CEO Shawn Hogan Takes on MPAA

IAmTheDave writes "Shawn Hogan, CEO of Digital Point Solutions, has found himself on the receiving end of an MPAA lawsuit claiming he downloaded a copy of 'Meet the Fockers' on Bittorrent. Mr. Hogan both denies the charges as well as claims he already owns the movie on DVD. After being asked to pay a $2500 extortion fee, Mr. Hogan lawyered up and has vowed to challenge and help change the MPAA's tactics. 'They're completely abusing the system,' Hogan says. Although expecting to pay well over $100,000 to defend himself, he claims 'I would spend well into the millions on this.'"

Comments

Prediction

[TheSpoom]

My guess: They'll drop the suit against this guy, but continue to threaten those that don't have the means to fight back.

Re:Prediction

[dlc3007]

Wonder if he's pissed enough to counter if they drop their suit. I hope so!

Re:Prediction

[milamber3]

Well, if you bothered to RTFA it seems that the MPAA is doing exactly the opposite. The head of their antipiracy division is openly saying they're looking forward to a trial and verdict next summer.

Re:Prediction

[realmolo]

Yeah, he could countersue, but that doesn't help anybody. Most people don't have the financial means to enter into a civil suit with an organization the size of the MPAA. They have no fear of that.

I suppose he *could* try and get them into court for some kind of criminal offense, but what would it be? The courts so far have no problem with the MPAA and RIAA's tactics, and as far as I know, their extortion-like lawsuits break now existing laws.

Basically, while I appreciate what he's doing, it's not going to change anything.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what one lawyer said, but there is no chance they go through with the case. If they lose then it sets a very bad precedent (from their perspective). $2500 from one man isn't worth opening the door for other challenges, which could happen if they lose the case.

Re:Prediction

[Danse]

Well, if you bothered to RTFA it seems that the MPAA is doing exactly the opposite. The head of their antipiracy division is openly saying they're looking forward to a trial and verdict next summer.

That's what they're saying now. Give it a couple months. They'll probably drop it quietly after everyone has forgotten about it.

Re:Prediction

[voice_of_all_reason]

Most people don't have the financial means to enter into a civil suit with an organization the size of the MPAA.

Can someone explain this overwhelming opinion in every RIAA/MPAA lawsuit thread? I'm sure the fee for filing a lawsuit itself isn't too high, otherwise the lower-classes simply couldn't participate. Assuming you don't have/need a job, what's preventing you from defending yourself?

The plaintiff has to prove his point with a preponderance of evidence. I don't think they'll do that with just an IP address and a log from azureus.

Re:Prediction

[Paracelcus]

One of the very few advantages of being absolutly flat broke is that you can tell all the little sue-happy shyster momser ganiffs to get fucked with complete impunity!

Re:Prediction

[Mr. Underbridge]

Yeah, he could countersue, but that doesn't help anybody. Most people don't have the financial means to enter into a civil suit with an organization the size of the MPAA. They have no fear of that.

If he got damages it could. It would establish a roadmap if not a legal precedent. If he gets real damages out of the MPAA you'll find lawyers lining up to take clients being sued by the MPAA.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

No they'll just garnish your wages until the end of time, or take out a lien against your house/car/etc. Not having money is no obstacle to them taking it.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

talk != action

Re:Prediction

[TheSpoom]

I must admit, if they do go through with it, it'll be a hell of a lot more interesting than SCO. ;^)

And just like them, they'll have no evidence that proves anything. Whether an IP address from a log from a P2P search bot is enough to convince a judge of the merit of the case... well, that's the interesting part.

Re:Prediction

[jZnat]

They're worried about how you'd have to pay your lawyer by the hour, and the MPAA could afford to drag the case on and on while you go into debt paying your lawyer with little or no hope of getting that money back from the MPAA.

Re:Prediction

[Austerity Empowers]

In other words, when dealt a pair of twos and a lot of junk, the MPAA will go in a few million to try to scare off their opponents.

It's nice to be the richest guy at the table I guess, but you won't stay that way long.

Re:Prediction

[Paracelcus]

Flat broke = no job
Car = 10 year old Hundai with 0 resale value!

When I say flat broke I really mean it!

Re:Prediction

[TheSpoom]

IANAL.

It's very difficult for lower classes to participate now. They can get a public defender if they're brought to criminal court, but not in a civil suit. They'll have to hire a lawyer. In addition, the MPAA knows that drawing out the suit as long as possible is in their interest, and will attempt to do so, until the defendant is simply out of money and can't affort to pay their lawyers any further, forcing them into a settlement.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Typically, if you're flat broke, you don't have a job, a house or a car. Anyone who thinks they're flat broke when they have a job or can afford a house or car just has a sour disposition.

Re:Prediction

[Ethan Allison]

Keep it loud enough and people can't forget about it.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, Thats Probably the only way to corner them. lets hold them to their claims, Whos the Theiving pirate in this position ^_^

Re:Prediction

[Zeinfeld]

They're worried about how you'd have to pay your lawyer by the hour, and the MPAA could afford to drag the case on and on while you go into debt paying your lawyer with little or no hope of getting that money back from the MPAA.

That is why they have much more to fear from an in person defendant. The court is highly unlikely to allow the MPAA to extract any more in damages than they are entitled to.

In this case the MPAA can only demonstrate a loss of a few tens of dollars at most with respect to that one title. Their demand for $2500 is blowing smoke. They have no proof of any other damages.

It would probably not take much to persuade the judge to reduce the case to only consider the specific damages actually alleged. Once that happens the MPAA is going to court expensively to win damages of $10.

The discovery process is itself going to be highly damaging to the MPAA as they will inevitably reveal methods they would rather keep secret.

Re:Prediction

[John Hasler]

> They'll probably drop it quietly after everyone has forgotten about it.

They can't drop his counterclaims.

Re:Prediction

[tinkerghost]

Actually, I don't think that any of their suits have actually been through the court system. Right now, it seems that they get up to the point of walking through the door & then drop the suit.
The courts can't rule on if their suits are viable/legal until one actually makes it through the door. If it goes to discovery & the courts uphold that they can't use the name/IP due to improper search/seasure then they're screwed.
Failing that, they have the preponderance of evidence - I think I would pass out the latest figures on botnets, along with reports of Govt/military/police 'puters being botted. "Latest reports indicate 20% of computers connected to the internet are vulnerable to remote control via malware, can **AA show mine wasn't controlled at the time of the alleged violation?"
Have the **AA bothered to track MAC addresses to show if there was an instance of IP spoofing, or simple IP overriding?

Re:Prediction

[topical_surfactant]

As you sort of pointed out, a defendant in a civil suit does not get a court-appointed lawyer, no matter what. Ever tried representing yourself in a civil court against a team of professional asshol^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers? You can be effectively buried financially in civil courts long before receiving a legal outcome for the case. Further, they've been telling people "If you pay X thousand dollars, we won't pursue this." That's extortion (with shitty, questionable leverage), any way you cut it. They're using the civil court system as their tire iron to try and intimidate everyday citizens, and calling their bluff requires lots of free time and / or money.

Personally, I haven't bought CDs or DVDs in almost six years anyway, and I don't want any part of copying it. The content flat out sucks.

Re:Prediction

[rizzo420]

even if he did download it... he owns a copy of it. therefore, i think that would fall into fair use.

Re:Prediction

[TechForensics]

They can't drop the case if the defendant files a counterclaim. Or if they do, they're still in court on the counterclaim. If Hogan wants to teach them a lesson, he'll make sure his counterclaim litigates all of the issues they don't want litigated, including some they'd be forced to litigate if they actually took someone all the way to court.

Re:Prediction

[Trails]

Why, becasuse what the MPAA says and what the MPAA do are usually the same thing? What do you expect them to say?

"This guy's got us scared shitless. We're presently developing a strategy to tuck our tails between our legs and run away, screaming like little schoolgirls."

Re:Prediction

[Duhavid]

Further, wouldnt they need to prove that the IP address in question
was his at the time of the download?

Re:Prediction

[andrewman327]

If they go through with the lawsuit and the defendant is found guilty, could he have to pay all of the court costs including the plaintiffs' lawyers? Vice versa, could this end up being cheap for Hogan if he wins?

Re:Prediction

[recursiv]

Not the uploading

Re:Prediction

[pilgrim23]

Lawyers care not one whit the veracity or validity of a claim. The only issue here is one of how long it can drag out to increase legal fees.

Resolving these extortive issues should take place in a system of justice, not require a millionaire being harassed and wishing to fight the good fight. Being dependent on this is more feudal then modern.

Re:Prediction

[russ1337]

I suppose he *could* try and get them into court for some kind of criminal offense, but what would it be?

Under International Drinking Rules you point your elbow at them and call 'false accusation', they are then required to 'down' their beer.

Any dispute can be resolved by a good drinking game...

Re:Prediction

[voice_of_all_reason]

No, I meant you defend yourself.

With a reasonable amount of study on basic law, it shouldn't be that hard at all. Weren't courts around before lawyers?

Re:Prediction

[TopShelf]

But this case doesn't involve him uploading anything. They're going after him for allegedly downloading the flick.

Re:Prediction

[Dan Ost]

If there is an established pattern of dropping the case at the door, then
perhaps some state attorney general could bring up charges against the RIAA
for extortion/racketeering.

Re:Prediction

[Squalish]

They're filing civil lawsuits, which are a different legal category than crimes here in the US. One key: Civil law goes on preponderence (51% convinced = hold the defendant liable), so a mere 'reasonable doubt' that you were using your computer is not a defense. They just have to convince a judge that you probably were, rather than proving it.

Re:Prediction

[Mr. Underbridge]

Lawyers care not one whit the veracity or validity of a claim. The only issue here is one of how long it can drag out to increase legal fees.

Well, if damages were to arise in even one case, they would care because it would be proverbial chum in the water.

Re:Prediction

[Kadin2048]

I think there's a real risk that if you tried to represent yourself, a team of RIAA suits would be more than capable of just burying you in procedural minutiae, or wait until you slip up and make some sort of unfortunate mistake yourself and then get a summary judgement. You'd have to have a judge who was really on your side, and a lot of judges don't take too kindly to people who represent themselves, because they think it makes the trial take longer and thus wastes their time.

The entire system is based around how many cases they can grind through in a week, not how fair or right the outcomes are. If you're perceived to be slowing things down, you'll have no friends to help you.

The only self-represented, successful civil suits I've ever heard of is where the issue was really clear-cut: the other people were really evil and totally unsympathetic. While you and I might think the RIAA fits that bill, they might be able to pull off "artists rights" in the courtroom and make you look like the bad guy ... and then it's just a matter of the judge yawning as they procedure you to death.

Re:Prediction

[voice_of_all_reason]

You can be effectively buried financially in civil courts long before receiving a legal outcome for the case.

How does it cost you money to go to court yourself and handle the case, other than the "cost" of losing pay from work. But a writer or seasonal worker might be able to swing it.

Re:Prediction

[Omestes]

"A person who represents himself has a fool for an attorney"

A truism. Law is such an intricate and complicated (conviluted) system that the average lay-person has no chance at understanding all of the precedents and oddness that is in law. Law is not for the people, it has long ago transcended "common law", and has become complicated for its own sake (if it was simple, lawyers would not be able to get rich, and thus it is in the law makers interest to keep it inaccesable).

Even simple matters can quickly become lost in rhetorical complications (you are in violation of statuate 12, sub-clause 14, paragraph 2, line 3, word 142).

Re:Prediction

[Danse]

They can't drop the case if the defendant files a counterclaim. Or if they do, they're still in court on the counterclaim. If Hogan wants to teach them a lesson, he'll make sure his counterclaim litigates all of the issues they don't want litigated, including some they'd be forced to litigate if they actually took someone all the way to court.

That all depends on what the judge decides to let him pursue. The judge could decide that he doesn't have standing to pursue some issues.

Re:Prediction

[MBGMorden]

"Defending yourself" in court isn't as easy as it seems. That's kind of like telling some random guy on the street that if he works out for a few weeks he can go into the ring with a professional boxer. If you were in shape to start with (or in your example, relatively smart and educated), you MIGHT be able to pull off a win, but 99% of the time you're going to have your ass handed to you.

Re:Prediction

[eric76]

Defending yourself in court can be a real challenge that would pretty much require making it a full-time job.

One problem is that you have to deal with all kinds of procedural issues, most of which are well known by the lawyers, but not by the rest of us. Failing to file the proper papers or filing after a deadline can seriously damage your case. If you fail to bring up the proper arguments at the right time, you may not be permitted to bring them up later.

In other words, when you hit the ground, you have to hit the ground at full speed instead of feeling your way along.

The legal system is designed for the perpetuation of lawyers, not to arrive at a just outcome.

Re:Prediction

[mrpeebles]

Except that I believe that the copyright law is written so that, for purposes of that law, copyrighted works have some very large value ($275K comes to mind.) IANAL, though.

Re:Prediction

[dacarr]

Would it be possible for him, then, to request an override to a plaintiff's motion to dismiss?

Re:Prediction

[schnell]

No, I meant you defend yourself. With a reasonable amount of study on basic law, it shouldn't be that hard at all.

Describing an intellectual property civil lawsuit against people with law degrees and years of experience like this may just be a little cavalier. Let's try a little substitution here and see how it sounds:

No, I meant fix your transmission yourself. With a reasonable amount of study on basic automotive engineering, it shouldn't be that hard at all.

or:

No, I meant perform a root canal on yourself. With a reasonable amount of study on basic orthodontics, some local anesthesia and a mirror, it shouldn't be that hard at all.

Re:Prediction

[C-Shalom]

Yeah, he could countersue, but that doesn't help anybody. Most people don't have the financial means to enter into a civil suit with an organization the size of the MPAA

Actually as a plaintiff in a civil suit it doesn't cost you anything to bring forth a case (provided you use an attorney and you don't fire them). This is because if the attorney is willing to represent you, they assume all costs and expenses expecting a return when a verdict is reached in the plaintiffs favor. They then take their agreed upon fee/percentage from the recovery and then deduct the expenses from your portion (exception is class action suites).
The attorney agrees to take your case on the basis that your claim has merits (or they think they can make money (if they're a sleaze ball)). If they don't win or there is no recovery made, they take the loss. If you fire them then they can bill you for their time and expenses.

Re:Prediction

[Time_Ngler]

When you use bittorrent, you are downloading as well as uploading. That's how they keep the bandwidth up, and why more peers usually means a faster download.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever heard a lawyer give an interview to say, "We're scared of trial and plan to dismiss our case as quickly and quietly as we can"?

You do know how to tell if a lawyer is lying, right?
gnivom era spil siH

Re:Prediction

[tinkerghost]

The only evidence they seem to have is that they have screenshots of P2P software showing a time and an IP address, and the word of the ISP that at that time/date the IP address was assigned to my account.
I suppose that's nice, but it would take me 10 minutes to make a screenshot showing the whitehouse.gov web server sharing kiddy porn.
The other issue is that they don't just have to convince a Judge that it's a preponderance of evidence, they have to convince a jury. Given some of the behaviours of RIAA & MPAA, they might have a hard time convincing a jury that pissing into the wind is a bad idea. Add in the hysteria over bots/virii/trojans etc, showing that even pros like the military can't keep their systems clean may be enough there to point a jury to the conclusion that if I say I didn't do it, and **AA can't show anything else but that 'perhaps' my PC was involved, then they really don't have a preponderance.

Re:Prediction

[shotfeel]

Yep. Statutory damages -they don't have to prove they actually suffered any damages.

See Statutory damages for copyright infringement

In the United States, statutory damages are set out in Title 17, Section 504 of the U.S. Code. The basic level of damages is between $750 and $30,000 per work, at the discretion of the court.
Plaintiffs who can show willfull infringement may be entitled to damages up to $150,000 per work. Defendants who can show that they were "not aware and had no reason to believe" they were infringing copyright may have the damages reduced to $200 per work.

Re:Prediction

[shotfeel]

What counterclaims? I don't see any mentioned in TFA.

Re:Prediction

[mrxak]

The discovery process is itself going to be highly damaging to the MPAA as they will inevitably reveal methods they would rather keep secret.

That's the real hope here in Shawn Hogan defending himself. The problem though is that if the MPAA simply drops the charges, the general public doesn't win, and the MPAA will just go find someone else to extort $2500 from. But hey, maybe there'll be some media attention from this, at least.

Re:Prediction

[StarvingSE]

Then go out and find a job instead of posting on slashdot, you lazy clod!

Re:Prediction

[GeckoX]

Yes, but that's beside the point in this case.

He is being sued for Downloading a specific movie, he is not being sued for Uploading anything at all.

Re:Prediction

[voice_of_all_reason]

I am in violation of "is?"

That's a whole other can of worms.

Re:Prediction

[GeckoX]

Then throw out Law as it stands and start from scratch.

If it's that freaking complicated, which it is, then FIX THE BLOODY THING!

It's a damned racket, like it or not. And those who have, can. Those who don't, lose.

The system is broken plain and simple when a huge Corporate Entity can pull this shit on anyone it feels like, and know that almost always, they'll get away with it.

Suggesting that the only answer is to hire a lawyer ignores a list of problems as long as my arm. And don't get me wrong, I'm not down on lawyers per se. It's the system that's broke, the lawyers just happen to be on the up side of said broken system.

Re:Prediction

[Lumpy]

Best thing to do is hire a lawyer team that knows how to herd the media well. Fight in court is one thing. fight in the news and in front of the world = really bad things for the target.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless Hogan doesn't have a leg to stand on that is.

Which strikes me as slightly more likely. If the MPAA's evidence is so far what has been claimed, then the preponderance of evidence is currently against Hogan, and he needs to show something that proves otherwise. Remember, this is a civil trial, not criminal, and criminal standards of evidence do not apply.

Re:Prediction

[Firehed]

Isn't it so convenient that the pirated copies don't include the FBI warning? For the record, it's $250,000 and/or 5 years in prison (unless you're referring to something else). But you're not creating an unauthorized copy either. Getting one, yes, but not creating one. This is more akin to buying a copy from the sketchy guy on the street corner, not stealing one from the store as they'd like to say (nobody else could then go buy that copy you stole). The most you could have realistically done in damages is about $50, and that's if you're a good boy and seed to 100%.

Re:Prediction

[shotfeel]

For anyone interested, Recording Industry vs The People keeps an eye on many of the RIAA cases in progress.

Re:Prediction

[voice_of_all_reason]

While I do see your point, hehe, the subtle difference is that all things being equal, the court should side with the defendant in these cases because the RIAA usually does not have enough evidence. It is not a police force and has no power of search, interrogation, or arrest. All you have to do is stem the tide, as opposed do the real work yourself (as in your examples).

Re:Prediction

[Firehed]

The counterclaims weren't listed since they figured nobody would bother reading TFA anyways.

Re:Prediction

[CreatureComfort]

And how, great guru, do you exactly propose to accomplish this?

Both major parties are filled with lawyers who have a strong self interest in keeping the system as complex as possible. The mindless sheep refuse to vote for anyone or any way different from what they've always known, (even when what they've always known they hate) because that would be "throwing away their vote".

The only ways I can see things changing are:
1) Armed insurrection,
2) double or tripling of average intelligence, combined with widespread increase in the understanding and use of deductive logic,
3) complete breakdown of society and order until the new dark ages end.

Unfortunately, I don't see 1 as being successful and 2 as being any kind of likely. 3 seems to be where we're headed.

Re:Prediction

[tdk2fe]

I wonder if a class-action lawsuit against the *AA's could be filed. Something perhaps seeking settlement damages for every individual they have bullied into paying them off...

Re:Prediction

[Omestes]

I agree with you...

But for the immediate problems, hiring a lawyer is the only solution. Having some big long-term fix will do nothing when the *IAA comes to your door, or someone breaths down your next from DCMA violation, PATRIOT act violation, or various other thoughtcrimes.

I would love something like common language law, where average lay-people could present civil matters, and defend themselves before the court. It would make sense. It should be in the constitution, along with the right to face your accusor, and have a jury of peers, "the right to understand the charges against you".

But again, those in charge profit from the status-quo, and those in charge are the only ones able to change it. Barring some legal version of Martin Luther and the Reformation, it will always remain broken.

Re:Prediction

[number11]

Actually as a plaintiff in a civil suit it doesn't cost you anything to bring forth a case (provided you use an attorney and you don't fire them). This is because if the attorney is willing to represent you, they assume all costs and expenses expecting a return when a verdict is reached in the plaintiffs favor.

Funny, my recollection is that when I was a plaintiff with a lawyer on contingency, I had to pay all the fees up front. You surely don't think the lawyer is going to take a chance on getting stiffed on the fees, do you?

And that's assuming you can find a lawyer who's willing to take the case on contingency. Who figures the payoff will be large enough so that his 1/3 will pay him well. And who is pretty certain that he will win the case.

Here we have an uncertain case. Can he prove (50%+1) that the MPAA was malicious or reckless? That they had no evidence? And even if he does, what monetary damages have you suffered that they will have to repay? Can he prove it was so egregious that triple damages should be awarded? No, I think you'll be paying his hourly $200, and he'll want a deposit up front (lawyers know how to make sure that they get paid).

Re:Prediction

[schnell]

the subtle difference is that all things being equal, the court should side with the defendant in these cases

Despite the fact that I was making light of the assertion, I agree that defending yourself in a case like this is something Joe Average should be able to do. I think the real problem is grounding your defense firmly among the twists/turns and precedents established in intellectual property law cases of this type already - if you could get a real lawyer to tell you what points to go after and which traps to avoid, you probably could do at least a functional job of it yourself.

Hmm ... maybe "Everyman's Guide To Defending Yourself Against **AA Lawsuits" is something the EFF should put on their project list?

Re:Prediction

[MrSquirrel]

I have a way to stop the MPAA/RIAA's gruesome assaults on the public -- fire, and lots of it. True, if you killed them, another slimy and wretched organization would take their place... and if you killed them, another nasty, vile, scum-of-the-Earth association would move onto the field... and if you killed them... well, that would probably be the end of it. See, violence DOES solve problems.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

If the RIAA threatens multiple people, then repeatedly drops suits when challenged by those with resources while continuing against people who can't afford to countersue, this may open them to a charge of barratry, with a class-action lawsuit from their victims to follow.

Re:Prediction

[slippyblade]

Jury? I'm pretty certain that civil suits don't have juries... I might be wrong though.

Re:Prediction

[vidarh]

The best way to counter this would be to produce logs that "prove" that the other sides lawyers or the judge did something they obviously didn't by spoofing IP adresses etc. Show the court that what seems like a log of what he actually did is in fact a log of what it appears like someone who happened to know how to seem to use his ip address at the time might possibly have done providing the MPAA didn't just invent the logs or screw up.

