Beware! Torrent crack down.

duotrouble · Post by **duotrouble** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:07 pm

I got the strangest email today from Comcast. I received a Notice of Action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

WTH?!

As I read the entire email, I was shocked and confused by it. Finally, at the end of it, it explained what I had "infringed" on since I know I never dl copyrighted material. It was Bleach episode 300. Now, I know that Bleach is under Funimation but I didn't think dling a recent episode that's not available in the US was a problem. Apparently, it is. Yet one more reason for me to not like Bleach. That's okay. I won't dl it anymore.

The whole letter reads like it's just a warning so I don't know if anything is going to happen. They threatened to discontinue my services if I continue to "infringe". There is a phone number to call but I don't know if that's just if I have questions or what. It's all confusing as I stated earlier. I mean, what I am going to do say yes I dl'd it but I deleted it and will never do it again? I'll probably get slapped a fine. Or say no it wasn't me? And then I'll probably get all sorts of legal crap because it's my IP address, etc.

Has anyone else expericened this? I wanted to warn everyone who watches torrents to be careful as to which ones you pick. Big brother is watching.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:22 pm

Yes, Duo. Actually, I used to work for a small ISP as one of the people who sent out those kind of warnings to customers. They expect you to delete it & not do it again.

FYI - It isn't Comcast that's watching you. It's the copyright holder. ISPs don't have any good way to watch everything everyone on their network does all the time. The amount of data and the time and money it would cost to do this would be ridiculous. Yes, they can filter ports and certain types of traffic, but that's done with automatic filters that are generally monitored only by their network engineers.

What happens is the copyright holders monitor torrent and other download sites. Torrents, sadly, identify everyone by IP address, which makes it very very easy to see who's seeding or downloading a torrent at any given time. They then send the IP address, the file name(s) downloaded, and of course, the date and time it happened to your ISP. A quick lookup on a site like ARIN.net will tell you what network owns your IP. Comcast (or the ISP) will then look up who had that IP address on their network at that time and date, and send the warning.

I just want to make something clear to everyone before anyone starts calling out Comcast--it very likely isn't them. It's FUNimation or whomever holds the copyright.

You just happened to get caught, Duo. It stinks, but it does happen.

ReiTheJelly · Post by **ReiTheJelly** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:27 pm

Wow. That's pretty crazy. But it sounds to me as if Funimation is asking for this crackdown. I mean, I've received a C&D request before, but it was from a specific television network, never from my provider. Because how would Comcast know what is/isn't legal to dl unless the license owners tell them? I understand that they are losing some money by people downloading illegally, but they also need to understand that they're losing potential DVD sales customers by going crazy on their fanbase.

At least when I received my Cease and Desist from CBS, they sent me a link to their website where I could watch the show I'd been downloading for free.

[edit] Ha ha. Zerospace totally beat me!

duotrouble · Post by **duotrouble** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:50 pm

zerospace wrote:I just want to make something clear to everyone before anyone starts calling out Comcast--it very likely isn't them. It's FUNimation or whomever holds the copyright.

You just happened to get caught, Duo. It stinks, but it does happen.

Well, I didn't mean to imply that it was Comcast's fault so I changed the title of my thread. I know it's Funi that did it. It was just shocking to see because as I stated, I really didn't think I was grabbing a liscened torrent. But I plan to ignore the email and drop Bleach. I never was a big fan of it anyway. I guess this was just the final straw I needed because the bad taste will linger on watching it on Funi's site or anywhere else.

As a sidenote, I think it's funny that I got cracked down on now. I just ordered all of the Tsubasa DVDs from Funi a couple of days ago.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I always support anime in the US by buying liscened goods.

I watch and purge torrents to decide on my DVD wishlist. To me, it's just like paying for my cable tv.

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 10:50 pm

Is that under Bay TSP? I remember this AnimeSuki thread:

http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=69784

Unfortunately I haven't been able to login to my ISP e-mail since 2002, so I have no idea if I ever gotten a e-mails like that. Sometimes I wonder.

Some of the shows to watch out for the most are...

Funimation:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... hp?id=6515

Media Factory:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... php?id=369

TV Tokyo Media Net:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... php?id=960

Some people just watch the streaming sites instead.

star-phoenix · Post by **star-phoenix** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 11:18 pm

Hey Duo,

You can watch thousands of Anime on
www.watchanimenow.com
Here, you can watch all the videos WITHOUT downloading them. This is what I have been doing.
As for American shows, you can also watch them for free without downloading them by going to hulu.com or megavideos.com
None of these sites require you to download. Although, if you want unlimited viewing time to shows, you may have to pay a monthly subscription fee. Hulu charges about 7.95/month, but they are totally worth it!

