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Judge Rules TorrentSpy Destroyed Evidence
Come play kdice writes "A federal judge has handed the MPAA a resounding victory in its copyright infringement lawsuit against TorrentSpy. Judge Florence-Marie Cooper entered a default judgment against Justin Bunnell and the rest of the named defendants in Columbia Pictures et al. v. Justin Bunnell et al. after finding that TorrentSpy 'engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence'. After being sued, TorrentSpy mounted a vigorous defense, including a counter-suit it filed against the MPAA in May 2006, but, behind the scenes, the court documents paint a picture of a company desperately trying to bury any and all incriminating evidence. TorrentSpy has announced its intention to appeal, but its conduct makes a reversal unlikely."
When the CIA destroys evidence that they tortured prisoners, the entire Justice Department jumps to their defense and gives their director a medal. When a small company that just provides links to pirated movies destroys evidence to protect its users from the thugs at the MPAA, they're criminals and must be punished!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
but from what I read, they did destroy evidence which they clearly aren't allowed to do. Sounds like bad decisions on the part of Torrentspy led to this.
Maybe if they left things as they were they could have fared better.
Gone!
They should have hired Hillary Clinton. If anyone knows how to get away with destroying evidence, it's her!
My blog
I'm glad those sleazy rats at the MPAA won't be getting their greedy hands on my IP address from torrentspy.
This is the digital equivalent of throwing yourself on a grenade to save your comrads. Right on.
Thank you kindly,
AC
Perhaps a lawyer can tell us which has worse penalties, destruction of evidence or being found guilty of helping piracy. I imagine it's the latter.
The CIA's tapes were destroyed in 2005 — long before any investigations into "torture" came about. Thus it was not "destruction of evidence", but merely "destruction of tapes". CIA today does not deny, that they did use waterboarding, so it is not clear, what those tapes would be in evidence of.
For it to be called "destruction of evidence", the destroyed materials must be important to an ongoing investigation/lawsuit... This is what TorrentSpy (unlike CIA, they did it to hide doing, what they now claim they have not done) has done, according to the judge, and your attempt to defend them on the basis of their being "a small company" is quite pathetic.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Okay so the troll mod I can kind of understand, (I think the poster made an interesting point but got carried away), but off-topic? WTF, did you hit the wrong button?
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Destroying evidence is willingly trying to make the justice system not to work properly for your personal advantage.
If you think you're in the right, you should try to change law. If you think the law is correct but is being wrongly applied to your case, you try to change the legal canvas around the case. Destroying evidence is directly admitting guilt, complete consciousness of that fact and simple refusal to face the consequences.
Even if you manage to be cleared of charges, you leave the environment just as it was before, so others that did what you did will pay the price you didn't.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/28/1912247
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I've always wondered what I would do if I got a letter in the mail telling me I was being sued by the MPAA or RIAA (obviously not the same as a large site like torrentspy, but kinda related), we keep our wireless router open, default passwords, broadcast ssid, no encryption, 50 leases, no MAC filtering, nothing. I know it sounds bad, but we figure that if we ever got a notice from one of these organizations that we could simply say that there's no way to know who downloaded these things, our wireless is open! We have neighbors and other people in our DHCP client list and it actually makes me feel more secure (I manage my actual security at my computer, not at the gateway) since I feel like it would make for a good defense. However, what to do with the offending data? I've always thought that if I DoD wiped all my disks, obviously that would leave no evidence, but could you actually get in trouble for doing that? Do they send you documents telling you that kind of thing is illegal? What if I just took out my data drives, hid them in the attic and cleaned out my logs and MRU data with Adaware? Is it really that hard to react to these kinds of things for the average consumer or am I missing a great deal?
Rulings such as these make my hard drive go floppy :((
I'm glad, the creator's rights to control their creations have been upheld.
I know, this is quite inflammatory for this forum, but it is still true. A musician should be able to attach a license to their songs and enforce it just as much as the software authors should be able to uphold their licenses. Yet Slashdot cheers the latter and comes up with all sorts of ridiculous reasoning against the former.
Here goes one (+3 Insightful!) example:
If anybody sees him holding a candle-light vigil next to TorrentSpy's offices, ask him, if his view applies to the authors of GPL software too.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The CIA, White House, and others can destroy evidence all the time and there's never any consequences. I hear Bush heats his ranch with compressed rolls of shredded evidence.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I'm really sick of our Federal system, as most of you know. It's completely ridiculous that law-school educated judges can not read the Constitution, and understand the basic definitions of freedom.
Copyright is a Constitutionally-protected power of government. I understand that. I hate copyright, I would never use it, but I accept it. To infringe on copyright, a person must take someone else's art, and make a copy. That person who paints their own version of a copyright-protected oil painting will use oils and canvas to breach copyright. The oil manufacturer is not guilty. The canvas manufacturer is not guilty. Exxon/Mobil who provided fuel for you to drive to buy the oil and canvas are not guilty. Ford, who provided the car to get to the store to buy oil and canvas are not guilty. The person selling you a book with a license to reprint that oil, is not guilty. You, the person doing the copying, are guilty.
