It’s the end of 2012, so why not end the year with a bang?
One thing I do from time to time is check out a website called Torrentfreak that specialises in reporting the latest copyright infringement news, such as advancements in laws, law enforcement takedowns, naming the top pirated media, exposing law enforcement and more. But before I advance into this further, keep in mind copyright infringement (downloading copyrighted material – movies, apps, music, television shows, etc) is illegal. Don’t illegally download anything, just pay for it, seriously. You wouldn’t like it if you worked hard on something, charged for it, only for people to rip you off and get it for free, right? I doubt you would! My posts are free but I don’t like it when people simply copy/paste my work and don’t credit it.
Anyway, back to the main point. Chances are just about all of us have heard of the FBI, Sony, Microsoft, etc. The FBI stands for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is the national law enforcement in the United States of America that works to take down the big bad criminals that regular local or state police cannot. Sony makes video games, and Microsoft does too, but they also are the creators of the Windows operating system running on computers. The FBI, Sony, Microsoft, and many other companies big and small monitor this illegal downloading and try their best to take down these illegal files or even arrest the downloaders and uploaders. Recently, however, the Torrentfreak website I mentioned earlier posted an article exposing the FBI, Sony, and other companies for illegally downloading files themselves! That’s not good, is it?
I went to the search tool provided, and looked up Disney Online Studios Canada. What did I find? Someone at the Club Penguin office was breaking the law in late September and illegally downloading some games for their Android phone. Uh oh! Take a look:
In the IP column you’ll see 208.87.xxx.xxx – the numbers are their IP address, or at least part of it. Half of it is blacked out with X’s and requires you to pay to see the full IP address. However, that doesn’t matter. I have the full IP address Club Penguin uses to confirm its authenticity, and it matches up. The full IP address Club Penguin uses for their web activity is 208.87.198.126. A simple IP trace confirms the IP address is indeed located in Kelowna, Canada and belongs to Disney. The IP address has appeared in an email response from Happy77 to me, take a look:
It’s also the same IP address used when Businesmoose, Polo Field, and Happy77 have commented on my website in the past.
Now, Club Penguin has lots of employees at their Kelowna office so don’t assume it’s Businesmoose, Polo Field, or Happy77 who did this. (probably not, since they have iPhones and not Android phones) And I doubt it was a visitor at the office too, since this IP address is from Club Penguin’s VPN, which stands for Virtual Private Network. The main purpose of a VPN are to let you be at home and access your company’s computers, stop people from snooping on your internet activity, and lets you access certain files that you can only access with a particular IP address – it’s how only Club Penguin can connect to their moderator servers.
So there you have it. Someone at Club Penguin broke the law and committed a crime by illegally downloading a few Android games. Remember everyone, just because nobody sees you do it doesn’t mean you aren’t caught! Fork over the few dollars for something rather than break the law. :)
On a related note: Club Penguin Private Servers are also illegal, since from what I’ve heard they all offer free membership. (and they use Club Penguin’s code without permission) Rather than paying for a membership on the real Club Penguin, you’re robbing them of $5+
