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UK Has First Verdict in P2P Case

Posted by Zonk on from the it-doesn't-look-good dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Two British men have been found guilty of illegally sharing music via a P2P network. The BBC reports that their defense of 'Not knowing it was illegal' and that 'There was no evidence' did not hold water, and they have been ordered to pay the BPI 'between £1500 and £5000' - probably with double that again in costs. Theis isn't the first time the BPI has launched a case of this kind - but it is the first time the accused has tried to fight instead of stumping up the cash straight away. Three other verdicts are pending."

22 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Ignorance... by zenmojodaddy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Since when has ignorance of the law been a valid defence?

    1. Re:Ignorance... by Kookus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ask Bush, He'll tell ya how well that works.

    2. Re:Ignorance... by britneys+9th+husband · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Since when has "There was no evidence" NOT been a valid defense?

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    3. Re:Ignorance... by jxyama · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I remember on 9/11, some clever people took advantage of network shortages in Manhattan to withdraw money from ATM, thinking there was no consequence. Some of them were charged and found guilty.

      I also heard another case where some people in midwest figured out that they could swipe their drivers license at the gas pump and it would dispense gas for "free." Those people were charged and found guilty.

      In both cases, just like this P2P case, you can claim "I didn't know it was illegal." I am guessing that such naive "confession" isn't really applicable or effective as a defense (and shouldn't be, in my opinion) beyond certain point since people were getting things of monetary value for "free."

      In all cases, the prosecution had evidence on who and what was involved: withdrawer/money, motorist/gas, sharer/copyrighted music. All "I didn't know it was illegal" defends is the intent. That's not "no evidence."

    4. Re:Ignorance... by Antifuse · · Score: 4, Insightful

      From TFA: The first defendant, from King's Lynn, said the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement, but the judges dismissed this and ordered him to make an immediate payment of £5,000. Does that mean that there WAS evidence? Or that the judge just said "Bah, we don't need no evidence!"? A very poorly written article.

    5. Re:Ignorance... by deviantphil · · Score: 3, Interesting
      See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_ excusat

      Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Latin for "ignorance of the law is no excuse") is a public policy holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely because he or she was unaware of its content; that is, persons have presumed knowledge of the law.

    6. Re:Ignorance... by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This has stopped. The contract has been broken; copyright is forever. We didn't break the deal, they did. So let the war continue, the sane versus the greedy. The war ends when copyrights stop being construed as "owning the music" whereever it exists, and become 15 year limited exclusive rights granted by the law. When music and ideas are not "property", a mad concept designed to meter people's minds.

      Excep that 95%+ of all copyright violators I know don't give a flying fsck about any of that. They couldn't care less about what was released 15 years ago, they want what was released at the cinema last week. The war is between the greedy and the greedy, And the people who are really getting screwed are the customers who'd like to make some sort of compromise. I've never ever gotten a rootkit via MP3s, do put it quite frankly. I've never had any downloaded movie tell me that I'm in the wrong zone or that it won't let me fast forward. And I sure haven't had a movie disable my player, like Blu-Ray threatens to. Trusted Computing is gong to make me a dog on a leash, only allowed to do what my master the TCPA computer will let me. "Leashed computing" would be much more accurate. Why should I let myself be treated this way? And with apologies to Harry Potter: "Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy."

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:Ignorance... by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is only sane of course if the law is either simple enough to be comprehended by an average citizen or is intuitively obvious. Unfortunately, not only this is no longer true, some, particularly those who profit from this situation, do everything in their power to make sure that average citizens do not have a chance to understand the law. Thus yet another form of tyranny is born. And it is no coincidence that a vast majority of politicians are ex-lawyers.

  2. For the nth time... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 4, Informative

    Copyright infringement is NOT STEALING!!!!

    Grrr...

  3. Clarification by Ctrl+Alt+De1337 · · Score: 3, Informative

    For those of you unwilling to RTFA, "BPI" is the British Phonographic Industry.

  4. Evidence? by Kittyflipping · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How is this possible? Aren't they using the file names to determine infringement? What kind of 'evidence' is that? If I purposely renamed a bunch of legal files to look like copywritten mp3 and make them available on P2P am I liable for damages too?

    1. Re:Evidence? by OctoberSky · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well you can break the law through "intent to break the law" only.

      For instance if you buy 1 pound of baking soda off a guy but he sells it to you as cocaine, that is illegal. If you take the baking soda and then (thinking it is cocaine) try and sell it to another individual as cocaine that is also illegal (you intended to sell an illegal drug). This is different from the sale of baking soda as cocaine (which is also a crime). I think that is sale of an imitation controlled substance.

      If you unknowingly downloaded false files (unknowingly because you thought they were real) and shared them on the network as the real files (maybe you never checked them when you initially got them) then you might be charged with illegal file trading (or what ever they were charged with) because you intended to trade files that are copyrighted.