Watching them try to explain away a demonstration like that would be highly entertaining.

Re:Prediction

[killtherat]

That makes the assumption that the users at the other end of the transfer were downloading the file illegally. What if they also owned a copy of the movie? They are not the ones on trial. IANAL, but I would think we would have to presume innocence on those other people who have not even had the opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law. The other downloaders are not on trial, just this one guy. And thus, because we must presume their innocence. If they were legally downloading the file, we cannot condemn his actions of uploading the file.

Of course that all assumes that downloading a file to make a backup of something you own is actually legal. I have no idea about the status of that one.

Re:Prediction

[Whyte Panther]

and as far as I know, their extortion-like lawsuits break now existing laws.

Never before have I agreed with a typo so much.

Re:Prediction

[tinkerghost]

Oh yes :) that's why you get coffee spill suits that result in multi million dollar settlements, and judges reducing the rewards all the time. Juries like to give money to 'the little guy' when it's a big bad corperation going after them.

Re:Prediction

[houghi]

Is there no way that if they pull out, the other party can still demand a trial?

Re:Prediction

[Strolls]

Defending yourself in court can be a real challenge that would pretty much require making it a full-time job.

It literally became a full-time job for Helen Steel and David Morris in the McLibel case.

The Wikipedia article only says:
... the two had no formal post-secondary school education, and few financial resources. Furthermore, they were denied legal aid by the courts. Although the pair were deemed no legal match for McDonald's enormous legal assets, they represented themselves, receiving much free legal advice, and doing enormous amounts of research in their spare time.
however I recall reading in a Sunday broadsheet at the time that the case dragged on for a couple of years (I think that was just the first case!) and that the two represented themselves in court for 8 hours a day, then spent several hours of an evening preparing their briefs for the next day.

Faced with legal action by a corporate behemoth like McDonalds, there was really no other affordable way to defend themselves, and I am in awe of their commitment - 3 other defendants were named in the initial proceedings, but they retracted the statements in the disputed pamphlet and apologised for its content. I believe that Steel & Morris gave up their jobs as a postman & as a gardener in because they refused to back down.

IIRC none of the defendants were the authors of the leaflet - the group they belonged to was very ad-hoc, meeting weekly in a pub, and the court case was brought a couple of years after the leaflet had been distributed; Steel or Morris was quoted in the article I read as saying they didn't remember who did write it, as it was only one of many activities the group undertook. This seems to me to quite a reasonable assertion after two years, considering that someone might've only attended only a few of the meetings over a period of a few months - you might well remember faces but be unable to put names to them, and be unable to provide contact details for Mick or Joe.

Stroller.

Re:Prediction

[Grishnakh]

Your substitutions are ridiculous. Your point is valid, but I think you need better examples.

Transmissions aren't that hard to fix for anyone mechanically inclined, especially manual transmissions. Nonprofessionals fix them in their garages all the time. The professionals are NOT automotive engineers; I don't know where you live that regular mechanics have 4-year engineering degrees, but it's not in any country I've heard of. Furthermore, if you have a good factory service manual, it'll tell you step-by-step exactly how to rebuild your transmission. There's no such thing for law cases.

Root canals aren't a good comparison either. Not only does involve something delicate enough that you want an expert doing it, it's inside your mouth, which is rather difficult to do to yourself, much like giving yourself a back massage.

The problem with defending yourself, as others have pointed out, is that there's all kinds of stupid procedural details that only serve to keep the lawyers in business and everyone else out, and these stupid details vary greatly from state to state.

Re:Prediction

[mattyrobinson69]

>Even simple matters can quickly become lost in rhetorical complications (you are in violation of statuate 12, sub-clause 14, paragraph 2, line 3, word 142).

I did not snog a llama

Re:Prediction

[gutnor]

I guess you can defend yourself as much as anybody can develop an application. Computers were also around before developers. In theory, documentation is readily available, free tools are all over the place. There is even a strong community. Still for somebody with no experience in development or computer in general, it is a lot of work only to get to the Hello World sample application. So it's not tomorrow that Joe User will stop bitching about Word and Windows and start coding...

The law is a similar beast with tons of procedures, know-how, years of jurisprudence in addition to a sheer number of laws. As for developers, Lawyers takes years of training ( formally at school and/or experience ) before being ready for the show and even then, they are only specialised is a small subset of the Law.
Also a trial is a competition and you have only one shot. You don't have the opportunity to do a little Hello Word first. You have to perform against professionals in their very specialty and succeed the first time you do it.

So yes you can defend yourself. But it will takes you a huge amount of time and dedication to have a chance of success.

Re:Prediction

[topical_surfactant]

I think you've answered your own question. You don't get "paid leave" to fight a civil case, and thus probably can't keep up with the bills if you're like most Americans, living paycheck to paycheck. As for writers, time is money, and writing for a living requires lots of constant work (except for a select few blockbusting authors).

Got a significant other, or family member who can support you during the case? I can see that working, though it would probably put a strain on the relationship. And like the other poster mentioned, good luck representing yourself if you're not a lawyer by trade.

Re:Prediction

[91degrees]

The article is a summary written by a journalist who isn't a legal expert. It's more likely that he's got it wrong than the MPAA are suing him for something that's not unlwaful.

Re:Prediction

[spagetti_code]

My guess: They'll drop the suit against this guy, but continue to threaten those that don't have the means to fight back.

I dont think they will drop it.
The **AA will win big whether they win or lose this case.

Remember that fear is their biggest weapon - They need everyone to be scared
of the huge legal bills. This is a protection racket - give me $1000 or I'll
cost you $100,000.

So they want this to go to a long messy trial with lost of lawyers,
and hopefully an appeal or two. They dont care if they lose - they
want him to pay big bucks. And be very public about it.

NOW every single person sent an extortion demand (I mean suit) will
have this case on their mind. This guy didn't have to pay
the 2500, but it cost him 100,000 to do it.

**AA dont even care if he gets costs awarded. So what - he
bet $100,000 (fees to lawyers) and got it all back. Can
you afford to do that. Would you sell your house in
taking on this suit - where if you win and get costs, you get most
of your money back. If you win but dont get costs awarded,
you lose all your assets.

I have to take my hat off to the **AA - this is a really
really good scam. And its legal.

Re:Prediction

[Vengie]

Courts afford ridiculous leeway to pro se litigants. For an example case, look at Dioguardi v Durning, 139 F 2d 774 (2d Cir. 1944)

"In his complaint, obviously home drawn, plaintiff attempts to assert a series of grievances against.....the complaint was dismissed by the District Court, with leave, however ,to plaintiff to amend..."
"Thereupon plaintiff filed an amended com-plaint, wherein, with an obviously heightened conviction that he was being unjustly treated, he vigorously reiterates his claims...."
"We think that, however inartistically they may be stated, the plaintiff has disclosed his claims..."

Re:Prediction

[andy17null]

According to the anonymous "PhilaLawyer" the parent is right on all counts. It's an interesting blog, check it out.

Re:Prediction

[soft_guy]

a lot of judges don't take too kindly to people who represent themselves, because they think it makes the trial take longer and thus wastes their time.

Not to mention that almost all judges are:
1. Lawyers who believe in full employment for lawyers.
2. Asshats.

Re:Prediction

[milamber3]

Yah, but in this kind of situation if you don't have the "few million" to call the MPAA's bet then they just walk away with your $2500 and stay very rich.

Re:Prediction

[TheSpoom]

I assume by how these things usually work that the MPAA already got his identity from the ISP through a John Doe filing. IANAL.

Re:Prediction

[IdleTime]

Isn't this what you gun-nuts would call a second amendment situation? So, why don't you raise up with all your arms and overthrow this unjust justice system? Was the amendment not written with such a situation in mind? Or are you just "fire-and-brimstone" speech and no action?

Re:Prediction

[Rimbo]

Have you never heard of "case law?"

If he successfully fights this, it will change the game. There is a good chance that it will prevent future lawsuits. Considering that is part of his intention, and he will get both financial and legal support to do so, he could construct the case just so that is the outcome.

It may not be possible in this case, but to automatically assume that it's impossible just shows your ignorance of the way the judicial system works.

Re:Prediction

[voice_of_all_reason]

Simply put, the Army and their suppliers are still reasonably loyal to the chain of command. (While Halliburton the company is making alot of money, Joe in accounting, not so much)

When and if the "war on terra" depletes their morale enough is the only time armed insurrection stands a real chance of success. To go on a geek tangent, one of the major reasons the Star Wars Rebellion defeated the Galactic Empire was due to the X-wing and Mon Calamari Cruiser engineers' defection.

Re:Prediction

[voice_of_all_reason]

Very informative, thanks for cluing me in!

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Shawn will be made an example of to show you can't use your money to get you our of trouble when you're caught pirating. The fact he'll spend millions defending himself only proves why I quit using his software built upon 1993 technology (FileMaker) a long time ago - He's out of touch.

Re:Prediction

[KingSkippus]

Can someone explain this overwhelming opinion in every RIAA/MPAA lawsuit thread? I'm sure the fee for filing a lawsuit itself isn't too high, otherwise the lower-classes simply couldn't participate. Assuming you don't have/need a job, what's preventing you from defending yourself?

The plaintiff has to prove his point with a preponderance of evidence. I don't think they'll do that with just an IP address and a log from azureus.

Because it's not as simple as going down to your local courthouse and saying, "Hey, I'm not guilty!

They're not suing you in your home state. They're suing you on the other side of the country, where one of the packets may have passed through. Live in California? Hope you can afford a trip to Vermont. Live in Alabama? Hope you don't mind driving to Washington State.

Oh, by the way, if you don't travel across the country and bother showing up at the appointed date and time, the judge issues a summary judgement against you. You lose, and instead of owing them $2,500, you now owe them everything they asked for, including attorney's fees, filing fees, your-nose-is-too-big fees, everything. It will end up being dozens of thousands of dollars, maybe even six figures. Your paycheck will be garnished. Your credit will be ruined. Forget ever being able to buy a car again, you'll be lucky to be able to buy food. (But that's okay, because no insurance company would ever carry you, anyway...)

But let's say you do make the trip and show up. Now their lawyers file all sorts of motions to keep the case in the courts at least several months. Didn't you know that you'd pretty much have to live wherever it is they're suing you now? Of course, you can just hire a lawyer to represent you, but guess what, they ain't cheap.

So you travel across country, get an apartment, hire a lawyer, and win your case. Guess what. Now they'll appeal the decision, and you get to repeat the process all over again. Then, they'll sue you somewhere else for another song, and you get to do it yet again.

You get the idea. It's not called extortion because it's easy.

This guy has the right idea. The only way to stop this crap is to suck up the expense, get a one-time final ruling on the issue, and then everyone can just hire a lawyer on the cheap to say, "There's the precedent, please uphold it." And for his willingness to go through a lot of time and expense so that the rest of us don't have to, I salute him. I hope he starts a legal defense fund, because I'd be willing to pitch in to help.

Re:Prediction

[whoisjoe]

One problem is that you have to deal with all kinds of procedural issues, most of which are well known by the lawyers, but not by the rest of us....

I can speak to that. I got a speeding ticket and decided to defend myself. Because the ticket was for 25+ over the limit, it was a criminal charge, which unlike an infraction meant I had the right to a jury trial. However, I almost lost this right because at the arraignment, I consented to a magistrate hearing the case (which, I guess, decriminalized it somehow).

Re:Prediction

[canadian_right]

The law is not complicated to make lawyers rich - it is complicted in an effort to be fair.

Most of the procedural rules came about because someone tried to game the system and they had to write a new rule to prevent it. It takes so long because both sides get many chances to "have a say" in an effort to be fair. Written and fixed procedures also help things be fair as this also makes each case follow the same rules.

The system can still be abused, and is abused by rich people and corporations. While the USA doesn't have a "user pays" system by default, in egregious cases the courts can in fact award costs. Theses costs may not be your full costs as they are based on both your actual costs and "normal" costs.

That said, the RIAAA and MPAAA lawsuits seem like scattershot SLAPP suits to me.

Re:Prediction

[kayditty]

I believe that would be endodontics.

Re:Prediction

[Associate]

But what if someone with more balls than brains decided to sit in court without a lawyer and let the MPAA bash him? If he has relatively little to loose, say his parents basement and a 10 year old domestic car, what harm could he really do to himself? So what if Joe Nerd owes the MPAA more money than he'll ever make in his lifetime. I doubt it will make people stop downloading. If anything, the MPAA will be viewed more so as a bully, bent on ruining anyone they come across. And he'll be thought of as the victim, not Universal or Sony or any other who was deprived of $15 for some shitty movie. They'll never be able to take the moral high ground then.

Re:Prediction

[HiThere]

This is largely, but definitely not entirely, true. If you want a blatant example of the system being corrupted to serve the interests of the powerful, check into how corporations became legal persons. There never was a legal decision that decided that, it was some law clerk's transcription. But it's the law now. Just *try* to challenge it.

As in most of the law, the reason that his transcription was allowed to stand was that it benefitted powerful interests. Whether these same interests caused the original transcription to be written is not know by me.

If you want clear cases where people have suborned legislators whether legally or illegally, you can find them. Proving that a law was passed because of bribery *might* get someone thrown in jail (quite unsual), but it doesn't get rid of the law. These days the laws are such that only a very careless attempt at bribery is actually illegal, however. It was too embarassing several times in the past, so the laws were changed.

Re:Prediction

[Willuknight]

Mod this up, email it to your entire local govenment department ~_~

Re:Prediction

[Winckle]

(you are in violation of statuate 12, sub-clause 14, paragraph 2, line 3, word 142).

The.

Re:Prediction

[Talinth]

The fact that bittorrent uploads chunks while it downloads makes you a distributor.

Re:Prediction

[Skynyrd]

Courts afford ridiculous leeway to pro se litigants. For an example case, look at Dioguardi v Durning, 139 F 2d 774 (2d Cir. 1944)

If I'm reading that correctly, it was over 60 years ago. I'm guessing that things have changed.

Do you have a different example?

Re:Prediction

[dynamo]

I wholeheartedly agree.

The solution, as I see it, is simple. FLOOD the system with pro se litigants, who absolutely refuse to get a lawyer. Make and promote a well funded national organization dedicated to helping people act as pro se litigants, and giving organized sets of suggestions and articles written by other members, on the details and how-tos of various types of cases. A wikipedia-style open-source laywering reference and supporting org.

With enough pro se litigants, the courts and the rest of the system, after pitching their own fit for a while, will eventually realize that it is their duty under the law to deal with these people, and accomodations will be made.

It's a valid, scoped execution path under the current system, it just hasn't been used often enough to get much optimization work done on it. Society adapts to roadblocks though. They can't throw you in jail or refuse you a trial just for wanting to be your own lawyer.

Re:Prediction

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Yes there is a right to jury trial if either party demands it in their pleading. Which is why it's important for people representing themselves in these cases to be sure to put a jury demand in their answer.

Re:Prediction

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Hmm ... maybe "Everyman's Guide To Defending Yourself Against **AA Lawsuits" is something the EFF should put on their project list?

That would probably get them into legal trouble if someone used that guide and lost ... given our litigious society, I can see someone suing the EFF for that. Maybe "Top Ten Pitfalls to avoid in *AA Lawsuits" would be better ... "When the judge says that he wants to see form such-and-such by this date, make sure you do this and don't do that."

Re:Prediction

[RealGrouchy]

He was speaking in a normative sense.

In a sane world, it ought to be that when a "little innocent guy" is attacked by a "big bad guy", the size of the guys ought to be irrelevant to their representation in the eye of justice.

In a sane world, a root canal should be difficult to perform on yourself.

In our world, however, the legal system doesn't work as it would in a sane world, but root canals do.

- RG>

Re:Prediction

[spagetti_code]

When that happens, and they dont get crushed by the **AA, give
me a call.

Till then, I stand by what I said. I am truely in awe of this
legal protection racket, and the **AA will come out stronger, whether they win
this particular suit or not.

Note that there was a woman who did exactly this. She didn't really
win though - just got the case transferred to her daughter.
(see here and take extra note of #15.)

Re:Prediction

[FLEB]

What, so you can't have two of 'em?

Re:Prediction

[zenyu]

No, I meant fix your transmission yourself. With a reasonable amount of study on basic automotive engineering, it shouldn't be that hard at all.
Yup.

No, I meant perform a root canal on yourself. With a reasonable amount of study on basic orthodontics, some local anesthesia and a mirror, it shouldn't be that hard at all.
Haven't done a root canal, but when low on funds I performed some auto-gum-surgery. No anesthesia, [un?]fortunately. Turned out quite well.

I think you underestimate DIY, well at least amoung the engineering type.

I would represent myself in court in a simple an open-and-shut case; fighting evil gives you a really good natural high, and these people don't even use cement booties.

Of course, I can afford legal representation, and don't have enough digits to count the number of lawyers amoung my family and friends. Having the general counsel of [insert random media company] write a letter on your behalf works wonders. The MPAA, Mafia, RIAA and friends are bullies. They only want to extort money from the downtrodden.

Re:Prediction

[Vengie]

Certain things in the law don't change. Dioguardi is still good law. Certain issues, once dealt with, rarely come back up for judicial review at the apellate level, being disposed of in district court. [Celotex, Conley v Gibson, Erie Railroad, Asahi, World Wide Volkswagon are all still good law, and in fact are staples in any Civil Procedure textbook. ] That being said:
The case has been cited approximately 232 times since decided; 25 of those times since 2000. (Oftentimes in law review articles -- as it's still one of the "better" examples of a semi-crazy pro-se litigant who still managed to cobble together a complaint that could pass a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim)

There can be no serious dispute that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure abandoned the rigid rules of pleading that existed 70 years ago. The drafters of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure even went so far as to refrain from using the expression "cause of action" in order to underscore the intended departure from arcane pleading rules. Collins v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp., 106 F.2d 83, 86,(2d Cir. 1939) (Clark, J., concurring); see Dioguardi v. Durning, 139 F.2d 774, 775 (2d Cir. 1944) (Clark, J.). HN1Where a litigant is proceeding pro se, even "greater latitude" is appropriate. Hou v. New York City Dep't of Envtl. Prot., supra, 1998 WL at *2.

This is from: Ming Yen Hou v. N.Y. City Dep't of Envtl. Prot., 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5151 (D.N.Y. 2001)
Also, the word from SCOTUS (via a nice quote from a Bankruptcy court judge):

Courts generally afford pro se litigants special consideration. In Haines v. Kerner, the Supreme Court held that the pleadings of pro se litigants are subject to "less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers." 404 U.S. 519, 520-21, 92 S. Ct. 594, 30 L. Ed. 2d 652 (1972) (citing Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 2 L. Ed. 2d 80, 78 S. Ct. 99 (1957); Dioguardi v. Durning, 139 F.2d 774 (2d Cir. 1944)) (per curiam). Following the Supreme Court's ruling, the majority of courts liberally construe pro se pleadings, particularly complaints. Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5, 9-10, 101 S. Ct. 173, 66 L. Ed. 2d 163 (1980) ("It is settled law that the allegations of such a complaint, however inartfully pleaded' are held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers . . .'") (quoting Haines, 404 U.S. at 520); Didie v. Howes, 988 F.2d 1097, 1105 (11th Cir. 1993) ("Further, we are mindful of the leniency accorded to review of the filings of pro se parties.") (citing Haines, 404 U.S. at 520-21).

Mosley v. Gen. Revenue Corp. (In re Mosley), 330 B.R. 832 (Bankr. D. Ga. 2005)
(Mosley is the ultimate bitchslap to a debt collection agency -- a pro se veteran injured in ROTC training to head to the Persian Gulf during Summer of 1993 vs Large Student Loan Collection Agency. Basically, the judge said "he can't hire experts to testify, he can't get what little evidence he has into open court because he has no legal training to respond to your objections, and he lives in abject poverty. screw you. judgment in favor of debtor.")
Courts routinely cite "old" precedent -- they are good until legislatively (or constitutionally) obliterated OR overruled [or otherwise resolved by a higher authority, e.g. resolution of a circuit split from a later circuit is binding precedent on other circuits] -- if someone cites something from long ago, lawyers use tools like "Shepards" or "Citecheck" to see if the case is still good law. Dioguardi is. It has very memorable facts, and so sticks easily in the memory.

Re:Prediction

[drgonzo59]

I second that, my friend who is a tech support guy fixes his own transmission. Just rents all the expensive tools for a day and goes at it. His car works fine and he saves big bucks on it. Would I trust my car to him? - probably not. But it works well enough for him.

Re:Prediction

[arminw]

.....can **AA show mine wasn't controlled at the time of the alleged violation?"......

How about running an open wireless router? Many people have these nowadays. Anybody can use a laptop within range of one of these and download all sorts of illegal files. How would the **AA show that such a router was used by the defendant, rather than some unknown wireless interloper? The only real information they can get is the IP address and then hope they can get the name associated with that from the ISP. If the defendants computers don't even have the alleged files on it, how can they hope to show it was the defendant, rather than some other unknown user on the network. It seems all these lawsuits are not based on any sort of provable evidence that the defendant actually violated the law.

Re:Prediction

[ottothecow]

well, those two examples are rather different...the root canal simply wouldnt work since you would have to be preforming an operation on yourself...

The transmission however, anyone could eventually learn how to replace/repair their transmission and gather all of the tools necessary to do the job. It's just at some point, their time becomes more valuable than the money it would take to have someone who knows right away how to do the job fix it (or even more valuable than the time used up by simply not having a working car). The law is like a very intricate transmission, you could learn everything that applies and how to defend yuorself but the courtroom is more like (lets stretch this even more here)...a race. You could fix the car and the mechanic could fix the car but when you've got a judge bearing down on you, the trained professional is going to be quick and accurate and move ahead at leaps and bounds over the person who is learning as they go and constantly pulling out a manual.

Re:Prediction

[geminidomino]

They can't throw you in jail or refuse you a trial just for wanting to be your own lawyer.

Actually, they can, indirectly. By setting things up to be just so convoluted, they can make it so that your "iron-clad" defense is invalidated by a minor procedural technicality.

Unfortunately, all judges are lawyers.

Re:Prediction

[JonathanR]

In a couple of months, we'll be reading about it again on /.

Re:Prediction

[91degrees]

You mean this

Re:Prediction

[91degrees]

Ooops. cocked up the link. Try this. It's not as stupid as McDonalds' spin machine makes out.

Re:Prediction

[Christian Engstrom]

That's what one lawyer said, but there is no chance they go through with the case.

I'm quite sure you're right. The problem of the MPAA and others abusing their powers can't be adressed through either the soap box or the jury box, no matter how much money someone is prepared to spend.

But through the ballot box I think it can, at least in Europe.