TorrentSpy is like the gun, or the gun manufacturer. The murderer is the person actively aiming the weapon in anger, and pulling the trigger. The person selling the gun shouldn't care what the end user is going to do, other than warn them that they're buying something dangerous. The person making the gun should not be held responsible. The ACT of committing a crime comes from actually committing a crime.
If copyright is moral, and valid, then the person doing the copying should be found guilty. Hosting a torrent is not hosting a file.
If you vote, please vote against retention on every position. Judges need to be kicked out as quick as they're voted in. Vote against incumbents who enforce the law, too (police chief, etc). There's no reason to keep anyone in office long enough to abuse power. All these judges are just power-hungry. They can't understand that copyright is protected by the artist, only against someone else copying the art.
This is the same judge who decided information stored in RAM is easy to document and filter.
Since that topic has been expounded upon, here are some articles about the judge in the case:
1. Judge dismisses trial for prosecutor's misconduct
Here, she dismissed a case when the prosecutors offered a plea agreement to a witness so he could not testify for the defense.
2. Notorious BIG Trial mistrial declared
In this instance, she declared a mistrial when LAPD was withholding evidence from the trial.
3. Pooh Trial Thrown out (heh heh)
A trial involving the Winnie the Pooh was ruled in favor of Disney after the family was found to have "tampered" with files at Disney.
The judge has a love for evidence. Torrentspy shoulda known what would happen if they messed around with it.
import system.cool.Sig;
Copyright laws has gone too far in protecting the content owner for too long. I see no reason to support current copyright law.
Blar.
the lesson here is: don't create the evidence in the first place. disable the server log. why is that so hard?
i know we're talking about an organization and not an individual here, but is there really anything morally wrong with destroying evidence to cover your ass? self-preservation trumps law.
Then destroying the data is illegal. Obstruction of justice. Contempt of Court. Various other charges.
Best Slashdot Co
You of course have every right not to support current copyright law. But do you have the right to violate current copyright law? It's a serious question: Are the current copyright laws so wrong as to cross the line into the "I have a right to violate immoral (stupid, evil, etc.) laws" realm? I dunno...
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
The problem with TorrentSpy, is that other admins knew that the log files used to be there but the logs went poof-gone! and they testified as such. So if only one admin knew of the logs, and he wanted to rm -rf them, he probably could have gotten away with "Logs? We don't keep logs. We never kept logs."
As it was, the admins tried destroy evidence, but they did a slipshod job trying to cover it up. I mean, discussing it in public forums? Great idea.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
... not if they destroy the evidence :lol:
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
It looks like only the Whitehouse is allowed to destroy evidence without obvious consequences. They should have known...
A few decades ago, entering a white-only place if you were black made you a criminal. Not paying your taxes in protest (if you're against the Iraq war, for example) makes you a criminal. When Gandhi burned official documents in protest, he became a criminal.
In other words, if you do anything against the Law (even if the law is draconian and only supports the rich and powerful), you're a criminal. But that doesn't make you a bad person.
If the Law was fair and protected the weak from the powerful, I would agree, no one should break the law. But what can I say about a system so screwed up that forces a single mother to pay 200 thousand dollars JUST because she had 24 mp3 files in her shared folder, even when NO TRANSFER could be proven?
The current copyright law is rotten. Feel free to disobey it whenever you please (just don't come whining if you get caught).
(BTW, who modded parent funny? I'd mod him insightful instead)
Not preserving evidence != destroying evidence. I'm thinking the most sensible standard for courts to follow is minimalist. That is, no changes should be made to operations. Whatever information was being kept before should be preserved. And whatever information was not being kept for whatever reason (limited resources, goes stale quickly) should not be fair game for judges to order preservation of. So we have an argument over whether the info the judge was ordering TorrentSpy to keep was long term or not. But I wonder if the whole argument is beside the point, because it should apply only to 3rd parties, not to the accused.
A trouble with this standard is it encourages businesses to make destruction, even gratuitous destruction, routine. Many businesses do routinely destroy information that may be of interest someday to researchers, historians, restorers, and collectors, as well as still have value to the business, solely because the risks of having it around and having it be used against them are more than the value. Guilty until proven innocent has that advantage over the other way around-- people will preserve anything and everything that might prove their innocence.
The problem is resolved with the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. (Unless that doesn't apply somehow? Civil trials? Seems it should.) Why should TorrentSpy or anyone else be forced to produce info to hang themselves with? Why can't the MPAA have to meet the higher standard of proving TorrentSpy's guilt without any help from TorrentSpy? With the 5th Amendment standard in place, businesses can make their record keeping decisions freer of bias from legal requirements. No one should have to play stupid with "uhh, I forgot". The judge's orders to preserve data is therefore moot-- TorrentSpy cannot be forced to produce the data, whether or not it exists, or should be preserved.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I can't say I necessarily agree with your conclusion.
