

200,000 BitTorrent Users Sued In The United States - nextparadigms
http://torrentfreak.com/200000-bittorrent-users-sued-in-the-united-states-110808/

======
lemming
And they say the movie industry resists new business models.

~~~
glimcat
Abusing contract law is a very old business model for the movie and music
industries. There just wasn't the opportunity to scale like this before the
internet.

------
yread
The fact that the evidence hasn't been tested in court while ~60.000 people
had to pay damages is a clear argument for "loser pays" court system.

~~~
hugh3
I don't get it. If I'm being sued by a big record company, then unless I'm
absolutely 100% sure I'm going to win, wouldn't a loser-pays system be an even
_bigger_ disincentive to fight it in court? I'm sure their lawyers cost much
more than mine do.

In fact, doesn't loser-pays in general make it even easier for big players to
intimidate small players? "I'm suing you for actual damages of twenty dollars.
My legal team costs one million dollars a day. Want to settle?"

~~~
jules
How come loser pays works well in the rest of the world? Because that's not
how loser pays works :) You don't pay a million dollars a day, you pay a
reasonable price instead; they pay the rest. Also, loser pays is not decided
on the whole case, but on specific subcases. So the suing party is less likely
to use the shotgun approach where they throw every claim and the kitchen sink
in, in the hope that they at least win something. Also, if you claim $1M
damages, and the judge awards you $1k, that counts as a (partial) loss. So it
also ends ridiculously high claims.

> Nearly every Western democracy, other than the United States, follows the
> "English rule," which requires the loser of a civil suit to compensate the
> winner for his or her attorney's fees. --
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule>

There is much much more suing going on in the US than in Europe and the prime
reason is that Europe has a loser pays system.

~~~
monochromatic
> There is much much more suing going on in the US than in Europe

This will be an unpopular opinion, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. How
many wronged plaintiffs in Europe end up never having their day in court
because of the threat of paying the other party's attorneys fees?

~~~
orp
Almost none.

When people think they're in the right - they sue (or defend).

Further, because of the 'loser pays' system, if the case is obviously bogus or
blown up, often a lawyer will agree to take up a defense just for the right to
claim the other side's expenses (e.g. instead of paying the lawyer, the lawyer
takes a relatively small fee plus the right to any 'expense fees' leveled on
the other side).

In addition, I believe that in most of Europe lawyers cost a lot less than
they do in the US (certainly so in Israel), to which a contributing factor is
that less litigation going on.

~~~
monochromatic
> in most of Europe lawyers cost a lot less than they do in the US

As a lawyer, I don't see how this is a positive thing :)

But seriously, nobody knows how many cases there are at the margin that don't
get brought due to the loser pays system. Neither system is perfect though,
and I can certainly make arguments in favor of either.

------
jonknee
With that many cases, it's remarkable that they haven't accidentally
threatened someone who either happens to be of means or is a shark of an
attorney. If I had the money/ability, I would love to take one of these things
to court.

~~~
chc
It's been done, and it doesn't always end well:
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20021735-93.html>

~~~
Groxx
Doesn't always end that poorly, either:

> _But earlier this year, the judge found [$1.92 million] to be "monstrous and
> shocking" and reduced the amount to $54,000. Following that, the RIAA
> informed Thomas-Rasset that it would accept $25,000--less than half of the
> court-reduced award--if she agreed to ask the judge to "vacate" his
> decision, which means removing his decision from the record. Thomas-Rasset
> rejected that offer almost immediately._

At least she's principled. I wonder if she has a means of accepting
donations...

~~~
chc
She still lost, and she really got lucky that the judge was both sensible and
not in the RIAA's pocket.

~~~
Groxx
yes, but I'd imagine part of the reason people would want to fight against
such claims is to help set precedent and prevent _others_ from having to pay
ridiculous amounts. If nobody fights, everyone loses.

------
jswank
From the linked document, it looks like the bulk of the alleged content is for
various adult titles. Who wants to go to go to court for allegedly sharing
"Don’t Tell My Wife I A$$ __ __ed The Babysitter" (1257 users)?

Given the choice of an publicly embarrassing allegation vs. paying "damages",
it is no surprise that so many are settling rather than going to court.

------
hugh3
If this is really the case, why is anyone still crazy enough to use
BitTorrent?

~~~
rgarcia
I think you'd have to be crazy to _upload_ on bittorrent. IANAL but I think
you can only get sued for redistribution of copyrighted material, so
downloading is safe.

~~~
gigawatt
Don't they treat seeding the same as uploading?

~~~
rgarcia
By uploading I also mean seeding

~~~
pavel_lishin
Aren't they technically the same thing? Either way, you're uploading bits to
someone else, right?

~~~
dekz
Wouldn't making the initial files available be slightly worse then uploading
partial bits?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Sure, but in the eyes of the law, you're still guilty.

To pick a random horseman of the infocalypse to draw an analogy from,
importing drugs into the country is arguably worse than selling them on the
street corner, but both are illegal.

------
corin_
Can that really be right? One out of every 1535 people in America?

~~~
dangrossman
I believe it.

Just two months ago I received one of these letters alleging I downloaded a
game over BitTorrent, showing an IP address and how many bytes of the file I
supposedly seeded.

Problem was it wasn't my IP and I had never heard of the game. I had to _fax_
Comcast's "Security" department to verify that the IP address in question had
never been assigned to a modem on my account...

Yet Comcast told the copyright holder I was their John Doe.

~~~
chadgeidel
As an aside - what do you do to keep track of your IP? I have a consumer-grade
router (running Tomato firmware) between "the world" and myself, so the router
actually gets the IP.

Is there some automated solution to keep track of this?

Thanks.

~~~
dangrossman
I've had Comcast at 5 different apartments and only once did my IP address
ever change while living at the same address, after a prolonged maintenance
period when they ran new physical cables in my neighborhood.

The IPs are semi-static, and I would notice immediately if my IP changed since
I have deny requests from any IP but my own to several webpages of mine.

Plus the IP address in the copyright infringement notice had a rdns hostname
corresponding to an entirely different state.

~~~
chadgeidel
I've got Qwest/CenturyLink and they change my IP quite frequently. A month ago
they were changing it once a week. In the early evening (9-10 PM local time).

------
lutorm
Is it possible to request "reverse class-action status" for this so all these
people can pool resources into one case?

------
DrHankPym
How do they figure out who participated in a torrent or not? If they joined
the swarm, isn't that entrapment?

~~~
mtogo
Entrapment is only entrapment if the person doesn't reasonably have a choice.

Example 1: Cop walks up to person on the street and offers him cocaine. Person
accepts, that's not entrapment since the person could have declined.

Example 2: Cop walks up to person on the street and forces that person to
snort cocaine at gunpoint. Entrapment, since no reasonable person could have
declined.

------
guelo
Why do the ISPs keep the DHCP logs?

~~~
cookiecaper
The US government already requires that ISPs retain logs of leased IP
addresses for at least ninety days. As lnhh indicates, there is a bill making
its way through Congress now that extends this to something like 18 months
iirc.

------
Estragon
It would be handy if the spreadsheet came with the IP addresses.