If somebody here knows Mr. Hogan personally, please feel free to direct his attention to the Swedish political party Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party). We are standing for parliament in the September 17 national elections in Sweden, and we have a realistic chance of gaining entry into parliament and securing a position where we hold the balance of power.

If we succeed, we expect to turn the tide not only in Sweden, but eventually in all of Europe.

We could urgently use USD 50.000 to fund the printing of additional ballot papers (which we have to pay for ourselves under the Swedish system), as well as other items. Money goes a very long way in Swedish politics compared to the US, but some is still useful.

I appreciate and respect the fact that people with funds don't want to be approached by strangers begging for money all the time, so we won't be making any attempts to take contact directly.

But if Mr. Hogan - or anybody else - wants to stick it to the MPAA in a way that they'll really feel, he is more than welcome to contact me to discuss the matter. My email address is christian.engstrom@piratpartiet.se

Smaller donations are also very welcome, and can be made via Paypal and other means. For more details, see www.piratpartiet.se

Christian Engström
Vice chairman, Piratpartiet

Re:Prediction

[Itchy Rich]

The law is like a very intricate transmission...

I think what's missing from these metaphors is the act of opposition. There isn't a team of professional anti-mechanics trying to stop you fixing the transmission.

Re:Prediction

[Jesrad]

"I suppose he *could* try and get them into court for some kind of criminal offense, but what would it be?"

A RICO violation ?

Re:Prediction

[UserChrisCanter4]

IANAL, but I would think we would have to presume innocence on those other people who have not even had the opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law. The other downloaders are not on trial, just this one guy. And thus, because we must presume their innocence.

In a civil case, innocence is not presumed. In this case, the RIAA doesn't need to prove that any or all of the other torrent users were illegally downloading; they only need to prove that there's a reasonable chance one of them was illegally downloading. That shouldn't be too difficult.

This is the same reason why the old "Open AP" defense strategy that /.ers occasionally theorize would be worthless.

Of course, there are dozens of other reasons why the RIAA's case is worthless, and I hope Hogan's lawyers shred them all.

Re:Prediction

[TheRaven64]

I believe the term you are looking for is Barratry. The case is being held in a federal court, and I don't believe that Barratry is a federal offence, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least one person has been sued in California by the MPAA, which would probably be enough of a link to get them prosecuted there. Since it's a criminal offence, this could have some rather amusing results for members of the board...

Re:Prediction

[Ponyegg]

But you're not creating an unauthorized copy either. Getting one, yes, but not creating one.

In UK law the when you copy a file you are in effect 'creating' a file, it's simply a copy of the existing file in question. It does not neccessarily differentiate between the actual rip/enciding of the original DVD or the copying of the . Whether that file existed elsewhere the process of making another copy is the process of "creating" it. I'm pretty sure US law views things in the same way.

Re:Prediction

[TheRaven64]

In the UK, it is possible to purchase insurance against losing. If you win, then the insurance fee is added to the legal fees which are claimed from the defendant. If you lose, then you claim the insurance fee, as well as legal fees, back from the insurance. The cost of the insurance depends on the probability of you winning.

I presume something similar is available in the USA.

Re:Prediction

[Rogerborg]

You might want to do some research on how the law works. When the MPAA lose, the scam is over, because even my Aunt Mabel can afford to pay an attorney to cite the decision in a motion to dismiss. Not that she'll have to, as he'll do it pro bono and recover his fee in a counter-suit.

Re:Prediction

[TheRaven64]

I think I would argue the following:

1. Making a backup for personal use is legal.
2. Due to copy protection measures, I do not have the required technical skills to make a backup copy.
3. Since I do not have the required technical skills to make a copy, I am at liberty to hire the services of someone who does (a consultant).
4. The consultant does not have to charge me, or even by known to me by name.
5. A peer to peer service is one that provides this service for me on a quid pro quo basis; they produce the backup in exchange for the use of some of my bandwidth.

In fact, however, he is defending by saying it wasn't him. I would like to see him take a two-pronged attack, however, saying that it wasn't him and even if it had been (i.e. if the jury does not accept that, in the balance of probability, it was not him) then it would not be illegal for the reasons stated above.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Heard something called telepresence?

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why YOU sue them FIRST in YOUR state if you receive one of their extortion letters. You file suit in federal court for a "declaratory judgment" that you are not responsible for what they claim.

Re:Prediction

[number11]

In the UK, it is possible to purchase insurance against losing. If you win, then the insurance fee is added to the legal fees which are claimed from the defendant.

I don't believe anything like this is available in the USA, at least not that I've heard of. Even recouping legal fees is not a sure thing, the judge may grant that, but also might not.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

In a couple of hours, we'll be reading about it again on /.

Fixed for you.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Endodontics, not Orthodontics.

Re:Prediction

[JimDaGeek]

That is why everyone should use USENET. You only _download_ and no copyright infringement has occurred since you are not doing any distribution of copyrighted works!

Re:Prediction

[Paracelcus]

In high tech over 50, hell, over 60 = unemployed, when was the last time you saw a senior citizen working at McDonalds?

Re:Prediction

[SandManMattSH]

Payment of legal costs is different in every state.

Re:Prediction

[Omestes]

Then why isn't there any move to make law understandable to those directly effected by it, or streamline it to a degree where it is managable for the common man to defend himself?

I don't understand why needing a lawyer is a good thing, especially when their fees are so unreasonable. Sure, if criminal charges are filed you can get a court appointed one, which is about as good as none at all. And sadly this does not also apply to civil cases, which are even more prone to abuse (actually, on the whole, I'd see the criminal system as pretty good), as we can see from the various trade associations and nasty busineses.

Yeah, I'm just ranting, IANAL etc...

Re:Prediction

[SandManMattSH]

If the MPAA follows that strategy, and it can be shown that they are doing so, it is far from legal.
The legal term is "barratry," and it is illegal under the RICO act. An easy counter-claim could be made for barratry. Possibly even a class-action lawsuit, if the precedant was set.
Also, note that, since the precedent would have been set by this case, such a long trial would not be necessary. A novice lawyer, or even just a person who has basic knowledge of the legal system, could make claims based on the precedent and barratry. If the person did this on their own, they would only lose the hours spent sitting in court.

~Matt

Re:Prediction

[OrangeTide]

I've often though copyright violation belongs somewhere inbetween a parking ticket and shoplifting. Making it a felony doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Armed robbery and rape are felonies too. Embezzling money from a corporation is a felony. But in all areas around Washington D.C., drunk driving is not a felony. this is how senators get caught drunk driving and don't really worry about getting booted out of office. While many other states rate it as a felony (which is probably fair).

Re:Prediction

[drinkypoo]

And how, great guru, do you exactly propose to accomplish this?

First thing, let's kill all the lawyers.

Re:Prediction

[the_B0fh]

Please actually find out what happened in that case. There was a reason the jury awarded the $2mil in the McDonald's hot coffee case. McDonalds actually had an internal study that noted that the coffee will burn people, and that whatever settlements/suits will cost, it will still be cheaper than using better quality coffee at lower temperatures.

Also, they showed that in other cases, McDonalds actually paid for the medical costs, and in this case, the manager laughed at her, and ridiculed her.

I believe in punishing assholes.

Re:Prediction

[spagetti_code]

Not at all.

At worst, loss of this suit may require
them to tighten their 'proof' somewhat.

p2p s/w is out there and is popular. And
illegal stuff is traded on it. There's going to
be no shortage of fall guys for the MPAA
to sue, and for whom the protection money
is a good deal.

Re:Prediction

[tinkerghost]

I don't dispute that

• they sold coffee at temperatures known to cause burns.
• they bare some responsibility for her burns.
• they made a cost/risk analysis that said very hot cheap coffee > hot expensive coffee.

What I do have a problem with is

• saying 80% of the fault was McD's.
• issuing a punative damages judgement that was massive compared to the actual damages award.

Look at it this way. If McD's had sold the coffee at the 'average' temperature, she would have suffered 1st & 2nd degree burns over the same portion of her body, and likely suffered some 3rd degree burns anyway. How much fault would you have then assigned to McD's? I doubt you would assign any. In that concept, how can you then assign 80% because it's hotter? Worst case here it should have been 49% McD/51% hers. Remember - under 'average' temperatures, she would have been burned. The fault is not the burning, but the severity.
As for cost/risk analysis, every company does that. MS, Sony, and Nintendo do it when they sell consoles - how much to invest in cord attachments vs. risk of being sued because one ripped out & electrocuted someone. There are thousands of cost/risk analysis that go on for any product that comes to market.

Re:Prediction

[dynamo]

Laymen working together (ideally with a few social-minded lawyers so far away they couldn't benefit anyway) can help people to the point that they can maybe be aware of minor procedural technicalities.

It would be a process. But it's not impossible.

Re:Prediction

[andrewman327]

Every time I ask one of my lawyer friends a question, I always get that answer. Darn federalism! Anyway, it will be extra interesting if the MPAA ends up paying out the nose for legal fees.

Re:Prediction

[_vSyncBomb]

>Of course that all assumes that downloading a file to make a
>backup of something you own is actually legal.
>I have no idea about the status of that one.

No idea, huh... then why don't you shut the fuck up, hmm?

Re:Prediction

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

In the UMG v. Lindor case, we are attacking the constitutionality of the RIAA's argument that it should be awarded $750-per-song statutory damages for 70-cent downloads.

Re:Prediction

[kyouteki]

au contraire, if you're using bittorrent, you're distributing at the very same time as receiving! It's a deep, dark hole...

Re:Prediction

[Husgaard]

The political situation in Sweden right now is actually quite interesting. There is a parliamental election in September this year, and the swedish Pirate Party wants to get into parliament.

For small parties in sweden there seems to be a rather fixed ratio between the party member count and the number of votes they get in parliamentary elections. Given the current member count of the swedish Pirate Party, they may get into parliament with a margin of a few thousand votes.

And the polls show that the other parties in Sweden are divided into two blocks of equal size that both want to have government power. So if the swedish Pirate Party gets into the swedish parliament, they may actually be able to decide who is going to form the next government in Sweden.

Christian Engström already gave links to their main pages in both english and swedish. I'd like to add a link to their donation information page (scroll to the bottom for international donations).

Re:Prediction

[StikyPad]

Actually, a good lawyer does care because he wants to win, which means he can charge the next guy even more, and ensure that there will be a steady flow of next guys. Maybe a few just want to drag things out because they can't get new clients, but they're the exceptions.

Re:Prediction

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The amount in controversy is $2500. It could cost $50,000 or more to fully litigate a copyright infringement case.

Re:Prediction

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

We are specifically adding coverage of the Shawn Hogan case. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2006 /08/recording-industry-vs-people-initiates.html

Re:Prediction

[piousaudio]

Lawyers aren't the only ones with access to legal code books. I handled my own case against an insurance company a few years ago and their lawyer corps tried to confuse me with legal mumbo-jumbo. I spent six months worth of hearings and proceedings making random motions that I didn't understand myself just so they'd have something to answer to, which was more-or-less what they were doing to me. Eventually the Insurance company settled (for three times my original demand!) rather than continue paying their lawyers to chase down responses to motions which I filed that may or may not have has anything to do with the case at hand. At one point, the lawyers tried to convince the judge to cite me for contempt and to prevent me from filing further motions -- the judge said that my shot-gun approach was just as likely due to my lack of knowledge as it was to true obstructionism. In the end, only about 20% of my motions were actually allowed by the judge, but that 20% caused those $150 per hour lawers six months worth of work.

My top six favorites:

1) Change of venue motion, every month.
2) Motion to supress, every hearing.
3) challenge every witness and file a motion to dismiss every witness as a non-expert (this causes weeks of wasted time while lawyers/witnesses gather credentials...).
4) This isn't a motion, but bring in your own witnesses. Just have buddies come in as experts in the field of (in my case) accident recreation (or whatever is helpful). The lawyers will challenge your witnesses credentials, you ask for time to gather the needed information (just like they already got when you challenged theirs) then two months later you come back and say that your witness skipped town and was, in fact, not an expert at all (you had no way of knowing, of course).
5) if the lawyers use a motion about proceedure that sounds good and works for them to waste a bunch of your time -- recycle the same motion verbatim after you've jumped through their hoops. The judge gets kind of a kick out of that.
6) Challenge every word that comes out of the lawyers mouth. Judges love to deny objections, so give him plenty to have fun with.

Remember, the companies have tons of money and lots of lawyers, and they don't want to dedicate all of either to you. I made clear to the insurance company that the case wasn't costing me anything at all and I'd be happy to continue with the case FOREVER. No other company is any different, they'll all settle if they see you setting up camp to fight with them (or, in the case of the MPAA, they'll leave you alone and drop their case).

I wonder...

[Linkiroth]

Does he call his team of lawyers "Hogan's Heroes"?

Re:I wonder...

[PrescriptionWarning]

I think comparing the MPAA (and RIAA while we're at it) to the bumbling Nazi's on the show are a good enough analogy ;)

Re:I wonder...

[8127972]

"Does he call his team of lawyers "Hogan's Heroes"?"

If so, he can use the Sgt. Schultz Defence.

Re:I wonder...

[Archangel Michael]

More like "Hulkamaniacs"

Re:I wonder...

[Foobar of Borg]

Does he call his team of lawyers "Hogan's Heroes"?

In other news, Attorney "Colonel" Klink was quoted as saying, "Hhoooggannnn!"

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

I KNOW NUT-SING!!

Re:I wonder...

[The-Bus]

No, I bet he goes into the courtroom and says, "Hogan smash!" and then tosses chairs around.

Wait, wrong Hulk. I mean, he goes into the courtroom yelling "It's clobberin' time!" then eating some Slim Jims.

Re:I wonder...

[StarvingSE]

Macho Man Randy Savage is the slim jim dude, not Hulk Hogan.

And by the way you said "Hogan Smash" I think you're thinking of the Incredible Hulk there, in which case you really need more caffeine in your diet ;)

Re:I wonder...

[mackil]

He would probably get sued for copyright infringement if he did... oh wait...

Re:I wonder...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

What, "They didn't give me STRUDEL"?

Yea, I know, I know, it's "I know NOZZINK! Absolutely NOZZINK!!!"

Re:I wonder...

[hotdiggitydawg]

Absolutely. It was Kinchloe that installed Bittorrent in the coffee-pot...

Re:I wonder...

[Gryle]

Don't ask! We know nothink! We know nothink!

Re:I wonder...

[geminidomino]

On NetBSD, obviously...

Fight the Good Fight

[eldavojohn]

I personally would like to extend a helping hand to Shawn. If he wants to take this to court, I would like to pay him a simple $10 through Paypal for fighting the good fight. I've given the same donations to Slashdot and many many opensource projects (especially those on SourceForge) that have made my life easier.

I would like to live in a world where I'm not worried about some organization of rich bastards strong arming citizens out of hard earned cash. There have been several cases so far where people have been charged with little or no evidence. The methods by which they obtain their evidence is even shadier.

If you're reading this, Shawn Hogan, please leave some contact info so we can donate small sums of money to aid in your defense.

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[Tekzel]

I admire your generosity, feel it is a little misplaced. I think he can afford to defend himself. It seems to me that you would be doing much more good by finding some regular joe that lives from paycheck to paycheck that is being harrassed by the MPAA or RIAA and donating to their defense.

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

Hey I admire your support of this cause, I would do the same, however he is worth MILLIONS so really there is no need for him. He is the ideal person to take the MPAA to court because he has as much weight in the courtroom to throw around as the MPAA. I only hope that this doesn't end being dropped and no precedent happening.

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[LMacG]

FTFA: "Hogan, who coded his way to millions as the CEO of Digital Point Solutions, ..."

I think he's got all the small sums of money he'll need.

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about supporting him - it's a message to the MPAA.

The MPAA wants to make an example of this court case as an example saying "you can admit guilt and pay $2000 or pay meeelionz of dollarz if you want to fight us".

I would donate to Hogan too, just so the message to the MPAA is "you assholes tried to cost this guy millions of dollars, but instead he ended up with a large pile of extra cash that he's using to fund the next guy you go after.".

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[toad3k]

He's not exactly hiding.

His blog.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[utopianfiat]

further informative modpoints for:
Relevant posts!!
http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/2005/11/loeb-an d-loeb-mpaa-extortion.html
http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/2006/04/mpaa-of fers-to-settle-again.html
http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/2006/06/im-dest roying-the-movie-industry.html

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[TechForensics]

Isn't it interesting none (so far as we've been told) of the defendants in the **AA suits have been attorneys? About now I'll bet they're wishing they screened by financial status too.

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[PMuse]

http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/

Man, you can't BUY publicity this good.

Although expecting to pay well over $100,000 to defend himself, he claims 'I would spend well into the millions on this.'

Er, well, I guess you can.

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[Frogbeater]

"I would like to live in a world where I'm not worried about some organization of rich bastards strong arming citizens out of hard earned cash."

I'm not worried. I already pay the rich bastards, they're called the government.

What you meant to say was you don't like the idea of worrying about the **AA muscling in on the guv'ment's turf.

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[wateriestfire]

If you read his blog he says "if you really want to donate contribute here" http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/donate.html

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[Anonymous Coward]

From his web blog:

http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/2006/04/mpaa-of fers-to-settle-again.html

Shawn Says:
April 28th, 2006 at 11:50 am

I'm not really looking for donations for this... If you *really* want to donate for something, you can donate towards the new server farm (I'm sick of front-page bringing stuff to a crawl). But I certainly don't expect anyone to of course.

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/donate.html

Re:Fight the Good Fight

[Grishnakh]

Personally, I think it'd be better if someone set up a Paypal fund to hire a professional assassin to whack the RIAA/MPAA attorneys and their bosses. This would do more good for society than perpetuating this sham of a legal system we have by paying even more money to lawyers and judges. It'd probably cost less, too.

class action

[192939495969798999]

The point is that if he can force something like a class action, then maybe we can all jump in and get some cash back from the MPAA, even if you don't have enough money to defend yourself.

Re:class action

[dr_dank]

Yes, so the lawyers walk away with ungodly sums of money and the settlement class gets a shiny nickel. I'm all for the MPAA having to cough up, but I cringe when I think about who that directly benefits and who gets next to nothing.

Re:class action

[Doctor Memory]

I cringe when I think about who that directly benefits and who gets next to nothing.

Hey, if somebody beat up the bully who was stealing your lunch money and took his bike, iPod and cell phone and left you whatever you could scavenge from his backpack, would you really mind? He got his, and you got something, and he won't be bothering anyone anymore.

Re:class action

[Anonymous Coward]

Class action lawsuits do occasionally hurt the defendant.

For instance, look at the Opti-Grab suit. It nearly ruined Navin Johnson, and all the plaintiffs got was $1 and seven cents each. All he had left was his thermos. And an ashtray. And this chair. But that's all he needed!

Re:class action

[LuminaireX]

It's not about the money. If all I get is a "shiny nickel" from the MPAA and it stops them from suing the stuffing out of everyone with a shared IP address, it's a nickel well-earned. For that matter, lawyers have to make money too. It seems wrong to fault them for taking the lions' share of the settlement when they arguably do the lions' share of the work

I'd be happy as hell if the MPAA had to write me a 5 cent check and mail it to me. Not only do they have to pay someone to write the check, they have to buy an envelope, pay someone to stuff it, pay someone back for the gas and time to drop it off at the post office, and pay the 39 cents to mail it to me. That 5 cent check costs between $.50 and $1.00 to send to me - when I refuse to cash it by hanging it on my wall, it screws their books up.

Re:class action

[dr_dank]

Hey, if somebody beat up the bully who was stealing your lunch money and took his bike, iPod and cell phone and left you whatever you could scavenge from his backpack, would you really mind?

For my pain and anguish from suffering said bullies swirlies, titty twisters, and indian burns, I'd like more than last weeks spanish homework and a tampon he stole from the girls bathroom.

Re:class action

[d34thm0nk3y]

but I cringe when I think about who that directly benefits and who gets next to nothing.

The ones who did all the work of trying the case?

Re:class action

[MBGMorden]

No company pays someone to write mass checks - they're printed on check printing machines (or if they're really strapped for cash, laser printers). They are then automatically folded and put into envelopes. They then are stamped (usually automatically) in house at bulk rate (no where near $0.39 each) and they are usually hauled off by the mail man when he visits the next day. Is any of this free? Nope. But most of the costs you outlined don't exist, at least not in the form you expressed them.

I work for a government entity that aside from checks, also prints out property tax bills to mail. We have a big machine taking in blank stationary on one end, and spitting out stuffed envelopes on the other end. The speed at which is cranks the things out is amazing.

Re:class action

[Enigma2175]

Hey, if somebody beat up the bully who was stealing your lunch money and took his bike, iPod and cell phone

Poor analogy. It is more like someone somebody stealing a quarter out of a bully's pocket. The bully still has thousands of dollars in extorted lunch money if the poor sap doing the stealing gets away with it — and if the bully catches the Robin Hood he is in for a world of hurt.

Re:class action

[mugnyte]

  The money is not the game here. It never was. The court of public opinion is open and largely uneducated. This leaves the judge to summarize and rule on the concepts here. If the RIAA is told Yes, No, Maybe on the details of this case, folks will begin to see P2P in a different light.

  Like the players already know - the cash is for the publicity. I fully expect the players/laywers to release extravagant and sweeping statements all along the way (avoiding details of the case per se).

  Hogan must see a few cracks he wants to prod. If any succeed, there goes the fluid nature of the future cases, if at all possible.

Re:class action

[networkBoy]

you forgot that the cheque is marked "void after 6 months from issue date", thus your holding the cheque does not screw up their books. At 6 months they record a nickel of profit.
-nB

Re:class action

[vidarh]

Not really. Class action lawsuits often qualify for triple damages. That is, someone forces the bully to turn over three times as much as he ever stole, makes off with a third of it, and the rest gets split (unevenly, based on who opted in, I think?) between the victims.

Re:class action

[rtb61]

The real fight in court is to force the RIAA to go beyond just providing some digital data that a particular IP address might have committed a copyright infringement, they have to prove you as an individual committed that copyright infringement. As this issue has yet to be called up in court no precedent has been set.

Consider all the real copyright infringement cases, they actually had to catch the 'individual' with the copyright infringing material as well as producing additional evidence that the individual was responsible for it. Just the same as if any other of your possessions was involved in a crime, you don't have to prove you did not do it they have to prove they 'you' did do it, not just that you possession was involved (it is one piece of evidence but it is certainly not sufficient on it's own).

When you sign up with an ISP you accept that the record regarding the activity associated with that ip address was sufficient for billing purposes, not that it would be the sole and single point for any legal liability associated with isp's records concerning what they claim to be the activities of that IP address. Excessive billing with regards to traffic volume (just like excessive phone bills on pots) have been successfully contested for years (in the majority of instances with out going to court) regardless of the records of the ISP.

