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Here's an interesting one. A torrent indexer called TorLock is offering to pay its users $1 for every fake torrent they spot in the index.
Users can paste the link to the fake torrent into a message box, along with their email address, and TorLock will then pay up once it confirms the torrent is a fake. TorLock claims they are "one of the biggest verified sources in the torrent world right now". The offer still stands at the time of writing.
But this offer has apparently angered infamous India anti-piracy firm, Aiplex. For those that don't know or remember, Aiplex was the company that claimed to use denial of service attacks again alleged torrent and piracy websites. And this is what inspired the hacking group Anonymous to launch their global attack on firms they perceived to be enemies of Internet freedom, including Aiplex, the RIAA, MPAA ... all part of the aptly named "Operation Payback Is A Bitch". The same operation eventually extended to attacking the perceived opponents of Wikileaks, just to show how the full implications of Aiplex's actions. ([B]Update:[B] It appears Aiplex's website is down again, possibly due to a renewed attack as part of Operation Payback)
In any case, Aiplex sent a strongly (if poor, grammatically) worded email to TorLock, threatening them to remove the offer "or else". Here's part of Aiplex's message to TorLock:
Aiplex's argument seems to be that you cannot pay other people for content that you don't own, which actually makes no sense at all. It would be like a big Star Wars fan paying other fans $1 every time they watch all three prequel movies in one session ($1 may not be enough compensation!), which seems to be perfectly legal. Or a more relevant analogy may be an anti-virus company paying users for reporting new types of malware.
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Users can paste the link to the fake torrent into a message box, along with their email address, and TorLock will then pay up once it confirms the torrent is a fake. TorLock claims they are "one of the biggest verified sources in the torrent world right now". The offer still stands at the time of writing.
But this offer has apparently angered infamous India anti-piracy firm, Aiplex. For those that don't know or remember, Aiplex was the company that claimed to use denial of service attacks again alleged torrent and piracy websites. And this is what inspired the hacking group Anonymous to launch their global attack on firms they perceived to be enemies of Internet freedom, including Aiplex, the RIAA, MPAA ... all part of the aptly named "Operation Payback Is A Bitch". The same operation eventually extended to attacking the perceived opponents of Wikileaks, just to show how the full implications of Aiplex's actions. ([B]Update:[B] It appears Aiplex's website is down again, possibly due to a renewed attack as part of Operation Payback)
In any case, Aiplex sent a strongly (if poor, grammatically) worded email to TorLock, threatening them to remove the offer "or else". Here's part of Aiplex's message to TorLock:
We have seen u advertise in ur site that you give $1 for fake. We trust this is highly illegal and we will fight to protect our clients rights. You cannot pay people for other’s material, you do not own the rights. We have already ban ur site. Now we will come after u and the people who host ur illegal website… The Indian Govt wont take this and will suport us in the battle against ur and other sites. Other people dont pay users for helping piracy. U will get in trouble for this… u do not understand who u are dealing with. We demand u remove the offer and also adhere to the many requests we have sent u to delete illegal files… We will not ask again…
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