      But in your case, where you knowingly make up fake files and pawn them off as real (for whatever reason) I don't think they can get you for that. But if John Doe takes them from you and does the above (trades them as real) he might be brought up on charges because he intended to break copyright laws.

      But I am not a Lawyer, I just play one on TV. And by play one on TV I mean I make shit up and post it on Slashdot.

  5. It's A Brave New World. by gasmonso · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Ignorance is not a defense" That's a classic one. Seriously though... what if you played stupid like you don't even know what p2p is and stick to denying d/l. Of course they'll come back and say we have IP logs. But can't you use the "IP spoofing" or "I have a wireless router" idea? I would argue, ok if I stole this song... where is it? Show me that the one you apparently saw on my computer exists? A good defense could win the case I bet.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/
  6. Puh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Evidence, schmevidence!

  7. Declining CD sales are inevitable? by digitaldc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The BPI says it believes internet music-swapping has led to a decline in sales of singles since 1999.

    As for the opinion that most music today just isn't that great (IMHO) and therefore leads to declining CD sales - was never mentioned.

    People legally downloading songs, on the other hand, might have been another argument, but that wasn't mentioned either.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    1. Re:Declining CD sales are inevitable? by hattig · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Increases in costs (taxes, etc) in Britain since 1999 mean that people have less money to spend on frivolous things.

      Increase in uptake of alternative media (games consoles, DVDs, etc) also meant that limited budget is being spread around more things.

      Of course people are going to stop buying music. It's the easiest thing to access (radio, tv) and it isn't important to own. Especially if it isn't that good.

  8. Re:Office Space said it best by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If your getting something for nothing that you are supposed to pay for, then it is called stealing.

    Wrong! Stealing = Taking the property of someone without permission (Destruction of others' property is taken into account, too). The overinflated prices the RIAA sets on music do NOT make that money their property. Besides their prices are on the labelled, stamped, colored, decorated, copy-protected, and maybe even autographed CD's - but not on the music itself. And even that is nothing compared to the "additional costs" that are nothing but price fixing.

    So what this guy stole are actually one or two dollars, who rightfully belong to the music groups. Why then do the courts make him pay so much to the recording labels? This doesn't make sense at all.

    Tell me, who's the one really stealing?

  9. A law is just what is declared to be a law. by Maljin+Jolt · · Score: 3, Funny

    Two British men have been found guilty of illegally sharing music via a P2P network.

    Perhaps they should consider to seek political asylum in France.

    --
    There you are, staring at me again.
  10. Scary by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The first defendant, from King's Lynn, said the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement, but the judges dismissed this

    I'm no law scholar here, but doesn't the judge have to actually refuse any defendant's claim with some logical arguement instead of simply claiming "nah, I'm pretend I didn't hear that?"

  11. More information? by Teiresias_UK · · Score: 3, Insightful

    According to the Register:

    The organisation began pursuing alleged copyright infringers in October 2004, and to date has come to terms with 88 people, some of whom have paid up to £6,500 to avoid a court hearing.


    Considering the number of people downloading music from P2P clients in the UK, you're going to have to be really really unlucky to be one of the 88.

    One thing to consider is how 'targetted' these cases were. Do we know if the BPI are chasing the people who are providing the files for download or just those downloading? I believe the RIAA were doing chasing the content providers in attempt to 'cut off the supply' of files available for download.

    It might also be interesting to find out what client that these guys were using - more for my own personal benefit so I never use it ...

  12. other piracy news by Lurking+Grue · · Score: 3, Funny
    Last week, based-upon a tip from the RIAA, the US took action against the global piracy problem. Fortunately for the men on the ship there were no bootleg CDs or illegally downloaded mp3 files onboard. In a formal statement released after the event, an RIAA spokesman was quoted as saying, "There's no need to detain these individuals. We regret the inconvenience this has caused the innocent folks on that ship."

    When questioned privately about the incident earlier this week, one RIAA representative said, "Damn! I was sure there was piracy going on out there."

  13. Bad Lawyers by TorontoImporter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree with some earlier comments regarding a bad defence. There are many reasons that the judge in this case got away with deciding them in this manner:

    1. Bad lawyers for the defendants. (There was obviously a lack of professionalism)

    2. Most lawyers in both the U.S. and Europe have little, if no understanding of the copyright system. For example in the U.S. alone the copyright laws have been amended so many times that only a handful of lawyers even understand what the law "says", let alone is interpreted as.

    3. Pressure! (These lower court decisions obviously have huge pressure inflicted by the lobbying groups involved, it would take a good lawyer to get taken seriously)

    4. The arguments involved in defending yourself for these sort of cases tends to be much more complicated then typical civil action. In these cases the defendant must prove "lack of evidence" under a much wider argument generally along privacy, fair use, copyright details, what is infringment etc...

    5. The judges in these cases generally don't have a lot of precedents to refer to.

    6. The world is undecided currently on what to do with the Internet in a legal sense of rights and fair use.

    Hope this clarifies some issues a bit.