MPAA's reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the MPAA's executives was quoted as saying, "HooooooGAN!," while holding onto his monacle.

Not gonna happen

[BigNumber]

He won't get a chance to 'defend himself' unless he decides to counter-sue. The MPAA will simply drop the case and move on to a less aggressive victim.

Re:Not gonna happen

[renehollan]

One word: baratry.

Re:Not gonna happen

[mrsev]

One correctly spelt word: barratry.

Re:Not gonna happen

[digitalpoint]

Then again, if they drop the case, he could always fund other people's cases.

Re:Not gonna happen

[Elsimer]

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/6466/MPAA+v+Shawn+Hog an:+The+Zeropaid+Interview

According to the interview, he's decided to force the issue into court no matter what the MPAA does:

CH: So your position is that you aren't going to settle and that you didn't do anything wrong?

SH: Yep. At this point they have pushed me enough to where I'm going to do whatever I can to keep them from dropping the case. I can't prevent them from dropping it, but I am going to try and force them to go to a full trial. Basically, my lawyers aren't even going to file a motion to dismiss.

CH: That would be great, it would have to be pretty embarrassing for them to go to a full trial that ends up clearing you completely.

SH: It will set a precedent for everyone else, that's the whole point. Between the RIAA and the MPAA it's almost 20,000 people that have settled. All John Doe lawsuits, not a single one has gone to a final judgment. All these people settling for basically what adds up to extortion, I want to put a stop to it. At this point, I don't care what it costs. If they drop it, I will find something to counter with to keep it in court.

Re:Not gonna happen

[SatanicPuppy]

"An unlawful act or fraudulent breach of duty on the part of a ship's master or crew, going against, and in conflict with the interests of the ship's or cargo's owner. For example; selling cargo and susequently claiming it was lost at sea."

Nah, it wasn't lost, it was those damn pirates

Seriously, however, you hardly ever see action against cases of barratry actually succeed. How often have you seen those damn class action legal commercials, soliciting victims of this industrial byproduct, or that drug that causes liver failure? Those are just sophisitcated barratry, yet you see them year after year.

Like most laws of it's kind, it's generally used by big business against individuals. It'd be interesting to see it done the other way, but I'm not holding my breath. Say what you will about the RIAA...It is copyright infringment that they're suing people over, and that is against the law. Their data collection methods are hugely unreliable, but they'd have to be proven negligent in court for that to even weigh for barratry.

Meet the Fockers?

[Poromenos1]

No wonder he doesn't want to admit to downloading it, that movie sucked! I bet he doesn't even have the DVD.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[bl4nk]

I bet he bought the DVD as soon as getting sued, so he could claim that he already owned the DVD.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Tekzel]

Actually, I thought it was very funny. Maybe not funny enough to own, but then I dont really buy comedies anyway. Only one I have ever bought was "Shaun of the Dead".

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

I don't see how ownership of the original media serves as "proof" that he didn't download it.

Besides, with BitTorrent, you upload chunks of the torrent even as you download the file. What if he didn't download the .torrent of MtF, but rather seeded a .torrent of the ISO of the DVD he ripped?

What if he purchased the DVD after viewing the downloaded torrent? It's still an unauthorized distribution of a copyrighted work, even if it did end up resulting in a sale that benefits the Plaintiff... if they want to sue because to them the principle of control is more important than the short-term profit of a unit sale, who are we to question such prioritization?

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[LunaticTippy]

My thought exactly. Why the hell would the MPAA bother seeing who was downloading this piece of shit?

Then I looked up the box office totals. That stinkbomb raked in $280 million US box office alone. Number 29 of all time. Of course it came in between Matrix Reloaded and Shrek, so maybe my taste doesn't align with what makes money.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Anonymous Coward]

if they want to sue because to them the principle of control is more important than the short-term profit of a unit sale, who are we to question such prioritization?

We are the consumer. The only people "they" should care about.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[zakezuke]

Besides, with BitTorrent, you upload chunks of the torrent even as you download the file. What if he didn't download the .torrent of MtF, but rather seeded a .torrent of the ISO of the DVD he ripped?

I could be wrong but I think it's possible to throttle your upstream to 0. Whether this will actually "work" on bittorrent is beyond me.

I don't see how ownership of the original media serves as "proof" that he didn't download it.

The claim is he didn't download it, he bought it. Why would you bother to download something you bought? Well, there are some good reasons but still, to average joe jury it would seem silly.

The thing about cases like this, it's just as likely that he did download it as if he didn't download it. Even on the best of days all they have is an IP address, which may be dynamic, which may or may not have accurate logs, which may or may not have been transcribed correctly.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

Bwa-ha-ha. Care about the consumer? The only one they care about is themself, the same as anyone else.

If they don't keep the consumers happy enough, it'll end up harming themselves, so it's not like they have no reason to care about the consumer, but they're businessmen, not altruists or even artists.

And they'll tell you that they love consumers, but hate thieves and pirates anyway.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[pHaze426]

I might well be mistaken, but I think if his assertion that he owns the DVD was true BEFORE any alleged download occurred, then it removes any wrongdoing from him. Let me explain: The only laws I can think of at work here apply are the DMCA (that is, to have a movie in a downloadable form, one would first have to "circumvent a protection device" by breaking CSS) and laws regarding distribution/sale of copyrighted material without consent. One could certainly make the case the the person who OFFERED the movie for download likely did both of those things, it seems that someone who owns the movie on DVD might well have done neither, irrespective of whether the alleged download even occurred.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. So who are you, aside from a troll, to defend these pricks?

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

The point is, the only thing that (presumably) they have to prove it... is an IP address. All of what you said might be true -- but how can they prove any of it?

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[just_another_sean]

I understand your position and whether I agree with you or not is not something I want to get into at the moment.

I would simply like to point out that had the *AA folks come at this problem with a reasonable course of action
and used the law to make their case instead of their corporate clout and deep pockets then I would be the first
to jump to their defense against copyright infringement.

But they've taken what should be simple criminal investigations and turned them into a media circus. The laws on
the books (in the US anyway) still differentiate between straight theft and copyright infringement. But the *AA
doesn't. In criminal cases a person is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. A person (again, in the USA)
is supposed to be free from illegal search and seizure and undue harassment from authorities.

The *AA organizations completely ignore that. They harass, threaten, obtain evidence illegally and then smear
peoples names all over the press regardless of the merits, or lack thereof, of their cases.

Regardless of one's opinion concerning copyright infringement the actions of the *AA are shameless bullying. And
the fact that our judicial system lets them get away with it is the saddest part of the whole affair.

Even if Hogan is guilty of copyright infringement it will be nice to see someone make the MPAA take him through the
entire judicial process and have a court find him guilty instead of seeing another poor sap bow to the threats and
extortion tactics we've witnessed so far and simply buy their way out of the case, regardless of their guilt or
innocence.

But bottom line? I have no problem believing this guy is innocent and just another victim of *AA fishing expeditions.
IMHO there are too many precedents to think otherwise.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Astro Dr Dave]

They don't have to. It's a civil case, so the standards are lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt" for determining guilt.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[hasrat]

Mr Hogan, I'll give you my copy if you don't have one.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Digital Vomit]

What if he purchased the DVD after viewing the downloaded torrent? It's still an unauthorized distribution of a copyrighted work, even if it did end up resulting in a sale that benefits the Plaintiff...

So what if the kid went back into the store and put the candy bar back onto the rack instead of taking it home without paying for it? He still stole it -- even thought he later returned it -- and should be prosecuted, eh?

I'd hate to live in a country where laws were enforced the way you describe they should be. Especially for such outdated and socially damaging laws like copyright.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

My point is, that's the argument he's going to be focusing on when he fights this. And if his lawyers do it well enough, either in this case or on appeal, he just might win -- regardless of whether or not he owned the video.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Suppafly]

If you look at his blog, its clear that this guy buys lots of dvd's. I'd assume he's telling the truth.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[evilviper]

I don't see how ownership of the original media serves as "proof" that he didn't download it.

It's not "proof", but it's certainly a nice bit of evidence to support his claim.

Besides, you don't seem to realize that DOWNLOADING FROM A P2P NETWORK ISN'T ILLEGAL ON IT'S OWN... If he OWNED the movie already, and decided to download a BACKUP copy of it, HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING ILLEGAL AT ALL.

you upload chunks of the torrent even as you download the file.

Good... Then let the MPAA just TRY to PROVE that someone who was DOWNLOADING it from him, was doing so illegally. Good luck with that.

What if he purchased the DVD after viewing the downloaded torrent?

Well then that would be a completely different situation. You, however, are just speculating, with no evidence at all to back-up this senario. I doubt the MPAA is any better.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted we don't know if he 'purchased' the DVD after he downloaded it via bit-torrent, or if he actually downloaded anything for that matter, but lets say we give him the benefit of the doubt and state he purchased it prior.

So he legally purchased a DVD for home use. And later he downloads said movie to his PC. Perhaps he didn't have the tools or software to put or watch the movie on his PC. Is that still considered home use of the DVD content? I'm not talking about distribution here, which is what the case will be about. I'm talking about the license of a copyrighted work in your own home. Under fair use, as I understand it, I can watch/rip a DVD to as many computers in my home as I wish. Thats what fair use is. Should not having the tools to watch/rip YOUR PURCHASED DVD on your PC restrict your ability to the CONTENT EQUIVALENT of your purchased DVD for your fair use rights??? Even if he did download it off a known illegal distribution network?? If downloading is all he did, and not redistibuting it to others, how is it illegal if he has a license for the CONTENT being downloaded??

You can own a license of a distrubted content medium but that license only extends to that of the original media it came on?? Isn't that violating fair use??

This will be an interesting case to watch, if the MPAA doesn't fold up its tent!!

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[aqfire]

Your 'what-ifs' are interesting ideas... but according to him, he didn't download the movie. So, unless you can prove otherwise, I think he has a pretty valid case. Stating that he owns the DVD doesn't serve as proof that he didn't download it, but it seems to eliminate the incentive, don't you agree? Anyone with enough money to fight the MPAA's lawyers has enough money, and probably enough sense, to buy the DVD instead of downloading it.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

I'm not saying that the law should be enforced any particular way. I'm saying that the Plaintiff does have an interest in how the law is being applied, and it's up to the courts and the legislature to determine what makes sense. I personally hope that copyright gets scrapped and drastically reformed.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

I never claimed to be doing anything more than speculating.

I'm absolutely correct that ownership of a copy of the DVD in no way acts as proof that he didn't download the film.

You're correct to point out that downloading data from a P2P network is not a crime. If the data is copyrighted, and neither of the peers are authorized to share the data by the data's copyright holder, it's a violation of copyright.

You seem to think that owning the media grants license to obtain unauthorized copies, and that's simply untrue. Fair use provisions DO allow the creation of copies for backup purposes, but legalistically it's a bit of a stretch to say that that right extends as far as to downloading a copy from someone who's distributing the file without authorization from the copyright holder. Now, what's stupid about that is that the downloaded copy is for all intents and purposes functionally equivalent to ripping and burning a spare DVD on your own, but the fact remains that if bits get distributed from one non-copyright-holding individual to another non-copyright-holding individual, infringement is taking place according to the letter of the law.

Besides, p2p technologies don't in any way verify that those who download from sharing peers have some quasi-legal or moral entitlement to do so. I think p2p serves a much better purpose than acting as a distributed backup system for legitimate licensees of copyrighted material -- they serve to enable the have-nots to partake in a far greater volume and variety of cultural works than they ever could if they had to pay for access to everything. P2P eliminates artificial scarsity imposed by copy restriction.

That's the great beauty of the internet.

Now, it just happens that it fucks with existing business models, and those whose industries depend on those outmoded models are justifiably panicked and doing only what can be predicted of them. Financial empires are threatened and those who built them have always played hardball. But that doesn't stop the internet from being a greater good than the copyright industry, and it won't stop a more efficient distribution model from supplanting an obsolete one. But people sure are gonna cry over it, and they're going to get their day in court one way or another.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

The claim that he already owns the DVD is a claim. It doesn't refute any evidence (if any) that the MPAA may have, though. If they have server logs from Hogan's ISP, or from some server he allegedly downloaded from, and those logs can be established as reliable, which is itself fairly doubtful, owning the DVD isn't going to do him a bit of good.

One can certainly download a DVD that one also happens to own. If the police arrest me for auto theft, pointing out that I already own a car won't by itself get the prosecution off my back, especially if they have evidence that indicates that I may have allegedly stolen a car.

The argument that taking any car that I happen to like and using it as my own ought to be the law of the land also is not going to work as a defense.

Neither will the argument that cars are too damn expensive and car companies are greedy.

I'm not a fan of copyright or of the MPAA, but beating them takes better arguments than this. Mr. Hogan may well get the case thrown out of court, and if he does more power to him, but even if he wins this case there's still a host of larger issues that will remain unaddressed.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

I'm not defending pricks, I'm attacking bullshit arguments, wherever I find them.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

I hadn't exactly stated what my position is, actually. It seems that a lot of people who responded to my initial post thought that I was in agreement with the RI/MPAA, thereby falling into the "if you're not with us, you're against us" trap. I hate the RI/MPAA. I disagree with copyright law and strongly believe that it must be reformed to protect both artists, individual consumer's Fair Use rights, AND the public domain from corporate greed.

But the claim "I already own the DVD" is bullshit as far as a refutation to the charge "You illegally downloaded a movie I hold the rights to." The download either happened or it didn't. The only arguments the defendant has that will win are "You can't PROVE that I downloaded your movie." or "I can prove that I didn't download your movie" or even "I had the right (or authorization) to download your movie." Sure, it seems like it wouldn't make sense to download a movie that you already own the media for. But "Why would anyone do it?" doesn't counter-establish whether or not someone did in fact do something. People do stuff that doesn't make sense all the time.

Owning the DVD isn't a license to download a copy for backup purposes any more than owning a ticket stub entitles you to video tape a presentation in the theater with a camcorder. Both, in my opinion, ought not to be criminal acts. But what ought to be law has little to do with what is presently law. I hope they throw out the law and write a better one. That'd be nice.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[evilviper]

You seem to think that owning the media grants license to obtain unauthorized copies, and that's simply untrue.

Prove it.

but legalistically it's a bit of a stretch to say that that right extends as far as to downloading a copy from someone who's distributing the file without authorization from the copyright holder.

Start the lawsuit against Tivo, which allows a non-copyright holder to send a video he has copied under fair-use (time shifting) to transfer that video to another non-copyright holder.

Or against anyone who sells their DVDs, and includes their fair-use backup copy (required by copyright law).

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[just_another_sean]

From a legal standpoint you are absolutely correct. And I did read your post not with a clinical eye toward the point you were trying to make but with a "even if you think copyright infringement is wrong doesn't make the *AA right" attitude.

Sorry if I came across as argumentative; I tend to get a bit hyper about these things!

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[MightyYar]

"The argument that taking any car that I happen to like and using it as my own ought to be the law of the land also is not going to work as a defense."

The hole in this comparison is that you can't apply the same logic to the two types of "theft". If a person owns 1 $20,000 car, and they then steal another $20,000 car, they now have $40,000 worth of car. However, once you own a single digital copy of something, additional copies are worthless except for the time and media costs associated with making a copy. There is always incentive for stealing a car, even one you already have. There is no incentive to stealing another digital copy of something that you already have.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[andrewman327]

"I could be wrong but I think it's possible to throttle your upstream to 0."

It is possible, but that completely destroys the democratic principles of Bittorrent. It really irritated me when people do this. I do not use to it steal music or movies, but there are some great (legal) things out there that are available on Bittorrent.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Alsee]

But the claim "I already own the DVD" is bullshit

No it's not. It is in fact pretty powerfull testimony towards his winning in court, especially if he can dig up any corroborating evidence to support that testimony other witnesses to corroborate that testimony.

The download either happened or it didn't.

Correct. And exactly what the court's job to do is determine, by the preponderance of the evidence, whether that happened or not.

Sure, it seems like it wouldn't make sense to download a movie that you already own the media for.

That substantially shifts the evidence in his favor. While people *can* do pointless nonsensical things, they *rarely* do pointless nonsensical things. It substantially shifts the probability that he he is telling the truth that he did not download the movie, and substantially increases the probability that the MPAA is either lying or mistaken in it's allegations against him. His job is to present an argument that the MPAA's arguments and evidence are less than 50% convincing in supporting their allegation.

"You can't PROVE that I downloaded your movie."

The MPAA does not need to proove anything. The MPAA is threatening people with civil lawsuits, and they only need to be 51% convincing in court to win. They only need to convince the court that there is better than a 50-50 chance that their allegation is accurate.

If the other party simply stands up in court and testifies under penalty of purjury that they did not do it, that right there is stong evidence towards winning. The MPAA would then need to claim that the person was lying under oath, and would need to present evidence to show that the person was probably lying.

"I had the right (or authorization) to download your movie."

He is not making that argument.

From your other posts:
The argument that taking any car that I happen to like and using it as my own ought to be the law of the land also is not going to work as a defense.

So what?

Neither will the argument that cars are too damn expensive and car companies are greedy.

So what?

As far as I can tell, your only purpose in making those comments is an attempt to implicitly slander the guy. He is making no such arguments. He says that the MPAA allegations against him are false and that he did not download the movie. Period. You are assuming that he's guilty and suggesting that he's making some strawman lousy defense.

I, and many others here, find it at least somewhat distubing that the RIAA and MPAA can sue tens of thousands of people and can actually and legally win in court and get hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages against each, even if 40% of those people are innocent random victims of shotgun litigation. We also find it extrmely disturbing that they can trivially extort thousands of dollars in "settlements" from innocent people because it is vastly too expensive to fight it in court, and an enourmous burden to fight it in court, and vastly too risky that their (false) allegations and (incorrect/misleading) evidence against you will still be deemed as reaching the 50% level in court and that you will be you destroyed by staggering hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.

So I, and many others, are cheering this guy on for standing up and saying that he is INNOCENT and that he is willing to fight it in court... because we would like to see it established in court that their typical level of allegation and dismal "evidence" is legally insufficient for casually and indiscriminantly attacking innocent people.

Other issues of copyright are certainly debatable. The entire practice of massive litigation against individuals like this is debatable. However I don't think many people would debate that INNOCENT people should not be casually and indiscriminatly crushed in the process based on mere allegations with minimal and unreliable evidence.

-

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

I haven't assumed the defendant's guilt; I've only pointed out that owning the DVD doesnt mean he didn't download it. You have a looong way to go from there to proove an assertion that he did or didn't do it.

I'm not even talking about legal standards in court here, just basic logic. It's POSSIBLE to download data that you already possess on physical media. Therefore, claiming to own the DVD is in no way a refutation or proof of falsehood to the claim that he downloaded the movie.

IF he DID already own the DVD, then yes, it makes little sense for him to have downloaded it. IF the plaintiff has evidence that he did download it, owning a copy of the DVD isn't going to amount to much. I haven't seen the plaintiff's evidence, I just know that the claim of owning the DVD already doesn't mean much.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[cfulmer]

Uh, no. That's a popular misconception. In the US at least, whether you own a copy of a work has no impact on whether you infringe its copyright by downloading it. MP3.com, for example, got into trouble for their service that allowed you to download mp3s after proving you had the CD.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[evilviper]

whether you own a copy of a work has no impact on whether you infringe its copyright by downloading it.

Like I said to the last guy: Prove it.

MP3.com, for example, got into trouble for their service that allowed you to download mp3s after proving you had the CD.

No. MP3.com is a company, and was using my.mp3.com to make a profit. That is a big consideration in fair-use doctrine.

Indeed, MP3.com was sued just for creating the database in the first place, not for the actual transfer of songs. And, as far as I know, none of the USERS of my.mp3.com were ever sued for copyright infringment by downloading mp3s of CDs they already owned.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[VanBard]

It goes to motive. What is his motive to download a movie that came out many years ago if he has the DVD sitting right there to view whenever he wanted. Sure he could have been seeding it, but you would actually have to prove that. He doesn't need to prove that he didn't download it. The MPAA has to PROVE he did download it. So it simply goes to weaken their case because most reasonable people are going to agree it makes no sense why he would download a movie he already owned.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[VanBard]

Problem is you can demonstrate why someone might want to own more than 1 car or possess more than one car. You are not likely to be able to make the same argument, succesfully for a movie that is several years old.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Junior J. Junior III]

1 - Wanted a backup copy, but did not know how to rip a DVD and figured the internet essentially provided the equivalent service for free.

2 - Forgot that he even owned the DVD in the first place.

3 - Was separated from the DVD by a long distance (CEO's travel) and wanted to watch the movie right now but didn't feel he ought to have to pay for it again.

4 - Got sued, figured he might be able to persuade the judge better if he owned the DVD.

5 - Someone else in the house did the download without the knowledge or consent of the computer owner. Kids, spouse, butler, house guest, wifi leech outside the property line, etc.

6 - Wanted the video in a different format (PSP, maybe?) but felt it ridiculous to have to pay twice for viewing rights to the same media.

7 - DVD was stolen, lost, or damaged, and he had a "moral right" to view the movie he paid for as often as he wanted, but had no other way of making that backup copy he had been entitled to make under Fair Use.

I have sympathy for most of these positions and I don't think that it ought to make much difference between whether you rip your own disk or you download a copy of something that you own the disk for. But the law isn't presently set up to work that way.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[ephemeralspecter]

This man seems rather intelligent, maybe he's using it as a feint, as in "yeah I own the dvd, that's my defense" when in actuality his lawyers (which i'm sure cost him a pretty penny) are reviewing logs and scanning his computer for the files, just to make sure it wasn't actually there. (assuming he didn't download it) And sure, he might have downloaded the file, but would he really spend millions if he was guilty? (it could all be a bluff, and right when the MPAA is trying very hard to get it dropped, he gets them to pay for his lawyers and leaves scot-free, illegal download in-hand) Just thoughts :D

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[cfulmer]

Actually, if you look at the mp3.com case, you'd see that the court found that *none* of the 4 fair use factors went in mp3.com's favor. Whether the use is commercial goes to the first factor -- "the purpose and character of the use." But, the court also found against mp3.com on factor 1 because the use was non-transformative. So, even if the use were non-commercial, you'd still have factors 2-4 against, and half of factor 1. That doesn't sound like a good case for fair use to me.

In addition, other courts have looked at the mp3.com decision and decided that it stand for what I suggested. Look, for example, at BMG v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888, 890, where the court cites to the mp3.com case as "holding that downloads are not fair use even if the downloader already owns one purchased copy." BMG itself said that downloading a song is still infringement even if you then buy the song.

