Quote from: theymos on January 05, 2013, 03:41:49 AM

Selling invites is allowed, but there are some restrictions in order to prevent people from selling accounts and invites obtained through hacking. In order to sell invites or accounts to invite-only sites, you must:
- Have some history here, with more history being required for trades of invites/accounts in bulk. Or,

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* 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.

Quote from: theymos on January 05, 2013, 03:41:49 AM

- Have substantial history on reputable invite trading forums such as torrentinvites.org which prohibit selling hacked accounts.

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.

Quote from: shep on January 02, 2013, 10:59:27 AM

Quote from: TradeFortress on January 02, 2013, 09:28:30 AM

Quote from: 21after2 on January 02, 2013, 05:16:31 AM

I would think sales of accounts would be considered an illegal activity, which we're not supposed to post here on BitCoinTalk.

No, that's ridiculous. I should be able to sell *my* accounts, but there should be forum rules prohibiting selling other accounts.

I honestly feel that the only reason this forum allows it is because of the donations.

Bitcointalk.org domain is registered in Toronto, Canada.
However, this forum is hosted in the US and is subject to US laws and regulations.

Bitcointalk.org
IP Location Results for 50.97.137.52
==============

City:
Zip Code:
Region Code:
Region Name:
Country Code: US
Country Name: United States
Latitude: 38
Longitude: -97
GMT Offset:
DST Offset:

Now, I'm sure some of you are asking, "what if the forum was hosted in Europe?"
The Council of Europe proposed a treaty covering cybercrime in 2001. A majority of
member states and non-member states have either signed the treaty or ratified
the treaty by accession over the past 11 years.

What is the definition of accession with respect to Treaties?

http://treaties.un.org/Pages/Overview.aspx?path=overview/glossary/page1_en.xml#accession

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3. Accession

"Accession" is the act whereby a state accepts the offer or the opportunity to become a party to a treaty already negotiated and signed by other states. It has the same legal effect as ratification. Accession usually occurs after the treaty has entered into force. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his function as depositary, has also accepted accessions to some conventions before their entry into force. The conditions under which accession may occur and the procedure involved depend on the provisions of the treaty. A treaty might provide for the accession of all other states or for a limited and defined number of states. In the absence of such a provision, accession can only occur where the negotiating states were agreed or subsequently agree on it in the case of the state in question.

[Arts.2 (1) (b) and 15, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969]

In simple terms, there are laws covering sales of hacked/compromised and or
unauthorized transfers of accounts.

Council of Europe Treaty - Convention on Cybercrime CETS No.: 185

http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=185&CM=8&DF=&CL=ENG

Chart of ratifications and signatures by member states and non-member states

http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ChercheSig.asp?NT=185&CM=8&DF=&CL=ENG

Full Text with relevant passage(s) cited.

http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/185.htm

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Article 2 Illegal access

Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally, the access to the whole or any part of a computer system without right. A Party may require that the offence be committed by infringing security measures, with the intent of obtaining computer data or other dishonest intent, or in relation to a computer system that is connected to another computer system.

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Article 6 Misuse of devices

1 Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally and without right:

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a the production, sale, procurement for use, import, distribution or otherwise making available of:

Quote

i a device, including a computer program, designed or adapted primarily for the purpose of committing any of the offences established in accordance with Articles 2 through 5;

ii a computer password, access code, or similar data by which the whole or any part of a computer system is capable of being accessed,

with intent that it be used for the purpose of committing any of the offences established in Articles 2 through 5; and

b the possession of an item referred to in paragraphs a.i or ii above, with intent that it be used for the purpose of committing any of the offences established in Articles 2 through 5. A Party may require by law that a number of such items be possessed before criminal liability attaches.

2 This article shall not be interpreted as imposing criminal liability where the production, sale, procurement for use, import, distribution or otherwise making available or possession referred to in paragraph 1 of this article is not for the purpose of committing an offence established in accordance with Articles 2 through 5 of this Convention, such as for the authorised testing or protection of a computer system.

3 Each Party may reserve the right not to apply paragraph 1 of this article, provided that the reservation does not concern the sale, distribution or otherwise making available of the items referred to in paragraph 1 a.ii of this article.

Quote from: theymos on January 05, 2013, 03:41:49 AM

Or,
- Be vouched for by someone from one of the above two categories.

Being vouched does not eliminate illegality of these sales.