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The Internet

Was the Lokitorrent Suit a Hoax? 457

Posted by CmdrTaco from the put-on-your-foil-hat dept.
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" "
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Was the Lokitorrent Suit a Hoax? More

Was the Lokitorrent Suit a Hoax?

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  • Class-action lawsuit, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Celestial Avenger ( 826964 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:33PM (#11770727)
    If I recall correctly, wasn't there a Paypal donate button? Fairly sure they can find out each and every person that donated to that POS. Glad I didn't give him my $0.02.

    • Re:Class-action lawsuit, anyone? (Score:5, Funny)

      by One of the abnormals ( 817423 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:34PM (#11770753) Homepage
      If you gave $0.02, Paypal would have taken it away in fees anyway ;)

    • RTFA's Comments (Score:5, Informative)

      by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) * <mikemol@gmail.com> on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:38PM (#11770815) Homepage Journal
      There's a link to the related press release [mpaa.org] on the MPAA's website.

  • Simple solution (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:33PM (#11770737)
    Shoot him.

  • example of capitalism (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:34PM (#11770745)
    I've been looking for a good example of pure capitalism to follow. Now I have my new religion :)

  • Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nuclear305 ( 674185 ) * on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:34PM (#11770746)
    If it's such a hoax what exactly do you call this [mpaa.org]? (Google's HTML Version [64.233.167.104])

    "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?

    • 21st century existancialism (Score:5, Funny)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:37PM (#11770803) Homepage Journal
      So...if it's not on the internet, it must not exist right....right!?

      I can be googled, therefore I am.

    • Loki was a front for the MPAA (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I heard the loki torrent site was a front for the MPAA to defraud piraters out of money by convincing them to donate.

      As the saying goes, I sleep with gay guys but the jokes on them because i'm not gay!

      • All that would do is prove that customers are, in fact, willing to pay for the 'right' to download movies and the MPAA is willfully refusing to respond to that market (and related revenue source).

        On the other hand, if the site were put together by (or with the blessing of) the MPAA then anybody downloading movies via it would have been legal.
        Bwahahahahahahahah!

    • Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Mod down parent! This is Slashdot - this is no place to be posting "facts"!
    • I'd also like to add that I do think something if fishy with the Lokitorrent case--especially the fact that the site is still hosted on the original server rather than actually being taken over by the MPAA.

      I also find it strange that the site up and closed about the same time that donation bar stopped moving.

      In the days leading up to the closure of Lokitorrent, I noticed you had to click through some odd copyright infringement agreement. Not to mention searches for popular movies started resulting in gen

    • Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:45PM (#11770921) Homepage Journal
      Who trusts a site named after the Norse god of TRICKS and MISCHIEF?
    • <blockquote>"If LokiTorrent.com had been sued in Dallas Federal Courts, then some type of public record would appear. NO ONLINE RECORD APPEARS WHATSOEVER!"</blockquote>

      <p>Cases are routinely recorded in different federal courts to slow down the media's access to them. A case in Dallas could actually be filed in Austin or some other nearby Federal court<p>

    • Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:5, Informative)

      by SlayerofGods ( 682938 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:52PM (#11771021)
      It does exist on line.
      I'm looking at the docketing sheet right now.
      3:04-cv-02642
      Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc et al v. Edward Webber
      Someone didn't check their facts.
      I would provide linkage but you need an account to view it.
      https://ecf.txnd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl [uscourts.gov]

      • Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by SlayerofGods ( 682938 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @05:24PM (#11771409)
        P.S. I just finished reading the judgement.
        It orders him to pay 1 million dollars in damages and he has to turn over all the logs.
        It also states he isn't allowed to sell the source code for loki torrent.
        Though he wasn't required to turn over the domain name or servers to the MPAA just the logs. So the notice on the website looks to be his own doing?
        If anyone wants me to email a copy to them so they don't have to pay the 64 cents to download and can post it some where let me know.

      • Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:5, Informative)

        by dreamword ( 197858 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @07:33PM (#11772476) Homepage
        I downloaded PDFs of the complaint and the judge's order from PACER. They're definitely real, and they're linked from my blog:

        http://www.joegratz.net/archives/2005/02/24/lokito rrent-lawsuit-no-hoax/ [joegratz.net]

      • Re:Does anyone bother checking facts? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @07:46PM (#11772597)
        Seeing as I have an account on the PACER system already set up, here's the case summary:

        3:04-cv-02642 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc et al v. Edward Webber
        David C Godbey, presiding
        Date filed: 12/14/2004
        Date terminated: 02/16/2005 Date of last filing: 02/16/2005

        Case Summary
        Office: Dallas Filed: 12/14/2004
        Jury Demand: None Demand:
        Nature of Suit: 820 Cause: 17:501 Copyright Infringement
        Jurisdiction: Federal Question Disposition: Judgment - Judgment on Consent
        County: XX US, Outside State Terminated: 02/16/2005
        Origin: 1 Reopened:
        Lead Case: None
        Related Case: None Other Court Case: None
        Def Custody Status:
        Flags: CLOSED, COPYRIGHT, RAMIREZ

        Plaintiff Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc ...
        (followed by contact info and list of other movie studios, presumably all the MPAA members).

        The last document filed in the case is a "Consent Judgment and Permanent Injunction", signed and dated February 8th 2005. The guy's attorney signed it on his behalf, and apparently Mr. Webber *AGREED* to pay a million dollar judgement to the plaintiff - there was no trial ever held. I have to assume there is some side agreement that waives the financial agreement if he complies with their terms and plays nice or something like that, as I'm presuming this guy doesn't just have a million dollars to throw at the MPAA.

        Oh yeah, and the Consent Judgment states that the defendent waives any and all right to appeal the Judgment, to have it set aside, or to obtain a new trial. So I don't understand how this guy claims he was going to put up a legal fight when it sounds like he rolled over like a fifty cent whore.
    • > So...if it's not on the internet, it must not exist right....right!?

      "If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist." - Jocasta Nu, Attack of the Clones.
    • I call it a news story in a Word document. I'd rather see a copy of the court order.
    • I know we'd all love to believe the MPAA created that release to capitalize on this so-called hoax...

      My first thought was that the MPAA press people may have been working from news reports without bothering to check with their own legal people. (Or that they have multiple legal fronts that aren't fully up on each other's cases.) Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. The release you mentioned looks pretty informed, though.

      Anyway, if you throw out the hoax conspiracy theory, that still lea

    • Meta-hoax (Score:5, Insightful)

      by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug AT geekazon DOT com> on Thursday February 24, 2005 @05:03PM (#11771168) Homepage
      The new generation of hoaxes that label real events as hoaxes and hoaxes as real. Perhaps the above post is a hoax too?

      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:Meta-hoax (Score:3, Informative)

        by labratuk ( 204918 )
        The reason 60% of movies conveniently never make a profit is so that they don't have to pay the relevant taxes.

        The movie industry are the kings of fiddling the books.

      • Re:Meta-hoax (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @07:39PM (#11772528)
        So, almost two-thirds of Hollywood's output loses money. Bah. In the age of video distribution I sincerely doubt that. But, okay ... taking them at their word, if I were the CEO of a company that had a track record that poor I'd expect to be relieved of my duties, and have the straps cut on my golden parachute just before being pushed out of my top floor office window. By crying poor they're trying to make their customers accept responsibility for whatever is really wrong with the industry, as well as justify continued high prices and lawsuits. However, what that comment really tells us is that the studios have fundamentally incompetent management. They've been intoxicated by their monopoly high for so long that they are terrified of having to come down, get efficient, and actually compete. Oh sure, they can come up with all the justifications in the world as to why the business is run the way it is. But if that sixty percent figure is anywhere near accurate then the studios' stockholders should simply vote these people out since they're obviously doing a poor job. And if they are lying (that would be a huge surprise) and they are more profitable than they are claiming, then they have even less rationale for this "war on piracy."

