Judge Says Mass Suing People For Infringement Is Perfectly Fine And Even 'Benefits' Defendants
from the uh-what? dept
While a bunch of courts have rejected attempts by various law firms and movie producers to join together thousands of totally unrelated people in charges of copyright infringement of various movies, one judge has now said that it's perfectly fine to join all those defendants together. In fact, Judge Beryl Howell directly suggests that the defendants are better off this way:"Given the administrative burden of simply obtaining sufficient identifying information to properly name and serve alleged infringers, it is highly unlikely that the plaintiffs could protect their copyrights in a cost-effective manner. Indeed, Time Warner urges the Court to sever the defendants for this very reason. Time Warner asserts that, if joinder were disallowed, its burden of complying with subpoenas would be diminished because the plaintiffs would not be able to proceed against all of the putative defendants individually At this procedural juncture, the plaintiffs have met the requirements of permissive joinder under Rule 20(a)(2). The putative defendants are not prejudiced but likely benefited by joinder, and severance would debilitate the plaintiffs' efforts to protect their copyrighted materials and seek redress from the putative defendants who have allegedly engaged in infringing activity."I find this reasoning to be odd, and I'm sure there will be an appeal on this point. The purpose of accurately suing individuals in the proper jurisdiction, rather than lumping together totally unrelated people, is not about what's easiest for the copyright holder. It's about basic fairness and due process. As discussed, each of the defendants may have totally different defenses. Some, surely, did infringe, and it's fine if they face the legal consequences of what they've done. Others, certainly, did not infringe. Still others may have additional defense depending on the details. Joining them all together is completely unfair to the defendants who have no actual connection. The judge doesn't seem to think it'll be a problem if each defendant presents a separate defense, but it's hard to see how that's fair to the defendants.
The judge here seems to mistakenly believe that the purpose behind these rules is to figure out what is easiest for the copyright holder. But that's simply not the case. Furthermore, the court ignores the key point: which is that these lawsuits have never been about actually suing people for copyright infringement. It's always been about abusing the court system as a part of a business model, using the threat of a lawsuit as a way to get people to pay up. It's a classic shakedown, and it's disturbing that a court would think that's a reasonable setup.
The court also rejects the jurisdictional question, even though it was pointed out that it seems quite likely most of the people being sued have no connection to the region covered by the court. The judge's reasoning here is also questionable, basically saying that since you can't be sure where the person is, it's fine to charge them all in whichever district court. This seems wrong to me, but assuming we accept it, it seems like this argument could easily be flipped. If it's true that IP addresses cannot adequately locate a user, isn't it equally true that the IP address alone does not adequately identify a user? Thus, by this judge's own argument, the IP address should not be accurate evidence for the sake of such a lawsuit.
Finally, there's an interesting discussion on the First Amendment rights of the users. To be honest, I found this claim to be pretty uncompelling in the first place. While I'm a huge supporter of the First Amendment, as well as the First Amendment's protections for privacy, that doesn't mean that you can hide behind it completely. If there is actual evidence of law breaking, then such protections no longer apply. Where I have questions is whether or not such evidence really has been presented. As mentioned above, even the judge seems to note that IP addresses are not really identifiers. Still, the ruling does get interesting in that the judge actually does state, flat out, that "file-sharing does involves aspects of expressive communication." This is interesting because in our debates about the the domain seizures, we've had critics in the comments insist this is simply not true. That said, the court does say that the First Amendment protections here are "minimal." Still, the court does recognize a key point:
Nevertheless, file-sharers are engaged in expressive activity, on some level, when they share files on BitTorrent, and their First Amendment rights must be considered before the Court allows the plaintiffs to override the putative defendants' anonymity by compelling the production of these defendants' identifying information.I'm happy to see the judge get this point correct. I'm not necessarily convinced that the plaintiffs really do provide enough evidence to get over this barrier, but I think it's fair to say that if there is enough evidence, that it's reasonable to expect someone to be identified. So this part of the ruling actually does make sense to me (even if I'm not convinced that the evidence really is enough to overcome the hurdle).
