Arrested over illegal downloading

fatjose101

did anyone hear the full story about people being arrested over downloading
music and movie illegally in Ireland yesterday.

just missed it on the news. anyone catch what happened?

flogen

they were arrested? I just heard that IRMA got clearance to get the IP info from the ISPs and they'd be starting to prosecute soon.

I thought this would be a civil matter anyway...

Hagar

The guys arrested were a South African, Bitto Rent and a Spaniard W. Arez.

A Greek migrant, A. Zureus and a Russian woman Meg Anova are also being sought by the Gardaí.

fatjose101

Hagar wrote:

The guys arrested were a South African, Bitto Rent and a Spaniard W. Arez.

A Greek migrant, A. Zureus and a Russian woman Meg Anova are also being sought by the Gardaí.

smartass!

Dave!

What would they be arrested under? I never heard of that.... Heard they were taking court cases against a few people though.

Hagar

tjsniper

isnt that a bit extreme dont ya think?

Nick_oliveri

I'd like to hear more about this myself....

Duggy747

*Shrugs* Meh! IRMA are mainly concerned with uploaders and file sharers who deal with music files in the thousands. Downloading the odd album or other things won't mean you'll get chucked in the slammer or slapped with a fine. The article the OP is on about is that IRMA aquired 5 IP addresses of whom they believed where sharing music files of up to 150,000+. Even at that these 5 have been using P2P methods which they've been mostly spending their time monitoring.

I'm pretty sure most moderate / heavy downloaders either use IP spoofers (sends out a fake IP, pretends you're somewhere like Denmark) which would be quite time-consuming for IRMA to break through or most likely are just plain smart about downloading. IRMA aren't even really concerned with people who just download through websites and so on as it's pretty much impossible and would take FAR too long to track somebody.

Anywho, it's "illegal" to burn a legit CD onto an Ipod and so on. Stupid really when you consider all these CD burners, blank CDs and MP3 players being sold that all say "perfect for backing up your music"............yea, backing up........that's it. Technically, everyone of us are "pirates" by doing the things we do without even realising it. (lending a DVD to someone, ripping a CD, etc)

flogen

Duggy747 wrote:

*Shrugs* Meh! IRMA are mainly concerned with uploaders and file sharers who deal with music files in the thousands. Downloading the odd album or other things won't mean you'll get chucked in the slammer or slapped with a fine. The article the OP is on about is that IRMA aquired 5 IP addresses of whom they believed where sharing music files of up to 150,000+. Even at that these 5 have been using P2P methods which they've been mostly spending their time monitoring.

Actually it's 23 people, whom are alleged to have offered over 180,000 songs.
According to IRMA the most prolific alleged uploader offered 37,500 songs while the top five uploaders are responsible for 108,000 in total.
Doing the maths, this leaves 18 uploaders responsible for 72,000 songs - that's 4,000 songs per uploader (and that equation is working on the assumption that all of the bottom 18 uploaded in equal amounts).

I'm willing to stick my neck on the line and say that a few of the people being targeted are minor uploaders. They go after them to put the willies up people with the same attitude as yourself - an attitude that assumes that you need to be doing a whole load of downloading/uploading to get caught and fined.

I'm pretty sure most moderate / heavy downloaders either use IP spoofers (sends out a fake IP, pretends you're somewhere like Denmark) which would be quite time-consuming for IRMA to break through or most likely are just plain smart about downloading.

I don't think so - I think the minority of downloaders use effective techniques to avoid being caught.

Anywho, it's "illegal" to burn a legit CD onto an Ipod and so on. Stupid really when you consider all these CD burners, blank CDs and MP3 players being sold that all say "perfect for backing up your music"............yea, backing up........that's it. Technically, everyone of us are "pirates" by doing the things we do without even realising it. (lending a DVD to someone, ripping a CD, etc)

Yeah, only difference is that no-one is trying to prosecute under these old laws.

Duggy747

Well, being involved in Media and IT I've a pretty good understanding of how IRMA are operating, similiar to techniques implemented by other country's record associations. Monitoring P2P services is the easiest as you basically see everything (See who was what songs to offer, etc) and they can then pick out individuals and monitor them. If an individual keeps up his / her........probably more his, ways then they get the required documentation, warrants, and so forth and then lobby off to the court as they're seen as, obviously enough, legit piracy experts.

Not to be a dick, but I'd have to disagree with you on the IRMA cracking on minor uploaders. Yeah, it would make a good case to give people the willies but then there's all the cost implication of bringing an individual to court for uploading, in comparsion to many others, pebbles. All in all it has been a losing battle for record and movie companies because of the digital age. Out of the millions that download they only manage to catch and successfully prosecute a couple of hundred. By spending time shutting down P2P and websites another 1-5 similiar P2P and websites show up. If you're into downloading then you know where else to go within 5 seconds if you discover you're favourite source has been shutdown. That and there are websites with their own servers that are designed to hold uploaded files like movies and crap like that but they can get by on specific loopholes.