        What this really comes down to is "We don't have the control we're accustomed to, we're not making as much money as we feel entitled to, and we don't care who we hurt as long as we get what we want." You'd get a similar line of reasoning from your average Mafioso, I'm sure.

        The movie studios will get little sympathy from me, and anyone that bothers to understand the damage that has already been done at the hands of the motion picture industry would be hard-pressed to defend it.

        What continually amazes me is the degree of arrogance these people exhibit, the remarkably high regard in which they hold themselves and their products. Jack Valenti exemplified this sort of "we are an international treasure that must be preserved at all costs" attitude that belies the fact that what they are selling are "luxuries" that all of us could easily do without. Regardless, if by some miracle the MPAA and all of its' member organizations disappeared overnight, it really wouldn't take long for a new business model to take over and the flow of movies to continue.

        The idea that a good movie has to cost a hundred million dollars is a bit extreme anyway. Take the TV series' Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. The production team for those shows produces cinematic-quality special effects week after week on a fraction of the budget of a typical third-rate movie. Sure, the actors don't command the same prices that the big boys do, but so what ... good movies were made before actors started getting multimillion-dollar paychecks and they'll still be making good movies after that particular bubble bursts. Most businesses, when faced with an economic downturn, have to tighten their belts, economize. Hollywood seems to have the idea that they can avoid having to do that if they can just squeeze us hard enough.

  • What did you expect? (Score:5, Funny)

    by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:34PM (#11770750) Homepage Journal
    "Intelligent people"? What else did you expect when you're dealing with people whose stated goal is defending against a blatant case of copyright infringement in court.

    Where can I find these intelligent people? I have a bridge to sell to them...

  • OMG! (Score:4, Funny)

    by RaboKrabekian ( 461040 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:34PM (#11770762) Journal
    Purveyors of Bittorrents can be unscrupulous?! WTF!! Where's the honor amongst thie^^^^H content aggregators!?

  • of course he could cover his tracks (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:34PM (#11770765)
    because in teh internet ur anonymus & supr leet.
  • Its disgusting as to how some people make money by stealing from the very people who decided to help them out. I'm yet to do my research on the authenticity of this news bit.
  • I think its smart knowing that the MPAA or RIAA will come after you next and just cut your losses and quit there. I think its really decietful to claim you are being sued to raise money so you can live in the Carribbean. A mixture of knowledge and deciet. He sounds just like a corporation.

  • Article Text (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:35PM (#11770782)
    LOKI TORRENT LAWSUIT :: A HOAX
    Written by: SharePro

    At the end of December 2004, the RIAA and MPAA began an international rampage in efforts to close down major bit torrent and ed2k file sharing sites.

    Some sites like Suprnova.org, Youceff.com, ShareTv.com, and others went down without a fight while other sites, including ShareConnector and Releases4U were closed down by authorities.

    The lawsuits set off a wide spread of panic and dismay within the p2p community as many of the veteran ed2k and torrent contributing societys soon found themselves "homeless" and their works "confisquated" by investigative authorities.

    During the turmoil, one such MPAA targeted Bit Torrent site claimed it was willing to stand up against the evil powers of motion picture media thugs by fighting the legal issues in a court of law. LokiTorrent.com began accepting donations from the p2p community to support what they called "necessary legal fee's".

    According to a Slyck.com - January 3, 2005 (Slyck.com promoted people to donate to Loki Torrent), within two weeks (5 days public) of announcing their fund raising campaign, Loki Torrents was only $710.00 dollars away from reaching their initial goal. At the time of writing Slyck.com's initial article, Loki Torrent claimed to have raised an impressive $29,290.00 from the p2p community.

    Today, just weeks after the initial Slyck.com interview with Edward Webber, owner of LokiTorrent.com, the entire p2p file share community is back in turmoil.

    Quote:
    A) Are the logs of Lokitorrent.com in the hands of the MPAA?
    B) Where is the money that was donated to the legal fund?
    C) Can P2P'rs who uploaded / downloaded torrents be tracked down via the logs.

    The above and more were the initial questions most p2pr's had in mind when news broke that the MPAA had gained control of Loki Torrent.