Destroying evidence is a willful gamble on the part of the accused. They're simply betting that without the additional information floating around, they stand a better chance of getting through the court case without incurring a huge loss.
It seems like a big leap of logic to conclude that this behavior proves the party believes they're guilty.
Just as likely, they're being realistic. In a perfect world, sure.... you should fight to "get the laws changed" if you think they're unjust. But realistically, legal battles are enormously expensive. Just like war, if your funds run out, you'll lose. Doesn't matter if you're "in the right" or not. So the average person is going to look for any available opportunity to shorten the complexity and length of their court case.
Often times, the "legal landscape" was built up by large corporations, who used large sums of money to get it there. (Paying off senators and congressmen to pass legislation that put things in their favor, etc. etc.) It's going to take a similar amount of money to reverse it again, in many cases.
Was that reply meant for me?
I was talking about the availability of IP logs, not the utility. I don't think the judge really cares about banning users by username or IP.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I think definitely on a small scale at least. I live in the US but regularly violate copyright and the DMCA by burning copies of my CDs, ripping them to MP3, and downloading and installing codecs and DeCSS for viewing DVDs. Legally I don't have the right to bypass the CSS encryption on the DVDs I purchased by using DeCSS, but I do it anyway because the laws that make it illegal are unjust in my opinion. As to the sort of whole sale violation you see at places like TorrentSpy, well, that's a whole other ball game, sort of a Apples and Oranges thing. There may be some argument that it's only fair because of the way the media cartels have trampled our rights that we stick it to them so to speak, and the damages handed out for these things are definitely out of line, but whether that justifies the behavior I don't know.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
I feel current copyright laws are so one sided as to be ignored.
I pay for cable and if I record a show that's fine, but if I download a show because I forgot to TiVo it then I am breaking the law.
Ripping a DVD that I paid for is breaking the law.
Downloading a CD that got scratched is breaking the law.
IMO: I will pay for content once and only once. If you want to sell me new content bundled with old aka (movie + directors cut) that's fine but when it's identical content then I have already paid for it.
I wouldn't call this a resounding victory. There are still plenty o' torrent sites out there.
The MPAA, like the RIAA, has failed the grasp the significance of what's unfolding in the 21st century. However you feel about sharing copyrighted material (right or wrong), suing sites into oblivion will not stop what is apparently going to be the new pervasive form of distribution. Just as the horse and buggy gave way to the automobile, so the delivery mechanism of physically moving data around on DVDs in face of the industry's unwillingness to provide it's own online delivery alternative, will naturally give way to a more efficient system.
Take a hint: For about the past 70 years, advertising has fully paid for free content via broadcast radio and TV.
in any prosecution of those held when finally brought to justice.
The only reason for deleting them BEFORE the trial is if the torture
a) was known to be illegal
b) did not produce any information showing guilt
c) to stop it being used to punish those torturing
If you think you're in the right, you should try to change law.
So in that respect, the American Colonists should have obeyed British law and not thrown the tea into the harbor?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Just a quick correction, in America you do have the right to do the first two. They fall under fair use, and if anyone tries to tell you different, shoot em.
In Britain, we have no legal fair use (actually, I think we are allowed excerpts for the purposes of criticism, and that's it), and so your entire list is illegal over here.
You "think", but you don't know, do you? Or, in otherwords, you haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about.
Prove me wrong. Provide the cases where this has been tested. The one's which match his situation.
The EFF's lawyers are extremely confident about the legality of Tor. And running a Tor node isn't that much different than what the OP claims he's runnng. See the EFF's Tor FAQ page.
Basically you're full of BS. Either put up or pipe down.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
I kind of agree, in principal, but I think you miss a point.
The money you pay for is *not* for the content itself, it is for the *right* to use the content on that specific physical piece of media. Akin to not buying the road, but purchasing (through fees and testing) the license to use the road with your car. You can't drive your car where it is not allowed (think: tarmac), and you can't drive on the road, things you are not allowed to drive (think: firetruck).
Yes, that's what the law says, and that particular law is a crock of shit, which is why everybody feels justified in ignoring it. I don't think he missed any points at all.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
It's a culmenation of several issues that have reached critical mass for me.
If I want to view some of my own society's culture (which in this modern age is being done in video) for free, I must go to a library and attempt to borrow the item to watch at home, or watch it there. Shit made 50 years ago is copywritten into the middle of this century. WTF?
If I want to Rip and Re-Burn a purchased DVD so I need not sit through the copyright warnings etc, etc, I must break the law
Copyright law and lobbyists on behalf of the copyright owners are doing their best to reduce the things I can do with the content I purchase legally.
DRM preventing me from backing up an item I supposedly only own the license on, but I still have to buy a whole new disc if the one I have is destroyed. If I'm licensing it, why can't you send me a new disc for a few bucks?
