Wrongful Arrest Demonstrates Dangers Of Law Enforcement Listening To Bogus Industry Claims

from the a-little-late dept

Wed, Dec 1st 2010 12:02pm — Mike Masnick

It's getting pretty ridiculous watching law enforcement and politicians simply take the entertainment industry at their word in attacking various individuals who they misleadingly blame for their own inability to adapt to a modern digital era. We've seen it here in the US, where Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) group has been seizing domains on extremely questionable industry-provided evidence. Over in the UK, it's been leading to wrongful arrests. A few years back, of course, the industry pointed fingers at Alan Ellis, an admin for OiNK, but a trial found him not guilty of the weakened charges of "conspiracy to defraud."

In October, we noted similarities to the Ellis situation with the news that the police had arrested a guy somehow connected to Mulve, a music search and download app that hosted no files and didn't even involve file sharing -- it just created a front-end of a Russian social network where the files were uploaded by users. After the guy was arrested, people began pointing out that the guy hadn't even programmed Mulve. He had just registered the domain name.

At least this time the police didn't go through a whole wasteful trial before realizing it had totally screwed up. They've apparently told the guy that they're not moving forward with any case against him. Of course, he still had to deal with months of worries about bogus charges and having all of his electronics and computer equipment seized.

So, at what point does law enforcement stop listening to the entertainment industry every time it freaks out about some new technology? After all, this is the same group of folks who can't even figure out how to send a letter to the right editor when they don't like an article. And yet the police think they can accurately point fingers for their business model problems?

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Filed Under: arrests, copyright, law enforcement
Companies: mulve

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 1 Dec 2010 @ 12:14pm

That man could have potentially been a menace to artists getting paid.
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Marc D. (profile), 1 Dec 2010 @ 12:21pm

Q: "So, at what point does law enforcement stop listening to the entertainment industry every time it freaks out about some new technology?"

A: As soon as the AA's stop lining the pockets of the politicians.
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Thomas (profile), 1 Dec 2010 @ 12:47pm

Typo Win!
"Immigration and Customer Enforcement" LOL!!!!!1
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Mike Masnick (profile), 1 Dec 2010 @ 1:02pm

Re: Typo Win!
"Immigration and Customer Enforcement" LOL!!!!!1

Ooops. :) Fixed. Thanks.
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pringerX (profile), 1 Dec 2010 @ 1:03pm

Where the money is at
Right now, the big money is in the hands of these legacy entertainment industries. That is why all this crap is happening. Eventually they will bleed out as their war chest dwindles from bad strategy and inability to adapt, but until then they'll keep buying up legislators and agencies, and we will continue to see this sort of BS.
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PRMan, 1 Dec 2010 @ 1:15pm

Re: Re: Typo Win!
No, I think you might have had it right the first time.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Dec 2010 @ 1:21pm

that wasn't a typo, that was a freudian slip. :thumbsup:
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Chris in Utah (profile), 1 Dec 2010 @ 2:33pm

Re: Re: Typo Win!
Freudian Slips are great.
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monkyyy, 1 Dec 2010 @ 6:07pm

i think this guy should get a great team of lawyers and private eyes to trace then sue every step of the corruption back to the source
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Hephaestus (profile), 2 Dec 2010 @ 6:37am

Re:
Q: "So, at what point does law enforcement stop listening to the entertainment industry every time it freaks out about some new technology?"

A: 5 years for the record labels, 10 years for the TV studios, 15 years for the Movie Studios. The labels will be gone due to bankrupcy. The TV studios will come under a ton of pressure from internet based distributors, infringement, new competition from groups doing shows online, other forms of entertainment (gaming etc), a sourceforge for shows will eventually evolve. The movie studios will have basically one window, the theaters, and will face increasing competition from online collaboration.

In other words, when they are to poor to afford the lobbyists to line the pockets of the politicians. ie what you said .... :)
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2010 @ 3:43pm

When?
So, at what point does law enforcement stop listening to the entertainment industry every time it freaks out about some new technology?

At the point that they're held responsible for what they do to people. In other words, never.
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