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Paramount Sues Ohio Man For $100,000
ematic writes "A hapless tech-novice finds himself in a US$100,000 lawsuit with Paramount Pictures for allegedly uploading the movie, Coach Carter, to eDonkey. Paramount had the police seize his four computers, but nothing was found. The tech-novice maintains his innocence, and contends that he is a victim of a drive-by upload. According to the ChannelCincinnati story, the victim 'is either a slick film pirate or an unwitting victim of someone who fits that description.'"
A tech novice with 4 computers? That seems sort of unlikely. I'm not saying he's guilty, but the facts just don't seem to mesh with the description there.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
either a slick film pirate or an unwitting victim of someone who fits that description
Which is of course why these kinds of tactics don't, and won't, work in the long run. All the unwitting victims just net you bad publicity, while the slick file pirates just sit and laugh.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Paramount has looked at all four computers in Lee's home, alleging he had one of them cleaned to erase evidence. The company has filed a federal lawsuit against the Blue Ash man.
Movie companies have the right to look at all the computers in your house, because you allegedly commited *copyright infringement*.
Wow.
If he keeps a lot of old machines around it's not that unreasonable.
The news article is short on facts. So, what's this guy's motivation for uploading a movie to the internet? Did they even establish that he possesses the movie or a copy of it? Did he admit to such possession? What about his computer that was supposedly "cleaned"--what makes them think so, and how can they prove it? And, one might ask, how can they establish that this alleged uploading cost them $100,000.
There are a lot of unanswered questions here. This is typical of the big media companies now, just like the Mafia: shake down the little people and get the word out that you should toe the line and pay your protection money, or we'll get you.
I do agree that circumstantial evidence seems to suggest he's a bit more tech savvy than one might think, but on the other hand, a tech-savvy person can also get their network broken into or their password stolen. Basically, this company doesn't have a leg to stand on. Maybe that's why they're shaking him down for so much money, to make him feel he has no choice but to settle.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
1) Is anyone else extremely troubled by the following line from the article "A DVD that retails for $21.99 could cost a local man more than $100,000,".
Seriously? $100,000? Quick math tells me that he would have had to share the movie 4,547 and 1/2 times to have shared enough copies to equal that price tag. I get the idea of a deterent but man. Side note even if the film was compressed to around 700 megs or so (to fit on a CD) that would take 3,183,265 and some change megabyes of bandwidth (3 terabytes if my late nite mind is still working at all) to share that file that many times. Seems a little unlikely the punishment fits the crime.
2) Isn't there a burden of proof on the prosecution in this case? Don't they have to show he was the one responsible for uploading the file? If someone steals my car then commits a drive by shooting, I can't be held responsible, can I? To me, having an open wireless access point seems perfectly reasonable (if that is your preference) and it would seem to be a tough sell to get a judge to fine this guy when there's no evidence he did anything wrong and he can produce a line of reasonable doubt.
I'm not up to date on case law in the US, so maybe I'm wrong but seems really shaky at first glance.
What sickens me here is far more serious offenses than this go ignored if reported by your average citizen. I know countless people who've been the victims of theft or internet fraud, and even with names and addresses of the perps they haven't had any action taken, just another report going in the file bin.
The tech-novice maintains his innocence, and contends that he is a victim of a drive-by upload.
I admit I haven't seen "Coach Carter", and I'm not using hard numbers here, but I estimate that uploading an entire motion picture at any worthwhile quality would take at least six hours, maybe twelve. That's not a drive-by, that's your next-door neighbor using your bandwidth all day long.
Sounds like you've convicted him already; I thought it was "innocent until proven guilty."
Sniff for IP addresses active during business hours, but essentially are unavailabe after hours .
.... priorities...
Then figure out that persons MAC address, and spoof it with MAC change on ur router/firewall .
Upload ur movie, reset, adios .
Odds are it isn't even that brilliant, the guy with the router prolly picked a MAC address
assigned to a NIC type that he does not even own, as the list is published .
He prolly picked the last few hex digits at random .
