Slashdot Mirror
Federal Judge Rules P2P Users Aren't In a Conspiracy
Fluffeh writes "Judge Holderman ruled against copyright holders who were trying to paint a rather distorted picture. They sue just one Internet user, but use that lawsuit as a pretext to subpoena other defendants who had participated in the same BitTorrent swarm. The plaintiffs in these lawsuits claim that the other users had participated in a "conspiracy" to assist one another in distributing particular copyrighted works. Because the copyright holder's threat is based on the cost of litigation (and risk of public embarrassment — as this is a tactic used increasingly by the pron industry) more so than the damages a defendant would face in the event of a loss, innocent defendants have virtually as much incentive to settle as guilty ones do. That's not how things are supposed to work, and more and more judges are refusing to play along. Coupled with recent rulings in Florida, the copyright holders seem to be finding less and less favor with judges."
Guess, I'll wait until April 2nd before reading anything more on /.
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
I see what you did there.
It's already April 2 hear, so alert mode for April Fools has been switched off. 2nd story I have been sucked in by. 2nd -1 for off topic too I guess.
Innocent of conspiracy. That's pretty important for a lot of reasons, most of which are legal.
Selling drugs is P2P, but so is having sex (see wikipedia for more info fellow reader).
Criminalizing a group of loosely or totally unrelated individuals based on a particular form of sharing content (or speech) is just one step away from a thoughtcrime and is seen in the banning of the web, twitter, or similar by oppressive regimes, and shows a undeniable contempt for those basics terms and concepts that form the acronym P2P.
Person to person communication is inherent to all humans, and sought out even by those who are handicapped to the extreme. It is the basis of science, individual development, society, and anything else that didn't come from instict or perhaps indirect observation. If you live in a society that doesn't allow newpapers, a certain internet sharing site, or any other medium that allows honest expression then you need to run like hell and be glad that you did. This is testing the waters.
I remember when using P2P for legimitate uses during the late 90'- early 2000's being so disgusted that the judges at the time couldn't seem to fathom in their wildest dreams how this new means of exchange could possibly be anything other than 100% destructive "theft" oriented black-market oriented, when in reality a lot of early P2P really was centered around specialized information exchange that had a dynamic nature not offered by the web and only hinted at by services like Hotline and the others. Sure the smart people set up their own FTPs, but for many mediums and industries there was little to no expectation-especially at that time- that the person had the skills to do so. The PC was still not on every desktop, or even remotely required for many non-technologically inclined persons.
This dynamism was of course the same reason Napster and the rest were able to gain such rapid traction- it was so easy, and connective. Before web search got it right, and even still P2P allows personalization and selectivity of content that has never been matched. Those early days of fairly high penetration of modern-like P2P felt like having a personal mailing list but without the management, unlimited hosting, it has integrated search, didn't require much work, and didn't make you wanna move to antarctica in the way you felt after the first attempt to "share" via a dutifully built template based GeoCity's monstrosity.
But despite the damage done to legitimate P2P by the so-called Napster boom of early last decade I refuse to buy the "blame the tool" B.S. leveled at those site who tended toward unlicensed transfers. It was a shit argument than, and time has only proven even more how P2P really is the core of the internet even if it isn't always manifested purely at the protocol level. Love them or hate them, but sites that allow quick person to person communication like Flickr, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and old stalwarts like email and various chat clients represent the biggest reason people are shifting time away from TV and DVD porn. Sure companies have perverted and manipulated this model- Facebook being perhaps the worst- But the spirit of sharing is so central to human communication and by extension the web that literal clusterfucking; as in clustering us by service or protocol, and then sending in the lawyers to fuck us based on that designation is just wrong. There is perhaps no force that threatens free speech more, than being grouped in and implicated by remote extension with an individual based on their theoretical possibility to commit a potential crime.
How does this not matter considering it refers to legislation dealing with the cost common experience humans have with a PC today, the internet? Yeah I was gonna say porn since it is referenced, and likely the only thing to cause more addiction than middleschools obsession with Facebook, both the same thing in this context.
Not sure what your beef is- perhaps it wasn't important enough for you? Fine, but I'm pretty sure this isn't anything as narrow-audience even here as half the book reviews for things like a minor Moodle version bump or some obscure database system tips and tricks that somehow made frontpage right after the article mocking the antiquity of old media writing and how the new version is dropping in the next week and going to fix all of the awfully missteps which incidentally formed a major focus for the book reviewed.
Remember this is a site that has "Cloud" listed as prominent topic category so just be glad we aren't talking about that vapid empty term which is inadvertently cynically descriptive of the concept itself in the modern era.
the copyright holders seem to be finding less and less favor with judges."
