willing to share them with others. At one point someone purchased the file somewhere along the line and uploaded it. How is that piracy? If I post up a picture of my own for people to see that picture will get saved and passed around. It was my choice to put it on the internet and I am not going after people because they used it.

[jonjon72]

Doesn't affect me one bit. The government, studios, etc can go after these people all they want.

[Seshan]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zjh2tzCvVVE/Spsthd6_8gI/AAAAAAAACxI/SrbpxvwHhBQ/s400/dk.jpg

They will never be able to stop it, and if some how they do, they will see their profits drop. People will be exposed to less artists, then people will go to less concerts and buy less songs/merchandise. If it wasn't for what they call piracy, I wouldn't be listing to 99% of the artists that I am. I have a rule, If I find a artist that I am interested in, I'll download there CD/CD's, If I actually like them and am still listening to them when their next CD comes out, I buy it.

[Punkrockjohn]

Use Linux and hack someone's else's WiFi!

LMAO.

[Cab0oze]

Ok, hold on... so a random canadian company is hoping to collect money from canadians who download torrents.
i.e. I download hollywood movie. Canadian company catches me and says 'pay me money or we'll take you to court'
So rather than the money going to the people that made the movie, it goes to a random canadian company. That seems worse than piracy itself to me. Am I missing something?

Few other points/questions:
1) If i download 5 movies and 5 songs and 5 games, and then who gets the money when I get caught? (the random canadian company? lol)
2) How can they prove you actually downloaded the whole thing? If you just download half of a game DVD, it is 100% worthless. Pretty sure they can't tell without raiding your house.
3) I think it is ridiculous that the people whining about 'losing profits' are millionaires

[SilentJay]

Few other points/questions:
1) If i download 5 movies and 5 songs and 5 games, and then who gets the money when I get caught? (the random canadian company? lol)
2) How can they prove you actually downloaded the whole thing? If you just download half of a game DVD, it is 100% worthless. Pretty sure they can't tell without raiding your house.
3) I think it is ridiculous that the people whining about 'losing profits' are millionaires

1) From what I can make out, the Canadian company is supposedly hired by those who hold the copyrights to the infringed material. They are simply paid a fee to provide the list of users, and aren't really involved in damages or punishments awarded.

2) Going out on a limb here, but I think as long as you've accessed the data, regardless of how much of it, you're "guilty". I guess it's akin to only stealing a tire off of a car at the dealership.

3) Agreed, but as long as the masses keep paying $70/game or $20/album, they've got incentive to whine even louder.

[SilentJay]

torrents are simply files that people have and they are willing to share them with others. At one point someone purchased the file somewhere along the line and uploaded it. How is that piracy? If I post up a picture of my own for people to see that picture will get saved and passed around. It was my choice to put it on the internet and I am not going after people because they used it.


I absolutely hate that stupid-bastard-puppet Harper and I don't agree with bill C-11 at all, but here's the "other side of the coin". If you produce a picture, though you own the rights to it, you usually don't have intent to make money off of it when you post it up right?

Well the film and gaming studios produce their product with the intention to sell it. They invest in workers, facilities, and resources knowing that the product will be sold to offset the investment spent to produce it, just like a farmer would invest fertilizer, water, and seeds with the expectation that his crops would be sold at a profit. In this case, the farmer is charging $35 per head of cabbage because droves of people love the taste and buying guard dogs to bite the people who are trying to steal the aforementioned cabbage.

[DumpInfo]

So hand out a couple of fines it's clearly not gonna stop. I'm sure each and every member supporting this change has done an illegal download/copied/shared a file(s) in there time. It's all crock to me cause there just kidding themselves.

[McGuyver_3]

I absolutely hate that stupid-bastard-puppet Harper and I don't agree with bill C-11 at all, but here's the "other side of the coin". If you produce a picture, though you own the rights to it, you usually don't have intent to make money off of it when you post it up right?

Well the film and gaming studios produce their product with the intention to sell it. They invest in workers, facilities, and resources knowing that the product will be sold to offset the investment spent to produce it, just like a farmer would invest fertilizer, water, and seeds with the expectation that his crops would be sold at a profit. In this case, the farmer is charging $35 per head of cabbage because droves of people love the taste and buying guard dogs to bite the people who are trying to steal the aforementioned cabbage.

I agree with you that I am not intending to make money with anything I post up.
1 thing I have noticed now though is that a lot of games and what not are being handed out for free BUT they are charging for every little extra which is bullshit IMO. I agree that it takes money to make and produce movies and games but I don't understand as to why we have to pay hand over foot for them. The quantity that gets sold makes so much money and these stars and developers have so much money they don't know what to do with it. Hell when I went to Asia on vacation movies were 2$ And games were 5$. The amount of copies that were selling was astonishing. Those were prices I was willing to pay, don't get me wrong all my 360 and ps3 games are legit but hell the amount of money I spent on them I could have had half a big turbo kit payed for

[Cab0oze]

2) Going out on a limb here, but I think as long as you've accessed the data, regardless of how much of it, you're "guilty". I guess it's akin to only stealing a tire off of a car at the dealership.
Yeah, thats different because a car tire has value (and it means the dealership no longer has said tire!) whereas a corrupt (incomplete) file is completely worthless to all parties involved.

[SilentJay]

^^^ Hard to say - they could say something like "you've downloaded a file contains a proprietary (protected) way of integrating .dll libraries"


Just saying - those money grubbing bastards will do anything they can to remain wealthy.

[SomeGuy]

Yeah, thats different because a car tire has value (and it means the dealership no longer has said tire!) whereas a corrupt (incomplete) file is completely worthless to all parties involved.

Taking it a step further, by downloading a file you haven't removed that file from their possession...one definition of theft is "the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it." Keys being deprive the rightful owner of it, the owner still has their stuff, and another person's property, if someone hosted up the file, it is their property (they created the file and it resides on their hardware) and they've given you permission to download it by sharing it.

[silverstarmazda]

So hand out a couple of fines it's clearly not gonna stop. I'm sure each and every member supporting this change has done an illegal download/copied/shared a file(s) in there time. It's all crock to me cause there just kidding themselves.

they say theyre gonna make examples of the people who get caught. so its pretty much a scare tactic as far as i can tell.

[DumpInfo]

they say theyre gonna make examples of the people who get caught. so its pretty much a scare tactic as far as i can tell.

I agree

[cwp_sedan]

Well it looks like TekSavvy is apparently is the first company in Canada to be hit with a copyright challenge.


http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/right-click/teksavvy-customers-potentially-facing-legal-action-movie-studio-212754982.html

[yearoftherat]

Well it looks like TekSavvy is apparently is the first company in Canada to be hit with a copyright challenge.


http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/right-click/teksavvy-customers-potentially-facing-legal-action-movie-studio-212754982.html

Bastards...

[asyed]

Bastards...

+1


The company behind this scheme can go and rot in hell.... I hope they go bankrupt because their stupid movie does not sell. I'm with rogers so I should be fine for now....but seriously $5000 on an individual basis is overkill. Canadian government should focus on real crimes like murder and stuff.

[mazdabetty]

Voltage Pictures LLC? Not familiar with any of their movies from what I can see. So if they're suing for alleged lost income, who says anyone would have actually paid money to see any of their crappy movies? They were downloaded by thousands of people at the convenience of being free and might not have ever been seen otherwise... They aren't losing money because people are downloading their movies, they're losing money because their movies suck!!!!

[Flagrum_3]

Voltage Pictures LLC? Not familiar with any of their movies from what I can see. So if they're suing for alleged lost income, who says anyone would have actually paid money to see any of their crappy movies? They were downloaded by thousands of people at the convenience of being free and might not have ever been seen otherwise... They aren't losing money because people are downloading their movies, they're losing money because their movies suck!!!!

Thats our Mazdabetty, straight for the jugular.....mmmeeeooowwww, Hhhiiissssss!....

_3

[cwp_sedan]

I'm going to be devils advocate even though I'm all for downloading lol.

Even if they did make shit movies, they are still losing money from downloaders. No matter how bad their movies are some people aren't paying to watch them.

I've thought about this a bit and ultimately it's just like any other theft crime except you don't have to walk into a store and remove the item from the shelf. Laws don't currently allow for the same penalization as theft but ultimately it's the same if you want to break it down.

A lot of people are arguing like it's their right to download stuff to get around paying for over priced, crappy content but ultimately that's not a justified reason.

The Hurt Locker was a decent movie but for them to sue over just that movie seems ridiculous. Hopefully nothing happens and it's just a scare tactic for now.

I'm sure they are just trying to set an example, but where does it stop?

[midnightfxgt]

^^ Agreed. It's still theft. With the extremely low chance of being caught though, we will still do it. :)

If there was a "real" chance at being caught, it would be much different

[asyed]

man, i wrote an entire research report on this issue.... i should post it up here :P

[Booter22]

but lets be honest. if you could download the video for a decent cost, or buy just the dvd with out all the stupid package then sure i bet there would be less downloads and such. but i dont care about all the stuff put in the dvd case. i dont need it taking up space on my shelf either. i dont know why i need to pay for the dvd but can download a "free" digital copy. just let me buy the digital copy and put it on a hard drive, save me time to buy it and space to keep it. that alone would drop downloads down by a large ammount im sure. $5-10 for a movie vs the $30 + depending if it is blueray and what not. i think songs in the apple store should be priced less then $0.99 as its close to the same full price of the cd that could be purchased, uploaded by there software and shared to many different people at a lesser cost.. but thats another ball of wax all together.