You're right about the mp3.com users -- until the RIAA's recent suits, copyright owners have been reticent to go after individuals, prefering to go after those with money and control. Their goal was to shut down mp3.com, not to go after all the mp3.com users. But, that just means that they decided not to pursue those cases, not that the cases themselves were invalid. Heck, the RIAA only turned to suing peer-to-peer users because there is no central server to sue, as there was with napster.

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[Alsee]

You claimed "the claim 'I already own the DVD' is bullshit". It's not.

I've only pointed out that owning the DVD doesnt mean he didn't download it.

I said it means it is nonsensical and highly improbable that he downloaded it.

The point you seem to be missing or rejecting is that his prior ownership of the DVD is indeed evidence. In fact it is powerful evidence at discrediting the MPAA's evidence.

The court examines the evidence to decide the most probable explanation and to rule based on that most probable explanation. If this guy presents no defence at all, the simplest most probable explanation is that the MPAA employees and the ISPs' employees have all behaved in the simplest most rational manner and that none of them deliberately committed a crime presenting lies under oath and that an apparent infringment was a real infringment and that they preformed a techncially flawlessly job accurately tracing the source of the source of the infringment to a person reasonably and rationally committing infringment in order to view that movie.

The simplest entirely reasonable rational most probable explanation.

Now we begin to introduce the defense. The first step of the defense is for this guy to stand up in court and swear under oath that he didn't do it.

The basic expectation is that sworn testimony under penalty of prison is truthful testimony. Without that presumption then the entire MPAA case would vanish, as their testimony would be equally meaningless and any physical submissions they make would be meaningless without the testimony to establish the source and meaning of that physical submission.

So at this point we have a conflict - we cannot consistantly take everything at the simplest face value explanation. At this point one could entirely reasonably conclude that the most probable way to resolve this conflict is to presume that this guy is engaging in the entirely rational behavior of deliberately lying under oath and risking prison in an attempt to avoid responsibility for an infringment he did commit.

Now we introduce the second peice of evidence for the defence. If he did in fact already own that DVD, then we have just ruled out the previous most simple most probable explanation that the MPAA did indeed accurately trace a real infringment to a simple rational case of someone rationally infinging to get a movie and rationally lying under oath to cover it up.

Once we have ruled out THAT most simple most probable explanation, we are forced to seek out the next most simple next most probable explanation. Either the MPAA's case is flawless and they traced a highly improbable case of someone irrationally downloading a movie they already had, or this guy is NOT lying under oath and there is problem somewhere on the MPAA side.

At this point I would suggest that the simplest most probable explanation is that no one from the MPAA or ISPs lied under oath, and that no one at the MPAA or ISPs acted irrationally, but that there was simply some good faith technical flaw in the attempt to track down an apparent infringment. If you add in the possibility for misbehavior or improbable irrational behavior from the MPAA or an ISP, then that merely shifts the likelyhood further towards the defence.

This case is about establishing in court a 50-50% likelyhood that he did it. If he already owned the DVD, that is indeed strong evidence substantially shifting the likelyhood of the various possiblities. That he could have done it, but probably didn't.

These shotgun litigations against guilty people are fairly ugly and get at best a lukewarm public reception. However low legal standards and careless procecution by a powerful megacorp litigation machine sweeping up and stomping on helpless innocence people in the process is just plain outrageous. It seems probable that this guy is innocent, and a lot of people here would like to see it established in court that this activity *is* hitting innocent people, that at a minimum the evidence needs to be more reliable and threats/charges made more responsibly and more carefully.

-

Re:Meet the Fockers?

[evilviper]

Actually, if you look at the mp3.com case, you'd see that the court found that *none* of the 4 fair use factors went in mp3.com's favor.

Those 4 guidelines really aren't independent. Indeed, the ruling lists the commercial aspect in justifying the other factors as well.

And, of course, it's not a best-of-four guideline. 3 out of 4 can be discounted, and still be ruled fair use. Also, the difference between DVDs and CDs is clear, CSS encryption and the DMCA make it impossibly to legally backup/transcode your own DVDs, unlike CDs.

Look, for example, at BMG v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888, 890, where the court cites to the mp3.com case as "holding that downloads are not fair use even if the downloader already owns one purchased copy."

That ruling also says that NO use of comercially sold copyrighted material can EVER be "non-profit", which was rejected by later court rulings.

BMG itself said that downloading a song is still infringement even if you then buy the song.

You'll have to forgive me if I don't care what a party with a deep vested interest has to say on the matter.

Preferences

[Spytap]

I'd much rather him take on the RIAA as they seem to be the more aggressive of the two when it comes to extortion schemes. The MPAA, for all it's faults, doesn't seem to be as gleefully entertained by the prospect of suing the pants off of everyone.

Re:Preferences

[Fezmid]

Doesn't matter -- if he beats the MPAA, then the ruling swill trickle down to the RIAA suits as well.

I'd be willing to chip in a few bucks to support his fight as well, as posted in a previous post.

Re:Preferences

[John Hasler]

> ...ruling swill...

That's a mighty fine typo.

Re:Preferences

[tukkayoot]

He didn't choose the MPAA, they chose him.

They didnt expect...

[Anonymous Coward]

They didnt count on him actually admitting to owning 'Meet the fockers'! Nor did they expect the spanish inquisition...but no one expec...*AAAAGH*

Give 'em hell

[10100111001]

On behalf of the little guy everywhere... Give 'em hell, Shawn.

Parent should be modded up: Funny!

[milamber3]

I thought this was funny and does not deserve the 0 it currently has. Someone with mod points please fix that.

Re:Parent should be modded up: Funny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes sir!

Right away sir. As you wish Sir.

Re:Parent should be modded up: Funny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, can we stop this trend of posting to request mod points for a parent? Maybe it's useful for getting a handful of worthwhile posts modded up, but once they're there, then what? Useless clutter. I don't mind the one or two mod requests I've seen where the authors actually provide a reason or expand upon their thoughts, but these content-less posts are incredibly irksome.

Re:Parent should be modded up: Funny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up! That's the most insightful thing I've heard all day.

Welcome to what's wrong with the law...

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll have to spend tens, if not hundreds, of thousands, in order to avoid paying a $2500 penalty. The principles are trumped by the pragmatics.

So, where are the politicians willing to try to put a stop to this? Let me guess, being paid protection money by the MPAA.

This is no different than con artists fixing local officials to get out of jail free.

Re:Welcome to what's wrong with the law...

[jthill]

Right. And no principle's worth spending money to defend, right?

Re:Welcome to what's wrong with the law...

[Aqua_boy17]

This is no different than con artists fixing local officials to get out of jail free.

Acutally, this is more like being shaken down by the mob for protection money. They're basically saying 'Pay the fine, or else' and he's not backing down. Not a lot of people have the A) Time and B) Resources to fight back as so many other posts have pointed out.

I for one, welcome our new big, bad-assed mac daddy, corporate, counter-sueing overlord.

Re:Welcome to what's wrong with the law...

[tomjen]

So he countersue them and win several million dollars as punitive damage. The problem is those who cannot afford to pay.

Re:Welcome to what's wrong with the law...

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Lawyers notice that they can win multi-million dollar settlements from MPAA victims. They start advertising for victims, and taking the cases on contingency, and become wealthy. The MPAA stops its practice of threatening individuals. Everybody smiles.

Re:Welcome to what's wrong with the law...

[westlake]

So he countersue them and win several million dollars as punitive damage

No. He countersues and his case is dismissed. He would have to prove extraordinary recklessness or malice on the part of the plaintiff.

It is not easy to get to the point where you will be allowed to present the case for punitive damages. Harder still to frame the argument in a way that will stand up on appeal.

Re:Welcome to what's wrong with the law...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is just that most people can't afford the cost of defending the principle, and that is the real problem.

Extortion fee?

[Rydia]

Okay? Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy. I've yet to see a respected scholar in the field of IP law say anything like that. The justifications (fair use, generally, under the umbrella of time-shifting and/or backup media) don't hold up under analogy; you're creating a new copy of someone else's thing, not your own, and it's not fair use because you do not know the person.

But, uh, sure. Extortion. Whatever. If he did (and we don't know if he did or did not) do this, than he'll likely get smacked for it. While the cartel's methods are utterly ruthless and uncalled-for, that doesn't diminish their legal rights.

Re:Extortion fee?

[PrescriptionWarning]

Okay? Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy

why not? its just the same as backing it up yourself, only someone else did the hard work for you.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're creating a new copy of someone else's thing, not your own

Exactly what would be the difference between a digital copy of a DVD that I own and a DVD of the same movie that someone else owned?

Re:Extortion fee?

[Known Nutter]

That's not the extent of the issue. Exposing the methods used by **AA to gather this "evidence" is equally important, and the legality of these methods deserves some scrutiny.

Re:Extortion fee?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy. I've yet to see a respected scholar in the field of IP law say anything like that.

They wouldn't have to. In this country, the person bringing the suit/charges is supposed to prove THEIR point. If they can't do that, you can come to court and draw funny pictures all day if you like -- they (shouldn't) win.

Re:Extortion fee?

[spyrochaete]

Okay? Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy

why not? its just the same as backing it up yourself, only someone else did the hard work for you.

Especially since copying DVDs is a breach of the DMCA. It's probably more legal to "steal" a movie you already have than to make a copy of your disc.

Re:Extortion fee?

[91degrees]

Okay? Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy.

I'm not sure that's the point. I think this is instead evidence that he didn't download the movie. Why would he if he already owned a copy?

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

If he owned the DVD, why would he want to download it via BitTorrent?

Re:Extortion fee?

[Rydia]

Because distribution is a (very important) aspect of copyright. You do not have a right to distribute copies of what you have to anyone without permission of the copyright holder. There are exceptions, but getting something through bittorrent destroys the small number and familiarity requirements (remember, you're simultaneously uploading). Both the letter and spirit of the law that allows copying requires the "fixation" of the copyrighted work to be done by the person copying it, otherwise the sytem is wide-open for abuse.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

Er. Owning it does give you the right, seeing as you've already paid for it.
There is nothing in the law to state where you can acquire you 'backup copy'.
If I download a copy of Lord of the Rings, that's my backup copy, as I own the full extended boxset. It just means someone else is helping me to create the backup copy.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay? Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy.Okay? Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy.

You seem to miss the point. Owning a copy allows you to say "But, why in the world would I spend 10 hours downloading a lower quality copy from the internet, which will not directly work on my dvd player without another 1 hours of computer time to make it compatible, when I already own the actual DVD of the movie?"

That's a statement that for joe-sixpack on the jury, or the typical non-techie judge, would make perfect sense. And, as well, if he can show that he purchased the real DVD a long time before they say he downloaded, then the statement will make even more sense to joe-sixpack.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

Extortion occurs when a person obtains money or property from another through coercion or intimidation.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Rydia]

Uh, yes? Except when something comes up, the judge decides what law to give to the jury (or himself, if the jury is waved) to apply the facts to. When judges look to instructions for juries on close or new issues they look at a) mandatory authority (higher courts) and b) persuasive authority (other courts and academics). It's pretty important to keep up on that sort of thing, especially since you can't just go into a court and say "well, I think the law says this, so we should get X instruction." Both the judge and your opponent will say "Okay, what supporting authority do you have to tell me that the law is X?"

Just being in court and having an opinion only gets you so far.

Re:Extortion fee?

[PhrostyMcByte]

I think the *AA need to burn just as much as the next guy, but downloading a movie over services like bittorrent means you are also uploading too. So while it's not immoral to download it for yourself, you might be helping spread it to people who are getting it illegally (if you are using P2P).

Re:Extortion fee?

[Rydia]

People seem to say that him saying he owns it already is rebutting the fact that he downloaded it, rather than the fact that he was justified. Not only does it serve both purposes, he would be crazy to argue solely justification if he wants to win. Just as you can give multiple forms of a claim in the complaint, you can give multiple forms of defense against that complaint. So he is saying:

With regard to the charge of copyright violation,
(1) I did not do it, as evidenced by my ownership of a legally-obtained copy of the movie in question;
(2) Or in the alternative, I did download the copy, but since I own a legally-obtained copy of the movie in question, my infringement qualifies as fair use and I was therefore justified in downloading it

And, as I said in one response, court isn't just going in and flinging things at a jury, trying to convince them. The jury is given the law and has to apply what happened to it. If the instructions say "If he downloaded a copy from the internet he violated copyright" with no other instruction for a fair use defense, the jury is generally going to say he's in violation, regardless of whatever "The Man is out to get you" idea his lawyers get in through argument.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Aphex Junkie]

What if he wanted to watch it on a different device, such as a PSP or a PDA or maybe his laptop, but didn't want to carry the disc (or couldn't use the disc because those small portable devices don't have DVD drives). If he transcoded it to some other format, it falls within fair use. Someone else did the work for him, that's all. If the source who he was downloading from acquired the movie illegally, then that is the source's problem. The defendant in this case is completely innocent as he was no breaking any laws.

Re:Extortion fee?

[91degrees]

Er. Owning it does give you the right, seeing as you've already paid for it.

Morally, but not legally. Copyright law gives the copyright owner exclusive rights to control copying. Fair use offers some exceptions, but the exceptions are limited. It generally doesn't include downloading from the internet and most certainly doesn't include uploading.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, perhaps you forget that he is claiming (1) he hasnt downloaded it, and (2) he already owns the DVD.

See Point 1 above

Re:Extortion fee?

[spyrochaete]

Incredibly (insanely) I think uploading movies to others is STILL a lesser crime than making a backup of protected media.

Re:Extortion fee?

[kebes]

Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy. I've yet to see a respected scholar in the field of IP law say anything like that.

Note that a number of scholars not only say that this should be a moral right, but go further and question the entire notion of "intellectual property" having value to society. For instance, Stephan Kinsella has written against intellectual property, and in Brian Martin's book Information Liberation he simialrly argues against the existence of "IP". These are but a few examples. In the debate about the "ethics of intellectual property" there are many scholars on both sides.

Perhaps what you meant (although not exactly what you said) was that no respected lawyer would argue that it is legal to download a copy based on already owning a copy. I'm not a lawyer, but it doesn't seem so far-fetched a defence to claim that since you already bought a copy, and could have made a copy for your own personal use under fair-use, you simply downloaded a copy for convenience. If this use doesn't limit the copyright-holder's market, then it may not be judged infringement. At the very least I can imagine a lawyer using such an argument for a client... although of course in the end it's up to the judge to decide the merit of the argument.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slightly different when they will try to make it so you have to pay so many legal fees to your lawyer that it's cheaper to just forfeit. That's the one problem I've had with the MPAA and RIAA. There is no point being proven, just them informing your being sued for blah blah. And then making you pay them or spend thousands if not millions on lawyer fees.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Rydia]

You just described the entire system. Over 90% of cases end in a settlement. Otherwise get ready for gigantic taxes, because we'd need 100 times as many judges, clerks, sheriffs to carry the workload. Plus, lawyers fees would go up because you'd have to hire more lawyers because you'd have so many running from court to court, preparing evidence and witnesses, etc.

Re:Extortion fee?

[bamm]

Oddly enough, you don't ever actually see an RIAA or MPAA file a lawsuit for downloading a movie/song/cd either. I expect this is just a misquote in the Wired article. The **AA is smart enough not to test those fair use laws in court. What they are really doing is suing these people for distributing the content. The (official) BitTorrent client requires that you make the content available to other users while you are downloading (thus distributing said content). So, as long as the **AA is suing people for distributing, fair use never comes into play.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

my infringement qualifies as fair use

You're buying into the entertainment industry spin. According to copyright laws, if something qualifies as Fair Use, it is by definition, NOT infringement. Whether or not a Fair Use claim would succeed in the scenario you posit -- that's another issue.

Re:Extortion fee?

[badmammajamma]

He is right about the jury though. The judge will tell them exactly what to base their decision on and the jury is required by law to follow the judges instructions.

Unfortunately, my guess is that a judge would tell them that downloading a copy of what he already owns is a violation of fair use even though it, in no way, violates the spirit of the fair use laws. The laws are merely behind the times of technology.

Re:Extortion fee?

[normal_guy]

He is saying 3)I didn't do it, and even if I would consider the possibility of doing it, I would have no reason to since I already own a copy. Regardless, these MPAA/RIAA lawsuits are based on flimsy ISP records. In none of these cases has a forensic reconstruction of traffic from the suspected computer to the "sting" computer been made. In most if not all cases that would be impossible. Nobody has subpoenaed computers to see if they actually have the suspected files on them.

Re:Extortion fee?

[PeelBoy]

$2,500 for *A* movie isn't extortion?

Re:Extortion fee?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Ah yes, but think of how many seasons the material could sustain Law and Order for!

Re:Extortion fee?

[vidarh]

If a juror wishes to ignore the judges instructions, then they can do so - nothing is stopping them. This is true in most jurisdictions outside the US as well (though IANAL, so if you're due to serve on a jury and want to be sure, seek legal advice), though in some countries a judge can set aside a jury verdict that is obviously not done based on the law, and in some cases a judge has discretion to remove jurors from the jury prior to a verdict having been made.

Most jurors, however, won't know that they can decide for themselves, as many jurisdictions limit the possibility to inform the jury of this.

The main basis for the jurys power to do this in common law jurisdictions is that the courts do not have the right to sanction jurors for the way they vote, as that defeats the entire purpose of the jury system in taking power away from the judiciary. The jurys power to do this in common law countries was first confirmed by Englands highest court in 1670 after jurors who acquitted William Penn were fined, and it has been upheld in a number of cases (including in the US after independence) since then.

For the most part this falls under the name "nullification" (that is, the jurors "nullify" the law by voting according to some other standard)

Note that there is not necessarily a "right" to nullify (though some contends it is a right), but that the jury defacto has the power to nullify because courts can't sanction it.

Re:Extortion fee?

[The Rizz]

Otherwise get ready for gigantic taxes, because we'd need 100 times as many judges, clerks, sheriffs to carry the workload.

On the plus side, this massive increase in taxes would probably cause a backlash, and the public might actually demand simpler and clearer laws so this mess of a legal system would work more efficiently.

--The Rizz

"Bulls do not win bull fights; people do. People do not win people fights; lawyers do." --Norman Augustine

Re:Extortion fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

on that same note even if you own a copy how are you legally going to MAKE a copy if it is copy protected? Under the DMCA it is illegal to simply have the means to circumvent copy protection. The only way to not violate the DMCA and still get your backup copy would be to download it, right?

Re:Extortion fee?

[Rob the Bold]

you're creating a new copy of someone else's thing, not your own, and it's not fair use because you do not know the person.

1. If one copies data from medium A (which one bought) and medium B (which someone else bought), and creates two identical copies, C and D, which copy are you saying is illegal? How do you know which is which?

2. Where are you coming up with the "you don't know the person" angle w.r.t. fair use? I think you must be thinking something more along the lines of "it's not fair for you to use the mix tape I made for Billy, that expresses our undying love!"

Re:Extortion fee?

[lundbergaj]

Sure, it doesn't diminish their legal rights, but are they morally out of bounds? They've been purchasing those legal rights by shifting the law in their favor for years. There's little question where the law stands and has been heading (until a court declares the laws unconstitutional). Some people also claim (and they may be fanatics) that a jury has the power to not rule on the letter of the law, but can find for a defendant if the law is unjust.

If a corperation could lobby congress to legalize their extortion, they'd clarly be within their legal rights. Just because something is legally right doesn't make it morally right. They'be managed to move the law quite a bit, they just haven't gotten us used to it so their actions (and not the defendant's) seem morally right. They're working hard to do that of course.

It will be interesting to see where this goes, but it will certainly take some time.

Re:Extortion fee?

[Eivind Eklund]

The jury does not "Have to apply the law". The jury can judge the law, too, as in jury nullification. Some (including me) would say the jury is even supposed to judge the law, and that's one of the most important of its functions.

Eivind.

Re:Extortion fee?

[badmammajamma]

What you say is different than what I was told on Jury duty last week. What you say also makes little sense. If the jury is allowed to ignore the judge, then the judge serves no purpose. Think it through...

Are they psychiatrists now?

[guruevi]

We look forward to addressing his issues in a court of law.

My ex-wife had issues too, you want to address hers? Go Hogan, you might go down in history as the Hulk Hogan against the **AA, freeing us from all evil.

I hope he goes to court, wins and if they drop the charges, that he countersues.

MPAA suits?

[supabeast!]

When did the MPAA start actually suing individuals over P2P transfers? I once read that the MPAA was considering doing so, but I thought that it was the MPAA's standing policy to not sue individual downloaders - mostly to avoid all the horrible press that the RIAA has received for doing so.

Re:MPAA suits?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... Are they suing this guy for downloading _one_ movie? Is this the start of a rather ugly campaign, or did they choose him b/c of his position? Maybe the MPAA feels they can scare enough people by suing a CE0 (or was it COO?) over a single download and making a big stink?

Re:MPAA suits?

[recursiv]

For years now. There are tens of thousands of cases (non legal definition) almost all of which are settled out of court.

Re:MPAA suits?

[supabeast!]

Have a link? I've been poking around news archives, and while I can find countless articles about the thousands of RIAA suits against individuals, this is the only case of the MPAA suing an individual for something other than being the originator of a bootleg movie or running a pirate movie site.

Re:MPAA suits?

[man_ls]

Shameless plug, but my web site has original court documents from a handful of MPAA lawsuits as well as a whole round of RIAA ones.

www.trendyblog.com click "riaa / mpaa lawsuits" tag on the left and read away.

There's a lot of RIAA and only a few MPAA on there, but http://www.trendyblog.com/resource/storage/userfil es/jwk/05-30086-Complaint-MPAA-UMASS.pdf is a copy of the MPAA filing suit against college students at UMASS for sharing "The Life Aquatic", "Meet the Fockers", "Closer", and "Coach Carter"

Re:MPAA suits?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the reply. But in the MPAA/UMass students case, it appears that the students are being sued (and I say appear because the complain is vague) that for making the files available for download in the first place - not simply downloading the file using a P2P system as in the case against Hogan. Given that the Hogan situation has been moving on for months now, it seems that there would be a lot more stories about MPAA suits against individual downloaders popping up, and because of that, the whole Hogan case reeks.

Re:MPAA suits?

[recursiv]

Here

the unfortunate reality...

[Churla]

Once he really shows some fight in him they will drop it and it will vanish.

The more I see of their operations the more I think the MPAA and RIAA operate very much like local traffic cops. They want to give lots of tickets, and specifically to the people who will just pay the fines and move along. Then hoping that the "watch out, you could get a ticket" mentality will help them get the desired end result.

On the other hand, if he effectively counter sues for defamation of character and/or some other damages done to him by their abusive litigation practices and sets a precedent for others it could open some doors. But then it's still up to others to get lawyers to do it. Make it where the counter suit is profitable enough and lawyers could start making money on the shark-like "we only get paid if you get paid" approach. But you have to put enough blood into the water to draw them out.

Re:the unfortunate reality...