There might be more but I must be going now. Basically, I see copyright law as being poisoned against the citizen when the free market that those copyright owners love so much should be used to see if the product is worth what they are selling it for. Make them drop the prices until people would rather buy legit than pirate. Don't restrict what I can do with it on my own equipment.
Blar.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Say somebody downloads child pornography, and you don't know who? Good luck with that defense. Not that it's likely, but if it does happen then you're in for a world of hurt.
Are there any cases where the defendant copied material they purchased and used on other devices for personal use? Everything I have seen in the news surrounding these cases falls outside the realm of fair use. The problem is the MPAA is encouraging techniques to slow down or prevent illegal activities, but these techniques also affect legitimate users. The solution is a difficult one to resolve, how does one prevent copyright infringement but allow fair use at the same time.
Iraq billions
Except I can borrow and drive my neighbors car on that road, assuming he lets me, and the cops wont pull me over and arrest me or fine me $50,000 per car I have borrow. They also don't repave that road every few years and then tell me I have to pay again because now I am driving on a new version of that road. (ok admittedly sometimes that last one happnes, damn you toll roads!)
The MAFIAAs say that a lot. But I hope it's not true. If it is, then they really are getting an unfairly generous deal, as the GP said.
I could see arguing that one buys a license, not the physical work. In that case, if the media were lost or destroyed, replacements would be available at a nominal charge to cover plastic, postage, overhead, etc. Personal backup copies to be stored safely would be OK under that concept, or the reverse -- making a copy to play and saving the original.
I could also see making the argument that you bought a copy of a work, it's now yours to do with as you please -- "first sale" doctrine. You could give it to your friends, or sell it to someone else. Of course if you break it, tough. Buy another, just like if you broke a dinner plate.
But as you state it, they want the best of both worlds. You buy a license to to a specific copy of a work. You can play it or not. But you can't back it up, you can't transfer the work to a new medium so you can continue to use it after the original technology is no longer supported. All you own is the license to play copy # 1267888993 of "Oops, I did it again" on CD.
Kudos, though. You did get a car analogy in. It might be better to add that you need to buy a license to operate each car you own, and one for each friend or relative that might borrow your car. And each license wouldn't cost a $50 fee from the DMV, but would be sold as part of the car, and each license would cost the full price of a car. Trade-ins not accepted. So a two-car, two-driver household would need to "buy" four cars, that is, one license for each driver for each car.
I am not a crackpot.
There are two steps to the RIAA's lawsuits: the "settlement" letter and the actual lawsuit itself. If you destroy data after receiving the settlement letter, you're a wise person. If you destroy data after receiving the lawsuit papers, you're toast if they catch you (as noted in this article).
I would not make any destruction of data obvious. A wiped disk is a sure sign of intentional destruction.
If I were to destroy data, my plan would be to use the "Craftsman Hammer" hard drive data destruction tool and proper trash disposal procedures. Followed by a clean install of the entire system on a new hard drive. If you're sued, you have to have a clean system at that point in time. They will compel an examination of your computer(s). The only way to assure that nothing is found is to have nothing for them to find.
Finger pointing and denial of found evidence have not proven to be a good defense against the RIAA.
As for downloading the show, you do realize that current copyright law only deals with copying and distribution. If someone offers you something protected by copyright and you take it, you have broke no laws. Downloading shows and music that you don't have a right to seems bad, but that is because they want you to think it is illegal. Technically, the law doesn't have an opinion of it one way or another. So if anything is bad, it is more on an ethical or moral level then a legal on. Don't confuse this with something like bit torrent were you are automatically distributing when downloading. You then become part of the laws scope.
I have no comments on the other things you listed. But I would think that backing a cd up in case it gets scratched would be preferable then copying it from another site. But as far as copyright laws go, your in the same situation as above.
What a crock!
/. and in the newest generation of collectivists bred by some ridiculous need to rebel against a system that has coddled and enabled them thus far to get an education and make a living by reaping the fruits of free market enterprise where so many with nothing have something to show for their hard work.
/., usher in the "new pervasive form of distribution" you will destroy whats good and in its place, power and wealth consolidation will be the result as individuals cease to profit and lose the motivation to innovate.
This is not the "new pervasive form of distribution", its piracy and and its no different than stealing someones physical possessions and dont try to reason it different or give me the horse and buggy nonsense, this is not that.
How is peer to peer file transfer "distribution", where the owner or his proxy is bypassed some means of fair transfer of goods and services?
Its not and its only the groupthink on
If this "new pervasive form of distribution" becomes the reality, you can kiss all of this goodbye and what will you have in its place, its called the USSR dummies, a place where an despite the feel good politics of "for the people or motherland" is on the lips of all, the real story behind the story is simple,
-its essentially a country run by a large mafia
-they, an infitismal number of "interests" in comparison to the total population control the
vast majority of wealth, politics and policy
-despite the so called "redistribution of wealth" nonsense, there are still the weatlhy and
uber powerfull
If you here on
So ultimately, you may think you are screwing the RIAA or the MPAA but in reality you are killing the only shot the individual has, and economic history proves this, to attain wealth for their efforts via the organized industry regulating body that is charged with doing what they a re doing now for all of the good and bad they perpetrate, protect the intellectual property owners rights
But I know, information wants to be free, except when its yours right?
