Should you work with Leaseweb if you produce content?
 

The short answer is No. Unless you're cool with a company that turns a blind eye to rampant copyright infringement. And before you apologists start trashing me, keep in mind that this very same Leaseweb was recently INVITED to speak on a panel at Internext moderated by our beloved Brad Mitchell. However, when confronted with the facts about how Leaseweb could care less about people stealing and monetizing your content...Brad went into "Human Shield" mode for Leaseweb.

And for the record, I REALLY like Brad...but there were content producers in the audience who wanted to know whether or not they should do business with this Leaseweb company. And the Leaseweb representative would not even answer the questions posed to him, except to look content producers in the eyes and lie to them. Bros indeed!

So those of you who don't care about respecting other people's intellectual property can trash me and this thread and stick up for your bros who would just as soon rip you off as anyone else, but here's the facts:

Here's a site hosted by Leaseweb:
3xupdate.com

There's give or take 16,000 DVDrips being distributed via that site. The owner of that site makes no bones about ripping off content and even reuploading the content that is reported:
So what happens when you report this site to Leaseweb? Here's the form letter you get:
So what happens if you do EXACTLY as Leaseweb requires? What happens if you include the IP address, email the site owner directly, wait 5 days and still no response? Here's the form email you get from Leaseweb:
They contact the pirate. Assuming this means they forward the email. That is it. If the pirate does nothing, what does Leaseweb do? The same - nothing. They will take NO ACTION whatsoever.

But what they will do is show up at Internext and be treated like BROS by the piracy apologists out there.

I know 99% of you on this board don't produce any intellectual property so you could care less if content is being ripped off. I'd like it if you guys actually cared about respecting other people's rights as I'm sure you would appreciate having your rights respected. But I know there are some of you out there that have the basic human decency to respect that a person's hard work should not be exploited by others. Or at least you maybe have the vision to see that if a company is willing to stab someone else in the back, that they'll do the same to you if given the chance.

They make money off of pirates, taking their stuff down makes them no money right?

Start sending DMCA to domain registrar.

Make no mistake about it. Leaseweb is beloved by pirates. Their (Leaseweb) claim of "a policy banning illegal distribution of copyrighted material" is completely bogus. The only policy they have is forwarding emails asking pirates to not be pirates. So they profit handsomely from piracy and are doing NOTHING to stop it or prune pirates from their customers. But they'll show up at Internext and probably The Phoenix Forum and try to win your business.

Also, I thought Tracy Lords content was illegal...why is there so much of it being distributed via 3xupdate, a Leaseweb customer. Hmmmmmm?

I have a server at leaseweb myself, it's hosting the thumbnails for the thumb version. Very fast, I'm happy with it. All unmanaged though. They install the machine and give you a root password, that's it...

I believe the laws are wrong. If your steal a car and you get caught you'll get fined. You're punished... if you redistribute illegal content the worst thing that could happen is that you get a letter saying you should take it down. That's it. Nothing more... that's where the real problem is! Of course it's hard to make laws that would work internationally. But the way things are going now is ridiculous, people can do what they want and post what they want, since they only run into the risk of getting the letter...

I understand Brad's position in this as well as Leaseweb's... it shouldn't be the responsibility of the provider. After all, you can't blame the roadworker for criminals that drive on his road... the laws are too soft. And they have been too soft since the beginning of the web. Time for a change... hard to do this, it will cost a lot of time and money. And unfortunately most money these days is with the people that will suffer from good laws...

I don't blame Brad. We've sent out over 200,000 DMCA notices and not a single one has ever had to go to Mojo because Mojo is not a safe haven for pirates.

I do disagree that no responsibility should rest with the providers. They do bear the responsibility to do SOMETHING. If they are informed that one of their customers is not only violating their own TOS, and also the LAW and they choose to do NOTHING (the Leaseweb response), then they are enablers and should bear some of the guilt.

