http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/MPAA-caught-uploading-fake-torrents___.html
http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-caught-uploading-fake-torrents/



It is no secret that the MPAA and other anti-piracy organizations track down alleged pirates by uploading fake torrents. Up until now it was always unclear where those files came from, and how to identify them.

The MPAA and other anti-piracy watchdogs try to trap people into downloading fake torrents, so they can collect IP addresses, and send copyright infringement letters to ISPs. They hire a company to put up fake copies of popular movies, music albums, and TV series. They even use pirate like filenames such as “Battlestar Galactica S03E07 REPACK DSR XviD-ORENJi” and “Miami Vice[2006]DvDrip[Eng]-aXXo“.

One of the btjunkie admins has found a unique way to identify trackers that host these fake files, which makes it easy to efficiently remove them.

Virtually all the servers that spread these fake files are located in Southern California and Las Vegas. The administrators of these servers follow patterns that make it easy to identify them. The content of the trackers and seed amounts make them stand out. There are more unique characteristics, but we wont reveal all the tricks because they could take counter measures. Here are some examples of servers that host and track fake torrents:

All the information was provided to me by one of the admins of btjunkie, who works together on this with other torrent site admins. He says that the MPAA and friends use a variety of tactics. The tracker will either stall everyone at around 90% or the content will just be a blank monochrome screen.

“I really think this is being done by professionals with a budget, that’s a lot of servers to setup and it takes some expertise to setup in the manner that they did it,” says the btjunkie admin. “I don’t think I really need to say who would spend money on something like this.”

Here are some good examples of how these fake torrents clutter up the search results. Virtually all of those X marked torrents are coming from the ip-ranges we mentioned, and are fake files. The good thing is that Torrentportal’s report system is well used by their users.

The server boxes that host these torrents fall in serveral ip-ranges. Here are a few of the ranges that were discovered recently. You can easily add these to the blocklist of your torrent client (if it supports one), filewall, or blocklist manager.
# 66.172.60.XXX, 66.177.58.XXX, 66.180.205.XXX, 209.204.61.XXX, 216.151.155.XXX

The anti-piracy servers use hostnames like 101tracker.dhcp.biz, aplustorrents.qhigh.com, bitnova.squirly.info, bittorment.ocry.com, and pirate-trakkrz.leet.la. All these hostnames can be traced back to the same IP Ranges, these ranges contain possibly hundreds of fake trackers, so feel free to block them:

A list of infohashes of fake torrents can be found over here.

Note that it’s not only MPAA material that is hosted on these fake trackers. It is more likely that the servers are owned and operated by an organization that logs IP addresses for several copyright owners and or anti-piracy organizations.

Update: according to one of out readers these ip-ranges belong to “Media Defender“, a company that is hired by copyright owners, to log IP-addresses. This reader, who worked for Media Defender until recently, confirmed that some of the torrents that were mentioned, are indeed on the MPAA’s list."

So are these fake files copyrighted?
and if so, does the act of the copyright holder being the uploader make it legal to share? or is the copyright holder of these fake files infringing themselves?
Sounds like Entrapment to me

the MI State Police had the Secatary of State Office make IDs for underaged people stating they were old enough. Then after showing these state-made "fake" IDs the MI State Police would bust cashiers for the underaged sale of alcohol and cigarettes.
Judge Richard I. Cooper of Ludington MI declared this Entrapment and ended this horrible practice for the entire state.
Even tho Cooper is the judge that sentanced me years ago, I will vote for this man over and over again because he supports laws that make sence.

Really strange

I don't think this has to do with the actual act of infringing a copyright, but finding out who had the intent of infringing a copyright. For example female cops can pose as prostitutes. A cop can engage in a chat with an adult and pose as a 13 year old girl.

I doubt this would hold up in court. Can they proove that the person downloading the fake file had the intent of downloading the movie.

It seems to be more of a way for them to scare downloaders and isps. I might be wrong, but probably the worst they could do is convince the isp to terminate your service.

Since we do not want people downloading MPAA stuff (for the same reasons the stated position of this site is not to download RIAA stuff), this is good, right?

Downloading is not a copyright infringement. It's the distribution that gets you in trouble. The people offering this material for download are authorized by the copyright holder to do so.

So where's the crime?

So now they want to sue you for intending to commit copyright infringement? lol

Sounds like a real life Minority Report to me... Oh you are under arrest because you THOUGHT about downloading...

JamesD2 -- We already have thought crimes. It's called "conspiracy."

Zman, you know that torrenting uploads as well as downloads, simultaneously. Therefore to download with bittorrent is to distribute also, and therefore infringement.

However, I don't see any crime in downloading a blank file.

"However, I don't see any crime in downloading a blank file."

intent to commit copyright infringement = thought crime

Is it a valid analogy to consider it akin to entrapment?
A law enforcement agent offers a proposal (to make a drug deal) to a suspected drug dealer, and when the suspect accepts, he's arrested.
It's a contrived crime, a fake, right?
Is that any different from these blank, fake files that we're talking about?

MPAA acting as agents provocateur!

I'll give the MPAA credit for one thing, though. Even though they're just as greedy of bastards are the RIAA -- they are going about things much more intelligently than the RIAA is. As far as I know -- they haven't done nearly the legal assaulting of innocents that the RIAA has and they seem more like they're sticking their toes in the water to test them rather than jumping head first into the shark tank.

Sure, they have adjendas. They're fuckers. And just as bad as the RIAA. I'm just stating that at least they're not as DUMB as the RIAA.

o.k., more sophisticated than the RIAA, I'll grant that

(but still craving control and determined to get their way, as you say)

I guess what I dont understand is how they can distribute fake files and then say you were downloading illegally. How can you be prosecuted for downloading a file that doesnt exist? I am really confused at these laws that the government makes and backs...