What's even worse, though, is that Revision3 was doing nothing illegal. BitTorrent is a technology they use to legally distribute their content. It's part of their business model. MediaDefender's denial of service attack was also a denial of revenue attack. If these early reports turn out to be true, MediaDefender prevented Revision3 from engaging in legal business activity and prevented them from reaping the rewards of that business. Revision3 also likely incurred costs related to diagnosing and fixing the problem.
There's a war going on, and it's a war against peer to peer traffic. Many Internet service providers are already shaping their traffic, and when BitTorrent traffic is going over their networks, it's usually the first thing they throttle. Companies like MediaDefender poison peer to peer traffic in an attempt to shut it down. To many people, BitTorrent is used exclusively for the illegal distribution of copyrighted material. This may be true in many cases, but it's definitely not true in all cases. People use BitTorrent to download Linux distributions (100% legally) and many people use it unknowingly. For example, World of Warcraft, a popular MMORPG, uses BitTorrent as a method to distribute updates to its client software.
Revision3 happens to use BitTorrent as a means of taking load off of their servers to distribute very large high definition content. This is good business practice. They are using available technology to lower their costs. MediaDefender shut them down, probably by accident, because Revision3 is engaged in a legal enterprise. Obviously, Revision3 has a good civil case. They've also notified the FBI, who are investigating.
MediaDefender engages in illegal practices in order to protect copyright. They are, essentially, the modern day version of the goon squad. Yet they operate in the open, with absolutely no consequences for their blatantly illegal actions. Perhaps this attack on Revision3 will open people's eyes, and perhaps MediaDefender and its ilk will be shut down. Somehow, I doubt it. In the war on BitTorrent, the only casualties seem to be our rights and our common sense. Intellectual property is a valuable commodity, and makes up a very large percentage of our gross domestic product. But that doesn't give the intellectual property industries carte blanche in defense of their property. You can't defend your rights at the expense of someone else's. Of course, the same argument holds for those who use peer to peer networks for theft of intellectual property.
Article comments
1 - Neal Parks
Or the "old media" has started going after the "new media" since they don't get a "piece of the action". Honestly, if the "old media" WASN'T trying to extort "new media" how would their behavior be any different then it was in this situation? My point being you can't know their motivation, only their actions and their actions are no different than if they wanted to shut down "new media" because they don't get money from it.
2 - bliffle
Denial Of Service is really a primitive way to interfere with P2P via BitTorrent. So is ISP throttling. The brute products of trivial minds.
There are a couple of very simple techniques which are neither ilegal nor obtrusive that one would think anyone who has used BT a few times could figure out. But apparently not because I haven't seen them employed yet.
All it takes is a subtle mind and a diabolical deviousness and a nose for mischief. It helps to have a background in Electronic CounterMeasures.
I'm looking forward to encountering that ECM because I have the CounterMeasure figured out, too.
3 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
P2P maybe a good way for legal activity but it's severely out of date for the people who wanna share "illegal" copyrighted media. There are much better non-detectable ways...