[defile]

On the other hand, if he effectively counter sues for defamation of character and/or some other damages done to him by their abusive litigation practices and sets a precedent for others it could open some doors.

How do you even begin to quantify the damage done to his reputation? He's got Meet the Fockers on DVD! And now the whole world knows about it!

Re:the unfortunate reality...

[91degrees]

They want to give lots of tickets, and specifically to the people who will just pay the fines and move along. Then hoping that the "watch out, you could get a ticket" mentality will help them get the desired end result.

I'd like it if this was the way it worked. If there was an affordable but annoying cost to piracy (say $50-100), and easy means for the industry to obtain it, and an easy way to appeal against it, then piracy would be discouraged, the media cartels would be able to fund their anti-piracy efforts, and the pirates wouldn't get nearly as much sympathy as some poor schmuck being threatened by a zillion dollar lawsuit.

Re:the unfortunate reality...

[Churla]

Point taken sir...

At least it wasn't a copy of Gigli

Re:the unfortunate reality...

[Anonymous Coward]

The more I see of their operations the more I think the MPAA and RIAA operate very much like local traffic cops.

You misspelled MAFIA.

Re:the unfortunate reality...

[Kadin2048]

Wait ... you're suggesting that they actually made copies of Gigli? As in, more than one?

Call off the air strike, Colonel ... I'm afraid it's already too late.

Re:the unfortunate reality...

[aiken_d]

Hey, let's not defame traffic cops. They can be borderline unethical, but nothing like the real villains. The **AA's are more like classic protection rackets than the are like traffic cops:

- Their main tactic is intimidation

- Their business model is that people would rather pay a little than suffer a lot

- Because fear is their selling point, they have to win every battle. If it looks like they might lose, they'll back down rather than be seen as being weak by the other victims.

-b

Re:the unfortunate reality...

[Achromatic1978]

Call off the air strike, Colonel ... I'm afraid it's already too late.

"We had to destroy the movie to save it."

Re:the unfortunate reality...

[hicksw]

Maybe he bought it to show local teenagers the advantages of marrying into the NSA?

Think of the children!

Oops!

[BarryLoper]

Looks like they accidentaly picked on someone who's got some money. Don't you hate it when that happens?

Re:Oops!

[punkr0x]

This is great. In their greed the *AAs are bound to piss off some people who can fight back, and the more they do that, the more they will be forced to change their strategies. This is exactly the kind of story we need more of.

That's Not What I Want

[eldavojohn]

I admire your generosity, feel it is a little misplaced. I think he can afford to defend himself. It seems to me that you would be doing much more good by finding some regular joe that lives from paycheck to paycheck that is being harrassed by the MPAA or RIAA and donating to their defense.

I don't think it's misplaced. Every case I've seen so far has been from someone folding under the MPAA or RIAA. I don't want to support that. I don't want to support money that came from an out of court settlement. I want the justice system to take a look at itself and really reconsider what the MPAA is doing to people. I want judges to stop handing out fines because the MPAA lawyers tell them the right things. I want to support the people that stand up to it. I don't care if he's a CEO or peon grunt with no cash, I'm going to support the person pushing for reform. I'm not going to support the person who just pays the obscene fine because they want to avoid the trial and lawyers. I want to support this guy if he's willing to bring the lawyers and cast doubt on the MPAA.

Re:That's Not What I Want

[apflwr3]

I want the justice system to take a look at itself and really reconsider what the MPAA is doing to people. I want judges to stop handing out fines because the MPAA lawyers tell them the right things.

Have any cases made it to the point where the justices are handing out fines? AFAIK, which admittedly is not all that much, every MPAA/RIAA case so far has been settled before a verdict has been reached.

That said, I'm all for reform of the legal system. Specifically I don't believe a corporation or other business entity should be able to sue an individual under any circumstances. Of course they can and should press charges if they're wronged, or go into collection mode if a customer defaults on money owed, but it is absolutely unreasonable to expect any an individual to have a fair case when defending themselves against a large company suing for "damages."

Of course that would never happen, but you know, this is Slashdot.

Re:That's Not What I Want

[Tekzel]

I hadn't even thought about it from that angle. I stand corrected!

Re:That's Not What I Want

[airship]

I want little pink unicorns to dance on a rainbow with tiny fairies, but that ain't going to happen, either.

You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Brix Braxton]

Unless he comes up with a sales ticket dated back a few months - the "ownership" is irrelevent. Also - just because you own a particular brand of car stereo doesn't mean you can go out and steal it too. He had the DVD, he should have converted it from his pre-existing copy.

I know, I know - fair use, blah blah - I'm not talking about what I would do or what I think is right but this is the way that the system works right now and you have to work within the parameters.

What is interesting about this case is that so far, I don't think anyone has been busted for DOWNLOADING - it's always been uploading. I wonder if because of how nature of bittorrent works, they were able to possibly establish that he was not only downloading but also assisting in the distribution.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[arkhan_jg]

It's not that it's a defence to download a copy of something you already own - though it should be - but that WHY would he download it in the first place if he already had a copy?

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Aphex Junkie]

"Unless he comes up with a sales ticket dated back a few months - the "ownership" is irrelevent. Also - just because you own a particular brand of car stereo doesn't mean you can go out and steal it too. He had the DVD, he should have converted it from his pre-existing copy."

Your so-called "argument" holds absolutely no water. If he bought the DVD, then he has permission to read the bits stored on the media (which make up the MPEG stream). Let's say my DVD was scratched up, but I had as box and a legitimate disc and everything. I could play the first few chapters but then the disc stopped working. Do I have a right to go and download this movie from the internet?

YES, I DO HAVE A RIGHT TO DO THIS.

Same thing -- he had a working DVD. He wanted it in a compressed format. Yes, he could've converted it himself, but let's say he was lazy and someone else with the movie already did the conversion for him. How is downloading a converted copy different from making one yourself using your legitimate DVD as the source? Guess what? There is no difference! Both methods are perfectly within fair-use laws.

"I know, I know - fair use, blah blah - I'm not talking about what I would do or what I think is right but this is the way that the system works right now and you have to work within the parameters."

On the contrary, you ARE talking about what you "think" is the legal method. You're speaking out of your ass and also bending over and presenting said ass to the pillaging dicks of the MPAA. You bought the disc, therefore you have permission to read and interpret the bits any way you see fit. Want to convert it to DivX? Sure! Want to watch it on your PSP? Sure! Want to wipe your ass with it? Go ahead, but it might sting! Want to convert it but you're too lazy? Have an internet friend send you a pre-converted copy. Does your friend own the real DVD? It shouldn't matter to you because the important thing is that YOU do -- the other guy is the one breaking the law and it should be dealt with in a separate manner.

The mentality that you present is what is wrong with the world (mainly the US) today: you willfully ignore the protection that the law gives you and bend over to take it in the ass from big corporations.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[punkr0x]

Guilty until proven innocent, eh? I'd like to hear what proof the MPAA has that he downloaded this movie, before I worry about whether or not it was legal of him to download it. The "ownership" is far from irrelevent... it's him saying, "Look, I already bought your damn movie, what motive do I have to download it?" He has no burden to prove he bought it, they have to prove he downloaded it.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[getek2006]

Please refrain from comparing copyright infringement with theft. That is exactly the false analogy that they want us to believe, and so many people just fall right into it. Copyright infringement does not deprive anyone of the use of anything, theft does. Copyright infringement does not equal lost sales, you can't prove future events.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[LunaticTippy]

They can't expect you to have a sales receipt for buying something at a swap meet. Just show up with the disc. This issue is probably irrelevant.

As far as uploading/downloading goes, you cannot "only download" with bittorrent. You download and upload the chunks already completed. If you break your client to download only your speed will tend towards 0. Might take months to finish the file.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Brix Braxton]

Because just like you don't know that he really downloaded the movie - you don't know that he owned the movie prior to that.

Anyone can walk into a used DVD shop and buy a copy of anything for cash and toss it in their collection after getting a phone call - that's what I would do. As far as proving that he downloaded it - that's probably the easiest part of all.

Years ago in the 8 bit computer days, when you had to type in programs from magazines - I called a magazine and asked them if I could distribute the keyed in programs to members of a computer club providing that they brought a copy of the magazine with the program with them (to prove ownership). They had a lawyer write me a letter threatoning to sue me if I tried any such thing. And that was me just talking about simply saving someone the trouble of manually keying in his own program.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Adrian Lopez]

Also - just because you own a particular brand of car stereo doesn't mean you can go out and steal it too.

I wish people would stop drawing such ridiculous analogies. You can't steal a copyrighted work by making a copy of it anymore than you can steal a person's soul by taking their picture.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that he owns it isn't a defense as to why downloading it is okay. The point was, he DIDN'T download it, and therefore the suit is completely false. The point of him saying he owns it is that there is no point to downloading it.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Brix Braxton]

Actually I agree with almost everything you are saying. I guess someone should do some kind of write-up to really see if when you buy a DVD you are either A) buying the DVD itself as a product which happens to have a movie on it or B) Buying the product itself as well as a license to play the movie on said product or C) Really just buying a license to watch the movie on the DVD.

What if you owned Meet The Fockers and got a scratch on it - and went to download it from the internet. What if the version of the movie you owned was the extended version and the version you downloaded was the non extended version? What if that non extended version was never on the DVD you owned? I think morally/ethically you are fine - but legally I doubt it.

It's more complicated than it seems.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[John Hasler]

> Guilty until proven innocent, eh?

In criminal court. In civil court there is no "guilt" or "innocence" and the decisions are based on preponderance of evidence.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Brix Braxton]

That's kind of what I was saying - he had the DVD - he could have made his own.

The article does say that he never downloaded the file - so he might not have done anything wrong.

I bet that because of how bittorrent works - if that file passed through his system and he passed it on to someone else (as a peer) then they could say that he was not only downloading but uploading it. I'm not 100% sure, maybe bittorent uses incoherent bits and then re-assembles but it could be that is how they are trying to make it stick.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[John Hasler]

Actually I agree with almost everything you are saying. I guess someone should do some kind of write-up to really see if when you buy a DVD you are either A) buying the DVD itself as a product which happens to have a movie on it or B) Buying the product itself as well as a license to play the movie on said product or C) Really just buying a license to watch the movie on the DVD.

You are buying a piece of plastic which embodies a copy of the movie. Under US copyright law a copy is a physical object. You don't need a license to play a DVD: the right to make whatever transient copies are required to play it is implicit in the sale. The so-called "license" is a sales contract in which you give up some of the rights you would have in its absence.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless he comes up with a sales ticket dated back a few months - the "ownership" is irrelevent.

Do you keep track of where you purchase every DVD? Do you keep those receipts. For most, the answer is probably no. However, there is a good chance he purchased it say, with his credit card, which the retailer he purchased the movie from should be able to look up. Then there's also the question of people giving someone a movie as a gift, which happens plenty for holidays and birthdays.

I'm not talking about what I would do or what I think is right but this is the way that the system works right now and you have to work within the parameters.

Whether or not you bend over backwards to comply the rules, you're still being fucked. If I purchase a movie, why shouldn't I be allowed to download it in an already converted format, say, for my IPod or PSP so I may watch it on a plain without purchasing a portable DVD player or software to do the conversion for me too? From your statement, I understand that you don't agree with the situation as it is, but seriously, how can you honestly sit back and basically say, "we just have to take it from these guys; even if our tax dollars are paying them to do this to us?" That's just sweeping the dirt under the carpet instead of standing up to these idiots and dealing with the problem. Although it's due to the fact that he is now directly affected by this, Mr. Hogan is doing exactly the opposite as you just have, which I respect infinitely.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[punkr0x]

He doesn't have to prove he owned the DVD before he supposedly "downloaded" it. As many people have already stated, he could have bought the movie and then downloaded it for some reason, it's still illegal. But he doesn't even have to own the DVD. He's just pointing out that he does because it strenghtens his case. If you read his blog (someone posted the link previously in the comments, should be moderated +5 informative btw!), this guy knows what he's doing. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who got caught downloading a movie, panicked, so he bought it and said, "But I already own it!" That's an aside. The point is, they haven't yet presented any evidence that he downloaded it, but they're really pushing a settlement. As he says in his blog, they could make a lot more than $2500 by taking this to court... if they're so sure he did it, why are they content, eager even, to settle this out of court?

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[punkr0x]

Ugh, I didn't realize that. Why do they have to make the rules different? Just when I was starting to understand how the courts worked...

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Brix Braxton]

He did say that he was contesting whether he did it or not and that you can't say in this age of wi-fi - which makes me wonder just how liable I am if a neighbor got into my wi-fi and downloaded a bunch of crud. Will be interesting to follow.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[BMonger]

You can't steal a copyrighted work by making a copy of it anymore than you can steal a person's soul by taking their picture.

You can't?! So much wasted film... *sob*

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Getek, if you post this same comment on a GPL infringement thread, you have the ueber-balls.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Dun Malg]

No, the reason "guilt and innocence" are incorrect is because those are the terms used for criminal trials, and civil trials result in a verdict of "liable" or "not liable". The burden of proof being "preponderance of the evidence" rather than "beyond reasonable doubt" has nothing to do with it.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[DoctorDyna]

Would sombody please help this guy out already and code a small trojan that links up to bitorrent and downloads a random movie? There's your reasonable doubt right there. "Maybe it was that virus thats goin around. Prove I did it intentionally." And, as I've stated many, many times in any / all of these types of discussions, I fully agree with the argument against lumping of downloading material with theft. If sombody steals your car, you come outside in the morning, and it's just fucking gone. Thats theft. If you are a record label exec and sombody downloads a song, does that mean that the artist now has to go back in the studio, record it again, edit it again, send it to the presses again? Ship it to stores again? not even that? you mean it actually doesn't affect them at all? Jesus Harold Christ then whats all the fuss about? OH! you mean "I" didn't give you money. Hm. Prove I would have anyway. Help me to understand how you are managing to predict that I would have purchased something if I could not have downloaded it. Bring that same crystal ball into court please, so everybody can take a look.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Pantero Blanco]

Before someone bitches at the parent post for using the "copyright infringement isn't theft" line, I'll point out that the difference matters in this case.

"Also - just because you own a particular brand of car stereo doesn't mean you can go out and steal it too. He had the DVD, he should have converted it from his pre-existing copy."

If you already have a copy of the movie, there is NO WAY the copyright owner can claim a loss from your downloading it. Even by their twisted "you're buying a license to watch the content" logic, you're in the clear. All you're doing is using a different method to back it up.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Brix Braxton]

Hey - good idea on the virus - that's putting the virus guys behind something we can all agree to.

Also - I wasn't saying that I considered it theft - I just said that these are the parameters that we are living under and that's what it is. Personally - I think I should be able to log into itunes and download every damn song that I've ever destroyed a tape to, lost or just plain wore out.

Does anyone remember years ago Garth Brooks and a lot of other high profile musicians got together and put up ads warning people not to buy their albums used - because even though it's saving you money to do so, the artist gets nothing in return for that and has lost a sale. In fact, the artist today loses just as much of not more from used record sales, and that's where I buy most of my CD's anyway - pre-owned.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Pantero Blanco]

"The fact that he owns it isn't a defense as to why downloading it is okay."

He may not be using it as one, but it certainly is a valid defense. What's the difference between downloading a second copy or copying his original DVD (other than the first one being quicker)? The copyright owner isn't being deprived of a sale, or a "potential sale", in any way.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they do get you for uploading, as it is a much easier case to make (there are legitimate reasons to download, but not to upload). I just got a notice myself, and they did something that just never occurred to me: the studio's legal department actually goes out on Bittorrent and downloads the file from other users, then they send out notices to the ISP's of every user who uploaded to them. The notice says what you were downloading, and when, and for how long, and what your IP address was at the time. Not sure if they have access to your MAC, but I know the ISP does.

They can generate thousands of complaints a day this way, with nothing but a bittorrent client, an ISP/IP address directory, and a mail merge program. So simple, I am frankly impressed (but this was HBO's tactic, the major studios might have a less elegant solution). And, by the way, they may not be all that evil: it's just a cease and desist order so far, they have not sued me yet.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[asuffield]

And furthermore, civil trials are much more shades of gray. If a person does something that is technically illegal but in practice causes no harm, the verdict will be 'liable' but the judge will apply the minimum sentence (a few dollars and an instruction not to do it again). No judge in the world is going to make you pay the maximum fine for downloading one movie that you've already paid for. They'll probably be pretty irritated at the MPAA for filling their docket with this nonsense; judges are very busy people and get short-tempered with cases that don't accomplish anything.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Kaptain Kruton]

Also - just because you own a particular brand of car stereo doesn't mean you can go out and steal it too.

Poor analogy. In stealing a stereo, you are dealing with a physical item. You are taking it away from someone and the owner no longer has it for his own use. When dealing with things such as mp3s and movies, this is not the case. You are making a COPY; you are not stealing or taking anything away from anyone. To my knowledge, which I admit may be totally wrong, different laws apply to theft and to the downloading/sharing of copyrighted material.

I wonder if because of how nature of bittorrent works, they were able to possibly establish that he was not only downloading but also assisting in the distribution.

Good point. I belive this is where their case may focus. Where as they may have difficulty in showing that he was wrong to download something that he supposedly already owned, the MPAA will have no problem in showing that he was wrong in sharing the data he supposedly downloaded. That is assuming that they can show he uploaded data and didn't use something like a firewall to block uploads.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[LocalH]

Both are illegal in the US.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[LifeNLiberty]

Now THAT is a good analogy!

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[H01ym0ses]

Yes that is a good point with the through-put. Say my firewall is the last hop they see doing a route trace to me. Even tho I'm connected to an Intranet of 5000+ computers the last IP address attached to the file is mine. Did I download the material? HTF can you prove that I did? was there some guy with a mapped image of my drive with the materials on there? what about the botnet puters that are rampant with malware/spyware? they spam out millions of emails a day from random computers who happened to be infected. I have a song that I share out to 1000 people effectively what they are saying is that any computer that the file passed through on the network path to its ultimate destination is now liable for damages for transporting the information even tho my computer which is hidden from direct view by a spoof or something is not visible. Then is the ISP now liable for the hosting file? what about the hop it made in china or los angeles or texas or florida? Are all these computers now liable for file trafficing? If so then why is it legal for radio stations to broadcast music that is copyrighted to my stereo via wireless signals and I make a TAPE or CD of the audio that is freely and publicly distributed via an OPEN signal to anyone in the area now suddenly wrong? I know any and all of the people who grew up with tape decks recorded songs from the radio. That being said now the **AA's can essentially come along and sue you for making a tape of there material that is distributed via TV, Radio, Satellite, Internet, ETC. Yet they offer it to you openly? Hypocritical socialists. If it were up to me I would download every video and song ever made broadcast via a remote host or hosts everywhere in the world and post a disclaimer that states that the **AA's can universally kiss my ass because I'm doing nothing more then what you do on a daily basis, I'm just making it easier to do for everyone. Think about that when you are watching CBS,NBC,ABC etc and they have this wonderful movie that was in the theatre that you loved. I didn't pay anything to watch this movie they are showing yet if I make a video tape of it I'm essentially now liable for the movies gross income over its lifetime? Fuck them. Sue me all you want I make 20k a year and if you think you can get 100k outta me I would love to see it. Quote "We the unwilling, Lead by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful" Albert Einstein.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[VanBard]

You don't understand his position. He said he did not download it. He also said why would he download it, as he already owns it. Whether or not he bought it before or not could still be argued regardless of producing a receipt. It would simply go to believability. Regardless, he is not going to argue he downloaded it but it was fair use. He has clearly said he did not download it. The fact that he owns the copy just goes to support the claim that he had no reason to download it. Comparing it to a car stereo is not the same thing. There might be some value for an individual to have another physical car stereo. Just like there might be a reason for a person to have another physical pressed copy with box of the dvd of the movie. There is no real value in downloading it when you already have a copy sitting ten feet away from you. I think it goes a long way to showing there was no reason for him to download the movie. Not to mention it was probably on heavy cable/satellite rotation at that time as well, so he would have also had access to it in that manner if he had satellite or cable and subscribed to those channels. Comparing intellectual property to something that is a tangible product with no means of digital duplication is simply invalid.

Re:You can own meet the fockers in 10 minutes

[Brix Braxton]

I understand his position that he claims he didn't download it - that's fine and I would guess that he didn't.

I don't think that saying that you own a copy - and that's why you didn't download it is a good cover because it doesn't prove that he owned it at the time. My point was that anyone can go out and purchase a DVD used for cash and say "I owned this, why would I download it?".

Also - if the law is (and I'm not a lawyer) that downloading content without permission is illegal, then owning a copy still doesn't make that law null - it just means that the way that he got around to getting his fair use copy wasn't legal (if he downloaded it which I don't say that he did). It's kind of like shop lifting something that costs 25 cents and saying "why would I steal that? I'm a millionaire!"

Trust me - my logic would be the same - if I owned the DVD, I wouldn't feel bad downloading it. I've owned software and scratched the CD and ended up downloading a warez version of the software as a replacement - guilt free on my part but I'm sure that the software creator wouldn't agree that I took the best approach (but then again, most software companies don't have an affordable "replace scratched disc" approach, except for LucasArts).

For those...

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

that say that the MPAA will just drop it and move on. I dont think you understand...this guy has the means and it only takes one like him to make the fight stick. I know that when a guy like this decides its worth MILLIONS of his own money hes pretty determined to see it through. I hope he c0ckpunches these a$$hats but good!

Re:For those...

[scovetta]

Thanks for the new sig, dude!

This will not go to court.

[91degrees]

Unless the MPAA are 100% certain that they're going to win. They don't really believe that a pirated movie costs them $2500. They do know that these threats have a huge effect as a deterrent. If they lose the case, they'll lose the deterrent. If they drop the case (after costing Mr. Hogan a modest amount in legal costs), they'll retain the deterrent.

In what way is it in the MPAA's interest to see this all the way to the court?

Re:This will not go to court.

[John Hasler]

If he files counterclaims the MPAA cannot stop the matter from going to trial.

Re:This will not go to court.

[91degrees]

Yes they can. My understanding is that a counterclaim is a separate claim against the plaintiff. The MPAA can stop that from going to court by conceding that too.

Re:This will not go to court.

[surprise_audit]

Even if the MPAA backs down from their case and concedes his counterclaim, he can still get a lot of milage out of it. Such as full page ads in newspapers stating the facts of the case. He could probably discuss it on TV with Letterman or Leno too.

Re:This will not go to court.

[91degrees]

True. It would suggest that only the rich are protected from the MPAA's lawsuits though. Even if he gets all him money back, he had to have some to gamble on this in the first place.

Re:This will not go to court.