No matter what, it's quite likely this case will be appealed. I'm hopeful that an appeals court will reverse on the issue of joinder, but hopefully uphold the key point that there is a First Amendment issue, and certain hurdles need to be met to remove anonymity.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, joinder, lawsuits, pre-settlement
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
oh Mike, you poor little pirate lover.
Want some Maalox?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Nutcase: eating poison ivy is good for your immune system and has a lot of fiber!
AC: Boo-ya! Oh Mike, you poor little poison ivy hater. Want some Maalox?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Now if that happens I hope that they can have the court and lawyer fees covered by the plaintiff, and if so I hope that each person got a different lawyer. :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Most importantly is the idea of jurisdiction. I think the judge has realized that until the Does are identified, a claim of not being in the jurisdiction isn't valid because nobody knows who the people are except the ISP, and they will not release the information without a court order. He has spotted the paradox here that blocks plaintiffs from being able to move forward with their cases.
Once a defendant is identified and then notified of the case, they only have make a motion before they court that they are not in the jurisdiction for that discussion to be had. To have it before identification is meaningless, because nobody knows who they are.
The judge appears to have gotten this right. Let the players be identified properly, and then things can move forward from there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Technically, if you don't have the right then it's not free speech. Where did you get the idea that you're entitled to not be censored here?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's so precious.
The censorship around here and Masnick's recent insane rants give the impression that you zeros sense the party is almost over.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
oh wait, no I didn't.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Rise against the tirany brother, don't be afraid of death because you shall receive a hundred virgins for your martyrdom LoL
Seriously, more probably you are just annoying and people don't like your comments.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
In my opinion, yes. While some definitions may be interpreted narrowly as relating to removal or blocking of material, the origin of the word stems from the act of choosing what to block or remove. If you're choosing what to limit access to (even cosmetically) then it is the choosing that makes it censorship more than how far you go in limiting access. That is why the domain seizures were censorship even if they failed to block any content.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I always called it categorization, but to each their own :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It depends why you moved it there. If you moved it because it was off topic then that is categorisation. If you moved it because it was objectionable then that would be censorship. I apologise if I wasn't clear, I didn't mean to suggest that choosing is the only defining element of the word, just the origin.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Or what if you named your topic objectionable content?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not entirely, no. For example, you could censor something because you feared it might cause distress, but the distinction between objectionable and sensitive is a fine line. The key thing is that you're making a judgement about whether something is appropriate. A voluntary ratings system is probably the least forceful example of censorship, where content gets graded for suitability but people are free to ignore it.
"Or what if you named your topic objectionable content?"
Heh.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Also to get stuff for free you can go to Youtube, the labels are putting all there for free, if that is not good enough you have Spotify.
And if you are into the kinky stuff how about Retroshare have you tried there? there is also GNUNet, I2P, TOR Hidden Services, StealthNet, Bittorrent, encrypted emails and etc.
Pss...don't tell anyone I just got an email from a friend who sent me 100s of songs that I didn't even ask for. I just deleted all of them since I'm disgusted by the industry.
You think I'm going to pay those people?
LoL
Not a dime.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Your speech isn't protected from Mike or the community deciding which comments to show on his own site. That you cannot understand this suggests that you haven't a clue about what protected speech means. Yes, I would call it censorship. No, you're not protected against it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
"Thats a very nice explanation, but can you dumb it down a little bit so Mike can understand that?"
Is offensive, and provides no useful content whatsoever. It wasn't censored (I can still see it very clearly), it was just marked as offensive...which it is. But YOU have the power to change that. YOU can vote it insightful or funny, if you think it is worthy.
So, how's it going to be AJ? Are you going to keep annoying the hell out of people, or are you actually going to do something useful?
Turns at Mike:
Maybe we should have a scoring system for comments. Something that says "5 people found this funny, 2 found this offensive, etc" or something. Having a red marks saying "This is offensive!!11" is not very descriptive. How many "votes" trigger that? 3? 5? A million? It's good for both parties: it's good for us because it keeps things transparent and it's good for you because trolls can't just go like "OMG! Techduh censors comments!!1111oneone".
