Has Copyright owners actions affected your choice?

[bpaw]

@OEJ

I did take advice on this matter from someone as I regard as good authority. I obviously didn?t go in to detail or mention specifics, but described a scenario.

A resounding no is the answer.

It may be way off the truth, but an interview conducted, orchestrated and edited by one party would require such water tight rules and terms & conditions, it would cost me enormously. The possible situation could be that an edited version in one party?s advantage would end up a trailer on the next Ben Dover Productions video.

My friend has the viewpoint of that is what the BBC (And others) are for. They take the case from both sides and put the questions to each party. No editing in one favour. You may argue cases of non-impartiality, but the principle is right.

But, kudos to you both. It may serve you well as a tactic. I have a distinct feeling that the next xbiz interview undertaken by Julian Becker will be along the lines of ?Well, I reached out to these poor innocents, and I got no one coming forward!?. The rest of the interview is fairly easy to predict.

Maybe I?m too cynical!

[Hickster]

OEJ "Forget about it then. Just thought Id put the offer to you but youve succesfully tried to make my intentions look sinister and irrelevant."

That was NOT my intention. You starting to put words in my mouth that are not welcome, I just wanted you to try and see it from my own point of view. Would Becker be happy to travel to an unknown location to be filmed in front of an audience maybe up by our own choosing to answer questions? I doubt it and I would understand that, so should he. I accept it as an offer by yourself, but to say it would be a serious and balanced opportunity, is frankly laughable. You may sincerely belive it to be, bt you have to look at the perception.

OEJ "Ill proceed as normal then. If anythng comes out of it the other end then we can take it up with other people who wont have problems opposing it publicly"

That sounds like a nice PR exercise based on the other producers involved, exactly my first impression anyway

OEJ" I find it insulting that you suggest Julian would control my film but again I can see why you would think so given my views so far."

That is a pertinent point, I never intended to insult you, and you should no this based on out lengthy emails. You say you are NOT a spokesperson fro Becker yet you have spoken on is behalf! I just with he would engage on here as he has in the past, maybe he is now above talking to the "little people"

OEJ " Bear in mind if you choose to treat me with contempt then I could also do the same as I know nothing about you other than you are a facesless victime whose argument may have more legs if you put a face on it and stand up for your beliefs"

Why contempt, are you serious? My arguments along with others, have taken out a number of previous group practicing this, that is because the practice is corrupt. (please don't point out the Court hearing, that is only for the NPO)

OEJ "i wouldve thought you'd relish the chance, even if you was to suggest hiding your face. I certainly agree with Julian now why he wont answer your questions on a public forum. Why should he?"

I have not seen any evidence where you did NOT agree with Julian, is that his reasons? Why should he answer questions on a public forum? Well I would imagine anyone practicing a legitimate anti piracy campaign would have NO problem engaging with his critics. Seems a reasonable thing to do.

OEJ "Ive discussed with him at length my concerns about this and he seems fortcoming enough whereas I have no idea who you are at all except t say you are, maybe quite rightly angry about what happened with ACS Law"

Well with all due respect I only have your word on that, and as you have already stated you have done work with them, and some of your work has relied on not "Rocking the boat". If i was merely angry about being targetted by ACS:LAW then you will understand why I am feeling the same about GEIL, same people involved and same practice.

Also how can you say Backer is forthcomming? he is anything but, he has not responded to my debunking of his interview, and he is only ever engaged with Porn sites, as far as interviews are concerned. Even Crossley did BBC interview very early on. Although they were not feartured together, it did feature someone who was accused by Crossley.

Becker is a very faceless character it is only that you know him that you do not realise it.

Please see this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8110 ... ou....html

and couple it with these from Becker" ?In our first letter we seek to find out more information regarding evidence of an infringement of our copyright,? said Julian Becker, director of Golden Eye.

?Depending on the response to our letters we will then decide our next action.

?Fundamentally we are pursuing those that are uploading not downloading. In effect these violations are unauthorized distribution, we are not pursuing those who have simply downloaded one film.?

Then ask yourself, IF as Becker has said, they have "Forensic" evidence, why does he need more information? (Clue: Phishing)

[Hickster]

@BPAW "But, kudos to you both. It may serve you well as a tactic. I have a distinct feeling that the next xbiz interview undertaken by Julian Becker will be along the lines of ?Well, I reached out to these poor innocents, and I got no one coming forward!?. The rest of the interview is fairly easy to predict."

Spot on.. Almost exactly my thought.

I to sought advise from a couple of people, one a Solicitor, who just looked at me wide eyed and mouth open, and said words to the effect, "are they Fuck^%$ joking" and "They must live in cloud cuckoo"

A bit harsh but prob true!

[one eyed jack]

I think youve both made your points clear. Forget about it then.

I had a look at your site Hickster....Are you and bpaw one and the same or two seperate individuals? I get the impression here that you are two people but not so sure on your site.

Choice pictures youve chosen by the way. Too many things on your side has pushed me to believing my initial stance was indeed the correct one. Thanks for opening my eyes on that. I was unsure for awhile.

You say GEIL is not about copyright infringement but you dont realise those others on that list have said nothing because, whatever you think GEIL are up to , the clients they are representing are all about the copyright infringement

If you didnt make it so personal on the people you are attacking you might convince people a bit more.

As it stands, at least youve got all the downloaders on your side pleading innocent and defending their right to continue downloading with you right up their crusading their rights to do so

If it really hits rock bottom I guess they can pull the suicide attempt caused by distress.

I wonder if they attempt suicide if theyre late paying their utility bills too

[Hickster]

I think youve both made your points clear. Forget about it then.

I had a look at your site Hickster....Are you and bpaw one and the same or two seperate individuals? I get the impression here that you are two people but not so sure on your site.

Choice pictures youve chosen by the way. Too many things on your side has pushed me to believing my initial stance was indeed the correct one. Thanks for opening my eyes on that. I was unsure for awhile.

You say GEIL is not about copyright infringement but you dont realise those others on that list have said nothing because, whatever you think GEIL are up to , the clients they are representing are all about the copyright infringement

If you didnt make it so personal on the people you are attacking you might convince people a bit more.

As it stands, at least youve got all the downloaders on your side pleading innocent and defending their right to continue downloading with you right up their crusading their rights to do so

If it really hits rock bottom I guess they can pull the suicide attempt caused by distress.

I wonder if they attempt suicide if theyre late paying their utility bills too

I think I will leave it there, this has now become a circular argument. You say you have looked at my Blog, well you told me you had seen it ages ago, so maybe you didnt and you have just looked at it now?

I am not Bpaw, although I am wondering about you and Becker!

OEJ "Choice pictures youve chosen by the way. Too many things on your side has pushed me to believing my initial stance was indeed the correct one. Thanks for opening my eyes on that. I was unsure for awhile."

What do you mean choice?, and was your initial stance EVER in doubt? I believed it was actually but it seems Becker convinced you otherwise! Interesting little pauses and changes of directions made it rather clear.

OEJ "You say GEIL is not about copyright infringement but you dont realise those others on that list have said nothing because, whatever you think GEIL are up to , the clients they are representing are all about the copyright infringement"

Well Davenport Lyons, ACS:LAW, Tilly Baily Irvine, Gallant Macmillan were not doing it for that reason, we know that now, and as GEIL are using the same system and same person gathering the data, and the same person as their "Expert Witness" I think most right minded people would say that was a "Prima facie" point to be had.

OEJ "If you didnt make it so personal on the people you are attacking you might convince people a bit more."

Not sure what you mean there to be honest, I don't think I have even mentioned you or the other producers itching to get in on the action? have I? GEIL are of interest for a number of reasons not least because they were nominated for the Internet Villain of the year award. Who do I need to convince? I am there only to expose the truth, and post it. Please tell me what bit of my blog is untrue? I will review it and take it down if I find it to be incorrect.

OEJ"As it stands, at least youve got all the downloaders on your side pleading innocent and defending their right to continue downloading with you right up their crusading their rights to do so"

What have downloaders got to do with anything, remember GEIL have said they dont care about people downloading only uploading. But again, please point out on my blog where I am telling people it is ok to download ANYTHING. I have actually had a couple of people who emailed me who seemed like "Plants", but I expect that, ACS and the others,scanned the forums and posted on them and visited chatrooms where other people had go together.

OEJ "If it really hits rock bottom I guess they can pull the suicide attempt caused by distress. I wonder if they attempt suicide if theyre late paying their utility bills too"

Well finally some compassion from the people taking Court action, yep very nicely put, OEJ, you can really equate a suicide attempt in such glib terms, I am amazed. HOWEVER paying their Utility bills is a responsibility for services rendered, NOT some desperate cash grab. If you likened it however to another suppler demanding money for no such service, then yes that is what you and GEIL are doing.

Demanding money for no service rendered.

I realise that like mny previous 10 or 20 posts you wont actually read it, and wont respond to any of the actual points as we would still be waiting for you to defend My Honey against the Wikipedia accusation. I guess you don't have a take on that or is it just lies as anyone can put what they like on Wikipedia?

See a person who gets a letter from you guys are going to do a search fro Ben Dover, they will then get a link to Wikipedia, looking down the page they will see,

"Being paid ?100 a shoot, Honey started working for David Sullivan's Private Magazine[7] and European hardcore porn magazines such as Rodox/Color Climax, a Danish company that in addition to more "standard" hardcore material also produced bestiality and child pornography.[13] His first shoot was with a then 17-year-old Eileen Daly, who had gone to see the same agent above a strip club in Soho with her mother"

And then think "my God this guy is a weirdo, and now he is targeting us for money" But of course, that wouldn't affect you in anyway would it?

[bpaw]

@OEJ ? I can assure you that I am bpaw, and Hickster is Hickster. Two different people. But we do share a similar experience, and do have the same objective.

OEJ Said ?Ive discussed with him at length my concerns about this and he seems fortcoming enough whereas I have no idea who you are at all except t say you are, maybe quite rightly angry about what happened with ACS Law?

Yes, the ACS:Law situation was detrimental both in effect and cause. Your sentiment is welcoming, but please don?t relay your sympathies on me simply because ACS:Law were complete bastards. The operation in my case was Clem Vogler, Alireza Torabi, Lee Bowden and ACS:Law. The GEIL operation is Clem Vogler, Alireza Torabi and Julian Becker. Simple mathematics will tell you that even if Julian Becker is a saint, two thirds of the operation is the ACS:Law operation.

History tells you something. Hickster and me maybe are a symptom of what happened from the ACS:Law debacle, and we recognise these villains and their operation. Maybe the situation would be different if Julian Becker chose a different monitor and ?Expert Witness?. Our understanding of the Clem Vogler and Aleriza Torabi partnership is they are flawed.

I don?t expect you to change your mind, and from your words you will not anyway. Look at it from this perspective. The principle of p2p monitoring is right. If you can successfully monitor p2p traffic and prove without a shadow of a doubt that an individual downloaded, and proved that they uploaded, a copyright holders material then fine ? a fair cop guv. None of this is true. You or Julian Becker cannot prove this. At the most perfect, indisputable, completely perfect scenario and with the wind blowing in the right direction, you can only ?prove? one download. The rest is a theory.

A couple of things of interest:

I did a search (Everything from Internet Explorer) on a ?porno? torrent site tonight (No p2p software installed on my PC) for Ben Dover. Quite a lot of downloads I?ll give you! I looked at a few of the most popular titles and clicked on the ?View All Torrent Trackers? link on the first one and got 71 seeds / 84 leachers out of 14 trackers. Then I clicked ?Update Seeds & Leachers? and guess what? 3 seeds and 3 leachers out of 1 tracker. Why? Because a refresh of my query was automatically blocked. Not only that, any other search after was blocked. They know the habits of monitoring software!

To hark back on to the ACS:Law leaked emails. As I said before, the Alireza Torabi monitoring is flawed. 25% of unknowns. Also for your perusal, 2,749 people listed once. One time! And also 1,388 listed more than once. 13, yes 13 listed more than 20 times. The highest one, 78 times, had the same IP address at all times. It is just a load of crap!

Guess what!!!!! The answer is so simple! Duh!!!! Prove it!!! Andrew Crossley could have saved his own bacon if he disclosed the workings of the monitoring software. The DL two Gore and Miller could have saved a lot of hassle for themselves also. Hell, if Julian Becker really believes that the monitoring software is absolute, then just simply prove it!!!!! I so really believe that at all times (Crossley, Gore, Miller, Becker and all), Alireza Torabi will not let anyone near his monitoring software. Julian Becker cannot prove anything.

We seem to like bringing up analogies here, so I will say another one. It is effectively like having a line-up of people in an identity parade to capture one criminal, and saying ?Charge them all!? because you will at least get the actual criminal.

I can say that when ACS:Law were at their height, hundreds of people were involved in fighting them. Quite a lot were legal / technical experts who had no direct involvement, but simply recognised a scam when they saw it. A lot more who were innocent become ?keyboard warriors? [citation needed LOL!], and were hell-bent on not only defending their own situation but challenged the whole ACS:Law operation.

It is inevitable that any organisation that uses such methods will invoke a new wave of angered individuals. That is not a threat, as I am only going by history.

[bpaw]

It just occurred to me how many specifics I used in my previous post. I will have to be careful in the future and not use such specifics. My bad!

[Hickster]

Seems all replies to this thread have now ceased... Shame it was just getting good. did you know that Golden Eye "Software Monitor" Ali Torabi(NG3 Systems) could detect people downloading using software that has not yet been released?

No wonder Golden Eye signed him up!

[bpaw]

I seen the forum reply email this morning and that is why I'm posting a reply. Not because I'm Hickster and bpaw LOL!

Yes, Mr Alireza Torabi. He is their Achilles heel. The dodgy monitoring software guy.

This ultimately dismisses any argument of lost revenues because of p2p. Not when Alireza Torabi offers a VPN service from his web server. Imagine the amount of copyright material including films, music, software and pornography being downloaded anonymously through his VPN. Using him as their data monitor is hypocrisy. What about the other producers / programmers who lose out because of Alireza Torabis VPN?

If the producers go on about losing money through p2p, then using a data monitor that promotes anonymous p2p is a bad argument. Integrity and honesty a words that spring to mind.

[ScottMcGowan]

Hi, Guys. Sorry I haven't been able to pop in here, but I have a couple of minutes while I'm scarfing my breakfast.

First, in terms of the effects of piracy/counterfeiting on us being primarily a retailer.

I can't go into specifics, but sufficed to say that the glut of free, full-length, and often high video quality content on tube sites, torrent portals, and file lockers has been significant, especially in terms of sales on our web shop. And while the vast majority of the DVD's on our site (literally thousands of individual products) are produced by others, we still have to make initial investments into getting the product in the door.

Further, our continued success in this changing industry is rooted in fast shipping times and unparalleled customer service. So it generally isn't in our interest to to list a DVD that we do not have in stock. In other words, we're usually shelling out the dosh to purchase enough stock to satisfy demand ahead of time. And that is the money that goes directly to the studio/producer or the distributor. In other words, we assume a good bit of risk as well.

In terms of Ben Dover specifically, OEJ asked if we would boycott his product because of his companies involvement in the letter campaign, I can only say this. The notion is preposterous to even suggest.

First, we aren't condemning those who have decided to go this route. We simply made the decision not to participate. Full stop.

Second, Ben Dover related products (including those he shot in association with Bluebird, for instance) have always been among our most popular products.

Finally, OEJ, you are correct that the various ways of distributing copyrighted content without permission affects our business models differently. But from my observations are that the end result is about the same. We lose money.