    As the writing of this article began to gain momentum, many inconsistencies began arising that clearly show that Lokitorrent is not in the hands of the MPAA (At least not because of a court order), nor we're the owners fined a million dollars.

    1) LokiTorrent never provided the name or details of any lawyer representing the internet site. No federal judge's name has been listed anywhere throughout the so-called proceedings. Texas courts have no record of any filed judicial proceedings on behalf of the MPAA against Loki Torrent and/or Ed Webber.

    2) During the same period of time that Loki was making tens of thousands of dollars monthly via donations, the owners of Loki Torrent were also actively trying to sell the domain. LokiTorrent.com for Sale :: Sedo.com

    In effort to convince p2p'rs to continue donating and not to believe Loki's intent to sell, this is what the owner published in his defense:

    Loki Torrent's Selling on Sedo.com :: Explanation
    Quote:
    If some guy offers me $75K for the domain name, he's more than welcome to it, and I'll simply move the site to a different domain. Selling the entire site will never happen. I have way too much of myself in this site to sell it for any price (well, 2 million could get me to part with it, lol.. but let's live in reality).

    3) The only reports of this so-called "law suit" are based entirely on the front page of the LokiTorrent.com internet site. The MPAA and Texas Federal Court list no public record of a lawsuit nor is the MPAA or the courts willing to back up Lokitorrent claims of being ordered to hand over webserver ip logs and pay a 1 million dollar penalty. J. Borland of News.com (and other related news resources) apparently based their entire news articles by information received directly from Mr. Ed Webber (the owner of LokiTorrent.com). This information was received by calling Mr. Webber directly at telephone number (207) 752-3481.

    4) Was LokiTorrent ever actually sued by the MPAA? According to the initial reports published via various websites, most people were led to have believed that the

    • Re:Article Text (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Kaorimoch ( 858523 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @05:39PM (#11771591) Journal
      I wonder if the author wrote the original article with his tin foil hat on or without? At least he can't be accused of being a journalist, they actually research their stories before writing them. This one is loaded with potholes.

      The name of the lawyer is Charles S. Baker
      http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pirac y11feb1 1,1,1373904.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

      The post further up detailed where it was mentioned in court.

      If it was a hoax, why is he using his name to register all these domains? Why did he run so many torrents and have so many features on the site? Why would the MPAA, an organisation already denigrated by many net residents, blatantly lie in its press release?

      It was already found within an hour of the site becoming an MPAA ad that everything was still being hosted on lokitorrent servers. Is this evidence of wrong doing, or MPAA cost cutting? Besides, with all the PeerGuardian users around, they would have MPAA IP blocks and would not have seen the ad if it was hosted on MPAA servers.

      Point 6 is pretty dumb. Apparently the site is hoax because they didn't announce the name of the webmaster they were suing....um, duh, isn't Ed Webber the webmaster? And isn't the MPAA going after tracker sites at the moment to shut them down?

      I'd say he was running a website, saw he was going to get into trouble and decided to find ways to profit.

  • There's no honor among thieves (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bit torrent sites are set up to help people steal other people's property (C'mon, like you go there to get Linux distros or other GPL'd stuff) making this scam kind of funny.

    "Bast*rd took my money!" - Should have used that money to buy the stuff you downloaded to begin with.

  • Here's an idea (Score:2, Funny)

    by Donoho ( 788900 )
    Find 'em. Beat the living shit out of 'em. Post torrent with play by play pics.

    If done correctly, everyone that donated shoud feel they at least go their money's worth ^_^

  • The MPAA will be interested + 3 steps to profit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:38PM (#11770831) Journal
    Someone found a business model to get pirates to pay for content!!

    Step 1) set up torrent site
    Step 2) claim MPAA takedown
    Step 3) collect money from torrent downloaders, then run away and PROFIT !!!

    The process probably can't be repeated too many times, though... do you figure they made more money than they would have through advertisements ? I'm guessing they did...

  • Anyone got a copy? (Score:5, Funny)

    by thebra ( 707939 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:39PM (#11770834) Homepage Journal
    The site is blocked for "sexuality" by websense. Thanks
  • OK, so many, many LokiTorrent users coughed up cash to the owner of the site. I've no problem with that, and the owner of the site looks to have come out of it for something like 30K.

    Seems fair enough to me.

  • Lokitorrent + PayPal + Illegal Downloads + Hoax (Score:5, Funny)

    by loggia ( 309962 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:40PM (#11770857)
    Can we add a Nigerian email to this story, please?
    • ok :)
      i would have put it all in caps to increase authenticity but slashdot doesnt seem to like it :/

      hello friend,
      i have recently come into possession of THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS, unfortunately due to legal costs from the evil empire of the MPAA i require your help.
      I am willing to pay you 33% of the balance, TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in thanks for letting me tranfer this balance out of texas through your bank account.
      I require your bank details and all the information you can give me about yourself as a reply.
      Man

    • Re:Lokitorrent + PayPal + Illegal Downloads + Hoax (Score:5, Funny)

      by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:56PM (#11771086) Homepage
      "Can we add a Nigerian email to this story, please?"

      My most esteemed colleague,

      I find myself so grateful in the knowledge that such persons as yourself exists and are willing to add such value to group conversations. I myself have been such a man, and it warms my hear to deal with a fellow man of honor.

      It grieves me to say that such conversations are threatened by those who would profit from misfortune. I speak specifically of the president of my country who has forbidden the same. It is not easy in these troubling circumstances, but rest assured that I have powerful friends who are in a position to help. They lack on the means to a vast sum that can free up all such conversations. I know a professional man such as yourself will be in a position to help free my country from such dire matters, and reap a huge reward for your troubles.

      I am contacting you because of a business concerning a huge sum of money from a deceased deposit in the Security and Finance company where a colleague of mine works in the Netherlands. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day. I actually decided to contact you due to the urgency of this transaction.

      I shall be compensating you with 30% of the total money while 10% will be for any expenses incurred the rest will be mine on final conclusion of this project. Please note that your share stays while the rest shall before me for investment purposes.

      If this proposal is acceptable by you, do not take undue advantage of the trust I have bestowed in you, I await your urgent mail. Please reply to my private and confidential email.

  • slashdot gets pwned again... (Score:5, Informative)

    by bani ( 467531 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:41PM (#11770859)
    quoting from this mpaa press release [mpaa.org]:

    "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."

    took all of like 3 seconds to find this.

    in keeping with the usual /. tradition of journalistic excellence, we'll probably see this same "story" reposted several times in the next few days.

  • Hmmmm... Loki..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PHAEDRU5 ( 213667 ) <instascreed AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:44PM (#11770911) Homepage
    Norse god of, among other things, practical jokes.

    Hmmmmmm....

  • On Lokitorrent's side they did have other revenue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by infonography ( 566403 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:48PM (#11770961) Homepage
    One thing they did was to tie in prizes to donations.

    Donate X amount or more and win some prize. It was innovative and I may use it in the future myself. As to the hoax? I got nothing.

  • simple idea (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why don't people who start these sites in the first place register them as a corporation. That way when the RIAA et al. come knocking on your door you can just let the company take the fall.

    Limited liability people.

  • REMEMBER FOLKS! It's not slander if... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...it's in the form of a question.

    What a crock of shit. To think /. editors would be complicit in the execution of a Fox News tactic.

    You can say anything you want without fear of reprisal as long as it's in the form of a question. You people don't fact check a goddamn thing, and just publish away. Never mind that the author of the original "article" is in bed with the MPAA.

  • The countersuit was a hoax, but... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Stop Or I'll Noop ( 670846 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:50PM (#11770999)
    The article makes numerous references to the MPAA never even bothering Loki or mentioning Loki in their press releases. Well, what does this press release say? http://www.mpaa.org/CurrentReleases/2005_02_10_Bit TorrentLokitorrent.doc [mpaa.org]
    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.
    So unless the MPAA is also in on this hoax (which wouldn't really surprise me), there are some issues with this story.

