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MPAA Spying Case To Be Appealed
esocid writes "Back in 2005, the MPAA hired Robert Anderson, a former associate of TorrentSpy's owner, to illegally obtain internal emails and trade secrets. He did so by routing the email from the internal server to his own Gmail account. He subsequently sold 34 pages of stolen information for $15,000 to the MPAA. TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel sued them for spying, but lost the case due to a ruling that stated it was not illegal since the information was not intercepted under the Wiretap Act. The EFF called this decision a 'dangerous attempt to circumvent privacy laws,' since it implies that the unauthorized interception of anyone's personal email is legal. The appeal could have ramifications for MPAA president Dan Glickman, as the decision is expected around the time of his contract renewal."
It would seem that "legality" is proportional to the cost of your legal counsel, and inversely proportional to the virtue of your cause.
Books and paintings are physical objects. "Intellectual property" would apply only if you're copying them.
But he was saying that his understanding is that the general public is not held to the same standard; it's not a First Amendment violation, for example, if you were to chain the doors of a church shut for no reason, but it is if the government does it.
In the same way, an illegal search performed by a private citizen is not subject to the exclusionary principle -- the evidence found in such a search is not automatically thrown out.
Like you, much of my knowledge has been gleaned from "Law & Order", though I do research constitutional law on my own.
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It *is* illegal, but if those emails also document an illegal (or legally actionable) activity, then they can be used as evidence.
The rules of evidence are more strict for law enforcement than for private citizens. That's just the way it is.
In my nonbinding opinion, I think the case against TorrentSpy should stand, AND the responsible parties should be prosecuted for gaining access to a computer system without authorization. To my knowledge, this is fully allowable within the bounds of the law, and would rightfully discourage the RIAA (or anyone else) from using such methods in the future.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Since a great deal of US law is prohibitions on what law enforcement cannot do, there is currently a large amount that is open to private citizens that simply doesn't come up very often. For civil cases there are rules about obtaining evidence, but most of these rules relate to things like stolen work product from attorneys and things like grand theft.
The problem here may quite likely be that the person "stealing" the email did nothing that is directly illegal. It might not have been very nice, but in terms of a law being violated there just might not be anything. Even ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act) is going to be a bit of a stretch here.
If the email in question was accessible to the person "stealing" it in his job, then I suspect about all you could try for is some kind of theft of proprietary information, i.e., trade secrets. This would apply to stealing a customer list but email? Might be tough.
Of course, he can be sued for his actions, but trying to categorize the lawsuit on the basis of wiretap? I think you would have to sue under the same grounds as you would for stealing a customer list, that techically there isn't much in the way of law against it.
Remember, I can sue you for spitting on your sidewalk if I want. There is no reason I cannot other than common sense. So suing someone for trading supposedly secret emails can certainly be done. Just don't try to characterize your suit as being on criminal grounds.
I'm pretty sure that there are laws against industrial espionage. "Spying" is a sort of general, while industrial espionage is more specific. Describing the above offense as "spying" is fairly accurate.
http://nsi.org/Library/Legis/bill1556.html
The person who committed the crime is obviously liable. The people who payed him for the information are only slightly less obviously liable.
And, oh yeah. There are a myriad of conspiracy laws on the books. Everyone involved in stealing the information obviously conspired to perform the act, and to pay for the information.
While the espionage charges are pretty serious, it must be pointed out that the conspiracy is FAR MORE serious. Ask any judge, lawyer, legal advisor, or even a cop.
An INTELLIGENT prosecutor can put some people into prison over this, with some pretty serious sentencing time.
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Unfortunately, while such activities fall under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, according to our friends at Wikipedia:
"The Act authorizes civil proceedings by the Department of Justice to enjoin violations of the Act, but does not create a private cause of action. Thus, victims or putative victims must work with the U.S. Attorney in order to obtain an injunction."
And we all know how eager the DOJ is to chastise the MPAA.
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