Porn Studios Sue 10,000 Korean File Sharers

from the that'll-work dept

Fri, Aug 14th 2009 12:13pm — Mike Masnick

Apparently some porn studios haven't realized what a disaster the RIAA's "sue 'em all" strategy has been. A bunch of US- and Japan-based porn studios have supposedly decided to sue 10,000 individuals in South Korea for uploading unauthorized porn. Do they actually think this will help their business models? On top of this, they're asking the police to investigate as well, hoping to get some of the lawsuits to lead to jailtime. I'm sure that South Korean citizens are happy their gov't signed a "free trade" agreement with the US that included a bunch of provisions put there by US entertainment industry lobbyists, resulting in these strict new copyright laws.

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Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, lawsuits, porn, south korea

30 Comments

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aguywhoneedstenbucks (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 11:36am

The difference here is that everyone will roll over on this because no one wants to go to court for porn. This is a much more solid business model than the RIAA's model. No one, no matter whether you did it or not, would want to fight this because they don't want their name associated with being that creepy dude with porn.
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- Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:29pm
  
  Re:
  "The difference here is that everyone will roll over on this because no one wants to go to court for porn"
  
  I would. The idea of standing in my own defense in front of a white-haired female judge and a jury of my peers, introducing defense exhibit after defense exhibit of just the dirtiest, most filthiest hardcore monkey sex you've ever seen is highly appealing to me.
  
  "Your Honor, I would like to instruct the court stenographer to slow the video down to 4x slow motion, if I may. Note, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the way that the balls slap in an elastic manner off of the starfish. And your honor, if it please the court, I'd like it on the record that the technique you are seeing is the Double Fish Hook. Please your Honor, instruct juror number four, yes the Mormon woman, instruct to cease her vomitting or I must insist on a mistrial..."
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  - aguywhoneedstenbucks (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:38pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Dark Helmet in the Courtroom with the Double Fish Hook. Sounds like you're playing the strangest game of Clue ever.
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    - HolaJohnny (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 3:38pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Dibs on Colonel Mustard
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  - imbrucy (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:40pm
    
    Re: Re:
    But that's only because you are a seriously scarred human being.
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    - :Lobo Santo (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:54pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      You're being unable to find humor in it is simply evidence of your lacking a certain large number of connections within your brain.
      
      Seriously, the more you know, the funnier things are.
      I suspect God is laughing all the time, because she knows it all. ;P
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      - imbrucy (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:59pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I never said it wasn't funny. I find it hilarious in a slightly disturbing way. I was just stating it is an indication of the seriously screwed up way that Dark Helmet's brain works.
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      - Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 1:33pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "I suspect God is laughing all the time, because [h]e knows it all. ;P"
        
        Oh, I am, I assure you...
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  - Marcus Carab (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:59pm
    
    Re: Re:
    ...more from the man who brought us "scarcetitties" if I remember rightly.
    
    Keep it up, Dark Helmet! You're the only one I know who regularly tries to be funny on TechDirt and actually succeeds.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2009 @ 1:34pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Dark Helment: I really MUST insist that such posts as yours have a spewage alert in the subject header.
    
    Thank you.
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    - Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 1:38pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Spell my name right, than I'll dein to consider your request...
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      - ChowHound, 14 Aug 2009 @ 2:03pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Spell "then" right, and then spell "deign" right, then we'll deign to consider *your* request.
        
        Shakow!
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        Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 2:15pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Yeah, I saw that after I posted. Stupid Friday...
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  - It's Me, 14 Aug 2009 @ 2:36pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Thank you for the much needed laugh. Is buggery illegal in S. Korea? Your fetish with monkey porn and all. :)~
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Lucretious, 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:33pm

what gets me is why anyone even bothers to download porn at all. If there's one thing in abundance on the internet its free porn.
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- Alan Gerow (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:38pm
  
  Re:
  Yeah, but the last thing I want when watching free porn on the Internet is it freeze framing the guy's face while it buffers.
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  - Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 1:32pm
    
    Re: Re:
    "Yeah, but the last thing I want when watching free porn on the Internet is it freeze framing the guy's face while it buffers."
    
