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UK Has First Verdict in P2P Case
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."
Since when has ignorance of the law been a valid defence?
Copyright infringement is NOT STEALING!!!!
Grrr...
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?
"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/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
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?
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.