If they are informed and take action, that's the responsible thing to do. The rest of the Internext panel was filled with hosts that ARE NOT havens for pirates. Only Leaseweb was the clear scumbag on that panel.

There are more "safe havens" out there. Swiftwill is one for instance... Has more to do with the pricing plan than with the responsibility they take I think...

The lawmakers should do something. Even when they do take proper action and take down content as soon as people are notified, it shouldn't be on there in the first place. That's not the hosts problem, it's the webmaster's...

Ya won't see lawmakers do jackshit because it's so easy for people like Google to finance astroturf organizations like the EFF to whip people into a hysterical frenzy at the mere mention of the word copyright.

I realize there are always going to be "safe havens", there's safe havens for just about any illegal activity you can think of. But that doesn't mean that we should turn a blind eye to when those enablers like Leaseweb try and infiltrate our shows. And we shouldn't become apologists for them. If I was a standup host like Mojo I would be pissed that I even have to be lumped in the same group with a bunch of enablers like Leaseweb. Next Internext we might as well have The Pirate Bay and Oron tell us what great guys they are...we can get some GFY luminaries to defend them I'm sure. Hell maybe AVN should even give Pornhub an award....oh wait....

Nail on the head. Exactly my point. This is the only way to solve it. Make real world laws for the web. Stealing should be punished. Not the people that sell black clothing or the company that built a thief's car, the thief should be punished.

I was just thinking that... Guess where they host...

If someone does not either film or fuck or can bring someone to get fucked. They have no business being in the porn industry.

Therefore the solution for content producers is collusion.

Content producers need a place where they can discuss problems and who is causing problems and brainstorm what they can do to eliminate those problems.

We are working hard to kill off sites like this. Perhaps the OP can shoot me an email via the contact form at http://copycontrol.org

Leaseweb is about the worst - i've been laughed at by them, told that the DMCA is an American law, which is true, and they really aren't obligated to do anything. They host more pirates than any hosting company I can think of.

How did Brad go into 'human shield' mode for them? They are his competition no?

Never had any luck removing pirated content from leaseweb or webazilla.
I own content studio and this important to me.

Send an EUCD to the abuse address of the website where you require removal.

If nothing happens after 5 days, send a copy of the email and the IP address of the website you're complaining about to Leaseweb.

Leaseweb will then contact the website that you're complaining about to remove the links.

Thats really all you should need to do


However, If after a further 5 days the links are still there:

Re-contact Leaseweb (This is quite common). Include everything from the original mail, IP address etc and the case number that they should have given you.

They will then remove the links themselves




They've removed submitted links from rogue forums and cyberlockers for me when using this procedure. Its arduous and annoying but you can get them taken down.

Well there's lots of adult stuff such as ero-advertising:

http://website.brothersoft.com/hostcompany/LeaseWeb/
http://advsites.net/hoster/LeaseWeb/
http://cnet.robtex.com/85.17.80.html
http://webdetail.org/isp/LeaseWeb_B.V.

Stopped using leaseweb because of that issue, warez and torrent sites that they don't do nothing about it.

It's not just pirates. I've personally reported serious network security issues to them such as DDOS, brute force attacks and other hacking activity with no action being taken. I finally had to block large segments of their allocations from our entire network or continue to deal with non stop attacks.

Same goes for spamming from their network. Yet, they manage to clear their SBLs and other listings so they're willing to put in the effort when it counts - for them.

They host wikipedia for euro traffic too:

http://www.leaseweb.com/en/about-us/...dia-foundation

In clients they did not list porn or pirate however.

I wasn't there so I don't know about the "Human Shield" comment, but if that was the case then that is very lame and shameful. These piracy havens deserve to be put on the hook for what they are doing and crucified publicly every chance given. If they don't like it, they should not put themselves in a position to take fire from those you are screwing, and they certainly should not be protected by "legit" companies. It makes the ones we think are legit look bad.

