11-Nation Raid on Net Pirates

Cobb writes "The US Justice Department announce a global crack-down on large scale internet pirates distributing first run movies. According to the article: "FBI agents and investigators in the other nations conducted 90 searches starting Wednesday, arresting four people and shutting down at least eight major online distribution servers for pirated works, a Justice official said. Authorities also seized hundreds of computers in raids in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom.""

Not the first post! Woo hoo!

[cshark]

I still don't see why they don't go after the real pirates, who make and distribute these things commercially, and mostly in foreign countries. Seems to me that the non net pirates are probably a bigger threat. But they wouldn't need an international crack down force to find them (just walk through manhatten sometime), so I imagine they have to spend money on something. A shame.

11 nations, 90 raids

[Haenk]

and only 4 people arrested? Man, industry seems to be able to buy a lot of "justice" nowadays...

Re:Coordination of Efforts

[derEikopf]

Because Osama Bin Laden won't bring them money.

Re:That explains it...

[PDXNerd]

Perhaps Sweden had better things to do with their police force, like arrest murderes, rapists, and real criminals. Not to say Movie Piracy is legal (morals aside), but the amount of manpower and resources this takes is absolutely ludicrous for the overall payoff.

It would be interesting to see how much money this saved the movie industry - errr, I mean cost the rest of us (i.e. taxpayers) to fund this joint venture.

Re:Coordination of Efforts

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a catch, if we catch him, then we've got a LOT of people who want to try and save his sorry ass; so they try to kill a lot of Americans, or at that, any other people, or anyone they don't like.
If we kill him, he's a maryter(sp?), he goes up as a people's hero; etc...

If we just forget about him, he dies, and no one cares; it's a catch-22, we don't get our photo shoot, but they (the terrorists), get nothing.

$

Re:That explains it...

[computational super]

You know, it's interesting how the punishment relates to the crime... every time I watch a DVD, it reminds me that the penalty for the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copyrighted works, including those not for commercial gain, are investigated by the FBI and punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. IIRC, that's the same penalty you get for the distribution of CP. Seems like our priorities are screwed up somewhere (one way or the other).

Great! Now the world is a better place...

[presarioD]

... for the corporations to arbitrate and exploit (legally) with the backup of politicians and law enforcement agencies.

I knew it that my crazy uncle was right when he said that:

police is there to protect the rich from the poor. Nothing else.

Don't worry uncle I have faith in the system. For each pirate server they shut down, three more will spring out.



On other news today: Software piracy in its last throes. Exclusive interview with Joe Sixpack Pirate. Administrator officials have been regularly holding meetings with pirates...

Re:Not the first post! Woo hoo!

[Vodak]

The reason they go after the online community is simple. The current beleif is that everyone eho downloads a movie, mp3, or game is a direct sales deduction for the bottom line.

Using that structure of thought.. in the grand scheme of things. The guys on the corenr selling these copies are little fish in the big internet pond. Hell, you might even stop a couple of them pirates too since alot of these guys are just downloading them from the interweb as well.

Big scale pirates? Well China is our(US) allie right.

Perhaps I just don't get it, but...

[fdrake76]

Movies have been downloadable for years now, so why suddenly have the feds gone apeshit over Episode 3??

And from TFA:

Those groups are believed responsible for stealing and distributing copyrighted works including films "Star War Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,"...

It's not like these warez groups broke into George's office and stole his film reel.. why don't they focus on the person that leaked it from Lucasfilm in the first place?

Re:That explains it...

[epicstruggle]

"It would be interesting to see how much money this saved the movie industry - errr, I mean cost the rest of us (i.e. taxpayers) to fund this joint venture."

Thats an interesting question, but your only looking at what it cost for the operations. It would be fair to hypothetically calculate the lost revenue the govermnent lost through taxation of legal sales.

What i mean is that you pirate a game, no one really makes any money.
If say 10% of those who pirate, actually went out and bought legal copies (went to theaters, ...) then the govermnent would get their share in taxes.

FEDS prefer soft targets

[Anonymous Coward]

like students who can't fight back with huge money lawyer.

Better to leave alone corporate criminals, drug cartels who hide behind political connections and big money lawyers.

Re:Canada!?

[golden_spray]

Canada has normal copyright laws. It lacks abnormal copyright laws like the DMCA. For now at last. Just say no to C-60 [michaelgeist.ca]

10 years in prison?

[Electric Eye]

Also...
So the law signed by Pres. Howdy Doody says a file/movie pirate can spend ten YEARS in jail?? Yet, people who rape and murder often get less. I see now that our priorities are finally straight. How much faster can we go downhill?