  • Slashdot sued for fraud and slander (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cyberlotnet ( 182742 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:52PM (#11771022) Homepage Journal
    http://www.mpaa.org/CurrentReleases/2005_02_10_Bit TorrentLokitorrent.doc

    To link to a article about someones opinion is one thing but to support and spread lies and slander is just plain wrong

  • Trusting the source? (Score:4, Informative)

    by PktLoss ( 647983 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:55PM (#11771077) Homepage Journal
    Isn't Earth Reactor an Earth Station 5 satelite site? With all the unsubstantiated anonimity claims (amid clients with remote file deletion exploits), and a long history of mud slinging. Why are they a credible news source?

  • Loki....hmm something comes to mind. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by madsatod ( 535808 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:56PM (#11771087)
    Remember Loki [wikipedia.org], the norse trickster god and a master of deception.
    Not saying anything about the truth of these accusations, but maybe this guy's choice of domain name could (ironically enough) turn out to be fitting...

  • I would think that if the **AA really put up the website on lokitorrent they would have a link back to theirs or there would be other sites p0wn3d by the **AA I'm on drugs what do I know!

  • Story is a troll (Score:5, Informative)

    by the_rev_matt ( 239420 ) <slashbot@revmatt. c o m> on Thursday February 24, 2005 @04:59PM (#11771124) Homepage
    Remind me again why we can't mod down stories? The submitter is an idiot for believing what an uninformed 12 year old wrote on some random site. The editor is an idiot for approving such a bullshit "story". We're all idiots for bothering to read past the first post linking to the MPAA press release.

  • Hold on for a second... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nicholas Evans ( 731773 ) <OwlManAtt@gmail.com> on Thursday February 24, 2005 @05:02PM (#11771147) Homepage

    This article is written by SharePro of ES5 -- the same fellow who was threatening to post pictures and personal information about the bloke who found the 'remote file deletion' utility in the ES5 p2p program awhile back.

    Take whatever this man says with a grain of salt and call me in the morning...

    • Re:Hold on for a second... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by miner60 ( 771408 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @07:03PM (#11772260)
      Yes SharePro is not to be trusted. That mp3 search engine on earthreactor.com's first page was written completely by my friend and myself. We were having financial problems and posted the fact on our website, which is when SharePro offered to help out. We were happy to have a new host at no cost and we hadn't heard anything of SharePro at that point. After a while we raised enough money to move onto our own server again, but when we did that, SharePro decided to keep the search engine online and then decided to change the graphics to his own. You will however notice that his mp3 database is quite out of date due to the fact that he did not get a copy of our spider. The second I saw that SharePro had anything to do with this, I figured it was a big lie.

  • No, it wasn't. (Score:5, Informative)

    by SmokeHalo ( 783772 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @05:06PM (#11771194)
    This story [com.com] from cnet mentions the results of the lawsuit:
    Earlier this month, the studio trade association announced that file-swapping site LokiTorrent, one of the hubs supporting BitTorrent technology, had agreed to pay a $1 million settlement and give its server logs to the MPAA.

  • Court documents (Score:5, Informative)

    by Guanix ( 16477 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @05:18PM (#11771327) Homepage
    It's perfectly real. I downloaded the court documents from Pacer (the online docket system of the US Courts) and put on my website [unicast.org]. It includes the permanent injunction signed by the judge that closed the case.

  • Earthstation 5 revisted (Score:3, Informative)

    by microbrewer ( 774971 ) on Thursday February 24, 2005 @06:29PM (#11772005) Homepage
    Eathreactor is Run by Sharepro the same sharepro who Ran the dubious Earthstation 5 forums so no news here if you go look at Slyck you will threads about this got closed of flamed out of existence.

    Loki has a out of court settlement that was notarised by the federal court judge .The Million dollar settlement was potetial losses the record caompanies claim he wasnt fined 1 millon . /. is getting bad if they post this crap
  • That is the only logical conclusion I can come up with.

    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.

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