Notice of Copyright Infringement

Well, after 2 years of torrenting, I finally got my 1st notice of Copyright Infringement....lol.
I had been avoiding TorrentSpy and most other public sites, but got bored and stopped in.
I downloaded Norton's Ghost v9 from a link @ TorrentSpy and recieved my letter a few days later.
Tracker: http://mongo56.org:3434/announce

Just thought I would let everyone know.

Letter:

Dear Internet Access Subscriber:

Charter Communications ("Charter") has been notified by a copyright owner that
your Internet account has been involved in the exchange of unauthorized copies
of copyrighted material (music, movies, or software). We are enclosing a copy
of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice that Charter received
from the copyright holder.

It is possible that this activity has occurred without your permission or
knowledge by an unauthorized user, a minor who may not fully understand the
copyright laws, or even as a result of a computer virus. However, as a Charter
Internet account owner, you can be held liable for this activity.

As a personal computer owner and a user of the Internet, we ask that you be
aware of the following: Violations of federal Copyright law can result in civil
and/or criminal liability, including payment of monetary damages, costs and
attorneys' fees to the copyright owner. See 17 U.S.C. §§ 504-506. In addition,
Charter's Acceptable Use Policy explicitly prohibits copyright infringement by
Charter High-Speed Internet users. Specifically, Section 3 states:

NO COPYRIGHT OR TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT
Customer will not use, nor allow others to use, the Service to send or receive
any information which infringes the patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade
secrets or proprietary rights of any other person or entity. This includes, but
is not limited to, digitization of music, movies, photographs or other
copyrighted materials or software.

Charter is registered under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998
(DMCA). Under the DMCA, copyright owners have the right to notify Charter if
they believe that a Charter customer has infringed the copyright owner's
work(s). If Charter receives a notice from a copyright owner alleging any
Customer has committed copyright infringement, Charter will notify the Customer
of the alleged infringement. If Charter receives more than one notice alleging
copyright infringement on Customer's part, Customer may be deemed a "repeat
copyright infringer." Charter reserves the right to terminate the accounts of
repeat copyright infringers.

We ask that you take immediate action to remove the infringing material from your computer and stop its exchange. If Charter continues to receive DMCA notices regarding your account, or if you violate any other clause of Charter's Acceptable Use Policy, we will have no choice but to terminate your account. You may view Charter's rules and policies at http://www.chartercom.com/site/rules.asp.

If you need assistance in removing the referenced infringing material, please refer to http://support.charter.com/sdcuser/a...oenaUpdate.htm.

If you have any questions about this matter, please contact us at
1-866-229-7286. Representatives will be available Monday through Friday, 8am -
12am (EST), Saturday, 8am - 5pm (EST) and Sunday, 12pm - 5pm (EST), to take
your call.


Sincerely,

Charter High-Speed Internet Security Team
http://security.charter.com

--- The following material was provided to us as evidence ---


[Part 0:0 (plain text)]

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Charter Communications, Inc.
12405 Powerscourt Drive
St. Louis, MO 63131 US


RE: Unauthorized Distribution of the following copyrighted computer program(s):

Symantec Ghost

Dear Sir/Madam:

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has determined that the connection listed
below, which appears to be using an Internet account under your control, is
using a BitTorrent network to offer unlicensed copies of copyrighted computer
programs published by the BSA's member companies.

Site Details:
----------------------------------------------
Date Found: 22 Mar 2005 06:03:14 EST (GMT -0500)
Network: BTPeers
IP Address: xxxxxxxxx
IP Port: xxxxx
Protocol: BitTorrent
UserName:

Content being offered:
----------------------------------------------
Filename: Norton.Ghost.9.torrent/NORTON GHOST 9.0.MSI
Filesize: 4,708k


The above computer program(s) is/are being made available for copying, through
downloading, at the above location without authorization from the copyright
owner(s).

Based upon BSA's representation of the copyright owners in anti-piracy matters,
we have a good faith belief that none of the materials or activities listed
above have been authorized by the rightholders, their agents, or the law. BSA
represents that the information in this notification is accurate and states,
under penalty of perjury, that it is authorized to act in this matter on behalf
of the copyright owners listed above.

We are giving notice of these activities pursuant to Section 512 of Title 17
of the U.S. Code (as enacted by the 'Online Copyright Infringement Liability
Limitation Act'). We expect that you will take expeditious action to remove or
disable access to the materials described above, and thereby prevent the
illegal reproduction and distribution of pirated software via your company's
network. As you know, illegal on-line activities can result in 50 million
people on the Internet accessing and downloading a copyrighted product
worldwide without authorization - a highly damaging activity for the copyright
holder.

We appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Please advise us regarding what
actions you take.

Please include the following CaseID in any response you send: Case ID xxxxxxx

Yours sincerely,


John R. Wolfe
Manager of Investigations
Business Software Alliance
1150 18th St NW Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
URL: http://www.bsa.org
E-mail: X

I got one also from comcast for getting a tv show from btefnet, about 2 months ago.

Were u using peerguardian 2

Hello!

I would just ignore that piece of shit and burn it as a ritual!. Continue filesharing!!

Unless you live in the USA where the laws are totally fucked up and people have no rights anymore basically US is owned by corporations!!. If that is the case then I would advice you to stop sharing software so that you do not once again appear in BSA registers!!.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by showstopper496

Were u using peerguardian 2

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No I wasn't, just the safepeer 2 plug-in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joakim Agren

I would just ignore that piece of shit and burn it as a ritual!. Continue filesharing!!

Unless you live in the USA where the laws are totally fucked up and people have no rights anymore basically US is owned by corporations!!. If that is the case then I would advice you to stop sharing software so that you do not once again appear in BSA registers!!

---

I live in the USA and I still couldn't help getting a laugh from it.
I download/upload several gigs daily and I got caught getting nortons ghost which I already had several copies of.....lol.

I have since tightened security with protowall w/ blocklist manager.
There are 3971419597 known IP addresses in 54866 ranges blocked now ;)

well that's still not enough protection, if youre connecting to a tracker it will tell the world (anyone else connected to the swarm, or viewing the server stats pages) your IP and what youre sharing/downloading/uploading without "them" even connecting to you directly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vargas

well that's still not enough protection, if youre connecting to a tracker it will tell the world (anyone else connected to the swarm, or viewing the server stats pages) your IP and what youre sharing/downloading/uploading without "them" even connecting to you directly.

---

But don't they need to 'connect' 2 you before they can 'warn' you?

I was wondering..
The filesize they report is : 4,708k
The actual file is 31.7 MB

It seems that they are watching public trackers.
I was warned several weeks ago to stay away from TorrentSpy and The Pirates Bay, my fault for not listening.

No, they don't need to connect to you - they just need to see your IP on the tracker.

I received a similar letter a few months ago from my ISP - strange thing about it was that it was regarding a movie that I hadn't downloaded. I admit, I upload/download several GB per day, but I had never downloaded the movie they were talking about (a cam version of The Grudge to be exact), and I rarely ever use public trackers, especially not the one in question. I informed them of this mistake, and assured them that it wasn't me, they said it could have been someone else in the house. I told them that was doubtful, and that I may have clicked on the link, then realized what it was and cancelled it. (I don't download cams) They said that as long as I was connected to the tracker for even a couple minutes, and my IP was noted, that would have been all they needed to report me to my ISP.

Ok, I was doing a good cleaning of my system and when I opened 'Your Uninstaller Pro 2004' and went into 'Start Up Organizer' I noticed 2 new startups that were never there before. I do this daily as I like to test appz and see what's going on.
They had no information associated with them just an icon of the M$ sharing hand.
1 was at the very beginning and 1 was at the end. As I said, there was no information in the description; command or source as with all the other startup items.
The only new programs that I installed were protowall and blocklist manager.
Protowall is showing up with all the proper information.
My question is: Do you think that my ISP may have installed any monitoring software or am I just getting paranoid.

Wow, people are now getting busted for download apps? Hmm, all ive seen were people getting caught downloading music and movies. I didnt realize they were already watching programs. Damn.. ><

Quote:

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My question is: Do you think that my ISP may have installed any monitoring software or am I just getting paranoid.

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i really doubt it, its possibly just loose spyware
unless ur with an ISP like AOL that installs so much crap to ur PC

Quote:

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Wow, people are now getting busted for download apps? Hmm, all ive seen were people getting caught downloading music and movies. I didnt realize they were already watching programs. Damn.. ><

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Tell me about it....atleast they didn't catch the 5 svcd that I am still seeding....lol



No AOL & no spyware here. I am an appz junkie after all....lol.

Spyware blaster, Spybot, Ad-aware pro, CounterSpy, CA etrust 5.0, Spyware Doctor, Spy Sweeper, PestPatrol Corporate v4.5.1.5, SpySubtract pro just to name a few...lol

I was to quick to remove it from start-up, I should have researched it further.

Quote:

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I should have researched it further.

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yea true
maybe a hijack this log file analysis could of enlightened you
ow well maybe (not hopfully) untill next time :)

yeah, AOL blows. I used to have it (two years free) and their browser sucked. I would just log in and use my other broswer (IE at the time). THe ISP ComCast also sells out their customers. But I dont know about monitoring software. Thats a bit spyware if ya ask me. :rolleyes:

Yeah i have comcast... hopefully they havent noticed i've downloaded and uploaded over 70GB this past month. Anyway, i think i may have to get out of the habit of using torrentspy and other public trackers. When eever i go to torrentspy, it seems "Hollywood interactive" always loads up as blocked in pg2.

y does no one ever get protowall? i've been bting for 3 years with protowall and using torrents from all the public sites (suprnova, torrentspy, etc) and i've never had a problem

parhaps we should launch a protowall awareness week

I use Protowall. To me, its a lot better than the new PeerGuardian2.. Although, PG2 does give some options that I would like Protowall to have in the future. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bishtawiman

I use Protowall. To me, its a lot better than the new PeerGuardian2.. Although, PG2 does give some options that I would like Protowall to have in the future. ;)

---

True, I also use PW and have never had any letters or anything. I also dont use public trackers. only Private sites now.

i prefer pg2 its easier to use and i dont have to worry about manually updating the ip's myself ;)

At around the same time, we received dmca removal notices for that that file and others from the BSA. Since we are dmca complaint, we promptly removed all content they requested off our search engine.

We were requested to remove the following items:

Adobe Acrobat
AUTODESK DISCREET 3D STUDIO MAX
Symantec Ghost 8.0 Corporate Edition
Norton Ghost 9

The BSA is working to rid these files off as many public trackers that they can find. If you want to avoid a dmca notice from your ISP, i'd suggest not downloading them.

Peer Guardian isnt going to help you. These are huge companies that employ people for the sole purpose of tracking down sites and users that infringe on their copyrights. They will do whatever it takes including using dynamic ips, proxies, remote servers from all over the world.

The truth of the matter is that if you want to download copyrighten material off the internet, your taking a risk while doing it.

Quote:

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Unless you live in the USA where the laws are totally fucked up and people have no rights anymore basically US is owned by corporations!!. If that is the case then I would advice you to stop sharing software so that you do not once again appear in BSA registers!!.

---

What do you mean? How are the laws in the US totally fucked? Would you rather live in another country that will through you in jail for downloading?

Quote:

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I was warned several weeks ago to stay away from TorrentSpy and The Pirates Bay, my fault for not listening.

---

The warning claimed massive raids on torrent websites. I checked into this story and had a chat with the guy that put out that warning. His claims did not check out.

-Xanthus
www.torrentspy.com

What site(URL) does PeerGuardian2 use to update its blocklist?
I had the safepeer 2.5.1 plug-in for azureus that uses one of the sites that blocklist manager uses (bluetack).

Hey Xanthus, a warning would have been nice. From now on when you recieve request of that nature how about letting us know ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by skelley521

Hey Xanthus, a warning would have been nice. From now on when you recieve request of that nature how about letting us know ;)

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Meanwhile, at the BSA office...

"Hey guys, all we have to do is send a notice to Torrentspy and they'll warn everyone to stop downloading our software. Kewl". :shutup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lynx

Meanwhile, at the BSA office...

"Hey guys, all we have to do is send a notice to Torrentspy and they'll warn everyone to stop downloading our software. Kewl". :shutup:

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It would have let people know that they are also pursuing software and public trackers.....think deeper........

news flash: Norton/Symantec has been going after pirates for years. its common knowledge

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vargas

news flash: Norton/Symantec has been going after pirates for years. its common knowledge

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flashy;flashy:It's not so much as symantec as some of the others that are listed or not.

