RIAA File-Sharing Lawsuits Top 10,000 People Sued

An anonymous reader writes "While Firefox broke the 50,000,000 barrier today, the RIAA broke a more dubious barrier this week: It has now sued over 10,000 file sharers for copyright infringement, making it a good time to ask if the RIAA will ever throw in the towel. Taking an academic look at what's best for the industry, this economics article shows the financial upside to P2P file sharing. And on the flip side, this legal article argues that file swappers have a constitutional right to pay much smaller penalties than the millions of dollars they can be liable for under copyright law, making the RIAA's lawsuits much less profitable."

Comments

Sure but there are plenty of others

[Sycraft-fu]

One defense is to say you didn't do it, and their proof iks too weak to meat even the burden in civil court. Basically they come in with a list of files that the company they hire to find them claims came off a computer with a certian IP address that your ISP said was yours.

Ok problems:

1) How do you know those files are what they say they are? There's plenty fo files with fake names on filesharing networks. Sometimes it's people being assholes, sometimes it's small bands trying to pimp their shit, sometimes it's people who mislabeled because they are dumb. Since they don't download and check there's no real way to know.

2) For that matter, how do you know that list came form the right computer? Some networks, like Kazaa, aren't all that good at returning the correct list of files. You ask them for a list of files on host X, you get a list from host Y. How do you know this list is actually from the correct computer?

3) For that matter, how do we know the company they pay isn't making it up? These people get money for finding this stuff, there's incentive to find bigger lists of files. How do you know they are adding to those list or in some other way pumping it up to get more cash?

4) How do you know the ISP gave you the right data for the IP? Espically with dynamic IPs, this can be hard to tell. Sure some geek says this is what it is but how do you know he's telling the truth? All you've got are some easily altered text logs. For that matter how do you know the logging software was working right?

5) How do you know it was a certian computer behind that IP? Given the prevelance of wireless APs, it's easy to see that someone might ahve been using a connection without the owner's knowledge or consent. Where's the proof that it was actually a computer owned by that person that did it?

Basically what they are saying is these guys we pay gave us a list that might or might not be truthful that might or might not have come from this IP that might or might not belong to this person that might or might not have been them using it. Ya, THAT'S a strong chain of evidence.

Another defence would be to try for jury nullification, or argue on appeal, that the law they are suing under is unconstutional. The statutory damage are absurdly high. Well the constution states in ammendment 8 that "nor excessive fines imposed,". Seems the law allowing for high statutory damages in in violation of this. Since all laws must conform to the constution, it should be thrown out (and thus the case dropped).

Along those lines, there's other legal case history (as cited in the /. story) that establish the illegitimacy of excessive statutory rewards in civil cases.

This is not at all an open and shut issue. We do not have some highly trained computer crimes police optaining incontrevertable proof of MP3s on the person's computer and then the justice system imposing a resonable penalty. We have a corperate instrest group, who's members have been multiple times convicted of illegal practices such as price fixing, presenting a very shaky chain of evidence and asking for outrageously excessive awards.

If it got fought in court, it is not at all certian the RIAA would win.