—The words of a real-life gay teen who fears for his life if Corbin Fisher moves ahead with lawsuits against illegal filesharers. But wait, didn’t the porn company insist the chances of a kid actually being kicked out of his house, or harming himself, or taking his own life because of a lawsuit was … slim to none? This young man just promised to prove them wrong. Who’s gonna call the other’s bluff? Because that’s really a game we should be playing. (In our conversations with this young man, we’re encouraging him to get in touch with counselors at the Trevor Project, which can certainly do more to guide him through a harrowing ordeal like this than we.)
suicide pacts
This Gay Teen ‘Will End My Life’ If He’s Outed By A Corbin Fisher BitTorrent Lawsuit
I have been scared to death every since I heard about this. I live with my family and if they find out about this, I feel I will end my life. My family senses something is wrong, they keep asking me what has happened, I have not been able to eat and I am paralyzed with fear. If a letter comes, they will know immediately it is true and they will know this is what the terror they have been reading in my face is, I will not be believed if I try to say, like they have offered that, I was looking at ‘straight’ porn. I will be thrown out of the house, with nowhere to go and no options. I realize I was wrong but I was not profiting over it, I never uploaded a torrent, nor did I try to seed after it was done so I thought it would be okay, I do not have the money for any settlement and this will ruin my life. … If get sued, I will end my life first. I am not a U.S. citizen but now I live and study in [the] U.S., and I can’t afford any trials. I won’t let my parents know my secrets, and I am afraid of losing my friends. The day I am out is definitely the day I am dead. I never know that this can cause so much trouble because in my limited knowledge none was sued for just downloading without profit issues. Now I am wrong. I haven’t downloaded anything after i got to know this matter.
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Kamikapse
Stop stealing then?
Francis
Well, as we see with response #1, there are sadly a lot of people who seem to not give a damn either way about the lives at risk here, especially the slime balls at Corbin Fisher. But, ALL TEENS READING PLEASE NOTE THIS IN YOUR MEMORIES, the lawsuit is NOT going to survive in any court. It is a flimsy suit, it’s ridiculous, and it’s very likely to be ruled invalid. Do not fret yourselves over something that is very likely not to happen.
Skooby
They can only sue you for uploading, not for downloading. I was already sued by Lucas and paid them money to make it go away.
B
What QUEERTY should do is to forward the following two articles to the person they were talking to:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/the-inexact-science-behind-dmca-takedown-notices/
http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/ (with the technical paper at http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/dmca_hotsec08.pdf ).
Just one of the technical issues to keep in mind: there is often some time lag between when a torrent file is downloaded and a take down notice is sent. The time stamps for the two differ. For ISPs that use DCHP to assign addresses to customers, it is possible for the IP address to be reassigned between the time the torrent file was downloaded and the time indicated on the take-down notice. The result of that is a notice going to a person who has never downloaded anything via bit torrent.
It is also possible to frame people, so the teen can plausibly blame it on classmates playing a practical joke on him: the researchers managed to get a take down notice sent to a printer attached to their network.
Judd
If this guy receives a subpoena notice from his ISP, encourage him to get in touch with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org). They’ve represented clients pro-bono in these types of absurd class action lawsuits from content providers (and won).
Mike
TEENS, STOP WORRYING- All Corbin Fisher is doing is paying a lawyer to scare the young or uninformed into paying them money. I don’t necessarily agree with no-holds-barred illegal downloading, but I don’t agree with extortion either. Corbin Fisher is a business that is all about the dollar bill and their alleged “list” will never hold up in court. Precedent has already been set by a few cases recently. Go to eff.org.
It’s too bad, because I like alot of CF’s models- too bad it’s a shitty company they worked with.
McMike
Cry me an f’n river. There is a ton of free porn online so anyone who is dumb enough to download the stuff illegally needs to only blame themselves.
McMike
btw, this doesn’t add up at all. If these teens are scared to death of being outed then WTF are they doing downloading gay porn to their computer. I highly doubt most of these kids were transferring these movies to CD’s and stuff so I just don’t feel a lot of sympathy here.
Charlie
Ok if you are ready to kill yourself because you are afraid your parents will find porn then you really do need to seek some form of counseling or call a crisis hotline. I’m not being facetious and it’s not that I don’t care. I can’t imagine that Corbin Fisher videos are the only thing in your entire life that would out you.
What if CF calls everything off but someone in your family searches through your email or your hard drive? Talk to someone. Go to the http://www.thetrevorproject.org/ they have a hotline for gay teens.
Queerty you are really stuck on trying to prove that Corbin Fischer is out to kill gay teens. Maybe respond to them with helpful information and resources that could help them. If the instinctual reaction to having your parents find gay porn is to commit suicide then I have to say with all sincerity: call someone and talk to them there are hundreds of little ways to slip up and out yourself.
Jon B
@McMike: I fail to see your logic. Everyone has their own laptop nowadays. Parents don’t typically go on… plus, it’s very easy to hide porn in various folders in your computer that people can’t find. Of course closeted gay kids are going to download gay porn. I feel plenty of sympathy for the people who have to deal with your backwards logic on a daily basis.
