Was the Lokitorrent Suit a Hoax? 457
kamhp writes "Recently earthreactor.com published an article
stating that the whole Loki Torrent suit was a fraud and that it was all staged to collect donations toataling in the tens of thousands then sell the domain.
"It seems that the owner of LokiTorrent decided to take the donation money and run, and to cover his tracks, scare the hell out of the entire p2p community. The scare tactic was probably nothing but a decoy to convince intelligent people not to ask the right questions" "
Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The MPAA's efforts to date have resulted in a 40 percent reduction in the number of servers that continue to operate. One such site that will no longer exist is LokiTorrent?one of the largest BitTorrent host servers. The operator of that site, Edward Webber, agreed to not only pay a substantial settlement with even greater financial penalties for any further such actions, but by Court Order must provide the MPAA with access to and copies of all logs and server data related to his illegal BitTorrent activities, which will provide a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities."
The premise of the article is based entirely on the fact that there is no documentation from the MPAA--but indeed there is such documentation. I know we'd all love to believe the MPAA created that release to capitalize on this so-called hoax but no doubt that would be subject to legal action for such blatant lies.
The article also states "If LokiTorrent.com had been sued in Dallas Federal Courts, then some type of public record would appear. NO ONLINE RECORD APPEARS WHATSOEVER!"
So...if it's not on the internet, it must not exist right....right!?
Did anyone bother contacting the MPAA for a comment on the Lokitorrent case rather than providing more fire to the rumor mill?
Remember what LokiTorrent was? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is disgusting (Score:2, Insightful)
There's no honor among thieves (Score:2, Insightful)
"Bast*rd took my money!" - Should have used that money to buy the stuff you downloaded to begin with.
Why all this indignation? (Score:1, Insightful)
Could someone please tell me why are you all acting so shocked every time a torrent gets shut down? Are you saying that music and movies should be traded freely? IF so, can you tell me where's the profit in that? No movies or music (worth of publishing, anyway) would be published if there wasn't any profit in it.
Re:Doesn't make sense! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is disgusting (Score:4, Insightful)
As you and many of your preceding posters are testament to, you will fly half way around the world with a lie or rumor before bothering to check to see if it's actually true.
It appears this rumor is false, but you
Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:slashdot gets pwned again... (Score:1, Insightful)
If so, this whole earthreactor story is misleading...
Slashdot sued for fraud and slander (Score:5, Insightful)
To link to a article about someones opinion is one thing but to support and spread lies and slander is just plain wrong
Re:Claims against what exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people believe that the law is wrong, or poorly written or poorly executed -- and noone has followed a legal battle from beginning to end -- except maybe napster. Even they settled in the end, no? They didn't go 'all they way'.
I believe copyrights are being abused -- by those downloading copyrighted materials, but also the copyright holders, too. There is NO logical reason why Mickey Mouse isn't in the public domain now. The 'bittorrents' and p2p in general are just a symptom of a much larger problem...
Re:Doesn't make sense! (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be interesting if all this demand had proper supply?
Meta-hoax (Score:5, Insightful)
Side note from the MPAA's war-cry page: "By deeply cutting into revenues, movie piracy limits the choices for consumers at the box office. Sixty percent of all movies never recoup their production and marketing costs which average well over $100 million."
Sigh. The fact that most movies didn't recoup production costs in the decades before p2p, the Web or VCRs ever existed seems to have slipped under the radar.
Re:Clairify that comment,plz (Score:1, Insightful)
Most of the people I swap warez with are folks I'd trust my life with.
If you're gonna pick cliche's, can I suggest 'one bad apple' or 'don't put all your eggs' or 'why buy a cow when the milk is free' or any of a dozen others?
Anyone that donates to a sob story risks learning it is not exactly the truth. Oh, wait... that's 'dont judge a book'.
Oh, and $30k for loki, vs. several billion for the usury and evil IP lockup of the entertainment industry. Ignoring the argument that I wouldn't risk my rep for 30k, tell me again who's a thief here? I liked someone's remark elsewhere that maybe we should add a new meme to the game: if we're thieves, they're rapists.
Re:Clairify that comment,plz (Score:4, Insightful)
> trust my life with.
Clearly you are not a developer.
I support open source projects because I want to give the dishonest big guys a kick in the nuts. I have no desire to actually behave in a similar manner.
Re:I have a hard time trusting people (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:example of capitalism (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Claims against what exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
"There is NO logical reason why Mickey Mouse isn't in the public domain now."