Ryouko · Post by **Ryouko** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:07 pm

Wow, I've never heard of that watchanimenow website... thanks! My internet connection here at my parents isn't the greatest so it's tough to download anything. This is the perfect solution. :)

rosesleep · Post by **rosesleep** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:40 pm

I know people who experience something similar, just be extra careful next time.

kira · Post by **kira** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 12:58 am

normally i dont come to this section often but i'm glad i saw this post.

since i'm going off my parents internet provider, it's impossible to download anime. normally i'll just find sites thave have the anime on the site page and just watch it from there. that is, if i cant find it on youtube.

i'll have to look at the links you put up hoshi.

Animechaos · Post by **Animechaos** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 2:42 am

Best 2 places for watching anime:

crunchyroll.com

and

theanimenetwork.com

It's like $7.00 a month, high def streams, simulcasts, and a lot of series you can't get on DVD. Plus they're legit licenced series. I've subscribed to Crunchyroll for over a year. Well worth it.

But this place has some high quality streams and I've used them a lot for series I can't find elsewhere:

animeftw.tv

klet · Post by **klet** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 9:09 am

Bleach is licensed by VIZ, not Funi. Newer episodes are available totally for free subbed on Hulu and Crunchyroll 1 week after airing in Japan. Sooner if you're a paid Crunchyroll member. Hulu and Crunchyroll are legal streaming sites.

But, yeah. Plenty of legal, free ways to stream. Funimation has free streaming up on their site (though I think they just embed Hulu videos). Hulu as well. ANN, too, I believe. You can watch most of what Crunchyroll has for free, but you've got to wait a week after they air unless you want to pay the monthly fee. I only download if there is no free, legal alternative, and then buy the show on DVD if I enjoyed it enough (if a stream is legal, it is also 100% free at first; with time, you might have to subscribe to view it).

If you're downloading Bleach at this point, anyway, you're downloading from HorribleSubs, which isn't a fansub group. It's a group of people who download the stream from Crunchyroll, strip the subtitles out, and apply those subtitles to a raw. They think Crunchyroll is evil. Because they only offer streams to North America.

Though, frankly, anime isn't profitable enough to warrant the number of employees you would need to make streaming completely international. If you offer streams to Germany, you need to have ads relevant to Germany. Plus the people who sell that ad space--people who know about selling ad space to German companies. Multiply that by however many countries you decide to stream to. Even though Hulu is doing pretty well for a streaming site (and I'm not just talking anime here) their profits are nothing compared to what TV stations are used to making on broadcast TV. That's why they introduced Hulu Plus, and make some of the shows time out unless you're paying a monthly subscription.

Not trying to rag on anyone for downloading. I do it, too. I just think that if there is a free, legal method to watch a show, you should do it that way. Streaming is more equatable with anime on TV, anyway.

Gonzai · Post by **Gonzai** » Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:16 pm

I ran into the same thing with Bleach Episode 299.
Apparantly, they really don't wnat you dl'ing it. I
usually don't, but being about 12 eps behind, I am
trying to keep it all on my pc. Not anymore, though.

Goldknight · Post by **Goldknight** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 1:42 am

Just saw this and thought it related to this topic:
http://naruto.anifreak.com/news/2011/01 ... uary-10th/

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 11:21 pm

Yeah, some people are moving to VPNs.

Kind of funny about them using the 1337 number though.

duotrouble · Post by **duotrouble** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:00 am

Awesome article, GK! Even the bit about the One Piece dlers getting sued. Interesting stuff. I stopped dling Bleach, Naruto and DBKai all at the same time. I'm streaming them from other sites, none mentioned on this thread.

I am a member of Cruchyroll but I don't like it that much. Pretty much all the shows I want to watch can easily be found uniterrupted and immediately other places.

This whole thing has just reminded me how much I hate streaming. The reason I started dling to begin with was that I have a bad internet connection. I'm always having to wait for buffers.

With dling, that's never a problem because dls happen in chunks. Sure, it may take longer for something to dl but the viewing part was never annoying. I watch Hulu for some shows too but not anime.

klet wrote:If you're downloading Bleach at this point, anyway, you're downloading from HorribleSubs, which isn't a fansub group.

Nope. That wasn't the fansub group I was getting my dls from.