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SOCA arrest people behind music blog
Wednesday 15 February 2012 11:23:27 by Andrew Ferguson

A website that claimed to offer exclusive content for download, and claimed to have 1 to 2 million visitors when selling advertising space on the site has been closed down by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

The site rnbxclusive.com was apparently offering a large number of music files for download, but the majority were stolen from artists, and SOCA is warning visitors to the domain that it now has control of it and it is collecting information on visitors (past and present) and those who had downloaded music from the website previously could have committed a criminal offence.

A list of legal music sites is available at www.pro-music.org.

Credit goes to Rory Cellan-Jones for spotting this take-down and letting the world know via twitter.

The warnings of a potential criminal offence we presume would mainly apply to those who subsequently profit from their downloads, since copyright infringement is usually dealt with as a civil offence. Only where people profit from it are criminal charges usually brought.

[ Topic: Content | 16 comments | link to this item ]

Comments

Posted by GMAN99 about 1 year ago
"and SOCA is warning visitors to the domain that it now has control of it and it is collecting information on visitors (past and present) and those who had downloaded music from the website previously could have committed a criminal offence." - That'll scare a few although proving downloaders have made a profit (i.e. car boot etc) will be hard and surely cost more as a whole than any fines given out

Posted by davolente about 1 year ago
Wow. This makes me feel a whole lot safer and I can sleep easy now at night. These SOCA folk are certainly going after a VERY SERIOUS crime here. What a waste of public money - or is it, after reading elsewhere that companies have been funding police investigations?

Posted by Kushan about 1 year ago
The site is actually rnbxclusive.com, not mbxclusive.com.

Posted by audioslim about 1 year ago
So are SOCA (in their current capacity as 'controller') still allowing downloads of illegal/copyrighted material?.

If they are they are breaking the law, if they arent then anybody visiting that site isnt in any danger of doing anything illegal.
Catch 22 here SOCA.

Perhaps its time for a police complaint.

Slim

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
There is no site, all pages give 404 or direct to the front page notice.

Their wording suggests they have server logs and may be processing them. Constant requests for data is now missing, that has a referrer url that links back to another site which is also selling content/advertising could see more action I suspect.

Posted by wisnoskij about 1 year ago
The site implies that even if you did not download anything, simply visiting the site post take-down is enough to get investigative and prosecuted.

And apparently my browser is "Desktop"...

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
Investigate, as in you've shown interest, so we will check logs and see if you were a regular visit before, and what were you downloading.

Websites can have extension logs of what people clicking on etc

Posted by bonnington about 1 year ago
theregister was reporting this yesterday so Rory was well behind the news.

Posted by otester about 1 year ago
Downloading isn't illegal under law, I think this is just a test case to see if they can get away with it/set a precedent.

Looks like SOCA is now bought and paid for along with the rest of government.

Posted by otester about 1 year ago
Cont.

They even fail to realize that copyright infringement isn't stealing.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
Test case? I thought the people arrested were the site owners, if making money then a clear case.

The wording for visitors is scare tactics, but people with exclusive CD's are boot fairs get material somewhere.

Posted by otester about 1 year ago
@andrew

The tv links case involved adverts.

However I am unsure of how the rnbxclusive guys profited.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
@otester

Found information indicating that the site sold advertising, hence first line of the article.

A previous example.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-13788440

Posted by otester about 1 year ago
@andrew

Hmm, guess it depends if the judge sees a difference between Adsense style advertising or individually selling space.

Going by the previous example these guys should hope they get jail over here.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
You make money from both, so what is the difference?

How it is hosted and managed is irrelevant.

Posted by otester about 1 year ago
@andrew

It is very relevant, if rnbxclusive was just hosting links they'll be ok otherwise they are dead in the water, regardless of the money made.