[surprise_audit]

Really, I was thinking more of the media exposure doing harm to the MPAA/RIAA. Kinda like lifting a rock and watching the bugs scurrying around trying to find places to hide. So far, the MPAA/RIAA are "winning" every case, because they've been able to use their "settle for this low, low figure and we won't sue" tactic. OK, there has been *some* media attention, but not enough to really do much damage. If just one person wins and gets the **AA information gathering techniques ruled illegal, that'll be a big setback. If he gets a big award in a countersuit, there'll be more people (and lawyers) willing to fight back.

What does his company sell?

[Anonymous Coward]

If his company offers a tangable product, I would be glad to buy it, in a show of my support. Frankly, this could be a fantastic advert towards me, an man who purchases either what I percieve as a quality product, or of those with an honerable intent.

The defendent blogs

[supabeast!]

For anyone who wants to keep up with the story, Shawn Hogan is blogging the story at http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/category/law/.

score one for the little guy

[esocid]

oh wait....he's still a big guy.

Re:score one for the little guy

[tomjen]

Is being a big guy evil? If what his company sells is a product or service brought/used and therefore paid by people who want it does that make him evil? Sure if it is done trough shaddy tactics then he is evil. But not all rich people are evil.

As for this he is battleing the MPAA - and has the finances to do so, let him and give the MPAA hell. Yes it would be better if the little guy could afford it, but so is unfortunetly not the case, so be happy that somebody is.

Worlds Worst ISP

[Brix Braxton]

The article mentioned that Hogan was challenging whether or not an IP could really be traced back to an individual in the world of WiFi.

A friend and I once joked about starting up our own company - ABC ISP - or something like that. Anyway, the idea was that we just were really really bad at running our own ISP and had really bad security. The whole point being that we could connect to our own ISP privately via wifi without worrying about getting busted.

I'm sure there would be a lot of "gotchas" like my cable provider suing me for breaking my "will not resell" contract, but still - fun to entertain the thought.

Re:Worlds Worst ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply put, if you have an unsecured wireless router, then you, who pays the bills, are responsible for the content going through it.

As a side note, if it was a wireless service then it is a simple matter of checking the MAC address that had the IP at that time and tracking it back.

Re:Worlds Worst ISP

[Brix Braxton]

Well - the fantasy arrangement was that we would register as a business - then be protected because we were an ISP that just didn't know what they were doing... "logs? sorry - we kept running out of space and we turned that feature off".

I know it's all pie in the sky - just a fun thing to talk about after a couple of beers.

Re:Worlds Worst ISP

[MasterOfMagic]

As a side note, if it was a wireless service then it is a simple matter of checking the MAC address that had the IP at that time and tracking it back.

Unless, of course, someone was spoofing their MAC address. Then it doesn't really get you anywhere. As a bonus, check out the IEEE database for MAC addresses by company.

Standard of proof?

[quokkapox]

What is the standard of proof required in cases like these? Have any actually gone to trial? My understanding is that a British ISP basically told the European equivalent of the MPAA/RIAA to GTFO unless they could provide convincing evidence of the accused users downloading specific files at specific times. I've also heard that all the basically have is a screenshot of the "infringing content" along with a hash of some sort. That's not enough to convince me if I were a judge. The hash could be the result of a collision. On some of these networks you can try to download something called "ubuntu-5.10-intel.iso" and end up with an infringing copy of "Meet the Fokkers" because the filenames can be changed. If he had wifi, maybe his network got cracked. Maybe he was running a tor exit link. All of these establish plenty of doubt as to whether he actually deliberately downloaded anything.

Go Shawn Hogan. Get these crooks to tell us "Where's the proof?"

Re:Standard of proof?

[BearRanger]

As a civil matter, the standard of proof is based on a "preponderance of the evidence". It's not the same "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard that is used in criminal cases. The MPAA will have to convince a judge (or jury--which one is chosen depends on a number of factors) that this specific person performed the actions they say he did, and that they suffered damages as a result. If you want to look at it in a simplistic way, the MPAA have to be able to convince the judge/jury of their side to a greater than 50% standard in order to win.

We don't know what proof the MPAA has, but a sharp lawyer will almost certainly force them to reveal their detection methods in court. That proof doesn't have to be absolute, but it will have to be better than "this IP address was used to download our content." As others have said, his IP address could have been hijacked. Even if it wasn't, if Hogan lives with anyone else they will have no chance of winning if they didn't specify Hogan and all members of his household as parties in the suit.

As for already owning a copy of the movie in question, that can be very useful if he can prove he bought it before the MPAA says he downloaded it. A check of his credit card records might provide that. If he bought the movie, why would he need to download it? Remember, it's all about convincing the judge/jury within the close boundaries of the 50% standard.

Hogan should take on this fight. He's got every chance of winning it and helping to put an end to an unreasonable extortion scheme.

Re:Standard of proof?

[asuffield]

Have any actually gone to trial?

I don't know about the MPAA ones, but a few cases like these (RIAA perhaps? I forget) have gone to trial and the persecutor lost. Those were all absurd cases though (like the defendant didn't own a computer or similar) so it was just *stupid* to take them to court in the first place.

This whole extortion racket is an insulting joke, and really shouldn't be legal.

My understanding is that a British ISP basically told the European equivalent of the MPAA/RIAA to GTFO unless they could provide convincing evidence of the accused users downloading specific files at specific times.

Here in the UK we have some nice laws that require the ISPs to do this. If the ISP had handed over the information, then not only could their customers have sued them for it (and won), but it would also have been a criminal act. You cannot pass on personal details about your customers to somebody else without your customer's permission or a court order. There are no exceptions that will let them get out of this one. The company is responsible for obtaining the necessary permission, and they can't just hide it in the small print - they must offer you the choice, they cannot require you to grant it. (You'll never get this in the US because it would basically put Choicepoint out of business).

Re:Standard of proof?

[Lord Ender]

A hash collision? Do you know how rare that is? I would be seriously impressed if the MPAA was doing birthday attacks to sucker random schmoes out of $2.5k.

Be careful...

[Red Flayer]

of what you wish for:

'They're completely abusing the system,' Hogan says. Although expecting to pay well over $100,000 to defend himself, he claims 'I would spend well into the millions on this.'

If he really wanted to defend the practice of downloading copies of what you purchased on DVD, he would need to spend millions. I think it's great that he's taking a stand, but defending *himself* ain't gonna do jack for the rest of us -- since most of us still can't afford a law team for penny-ante BS like this.

Re:Be careful...

[theshibboleth]

If he actually managed to change the case law though by appealing the case to a higher court, that could very easily have powerful consequences for everyone in the US facing similar lawsuits.

Re:Be careful...

[robertjw]

If he really wanted to defend the practice of downloading copies of what you purchased on DVD, he would need to spend millions. I think it's great that he's taking a stand, but defending *himself* ain't gonna do jack for the rest of us -- since most of us still can't afford a law team for penny-ante BS like this.

Maybe not right away, but if he can win all of the sudden there's a precedent. Class action suits could be filed, individuals can threaten court action and be confident of winning, etc... If the kind of behaviour the MPAA is participating in is ever going to be stopped someone has to start fighting it somewhere.

Re:Be careful...

[rob1980]

All the average schmuck needs to see if they're on the fence about defending themselves against *AA is for somebody else to do it successfully. A little legal precedent will go a long way in stopping the whole mess.

What does this guy think he's Richard Stallman?!?!

[pfz]

Check out the new documentary ALTERANTIVE FREEDOM to hear RMS rip the MPAA! (He also rips the RIAA for kicks!)

http://alternativefreedom.org/

It's too bad the thousands and thousands of people who have been "shaken-down" by the evil MPAA didn't have the money to defend themselves. Maybe someday people will realize they need to boycott the MPAA (and RIAA) and their affiliates in order to take back control of entertainment and their government at the same time.

There's another very ugly side to this coin

[bberens]

What if he loses?

Lots of reasons

[phorm]

Not sure about that particular DVD, but some of the ones I own (see: Shrek 2) have lengthy unskippable advertisements at the start. Depending on protection, it's also annoying to copy them on many regular systems because of protections, which means you can't make a backup or format-shift to take it with you on your laptop, etc.

Who really wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawyers all the way to the BANK!!!

Attorney's fees

[LuminaireX]

Although expecting to pay well over $100,000 to defend himself, he claims 'I would spend well into the millions on this.

Is he kidding? If he wins he's obligated to seek reimbursement for his attorney's fees.

Re:Attorney's fees

[jimwelch]

He is refering to the risk of losing and paying his attorney fees.
He probably has to pay up front if they don't like to the risk level.

Re:Attorney's fees

[kinglink]

Unfortunatly he needs to have the money just in case he loses.

The sad thing is many of us don't have that 100,000 buy in or the willingness to risk it if you lose.

Re:Attorney's fees

[mabhatter654]

IT just dawned on me, but most CEOs carry quite high personal liability insurance for civil cases that might arise if the company or investors sue them personally as long as it's not a criminal mater. He's probably already got insurance paying for part of this already, but he'll still need his own money to keep the insurance company from settling instead of fighting it out.

He is a movie theif.

[krell]

"Please refrain from comparing copyright infringement with theft"

At first, I thought he was trotting out the lie that copyright infringement = theft, but rereading his post, the word "theft" appeared to be contained inside his car-stereo analogy, and was not being used to equate theft with what the DVD downloader was doing. The subject of my response is a typical statement by one of these trolls (complete with the incorrect spelling).

We have enough of those trolls already who toss off-topic words like "stealing" and "theft" into every copyright-infringement discussion thread without falsely identifying them.

Re:What does this guy think he's Richard Stallman?

[tribentwrks]

Maybe someday people will realize they need to boycott the MPAA (and RIAA) and their affiliates in order to take back control of entertainment and their government at the same time.
Right on man. Go see some local theater, buy a cd from a local band, read a book from the library, etc. Don't buy/steal/download the latest crap from the big bastard companies, and things will change.

Give some support

[viking2000]

Her is /.ers chance to put their money where their mouth is.
You can:
1. Buy their software here: http://www.digitalpoint.com/products/
2. Review and recommend their software.

They sell: data wizard, home inspection, isp billing domain management and radius server.

It should not be difficult to drive a few $millions in sales to them.

Consider using this for your own networks:

Name Stalker 1.2
Tool for managing your domains and monitor domains that you want. For Macintosh and Windows

or

Men & Mice Products
3 out of 4 DNS servers are incorrectly setup... find and fix problems with any DNS server. They carry Men & Mice's full line of DNS server and diagnostic tools. For Macintosh and Windows.

Re:Give some support

[tharris]

Back in the day, Optigold ISP was the defacto standard for ISP billing software. Don't know if things have changed (I've been out of that industry for several years) but Shawn was always around and willing to help you solve problems and he constantly updated the software to add feature requests.

Re:Give some support

[crabpeople]

got a torrent?

Re:Give some support

[Anonymous Coward]

"Name Stalker 1.2" eh? Sounds great. I should check The Pirate Bay and see if I can fid a torrent!

Re:Give some support

[Anonymous Coward]

oh jesus, thanks for making me spit water all over everywhere, now i'm gonna have my co-workers asking me why i'm wet all afternoon...

Oops....

[Rolan]

Well, it was only a matter of time before they sued a millionaire, lawyer, or politician.... I'd be surprised if it ever makes it to court though. They don't want a legal test of what they're doing.

Re:Oops....

[TechForensics]

It's easier to screen out the lawyers and the politicians than the millionaires. You don't always know.

Honestly...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for them to have sued enough people that when they sue another person... the entire jury is full of their victims... That is when they will fail.

Re:Honestly...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, that's when every *AA case will succeed! It'll become like hazing or female circumcision or other "rites of passage." People will believe that, because it happened to them and their generation, it should happen to the next generation, as well.

donate to his efforts

[farker haiku]

here

Re:donate to his efforts

[farker haiku]

And a disclaimer: while the link goes to a page asking for donations for a new server farm, in his comment here, it's what he'd rather people donate to.

Re:What does this guy think he's Richard Stallman?

[pfz]

exactly. like ALTERNATIVE FREEDOM :) http://alternativefreedom.org/

Read 'Fockers,' thought 'Feebles'

[mclaincausey]

Journey into the mind of a madman:
At first I was thinking he pirated "Meet the Feebles" and wondering how the hell you could get sued for pirating low-budget, hobbit-issued Muppet porn. Then it registered that it was "Meet the Fockers" and figured the studio needed the money, cos it looked like an abominable movie from the preview. Then I found out the damn thing grossed $279.167 million and thought "that can't be it." Then I remembered Barbara Streisand was in it and figured they probably were in the hole still from paying her royalties.

So this guy went from being cool, to being lame, to partial redemption for suing the MPAA

His legal right trumps their legal rights :)

[2nd Post!]

His primary legal right: Innocent until proven guilty.
Their primary legal right: The right to control distribution.

If they cannot find him guilty, it doesn't matter how much copyright they have, they can't stick anything to him. So first they have to prove he downloaded Meet the Fockers before they can levy anything else. What is the proof they have?

Re:His legal right trumps their legal rights :)

[duerra]

Innocent until proven guilty only applies to criminal charges, not civil suits.

Re:His legal right trumps their legal rights :)

[Arker]

Innocent until proven guilty only applies to criminal charges, not civil suits.

No, actually that's not true. The plaintiff in a civil case has the burden of proof. They just have a slightly lower standard of proof. 'Preponderence of evidence' rather than 'beyond a reasonable doubt.'

Re:His legal right trumps their legal rights :)

[duerra]

*nod* Yeah, that is correct.

Re:His legal right trumps their legal rights :)

[cyber-vandal]

Well it's innocent until proven more likely than not that he did break the law. So not quite as cut and dried but it's still a fairly high standard. They also need to prove their losses (in order to justify the claim for damages) to the same standard which will be a lot harder.

To all the /.'ers here in the USA . . .

[mmell]

Do the words "Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute!" ring any bells?

Give 'em hell, Mr. Hogan!

Re:They don't call it the POKEY for Gumby's sake

[catdevnull]

Dammit. The MPAA/RIAA is trolling slashdot again...

Hogan's Heroes Triva

[jimwelch]

In the end, it was revealed that
* Col. Klink was the "grey fox" a double agent that helped the Allies.
* Sgt. Schultz was the president of the most respected and largest toy company in Germany.

Re:Hogan's Heroes Triva

[geminidomino]

* Sgt. Schultz was the president of the most respected and largest toy company in Germany.

That was actually season 3. ;)

Gods, I loved that show.

Re:Hogan's Heroes Triva

[jimwelch]

I was able to verify the Sgt. on the web, can you verify the silver fox?

Shawn Hogan is NOT a typical CEO guy

[tharris]

My former employer bought software from Shawn way back in the day and he's not your typical suit that you think of when you hear CEO. He's pretty much a typical Slashdot type guy who lived the dream by making it big writing the best software available for a certain industry. So for anyone who thinks this is big fish fighting big fish, you are wrong. Go Shawn!

He's Not Trying To Save The World

[tonyr1988]

From his blog:

One thing that I think people are not understanding here is that I'm not trying to change the world with this. I'm not trying to "take down the MPAA", change any copyright or file sharing laws or anything else as grandiose as that...I've received countless emails/phone calls from people who treat me like the second coming of you-know-who, and just think people are blowing everything out of proportion (obviously).

Mixed metaphor much?

[Kadin2048]

...tuck our tails between our legs and run away, screaming like little schoolgirls.

Man, I do not want to see what the girls at your school looked like...

Re:Mixed metaphor much?

[Rogerborg]

Hentai High alumni represent.

Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

The entire system is based around how much money you have, not how fair or right the outcomes are.

Fixed.

Doesn't one want a winning record too?

[tepples]

Lawyers care not one whit the veracity or validity of a claim. The only issue here is one of how long it can drag out to increase legal fees.

O RLY? Doesn't an attorney also care about winning cases so that she can build up a reputation as a good value for her clients?

Re:Doesn't one want a winning record too?

[kalel666]

I don't see those two things as being mutually exclusive to lawyers (or defendants or plaintiffs, for that matter). Its been a long time since veracity or validity of a claim in court has mattered to winning.

Re:Doesn't one want a winning record too?

[SandManMattSH]

you obviously don't know what you are talking about. there are many cases where this is true, but it is not always.
for a lawyer, this is true. a lawyer's job is to win, not to question his or her client.
for a judge, this is not. a judge needs evidence to be provided to him or her both to persuade him or her as well as to base his or her written decision on.
a jury is given even more leeway because a jury does not have to write as formal a declaration of reasons.

~Matt

The games you play...

[arose]

Dear MPAA, You played Russian roulette, yes you played with many, many empty holes, but you also did it many times. You have a thick skull, so it'll take some time, keep it up! Best death wishes, the World

I hope English is not your first language.

[windowpain]

If your native tongue is other than English, then ignore this. But if you're a native English speaker you should have proofread your piece before posting it. "Mr. Hogan both denies the charges as well as claims he already owns the movie on DVD." What you wrote says that Hogan denies that he owns the movie on DVD. The article says Hogan says he does own the movie on DVD. So you should have written something like "Mr. Hogan denies the charges and claims he already owns the movie on DVD."

And please, save the "grammar Nazi" posts. If you can appreciate that writing clear code is worthwhile you should agree that expresssing yourself well in English is also worthwhile.

Re:I hope English is not your first language.

[JBHarris]

The word 'claims' is being used as a verb, not a noun. The sentence makes perfect grammatical sense, plus given the context clues, an 8th grader can figure out what was being said.

Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Anti-Grammar-Nazi

Re:I hope English is not your first language.

[Clever7Devil]

Really, the best part of this sanctimonious diatribe is that his correction itself is ambiguous. "Mr. Hogan denies the charges and claims he already owns the movie on DVD" can be read several ways. What the original poster was trying to say is obviously, "Mr. Hogan has denied these charges; furthermore, he claims to already own a legal copy of the movie." To me, the use of the conjunction "and" in windowpain's correction implies, "Mr. Hogan denies the charges, as well as denying ownership of the title." This, if I can wade through his run-on sentence, is EXACTLY the mistake he was trying to correct. If you're going to be a misanthrope, at least do it eloquently.

Re:I hope English is not your first language.

[Jherek Carnelian]

If you're going to be a misanthrope, at least do it eloquently.

And if you are going to be an antelope, do it with the style and grace of a gazelle.

Re:I hope English is not your first language.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were "denies both the charges as well as claims", you would be correct. "both denies" implies what is intended, not how you have chosen to read it. Syntax does, in fact, make a difference.

Re:I hope English is not your first language.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a matter of grammar but of semantics, grammatically the original sentence is correct.
However it is ambiguous and and the first meaning that came to me was that he was denying he owned the DVD, which was somewhat puzzling...

Precise grammar and precise spelling are optional within reason, but meaning is not optional.

Re:I hope English is not your first language.

[windowpain]

You are wrong on both counts. The sentence is not gramatically correct. And precise grammar and precise spelling are never optional.

Re:I hope English is not your first language.

[windowpain]

You are wrong. Instead of complaining that I was being sanctimonious you should have agreed with me that the writer was incorrect. My post was not ambiguous. You were wrong again.

You mistook my insistence on competent writing as misanthropic because you yourself are not a competent writer. Thus you felt hurt and got defensive.

PeerGuardian...

[Omeger]

Is your best friend when it comes to downloading things through BitTorrent.

Re:PeerGuardian...

[Slashcrap]

Is your best friend when it comes to downloading things through BitTorrent.

As long as they are only monitoring from IPs on the PeerGuardian list. Of course, that's a pretty safe bet because it requires either vast sums of money or dark voodoo techno magic to get a new IP address. Idiot.

PS. Wouldn't it be in their interests to convince people that PeerGuardian does offer protection when it obviously doesn't? Maybe they could acheive that by hiring people to make posts on popular online forums.

Re:PeerGuardian...

[Omeger]

STFU cock nigger.

Then the judge tells him how much he owes the MPAA

[Secrity]

I am not a lawyer and this is a civil case, not a criminal case. The MPAA does not have to "prove" their case, both sides present the facts as they know them to the judge or jury and the outcome is based upon "preponderance of evidence". The whole winner/loser can be a sliding scale. If the judge or jury rules in favor of the MPAA, he would have to pay whatever the judge or jury deems proper.

                Of course the MPAA is going to try to show that they should be awarded beaucoup dollars -- an amount that is guaranteed to make normal people shit all over themselves. It is entirely possible that the jury could rule in the MPAA's favor and then award the MPAA one dollar. Even if the MPAA prevails, unless the MPAA were actually awarded a HUGE sum of money, it is hard to tell if the MPAA would gain any sort of pysychological or legal advantage in subsequent cases.

tangable product?

[NotQuiteReal]

If his company offers a tangable product...

Nah, it's all software. Look around you might find a torrent of it somewhere.

The obvious quote

[Opportunist]

Fessing up to the RIAA claims: $2,500
Fighting the suit: $100,000
Good PR and being the hero of the DRM-free world:

No, I'm not finishing this, I don't have the money to fight out the ensuing Mastercard law suit.

Re:The obvious quote

[thoughtlover]

Fessing up to the RIAA claims: $2,500

Ermm... more like flat, outright denying any RIAA claims.

gawd, I feel like I'm trolling a little, and it was a funny post, so, logic-whoring aside, karma forgive me...

Re:The obvious quote

[thoughtlover]

D'oh! So much for trying to show off my impressive 'logic' to Slashdot -- I believe the correct four-letter org is MPAA, not RIAA. So similar, but so .... meh... I get confused. I'm drinking coffee again. I have an excuse.

Re:The obvious quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell you what, your quote is priceless..

Re:The obvious quote

[Opportunist]

Don't worry, they're exchangeable anyway. Both lost their reason to exist, both try to survive on an outdated business model, both harrass their customers with frivulous lawsuits and both do more bad than good to their business sector.

It's easy and forgiveable to get them mixed up.

What a bunch of tools!

[Anonymous Coward]

This battle has nothing to do with copyright and fair use. It's just a bunch of over-inflated egos (on both sides) in a pissing contest.

You must be new to the planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Snakes don't care.

Is tide finally turning?

[B11]

Or are people finally saying enough? This story, plus, this recent one gives me personally, some hope that the shenanigans are coming to a close.

MPAA will abandon this case soon

[SethJohnson]

The head of their antipiracy division is openly saying they're looking forward to a trial and verdict next summer.

The head of the anti-piracy division is given incentives to bring cases to trial, etc. It's the other executives in the organization that will look at the potential costs involved for the MPAA and decide to throw in the towel.