Curiously, all of those judges were replaced when exceptionally large political donations were made to every one of their opponents during the next election. -_- The last time a few judges got it in their head to go against the corporate agenda, they were declared "activist judges" and dealt a massive amount of media spin, quickly ending their careers. That phrase has since lost the spotlight, but the instigators of that media frenzy are still perfectly willing and able to do the same thing.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
You have just the right attitude for law enforcement. Apply now, free donuts.
I am John Hurt.
An 'elicopter, an 'acker...
Just you wait 'enry 'iggins.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Actually, by "innocent", the summary is referring to defendants who have not downloaded the porn - that is, people who are actually innocent of copyright infringement.
The problem is that if the porn companies screwed up and have a bunch of wrong IP addresses in addition to correct ones (that is, people who did download the porn as well as people who didn't), the people at the end of the wrong IP addresses will still get a letter threatening a lawsuit in which they will be publicly accused of downloading "bareback college studs" (or whatever) unless they pay up two thousand dollars. Regardless of whether they're innocent, most people would rather pay up (and keep the whole thing secret) than mount an expensive legal defense.
Most federal judges are not impressed with this "settlement extortion" legal strategy, and aren't letting porn companies (and similar plaintiffs) get away with this on the cheap. What I mean by that is, the porn companies* are getting people's names and addresses, which they need to send the threatening letters and settlement demands, by suing thousands of defendants at the same time. Not only is this very questionable so far as the rules of civil procedure, they also only pay one filing fee even though they're essentially suing thousands of people. The courts would really prefer that the porn companies pay the $350 filing fee for each defendant they sue, because these massive lawsuits generate huge amounts of paper work, and clog up the system to the detriment of other lawsuits that are perhaps actually about obtaining justice rather than extorting settlements.
*there's reason to believe that the porn companies don't really care that much, and these massive lawsuits are instigated by a handful of lawyers who think they've found an easy way to hack the legal system and make a bunch of money. These lawyers do these suits on a contingency basis - that is, the porn companies aren't actually paying the lawyers to file the law suits; instead, they split whatever profits they get from settlements.
Well, it is true they aren't exactly known for their accuracy in their accusations. Since they've been doing this they've accused lots of people that wouldn't know a P2P program if it came with it's own spokesmodel, a few network printers, a couple of people that don't own computers, a computer user who's computer runs an operating system that doesn't even have a version of the supposed program for it, someone that was verifiabley out of the country for the time period in question, and I believe I saw a report of an online webcam being targeted as well.
So of course they 'attack' a lot of innocent people, they're just stupid that way. (Especially since the courts have been letting them get away with it, and that most people can't afford to fight it in the first place.) Although having a conspiracy charge slapped on it would make it a lot worse for you whether or not you are guilt or innocent. It's kind of like being in front of a firing squad and being told they won't stop the execution unless either the governor calls in time (fat chance) or you pay them $3000 to conveniently forget they ever saw you (until the next time they target you).
As to the few that have taken them to court, it's not much better. They spend a lot more than the extortion money they would have otherwise paid, and don't even get to be officially declared innocent because the blackmailers... err... copyright holders drop the case if it looks like they will lose. Apparently that's done to try and avoid setting a precedent that can be used against them.
Of course, like you mentioned, there are lots of other reasons why various groups frown on this B.S., but until they do something drastic, or otherwise make it obviously non-profitable, the scammers will keep accusing people to garner filthy lucre.
Well, it is true they aren't exactly known for their accuracy in their accusations... and I believe I saw a report of an online webcam being targeted as well.
I believe the webcam was accused of unfair competition rather than copyright infringement ;-)
"copyright holders seem to be finding less and less favor with judges."
Maybe the judge found his name in the list of infrigers... :-)
Most federal judges are not impressed with this "settlement extortion" legal strategy, and aren't letting porn companies (and similar plaintiffs) get away with this on the cheap.
It's not the legal strategy that judges have a problem with -- it was allowed for years when the RIAA started doing it. It's only after the p0rn industry started using the same strategy that judges viewed it as extortion.
Now if we could just get some really obnoxious patent trolls, maybe we could get some legal bias against patents.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
The extortion part comes in when you are being sued for downloading "Anal Teen Nightmare" (IIRC that was the name of one of the movies involved in this or a similar suit). Most people don't like being accused of that, whether they are guilty or innocent. In other words, the accusation alone is enough to ruin peoples reputation, and therefore is actual extortion. On the other hand, the threat of being accused of downloading "Poker Face" is considerably less damaging to ones reputation (well, for most people anyways), and therefore is less clearly legal extortion. Still extortion because of the legal fees involved, but not the almost-blackmail status of being accused of downloading porn (and somewhat deviant porn, at that).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Extortion for money doesn't require shaming someone; the RIAA did extort people, it just wasn't called extortion until the judges were dealing with the p0rn industry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion
tomorrow who's gonna fuss