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Patent and Copyright Wars Gone Wild
snydeq writes "While Apple and Samsung fight over patents and prototypes, other copyright trolls are waging an X-rated battle on innocent users, as lawyers representing some adult movie companies are sending letters accusing users of illegally downloading their movies and saying that, for a price, they can make the charges go away. 'Cases like this, usually involving pornographic content, are very common,' Mitch Stoltz, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation said. At least 250,000 individuals have been named in group lawsuits over the last few years. There's a very common belief that if someone pirates your Wi-Fi connection or uses your computer without your permission, you are responsible for illegal downloads of copyrighted material. That's not true, says Stoltz; the law is quite clear. However, the lawyers who bring those cases use that misperception to convince innocent people that they had better pay up. Since $3,500 is just a fraction of the money it would take to fight a case in court, most people simply settle."
The insurance industry had a problem with cost-of-defense complaints: crappy auto accidents that weren't worth more than a few grand in damages. But they banded together and fought every single one of them (paying just the actual damages & medical, and fighting almost every "pain & suffering" claim).
Not doubting you, but is this a universal thing? About two years ago, my father was in a car crash, and the experience he went through was different. The incident happened when he was supposedly looking at the wrong traffic light (at this location, there are 2 parallel traffic light intersections less than 50 feet apart) and T-boned another car. My father was shaken, but unhurt. The other driver broke a finger in the crash. In addition, both cars were totaled. The insurance company paid out just under $100,000 to the other driver, which fortunately slid in right below the coverage limit on the policy. Still a lot for injuries that minor – I remember commenting that I'd gladly suffer a broken finger for a hundred grand. It can't possibly have cost that much in medical costs, and I'm pretty sure there was a major "pain and suffering" component. This was a small insurance company, so maybe they weren't in on the collaborative deal?
To the extent that if your laptop gets stolen and you have an IP address and a GPS fix on the crook's address, the police often refuse to go round and batter the door down because it's they need more proof.
That's just a domestic residential robbery or burglary. In search of evidence to support a charge of violation of the laws against the criminal tresspass of Steamboat Willy's IP rights they will not just batter down your door - the door doesn't even have to be in their US jurisdiction.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
In no small part because there's no such thing as a perfect system. If you demand a perfect legal system you'll never have one. Part of what leads to shitloads of convoluted laws is assholes that exploit the system, requiring legislation to deal with them.
I had a microcosm of that on a forum I admin. Asshole line-steppers who were always seeking to cause trouble and just skirt the rules. I kept piling on rules and more rules which just made things worse. Finally I replaced it with "Don't be a dick." They whined because it was vague, and got banned for violating it later, but everyone else was quite happy.
So yes you can get mad at assholes that abuse the system. Not saying the system doesn't need to be fixed but that doesn't mean that the abusers don't deserve to get set on fire.
This kind of fraud should be classified as mail fraud, and the perpetrators charged accordingly.
"Don't hate the playa, hate the game" - Ice T
I hate both the game and the players that play it. The only winning move is not to play.
Life is not for the lazy.