Talk:MediaDefender/Archive 1

MediaDefender employees manipulating the article

Torrentfreak (see [1]) reports that MediaDefender employees were encouraged to manipulate the wikipedia article to remove information about the mivii incident. Here is a shortened excerpt from the leaked emails:

Ben E:

Can you please do what you can to eliminate this entry?   Let me know if you have any success.

R

From: Dylan Douglas
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 2:20 PM
To: Ben Ebert; Steve Lyons; Jay Mairs; Randy Saaf; Octavio Herrera
Cc: Ty Heath; Ben Grodsky; Ivan Kwok (gmail)
Subject: RE: MiiVi got Dugg

Better yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaDefender

 
Miivi.com

In February 2007, MediaDefender launched a video sharing site called Miivi.com in order to trap unsuspecting uploaders of copyrighted content.[5][6]

-----
Dylan Douglas
MediaDefender

Although the authenticity of the leaked mails could be challenged it seems somewhat unlikely after cursory review by different people. Thus the quoted parts should at least give enough cause to be vigilant about future edits of this page.

The manipulation attempt might also be noteworthy enough to drop it into the article itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.55.187.136 (talk) 05:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the attempt should be added to the article and I don't see how the leaked emails could be challenged. Frankly there is just way too much information in them that checks out. I think there even needs to be a section just talking about the emails and giving some of the more important information found in them. Of coarse I also think that things like passwords in some of those emails will need to be censured. --Hadees 06:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that adding it now is original research. However, the mainstream media might well pick up on the story soon, if there's residual interest in corporate PR attacks on WP, after all the wikiscanner stories, so if/when they do, then this entry could well warrant a mention then. --82.45.163.18 11:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Be aware that later emails say they're going to wait for the attention to die down, claiming that they should then be able to change the Wikipedia article without too much trouble Neververyvery 01:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This is now on my watchlist and I will go over this page almost daily. Corporate flunkies will be hard-pressed to insert their lies and half-truths. I advise all respectable members of the Wikipedia community to look over this article for as long as it takes. The great kawa 03:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Email leak On September 14, 2007, thousands of the company's internal emails were stolen. The people who stole these emails are guilty of many state and federal crimes, including identity theft and invasion of privacy. Additionally, because these emails included confidential emails with government officials, the illegal actions may also constitute breaches of national and state security not involving copyright protection. People who continue to download and disseminate this information may be liable for additional crimes.

Looks like they are editting entry again. I wonder what security clearance this company has that they are storing "national and state security" emails on their non-clearance email server. I wonder if they have the Classified_information_in_the_United_States#Facilities_and_Handling to handle classified information that is required.

Clearly, this is an edit from MediaDefender. I am reverting. 207.237.255.150 07:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Accounts Used to Remove Contents

Starting a list of accounts that are removing contents from this Wiki Entry. If you believe your name is here in error, please comment to indicate why.

User_talk:Peoplearestupid - Account currently banned.

User_talk:LegalProf - User also attempted to delete this section.

FYI...My actions have merely been to delete the links to the illegally obtain emails, which contain extensive private and confidential information about MediaDefender employees. I have also provided information for people who may not be aware of the possible legal repercussions involved in disseminating these emails. I do not intend to delete the discussion section as I believe that an accurate and valid discussion of the issues is a good thing. So, I encourage everyone to continue the discussion with the link to these emails (as well as any personal information about the employees) left out. Legalprof 08:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

California law is not the world. It doesn't apply to the whole internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.173.116.174 (talk) 08:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

True. California law does not necessarily apply to the whole world. However, MediaDefender is a California corporation and the MediaDefender employees are California citizens. As a result, California has jurisdiction over these acts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Legalprof (talk • contribs) 08:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm a lawyer. I do muti-jurisdictional corporate law. That "legal" argument about jurisdiction holds about as much water as my sock. If you think you can prove the novel proposition of law that you've just put forth, then why don't you trot it out in a court of law and see how long your imaginary horse can dance. Until then, stop vandalizing the wikipedia entry. You're full of crap, you shill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.36.190.76 (talk) 12:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Thats great. We out here on the rest of the planet look forward to reading about the outcome of this, and also wish you would stop adding "legal warnings" into an encyclopedia article. Dxco 08:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This is not an article about California civil code, the sections which (inaccurately) paraphrase legal code are irrelevant to the subject matter. sigterm 09:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: True Face of Media Defender