Anyone have the video of this event?

Don't shoot the messenger I always say. I believe they're 'just a host' and although you guys are right: it would be a solution of the host would pull the content, it doesn't take away the fact that the real problem is the site that has the content in the first place. If they're not hosting at one cheap host they'll move elsewhere. Imagine contacting a Russian host with a copyright problem. They couldn't care less. At least there's something you can do about stuff now. Although the time it takes is ridiculous. 5 days waiting before you can report, then 5 more days before they (can) take action... So, a host taking action doesn't solve anything. You'll scare people away to a host that REALLY doesn't care, so it's pushing the problem forward to an even bigger problem...

Theft should be punished. There should be fines, a warning the first time, 1500$ on the second, 10k$ after that. That will put an end to this theft.

Brad's panel was on web hosting; it was not meant to concentrate on one web host. Brad knew that there were going to be some people there that just wanted to confront Leaseweb, but that was not the purpose of the panel, so he gave them their time then attempted to move along.

Like a moderator is supposed to.

what ^^ said

and send dmca cc to all those advertising companies he is getting paid by also to AK.

http://www.kupywrestlingwallpapers.i...r-1280x800.jpg

Which one is Brad?

I am not producing content but i wont ever host at them due their arrogant behavior.

That's not an exactly accurate depiction of what happened. Brad did try to do his best as as a moderator, but his first reaction when the issue of copyright infringement was brought up was to not allow the piracy topic in the first place. In his words "that's a subject for a whole other panel". So apparently hosts that support piracy are not to be questioned about hosting piracy on a panel about hosting.

"In other words, move along there's nothing to see here" approach.

Only after other people spoke up and basically forced the topic was the topic even discussed. Then Brad tried to frame it as an attack on the whole panel, despite the continued assurances from the audience that 4 of the 5 people on that panel don't even have to chime in on this topic, because only one of the panelists was a known piracy haven.

So Brad was just caught in the middle but IMO he took the approach of defending Leaseweb instead of allowing them to be held accountable for their actions. The rumors floating around are that Leaseweb knew this COULD happen and wanted assurances they would not be questioned about piracy. They wanted softballs and "how great is Leaseweb" level ass-kissing. I was happy to give them just the opposite.

I'll make some more time to post over the weekend. What's being said here is one person's view on the conversation within this panel. I invite anyone else here to donate their time to AVN for moderating, its not an easy task. Half Man, Half Amazing- you didn't even notice that the owner of Reflected/Swiftwill was on the panel. Or, for that matter, that I couldn't find or get any other hosts in attendance to agree to join us. Leon from AdultEUHost wad another invited panelist but had family illness and was unable to travel and attend.

Brad

Swiftwill doesn't ignore DMCAs.

Leaseweb does.

And I know moderating isn't easy. You're not the only person who has moderated panels Brad.

Like I said, I don't envy the position you were in. You were caught in the middle and this episode would have happened no matter who the moderator was. What I would have liked to have seen was a "Leaseweb, do you care to respond to these accusations?" instead of essentially saying "we're not going to talk about a hosting issue on a hosting panel".

Read the comments in this thread, clearly I'm not the only one who thinks Leaseweb is bunch of lowlifes. If more people from this thread had been at the panel it might have gotten even more intense.

I already knew he wouldn't because that was established up front so I was trying to save us time so that we could talk about technology.

Brad

Oh I too would have been surprised if he would have had the courage to talk about the policy of the company he works for in regards to the rampant piracy they enable.

There were content creators in that crowd, there were people who were affected by the pirates that Leaseweb hosts and refuses to take any action against. Leaseweb wanted that panel to be a sales pitch to those people.

But we're kinda getting OT here. Let's talk about Leaseweb's policy which I laid out in the original post. Anyone creating content or that respects copyright should take a long hard look at how Leaseweb thinks of them and ask themselves if that's who they want to do business with.