Re:That explains it...

[Znork]

Of course, the money saved by the copyright infringers probably goes to consume other products, and probably products from some more competetive industry. Those purchases would probably also be taxed, and even better, they would quite likely employ more local people per spent unit of currency and create more wealth as almost every production chain is more efficient than the intellectual monopoly industries.

So, as a whole, society quite probably gains from piracy.

It's good to see...

[Das Auge]

that they focusing on the important issues, like copyright infringement and not the child sex trade.

This the kind of shit that happens when a corporations pocket book means more than the people that government was meant to server.

Whew!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing you can get 10 years in prison for pirating a movie... and only 5 for raping a child. Our society sure has it priorities straight!

Re:A good thing

[TubeSteak]

I'm calling Bull Shit

You notice how all the countries they named are 'first' world countries?

How come they don't have any Asian countries in their little piracy party?

What about Russia? You'd think ex-KGB Putin would love this type of iron gloved action

The fact is, the countries they mentioned are countries where most people can afford to buy dvd's or pay 10 bucks to see a movie.

Cheap Dvd's and Vcd's cost the **AA more than the $50 million they claim from this raid.

Profits up!

[IdleTime]

Well, at least we will be able to see the great effect this has on *AA's bottom line. If they don't report several billion dollar increase in revenue, I'd be shocked! Shocked, I'm tellin' ya'...

Re:Easy to see our priorties...

[t_allardyce]

Its all about money and im as greedy as the next man. Its in the economies best interests to enforce these laws because in the end of the day, 'sharing' or allowing free downloads and charging for concerts or taking donations just does not bring in as much money as the current industry approach, and im not talking about money for artists, the ones without it are too small a voice to matter and the ones with it got it from selling music. Its all very well cracking down on paedophiles but paedophiles don't hurt the economy so in the eyes of the government and business they are less important. It might seem harsh (well actually it IS harsh) but just ask yourself this: if you could be rich beyond your wildest dreams or you could put a paedophile behind bars what would you do? Im sure you would stop the paedophile but you would probably be thinking about the money for the next few weeks.

Re:That explains it...

[Inigo Montoya]

Mod the AC parent down.. Canada is on the list.

Furthermore, this whole thread is bogus because torrent sites were not even a target of this investigation. According to the FA it was about cracking down on specific release groups, not torrent hosts or trackers.

Re:That explains it...

[Randseed]

What i mean is that you pirate a game, no one really makes any money. If say 10% of those who pirate, actually went out and bought legal copies (went to theaters, ...) then the govermnent would get their share in taxes.

They do. The Matrix Revolutions comes out, and lines and crowds at the theatre are ridiculous. Maybe some people want to see the movie before it's totally spoiled by people talking about it, but can't because they actually have jobs, so they pirate it. A large percentage of them in this case will still go see it in the theatre, because it's part of the "experience."

Computer games are similar, but for a different reason. You have no idea how many computer games I've bought that have just flat-out SUCKED, or wouldn't run, or were full of bugs. Because of that, I tend to pirate first, and if it's good, I buy it. Even if I didn't, the industry as a whole still got a lot of money it in no way deserved because I bought shitty products in the past.

I'm not condoning the behavior. It's just more complicated and nowhere near as damaging as the industry would like you to believe.

Re:That explains it...

[Bobke]

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re:A good thing

[^Case^]

However, it is people like this who cause the damages cited by the **AA types

Uhm, actually no. It's the **AA's invisible friends who comes up with the damages cited by the **AA. As has been shown numerous times.

I'm not saying piracy isn't taking a lump out of the **AA's pocket but it sure isn't anywhere near the numbers they like to claim every so often.

Carla Homolka

[HermanAB]

who aided in the rape and death of her own little sister, amongst others, was released from jail today, having spent 12 years behind bars...

Re:Coordination of Efforts

[TripMaster Monkey]

I kind of hope they're holding him in secret right now and torturing him....

References to torture aside (we're not supposed to be doing that...we're the good guys...aren't we?), if we did in fact have Osama in custody, do you honestly think the current administration would keep it a secret? Dubya would have hourly announcements going out about his latest 'victory' in his demented little 'war on terror'.

Sure, I'm bitter. You'd be too, if you knew what I know.

Re:Coordination of Efforts

[meringuoid]

If the US Justice Department can coordinate such an effort among 11 different nations and justice systems, why can't we find Osama Bin Laden?

