

Anti-Piracy Lawyers Find Cheaper Way To Identify BitTorrent Users  - Garbage
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-lawyers-find-cheaper-way-to-identify-bittorrent-users-110722/

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acabal
The article suggests that easier discovery might lead to smaller settlements,
but what will probably happen is the settlement amount will stay the same and
the cartels will just take the money to the bank.

While our justice system is ostensibly set up to allow a small guy to win
against a big guy, this next generation of nearly automated litigation against
anyone, regardless of a shred of plausible guilt, is a tragedy. The big guy
can automate the process of suing any number of small guys and force them to
pay up, even if they're innocent.

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Derbasti
All this makes me sick. Building a business out of sueing people with the
explicit goal of settling out of court is clearly subverting the legal system
for the courts are only used for extortion but not for making just decisions.

This is not a legal battle any more. This is blackmail.

~~~
muuh-gnu
It is a legal battle as long as the legal system allows it, intentionally or
unintentionally. The fact is, the blackmailers only have a case at all because
the law criminalizes private file sharing. Instead of trying to work out how
to protect illegal filesharers from being identified and blackmailed with out
of scale "damage" threats, we should rather talk about fixing the overreaching
copyright, which is imho the root of all those problems.

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eloisius
I'm sure this has probably been discussed before but I can't find any relevant
threads.

Could an ongoing reverse sting a la Barry Cooper [1] be staged to produce a
lot of false positives? I imagine few hundred lawsuits against individuals
confident of their own innocence could start to curb their profits a little.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHmP_KtmcB4>

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Derbasti
So many people are filesharing (or have been at some point). It is like making
alcohol illegal...

~~~
corin_
Without wanting to get into a debate on filesharing itself, the fact that many
people do something doesn't mean the law should follow them.

The majority of people used to be racist. The majority used to be homophobic.
The majority used to be sexist. Three quick examples to outline that public
opinion isn't automatically the correct opinion.

Thanks to journalists adopting the term "vox populi" to mean that public
opinion is all-important, it's worth remembering the _actual_ quote it is
taken from, which translates to:

 _"And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the
people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very
close to madness._

~~~
Goladus
Even though a majority of people "used to be racist" (I'd say the majority
still are) the vast majority of racist behavior is NOT outlawed. Specific
behaviors are outlawed and laws are not allowed to be discriminatory based on
race.

Besides, the whole idea with anti-discrimination law is that you identify a
_politically disadvantaged_ group and ensure they aren't unjustly exploited by
a system they have no hope of changing. It's very clear that anti-
discrimination laws are designed as an exception to the rule of democracy.

In the case of copyright holders, especially large companies, they are usually
the least politically disadvantaged of anyone.

~~~
corin_
What laws there are isn't relevant, my point is simply that what the majority
thinks or does, isn't always the right thing to think or do. Obviously laws
regarding discrimination can't be identical to laws regarding piracy, but the
point is simply that, just because a huge number of people download content
for free, that in itself doesn't make it the right thing to do (nor does it
make it the wrong thing to do - all it does is make it the thing that lots of
people do).

~~~
Derbasti
Is that so? You see, _I_ thought, democracy _was_ about what what the majority
thinks or does. _Commercialism_ however is only concerned with what the
powerful and wealthy want.

~~~
roel_v
"You see, I thought, democracy was about what what the majority thinks or
does."

Yeah well you're wrong. There is much more to democracy than the tyranny of
the majority.

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mukyu
_Every first year law student knows that copyright related court cases are
exclusively a matter of federal law. You can’t bring a copyright suit in state
court, period._

Sound recordings made before 1972 are under state copyright, not federal.

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jrockway
So, is it even clear yet that filesharing is illegal in the US? What about
when the upload ratio is < 1? What about when it's 0?

Also, has anyone been sued for sharing TV shows, or is it just movies?

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jeffool
I can personally confirm that DMCA notices are sent to cable Internet
providers, and passed along to users, over TV shows. I do not know if there
have been actual lawsuits filed. Remember, set your DVRs.

On the legality, I've heard people day that if you don't upload, it's not
illegal. I don't know if that's true. I suspect it's more a case of "if you
don't upload, they can't catch you."

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flipbrad
they've been doing this regularly, I believe, in the UK, where the civil order
sought (for disclosure by a third party) is either a Norwich Pharmacal Order
or a CPR Part 37 ([http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/courts-and-
tribunals/cour...](http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/courts-and-
tribunals/courts/procedure-rules/civil/contents/parts/part31.htm#IDAWKTIC))
depending on the stage of litigation.