This is entirely unprofessional, and while I believe a reference to the e-mails is more than warranted, such childish titles as this in no way belong on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.227.208.90 (talk) 15:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, that title is geared for sensationalism, not encyclopedias. A more proper title, if the purpose is to discuss the leak, it would simply be just that... Something like "Leaked MediaDefender e-mails". — Northgrove 22:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism section is wrong

This bit

On September 14, 2007, thousands of internal emails were leaked from the company, ... , while others confirm the speculation that MiiVi.com was indeed an anti-piracy honeypot site.

isn't actually supported by any hard facts and just isn't the way some people are interpreting Mivvi.com. I'm not saying I've read the mails (I really don't want to end up in court) but I think if you stand back from the biased voices of the hard core p2p crowd and look at all the facts available there are a few other possibilities for what Mivvi.com might be and those possibilities don't involve honeypots. Neververyvery 02:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I tried to cleanup a little...if I left that line in, you should clarify it. :) I did remove the initial line about entrapment, as that is implicit in the Miivi.com section, and allowed for changing the section title to something more specific (and accurate). --76.182.228.111 02:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

"this isn't actually supported by any hard facts" Are you serious? How is 500mb of emails not hard facts? Also, the entrapment is mentioned (implied) in those emails so it included in this entry. 72.209.69.251 04:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)ForgotMyLogin

Actually, I believe it was 700mb, not 500. 68.94.10.5 05:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

My point is that the ~700MB don't fully support the view that Miivi was a honeytrap. There's (what you call) entrapment and there's emails but there's no emails showing that Miivi was designed and built to be an entrapment site. You can't say "I have 700MB of email and I have opinion X, so therefore opinion X is right" That's obviously bad reasoning unless you can show that the 700MB actually support opinion X. If you're going to write that the emails confirm the speculation that MiiVi.com was indeed an anti-piracy honeypot site then you need the confirmation emails to actually exist. Why aren't there any internal emails at the time the site was discovered saying "Oh noes, they've discovered that Miivi was a honeytrap". Why are there instead ones saying "Oh noes, they've discovered Miivi but they're wrong about what it is" Neververyvery 15:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Neververyvery works for MediaDefender --84.178.127.42 09:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC) Why? Because I have my own analytical skills and can form an opinion that differs from every rabid pro p2p fanatic out there? Is your claim that I work for MediaDefender confirmed by the emails as well, by any chance? Neververyvery 15:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the MiiVi site. I've read some of the emails on various sites, and it seems to me that they were putting an awful lot of effort into making the site. Sure, I doubt they were doing it to encourage piracy, but I think they may have seen it as a way to jump on the YouTube bandwagon and make some extra money (from legal user-created content). There was a mention somewhere of profiting from it. EAi 13:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

...and also a direct comparison with existing competitor sites that stream video and already-in-the-wild pirated music to peoples screens via bittorrent. Who says it would even need to be legal content either? With the permission of the content publishers they're working with already it could just be pirated torrents that are already out there delivered to your screen for a cost that gets split between MediaDefender and the copyright holders. No cost of having to set up your own content and content distribution system. No huge bandwidth costs. Just take what's already there and put it on a users screen.Neververyvery 15:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Warning added to article

Since there is proof (see above) that multiple employees of MediaDefender were working on manipulating this article and it seems they are using multiple user accounts, I think it is necessary to add this warning to the article page, since there are not enough editors here that can guarantee, that no subtle manipulations are inserted or Wikipedia policies or the law are exploited to suppress information on the mentioned issues. We need to be extra watchful of seemingly logical reasonings for changes to this page, that advise to delete or censor content. --84.178.123.32 10:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Identity theft?

Is it really identity theft if someone steals emails from a company?

I'm not so well versed in law, but as far as I can see, I don't see it as identity theft. Maybe someone who is better versed in law can check this out for the sake of the article?

It's definitely invasion of privacy though. Phuzion 13:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course it isn't identity theft. It only is identify theft if someone takes the information from the emails and uses it to pretend to be someone else - thus causing the person in question some sort of loss. Of course its an invasion of privacy and many other things. EAi 13:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how the question of which/what exact crime(s) the theft of the emails constitutes has anything to do with this article. Sure, the emails were probably obtained illegally, but the fact is that the horse has gotten of the barn and he sure as hell ain't going back in.