Why do the RIAA, MPAA and other anti torrent agencies not directly catch torrent user

[classyboy]

This may sound a noobish question, but I was interested in knowing, what stops these anti torrent agencies from being memberso f torrent communities and catch leechers. For example, one of these agencies can easily have an acc in popular trackers like TorrentLeech etc. They can themselves download some torrent, and then can catch others by IP address from the peers tab in torrent client, who are downloading. I know it amounts to intrusion of privacy, but apart from that, what law prevents them from doing that?

[anon]

None - in fact, many huge "private" trackers like TL are already infiltrated. Many members have received letters. And they don't break any rules by transferring the files, since they have permission from the copyright holders.

[C3PO]

None - in fact, many huge "private" trackers like TL are already infiltrated. Many members have received letters. And they don't break any rules by transferring the files, since they have permission from the copyright holders.

But then ure downloading form a licensed source :)

[SealLion]

Just out of curiosity, but what did or has happened to some of the infiltrators in places like TL? Were the infiltrators caught and banned from site or allowed to remain??

[classyboy]

Were the infiltrators caught and banned from site or allowed to remain??

I guess it would be difficult to ban them

[anon]

I don't think tracker staff would allow them to stay, just as I don't think the companies doing this are stupid.

[bjs]

Let us state the plain fact - these so-called "anti-piracy" trolls are actually taking advantage of torrenting. They send letters to hundreds of thousands of people demanding a "small" fee of thousands of dollars to settle the cases. Even when a small number of their victims fall into the trap, they would make a fortune!

As far as I know, none of these individual lawsuits have been really tested in court.

[slikrapid]

Why do the RIAA, MPAA and other anti torrent agencies not directly catch torrent user

thats not their job (specialized lawyers & companies do that), their aim is to inflate the copyright infringement issue as much as possible, keep it a hot topic for as long as possible, profit from it as much as possible (financial gains, useful legislative measures, control over the market,...), globalize & diversify the outcome(s), collaborate with other directly or indirectly interested parties (governments, entertainment industry, media, lobbyists, lawyers, courts, pro-censorship organizations, politicians,...) and so on

the issue has attracted a large number of interested organizations with various goals, it has spawned (or more correctly: rejuvenated) an entire 'business sector' that in one way or another thrives on copyright related topics, not to mention that the involved users (or the user-base or the market) are numerous/growing and their interest in torrenting/file-sharing/... isn't diminishing, regardless of the threatening machinery on the 'other side of the fence' - thus its not very useful to simply launch a large-scale attack against the infringers, as it would cripple the aforementioned 'sector', an unsound move in any industry, hence they choose the occasional non-crippling raids & co., more in-line with the above mentioned goals

As far as I know, none of these individual lawsuits have been really tested in court.

depends how you define 'really tested', but the fact remains that by 2008:

an estimated 30,000 ordinary people have been sued during the past four years in U.S. district courts by the world's four largest record companies, EMI, SONY BMG, Warner Brothers Records, and Vivendi/Universal, or their affiliates...The large majority of the defendants have defaulted, and the default judgments against them have been in amounts that represent more than 2,000 times the actual damages sustained by the plaintiffs...Of those remaining, most have paid settlement amounts that exceed 1,000 times the plaintiffs' actual damages...Only a very few have had any form of legal representation....the attorneys are usually working pro bono, or on a basis closely resembling it, sometimes as a favor and sometimes even involuntarily.

http://beckermanlegal.com/Documents/080729LargeRecordingCompaniesVsTheDefenselessHTMLVERSION.htm

[bjs]

@slikrapid, thanks for the link - it is an appalling story. You are right, there was at least one gone to trial.

Only a single case in four years, Capitol v. Thomas, has ever gone to trial, and that one only because the judge denied the defendant's attorney's motion for leave to withdraw. The defendant's involuntary lawyer never even called a single witness on his client's behalf and failed to object to the RIAA's "expert" testifying, even though the expert had conceded meeting none of the Daubert reliability standards.

Details of the case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas

[SealLion]

From the link:

...this time awarding $1,920,000 in statutory damage, a sum that was later reduced to $54,000....characterizing the original damages as "monstrous and shocking.... The record labels refused to accept the reduced award..

my, my. Aren't we greedy today.

And then...

...Thomas-Rasset filed a motion asserting the statutory damage award was so disproportionate to actual damages..The evidence collected... should have been inadmissible because it was collected in violation of state private investigator and wiretap statutes

Some organizations seem to conclude that their actions warrant breaking the laws. According to that link at the above site, the trial continues b/c as of June 12, 2012 additional arguments were brought forth.