As long as we're looking for Osama bin Laden, we have a valid pretext for continuing our agenda of social control. 'We need these extra powers to protect ourselves from terrorists. We mustn't be too squeamish about civil liberties. After all, Osama bin Laden is still out there.' Once we actually catch Osama bin Laden we suddenly have a problem. People will ask: 'Doesn't that mean the war is over?' That undermines the entire project.

Therefore it's better to have a token search for Osama that occasionally turns up a suitably lunatic Arab whom we can market to the press as The Al-Qaeda Nth-In-Command, and meanwhile go ahead with the police state project and the Middle Eastern Imperial Oil Hegemony plan.

Re:Great! Now the world is a better place...

[micromuncher]

Your uncle was totally correct. The police exist to keep the law abiding citizens in line, because when They figure out that something is actually messed up, They are the threat that needs to be controlled.

In our city, of the 2 top revenue generating civic agencies, were...
1) the police department
2) the transit system

Why does it seem I was the only one to think that it was really wrong for these "public services" to turn a profit?

Re:New Tshirt for sale!

[Anonymous Coward]

Osama Bin Laden is pirating music
NOW will you go catch the fucker?

Between you and me, strictly off the record of course :) NO

You see, Osama is our boy. He was funded and trained by the CIA. The master plan is to take away your rights and freedom, as well as to centralize power so only a few people have all the money and power. So the rich need a boogeyman, something to threaten the people with, a scapegoat. Some event will happen, "terrorist act", and immediately afterwards, they'll start pointing a finger at their scapegoat, no evidence... 9/11 (reichstag fire), blame the terrorists (blame the commies), what's the difference here?

You people better give up your rights, we're passing the the patriot act, real-id act, etc etc, until there is a full on police state, if you object, well something bad might just happen to your beautiful city here see? Oh watch out, that evil boogey man Osama Bin Laden is gonna get you. Aren't you glad that you have us, along with all these police, and surveillence technology to protect you?

Re:Coordination of Efforts

[Fareq]

I choose not to do evil things, because I am not evil, not because of some law that says I shouldn't.

Therefore, I do not believe in torturing anyone, regardless of who they are, because torture is evil, and I am not.

Re:Don't see any effect

[math0ne]

This whole thing is pretty interesting.

The reason you wont see any major change in traffic is that these operations dont actually take down any extablished servers.

The feds just set up 2gbit server and convince groups to affil on them and then bust all of the FEDS OWN users. The reason you seen so much traffic drop with Operation fast link is that the REAL scene sites were scared and shut down temporarily, until everyone realized that the only sites that got taken down were in fact run by the FEDS.

I assume that the idea is that the info on the siezed computers can be used to take down other top sites, but the fact of the matter is that the world's largest most repsected top sites are now located in countries that the US gov cannot get to, even if they had the info on them.

The scene will never die

At least thats my opinion,

math0ne

Re:Gee, no China?

[mOdQuArK!]

China has a very real reason to crack down on piracy and trademark infringement, as their economy grows so too will the IP portion of the economy.

China has very _little_ reason to pay IP any more attention than lip service. By ignoring the bogus economic arguments given by intellectual property proponents, China can grow their economy in a robust manner by developing real goods & services instead of wasting their resources by supporting the parasitic overhead caused by "intellectual property" laws.

IP laws are just a way for developed countries to try and reduce competition from the economies of developing countries. If the developing countries are smart, they'll continue to pay lip service about IP (to avoid being punished by the developed countries), but will still basically keep ignoring it so that they can grow their economy in a robust manner.

This is basically the method that the U.S. used to become an economic superpower (ripping off industrial devices & processes from Europe & ignoring their complaints about IP violations).

Re:11 nations, 90 raids

[t35t0r]

They may have arrested only 4 people, but that doesn't mean they didn't search and seize computers from 100's of locations. Being searched does not necessarily mean that you are put under arrest.

mastercard commercial

[chicago_bulls]

stealing millions of dollars from your employees... 10 years in prison
(http://www.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel04 /enron01 1404.htm [fbi.gov])

inflating your companies earnings by $2.7 billion dollars, so you can get rich off the stock...acquittal on 36 counts.
(http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050628/healthsou th_scrush y.html?.v=25 [yahoo.com])

using what amounts to slave labor to fatten your pockets...become the largest and richest company in the world.
(http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_40/b3 701119.h tm [businessweek.com])

revealing the identity of an undercover cia officer because her husband doesn't like your president...get off scot free.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/02/novak /index_np.html [salon.com]

sharing a movie with friends...5 years in prison.

this is insane.