Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Sony

Sony Hack Reveals MPAA's Big '$80 Million' Settlement With Hotfile Was a Lie 117

Posted by timothy from the 4-80-whattsa-difference? dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Tech Dirt: For years, we've pointed out that the giant 'settlements' that the MPAA likes to announce with companies it declares illegal are little more than Hollywood-style fabrications. Cases are closed with big press releases throwing around huge settlement numbers, knowing full well that the sites in question don't have anywhere near that kind of money available. At the end of 2013, it got two of these, with IsoHunt agreeing to 'pay' $110 million and Hotfile agreeing to 'pay' $80 million. In both cases, we noted that there was no chance that those sums would ever get paid. And now, thanks to the Sony hack, we at least know the details of the Hotfile settlement. TorrentFreak has been combing through the emails and found that the Hotfile settlement was really just for $4 million, and the $80 million was just a bogus number agreed to for the sake of a press release that the MPAA could use to intimidate others.

Comment Re:One annoyance... (Score 1) 71

by TheDarkMaster (#48632205) Attached to: Ars Reviews Skype Translator
Knowing that you work on Skype, could you please ask the folks responsible for the instant text messaging code to remove that stupid idea of converting *text* in text? Or at least make this feature can be disabled permanently by the user (the actual hack is lost when Skype is closed)?
Piracy

Sony Leaks Reveal Hollywood Is Trying To Break DNS 388

Posted by Soulskill from the scorched-net-policy dept.
schwit1 sends this report from The Verge: Most anti-piracy tools take one of two paths: they either target the server that's sharing the files (pulling videos off YouTube or taking down sites like The Pirate Bay) or they make it harder to find (delisting offshore sites that share infringing content). But leaked documents reveal a frightening line of attack that's currently being considered by the MPAA: What if you simply erased any record that the site was there in the first place? To do that, the MPAA's lawyers would target the Domain Name System that directs traffic across the internet.

The tactic was first proposed as part of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2011, but three years after the law failed in Congress, the MPAA has been looking for legal justification for the practice in existing law and working with ISPs like Comcast to examine how a system might work technically. If a takedown notice could blacklist a site from every available DNS provider, the URL would be effectively erased from the internet. No one's ever tried to issue a takedown notice like that, but this latest memo suggests the MPAA is looking into it as a potentially powerful new tool in the fight against piracy.

Comment Re: Of Course It Was (Score 1) 355

by TheDarkMaster (#48508415) Attached to: James Watson's Nobel Prize Goes On Auction This Week
It is because of comments like yours that the subject is taboo. I could never genuinely investigate why this group or that group are more successful without some lunatic appearing immediately and saying that I want to "justify" the supremacy of the group X or Y.. I, for myself, do not have any interest in these petty "race supremacy wars" from humans, I want to to understand the reasons of the underdevelopment to be able to fix them if I ever find the cause of it, NOT to justify someone's political agenda.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Experience has proved that some people indeed know everything." -- Russell Baker

Close