NEWS: LokiTorrent Squeals!

GEEK: LokiTorrent Squeals!

When the MPAA told LokiTorrent.com that it had to cease providing links to illegal downloads, the sites operators refused to go quietly into the night. Vowing to fight the MPAA in the courts it solicited donations from the site's users, it claimed, to pay for lawyers. Despite pulling in more than $40,000 in donations, LokiTorrent has now closed its doors.

And the news gets even worse for LokiTorrent's unusually loyal user base.

So let's get this straight, LokiTorrent get their users to cough up more than $40,000, and then not only do they not fight the MPAA in court, but they're also giving up all their server logs, so the MPAA now has a complete list of every filesharer to use their site, and what files they shared. I'd say heavy LokiTorrent users should start sweating right about now.

Holy damn.
Glad I never used that site.
Er. . .piracy is wrong. You're taking food right out of George Clooney's mouth.

glad i never used them

edited to add: that is truly shady.

[Edited on Feb 10, 2005 by luckyride]

glad i never used loki

Did anyone use these guys? I didn't.

bah and i was hoping loki would be fighting the good fight on behalve of all torrent sites.

ROFL.

This is why I use private networks. Thank god.

I used Loki and frankly, don't give a fuck. I never traded movies with them but believe me, before mufftorrent was formed I got on theor pr0n sites.

It's funny that the pr0n scene is way bigger then the MPAA scene and yet the MPAA is so scared that they can't make profits when the pr0n scene is all about embracing the torrent.

Could it be that negotiating big money deal with big name actors and actresses and making them do shitty movies ISN'T a good idea?! Mabye?!!!

The MPAA needs to die and the fact that Loki decided to lift up it's pink panties and get fucked by them makes me sick. Fuck the MPAA and fuck LokiTorrent.

I used it for music.

fuckers! i didn't use it that much, but it's got me slightly worried, how worried should i be?

Damn. Someone's getting a swirlie at recess for sure!

edit, reply, reaload, all the same to me

[Edited on Feb 11, 2005 1:19AM]

ironically - according to their site - they saw a huge jump in traffic after the MPAA said they'd sue them. between the extra publicity (pretty much every tech news site ran stories about it) and their promise to fight the MPAA tooth and nail, they got a lot of supporters.
i used them for a few movies, an album here and there, after suprnova disappeared, i found them to be slow and their content shitty
i'd say if you only used them a few times you shouldn't sweat it, the MPAA don't file many lawsuits in the grand scheme of things, so i'd guess they'll first sort who the heaviest users are - they're the people they really want off the networks - and then pick a few everyday folk at random to make examples of. the odds are low at getting picked.

that is, unless they use this - from their point of view - fantastic data goldmine to really fuck over everyone that's ever touched the place and put the fear of god into filesharers everywhere.

their message on lokitorrent says

i think the 'the only way not to get caught is to stop' piece might actually mean that they can't file suit against anyone solely because of the data in these logs. they may prove what the file title was you downloaded, but that doesn't mean they can prove the file was actually a copyrighted work (unless the torrent is still alive, and they download it themselves, and prove you had the same one through the hash). though they now have the IPs, so they might get the info from your ISP and start watching you

[Edited on Feb 11, 2005 1:21AM]

There's a reason they've been going after sites instead of downloaders. You think it's that difficult to track who's using BT sites? If the MPAA had the capability, they'd be nailing people for downloading torrents as well. Fortunately for the rest of us, they can't, because as the law is written, you're engaging in a crime only when you knowingly share copyrighted material - ie, posting torrents. Theoretically, you don't know what you're downloading till it's on your computer - you could think you're downloading baking recipes for all the mpaa can prove. Once you start sharing it, however, you're knowingly engaging in piracy. The MPAA is using scare tactics and hunting down the site owners because it's ALL THEY CAN DO. The logs are nice, but they're only really going to be able to use them to track users to other sites/trackers. Honestly though, if you're running a site like that, historically speaking, it's only a matter of time - even before the RIAA and the MPAA started getting stupid, running a site was the quickest line online between you and a lawyer.

As far as Loki Torrents rolling over and taking it, does anyone here know if there's any sort of legal recourse possible against to recover donated wages, seeing as they didn't even attempt legal defense? Really, I don't think anyone had even heard of Loki Torrents until they made that bold declaration on their site, so it's even more of a thumb in the eye that they didn't even bother to fight.

[Edited on Feb 10, 2005 5:52PM]

Not really worried.

Um...I hope I didn't use loki at all

There's nothing there that couldn't be obtained by spying on the torrents as they're running. That's more than enough to keep the laywers fed.

EDIT: just searching for torrent files isn't illegal. It's participating in a torrent that's illegal and it's not even remotely hard to catch you doing that.

[Edited on Feb 10, 2005 8:38PM]

I pulled down over 2TB from Loki, I just switched to the Pirate Bay after Loki started begging for money. I didn't buy the give me money scam, glad I didn't. Only 364GB from tpb so far, but rising. All of my ratios were 1.2 or better :-) tpb doesn't even keep track of ratios.

ho-ly shit.

I'm glad I have never HEARD of the site.

yeah it could be obtained, not was. it's doubtful the MPAA had every single torrent tracked themseleves, but now they don't need to, they'll have logs of every single user without lifting a finger.

I used loki mostly for television shows... should I delete my mostly unwatched copy of Alien Vs. Predator?


[Edited on Feb 11, 2005 by Helter]

So, if I have that news right a guy who put up a site to violate copryright laws has poor ethics regarding a wad basically untracable cash?

Huh. If they had a chin scratching emoticon, it would be right here.

At the very least I would have hoped he'd hose the logs and claimed unauthorized access.

But I guess someone who isn't interested in getting in the car to go to blockbuster to bring home to rip himself isn't interested in anything that smacks of effort, really.

O Canada...

I know that downloading music is perfectly legal in Canada, can anyone tell me about shows and movies and games and whatnot?

I never went to Loki though. I just got all depressed after Suprnova went down and downloaded a lot less.

I looked at LokiTorrent briefly when I started seeing a lot of Loki tracked files on Suprnova, but frankly...even if they had any good content that wasn't on Suprnova I couldn't find it because they didn't offer a coherent, sensible way to browse torrents (i.e., a directory, like Suprnova had). Search is nice, but when it comes right down to it just about anyone's going to have the popular files, and it's the obscure, old, or otherwise below your radar that makes a truly special find.

And I find it bizarre that Loki got shut down by the MPAA, and not, say, the IDSA. Dunno about you lot, but I don't know many people who bother spending days downloading low-res DVD rips or, worse, cams, when you can just spend 3-8 bucks and go see it or rent it. Software piracy, on the other hand....everyone I know. Absolutely everyone. With the possible exception of my grandparents.

Oh, and it's a myth that downloading music is legal in Canada. It's based on a faulty understanding of a slightly ambiguous law. Or that's what I've heard, anyway.