HF ordered to share user data

[scorres]

From http://torrentfreak.com/hotfile-ordered-to-share-user-data-with-the-mpaa-110830/

In their ongoing battle with the MPAA, the Florida-based file-hosting service Hotfile has suffered a major loss. A federal court has ordered Hotfile to disclose user data, the identities and revenues of their top affiliates, and financial information on the company itself. District Court Judge Adalberto Jordan argued that the MPAA needs this info to prove that Hotfile is promoting and profiting from copyright infringement.

hotfileAs one of the ten largest file-sharing sites on the Internet, the file-hosting service Hotfile has become a prime target for Hollywood.

Earlier this year, five member companies of the MPAA filed a lawsuit against Hotfile and ever since the parties have been battling in court.

A few months ago the movie studios requested a substantial amount of information from the file-hosting service, including IP addresses of uploaders and downloaders, and the identities and earnings of top affiliates. In addition the MPAA asked for the source code of the site.

Hotfile protested these requests, arguing that some of the information, including the financials, is confidential. Also, the company claimed that handing over user data and detailed information on its top affiliates,would breach privacy law.

District Court Judge Adalberto Jordan reviewed the arguments from both sides and detailed his decision in a recent order, which is mostly negative for Hotfile. Except for the site’s source code, Judge Jordan ordered that Hotfile has to hand over all data requested by the MPAA.

Firstly this means that Hotfile has to disclose details on all files ever uploaded to Hotfile, including the title, number of downloads and the IP-addresses of the uploaders and downloaders.

Hotfile objected to this request because of privacy concerns, and the fact that it would include gathering data on millions of files that are not specific to the case. The judge, however, disagreed and sided with MPAA’s claim that the data is needed to do a proper statistical analysis on how much of Hotfile’s content is infringing.

“To prove this rampant infringement, the movie studios need to do a statistical analysis showing that most of the content uploaded and downloaded on hotfile.com infringes some copyright or another,” the judge writes.

In addition to all user data, Hotfile also has to handover detailed information on the site’s top 500 affiliates, including their identities and the payouts made to these persons or companies. In their request for the affiliate data the MPAA has described these persons as potential key-witnesses who could be used to gather further evidence on Hotfile’s operation.

Hotfile initially refused this request because it would be an unnecessary breach of privacy laws, but Judge Jordan concludes that they failed to show why this would be the case.

“Hotfile pays ‘affiliates’ when content that the affiliates uploaded is downloaded by others. The movie studios want information on the top 500 money-making affiliates. This information, the movie studios believe, may show that Hotfile and Mr. Titov profited from direct infringement or induced direct infringement. I agree,” the Judge writes.

The third request by the MPAA that Judge Jordan granted was that for the disclosure of the company’s financial information. Hotfile declined this request claiming that such information is confidential, but the judge concluded that despite the possible confidentiality the financial information is both relevant and necessary.

“Part of the movie studios’ case concerns Hotfile’s and Mr. Titov’s motives for allowing their users and affiliates to infringe copyright law. And Hotfile’s and Mr. Titov’s financial motivation may justify an inference of unlawful intent. Thus, the information is relevant,” the judge writes.

Hotfile has to hand over all the information above to the MPAA by September 12, and future filings will have to show how the MPAA plans to use this new intelligence.

For now, however, it doesn’t appear that the movie studios are going to use any of the user data to pursue legal action against individual uploaders or downloaders who are not affiliates. In previous court filings the MPAA stated that Hotfile could mask the last digits of users’ IP-addresses as long as they would be able to determine the country of the user.

The top affiliates on the other hand are more likely to be dragged into the lawsuit, as the MPAA noted that these persons or companies could be key witnesses. Whether this will indeed be the case has yet to be seen, but its safe to conclude that Hotfile and its top affiliates will be disappointed with the Judge’s decision.

 

[scorres]

Not to worry?

