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P2P Litigation Crippled In DC District Court Ruling
An anonymous reader writes "In a stunning defeat for the US Copyright Group, DC District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer is forcing copyright holders to sue only those over whom the DC court has personal jurisdiction. The USCG has sued in the DC court more than 4,500 people on behalf of a German producer that created the Far Cry movie. But the Judge is having none of that; in her ruling [Friday], Judge Collyer stated that only those who are in the DC court's jurisdiction can be sued — shrinking what could have been a windfall of defendant's cash to perhaps a mere trickle."
A judge said something that made sense!
The USCG has sued over 4,500 people on behalf of a German producer that created the Far Cry movie in the DC court.
I don't see how the judge can be impartial if he let them make the movie in his court.
Good the next step would be for the judge to follow the rule of law and force them to prove that the movie was downloaded, and that the person they are suing is the one that downloaded it. I have yet to see a court case where they proved that well enough for me to ever have said guilty.
If people stole and presumably watch the movie Far Cry, *they* should be suing the studio for emotional distress or something.
*NO ONE* should be subjected to a Uwe Boll film.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
In the tradition of having at least 1 off-topic post in any discussion, let me ask a question here. If I set my torrent client's upload bandwidth to zero I find that I still get reasonable download speeds but I upload nothing. I know the torrent crowd would like to hang me for that but doesn't that offer me protection from copyright infringement lawsuits?
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
Subject says it all. :-)
Captcha: "denounce". :)
Awww, extortion is sooo haaaard... poo poo pity. Better luck next time. Wah-waaaahhh, thanks for playing, buh-bye now!
... 4500 People sue Uwe Boll for violation of the geneva convention, they want their two hours back.
... looks like her verdict was a (ahem) far cry from what Uwe Boll was expecting.
Check out my novel.
Uh, you do know that a 12(b)(2) dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction is not a dismissal with prejudice or on the merits? They can simply refile this elsewhere, without the new judge being bound by this dismissal. 12(b)(2) motions are procedural, and don't reach the actual case.
While whoever marked you troll is probably on the money, a lot of people probably might wonder why this would be significant.
It's hard to geolocate many IP addresses with any degree of precision, especially one you got months ago. And even if you can, it's not like they ever make their money back on these cases-even if they win, most of the defendants are going to go bankrupt. They won't make enough money in their life to pay the exorbitant judgment. Filing these in every district in the country, refiling the ones where you "missed", etc., is going to run up the legal bills very quickly. In the meantime, you're going to continue to annoy judges by clogging up their dockets with cases intended to "make an example" of Little Johnny or Grandma. And while an annoyed judge still must follow the law, they can certainly do as this judge did-choose to follow it very strictly indeed.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Well he is, but what he's failing to account for is why they chose to try it in the first place. The reason is that it gave them an unfair and illegal advantage. If they had to file each of these separately in a court with actual jurisdiction it would cost them a lot more to prosecute their case and would even things out a bit in terms of fairness of trial.
They don't want that because this is essentially just an extensive extortion scam. Pay us the money because we might have evidence that you violated our copyright or we'll sue you into the poor house.
The reason why the GP was modded troll was because he was so amazingly wrong. Given the way that the courts have been handling things up to this point, it is news whenever the court decides that normal rules apply to the RIAA studios. And this effectively makes it expensive enough that they're likely going to have to drop their suits as it's getting dangerously close to the point of vexatious litigation.
It was starting to look like the RIAA (I realize this isnt the RIAA, but I'm throwing them into the same category as the RIAA) was making more money off suing pirates than actually gross sales. What a hell of a business model.
The people who downloaded it should be suing her for allowing Uwe Boll to continue making movies.
We've gone over PJ arising from communications through the internet. Good luck finding minimum contacts with D.C. to establish PJ over the vast majority of the P2P sharerers. I'd guess it would shrink the pool by 4400+.
The litigation is questionable and is used as a means to threaten thousands of people (some innocent) into simply paying up by settling which most would have done. It's a business model, not trying to right a wrong. The fact that alleged copyright infringers may not see the inside of a court room due to it is secondary.
Yay, another victory for pirates! Right, Slashdotters?
When did this place become a pro-piracy advocacy site?
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? RIAA and MPAA shills are not appreciated here, just so you know. Alternative perspectives, yes, but shills by definition have no viewpoint worthy of acknowledgement, much less discussion.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The litigation is questionable and is used as a means to threaten thousands of people (some innocent) into simply paying up by settling which most would have done. It's a business model, not trying to right a wrong. The fact that alleged copyright infringers may not see the inside of a court room due to it is secondary.
Yes, it's an abuse of the legal system that was pioneered (so far as I'm aware) by the RIAA, in order to a. make money and b. bypass any semblance of due process. This idea of winning default judgments in venues that are far removed from the alleged infringers was a cornerstone of that practice, in that it would grant the media company lawyers an instant and inexpensive club useful for mass intimidation, while simultaneously making it difficult if not impossible to mount any kind of defense.
This Judge appears to have a clear understanding of the tactic, and she did not like it. She gets points for understanding that this is a business model, a revenue source, not an attempt at legitimate redress and gets bonus points for putting the skids on it. Several judges involved in the RIAA's ongoing rampage wrote similar decisions: I hope this starts to become popular.
Now, to be fair, this "U.S. Copyright Group" was very up front about what they were going to do, and why, and bragged about it as a way for movie makers to "monetize" copyright infringement. Of course, they failed to advertise that it was just as amoral and unethical as the RIAA's similar compaign, and just as destined to hurt innocent people.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
When did this place become a pro-piracy advocacy site?
Just after you showed up. We all came over just to piss you off.
pro hac vice = as Wikipedia says, "for this occasion" - when a lawyer from outside of the area asked to be temporarily allowed to practice in the state for the purposes of that particular case
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Uwe Boll's movies are cheap because he pays for them himself. Last time I checked, he was an independent film maker. Not some film school jerk-off that accidentally got studio backing, but rather someone who decided to start a business making movies, accountable to nobody. If he keeps making movies, it's only because the ones before paid for themselves (or at least for the next project).
Besides, who else is going to make a Far Cry movie? Most people ( that don't read slashdot ), have no clue what Far Cry is, and without some hollywood star in it, aren't going to rent it. The point is, this guy makes movies for you, the geek. I guarantee 60% of the people here saying his movies bad sat through at least two of them. Like me, they were stoned off their asses and had a good giggle. That's the whole point. Citizen Kane, it ain't, but it is solid, wholesome entertainment.
If you still think Uwe Boll is a shit director, watch Rampage. It is a disgusting, fascinating movie that will horrify and scar you, but it is sharply directed. At least the guy's got style, unlike most of the chumps directing endless streams of Hollywood Bollywood pablum idiocy.
That's right, oppose draconian copyright and you're a pirate!
Oppose insane speeding fines/modded car crushing and you're a street racer!
Oppose TSA nudie scanners/grope-downs and you're a terrorist!
Oppose Internet censorship and you're a pedophile!
Oppose giving the government root logins to all your machines and you're a black hat!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel