AfterDawn: Tech news

LokiTorrent Fraud claims circulating

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Feb 2005 4:39 User comments (18)

LokiTorrent Fraud claims circulating More details about the LokiTorrent vs. MPAA case are being spread across the Internet and at the very least; they are quite disturbing for the P2P community. There is an interesting post on Earth Reactor that claims to expose the truth about this case. Below I have pasted much of the content from the original post.
LOKI TORRENT LAWSUIT :: A HOAX Written by: SharePro

As unknown facts continue to reveal themselves in the MPAA vs. LokiTorrent case, we feel a need to update the community with the following facts.

Please note: Attributing to the confusion surrounding this case, we have established that Ed Webber was not sued directly by the MPAA, rather was sued by individual media corporations such as Columbia, Disney, & Fox. Since the "MPAA" (Motion Picture Association of America) does not appear anywhere in the actual court filing, any search query for "MPAA" via the Texas Court Search Engine came up empty. In other words, the MPAA did not officially sue Ed Webber, rather the individual media companies, in a joint case, sued Ed Webber. We apologize for any confusion.



1) In several p2p interviews and on Lokitorrent.com website, Ed Webber accepted a responsibility to fight the MPAA in court on behalf of both his website(s) and the p2p community. By accepting such a task and responsibility, Ed Webber received not only the trust of millions of p2pr's worldwide, but also tens of thousands of dollars monthly to support legal fee's.

2) Ed Webber did not fight a case in court and it is doubtful whether he ever intended to. Mr. Webber settled his case in the preliminary stages of a court filing outside of court.

The title of our original article, "LOKITORRENT COURT CASE :: HOAX" is and remains to be TRUE. No judge or jury of our peers ever had the chance to review the facts of this case as it was never deliberated in a court of law. The "court order" is nothing more than a private agreement between the MPAA and Ed Webber, which was given legal standing by a judge.

Ed Webber knowingly manipulated the p2p community into donating a large amount of funds while during the same exact time, without the knowledge or agreement of the p2p community, closed a deal that potentially puts each and everyone of his supporting bit torrent community and website visiting members at risk.

During the time that Mr. Webber was accepting funds from the p2p community, and also instructing his lawyers to screw the p2p community, he also found time to try and secretly sell the domain on Sedo.com

On January 3, 2005, Slyck.com reported Lokitorrent.com required funds to support "legal fees". Most lawsuits, such as the Kazaa vs. RIAA case in California, take years to reveal themselves yet the p2p community was very willing to support this legal endeavor. Exactly one month after the Slyck.com article, all funds raised by Ed Webber via Lokitorrent.com were transferred to the MPAA.

3) Ed Webber accepted donations while in fact his lawyers were busy selling out the p2p file share community whose funds were being used to support the court case. Ed Webber failed to update the p2p community with the necessary details of the legal proceedings, thus everybody was left in the dark. We do not know the exact details of when or how Ed Webber and the MPAA made a deal, however, the fundraising began on January 3, 2005 and the deal between the MPAA vs. Ed Webber was signed by a judge on Feb 15, 2005.



It is assumed that the deal between Ed Webber and the MPAA deal was being "cooked" at least 30 days prior to the actual court order which means that Ed Webber began (from the get go) accepting funds from the p2p community when in fact he already knew that he was going to close a deal with the MPAA. In other words, Ed Webber committed FRAUD.

4) Ultimately, Ed Webber accepted the MPAA's position that BIT TORRENT sites are financially responsible for providing "illegal files" and folded before any legal lawsuit could realize themselves in a court of law. Ed, as trustee of tens of thousands of file sharers dollars, not only sold out the file share community that he represented, but also set a very dangerous precedent for future file share sites who are interested in encouraging community members to donate money to fight the RIAA & MPAA.

5) According to todays WHOIS domain command feature, LokiTorrent.com, Webbsense.com, Torrentstop.com, and Mufftorrent.com are still registered and owned by Ed Webber and are still hosted on his personal servers.

Mufftorrent.com and Websense.com continue to display their original website homepage features (without the torrents) while Lokitorrent.com & Torrentstop.com display an MPAA message warning potential file sharer's "you can click but you cant hide". At first this confused the best of us.

After reviewing Section 4, Article "(C)", of the LOKITORRENT AGREEMENT WITH MPAA, please note the following text: "Shall affirmatively monitor and patrol for, and preclude access to...". In other words, Ed Webber has agreed to become an affirmative informant for the MPAA. That explains why the site is still owned and controlled by Ed Webber.

I encourage our users to visit the original post as there is way more about the case than is pasted here.

DEBUNKED - Case was no Hoax! Read Here.

Source:
EarthReactor

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18 user comments

125.2.2005 16:46

At least now we all know the way Ed Webber's really cut. huh? I'm glad i was never big on Lokitorrent for some reason...

225.2.2005 20:02

I bet the MPAA doesn't care that he committed fraud and then payed them the money he got from it.

325.2.2005 21:16

glad I didn't donate :)

425.2.2005 21:57

so does this mean that ppl who downloaded from lokitorretn are going to get sued now

525.2.2005 23:31

Yes, now you're going to get sued and die!!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

625.2.2005 23:34
ashtonjay
Inactive

if people are stupid enough to give this guy money then they deserve to be ripped off i cant believe how many suckers there are out there.

726.2.2005 01:11

couple of points: On the question of downloaders getting sued in the comments: no downloader has ever been sued for downloading. They have always stuck to uploaders and facilitators. despite the RIAA and the mpaa intentionally implying this, and the media not understanding the difference, downloaders have not been sued and or prosecuted.

826.2.2005 05:00

The bad comes with the good. Shame on Ed Webber. He "webbed" us all in this fraud.

926.2.2005 10:06

wonder if the people that donated money could sue ed weber for fraud noe that would be some shit ONE HUGE CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT ya baby he'd be ruind.....how the hell do ya spell ruined hmm ?

1026.2.2005 11:12

I agree with XdjxedxdX. He wanted everyone to help him because he was getting sued - seems only fair that he should get sued. Too bad I didn't donate or I'd be the first to nail him.

1126.2.2005 11:35

UPDATE: These claims have been debunked. The case at least, not a hoax. Please Read : http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6142.cfm

1227.2.2005 05:44
cdd1234
Inactive

It's really, really sad what Ed Webber did to scam users in the P2P community. I didn't donate, and I'm not tryin' to be righteous either. But someone who takes the TRUST of thousands, maybe even millions and flushes that TRUST down the toilet, deserves to be sued or punished. But since I feel that that ain't gonna happen, here's hoping that he burns n dies in HELL !!! I feel really bad for all those who donated or thought they were donating to a just cause for that matter.

1327.2.2005 19:57

to lighten things up a bit. I imagine the whoms who donated probably went as far as 5 to 10 bucks a piece. It's not alot looking at it from that point of view. It was the quantity of whoms that fattened his pockets.

1427.2.2005 23:48
fancymojo
Inactive

HOW MUCH DO U THINK IT WAS????

1528.2.2005 10:19

'He "webbed" us all in this fraud.' Not all of us :-) I have never had the patience to try downloading from any bit torrent site.

1628.2.2005 10:20

PS - This reminds me of another on-line crook who asked for donations to help his cause, only he made a TON of dough by selling an illegal product at the same time.

1728.2.2005 12:11

Quote:
flushes that TRUST down the toilet
How do you think I feel? =(

1818.3.2005 11:46

It's not like people just sent money to a con man, this guy was running a successful Torrent site for ages. So when a lot of other sites bit the dust and Ed Webber put himself forward as 'The knight in shinning armour' he received a lot of support. But in the end he was just covering his own back.

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