Hotfile forced to release user data by court

[Dan Den]

I was this today and thought I might pass it along.

Just saw this today:

http://torrentfreak.com/hotfile-ordered-to-share-user-data-with-the-mpaa-110830/

I thought I'd pass it along because it might set precident for future disclosure cases in the U.S and alot of downloading goes on here.

"In their ongoing battle with the MPAA, the Florida-based file-hosting service Hotfile has suffered a major loss. A federal court has ordered Hotfile to disclose user data, the identities and revenues of their top affiliates, and financial information on the company itself. District Court Judge Adalberto Jordan argued that the MPAA needs this info to prove that Hotfile is promoting and profiting from copyright infringement."

I hope this doesn't spread to other storage sites. Hotfile is on U.S. soil so it's more

vulnerable to court orders. The copyright police seem to be everywhere these days. Reminds me of the T.V. series WKRP when trippy Johny Fever had a bad run in with the "phone Police". Sadly it really is happening nowadays. I'm waiting for the exploding phones/computers courtesy of the copyright police, congress, and ATT (long known as the evil empire).

-Adog whose has infact downloaded from Hotfile on more than one occasion.

Part of MPAA’s request for user data

[DuLake]

Well that sucks. This is kind of one of those weird topics to me. I don't believe in copyrights, as the profit margin generally waters down artistic value, but I still kind of feel like I should expect these sort of rulings. The internet had a grace period for a while where it could do anything it wanted, since nobody knew what it was and how to police it, but the grace is running thin at this point and I feel like it's only a matter of time before piracy becomes tantamount to any other theft, in punishment and in police-ability (pardon my word invention).

[Dan Den]

The feelings mutual in my view if things keep going at this rate it's only a matter of time before sites like Kametsu are put down.

[Koby]

The feelings mutual in my view if things keep going at this rate it's only a matter of time before sites like Kametsu are put down.

Hopefully the site itself won't be put down. If we have to, we'll go back to being what we were originally. A news and discussion forum, without downloads. We may get less new members but surely the regulars would stick around to chat (hopefully).

[Dan Den]

Hopefully the site itself won't be put down. If we have to, we'll go back to being what we were originally. A news and discussion forum, without downloads. We may get less new members but surely the regulars would stick around to chat (hopefully).

Hopefully it never come down to that cause I don't know what I would do if this site shut down. In the beginning all I came here for was anime but in the process found a thriving community of anime lovers and gamers, so if this site was shut down it would be no different than ending life as we know it.

Strange I never knew this site started of as a news and discussion forum.

[zx0]

I feel the exact opposite, you cannot effectively police the internet.

MAFIAA may catch a few people who are not very bright and don't understand how the internet works, but most pirates know how to avoid detection.

If laws become tighter and policing is attempted then it will just push pirates to I2P, freenet and the like. There is still loads of child porn out there for a reason, governments and the police cannot stop it.

[horrorendius]

The feelings mutual in my view if things keep going at this rate it's only a matter of time before sites like Kametsu are put down.

I bloody well hope not! I just discovered this site!

Hopefully the site itself won't be put down.

Time to move the site hosting to a Scandinavian country?

[Libitinarius]

Glad you mentioned this, good friends son downloaded a GTA 4 off demonoid and the ISP (Comcast) sent a letter in the mail to him, informing him of piracy of the exact game he downloaded. The ISP proceeded to threaten shutting down his connection if the piracy ensues. The good old days are about to come to an end, but I'll still be on Kametsu to yap my flap about Naruto, I'm nerdy like that.

[Koby]

Glad you mentioned this, good friends son downloaded a GTA 4 off demonoid and the ISP (Comcast) sent a letter in the mail to him, informing him of piracy of the exact game he downloaded. The ISP proceeded to threaten shutting down his connection if the piracy ensues. The good old days are about to come to an end, but I'll still be on Kametsu to yap my flap about Naruto, I'm nerdy like that.

That's actually been happening for about a decade. Torrents are easy targets because all it takes is them to load the torrent and they have access to ALL IP Addresses in the swarm. They then send reports to all ISP's involved and then the ISP sends out warnings or terminates service.

Which is why it's best to use direct downloads over torrents whenever possible. With direct downloads only the host server has knowledge of who accessed a file, if they even keep such records at all (many don't, some do). In which case someone would have to take the host server to court as with the case of hotfiles to get access to. So it's a lot more complicated than torrents.

Also with direct downloading, you're just downloading the file. With torrents you're also seeding (uploading), which means they can get you also for 'sharing' and not just downloading pirated goods.

[DrumRoll]

Hopefully the site itself won't be put down. If we have to, we'll go back to being what we were originally. A news and discussion forum, without downloads. We may get less new members but surely the regulars would stick around to chat (hopefully).

No downloads!?

*leaps out window* BYE!

[VolvoKing]

So it's becoming a Big Brother is watching you. What would the computer be good for? To do banking, send a letter to someone, to do shopping, maybe school work? These are things that the governments could watch as well so they know everything that you do. So far we are lucky but you just know it could happen. Be careful out there it's becoming dictatorship but they now call it democracy.

[DrumRoll]

try living in the UK, we're already at that state:( Even the cameras have cameras.

[shyguysteve]

ah I wondered why so many links from hotfile were dead, how unfortunate.

[RikuoAmero]

Hopefully the site itself won't be put down. If we have to, we'll go back to being what we were originally. A news and discussion forum, without downloads. We may get less new members but surely the regulars would stick around to chat (hopefully).

I certainly would stick around. In fact, I only download the odd thing every once in a while from Kametsu: nowadays, I tend to use Demonoid or other sites for my downloads.

Glad you mentioned this, good friends son downloaded a GTA 4 off demonoid and the ISP (Comcast) sent a letter in the mail to him, informing him of piracy of the exact game he downloaded. The ISP proceeded to threaten shutting down his connection if the piracy ensues. The good old days are about to come to an end, but I'll still be on Kametsu to yap my flap about Naruto, I'm nerdy like that.

Would it be possible for you to show us the letter? How recent was this? I follow news about this sort of stuff all the time, and recently the major American ISPs adopted a 6 Strike Program. I may be able to give your friend some advice about this.

[Wake]

I would be quite sad if no more downloads happened... but I would for sure be around still. This place is too awesome to let die out because of another stupid something the government does .