Any sales of credentials for service accounts where a right to property does not exist for the user IS illegal (misuse of access). Access to an account without the express permission of the site owner is constituted as illegal access and any services used is theft of service. There is no major difference between providing credentials or access codes to authorize service on an internet modem, a cable box, or satellite dish than there is providing credentials to a website to gain access to services. Re-selling services when not explicitly authorized is illegal access.

There is an exception pertaining to transferability of accounts (or the goods within those accounts) when the account contains physical property of the account holder (such as a lock box containing personal possessions) or your own bitcoin wallet. Transferability of games purchased by the account holder of a steam account qualifies (backed by EU case precedent), as do transferability of funds (assets) in a bank account, stock trade accounts (assets), and transferability of goods in amazon accounts (that hold music, movies, or ebooks purchased or owned by an account holder). There is legal argument and precedent to potentially apply this towards transferability of music purchased through online accounts like itunes (it hasn't been tested yet in some jurisdictions, but it should hold in the eu). These are specific instances where the account holder holds a right to property within an account.

But the vast majority of accounts are only granted on provisional access, such as service accounts or user accounts like newegg, ebay, or other accounts which allow you the ability to facilitate direct purchases or use database services, but don't allow you to hold or retain any physical property in an account. The user does not own the database for which they use, they are provided provisional access to services, which may subsequently produce an intangible good as a byproduct of use.

Torrent accounts and nzb accounts are service accounts granted on provisional access. Invites are access codes and can not be sold without authorization of such sales by the site owner or it becomes illegal access and theft of service. The user does not hold a right to property, they are granted provisional access to use a database service, therefore they have no right to sale. This is considered a service; database and bandwidth services are utilized, an account may generate an nzb (user may claim some ownership of the generated nzb at that point as an intangible good), but they do not own the account used to generate it. This is no different than using my provisioned bitcointalk.org account to make posts to a database (a service), and then using the print function via my web browser to make a copy of a thread or post (a tangible good created by a service).

A similar argument would apply to the sale of bitcointalk.org accounts.  I do not own your server or database (property), nor do I own the bandwidth (hosting services) that you pay for.  I do not have a right to resell your services should anyone choose to want to buy accounts from me if I registered them or acquired them by other *wink* means.  Doing so would constitute theft of service unless you explicitly authorized such transactions for your own website.

Putting legalities aside, how do you expect someone to acquire accounts in bulk unless they are hacking or automating site registrations en mass (site abuse)?   How would you expect a member to sell more than one set of credentials (account) unless they're acquiring accounts in illegal or very shady means?  Bulk sales should throw a red flag and warrant thread lock or user ban no matter who sells them and it shouldn't matter if they are sales of credentials for a forum, a business account, or any other type of account that has a login mechanism.



I think you missed the point of the existing thread, hacked/compromised account trades are illegal, as are unauthorized trades of credentials.   Access is provided to an authorized user.  That user may invite another user, but the user is not permitted to sell their accounts or invites.  Doing so constitutes a breach of ToS and is considered misuse of devices per the Council of Europe Treaty - Convention on Cybercrime CETS No.: 185. Any attempt to gain access to a system as a result of such sales constitutes illegal access.  Torrentinvites.org can operate, but they are not reputable, nor are their activities of trading ("making availability of") credentials legal by the Convention of Cybercrime signed and ratified by a majority of EU nation member states and non-member states like the US.





Being vouched does not eliminate illegality of these sales.

I think you're missing the point.  Mass registrations aren't illegal (unless it's brute force, or DDoS), but the sales of those accounts are illegal if it's a service account where the registered user is granted provisional access.  Selling such service accounts when the user is not authorized to do so (and holds no right to property) constitutes a breach of ToS and is considered misuse of access (illegal).  Any user which gains access to the service account is doing so illegally, which is considered illegal access with theft of service.

It's not like selling your bitcoin wallet which you actually own a right to property and therefore you have the right to sell.  

You're trying to rationalize illegal sales and theft of service by only recognizing the highly illegal sales of hacked/compromised credentials while turning a blind eye to illegal sales of access codes (invites) and credentials of service accounts, which will then be used for theft of service.

I think we've already established which nations signed on to the treaty, as you can see that covers most of europe and other nations like the United States.  Theft of service is theft of service no matter how you rationalize it.  You're using services which are not authorized for use and therefore it is considered illegal access.

Theymos I'll ask you this, if you tried to use a hacked cable modem (stolen, compromised, or access codes that were given to you which you were not authorized to use) would you be prosecuted for theft of service?  I guarantee you the answer is yes.  The same argument and logic applies to gaining access to a site with service account credentials that were not authorized to a specific user. Unauthorized consumption of bandwidth and resources of a server is theft of service.

If you support, rationalize, and approve of these transactions, you are approving illegal sales, which go against your own marketplace rules.

There's a difference between a good (property) and a service.  Goods can be traded per the rule of first-sale doctrine.  Services can not be resold without approval of the property owner (site owner).

All secondary sales of service accounts or invites which employ a database and bandwidth should be observed as illegal unless explicitly permitted by the site owner.  Failing to ban secondary sales of service accounts opens the site and staff to criminal and civil liability for facilitating illegal transactions. Secondary sales refers to sales in an underlying market, which is not the same as a primary market of first availability (site owner).

how come this guy gets to sell accounts?
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/134044.0

selling invites doesn't make a difference.

I have not threatened anyone.  I have however bought to light the criminal and civil liability that exists from ignoring transactions of illegal sales, which so far appears to be what the staff here is advocating for.





Actually prosecutions of computer fraud, access fraud, and theft of service does routinely hold up in court.  Unauthorized distribution or sales of access codes do result in jail time.  I already posted proof the previous thread and you'll find that most first world nations and even third world nations contain laws covering this activity.  Invites are access codes which if shared in an unauthorized manner are considered illegal access.  It's no different then providing login credentials.  If you want to believe something else, you're free to do so, but laws in most nations state otherwise.

It seems like the admin here is finding new and creative ways to rationalize existing behavior and transactions without changing much of anything other than banning the low hanging fruit that dare to be bold enough to admit to their procurement and acquisition methods.

Nothing has really changed.  As long as the seller admits nothing publicly it's business as usual and the rules that Theymos has drafted clearly reflect that.

I answered that in the 2nd post, but if you would prefer an abridged version I posted in this other thread.

It bothers me to see someone like you trying to police this forum. You have said your piece more than a couple times here. If you don't like whats going on here, then just get off of the forum, please. Save your breath and save us all from having to read your legalese.