This wasn't meant to shock or panic, it's
just information I thought all should hear.
We can be glad that the foundation of what
keeps A-O alive and thriving, is that the Japanese
aren't known for suing. I love them more then ever right now! erfectplan:

 

[elgringo14]

Moved to the news section, as this may have some impact on the filesharing "community" as whole.

the Florida-based file-hosting service Hotfile

How long did they expect to survive court battles, being based in the country the most fanatic against filesharing? :notagain:

 

[wyvern2]

It will be great if hotfile operate in another country...
The other filehosting like oron(rusia),Wupload/Filesonic(hongkong) is secure because the USA's force of laws cann't touch them.

Oh dear I'm still love hotfile:notagain:

 

[HighlightReel]

I'm not going to say that Hotfile is guilty of hosting illegal files, I will however say that if Hollywood keeps crying to the courts as to why their crappy movie didn't do so well in the theaters, then we are all screwed. Hollywood needs to wake up and realize they cannot win in the war against piracy. I'm sorry but that's just how it is. Before high speed internet, people were in the movies with video cameras. And I'm sure they raised a stink over the unlawful distribution of tapes made with a SONY camera (for example). But now in this era of the internet, they think they've won, they just managed to piss off someone who will make something more widespread and MPAA will have to keep playing catch up.

So my suggestion to the MPAA is to just leave people like me alone who use these sites, and they should come up with a plan to LOWER ticket prices in the movies.

 

[CyberDancer]

Hotfile has to hand over all the information above to the MPAA by September 12

Is that possible? uzzled:
Why MPAA has the right looks into all Hotfile's customers data?

 

[scorres]

cyberdancer

The judge has determined the information is needed
to decide if hotfile intentionally let certain files
remain posted, so they could make more money.
And he says he needs all that info to decide how much of the total files, are copywright infringing,
(stolen/shared.) To sum it up, if there is a file
called Ironman_dvd-rip_2009.rar.001 that would count as bad, especially if it was reported and not taken down,
and the poster got paid for the downloads.
( my opinion only) In the end, there will be a law stating that you can't pay people for obviously stolen goods.
If it was named I_or_N_man?_full_09hd.rar.001
you might get paid.

 

[cattz]

I honestly already assumed Hotfile WAS already sharing information with providers and the like.

Usual filesharing news sites made it pretty clear that there's only a few that don't monitor them heavily and just take down complaints like Megaupload.

 

[vian85putra]

Another hotfile cleansing gonna happen again.

 

[MXS-]

Don't use hotfile or any north american based file hosting services. All of us Akiba-ites need this site to remain alive!! A plan should be developed.

 

[jwiz]

Time to shoot some lawyers.


andalaugh:

 

[jwiz]

Don't use hotfile or any north american based file hosting services. All of us Akiba-ites need this site to remain alive!! A plan should be developed.

Use the free file hosts as pseudo-anonymous data stores. Pretty simple.

Use them as backends for Freenet hosts.

 

[MXS-]

??? Do whatever it takes.

 

[Ceewan]

MPAA Demands Hotfile Data From Google, Search Engine Refuses

The problem has its roots in August 2011 when Hotfile was ordered to hand the MPAA mountains of data including information it holds on the files it hosts, the company’s users and its many affiliates.

But the MPAA didn’t receive all of the data it was expecting. While Hotfile said it had no objection to producing any of the data it holds, it claimed that handing over everything requested was impossible since it did not carry some of the information.

Determined to obtain the data anyway, on December 6th 2011 the MPAA served a subpoena on Google to obtain access to Hotfile’s Google Analytics account which can show the sites driving traffic to Hotfile and the host’s most popular pages.

But Google said that absent Hotfile’s consent, it would not supply the data to the MPAA. In turn, Hotfile refused to give consent or hand over the data now since the discovery date deadline, December 23rd 2011, has now passed.

source:
http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-demands-hotfile-data-from-google-search-engine-refuses-120210/

 

[EzikialRage]

I do not think hotfile should revel anything.MPAA is the one making the accusation so it is on them to provide the evidence of wrong doing.You can't just go I think so and so is doing something wrong so I want them to provide evidence. I suspect this will make it to the supreme court.