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Comcast Pays Out $16M In P2P Throttling Suit
eldavojohn writes "Comcast has settled out of court to the tune of $16 million in one of several ongoing P2P throttling class action lawsuits. You may be eligible for up to $16 restitution if 'you live in the United States or its Territories, have a current or former Comcast High-Speed Internet account, and either used or attempted to use Comcast service to use the Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack or Gnutella P2P protocols at any time from April 1, 2006 to December 31, 2008; and/or Lotus Notes to send emails any time from March 26, 2007 to October 3, 2007.' $16 million seems low. And it's too bad this was an out-of-court settlement instead of a solid precedent-setting decision for your right to use P2P applications. The settlement will probably not affect the slews of other Comcast P2P throttling suits, and it's unclear whether it will placate the FCC."
Once again the lawyers are the only winners. $16 is farcical, and the total $16 million is a rounding error for Comcast -- it doesn't serve as much incentive against bad behaviour in the future.
Got love how everyday people will get sued by corporations for many times their annual income ( $80,000 a song) but when it comes to corporations getting sued it equates to a far lower ratio. Any one else think its kind of silly.
Assuming someone paid for only internet access at $35 per month during the time Comcast was infringing their rights they would have paid Comcast $1,155. Comcast is only required to pay damages of 1%? Wow... that's Comcastic!
They'll give you 16 bucks, and the RIAA will take 20 grand!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There are a lot of people (I'm one) who uses BitTorrent, etc. to download Linux distros, FOS software, music that the artist encourages you to share (and there's more of that than there is RIAA music), etc.
P2P is not proof of illicit activity, although the RIAA wants everyone to think it is.
Free Martian Whores!
protocol != client. The Blizzard updater uses the BitTorrent protocol.
Obviously Comcast's reaction to this news will be to increase their fees to each consumer by $17.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Yes, there should be legal repercussions for a company doing something like this to its customers. Unfortuneately, lawyers aren't cheap and companies can pay to have more of them. While more doesn't mean better, it does reduce your chances of being able to go up against such a company. Of course it would be different if you identified the people who were wronged by this ahead of time and had each one chip in five bucks for a legal team ($5 X 1 million people, you get the idea).
Regardless of this, getting a settlement of 16 million isn't going to hurt anyone. They'll make that amount back from a "customer" in a few months. So if you disagree with a company's practicies... don't use that company. Give up your cable modem or switch to another provider. It makes no sense that you are willing to continue to pay a company which you are suing, and thus financing their legal defense against your claim. Having 1 million subscribers choose to drop Comcast would do tons more than paying each one 16$.
How can people on Slashdot be so fucking dumb? If Comcast wanted to sell your name to the RIAA or MPAA, they already have all the information they need. Hell, they could hand over your credit card number, if they wanted to.
Yeah, Comcast sucks, but use your fucking brains, people.
Maybe not