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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."
Maybe it's not right to consider it "spying" because of the Wiretap excuse... but what about considering it "theft of intellectual property"?
So, let me get this straight. It's not illegal to break your employer's confidence and send a full dump of sensitive emails automatically to your private email account where you sell them to an interested third party?
If you break into someone's house because you think they stole your things, and you find your things there, you can use that as evidence of the theft, especially if you document your break-in. You could sue the person for stealing your things in the first place, and probably win.
At the same time, it was illegal for you to break into the thief's house, and the police may well charge you for B&E. But that doesn't mean we all have to pretend that you didn't find your things there.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
People who endlessly quote the Bible in every situation or people who ultra-endlessly quote the ultra-endless Ayn Rand in every situation.
But wouldn't this be covered under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986?
TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel sued them for spying, but however lost the case due to a ruling that stated it was not illegal since the information was not intercepted under the Wiretap Act.
Since when does something have to be illegal for a lawsuit?
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but no actual theft occurred; the original data is still there. If you're going to make a big stink about terminology then please be consistent with it at all times, not just when it suits you.
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.
So quickly we've forgotten that "rubico" fellow that accessed Palin's e-mail account. When it happens to our politicians (who should be accountable to the people), it's a federal crime. When it happens to individuals or businesses, whatever floats your boat.
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.
The closer you are to the code, the happier you are. - Ancient Geek Proverb
Their (the --AA) cause isn't to win hearts and minds, it's to throw enough shit at the walls that eventually some of it sticks. It's been an effective strategy thus far.
Corporate lawyers live in an alternate reality with calculable monetary penalties and rewards for every possible action, no matter how immoral. Their advise is based on the size of the monetary rewards and risk calculation.
Everything else is irrelevant.
The logic is there, just not quite human.
The collection of e-mails would be a copyrighted work, even if some of the individual messages didn't contain very much aesthetic value. Copyright works don't have to be creative; there are a lot of factual works like pages of an almanac that contain simple facts about their subjects.
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.
As sweet as it might taste to use copyright against them, that sure sounds like a bad tack.
How about prosecution of the former associate under computer fraud and abuse act, for gaining access without authorization, and charges against MPAA for conspiracy to due the same, plus charges of Tortuous Interference against the MPAA for intentionally paying a former associate of the site to do things they knew (or should have known) would be against their agreement?
Realizing full well TorrentSpys E-mail servers would most likely be involved in inter-state communication.
This is no different from a company paying a sysadmin working for another company to plant a virus on a server to forward them trade secrets.