I think maybe you misunderstood my point, although your post is entirely accurate. I wasn't trying to say any of the current RIAA or MPAA cases were over things covered by fair use (although some may be, I haven't followed them too closely), rather that the RIAA is working to eliminate the fair use doctrine, and that if they did try to sue you over something covered by fair use it would still be incredibly costly to defend against.
The real issue of course is that it's technologically impossible to enforce copyright protection without taking all control out of the hands of consumers. Even then you're merely making it more illegal to commit an already illegal act (copyright infringement) while eliminating a whole swath of rights, and still not guaranteeing that copyright violation won't happen. Ultimately it just needs to come down to an issue of personal responsibility. The current approach everyone is taking would be like trying to design some sort of system that prevents people from littering, it's effectively doomed to failure. A much more sensible approach is to just ask people not to do it while making it more convenient for them to follow the law than break it.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
The right to control one's creation naturally and necessarily includes the right to sell that control to someone else — such as a record company.
The distinction between the actual creator and whoever they sell their creation to — although frequently brought up in this sort of debates — is irrelevant to the discussion and should never be brought forward.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
That's great...why don't you try that with a bookstore? Walk in, grab a paperback of a book you already own in hardcover, and then walk out without paying. See how far your "But I already paid for the content once!" argument gets you with the judge.
As much as you don't like it, the current law says that a copy of a movie on DVD is *the same* as a copy of a novel on paper. If you damage said copy, you must purchase a new one.
I completely understand the argument that digital content reduces the marginal cost to produce a copy and so people feel that the marginal value of the copy has also declined. However, right now there is a disagreement between those who actually do legally own the right to make more copies, and those who have purchased one of those copies. As with most things that are the result of a disruptive technology, the laws take time to adjust - but nevertheless they will. This in no way excuses your willful violation of existing laws.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Ix-nay on the Irates-pay of the Arribean-cay. Do you want to get Slashdot sued?
the advertising will likely be embedded, not easily removed. right now it's probably the 'only' viable way to fund content, unless of course, you can sue the whole world and force pay-per-view or physical media on everyone. either way stuff is gonna end up on the net so if you're a content provider you may as well take what you can get -- embedded advertising. youtube is already doing this because the google folks are smarter than the MPIAA. we all hate advertising but right now there is no other way.
but let's see what happens in the next 5-10 years.
But I would think that backing a cd up in case it gets scratched would be preferable then copying it from another site.
I have stacks of original PC game boxes here. A good percentage i havent really even played because they turn out to be turds, but thats another matter. I have bought and paid for each and every one of them. Mostly when they are older than a year already, or from bargain bins, because i never keep up with the bleeding edge hardware curve, and dont have too much time to invest in games anyway, so what i dont really like i toss aside, but for $10 i often still pick something or another up.
Some of the really good ones have went bad without me really noticing. Betrayal at Krondor, FreeSpace 2 in particular. Krondor went bad _while playing_ because the thing played music straight off the CD all the time, which wore the disc out. At the time, i didnt really have lots of spare storage space so i never made images of the CDs, neither bothered i back them up on CD-Rs because i was too lazy to verify whether i really got around the copy protection properly or not. By the way, buying original, unused releases of these things right now is practically impossible. While a small selection of good movies get remastered and rerelased now and then, nobody is rereleasing my favourite Amiga or ZX-Spectrum games anymore.
Now, with gigabytes being so cheap, i have redownloaded the broken ISOs off the torrents, and i actually have replayed the games a few times. They are still good, classic, and from the bygone era.
Anyone telling me i broke the law downloading them, can just sod off. I can also say that i would make a copy or share any of these out for anyone i know, who bothers to ask. I'd even help setting the game up on operating systems where the things wont work out of the box, and borrow my joystick.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
How about walking into a bookstore from which you've already purchased a book (let's assume said book was lost/damaged), make a complete COPY of it instantly, and take said copy out of the store?
Copying is a bit different than shoplifting. Shoplifting results in the loss of a tangible item; creating a copy for yourself does not.
Your analogy is flawed.
The OP was about a situtation where either he would remove the disk drives with the offending data on it, or have his setup used by his neighbors. Your quote above pertains to neither of these situations.
If anything, it strengthens his point, in that if an expert can't find evidence on the drive, the RIAA has no case. But that's a little besides the original point.
You missed the point in my "akin"... you are still driving with a license. The license (driver's license) is the "license" I was referring to in my "akin", above. :P
There was the story of someone who, upon seeing the "You wouldn't steal a car" ad at the beginning of the movie, jumped up and shouted "I would if I could fucking download it!"