Of course, I'm just a lowly AC, who's unaware of the complications of such a system.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
LOL! I'm flattered to be compared with him, thank you, but I am not he.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm guessing you're AJ.
DING DING DING! I win!!!!
Techdirt prize: An MP3 of Mike saying "Heh" over and over again.
Aw, dammit...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
One day you might need to grow up and put on big boy pants and stop wetting your bed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
2. this is a privately owned forum. as such, you do not have an expectation of free speech here. learn some rudimentary basics before making charges of such else you wind up looking like an idiot.
3. if you dont like it... the door is -----> that way.
feel free to use it at any time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
If that's "censorship," then how is this not? Sure, the posts are still there, but I have to click on the post to see it, just like I have to hit "enter" in Google. Seems exactly the same to me. By Mike's own definition of the word, it's "censorship."
Of course, the whole Techdirt censoring apparatus is dumb, because I always make it a point to read posts that are flagged. It's the Streisand Effect at play.
If you don't like something, post a response. Don't flag it so more people read it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I actually 100% agree w/this....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I can certainly see the logic there. I think perhaps a sort of downmod button would be at least as effective and less intrusive, where posts can be marked as trollish or some such rather than insightful or funny. Or an option to not hide reported posts (if there isn't one already somewhere).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
So, to avoid being reported, refrain from pointless comments that do nothing but attack people. (Yes, I realize you aren't the same AC that has the hidden comment, but my statement is to people in general)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
TWC made the argument that to look up all of those IPs that supposedly file shared and are assigned an address would be quite time consuming to say the least.
It's not cost effective to really HAVE these lawsuits for 100+ IP addresses on the part of the ISP having to look them up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
They have to maintain the records to prove user actions (and to track bandwidth usage, example). They have it all there. It is at best a question of a few hours of programming time to set up a system to reveal all log ins per an IP on a given period, example, which could then be checked manually without much effort.
100 IPs might take a few hours to sort through. That isn't exactly a huge financial burden for anyone.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Add in the complcations of spoofing, and you'll have a LOT of fun trying to filter the information.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Try again!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Many of the major ISPs operate in multiple states, in multiple jurisdictions. But the whois information all comes back to their main data center. There is nothing legally binding them to use a given IP in a given area. In fact, they could easily configure their networks to allow any IP they have control over to be used anywhere at any time.
Further, VPNs, tunnelling, and proxies make it possible for people to appear to be here, when they are in fact there. Until the end user is identified (and the location from which they logged in noted), it is very difficult to be certain as to the jurisdiction.
Does have no jurisdictional rights. They are Does. Until they are identified, they have very few rights. This judge just wants to put the horse back in front of the cart, finding out who the defendants are and then ruling on if they are part of the class or not. Without knowing who they are, the judge is absolutely correct to declare them in the right jurisdiction, because they are Does.
Anonymous actions cut both ways. You cannot have your legal cake and eat it too ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Also the main point here is this judge should have never heard this case let alone ruled on it. She has been a career long copyright activist and cannot fairly adjudicated these cases, and even if she could every decision she makes on a copyright case will be tainted.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Maybe you need to learn more about how network works before you chime in on these things.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I have a feeling he might not.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
IPs
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Interesting
This, however is the weird piece about jurisdiction:
"The present situation, however, is different. Here, the plaintiffs have only limited information about the putative defendants, namely their IP addresses and information about the methodology used to engage in allegedly infringing activity. See Id. at 1352 (record before the court was �plainly inadequate� and �[j]urisdictional discovery will help to sort out these matters.�). Without additional information, the Court has no way to evaluate the defendants� jurisdictional defenses."
Yes, it seems that saying an IP address cannot determine jurisdiction would mean that it cannot identify WHERE a person is primarily located. If it cannot do that, how could it possibly identify a person? Now, lots of things can impact jurisdiction, but where the criminal COMMITTED THE ALLEGED CRIME is usually at the top of the list.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Interesting
You are confusing the legal knowledge of the location of the accused with the knowledge of the infringement. They know that the user connected to a given IP at a given point in time did X (whatever the infringing act is). They do not know, and cannot know who that user actually is until the ISP reveals it. The result? "Without additional information, the Court has no way to evaluate the defendants� jurisdictional defenses".
