
How Hollywood Caught the UK's Most Prolific Movie Pirates - dsr12
https://torrentfreak.com/how-hollywood-caught-the-uks-most-prolific-movie-pirates-151227/
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jamescun
What is bothering me is that supposedly a private organisation (FACT) was able
to approach another private organisation (Equifax) with a name and acquire
further details including a home address, without warrant or personal
authorisation.

Can somebody explain to me how this is not a breech of the Personal Data
clauses of the Data Protection Act 1998[1]?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act_1998](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act_1998)

~~~
sandworm101
From wikipedia above >> Section 29 – Crime and taxation. Data processed for
the prevention or detection of crime, the apprehension or prosecution of
offenders, or the assessment or collection of taxes are exempt from the first
data protection principle.

Note that the exception does not state that a warrant is needed for the
collection or sharing in such circumstances.

~~~
cabalamat
Somehow I suspect if I wanted to do an investigation on whether FACT were
breaking any laws, Equifax would deny me information.

In many ways we have a society where it is one rule for the rich and another
for the ordinary person. A good recent example of this is Facebook, which is
happy to let Donald Trump say things they class as hate speech on their
platform, but won't let their ordinary users do so.

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pdoconnell
An impressive amount of OPSEC fail. This is why you shouldn't mix real names
with activity that gets you noticed!

~~~
justinjlynn
Indeed. Never ever contaminate. If you do, it's a matter of when - not if -
the link will be made. Always rotate your identities as you would your keys
and credentials.

~~~
sandworm101
"when - not if" narratives are often pushed by enforcement groups as a scare
tactic. The reality is that so many people are engaged in these activities
that, even without any opsec, most will live out their careers unpunished.

The flip side to this problem is that anyone with any notion of security is
practically immune. With so many easy targets out there, the hard targets go
untouched year after year.

~~~
junto
Funnily enough, that's how most criminals get caught. Boasting about it down
the pub!

I was once given some wise advice. If you've ever knowingly done something
wrong, never tell anyone else, and never admit to it. Your mouth is your worst
enemy.

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wpietri
For those wondering, the sentences were 4.5 years, 4.2 years, 3.5 years, and
3.5 years. I'm not sure what the conversion rate between sentence and typical
time served is in the UK, though.

~~~
__david__
Is it just me or does that seem like an awfully long for file-sharing? Were
these guys doing more than just passing files around that would justify that
amount of jail time?

~~~
DanBC
As I understand it just file sharing isn't criminal - no criminal conviction
and no possibility of fines or jail time. (Although the rights owners can sue
for loss of earnings.)

To tip it into criminal law you need to either sell the files, or to
distribute enough to affect the trade of the rights owners.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright,_Designs_and_Patents...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright,_Designs_and_Patents_Act_1988#Enforcement_of_copyright)

> Copyright infringement that may be criminal offences under the Copyright,
> Designs and Patents Act 1988 are the:

>Making copies for the purpose of selling or hiring them to others[11]

> Importing infringing copies (except for personal use)[12]

> Offering for sale or hire, publicly displaying or otherwise distributing
> infringing copies in the course of a business[13]

> Distributing a large enough number of copies to have a noticeable effect on
> the business of the copyright owner[14]

> Making or possessing equipment for the purposes of making infringing copies
> in the course of a business[15]

> Publicly performing a work in knowledge that the performance is
> unauthorised[16]

> Communicating copies or infringing the right to "make available" copies to
> the public (either in the course of a business, or to an extent prejudicial
> to the copyright owner)[17]

> Manufacturing commercially, importing for non-personal use, possessing in
> the course of a business, or distributing to an extent that has a noticeable
> effect on the business of the copyright holder, a device primarily designed
> for circumventing a technological copyright protection measure.[18]

I agree that these people should not be in prison, and certainly not for that
long. Prison should be reserved for violent criminals.

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ozy123
Just out of curiosity what's the motivation for these pirates to take these
risks to share movies? Are they profiting from it financially?

~~~
joolze
No, it's community service-- just with people that are willing to go a bit
further than the archive. There's also an amount of pride associated with
being well known for quick releases like ettv or rartv -- or with having the
smallest encoding like yify or nezu or something.

Game of Thrones is a good example. Everyone loves GOT, right? Shit some people
even read the books. But you can only watch GoT if you have an HBO
subscription right? Up until this year I think (?) that meant you had to be a
US resident, with a physical cable subscription, and HBO service. What about
people in fucking Thailand? Should they not get to watch GoT even though the
whole internet is posting memes and whatever all over the place?

Or what about Django Unchained, lots of people in China went to see that film
in theatres in China... minus about half an hour of edited footage. These
Tarantino fans cannot legally obtain the entire version of the newest movie
from their favorite director. Does that seem fair? Pirates to the rescue.

Most groups do accept bitcoin donations, but I have no clue how much that
actually nets.

Honestly, it's just like a library, no clue why people get so worked up about
free books, movies, music, etc. The only issue I really see is prereleases --
like cams and especially dvd screeners of films still in theatres, those can
do some serious profit damages.

I fully plan on downloading this new star wars shit when it comes out. I also
fully plan on going to see it in theatres because _that_ is what a movie is --
I spend 30 bucks on new movies wvery month. I download Ozzy music. I also paid
fucking 150 pounds to see him in concert.

The war on pirates is just a pointless exercise by do-gooders with superiority
complexes that for some reason think that copyright law as it stands is
reasonable and are somehow deluded into thinking that the revenue stream of
entertainment is working in a reasonable fashion. In reality that 10$ you
spend on a DVD is just 10$ going into the hands of a corporation that does not
actually produce anything but just runs around frantically trying to justify
its own existence -- usually by harassing fans like this.

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biot

      > ... the actions taken by these men to hide their
      > identities aren’t shining examples of the art.
    

I look forward to Torrent Freak's follow-up article, detailing the shining
examples of pirates we all should aspire to become.

~~~
voltagex_
You won't hear about them. I note that these guys were all P2P pirates -
direct to torrent. The real pirates are still trading over FTP sites, which
then filter down to UseNet, private forums and are then "leaked" to torrents.

~~~
mpeg
I used to run a FTP server back in the day, I don't see how we the operators
or the scene uploaders had any better OPSEC than these guys, we were just too
obscure for anyone to care about.

These guys get caught because their releases reach millions of users, while
FTP scene servers that have two-digit user numbers are not exactly killing the
industry.

~~~
voltagex_
Obscurity is a form of OPSEC, just not a very good one.

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mindslight
Communicate within voluntary relationships, get forced into a cage for years.
Sounds like justice to me!

~~~
ceejayoz
That's a pretty absurd framing of the situation.

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Lawtonfogle
I find it accurate enough. The very nature of data is absurd, when even far
more awful stuff than merely a pirated movie can be reduced to a single
(albeit large) number. It is one area where I feel our morality has not caught
up with our technology.

For example, we think of trading stolen credit card numbers as wrong, but only
because we have bought the narrative of identity theft, which was constructed
to pass the burden onto the populace instead of the people handing out
goods/services/money to verify identity. If you disregard the concept of
identity theft, and think that instead it should be considered just theft, not
from the one who possesses the identity used, but from the entity that handed
out goods/services/money, then we need to reevaluate the ethics/morality of
trading credit card numbers.

~~~
mindslight
Which is of course what the credit card company tells the SOL merchant while
yanking back the damages from their own willful negligence.

Consumer facing though, they'd like to define it as "identity theft" because
"identity" is a bedrock abstraction their system is built on. They would
_like_ an "identity" to be something prescriptive and airtight (rather than
imperfectly descriptive) because it would make their job/business that much
easier.