If you can't see the difference between stealing a physical item and making a copy of a digital item, you need your head examined. I am not saying copying is right, only that it is different.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The car in my analogy is simply a necessary evil to get from the idea that driving on the roads is not a right, it's a privilege granted to someone when they are given a driving license. Oh and I guess I kind of snuck in multiple license stuff; a general license may not allow you drive a motorcycle, and a CDL license is needed to drive a large truck of some sort, etc.
They *do* want the best of both worlds. They are slow to change (toward the net, technology, etc) and are like an old man who doesn't want to change because he's "always done it this way." Sad, really.
Sometimes I think that the whole "first sale" doctrine should apply to photography. Without *me* in the photograph, it wouldn't be the same photograph, so I should be allowed to be in "control" on that photo. (IE: It's reuse, sale, and such.) But it just doesn't work that way, really.
Really? Where's the "no-public-performance" notice on the novel? If I take the novel with me on a trip to Europe, does it become unreadable? If I loan it to someone in exchange for $1, do I get in trouble? If I keep a shelf of novels in my bar that any patron can read, do I have to pay a special license fee?
I'm sorry. Either they're selling us an item which we can do whatever we want with, barring distributing copies; or they're selling us a license to the content, in which case replacement media, in the same or a different format, must be available at a nominal cost.
It is an item or a license. Choose one.
Actually, in a general sense, it does. Were everyone to respect these new laws, there would be no need to adjust them. If the law doesn't cause disruption, it would stand as it is. Sure, people could complain, but if everyone griped and went along with it, debate would eventually lose momentum. It would also be extremely difficult to bring the issue to court, because one has to have violated a law to be able to challenge it, I believe.
It's an interesting balance, since individuals who violate a law they disagree with are considered to be criminals and punishment is just, but large groups of individuals that openly violate laws would be seen as a social movement or protest that leads to the repealing or rewriting of the law. I guess how we judge people based on the two extremes depends on the eventual outcome of the law process.
[insert witty quote here]
Stop being so snide when you're wrong.
Thoreau and MLK would say that you not only have a right to violate an unjust law, but a duty.
Whether a flawed law, such as copyright is unjust and warrants civil disobedience is a matter for debate.
--And therein lies your mistake.
The person you replied to simply has no sense of ethics.
If the American Colonists did any of the things they did then, today, they'd be considered terrorists and sent to Guantanamo.
Americans today are nothing like the revolutionaries of the late 1700s, and if we were all living back in that time, we'd just whine about the excessive taxes, lack of representation, quartering of soldiers, etc., and just live with it.
It's important to note that TorrentSpy didn't actually destroy evidence, they didn't store any of it in the first place. This makes the case far more terrifying, as they are being held responsible for supposed evidence that was never there, and that the plaintiffs can't even prove ever existed.
Let's suppose a non-negligible portion of TorrentSpy's user base was slanted toward piracy, and one can make the assumption that any evidence they could have collected would be incriminating, it's still just hypothesis until you have logs to support it. I can give you a big hint: datacenters don't store that kind of detail unless they're specifically mandated by law to do so. For the most part, they're too busy dealing with routing info and aggregate (billable) stats to care who visits your server, and even then all they know is that some IP tried to connect to some port. Deep packet inspection is prohibitively expensive for the amounts of data being delivered, and raise various privacy issues that are too costly to bother litigating.
TorrentSpy might not be innocent, but I don't think you can truly accuse them of destroying evidence. That's a fallacy.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
That's what happens when you destroy evidence, you lose your case, THEN you also get to deal with the consequences of destroying evidence.
So it's most definitely not the latter.
*BLAM* Don't you lie to me!
I tbink a lot of people, myself included are like "Why the f... should I treat my CD, DVD or installer any differently than a book?" When someone sells you a book, they're most definately selling you "intelletual property" to use their terms. If anyone claims they "have to" license something because their IP wouldn't be "protected" is lying through their teeth. Copyright is all IP needs, the rest is to bend you over so they can do whatever they want and cash in on anything you'd like to do. They tried to attach an EULA to books and failed, why you should allow it for anything else is beyond me. If you slap money on the counter and walk out with a permanent copy then I'll treat it as a sale. The law doesn't agree but the law is wrong, it's hardly the first time.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Now, before a lot of people start saying "well, if enough people commit murder should that be legal too?". The analogy you're looking for is not with crimes like murder or rape but with artifical, imposed-by-government crimes like prohibition.
In a democracy, the basis of legitimacy of laws or governments should be a mandate from the people. While I don't trust polls very much, and I don't have any hard numbers, but I'd be willing to bet that most people don't see non-commercial copyright violations as much of a problem. I'm not even sure you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that private non-commercial copyright violations is costing anybody any money.