What the court seeks to do is to have the action taken to identify the users (turn them from Does to individuals, which is signfiicant), and then rule on jurisdictional and case splitting issues at that point. Until the court is aware of the jurisdiction of the users (by identifying them to the court), there is no way for them to rule that the Does in question aren't in the right jurisdiction.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Interesting
But even the jurisdictional defenses themselves are likely to be different for each defendant. Some of the defendants may be in the jurisdiction (making this not a defense) and others could be in different states or different countries. Still others may live in a difference place than where they were when the alleged infringement occurred. The court sided with the plaintiff in allowing these cases to be joined leads to pretty immediate problems.
This is a lot like beginning a trial for everyone in the country that has committed murder to make it easier for prosecutors to obtain a single subpoena. It might be easier for the prosecutors, but it seems to stretch the legal system into doing something it should not be used for.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Interesting
This is a lot like beginning a trial for everyone in the country that has committed murder to make it easier for prosecutors to obtain a single subpoena.
Not at all. First, it isn't "everyone in the country", and second, it is the type of action where many people did the same thing. Remember also, this is civil and not criminal, the standards are very different here.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Interesting
Time-stamps are no good for that, if you are accusing somebody on the west-coast and you collected the evidence on the east-coast the time-stamps won't match and you probably will be accusing somebody else depending on how the data was collected.
IP and time are not good enough without knowing how that was collected.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Interesting
Your argument is so weak, as to be meaningless.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Interesting
Actually this wont give them the name of the Doe that did the infringement, it will only give them the IP address of the modem of which was used to do the infringing.
Drive down any major city street and see how many open wireless APs you find. To go further, how about Viruses on the ones that ARE secure? That is like the speeding ticket I got a couple of years ago. I was apparently tagged for doing 55 in a 35. They had a picture of my plate. The date and time of the incident? The car was in the shop getting a tuneup and get the breaks fixed. I went to court and it was thrown out. Soon after the police lost funding for their cameras. Apparently around 84% of the cases that went to court got thrown out because they couldn't tell who was driving. Another 9% got off with a warning.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
On a unrelated note ;-) ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Soo
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Soo
AND any judgment and damages.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Soo
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In the immortal words of Randall Munroe: "QED bitches!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My last poke before I am back to work. Mike, this just isn't the case. You are trying to make a logical leap that isn't supported here.
The lack of location information on an IP address doesn't negate the ISPs ability to know who is using it. The problem is the plaintiffs have no way to know, without the ISP revealing the information. The information is out there, it is protected, and the courts want to know it BEFORE they make a ruling on jurisdiction.
That location information isn't readily available to the plaintiffs in no manner makes IP / user matching impossible for the ISP. To even consider that as a logical argument makes me shake my head.
You don't seem to be having a good week this week. The NYT thing, and now this. Oh yeah, and piracy being down since Limewire sank. But you won't touch that either, will you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It's nice to see that you can identify actual flaws in his reasoning sometimes. I agree, the fact that plaintiff cannot locate a user by the IP address does not correspond with whether the IP address identifies a user. The subscriber details are held by the ISP whereas the IP location details are often public.
"That location information isn't readily available to the plaintiffs in no manner makes IP / user matching impossible for the ISP"
It may not be readily available, but it probably is. My location information is in the FQDN corresponding to my IP. While I'm unsure about the issues of reverse class actions and what burden there is to show jurisdiction generally, it seems quite possible to make a better estimate of location than the plaintiff tried to in this case.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
1) I pretty much agree with the area they are sued.
2) Even the ISP has NO idea who was using the connection at any given time. The only thing they know is who pays the bill for that connection. Nothing more with regards to who used the connection.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A historical note
There may be a joinder issue if the IP addresses can accurately be traced back to a specific data center. But even if you could start to divide these cases into smaller bundles, there would still be bundles of John Does joined until they could be identified.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A historical note
Right. I get that part of it, and even said that in the post. But that doesn't excuse the joinder issue.