You download stuff for free (pirating) then you take the risk of getting caught. Don't expect the site admin to be warning you off everything that might get you in trouble, they have enough to worry about keeping their sites running.

Peerguardian is worse than useless, unless it blocked out the entire internet they're going to be able to monitor what you're uploading/downloading with apps like Bittorrent. But that might be a little counter-productive.

If you're really concerned about security then start using private trackers or learn how to use Newsgroups.

At the end of the day if you get caught for illegally downloading you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MCHeshPants420

You download stuff for free (pirating) then you take the risk of getting caught. Don't expect the site admin to be warning you off everything that might get you in trouble, they have enough to worry about keeping their sites running.

Peerguardian is worse than useless, unless it blocked out the entire internet they're going to be able to monitor what you're uploading/downloading with apps like Bittorrent. But that might be a little counter-productive.

If you're really concerned about security then start using private trackers or learn how to use Newsgroups.

At the end of the day if you get caught for illegally downloading you have nobody to blame but yourself.

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I do use private trackers and newz.
I am not blaming anyone, just asked a question.
I stated that I knew better, but just made the mistake and your point is??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by skelley521

I do use private trackers and newz.
I am not blaming anyone, just asked a question.
I stated that I knew better, but just made the mistake and your point is??

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Hopefully you'll learn from your mistake then. Though I doubt anyone will cry many tears if an unpleasant individual such as yourself gets caught and sued for every penny he's worth.

Happy filesharing. :)

Pahleeze, I would hope that I dont see any tears..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MCHeshPants420

If you're really concerned about security then start using private trackers or learn how to use Newsgroups.

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I still don't know how to download stuff from Newsgroups, is it safe? :unsure:

it's about as safe as leeching can get

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MCHeshPants420

Peerguardian is worse than useless...

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I was downloading a song with Ares, when suddenly...

http://img30.exs.cx/img30/449/whoops2bz.jpg

Seems like its working for me... :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by skelley521

What site(URL) does PeerGuardian2 use to update its blocklist?
I had the safepeer 2.5.1 plug-in for azureus that uses one of the sites that blocklist manager uses (bluetack).

Hey Xanthus, a warning would have been nice. From now on when you recieve request of that nature how about letting us know ;)

---

pg2 uses the lists from blocklist.org

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rip The Jacker

I was downloading a song with Ares, when suddenly...

http://img30.exs.cx/img30/449/whoops2bz.jpg

Seems like its working for me... :)

---

those universitys can be nosey bastards
i get hits from them alot too
maybe its just students pissing about with P2P programs
i should know i used to do it myself :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fiber

those universitys can be nosey bastards
i get hits from them alot too
maybe its just students pissing about with P2P programs
i should know i used to do it myself :P

---

I remember using my university's connection a couple of months ago to try and download a file using Bittorrent, and nothing was happening because I'm pretty sure I was being blocked thanks to Safepeer and Peerguardian. I brought my laptop home and it worked like a charm again lol

Usenet is one of the safest popular ways to get releases, but you generally have to pay a monthly fee of $15 or so to get access to it.

If you get a copyright infringement email, the best thing you can do is NOT RESPOND TO IT. Silence is NOT an admission of guilt. If you reply back to them, that means that you actually READ the email, and if it turns out that you go to court they can use the emails against you. And its not like your reply will make them think otherwise. Saying it wasn't you won't get you off the hook at all.

Its not a huge benefit... They'll probably nail you anyway even if you're quiet. But there's ABSOLUTELY no positives about replying to the email, and a possible negative, so there's no point in doing it.

I've had 2 of these notices in about 4 years - both for movies. My response each time was that I was taking immediate action to remove the material.

Since it's "big" movies, songs, and well know software that they target, I get them mainly from private trackers or private usenet servers (newshosting.com).

I also use PeerGuardian.

i dont understand why u guys still use peerguarding, blocking bad ppl ain't gonna save ur ass from getting sue fried by big brothers

better stick to usenet, haven't heard a single legal issue with it, RIAA&MPAA can't even touch it