Intellectual Property Law

Who Pays MediaDefender to Disrupt Peer to Peer Networks?

By Posted by Alan Wexelblat

Could it be? Say it with me. That'd be... The Cartel.

OK, so I'm not about to start a new career as a singer-songwriter. Which is probably good since I'd probably be foolish enough to give away my own recordings of my own performances for free and if I used BitTorrent for that then I could be the one getting DoSed.

But that's in the hypothetical future. Here in the real present, it's a company called Revision 3. This company uses BitTorrent to distribute its own high-quality digital shows. This past weekend they were subjected to a SYN-flood attack that brought down their servers. The flood was specifically aimed at the port they use for their torrent tracking server.

In a brief blog snippet on CNET, Elinor Mills asked who would want to bring down Revision3? Good question - it's not a well-known company with lots of aggrieved foes. Yesterday, Jim Louderback posted an extensive dissection, including amusing explanations for newcomers describing what a SYN-flood attack is.

Apparently the attacker (MediaDefender) made no attempt to hide its actions. In fact, the company has previously been exposed - by its own leaked emails - as a deliberate miscreant on peer-to-peer networks. So it's not too surprising they're still at it.

But according to Louderback's posting, the company admitted to worse, including "abusing Revision3's network, over a period of months." Excuse me, isn't that illegal? You know, Company A steals Company B's resources to make a profit - what do we call that? Theft? Fraud? Or just Cartel business-as-usual? Louderback points out that DoS attacks are illegal computer fraud and abuse and claims that the FBI is "looking into" the matter.

My cynical side says this won't amount to a hill of beans, but one can still hope.

Full post as published by Copyfight - The Politics of IP on May 30, 2008 (boomark / email).