[Reader-list] Fingered by the movie cops

Fri Aug 24 02:20:46 IST 2001

Under today's copyright laws, you are guilty until proven innocent. I
know -- it happened to me.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Amita Guha

Aug. 23, 2001 | One recent Monday, my boyfriend and I returned home from
a long weekend away. As usual, one of the first things we did was check
our e-mail, only to discover, to our dismay, that Time-Warner Cable, our
Internet service provider, had cut off access to our account sometime
around midnight the Friday before. My boyfriend, a software engineer who
takes his e-mail seriously, called the tech support line and was
transferred to several people that evening, none of whom could help. All
he could find out was that the account had been suspended for "security
reasons."

The next morning, we received an express-mailed letter from Time-Warner
Cable, which stated that the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA) had accused us of distributing copyrighted material. The MPAA had
determined that someone, supposedly with an Internet protocol (IP)
address assigned to our computer by Time-Warner at the time, had
distributed the material on July 4. The part that got me was the second
paragraph: "In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17
U.S.C. Section 512, (ISP name) has removed or disabled access to that
material."

I cant describe the shock I felt reading that someone in my household
had been accused of breaking the law. Even worse -- we had evidently
been tried, found guilty and penalized before we were even told of the
accusation.

The letter went on to inform us that our account would be suspended for
one week, pending assurance from my boyfriend that it wouldnt happen
again. There was no mention of what materials we had distributed.

Why did Time-Warner take the word of the MPAA and immediately cut us off
without even asking us about the allegations, or even notifying us about
what was going on? We were our ISP's customers, not the MPAA --
although, of course, Warner Brothers is a member of the MPAA too. But
when we asked Time-Warner about it, we were told that they "had to take
immediate action." 

I later learned that under the provisions of the DMCA, an ISP does
indeed have to take action immediately when it is told about a case of
copyright infringement. Doing so protects the ISP from liability for the
transgression. 

But how exactly did the MPAA get its information about the movie that we
supposedly uploaded to Usenet? Is our every move in cyberspace being
watched? 

Basically, yes. As I researched further, I discovered there is a
burgeoning industry based on patrolling the Net for copyright abuses.
There is, for example, Ranger Online, a company that provides
"Intelligent Online Scanning" technology to organizations such as the
MPAA. 

Get the IT news your choose!
Spending too much time & money keeping global websites up-to-date?

Have a need for network speed?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Print story

E-mail story

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I decided to try to find out exactly how the MPAA tracks online piracy.
I spoke to Emily Kutner and Hamanshu Nigam of the MPAA and told them
that a friend of mine had been accused of online piracy. They walked me
through the procedure they use to find cases of copyright infringement. 

The MPAA looks for people who are distributing movies in any form that
they are not authorized to. It uses Ranger Onlines software to monitor
multiple areas of the Internet, including IRC, Gnutella, Usenet, Web
sites, auction sites and ftp sites. It does this on an international
basis. When it finds a location that is distributing copyrighted
material, it identifies the owner and the host of the material. Citing
the DMCA, it sends a letter and notifies the alleged perpetrators that
they are infringing on a copyright. 

When I asked exactly how they find an instance of piracy (for instance,
what search parameters they use), Nigam told me the methods were
proprietary information. I was particularly interested in this aspect of
the process, since I was, and still am, very curious as to how the MPAA
decided we had pirated a movie. Nigam did say that by the time an ISP is
notified of a copyright violation, every effort has been made to
determine that piracy has been committed. 

Nigam also told me that if I told him my friends IP address, he could
find out exactly what had happened in his case. I told him Id have to
check with my friend first. Kutner then said that if my friend were
truly innocent, he wouldnt have anything to hide. 

The thing is, he didnt have anything to hide in the first place, and he
was still accused. 

My boyfriend doesnt actually care so much about his good name. He is
angry that a service he pays for was interrupted for no reason. And he
is worried that the MPAA will harass him some more if he reveals his IP
address. Perhaps his fears are groundless, but if you had been wrongly
accused and penalized, you would be worried, too. 

A large, powerful organization managed to stick its nose in our business
and cause us days of inconvenience and aggravation. We werent given the
chance to defend ourselves until after action had been taken against us.
If we are accused again of distributing copyrighted material, we lose
our accounts for two weeks instead of one, and face banishment from our
ISP. And not a bit of this is under our direct control. 

Nigam told me that if my article had a moral, it should be that piracy
is illegal and no one should trade movies without permission. 

This article does have a point, but its not about piracy. Its about a
flawed piece of legislation that allows a person to be penalized for an
alleged action before he has the chance to defend himself. The moral of
the story is that the DMCA allows you to be tried and judged guilty
before you even know what has happened. The MPAA could have my account
shut down immediately - or yours - and theres nothing any of us could
do to stop it. 

salon.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Print story

E-mail story

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My boyfriend called the number given in the letter. After 24 hours of
phone tag, he finally spoke to a network technician, who told him the
details. The MPAA had found out that someone had uploaded a movie to
Usenet, allegedly from our IP address, on the evening of July 4.
However, at that time, we were out watching fireworks. There is no way
we could have been responsible for the infraction. My boyfriend logs all
network activity on his machines, and there was no activity at the time
we were allegedly dealing in pirated flicks. When my boyfriend suggested
that perhaps the MPAA had transposed the IP address, the network guy
said that that was not possible. When he asked for a hard copy of the
information the MPAA had sent them on us, Network Guy agreed to send
one, but as of this writing had yet to do so.

Before we could regain access to e-mail, Time-Warner Cable required a
signed letter from my boyfriend promising that he wouldn't upload any
copyrighted material. A few hours later, we were able to restore our
e-mail accounts. It took over 48 hours to clear everything up.

But it'll take a lot longer than that to undo the real damage. The
incident raises some serious questions about where our society is
headed, as the corporations who guard intellectual property such as
movies and popular music get ever more zealous in their attempts to
prevent unauthorized use.

--

Regards
Jaswinder Singh Kohli
jskohli at fig.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination.
In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs.