A Russian website that tracks and publicly posts the IP addresses and downloads of BitTorrent users has revealed that pretty much everyone downloads stuff illegally, including the RIAA, major movie and music studios, and even the Department of Homeland Security.
It may not be entirely realistic to expect every single member of organizations like movie and music studios and the RIAA to be able to appreciate the goals of that organization, but still, it's hard to enforce controversial policies on others if you can't even enforce them on yourself.
From the IP addresses logged by the Russian website, TorrentFreak was able to tie illegal downloads to Sony Pictures Entertainment (an HD copy of Conan the Barbarian), Fox Entertainment (an HD copy of Super 8), and NBC Universal (the first season of Game of Thrones). These are just the smallest examples of what's been stolen; since the website only tracks something like 2% of all downloads, the magnitude of the crime (are we calling it a crime?) is actually about 50 times worse. Oh, and did we mention that the RIAA itself is responsible for downloading illegal rips of the first five seasons of Dexter?
In response to these downloads being made public, one music royalty collection agency claimed that really guys honest it wasn't them, their IP addresses were just spoofed so it looked like it was them. You heard it here, folks: "but my IP was spoofed" is an acceptable defense if anyone ever accuses you of online music theft. And of course, we'll be waiting to see all those lawsuits that the RIAA and major studios will soon be filing against themselves based on this evidence.
YouHaveDownloaded, via TorrentFreak, 2