Alot of dorm ppl are doing this to ppl that have their computers direct connected ,
and the Uni is too cheap to replace the hubs at the edge of the network .
So they don't get fried for doing p2p over their dorm connect .
If they had managed switches at the edge of their network they could stop this behaviour .
Not all Uni's have switches at the edge of their network yet, ones where sports is
more important often neglect the tech/sci to spend multiple millions on chasing sewn
together animal skin, aka baseball, volleyball, football, basketball .
Stadiums and Arenas that could house all the US homeless 10 times over are left empty
more days than they are full, pathetic .
We wonder why other parts of the world are starting to pass us by
Rome...Bread and Circuses...
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I have 5 networked computers at home. My WAP's security is a bit shaky. I sometimes "clean" computers. This is not enough information to determine if he did it. I would like to think the prosecutor have more information that we are not privy to.
This guy I know has a lot of guns. He also makes a lot of his own ammo. Recently, he *gasp* cleaned his pistol. Clearly he is hiding evidence and he is the killer we are looking for.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Why are all of these lawsuits based on false numbers? $100,000 for a movie that sucked which he may/may not have uploaded. "Who cares, take everything he has, someone has to pay!" Its not like Paramount would ever see that money anyway, it all goes to the lawyers. And its not like that guy could just fork over 100grand either. He'd have to file bankruptcy. Aside from ruining the rest of his life financially, they still wouldn't get any money out of him. Sure, you could say "these deter would-be pirates." My ass, just hits home that all any big company cares about is money, even if they have to ruin your life to get it..
Yikes!
As someone living in the third world, I am constantly amazed at how little protection is afforded the average American by their laws. Obviously, I am not refering to O.J.Simpson or Michael Jackson.
And yet the death penalty has pretty much universal support!
Not only is it shocking that these Corporations seem to be all-powerful and there seems nothing that ordinary Americans can do against them, but they seem to have sanction from every section of your community.
Everybody here seems to be saying: "Well, I believe he did it, he should hang". Nobody seems to think how ludicrous it is to pursue ordinary citizens for these kind of punative damages.
Wow.
"I'm a snake if we disagree"-Jethro Tull, Bungle in the Jungle
that typically, when the police seize anything--ESPECIALLY computers--- they tend to hold on to the items as evidence that they "did the public duty". Worse, than having your shit seized is having it in THEIR hands for MONTHS because of either their being backlogged (in which case the complainant should pay an expedite fee so that even IF their is their stolen material on it, it should be scraped, tagged, and your original stuff returned PRONTO so you can get back to work or homework), OR the cops LIKE what they see and decide to drag ass on returning it.
With digital content being wrung harder for profits and with the studios and others hell-bent to make examples of others, and with the police needing to show the public its money is being well spent, it's probably inevitable that more people will be pulled into the hollywood/content provider dragnet.
The best thing WE can do is to archive ALL our work and make SO many identical copies that it would be PROFOUNDLY egregious (in the eyes of a FAIR judge AND in the eyes of the public) for ANY police or complainant to say "give us ALLLLL of your archives, no matter how redundant they are".
What the law enforcement agencies need to do or be FORCED to do is this:
Perform NO search and NO seizure unless the party asking for the warrant provides forensic and archival equipment to protect the accused from suffering work stoppage, psychological damage (hey, I'd go goddam ballistic if my shit were seized, as I PAY for my DVDs and music, even if it costs $15-$30-- I don't even really lament not copying music from amaroK), and to keep unnecessary eyes from prying too deeply and too long at stuff on the seized machines that is NOT their business (business plans, school work, love letters, research...), not of danger value and probably would take them YEARS just to sort out before even reading the multiple versions and revisions of endless stuff.
Nice police will insist the accusers not run all over the accused. We're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. With abuse of unsecure (not INsecure) internet access, poorly protected windoze boxes, ignorant users, and a lot of greedy or lazy pirates and "fair-use" abusers, it's just a matter of time before almost ANYone with a computer connected to the Net is a recipient of a boilerplate letter.
SCARY.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"