Sure there is -- Disney, like just about every other person or company on the planet, wants money. The difference is that when Disney wants money, they're greedy, but when you want money, you're not.
I don't lose sleep over Mickey Mouse being copyrighted. If Mickey went into the public domain, the primary effect would be that the price of items with Mickey's face on it would go down, since you'd have the option of buying from some Far East importer rather than through Disney. It would not be some grand and glorious new age of copyright enlightenment; just more money for the country that can produce items the cheapest. The free market economy would still be in play.
Re:Claims against what exactly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not if you're known for taking principled stands. If you've given money to the EFF and can prove it, you can frame it differently.
"Your honor, I did not use the web site in question to violate copyright laws. I have ethical objections when anyone uses shady legal means to silence free speech. I have given money to other groups who fight such legal abuses. Look, I have bank statements to show how I've donated money to the EFF too."
LK
Re:Doesn't make sense! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a freely available program. It wasn't PPV.
Re:What did you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't go to jail for telling someone where to buy crack. Legally speaking, just knowing where to get an illegal substance is not in itself illegal.
Get it right. Lokitorrent has not touched any illegal files. Thus, They have done nothing illegal. Merely data hashes, which are perfectly legal, and a database of IP Addresses, which is also perfectly legal.
The ??AA is on extremely shakey ground, they know it, and that's why they're bullying people into submission instead of daring to let it actually get to court.
That's also why they are so desperate to push laws through that would make just owning a copy of Bittorrent illegal. They can't sue every user downloading, they can't sue the trackers (because again, they're legally in the clear), so they're abusing the legal system while they try to make the mere idea of trading files illegal.
All of them were completely caught with their pants down on digital delivery systems and are trying desperately to put the genie back in the bottle until they can figure out a way to make sure they're the only ones making a profit at it. Well, we all have news for them -- it's far, far too late for that.
Both the story and Lokitorrent are hoaxes (Score:3, Insightful)
First Lokitorrent is created to host links to BitTorrents and not the files themselves. While sharing the files may be a crime, one has to reason is sharing the BitTorrent files that link/track to files on someone else's hard drive (Not on LokiTorrent) does not fall under piracy directly. Lokitorrent is technically not sharing files, or even having them stored on their server, they are simply providing links to other people's hard drives. Sort of like having a list of links to Movie or Music downloads on your web site, but not really having the files on your web site.
Now then we have the MPAA contacting (not suing, issuing a warning letter from lawyers) telling Lokitorrent to cease and disist from hosting Bit Torrents, and threatening a lawsuit.
So Lokitorrent asks for more donations to fight off a lawsuit that has not yet happened, and they don't know how much it will cost to defend, but they have a ballpark figure.
Lokitorrent panics, offers the domain for sale. Makes up a story as to why it is for sale.
A judge hears the case, decides if there is any merit to it. Preliminary hearing or whatever. Not the trial itself, Lokitorrent panics and then settles out of court.
As agreed, the Lokitorrent site is taken down and replaced with a warning by the MPAA. An undisclosed sum of the donations made to Lokitorrent get paid to the MPAA for damages. The web site does not change hands yet, but the BitTorrent tracker and BT web portal are now offline.
Some angry fan of BitTorrent, gets upset that LokiTorrent got so much money in donations and still "Sold out" to the MPAA, that they make a hoax story.
While not exactly giving the MPAA the Lokitorrent web site, maybe the IP logs, the domain name, and hosting is still owned by LokiTorrent, but the hoax is we are to believe that the MPAA owns the site and is tracking all visitors to it.
Meanwhile millions of BitTorrent users are freaking out that the MPAA might actually have their IP addresses and downloading habits and filing a suit against them right now.
Yet another story is posted to Slashdot without the facts being checked first.
Re:Claims against what exactly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Claims against what exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the free market would be in play at all. The monopolies provided by patents and copyrights are the antithesis of a free market, which is why they must be time-limited.
Re:Doesn't make sense! (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly it's debatable as to whether we have an inherent to this content. Copyright law exists(or at least existed) to provide a financial insentive to content creators so that more content would be created to benefit the population as a whole, if you can't get hold of the content then what's the point of subsidizing its creation(which is essentially what copyright does).
Why bother promoting the creation of content if the creators won't distribute it. There should be a stipulation in copyright law that if I want to buy it you have to sell it to me(preferably at a preset price), because otherwise there isn't any purpose to having copyright law in the first place.