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Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

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Re: Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

#21

Post by jonny_eh »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #16
gruez wrote: post #10

>Meta, naturally, argues that no! No! That porn was, uh…it was for personal use! Yeah, it was for…me, and not for large-scale copyright infringement! >[...] >Meta’s motion to dismiss the case calls Strike 3’s torrent-tracking “guesswork and innuendo” and argues the supposed downloads, which are roughly 22 per year, are too few to have any use in training AI. If anything, the company says, that pattern looks less like…

My skepticism would stem from the usual corporate firewall scanning. I routinely get blocked going to innocuous things which are on an uncommon domain or are otherwise on some block list. Recently, I could not visit the DuckLake homepage which is on the .select domain. That torrents and/or porn are not hard blocked is surprising. For the low volume, I suppose anything can get through.

Large tech companies rarely block internet access, since internet access is critical for employees at tech companies.

Re: Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

#22

Post by mmooss »

xp84 wrote: post #13

> argues the supposed downloads, which are roughly 22 per year the math doesn't add up since that implies it took 100+ years to accumulate 2400 violations, but just looking at 2400 torrents, how many employees does Meta have? With at least several thousand guys, if some have poor 'keeping work and home separate' hygiene, and especially with work-from-home, they probably just forgot to disconnect from VPN after work.…

> With at least several thousand guys

Over 50,000 employees, per various sources.

Re: Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

#23

Post by mmooss »

The linked Guardian article about the copyright trolls, Strike 3, has some interesting tidbits about copyright infringement lawsuits:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2025/nov/...

> In 2014, the couple had filed a third of all US copyright litigation that year: 1,300 infringement cases.

> According to Westlaw and Pacer data from the past three years, Strike 3 accounted for 50% of the federal copyright docket all on its own.

That implies there are few copyright infringement lawsuits for a country of 340 million people. Do I misunderstand? Does the denominator all copyright infringement enforcement processes? Maybe there are mechanisms besides federal courts, and of course it omits lawsuits threatened but never filed (though Strike 3 files them and then subpeonas IP addresses).

Re: Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

#25

Post by wmf »

mmooss wrote: post #23

The linked Guardian article about the copyright trolls, Strike 3, has some interesting tidbits about copyright infringement lawsuits: https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2025/nov/... > In 2014, the couple had filed a third of all US copyright litigation that year: 1,300 infringement cases. > According to Westlaw and Pacer data from the past three years, Strike 3 accounted for 50% of the federal copyrig…

I think your understanding is correct. Lawsuits are usually a last resort after negotiations fail but in these torrent cases they have to file suit to find who to negotiate with.

Re: Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

#26

Post by tgma »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #16
gruez wrote: post #10

>Meta, naturally, argues that no! No! That porn was, uh…it was for personal use! Yeah, it was for…me, and not for large-scale copyright infringement! >[...] >Meta’s motion to dismiss the case calls Strike 3’s torrent-tracking “guesswork and innuendo” and argues the supposed downloads, which are roughly 22 per year, are too few to have any use in training AI. If anything, the company says, that pattern looks less like…

My skepticism would stem from the usual corporate firewall scanning. I routinely get blocked going to innocuous things which are on an uncommon domain or are otherwise on some block list. Recently, I could not visit the DuckLake homepage which is on the .select domain. That torrents and/or porn are not hard blocked is surprising. For the low volume, I suppose anything can get through.

Does FB not have the equivalent of GoogleGuest SSID which is open to public unauthenticated where reachable?

I've certainly downloaded Ubuntu over torrent on that wifi.

Re: Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

#27

Post by hulitu »

blululu wrote: post #8

This is funny, but from the article it also seems like a pretty frivolous law suit that is more of a shakedown racket than protecting the actual business. From the article: this amounts to only about 20 videos per year and the evidence is based on home IP addresses of employees. Such as: “The father of a Meta contractor whose home IP address allegedly downloaded 97 videos. Strike 3 suggests this links Meta to more in…

> The father of a Meta contractor whose home IP address allegedly downloaded 97 videos.

It is always those perverts grandmas and grandpas. /s

Re: Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

#28

Post by hulitu »

terminalshort wrote: post #17

I actually wouldn't be surprised if it turned out employees downloaded porn on company computers 2400 times at company the size of Meta.

> I actually wouldn't be surprised if it turned out employees downloaded porn on company computers

isn't this a reason for termination ?

Re: Meta Says the 2,400 'Adult Movies' They Torrented Were for Personal Use

#29

Post by terminalshort »

hulitu wrote: post #28
terminalshort wrote: post #17

I actually wouldn't be surprised if it turned out employees downloaded porn on company computers 2400 times at company the size of Meta.

> I actually wouldn't be surprised if it turned out employees downloaded porn on company computers isn't this a reason for termination ?

It's definitely something that could be used as a cause for termination, but whether or not to terminate is up to the company. I would personally chew out, but not fire, a strong engineer for doing that. But that's not really the point here. The point is that it isn't a good reason for a 3rd party to sue the company for copyright infringement.
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