    ...Particularly if it's his "buffer face"...
    
    I just downloaded in my pants....
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    - Alan Gerow (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 3:31pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      ha ha ha
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  - Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2009 @ 5:18pm
    
    Re: Re:
    You're not looking at the right free porn sites!
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- Zach Manor, 9 Apr 2012 @ 10:18am
  
  Re:
  you downloaded for free, you don't buy it.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:36pm

Oh, I can see this ending SO well.

Nothing like telling your customers "we can and will out you publicly, if we feel like it".
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DCX2, 14 Aug 2009 @ 1:51pm

Commercial pirates
From the tone of the summary, you probably wouldn't consider if some of those being sued were profiting commercially from the unauthorized porn.

But, sure enough, if you go actually read the article, they mention about 80 web sites also being sued.
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Rich Kulawiec, 14 Aug 2009 @ 1:55pm

They're in for a bit of a shock
As I presume everyone's been aware for years, there are enormous numbers of "zombies" (comprised/hijacked systems, nearly all running Windows) out there. Sensible estimates place the total number worldwide somewhere above 100 million.
But they're not equally distributed. In particular, Korea "enjoys" a particularly large concentration of them. (It's by no means the only country disproportionately represented.) The relevance to this case is that there's no way to know which systems involved were doing so (a) under the control of their former owners, the people whose desks they're on or (b) under the control of their new owners, the people who control them now. So -- at minimum -- they're going to need to perform forensic-grade examinations on every computer system involved.
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- Arudis, 16 Aug 2009 @ 1:50am
  
  Re: They're in for a bit of a shock
  Nobody uses a botnet to watch porn. I mean seriously. And the reason apple computers aren't usually involved is because they aren't nearly as ubiquitous as pcs. That's like trying to take over a computer by compromising their home-brew email client. What's the point?
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Merlin, 14 Aug 2009 @ 3:46pm

Seriously
All jokes aside, Korea is an *extremely* conservative country. Porn is not actually legal there, so being associated with it would bring intense shame onto any member's family.

The government doesn't want its people furthering the poison that porn represents to their nationalistic ideals, so they're probably allowing the porn industry to go through with these lawsuits. Otherwise there's no way the government would let this happen, as they are *extremely* protective of their citizens.
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Merlin, 14 Aug 2009 @ 3:47pm

Seriously
All jokes aside, Korea is an *extremely* conservative country. Porn is not actually legal there, so being associated with it would bring intense shame onto any member's family.

The government doesn't want its people furthering the poison that porn represents to their nationalistic ideals, so they're probably allowing the porn industry to go through with these lawsuits. Otherwise there's no way the government would let this happen, as they are *extremely* protective of their citizens.
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Archbishop, 15 Aug 2009 @ 3:08am

I'm teaching in Korea now and saw this lawsuit mentioned on the same English news site. My guess is this will be dismissed. Porn is illegal here and you can't sue someone who's stealing from a business that is illegal. It's not on the same level as suing a heroin supplier for cutting heroin, but it has the same odds in court.
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- Anonymous Coward, 15 Aug 2009 @ 7:10am
  
  Re:
  > I'm teaching in Korea now and saw this lawsuit mentioned on the same
  > English news site. My guess is this will be dismissed. Porn is illegal here
  > and you can't sue someone who's stealing from a business that is illegal. It's
  > not on the same level as suing a heroin supplier for cutting heroin, but it
  > has the same odds in court.
  
  Just had a brilliant idea for getting rid of RIAA shenanigans.... make music illegal!
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John The Gardener (profile), 17 Aug 2009 @ 5:18am

Sentenced for uploading porn - it would look ubercool in CV
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2009 @ 3:02pm

Does anyone have the Korean Minister for Tourism as I would like to ask them how having 10,000 Korean porn file shares is affecting his countries international image .... :)
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