Not unless you accept the RIAA/MPAA voodoo accounting that every single copyright violation = one lost sale.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
I tend to agree but I would just like to point out that there is some logic to the "protecting our IP" defense, although it's still underhanded and misleading. Typically they try to make it sound like they're protecting their copyright with that defense as that bolsters the arguments for copyright infringement based lawsuits and laws, but in actuality what they're defending is trademark and patents (not that software should even be patentable, but that's another rant entirely). Technically if they fail to raise a stink about someone using a trademark or patent it could be declared void and turned public domain. For example see what happened to Kleenex, which started as a trademark but entered common usage as a name for a tissue and thus the trademark was lost. They are technically protecting their IP (in a roundabout fashion), but they're also promoting confusion over which specific "IP" their trying to protect. As for the cases where they try to claim this for infringements not dealing with anything patented or trademarked, yeah, that's total BS.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
The show It's Your Move (1984) got canceled because when Ronald Reagan preempted the episode "The Dregs of Humanity: Part 2" with a speech nationally, the episode was just skipped instead of being rescheduled, breaking the continuity and causing the show to lose a big chunk of its audience. Many locations never saw the episode until after it was canceled and reshown on USA Network. It may never be released on DVD.
I recorded all of last season of 24. Normally I would still buy the DVDs to assuage the guilt of retaining copies for free, but I have them in HD and they only released them as SD DVDs. If I do buy, I may just get them to rip their menus and burn as a 3x DVD set. If only there were not a lack of menu-ripping software that produced suitable assets for a new project (motion-menu assets, overlays, audio tracks, XML for the button associations, any scripts, subtitle assets, etc.).
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Seriously, get your facts straight.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Evidence of what? Of waterboarding? CIA has not and is not denying using the technique. They admit to it, claiming — rightly or wrongly — that it was a legal thing to do. So, once again, evidence of what?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"I feel current copyright laws are so one sided as to be ignored."
OK, you can "feel" whatever you like, but let's take a check on what you "know":
"I pay for cable and if I record a show that's fine, but if I download a show because I forgot to TiVo it then I am breaking the law."
False.
"Ripping a DVD that I paid for is breaking the law."
False.
"Downloading a CD that got scratched is breaking the law."
False.
In examples 1 & 3, the uploader may be breaking the law, but you are not. In any case, I "feel" you don't know enough about copyright law to have an interesting opinion.
Your making a copy to your HDD so your copying it which ristricted to those who are autherized by the copyright holder.
In small words from: (http://www.campusdownloading.com/faq.htm)
If all I do is download music files, am I still breaking the law?
Yes, if the person or network you're downloading from doesn't have the copyright holder's permission.
Looking at the act:
"consists of the reproduction or distribution"
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/17-18red.htm
And if you feel like reproduction is an odd world it's also:
1. The act of reproducing or the condition or process of being reproduced.
So if you make a copy onto your HDD without the right to do so your breaking the law in the US.
The shareing I know puts your up against a law. But downloading it most likely doesn't.
Either way, I am in agreement with you. I just wanted to bring up that simply downloading isn't really at odds with the law.
The thing about turning over ip addresses when they claimed they weren't available was wrong but that info wouldn't have been useful against them, it would have been used to go after people that posted to the forums as automatic pirates for posting to a forum.
What they did do was clean up their forums which I believe partially what the MPAA's complaint were about. Further they didn't destroy old posted, they archived them. They removed movie clips.
When they were ordered to log IP's again they simply refused to further provide service to US citizens until the matter was resolved.
Sounds to me like another judge confused by computers.
You have two different entities here. The search engine itself and the web forums.
Unless I scanned the novel first. Then I don't really need to buy a new one, especially if I happen to own a printing press.
When laws are wrong, violating them is entirely excusable. In some cases (not necessarily this one, mind you) failing to violate them is inexcusable.
You are allowed to destroy your own IP, as govt offices do when they get ousted in elections, they shred 100s of boxes of records.
Oh and btw, what the authorities dont know, they shouldnt know, and if you only know, then its ok to destroy that 'ip'
but google on how to do it smartly. read a few mafia books, its not your job as the defendant to make the prosecuting parties job easier.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
If yes, then there's your answer. Copyrighted works are mostly distributed (and often created) because there is copyright, and the artist has some rights over it. If the artist didn't want those rights, well, they would've released it into the Public Domain, wouldn't they (or at least, with software, a BSD-style license that doesn't require recognition)? Those copyrighted works are a few of the millions of reasons to support copyright law.
If no, and you like to use these Torrent Sites for legitimate purposes, then fair enough. It seems unlikely, but I'm prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. You can help the situation by spreading the message not to pirate, and perhaps the MPAA won't be so trigger-happy in the future. I'd also consider not supporting sites with such a high instance of pirated material, because they will inevitably come into the firing line. Then you won't have to complain every time another one comes under fire.
If by "current", you're referring to the DMCA, huge copyright terms, and other questionable recent changes to copyright law, then why are you telling us to "Burn it down"?
