Steve Lightspeed is going to save us all

[softball]

Originally Posted by will76

This is just simply a desperate guy reaching hard to try make a few bucks out of threatening to expose people for looking at porn. When is the last time that password trading sites were even relivant or had passwords that actually worked, 10 years ago?

I hate theives too, but password trading sites??? It is so easy to block people from being able to do it. I'm all on board for the content theft because that is something that is damn near impossible to prevent. But this is just Steve's way to legally send out 1,000's of letters saying " if you don't pay $x,xxx I am going to sue you and make it public record that you like watching barely legally naked girls" etc. The guy can't make money selling memberships anymore so he is going to use the sites as bait to make people pay to keep their perversions secrete.

Lots of people can't make money due to various kinds of theft... and those thieves deserve what they get. Sure its a plan to regain lost profit and even then some. But its a plan that I support. Why would you not?

[Toby]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

Why would you not?

Because the only "proof" he has is an IP address in a log file. Multiple courts have already ruled that IP alone isn't sufficient to identify a specific person. The person paying for the Internet access associated with that IP address is not necessarily the person that used a "stolen" password to access his sites.

If he can't identify the specific person then how can he seek damages? He has no intention of taking any of these cases to court, he's hoping most will settle just to avoid the stigma of being publicly accused of accessing porn. Imagine a parent of teen boys who has friends over after school. One of the friends shows the rest a site he has "found" a pass for. Boys will be boys. BUT... what if that parent happens to be a school teacher? What will they do if they receive such a letter? They could potentially lose their job.

This isn't justice, it's porn blackmail.

[softball]

Originally Posted by Toby

Because the only "proof" he has is an IP address in a log file. Multiple courts have already ruled that IP alone isn't sufficient to identify a specific person. The person paying for the Internet access associated with that IP address is not necessarily the person that used a "stolen" password to access his sites.

If he can't identify the specific person then how can he seek damages? He has no intention of taking any of these cases to court, he's hoping most will settle just to avoid the stigma of being publicly accused of accessing porn. Imagine a parent of teen boys who has friends over after school. One of the friends shows the rest a site he has "found" a pass for. Boys will be boys. BUT... what if that parent happens to be a school teacher? What will they do if they receive such a letter? They could potentially lose their job.

This isn't justice, it's porn blackmail.

Its kinda like a just war. There are casualties, unintended consequences, friendly fire, but at the end of the day, the result justifies the means. Anything that rattles the cages of thieves works for me.
The "system" has done nothing to protect intellectual property. In fact the DMCA has encouraged theft of copyright. Its time to fight back. Like him or not and possibly his motives are not altruistic, but at least he is doing something and I, for one, am not going to support those involved in theft in anyway. I stand firmly on the side of those in our business who at least make an attempt to fight back.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

Its kinda like a just war. There are casualties, unintended consequences, friendly fire, but at the end of the day, the result justifies the means. Anything that rattles the cages of thieves works for me.

Might work for you, but allowing the punishment of innocents is not the standard of justice that I'm comfortable with.

Originally Posted by rhetorical

The "system" has done nothing to protect intellectual property. In fact the DMCA has encouraged theft of copyright. Its time to fight back. Like him or not and possibly his motives are not altruistic, but at least he is doing something and I, for one, am not going to support those involved in theft in anyway. I stand firmly on the side of those in our business who at least make an attempt to fight back.

If he had to actually win each of these 6500 cases in court I'd agree with you, but he'd never be able to prove enough in damages to even cover his legal fees, IF he didn't get tossed on the IP issue before even getting to court. It's a desperate attempt to extract some income from a dead/dying porn network.

[will76]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

Its kinda like a just war. There are casualties, unintended consequences, friendly fire, but at the end of the day, the result justifies the means. Anything that rattles the cages of thieves works for me.
The "system" has done nothing to protect intellectual property. In fact the DMCA has encouraged theft of copyright. Its time to fight back. Like him or not and possibly his motives are not altruistic, but at least he is doing something and I, for one, am not going to support those involved in theft in anyway. I stand firmly on the side of those in our business who at least make an attempt to fight back.

You blurring password trading and stolen content together. Password trading sites aren't a threat to the industry. Steve isn't fighting back, there is no "war" against password trading sites, they have been irrelevant for YEARS. Only thing happening here is someone trying to make a quick buck from suing porn surfers.

For stolen content, yes I agree. IP address is all we have to go on, however the person suing should have to prove beyond a doubt that the person they suing was the one who actually downloaded the stolen content. If I live in an apartment with roommates for example and one of them did it and the bill was in my name, I would be pissed. And that is just one example of many how the person who's name the service is in might not have been the person watching the video.

But for password trading? People blocked that from happening in the 90's, all this is now is just a desperate attempt to threaten to expose people's porn surfing habits if they don't pay up. Sad.

What next, remove the password protection from your member's area and post the link everywhere. When people go to enter pop up a box that says " do not trespass, you are not allowed to enter without paying" then turn around and sue those people if they enter? Sad, Sad, Sad. Im all for supporting the right thing and a good fight, but this is worst than ambulance chasing or people who slam on their breaks so someone will run into the back of them so they can sue.

I hope they sue the wrong person who fights back and this blows up in their face. I think it would be real easy to make a defense that it was soooo easy for Steve to prevent this that negligence was on his end and by doing nothing he allowed it to happen or in this case wanted it to so he could sue.

[Hell Puppy]

Piracy is a problem, but it is not THE problem. We've had people stealing our content from day one.

There's a certain amount of people out there who aren't going to pay for porn no matter what you do. There are also people who are going to not only rip you off but they're going to share with their friends. These people are not significantly impacting anyone's income, they've always been here even during the days where money was falling from the sky.

No sir...the problem is what has happened to that segment of people who WILL pay for porn. Or I should say WERE willing to pay for porn.

The industry has conditioned them to not pay. If they DO whip out that credit card, the vast majority of companies left standing will milk that card for every penny they can ring out of it.

Now when these guys do discover what's being shared for free, they're gone forever. The content I can find right now with simple searches of videos or images on google is superior to what 90% of the card slamming paysites deliver.

And why is it feasible for all of that movie content to be delivered for free? It's made possible by the money from the same people who slam cards.

An honest business that wants to exist with clean hands outside of that entire mess has to operate in what is probably a 5% or less crack in the business. That crack is where you'll find people producing good honest original targeted content, delivering it at a fair price exactly as advertised. And they are increasingly having to contain themselves to underserved niches that thieves do not understand and bust their ass to find the users seeking it out and earning their trust.

[will76]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

Lots of people can't make money due to various kinds of theft... and those thieves deserve what they get. Sure its a plan to regain lost profit and even then some. But its a plan that I support. Why would you not?

For the same reason I don't go into a grocery store, spill milk on the floor then walk through it slip and sue the store for not having a "Caution wet floor" sign out.

He didn't lose any profits from those password sites. Hell I bet if they dig deep enough he was the one who put the passwords on those sites, waited for people to use them, then sued them. It is soooo easy to protect your site from password trading, why not take the 10 minutes to protect the site ??? Oh that's right you can't sue people for doing it, if you actually protected your site from it.

Originally Posted by Toby

This isn't justice, it's porn blackmail.

In this case I think "Entrapment" is best way to describe this.