BitTorrent guerilla campaign nipped by pro-copyright movement

Before (via BI)

After (via BI)

You've probably already seen pictures of the mystery billboards that popped up recently in New York and California, which were soon revealed as a "free the internet" campaign for BitTorrent, "a decentralized, artist-owned publishing platform: a zero-cost alternative for media distribution."

Some people took issue with BitTorrent's claim to be a "a secure, distributed response to the challenge of data surveillance: a way to sync and store information, free from the cloud". One of them was American musician David Lowery.

In a rant published on The Trichordist, Mr. Lowery — a self-described "Luddite Artist" — included "the IP addresses, ports  and some sample Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven songs being hosted and illegally torrented by 33 Bit Torrent users".

 This is using one of the vast number of tools available to snoop on Bit Torrent traffic–think the NSA doesn’t use this for jihadi communications???? 

And to the folks illegally sharing my music?   You might want to ask what other naughty stuff I can see on your computer? 

Seriously, if I could figure this out in 20 minutes how hard is it for the NSA? FBI? Local PD? Hacker? 

Apparently BitTorrent doesn’t even understand how it’s own product works. Luddites.

On Tuesday, rightthemusic.com, an anonymous organization claiming to represent pro-copyright artists, has placed spoof banner ads on Rollingstone.com, The Drudge Report, Mashable, FileHippo, GrooveShark, MediaFire and more:

Here's one on Rolling Stone:

It sounds like the copyright battle is coming soon to some ads near you.

(Thanks to an anonymous reader for the tip.)