If by "current" and "copyright", you're referring to the behaviour of the **AA and other copyright groups, then why not actually isolate the behaviour you don't like, and make that illegal instead? Unless signing up creative talents and lowering the barrier of entry of art-creation to something manageable is offensive to you, then I see no reason why we need to go after copyright law for their behaviour. It's called slicing off your nose despite your face.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The money you pay for is *not* for the content itself, it is for the *right* to use the content on that specific physical piece of media. Akin to not buying the road, but purchasing (through fees and testing) the license to use the road with your car. You can't drive your car where it is not allowed (think: tarmac), and you can't drive on the road, things you are not allowed to drive (think: firetruck).
On that specific physical piece of media?
You're joking right? Last I read, the Supreme Court said we have the right to make personal archival copies of our media. so if the original breaks, are we not allowed to use the archival copy??
The RIAA at times has said ripping music to your IPOD/MP3 player is fair use (then recanted then repeated then recanted...). So which is it?
The laws are obviously screwed up. Congress needs to get a grip and fix it. Believe it or not, there are people out there trying to not break the law and deserve their rights to be respected as well.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Ok you don't need to buy one in the sense that you are capable of making a paper copy...which has nothing to do with the legality of your action. You would break the law when you scanned the novel.
As for your other point, answer a question for me: if I am a doctor, is it excusable for me to decline to perform a legal abortion to save the life of a patient of mine if I am morally opposed to it?
Personally, I find it both intellectually dishonest and morally repugnant to claim that illegal copying (which directly benefits you and would impose no hardship on you were you to refrain) is not only excusable, but that making illegal copies is a moral imperative! Where are all of the people loudly espousing civil disobedience when it comes to ridiculous laws like the PATRIOT Act, et. al?! Oh, that's right...actually doing something that matters isn't as easy or free, like a hard-drive full of movies that I didn't pay for.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
But if you make a photocopy of your novel or scan it and convert it to an ebook or download it from the Internet...
Walking in and stealing the physical CD is wrong, same as for the book. They paid money to make the CD and book; they are tangible items that can be sold. Taking it from the store deprives the store of one and only one sale.
I own a number of large and cumbersome reference books. Yes, I could carry them round everywhere but my physio would be laughing all the way to the bank. It's much easier for me to find copies of the books electronically and "pirate" them into my PDA's ebook reader. Nobody kicks up a fuss that I've done that. Sure, the quality of the pirated copy is less -- It's either transcribed text with errors or dodgy scans in low resolution but it is useful enough for me and I can always go home and access the full text if I really need to.
Q: Why can't music and movies be the same? I have a large CD and DVD collection that would be useful on my iPod while travelling (something I do enough of to be annoying, unfortunately)!
A: Because the *IAAs are greedy cunts who want to extort every last dollar out of the little guy in the quest for infinite profit.
I drink to make other people interesting!
You sure about that? Giving the copies to someone might be illegal, but I'm pretty sure that it's still fair use to "format shift". The only exception is when you have to break an "encryption" scheme to do it, then the DMCA kicks in. I'm not sure that it's ever been tested on books, mind you, but following from fair use rules for music, it seems like scanning a book that one owns for personal use, and printing out an extra copy, would easily fall into the same category.
Was there a case that ruled against format shifting as fair use, that I somehow missed?
TorrentSpy lost because they destroyed evidence. It has nothing to do with the validity of any type of copyrights of the artists in question. However, since that was the entire point of your parent post which you then call "irrelevant" seems disingenuous at best.
You have understanding of the nature of the music contracts out there, which would have been explained if you had followed the link. But seeing you didn't read TFA either to glean from it why TorretSpy lost, I shouldn't expect anything beyond simple, knee-jerk pablum.
By that logic, I haven't stolen anything when I burn a CD. I'm walking around with my own, legally purchased blank CD, which I've burned.
That's what happens when you don't separate the means of storage from the content. Is that the way you want this discussion to go?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
My fault for not reading TFA. Sorry.
There was a bit more to the story, though -- something about them actively deleting threads...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
And, since the US is where the infringements were taking place that the RIAA/MPAA wanted to stop, this stops any infringements they (the *AA and couirt) wanted and were able to stop.
But I'm not distributing it, so still no copyright violation.
Only AC MAFIAA shills want to change copyright laws to apply to any copying, instead of distribution.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
This is pointless. It is just like the war on drugs. TorrentSpy was just a dealer, if you believe that providing links is wrong in the first place. Now everyone will just go to a different dealer.
:)
Or an even better solution, Torrent-Harvester. That is like being able to check the prices and availability of every drug dealer worldwide in real time
Next time I buy a CD or a DVD (never Blu-Ray or HD-DVD), i will know that a few cents of it was wasted. The TorrentSpy Idiocy Legal Fund Tax.
The drugs will never stop being produced (the torrent seeders), the drug dealers will never stop doing business (TorrentSpy), and the Fuzz (MPAA,RIAA, MAFIAA, etc.) will never stop suing the crap out of the other two.
I can't wait for the day when they finally realize they can't win ever. Heh, actually I can. Since it does not affect me in the slightest.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play"