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RIAA MediaSentry, Dead In US, Is Alive In Australia
newtley writes "Disgraced and discredited 'private investigator' MediaSentry, fired by former patrons Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music, and Sony Music and their RIAA, may be dead and buried in America, but it's alive and well, resurfacing in Australia where it's once again plying its trade, probably under new management. 'I currently (but not for long) reside at a student dormitory... in Brisbane, Australia,' says a p2pnet reader, continuing: 'Yesterday I got called into the Managers office because the network manager had been contacted by MediaSentry and emailed one of the generic copyright infringement emails as a result of me downloading Angels and Demons. Now instead of studying for my exams and working on my final assignments I must take time to find a place to live before the 29th of May (2009).'"
It seems he got a damn fast judgement. And a damn fast judgement done by a private company.
Does anyone remember 'Judge Dredd'? 'I am the law!!!'
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
I'm going to pretend I have no opinion in this post and instead make a "meta-comment:"
What I find fascinating is that, just a year ago, an overwhelming majority of Slashdot readers would have defended this student, written posts to the effect that it is justifiable to download copyrighted work, made angry statements about the MP/RI-AA, and the like. Now, I see many more posts (and story tags -- currently "righttosteal") like yours. Sure, the old pro-pirate posts are still around -- they are probably even still the majority -- but I think that the percentage is lower. I wonder if this means that attitudes are changing, and whether this is due at all to the RIAA's campaign.
Do you *seriously* contend that losing your housing with like 2 weeks' notice or something ridiculous like that is a fitting response to the activity in question? I totally have sympathy for this guy. I don't see why anyone should lose their housing over copyright infringement. I mean, just disable his ethernet ports for a week or something. I fail to see how kicking someone out of the building with short notice is an appropriate response for minor copyright infringement.
While that is true... He really would have got much more sympathy, even on /., if he had the brains to write:
"the network manager had been contacted by MediaSentry and emailed one of the generic copyright infringement emails as a result of me (allegedly) downloading Angels and Demons."
Honestly, students today... what is education coming to? Seems too easy to get into Uni these days. Innocent until proven guilty, but if you are admitting your guilt, then there's a good chance you are. He would have had a reasonable grounds for fighting this if he'd denied any wrong doing and shifted the burden of proof. Not very smart not to.
Not to mention that the severity of punishment is a jump away from the severity of the offense.
Yes, downloading movies should be illegal, but why are the charges so incredibly much more than shoplifting the DVD out of a store? If he'd done that, he'd probably still have his dorm room.
This doesn't sound like MediaSentry. In this case they actually located an actual download. That's not MediaSentry's style.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Except, culturally, things work a little differently here. Or, at least they used to.
When you do something wrong, you own up to it. You admit your mistake. To deny you did something that you did actually do is seen as cowardice.
It goes back to the playground rules when you were at school.
But the times, they are a changing. More often, people are choosing to get a lawyer (goon) and hide behind them and make up bullshit lines instead of owning up and admitting what they did was wrong.
The innocent until proven guilty line only works for me when the accused is actually innocent. The guy in the story was just being a non coward.
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