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Woman indicted in MySpace hoax suicide |
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May 16, 2008 - 12:56 AM - by Hairbautt
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "A 49-year-old Missouri woman accused of pretending to be a love-struck teenage boy on MySpace and driving a 13-year-old girl to suicide with cruel messages was indicted on Thursday on federal charges.
Prosecutors say Lori Drew and others created the fake MySpace persona of a 16-year-old boy to woo neighbor Megan Meier for several weeks, then abruptly ended the relationship and said the world would be better off without her.
Meier's 2006 suicide by hanging, just hours after she read those final messages, made worldwide headlines and prompted calls for social networking sites like MySpace to crack down on cyber-bullying."
 Source: Full Article @ Reuters
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1 Reply | 23 Views
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Spammers ordered to pay MySpace 230 mln dlrs |
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May 15, 2008 - 1:04 AM - by Hairbautt
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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - "A US judge has ordered a pair of accused spammers to pay MySpace about 230 million dollars in what was being billed Wednesday as a record-setting punishment for such Internet abuses.
Federal district court judge Audrey Collins issued a judgment against Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines this week after they didn't show up in her California courtroom for a hearing in the case.
News Corp-owned MySpace accused the pair of using their own or other customers' MySpace accounts to deluge the online community with email that tricked them into linking to sales pitches or websites that earned the men "per hit" payments. Some of the websites contained "adult material" that put its young users in jeopardy, MySpace said in court documents.
Wallace and Rines crafted emails to appear as though they were from friends of users of the social networking site whose messages could be trusted, according to court filings. The two men were accused of sending more than 725,000 email messages to MySpace members in violation of US anti-spam law.
MySpace use has climbed in the past year while spam at the website has decreased, signaling that efforts such as the lawsuit are helping reduce the problem, MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam told AFP.
"We thank the court for serving justice upon defendants Wallace and Rines and we remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members," Nigam wrote in response to questions. "MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site.""
Source: [Read More]
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3 Replies | 63 Views
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First European Anti-Piracy Disconnection: The Finnish Government |
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May 15, 2008 - 1:01 AM - by Hairbautt
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"The Internet connection belonging to the Provincial Government of Ĺland in Finland has been disconnected following action by the anti-piracy outfit CIAPC. This disconnection, ordered by a court, may mark the first time an Internet connection has been severed in Europe for anti-piracy reasons."
"The last few months have turned the possibility of disconnecting file-sharers from the Internet into a hot topic. France has been at the forefront of pushing disconnections and many other countries have indicated they would like to implement similar policies, despite objections and concerns that such actions are a disproportionate response to personal file-sharing activities. So far, the general impression is that we are a long way from these things actually happening. Until today."
Source: Full Article @ TorrentFreak
 TorrentFreak: Understanding Anti-Piracy Enforcement
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0 Replies | 29 Views
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BitTorrent Community Mourns as Tracker Founder Passes Away |
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May 15, 2008 - 12:58 AM - by Hairbautt
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"Last month, TorrentFreak had the pleasure of interviewing Merrin, the founder of the 150,000 member MVGroup tracker. It is with great sadness that we bring the news that after a long struggle against increasing health problems, Merrin has passed away, aged just 31."
"During April, TorrentFreak interviewed Merrin after his site was shutdown in error following a blunder by an anti-piracy outfit. Despite this setback, Merrin appeared full of optimism for the future so it’s particularly sad that we hand over to ‘Eazbak’ from MVGroup to bring us tragic news:"
"It is with a heavy heart that I write this, Merrin the founder of MVGroup.org passed away suddenly on Monday 5th May. He had been ill for sometime but the extent of his illness was not known to the staff , his family or his personal friends. His passing will leave an enormous void at MVGroup.
I was asked to write something here about Merrin, but to be honest I just can’t face it, the thought of doing so is just too painful. So I’ll simply add an abridged version of a post Merrin made at MVGroup some time long, long ago, it will give you a much better insight into who he was and what he was all about than anything I could have written."
Source: Full Article @ TorrentFreak
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0 Replies | 41 Views
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MPAA Demands $15 Million from The Pirate Bay |
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May 09, 2008 - 11:29 AM - by IdolEyes787
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"The MPA(A) has announced that it is demanding $15.4 million from the Pirate Bay in the upcoming court case, to cover the damages they suffered from 4 movies and 13 TV-episodes that were made available via the popular BitTorrent tracker."
The movie titles they are claiming damages for are Harry Potter, Syriana, The Pink Panther and Walk the Line and the 13 episodes of the popular TV-show Prison Break. MPAA demands 222,50 kronor ($37) for each download. For Harry Potter, 261,50 kronor ($43) and for the first season of Prison Break 416 kronor ($68).
‘The Pink Panther’ is the most popular title among Pirate Bay users; the least popular, by a mile, is ‘Syriana’. The movies have been downloaded 49,593 and 3,679 times respectively, according to MAQS, the law firm which represents MPAA.”
Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde (Brokep) is not impressed by Hollywood’s claims, he told TorrentFreak in a response: “They know they are losing, and try to make us look like big criminals by adding some zeros to a claim for a made-up crime.”
“The worst thing is that I lost 100 kronor on a bet on the number they would come up with,” Sunde added. “And, it sucks that they didn’t claim more than for Napster and the other sites. It’s cooler to break the record.” When Monique Wadsted, MPAA’s lawyer and a talkshow host, was asked whether the MPAA really thinks every download is a lost sale, she said: “We don’t know that, but the copyright law doesn’t care... [Read More]
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9 Replies | 286 Views
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TorrentSpy Slapped with $110 Million Judgement |
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May 08, 2008 - 12:37 AM - by Hairbautt
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"TorrentSpy has been ordered to pay a $110 million fine by a federal judge in Los Angeles. The BitTorrent site was found guilty on the charges of copyright infringement of several movie studios represented by the MPAA."
"This default judgment is the result of an ongoing court case between the MPAA and Valence Media, TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel’s company, that started early 2006. It is uncertain at this point whether TorrentSpy will appeal.
Unsurprisingly, MPAA’s Dan Glickman was very pleased with the outcome of the case that lasted over two years, as he said:
"This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of sites. The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders."
"The claims made by the MPAA in this case don’t stand up to any sort of scrutiny," says Andrew Norton, head of the US Pirate Party in a response. "It is also clear that our judicial system urgently needs some unbiased education in modern technical matters, as anyone that has watched this case knows the judge is out of her depth. What chance does justice have in that situation?""
Source: Full Article @ TorrentFreak
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12 Replies | 352 Views
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