Largest torrent site's owner arrested, Apple data crucial to investigators

a reply to: AMPTAH

Many "fake" files exist, and you think you're downloading some pdf book that's been put in .rar form, and after the file is downloaded, you unpack it, only to find it's some "porn clip" that somebody disguised with a book title.

Hey my friend wants to know what book title that was, for research purposes?

Since there's no way to know what the data actually is, before you actually get that data, the act of downloading itself cannot be illegal.

The intent argument only works for hillary or if your spouse talks to the attorney general days before the decision to prosecute is made.

originally posted by: Tjoran

originally posted by: DerBeobachter
Are there really people that still use torrents???
Idiocy declines never, as it seems.
Thought that crap is dead.

But if idiocy would decline, we never would have so fasntastic laughs about the not so much thinking people on earth, there would be no torrents anymore, no facebook and all that...

Are you for real? lol.

Thought the same.
Or assuming they use an alternative(Usenet?) besides buying the material for example.

originally posted by: Gemwolf
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

In the end - as someone else said, resources are poured into stopping "pirates" - a "victimless" crime. Yet rapists, terrorists, murders, bankers and lawyers are walking around with not a worry in the world. Is piracy really a problem in the bigger scheme of problems of the world?

Well said overall. Cut for the above in particular to further illustrate it.

originally posted by: AMPTAH
I never understood this torrent stuff.

First of all, Piracy is Profiting from other people's work without the rights to do so. So, if you copy some copyrighted material, and sell it without permission, that's Piracy. This is bad. And we should all be against this.

Say you duplicate some movie DVD, and make discs, package them, and sell them on eBay. That's piracy. People have actually done this. It's clearly wrong. No ambiguity there.

But, downloading things from the Internet is a whole other matter entirely.

First of all, nobody knows what they are downloading until they got the data onto their disc.

Many "fake" files exist, and you think you're downloading some pdf book that's been put in .rar form, and after the file is downloaded, you unpack it, only to find it's some "porn clip" that somebody disguised with a book title.

This happens all over the place. The title doesn't guarantee that your downloaded data has any relationship to the subject you think you're getting.

Since there's no way to know what the data actually is, before you actually get that data, the act of downloading itself cannot be illegal.

That's the first point.

Now, say you download some data, and find it's a movie.

Is it a free film, or a copyright flick?

In order to know what it is, you've got to look at the film.

After you've thoroughly examined the movie, and convinced yourself that it's copyrighted material, you then "delete" the copyrighted material from your hard disc, to be in compliance.

So, all your steps are legal. Downloading is legal, because data is unknowable until it is in hand. And viewing data is legal, because you must do so in order to determine what is in the content of that data. Then, once you get rid of anything that is claimed to be copyrighted that you didn't pay for, you're fine.

So, I can't see what legal arguments are being used to prosecute the people who download.

When it comes to operating torrent sites, that's just a search engine that maintains an index to content. There's no copyrighted content on any of those sites. These sites do exactly what google.com does. Provide an easy way to find various files around the web.

So, if they can prosecute the torrent sites, they must be able to prosecute google, for aiding and abetting.

All I see is "selective enforcement".

Exactly, well said. Google is just as kat, you can search torrents on google and nobody goes after google because they are filthy rich, sick worl we are living in.

originally posted by: saadad

originally posted by: AMPTAH

Exactly, well said. Google is just as kat, you can search torrents on google and nobody goes after google because they are filthy rich, sick worl we are living in.

Google is the biggest criminal enterprise of all, want drugs?, go to google, want guns?, go to google, want to build a bomb?, go to google, you see where I'm going with this, every illegal thing you want is on google but no one cares because google pretty much runs the net

a reply to: Gemwolf

While I shed little tears over the demise of KickassTorrents - what they do is after all illegal.

Kat was a torrent indexing service, there is nothing illegal about that because they don't host any files themselves. Furthermore, they did actually remove torrents when they received copyright complaints, I've seen countless shows and movies removed from Kat. The guy was the owner of the worlds most popular torrent site yet he was still paying for songs on iTunes. Clearly the man had some respect for good content creators and he was willing to support them by paying for their content.

The real issue here is how Apple and Facebook were used in a coordinated effort to pinpoint the identity of this man. They got him because he bought a song on iTunes and logged onto the Kat Facebook page from the same computer with the same IP address. Unless both companies allowed authorities to cross-reference his personal information there's no way they could have done that. What's also telling is that both Apple and Facebook are companies that Snowden listed as being complicit in the mass surveillance program.

a reply to: Gemwolf

TPTP have not exactly taken KickassTorrents down to well, i mean the proxy sites still allow you access.

proxyportal.org...

And the magnet links still function.

Think if i was marking there homework it would say "must try harder next time".