Yuriy
@Charlie:
He’s not afraid of his parents finding any porn, more is he anxious about the parents finding out that he’s gay. He said if there is going to be a lawsuit from the CF company, then his parents will find out that he’s into gay porn, which ultimately leads into them knowing the boy is gay.
B
No. 11 · Yuriy wrote, “He’s not afraid of his parents finding any porn, more is he anxious about the parents finding out that he’s gay.”
… which is why he should look at the links I provided in No. 4: if he parents would be devastated at the thought of him being gay, they’ll grab any life preserver thrown in their general direction.
t seems the methods they use to identify people are cheap but error prone (and eliminating/reducing the errors would mean a lot more expense for the “entertainment” industry). If they can have a take-down notice sent to a network-attached printer (not printed on the printer but accusing the printer of downloading or distributing videos), they can be equally mistaken about this kid.
Jeffree
@Jon B: No, everyone does not have their own laptop “these days.” Some families have just one computer, either because they don’t have the moñey or because they want to control access to the internet.
Welcome to the real world, where not everyone is upper middle class or higher.
DillonS
Kamikapse, the first poster, was right: stop stealing! You don’t NEED to steal Corbin Fisher, there’s plenty of free stuff out there from amateurs.
OH, but I am a heartless bastard for expecting people to obey the law.
Obviously Queerty, which has posted on this issue ad nauseum, doesn’t think theft is such a big deal.
Ty
I’m glad to see Corbin Fisher’s extortion/blackmailing scheme is getting more coverage.
It has been featured this week on the Sirius/XM OutQ gay news. I hope Michelangelo Signorile, an OutQ host, picks up the story as well. Those with Sirius satellite radio should email him to do so.
Corbin Fisher needs to be exposed with their threats to out vulnerable gay teens.
B
No. 14 · DillonS wrote, “Kamikapse, the first poster, was right: stop stealing! You don’t NEED to steal Corbin Fisher, there’s plenty of free stuff out there from amateurs.”
An analogy would be someone setting up a “free porn bin” just around the corner from a porn shop, with the bin “fed” by shoplifters who rob the porn shop. Those are the people who deserve to be punished, not some kid who walks up, reads the “free porn” sign, and takes a video out of the bin.
Most people, teens especially, really don’t know how the technology works, nor do they understand the intricacies of copyright law, and in this case, it is not like they can ask their parents for advise in many cases.
Given the error-prone techniques used to generate take-down notices or lawsuit threats, IMHO Corbin Fisher should be held responsible for any damage caused by their actions – suicides, family arguments or breakups, or what have you. It should be criminal to send a parents a notice that their son was downloading porn (gay or straight) based on monitoring techniques that are not reliable.
Jim Hlavac
I have been rescuing gay teens, thrown out or chased out of their families, from the streets since I was a 22 year old guy with a job and an apartment in NYC. Is this yet another? So aggravating, so sad, so predictable. Kid, get thyself to a gay community center or gay bar, ye shall be taken in. No gay adult should abandon these kids who are forlorn and lost and chased away. We are the ones who must take them in and given them succor. Don’t let this be another boy lost.
caffesilvia
PEOPLE! The threat of widespread Corbin Fisher litigation is not real. It is a hoax. A trick. A scam.
Corbin Fisher does not have the resources to pursue 40,000 civil suits against Joe Schmoe downloaders. Do you understand what it would take to do that? The RIAA tried and was nearly bankrupted by the experience. Do you honestly think some two-bit amateur porn site could replicate that experiment with any success?
This is just a way to scare some percentage of people into coughing up voluntary $1,000 “settlements.” Move on…
damon459
To those who think there is all the “free” porn out there where do you think most of this “free” porn comes from? Magic “free’ porn ferries? The majority of this porn is either 5 min preview clips or it is porn that has been in fact “stolen” IE someone downloads a vid from a site which they paid to have access to and then uploaded it “illegally” onto a “free” site or they use a file sharing site again considered “illegal”. So before you crucify this young man for his actions keep in mind that nothing is “free” those actors didn’t decide to work for free using free directors, producers and like.
John
Corbin Fisher should’ve used some form of digital rights management on the videos it sells in order to link particular videos with individual customers thus enabling C.F. to go after those who illegally upload said videos to file sharing sites in the first place.
The fact that Corbin Fisher chose NOT to digitally protect its videos – even though it knew they were being uploaded to file sharing sites and then downloaded by closeted gay teens etc – amounts to near-entrapment–especially now that it’s been revealed how much $,$$$,$$$,$$$ C.F. hopes to make from effectively extorting dough out of terrified, closeted gay teens by threatening to out them.
What’s more, who’s to say that Corbin Fisher didn’t upload some of those videos itself in order to further bait a ‘honey trap’ aimed at harvesting the IP addresses of the downloaders.
BTW. How did C.F. get those reported 40,000 IP addresses? Via collusion with file sharing sites?
A prediction:
If Corbin Fisher’s de facto entrapment & extortion scheme results in the death of even ONE gay kid then…
http://pastehtml.com/view/1diters.html + http://www.joebaptista.com/attack-tool/index.html x the number of gays world-wide who are OUTRAGED that a gay pornographer has proven to be more toxic to young queers than the Westboro Baptist Church ever was = Corbin Fisher conducting its future dwindling business via mail order.
justiceontherocks
It would cost them around $4 million just in filing fees and service costs to sue 40,000 people. That’s not going to happen.
This is nothing more than a sleazy way to make money, attempted by a sleazy company that could have, but didn’t protect its product.
i watched one of their videos a couple of years back. They should be glad anyone cared enough to download the boring thing.
AFruit4Thought
I hope that you are able to find a shelter if you do, in fact, have to leave the house. Please search for gay-friendly shelters in the area. They can help you get back on your feet. There are so many wonderful things in store for you, and there IS help available. Life is not as hopeless as it seems.
To those who are blaming the victim (the kid, not Corbin Fisher), let’s get one thing straight. The penalty for illegal downloading should not be death. Saying “you should not steal” is a moot point right now. The downloading happened, and I think he’s gotten that message that it’s illegal.
So he made a mistake? I’m sure you’ve never made any mistakes. We should agree that his life is more important than Corbin Fisher using their legal rights or us preaching to the kid that he did something illegal.
KC
If he offs himself that’s his problem. I think that if you are going to be doing soemthing you shouldn’t be doing, you better have the balls to take on any consequences it might bring. Also the world’s better off without him ’cause the resources being spent on a walking shame like him could be put to better use on someone like moi, lol. Just saying…
Bubba
OMG obvious trolls (in this comment thread) are obvious. I.e. posters 1 and 23.
MaxH
I swear, are we going to keep making excuses for illegal activity? If he didn’t want to be caught (still possible without Liberty Media’s press release), he shouldn’t have downloaded illegal, unpaid for content. ESPECIALLY if he’s not a citizen, he should know (or his parents should tell him) to tread lightly and not break the law.
Unreal
How many of the morons blathering the “stop stealing” line had no problem with bailouts of banks, corporations and unions with individuals’ money?
“Stealing” indeed!
Tom
The gay community has no backbone or willpower to stand up to these abusive gay pron production companies. If anyone is hurt over this Corbin Fisher lawsuit crap, do people really believe that droves of gays will be committed to a boycott of C.F.? The only thing that will happen is people signing on to some boycott CF facebook page and a week of gossip about it. Look at Michael Lukas whom everyone hates as some “right-wing, bigot, racist gay porn star” but his business is unshakable; people still buy tons of his porn.
MaxH
@Unreal
I want this kid (and others) to stop stealing a product that it took quite a lot of money to produce – I also want you and others in the community to stop making excuses for THEFT.
I was against the bailouts, FYI. That, too, is theft of the taxpayers’ money by the big government boys in Washington.
JT
Corbin Fischer’s porn sucks!
That’s nice in theory Jim Hlavac but it doesn’t work this way in reality.
Going to the community center is better than going to a bar full of chicken queens.
JT
Corbin Fischer’s porn sucks!
That’s nice in theory Jim Hlavac but it doesn’t work this way in reality.
Going to the community center is better than going to a bar full of predatory chicken queens.
hsg9000
Corbin Fisher could easily and very inexpensively protect their content like other porn sites. Many sites have unique tags in all their clips that trace back to the subscriber. That way when they find a shared file they can close the subscriber’s account.
Why haven’t they done that? Maybe because they know they’ll make more money with these predatory extortion attempts disguised as lawsuits. They have made press statements that make it clear they know they’re targeting closeted gay men and teens. They’re no more right in what they’re doing than the shop owner who shoots a teenager shoplifting in his store. Two wrongs do not make a right, particularly when the first wrong is nowhere near as serious as the second wrong. Arguably many of the people downloading Fisher’s material wouldn’t buy it anyway because of the very fact they’re closeted.
Fisher’s reprehensible behavior seems to have blown up in their faces. I hear that people are cancelling subscriptions because of this. I hope that continues. The only way to stop greedy people is to stop patronizing them.
Blogshag
Then stop stealin’ porn, you oversexed adolescent cum-dumpster
DLT
Corbin Fisher p0rn is formulaic and repetitive, so-called straight guys – shaved and buffed to the eyebrows and covered in foundation make-up, following the same old, same old wooden routine, chat in shorts, kiss, undress, wank, BJ, fuck. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all. If some teenager had the energy to download and actually watch several Corbin Fisher p0rn films, he doesn’t deserve a fine, he deserves a bloody medal for perseverance!
Skippy
Dolts = the misinformed losers calling this “stealing”
The kid who wrote that note stole nothing.
Ntal75
If you are a teen below the age of 18, then you should NOT be on a site such as this, nor should you even be legally allowed to view porn.
Stop stealing, and cry me a river.
lukey
seriously you guys saying stop stealing porn and shit, everyone does it
and to tell a teenager to stop watching porn because there too young is like trying to tell a junkie to stop using heroin because its illegal, NOT GUNNA HAPPEN. Oversexed cumdumpster? REally? missing the glory days when you were the horny oversexed teen boy that just wanted to fufil his cock cravings old man?