It was an accident, I swear.

OR: How I inadvertantly started the whole MediaDefender versus Rev3 fiasco.

It was an accident, really. I was poor, had no money, I was bored, and felt kind of sick. I didn’t like it, but I accepted I was going to download a movie without paying for it. I looked through the list of recently released-to-DVD/BD films @ Rotten Tomatoes, but couldn’t find anything. I then looked to the soon-to-be-released list, and saw Rambo/John Rambo. Now, I love Rambo. I was going to go see it in the theatre when it came out, but once again, I was doshless. Anyway, after finding a torrent for it, I was on my way…when I noticed that one of the trackers was on Revision3’s server.

That seemed wrong. They’re a legitimate company that publishes shows like The Totally Rad Show and my personal favourite, Diggnation. So I quickly hopped onto the Rev3 forums, and wrote a post about it to let whoever was in charge of their BitTorrent tracker know what was going on. You can see the post on their <a href=”http://revision3.com/forum/showthread.php?p=369753″ title=”Rev3’s BitTorrent tracker being used for piracy? – Revision3 Forums”>forums</a> from the 24th.

Shortly after that, someone who worked there pulled the plug on it, and said:

“while it means revision3’s tracker will be more complex and less robust, i have implemented whitelisting. let the server crashes begin again”

And that’s exactly what happened.

Since then, Revision3 has started to file a lawsuit against MediaDefender, and even has the FBI involved. (So you can see why I didn’t really want to post this.)

Anyway, I’m at least hoping that this will result in MediaDefender’s demise, because they clearly aren’t only targeting illegal P2P, but all P2P, which is just silly. I occasionally use Rev3’s tracker to get Diggnation (most often I just directly download it… it seems faster) but they don’t deserve to be DDoS’d for any reason. It looks like Rev3 wasn’t even helping spread the piracy of “John Rambo”, but were having their servers misused by MediaDefender to try and stop it. It still could’ve resulted in Revision3 coming under lawsuit for helping with piracy though, so I’m glad they’re no longer announcing illegal files.

(P.S. Since then, I’ve rented “John Rambo” on DVD, just to make up for downloading it early.)

May 29, 2008 · Filed Under Announcements, Freya, Journal, Mjolnir

Comments

14 Responses to “It was an accident, I swear.”

  1. Leon on May 29th, 2008 7:35 pm

    Still your fault. Oh well, you started a piracy war. ;)

  2. The Lazy Canadian on May 29th, 2008 8:08 pm

    Shh…

  3. Bob Cotter on May 29th, 2008 9:36 pm

    Thanks for posting your story. It is an interesting look into the world of P2P and how it can be abused.

    Kudos to you for your explanation of how you go about accessing media.

    Bob

  4. Juggles on May 30th, 2008 5:46 am

    lulz!
    You’re such a rebel =p

    Jal sent me this link, it leads to the download page for ‘OE-CAKE’. It’s like a upgraded version of the sand game.
    http://www.octaveengine.com/en/casual/trial.html

  5. Juggles on May 30th, 2008 5:50 am

    You’re such a rebel =p

    PS: Jal sent me this link, it leads to the download page for ‘OE-CAKE’. It’s like a upgraded version of the sand game.
    http://www.octaveengine.com/en/casual/trial.html

  6. NobleArc on May 30th, 2008 11:20 am

    @ Bob – Uh, no problem I guess. Most often I buy all of my music through the iTunes Store (http://www.apple.com/iTunes/store), and most of my movies off of the Xbox Live Video Marketplace on my Xbox 360. When it comes to TV shows, however, I have no real way of buying any. I’m seriously considering getting a TiVo or some sort of PVR in Mid-June/Early-July, as I love watching Late Night with Conan O’Brien, but I can never stay up late enough to watch it.

  7. What the DOS Attack Against Revision3 Was Really About « NewTeeVee on May 30th, 2008 3:53 pm

    [...] all started with Rambo. A blogger that calls himself “The Lazy Canadian” was looking for some entertainment last weekend. He decided to give the latest Rambo flick a try, and scoured the net to find a [...]

  8. Juggles on May 31st, 2008 1:19 pm

    Sorry for posting twice, Thought I got spam filtered…

  9. torrents to on June 1st, 2008 11:14 am

    [...] I complained on the Rev3 forum, they said: ???while it means revision3??s tracker will be more comphttp://www.lazycanadian.ca/2008/05/29/it-was-an-accident-i-swear/Torrents.to Design ShackShowcasing Torrents.to, along with hundreds of inspiring CSS based examples, [...]

  10. comhcinc on June 1st, 2008 10:20 pm

    no lawsuit. you was mention on twit! you need to come back to rev3 boards and claim your praise and rewards.

  11. Cass on June 1st, 2008 11:05 pm

    This is what us canadian folk are good for. Doing awesome things accidentally, while in the process of doing stupid things. Way to go! =p

  12. NobleArc on June 2nd, 2008 12:00 am

    Oh, wow, mentioned on TWiT? I’ll have to check the latest episode out!

  13. Revision3 v. Media Defender: It’s Not Rev3’s Fight! | Speec Now . . . on June 2nd, 2008 10:56 pm

    [...] What brought this to Revision3’s attention was a forum post from a fan. That post can be found here. And just to be fair, a person claiming to be the poster has revealed this fact on his blog. [...]

  14. Juggles on July 5th, 2008 3:33 am

    http://revision3.com/blog/2008/05/29/inside-the-attack-that-crippled-revision3/
    O:

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