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New Round of P2P Lawsuits from Hollywood
An anonymous reader writes "There is a new story on ZDNet about more lawsuits against P2P file sharers. The catch is that Hollywood is using the log files off Bit Torrent sites like Suprnova and LokiTorrent."
The group previously said in February that a Texas court had ordered that the server logs of one big site, called LokiTorrent, be turned over to Hollywood investigators. An MPAA spokeswoman said that none of Thursday's suits were related to that action, however.
OP didn't RTFA in the first place.
One thing though, would this be admissible with regards to hearsay laws?
Without getting into the details of what hearsay is and isn't, I'd say that your typical everyday logs will likely fall within the business records exception to the hearsay rule, and be admissible for the truth of their contents. Depends on the circumstances surrounding their making, of course.
If you're in a situation to make logs of this sort of activity, however, you might want to reconsider whether or not you want to do so.
Where's the proof? Does there need to be any? I understand that civil cases have a lower standard of guilt, but does anyone know for sure?
Well, evidentiary issues (such as whether the logs are inadmissible hearsay) deal with whether the jury ever gets to know the logs exist, and gets to know what they say. If they're inadmissible, the jury doesn't get to know about them, and can't make a decision based on them.
If they are admitted, however, the jury gets to decide for themselves whether or not they trust them. They can always disbelieve them.
However, the burden of persuasion in civil cases (i.e. any case brought by RIAA, MPAA, etc.) is one of a preponderance of the evidence. If it is at all more likely that something is true than it is false (a 51% rule) then it's considered to be true.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
No court in the world recognizes "copyright infingement" as theft. In the example being discussed, nothing was stolen and paid back later.