Separately, there *is* at least some First Amendment issue here, as the judge noted, and I agree that the bar here may be low, but to simply say that because we accuse an IP address of being an infringer, they must be identified. The likelihood of abuse there is pretty high.
There may be a joinder issue if the IP addresses can accurately be traced back to a specific data center. But even if you could start to divide these cases into smaller bundles, there would still be bundles of John Does joined until they could be identified
I still don't see why they should be joined, and every other court that's ruled on this issue has made the same point. It's clear that these are all individual actors, not acting in concert. So joinder doesn't make any sense.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: A historical note
If you use bittorrent to obtain a file, then every person you got a piece of that file from is someone you acted in concert with. Your peers and seeds are also your codefendants if you get caught. Makes perfect sense to me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: A historical note
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: A historical note
Not yet. I'm sure ICE is cooking that up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: A historical note
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: A historical note
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: A historical note
I think the judge was just covering his ass there, making sure to mention that there are minor first amendment issues that may come up. I think it does everyone a good service for the judge to state on the record that he has considered those issues, and considers them minor.
There is always potential for abuse in any legal process. Plaintiffs can claim almost anything, but they need to have the material to back it up to show "good faith" efforts. They cannot take a random list of IP addresses and say "they did it" without supporting evidence.
I still don't see why they should be joined, and every other court that's ruled on this issue has made the same point. It's clear that these are all individual actors, not acting in concert. So joinder doesn't make any sense
Think of it like a class action suit in the other direction. Everyone makes an individual purchase of something, which turns out to have a defect. By your logic, every purchase is a separate event and thus should not be joined.
The use of a common tool (bit torrent) to obtain a common file (the content in question) should be enough. That they are likely to have exchanged pieces (directly or indirect) amongst themselves (especially if they were all tracked from the same system in a similar time frame) would make it appear that they are working together in some fashion.
They appear to be as good a reverse class and many normal class actions have.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A historical note
It also tainted any future subpoenas that are sent by non-LEA personnel, meaning that the LEA's enforcement is tangled up whilst someone ensures that the request is legitimate. For example, in the UK a breach of acceeding to a false subpoena can be punished with a fine of �75,000. Now, imagine that multiplied by 100. That's a fair chunk'a change.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Federal Judge Creating an Automatic Appeal for Defendants
The judge even states that by not allowing the joinder action that plaintiffs would not be able to "protect their copyrights in a cost-effective manner."
Excuse me, but, the judge is allowing joinder action because it's more cost effective for plaintiffs copyright lawsuits? If that isn't a Federal judge agreeing with the copyright industry and showing bias against those accused of downloading, then the judge is automatically creating an appeal for any defendant who appears within his courtroom.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
See how easy that was? You're welcome.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
When should I have my eyes removed and my hearing disable?
There is no human being in the universe that cannot not break those laws, people infringe on those laws everyday even without knowing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rationale behind the ruling
"From 1993 to 2003, Howell served on the staff of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary as a senior advisor to Chairman Patrick Leahy, including as the Committee�s General Counsel starting in 1997."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's one thing to believe in copyright protections. It's another thing to actually believe these lawsuits actually have anything to do with combating copyright infringement. They don't. At all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Or if you look at the cases following this pattern in the porn realm, they are afraid of being branded as a deviant.
Every settlement from the porn groups hints that settling is the only way to keep your name being associated with porn publicly.
It would be nice at some point for a Judge to actually raise the question of how this information is gathered, and make sure it actually is as definitive as they lawyers would like to claim before allowing these cases to proceed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Try again!"
And this means absolutely nothing in regards to somebody stealing somebody elses wireless connection. Duuuuuuuuh. Try again.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
To an extent I can almost see the "subpoena the information as a group" argument , but once the information shows that the person is outside the courts jurisdiction that should be it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Did You Know ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]