When Metallica sued Napster, it wasn't Lars Ulrich's idea. He's an utter moron. Instead, it was the record label's lawyers who convinced Lars to pony up the seed money to launch the suit against Napster. Because Lars is stupid, he convinced the band to go forward with suing Napster. Other entities hadn't sued because the legal outlook for a victory was doubtful. Metallica's lawyers had a client with more money than brains, so they were able to forge ahead. In a civil case like that, if Metallica were to lose, they would have had to pay their own lawyers AND Napster's legal fees. Same with this case. Either way, Metallica's lawyers would get paid for a lot of hours on the case. Same with the MPAA's lawyers.

In the Napster case, dumb luck prevailed and Metallica won. In this case, I agree with the GP. The business managers at the MPAA are going to see the conclusion pretty soon and throw in the towell on this lawsuit.

The other reason they'll abandon this lawsuit is to avoid the risk of setting a legal precedent. If this guy pushes the case to a victory, then it'll mean the MPAA won't be able to threaten the same legal action against other suspected movie downloaders. Even a newbie lawyer would be able to get these cases dismissed right off the bat by citing the decision in this case.

Seth

Re:MPAA will abandon this case soon

[TheRaven64]

They may get their legal precedent anyway. It sounds like this guy has enough money to file countersuits for barratry and for extortion under the RICO Act.

Tangentially on-topic: I was recently in Salt Lake City. There is a small hippy-cafe there. They serve food on an all-you-can-eat basis; they cook something and you can choose to eat any subset of what they serve. They don't have a fixed price; they recommend you pay $10 for a full mean, but you can pay as much or as little as you want (you just put the money in a box on the way out). So they can keep a track of how much people are paying, they ask you to put a poker chip in the money box with your payment. At the end of the day, the amount of money divided by the number of poker chips consistently comes to over $10.

The point of this rather rambling anecdote? That most people are, generally, honest. If you give people what they want, most are willing to pay a reasonable amount for it. Give me DRM-free film downloads at a reasonable price, and I will pay it.

If he has the money to do it, he'll earn a lot of

[v3xt0r]

respect from individuals (like myself) who would do the same, if they could.

As someone who has been wrongfully accussed of copyright infrindgement (of my own copyrighten material), I think people like the RIAA and MPAA are not designed to prevent piracy, as they are clearly losing that battle, but rather to continue the suppression of independent artists and production (aka: competition).

Men & Mice

[Kenja]

I allways liked the DNS servers that his company sells. May have to see about getting a current copy for my office.

Or wait, I used to have a license. So I can just bittorrent a new copy, right? Kidding of course.

Two words

[grolschie]

Denny Crane! ....oh wait.

Re:Two words

[mkw87]

Haha, some of the episodes of that show are absolutely rediculous, ie: when he shot the homeless guy with a paintball gun in the face. Or, when he slept with the coat room girl during his wedding reception. Quite hilarious.

Re:Two words

[grolschie]

Yeah crazy stuff. It's a very amusing show, even with the overtly political agenda/message. :-)

What are you talking about?

[tacokill]

The article very clearly states that he allegedly used Bittorrent. So...he WAS uploading.

I notice this because I have watched "the scene" for going on 20 years and I have yet to ever see a single case of ANYONE being prosecuted for only downloading. In 100% of the cases, the defendant is accused of distributing copyrighted materials. And distributing = upload. You aren't distributing if you are downloading only. And the (legal) distinction is very very important.

Are you guys paying attention? There is a lesson to be learned here.

Re:What are you talking about?

[TopShelf]

From TFA:

A lawyer representing Universal Pictures and the Motion Picture Association of America informed the 30-year-old software developer that they were suing him for downloading Meet the Fockers over BitTorrent.

It would be interesting to see the actual complaint, to clarify whether TFA is incorrect or incomplete. Whether he was uploading or not, the distinction you note regarding the complaint is important.

Re:What are you talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article very clearly states that he allegedly used Bittorrent. So...he WAS uploading.

Unless he was leeching!

Re:What are you talking about?

[macdaddy]

Last week I arrived home to find out that my Cox cable connection was offline. To make a long story short I found out through a couple phone calls that it was due to an AUP violation that was prompted by a DMCA takedown notice. The copyright holder alledged that they downloaded their copyrighted works (a movie) from my eMule client. What's interesting about this story is that the download of this 1.xGB file had only proceeded to about 50MB. There was no way that they could have confirmed that this was in fact their copyrighted works. IIRC the copyright holder is required to confirm that the content in question is in fact their copyrighted works before issuing a DMCA takedown notice. The only way they could have believed that this was their file was by looking at the filename. This reminded me of the people who were putting up bogus files on FTP servers that were named with the titles of current and poplar songs on the airwaves when in fact the files themselves were jibberish. It also reminded me of the band that had a song named the same as some other big-wig band and were issued a takedown notice because of that.

I thought that was interesting. I don't have the time or resources to fight their claim right now but I'd like to.

Re:What are you talking about?

[StikyPad]

SHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

There's nothing to learn here, move along.

Shawn's Reply

[eldavojohn]

I guessed Shawn's e-mail address by using his name and company website, here's his reply:

eldavojohn wrote:

> I just read about your fight against the MPAA on Wired's site.
>
> I'm a graduate student but I want to donate $10 through paypal to your cause.
>
> Any address I can use?

Thanks for the offer, but it's not necessary to be honest. I'm fighting
them on the basis of principle, not because other people are funding it for
me. :) The best support you could give is to just read my blog once in
awhile and link to it/tell people about it to spread the word. :)

- Shawn

It casts doubt on the MPAA's claim

[Sycraft-fu]

If I own the full DVD, why would I download a rip that is of reduced quality/content? I already have the whole thing. He doesn't have to prove anything, he just has to convince a jury that he's more right than the MPAA is. In this case, it means he has to cast enough doubt on their arguments that a jury finds they are without sufficient merit. Well, one of the ways is to show he owns a copy of the movie in question. A normal person is going to wonder why he'd download something he already owns.

Remember this isn't a case of the MPAA having iron-clad proof and him having to find a technicality out of it. this is a case of the MPAA having exceedingly weak evidence, and him just having to provide a perponderance of counter evidence. He (or rather his lawyers) are going to do that by throwing out every thing that makes the MPAA's case look bad. They'll question the veracity of the logs, the credibility of the company that found this (the MPAA contracts it out) the reliability of the information from a BT tracker, the ISP's records, and so on. They'll do everything they can to make the jury doubt that he downloaded the movie and that includes pointing out the fact that he already owns a copy.

Or rather, I should say they would if this ever goes to trial, which it won't. The worst thing in the world that could happen to the MPAA/RIAA with these shotgun lawsuit tactics is for someone to fight and win, espically in a high profile case. That establishes case law which establishes precident. Makes subsequent defenses much easier since people can just point back and say "Well the court found that the logs presented in case X were insufficient so the same thign should apply here." Courts have a lot of respect for case law.

What will happen is the MPAA will talk tough while it's in the spotlight, and then once the public has forgotten, they'll drop the case.

In US civil court

[Sycraft-fu]

It's more or less who has the better argument, a perponderance of the evidence it's called. So if your evidnece is a little more convincing than theirs, well then you win. The good news is that you can present multiple defenses at the same time. Basically his lawyers can, and will, throw out every possible place that the MPAA could have fucked up, everything they can to cast doubt on their case. They don't have to convince the jury that there's no chance Hogan downloaded the movie, they just have to get them more doubtful than they are convinced.

Given the weak evidence the MPAA has, it shouldn't be hard for a good legal team, which it sounds like this guy will have.

Well the went after me

[Anonymous Coward]

all for an ISO file i was serving to myself. I have NO respect for them or RIAA R - Raving I - Ignorant A - Arrogant A - A$$hls

There's only one way to settle this...

[bXTr]

CAGE MATCH!!!

Whatcha gonna do, brother?

Is the situation as clear cut as it seems?

[cwsulliv]

My understanding of BitTorrent is that different chunks of a download are routed to and temporarily stored for retransmission on the PCs of a number of individuals who have BitTorrent software running, but with each chunk being encrypted so that an individual has no idea of what's passing through his/her PC.

It would certainly seem that the MPAA would view BitTorrent as a major threat that needs to be cut off at the knees in its infancy.

Could it then be that Hogan's PC was just one of the first in line to the source of the movie, a PC operated by one of the MPAA's stooges, and that the MPAA is trying to establish a legal principle that any participant in a BitTorrent network is guilty of contributory infringement if any chunk of a copyrighted work happens to pass through their PC on its way to the ultimate destination? I.e., that BitTorrent is not the same as a Common Carrier - that participants are responsible for infringement even if they're unaware of it and have no way of becoming aware of it?

If so, then to establish that legal principle they'd have to pick on an individual who was willing and able to defend himself through an expensive court case to its conclusion.

But then this may all be unwarranted speculation and the MPAA just happened to pick on the wrong guy. I guess time will tell.

Re:Is the situation as clear cut as it seems?

[LocalH]

Only for torrents which the user is specifically connected to. It's not like Freenet.

What if? What if?

[sm62704]

My old man says if frogs had wings they wouldn't bump tyheir asses when they jumped. "What if" indeed.

DUH!

[sm62704]

If you already had the movie what would you download it? Whare are all these stupid people on slashdot coming from, this used to be a nerd site!

Donations here:

[Ahnteis]

http://www.eff.org/

That's the request on his blog anyway -- he doesn't need the money, so if you want to donate, send it to eff. They'll be happy for it. :)

Copyright violation

[Ahnteis]

I notice that not only have you illegally copied a part of his post, you are now also distributing it (for free!) with every post you make.

Unconstitutionality

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The case in this post deals with the defense of unconstitutionality of the statutory damages: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2006 /07/lindor-motion-to-amend-answer-to.html

Re:Then the judge tells him how much he owes the M

[TechForensics]

I'm not sure but I think the MPAA is suing under a statute that prescribes minimum damages for each "act of infringement". For instance, if the judge in an RIAA case finds you infringed copyright by downloading and making available one song, the minimum damages he can award under the relevant section of the US Code is $750.00. I think I remember hearing the bar is set higher for movies.

Wouldn't it be great if defendants in RIAA cases only had to worry about the same $1.00 in damages they would have paid ITunes for the title. The **AAs have some really nice sweetheart deals in the punitive statutes they've lobbied for.

Could be he did actually download the movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Read this post from his blog. He admits to ordering CD's online, but downloading the tracks from Napster.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/2004/11/itunes- music-store.html

Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is this guy and why should I care? Seriously. This is the first time I've heard about him, could someone please post a quick summary? His blog says I'm a boy... from San Diego, CA (USA). And I don't really have a whole lot else to say about myself and that isn't helping much. Thanks.

Buy this man a drink!

[Anonymous Coward]

One with lots of booze in it ;)

Don't vote for lawyers!

[SonicSpike]

This problem is the result of electing attorneys to public office, specifically legislative positions. Lawyers want to make themselves as much work as possible, and by complicating procedures, increasing legalese, and promoting litigious liability, an attorney is now needed to do pretty much anything other than to paint your house. It is insane.

Read the US Constitution sometime. It is written that any layman can understand it. Now go and read any piece of modern legislation. It is NOT as clear!

Want to do business with this guy-- he's got balls

[bratwiz]

Someone please post his business information and what arenas he operates in. This is the kind of guy I'd like to know about to do business. Someone with balls and is willing to stand up to extortion and blackmail and do what's right. If there's anything I, or the organization I work for needs that this guy or his company can offer, I'd like to stand behind him with my patronage.

SCREW THE RIAA AND THE MPAA. They're a bunch of crooks and assholes who haven't had an original idea since shaking down school kids for their lunch money.

This is the information age. Things change. To paraphrase the immortal words of Carly Fiorina-- those fucktards don't have a god-given right to monopolies anymore.

They weren't out there crying when the information workers were losing their jobs overseas-- they were _sending_ jobs overseas. They weren't crying when the factories shut down and the jobs went to factories overseas-- they were _sending_ the jobs overseas. Now its their turn. What they sell is just bits and there is NO appreciable distrubution cost anymore. They want to keep their high-priced usary models and fuck the rest of us up the ass. No more. Its time for them to DIE like the dinosaurs they are and for new business models to emerge.

Re:Then the judge tells him how much he owes the M

[neoee]

IANAL either but the burden of proof lies upon the sueing party (MPAA), so they do have to "prove" their case.

There's at least one case on downloading.

[Anonymous Coward]

In BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888 (7th Cir. 2005), a defendant was found liable for downloading music over Kazaa. Yes, since it's Kazaa she probably uploaded also, but what's important is that the court's ruling and opinion talked solely about downloading, not uploading. (This was appealed to a federal court of appeals and upheld on appeal.)

The other obvious quote

[Opportunist]

She said it, she said it... I mean he, he.

Why doesn't he sue the lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawyers created the laws .. and the lawyers are benefitting, well into the millions. This doesn't help the artists, or the distributors, or anybody who might be defined as a victim, it only helps the lawyers.

It's true that distributors are asking lawyers to file these suits, but the suits are founded on laws that were solely created to cause more lawsuits. While defeating this case might slow the distributers, taking on the lawyers might be more effective. Although a barratry case is almost worthless, maybe once a firm has received a few dozen barratry suits, people might start to take notice.

How much is uploading ?

[drgonzo59]

How much of the file does one have to upload to be "guilty". The range goes from a byte to the full size. Will uploading 1 byte do it, how about 1MB, or 10MB? Just wondering what chunk of the mpeg stream which is itself compressed using some archive is enough for them to point to and say "we have a record of you uploading this movie, pay us teh money".

If there is a hard limit there are probably ways to distribute the downloading such that no single client will ever upload anything except the smallest possible chunk of any file. They might download it, but will only advertise that specific chunk for uploading. To start with, the initial upload will obviously have to provide the whole file but then at the next level the file can be chunked into progressively smaller pieces until quickly the cut-off chunk size is achieved...

Re:How much is uploading ?

[mindstrm]

It is your intent that matters, not the physical mechanism.

By using bittorrent, you are helping others download the material, plain and simple.
Whether it is done by one person or broken into chunks and done by a million people, you are still doing the same thing.

Please don't try to rationalize the legality of copyright violation based on technical mumbo jumbo... just stand up and admit you think copying the stuff is okay.

Re:How much is uploading ?

[drgonzo59]

Yeah right, technical "mumbo jumbo" doesn't matter in a potential million dollar suit that deal with BT (technology), internet (technology), ISPs and DHCP (oh wow! more technologies) and so on. We are not talking about stealing oranges from the produce section here... When it comes to trial it is the "technical mumbo jumbo" that makes all the difference. One cannot show intent just by looking at the IP and the computer, one has to get into someone's head which is impossible. Therefore it will come down to "mumbo jumbo" like "let's see who had this IP at such and such a time", "let's see how MPAA determined what exact file was being uploaded?", "how reliable is that?" and so on...

What does it matter if I think copying stuff is okay. Why get so personal all of the sudden, I am not on trial here, Mr. Hogan is, ask him what he thinks...

Re:How much is uploading ?

[mindstrm]

I agree with you completely.

My point was that you can't intentionally pirate material and get around being charged by routing packets in some weird way, or distributing the work. If, in the end, your intent, and result, was to copy that material, and that can be proven.. the mumbo-jumbo won't save you.

Defamation....

[Joce640k]

Accusing somebody of downloading "Meet the Fockers" is defamation if character.

[ The TV series was good, but the movie was a prime example of what Hollywood usually does to good ideas. ]

You could throw your nic out

[thegnu]

and get another one for $15. Unless it's integrated into the motherboard, then it's a problem.

McD's & coffee

[tinkerghost]

Actually yes that is the one, and the $2.7M award was what I was commenting on - note that the judge thought it was excessive & reduced it.
I am iffy on the actuall case itself. If I spill any cup of coffee on myself, I expect to get burned - so how McD's can be 80% responsible for the burns I don't understand. I also don't understand why they didn't settle for the $20K she initially asked for. I do understand that McD's provides coffee at a higher temp than most places, so I can see them having some responsibility for the burns, but not 80%. It's not like an employee spilled it on her.
It's another lack of personal responsibility like these people who have been reading the warning label on cigarettes since they started 30 years ago, suing the mfg for their lung problems. Duh, you've been reading the warning for 30 years and NOW you want compensated because you didn't believe them?

Re:McD's & coffee

[91degrees]

But do you expect to get third degree burns? This is a substance that is designed for direct contact with the skin. If it was used normally, it would also cause serious damage. It's quite obvious that people are going to spill coffee from time to time, just like with the Ford Pinto, its quite obvious that people are going to drive into the back of a car filled with an explosive chemical, but it's Fords fault that this caused ruptured fuel tanks. Even if this isn't obvious, McDonalds clearly knew that this was happeneing, but still didn't do anything about it.

The problem here IMO, is that McDonalds deserved to be fined a couple of day's coffee sales in punitive damages. The victim, however, didn't really deserve more than compensation for her injuries. This should have been the same regardless of which fast food chain sold her dangerous coffee.

"Contingency"?

[danaris]

Now, I've no particular relation to the legal system, but I was under the impression that what hiring a lawyer "on contingency" meant was that they got their fee out of the winnings...

I'm perfectly willing to be proven wrong, I'm just confused...can you point me to something that refutes that belief, and proves that your lawyer wasn't just a first-class jerk?

Dan Aris

Re:"Contingency"?

[number11]

I was under the impression that what hiring a lawyer "on contingency" meant was that they got their fee out of the winnings...

Their fee, yes. But the lawyer's fee is not the only expense in a court case, although it is a major one. There are other costs, such as filing fees (paid to the court), fees for copies of documents, payments to doctors (not for treatment, but to document my injuries.. it was a personal injury case) and photographers. The lawyer paid the parties involved, and passed the cost on to me. As far as I know, that's standard procedure, unlike a class action suit, where the lawyer absorbs the expenses. But I could be wrong, I just know that I paid the expenses in that case.

One thing still confuses me...

[Thedalek]

I'm still a tad unclear on how exactly the studios are getting names for lawsuits. The way I see it, they pretty much have to be using bittorrent themselves, then netting all the people who connect to their "trap."

"Pretty sneaky, sis."

Only that doesn't work, legally. Imagine that I write a book, taking every legal precaution to prevent it's unauthorized distribution. Now imagine that I put my book out on the street and install a photocopier right next to it with a sign that says "Free copies of ____," where the blank is the name of my book. I camp out with binoculars and take notes over who photocopied my book, then sue them.

Any judge would be able to see that I offered my book at my own discretion. The fact that others may have been doing so without my permission becomes null and void. By using this method, I have essentially released my book into the public domain. The people I caught at my book-copying-trap are not guilty of anything, as I freely offered the book that I wrote myself, with no strings attached. At worst, the other people who did not go to my trap, but made their own copies of my book elsewhere by other means are guilty of copying a product which has no market value. Even under current Evil Copyright Law, this is allowed.

You may argue, "But people on bittorrent don't download a whole movie from one source. They download it from multiple sources." And if PeerGuardian's blacklist is any indicator, there are literally thousands of bad IP addresses, all belonging to **AAs and their croonies. They can't really know if you only downloaded from them, or also downloaded from people outside their ring of informants. There is no way to demonstrate this, and there probably never will be.

So how is it illegal to take something offered by the person who owns it?

Re:One thing still confuses me...

[damium]

Ah, but they could be advertising with no delivery. An analogy to this would be putting an add in the newspaper that read, "Contact me and we will swap photocopies of our books." and suing everyone who contacted you wanting to trade you a copy of your book.

Putting your book in the public domain? No. Entrapment? Yes.

Re:Then the judge tells him how much he owes the M

[Secrity]

In the US, there is no burden of proof in civil lawsuits, the "proof" is based upon preponderence of evidence or, in some cases, clear and convincing evidence. The plaintiff has to show why they they believe that should win, they must convince the judge or jury that what they are asserting is substantially more likely than not to be true. The defendant is also trying to convince the judge or jury that their side of the story is more likely to be true. The defendant is also able to subpoena the plantiff to obtain information, a deep pockets defendant could definatately use this to their advantage.

Only the true Messiah denies His divinity!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hogan: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honest!

Slashdotters: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity!

Racketeering

[Atroxodisse]

Don't be surprised if the RIAA and MPAA get slapped with a Racketeering charge.

Wrong protocol

[lamber45]

My understanding of BitTorrent is that different chunks of a download are routed to and temporarily stored for retransmission on the PCs of a number of individuals who have BitTorrent software running, but with each chunk being encrypted so that an individual has no idea of what's passing through his/her PC. No, each user of BitTorrent knows exactly what files he's downloading or sharing. You're probably getting it miked up with one or all of these other protocols:

• freenet (an anonymous file-publishing system)
• MixMaster (an anonymous e-mail system)
• Tor (an anonymous TCP-socket origination system)

Re:Wrong protocol

[cwsulliv]

Thanks for the clarification. It appears that my understanding of BitTorrent was incorrect and my speculation about the case based thereon was unfounded.

GOTCHA! (how they should do it)

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it would be a lot more effective if they did this: :dear Mister Busted

GOTCHA BITCH!

on 7/28/2006 you downloaded "the muppets take manhatten".

That shit retails for 18.95.

Do I look like a bitch to you?

Send me the 18.95 plus 5 bucks for my trouble and we're square.

They could CLEAN UP!

I'd probably actually even pay them. the punishment is fair.

This is justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

My question with all these lawsuits is how can you call that justice? What kind of "just" system makes it right for big companies to be able to attack their customers and not allow them to defend themselves? The RIAA, MPAA and now
NMPA are terrorizing their customers and Americans are just accepting it. Why is no one standing up against this tyranny? I thought the U.S.A. was a free country, guess I was wrong.

MOD PARENT UP!!!!!

[Weezul]

That is maybe the best post i've seen on Slashdot this year! I soooo wish I had mod points right now.

Motive

[Anonymous Coward]

One can certainly download a DVD that one also happens to own. If the police arrest me for auto theft, pointing out that I already own a car won't by itself get the prosecution off my back, especially if they have evidence that indicates that I may have allegedly stolen a car.

Pointing out that I own a Ferrarri isn't proof I didn't steal a rusted out old civic hatchback, either.

On other hand, I don't really much motive to steal such a rustbucket; whereas if I was broke and had no car at all, it would be easier to prove motive.

Motive is often important in court cases. :-)

The Trial

[DMNT]

And I dare you to read "The Trial" by Franz Kafka. I just did and it made me think about the legal system used within European Union and overseas.

[slight spoiler]
One day, Josef K. is arrested. He's never told the crime he's being accused of or the law where such an act would be defined yet he must try to defend himself, with the help or without a lawyer.
[/slight spoiler]

The book is out of copyright as it has been 81 years since the author died. The book wasn't perfected before he passed away so there's some chapters that weren't quite finished by then.

Re:The Trial

[Omestes]

American law is much the same way. Especially when it comes to individual cases.

Kafka was ahead of his time in that... Its nice that one mans insanity becomes our societies status-quo.