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RightsCorp To Bring Its Controversial Copyright Protection Tactics To Europe
judgecorp (778838) writes "RightsCorp, the controversial copyright enforcer, is planning to begin operations in Europe. In the U.S., the company scans torrents for IP addresses on behalf of media companies, shares them with ISPs, forcing them to send lawyers' letters (using the DMCA) demanding money from the supposed copyright infringers. RightsCorp says Europe needs its help in fighting piracy."
They recently expanded operations into Canada as well.
Haven't we had multiple court cases and appeals end in the decision that "IP address != real person"?
I guess the people being sent the letters just don't want to deal with the legal hassle. There's a business model for you... "paying us money is cheaper than legally proving you don't owe us money". You'd think that'd be classified as extortion.
My brother is in an indie band and they payed to go to a small but professional studio and record an EP. The content is all original and they have copyright but he saw a blog about indie bands publishing through tunecore on multiple services {iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, etc...} getting take down notices from companies claiming to represent the copyright holder.
He's a little freaked out because although they payed all that money for copyright and self publishing they really couldn't afford a lawyer if something like that happened to the band.
So your friend is a blackmailer. The more you know ~~~*
Well, I happen to live in Canada and these guys are having some real problems pulling off their "jane and john doe" lawsuits here (and rightflully so).
The position many have taken is these lawsuits are a form of "Speculative invoicing" and the Canadian courts don't allow this (it is considered "fraud on the courts").
They have also attempted to "bundle" the lawsuits to keep their court costs low, and again this is being questioned.
You can read more here: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6805/125/
I guess given enough pressure from the US canada will take a similar view and start all the lawsuit stuff where single moms are forced into bankruptcy when they would face no such charge had they actually just stolen the CD.
Did you RTFA? Apparently RightsCorp gives the ISP the list of IPs for free. They make their money off of the folks who do the downloading ("for $20 per track or movie we'll remove your name from this list we're sending to your ISP"). Anyone still on the list goes to the ISP who is legally required to send letters to the subscriber. This increases their chances of losing the customer. Without the list of IPs provided by RightsCorp, the ISP legally doesn't have to do anything.
So "I'll sell you this list of IP addresses for $10 each" would be met with "sorry, no idea who you are or what you're talking about, kthxby"
Sounds more like Blackmail.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Also, the minimum wage isn't supposed to be a living wage.
And why is that? Someone working full-time should be able to at least support themselves. Or is that too much to ask? Actually, it feeds right into the oligarchs' plans. Keep the great unwashed too poor and busy working two or three jobs to get involved and make a positive difference for themselves and their fellow citizens.
It's disgusting. Even $10.10/hour is only $21,008/year, assuming a 40 hour work week and no time off at all. That breaks down to gross pay of $1751/month. That's net pay (assuming 15% withholding for federal taxes and 6.25% SS/Medicare withholding) of $1378.65/month (note, this does not include state or local taxes, so it's less in places where those taxes apply). Yes, I know that folks making that wage will likely get most of that back as a tax refund, but that doesn't help them on a day to day basis.
So. A single person making ~$1400/month. Please tell me how many of you could live on that. Just you, not your kids or your spouse. And if you have a couple of young kids and need day care, clothes, car, food, electricity (should that be optional?), etc., etc., etc?
But the minimum wage isn't $10.10/hour. It's $7.25/hour. After taxes, that works out to be $989.63/month. Try living on that. Sigh.
I just did some simple calculations. Apparently, that's too difficult for some people. Or they're selfish, mean-spirited jerks who have no empathy. What do we call those with no empathy? Sociopaths.
In the richest country that *ever* existed, in an era of post-scarcity (at least here in the US) with productivity through the roof and increasing rapidly, how can we allow this? It just makes me want to hurl.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Take that advise with a grain of salt. It all depends where the guy you are extorting lives. In Sweden, extortion by threatening to file a police report or lawsuit is a felony, punishable with 2 years in prison.
What is this supposed to be, a badge of honor? Or is this stockholm syndrome? "Well I subjected myself to systemic abuse and overwork to just barely keep myself from becoming homless! There's nothing wrong with that!"
At the moment it was obvious that corporations were more powerful than most people, and would would abuse them to the extent they could get away with.
You're a mean spirited jerk because you assume that people who live in poverty have the time and resources to improve their skills.
Which works well for a small subset of people.
Indeed, in the richest country that ever existed why are people paid such poor wages and so often do without basic necessities (that they can't afford due to said same low wages)? Don't worry, the corporations you exalt are doing a great job at removing incentives for people to work hard by ensuring that hard work doesn't necessarily pay off.
No, it's about pointing out how the system is rigged and they are being taken advantage of for the sake of quarterly profits.
Does this smell anything like the platform that our current president ran on, twice?
We don't need to pay more in taxes, we need to stop spending so much on things like war, unnecessary civil developments (Silent railroad crossings?), corporate welfare, politician pensions, etc. You're addressing a symptom of the problem, not the root: government spending and thieving to support private interests that are funneled through government spending.
Yes, there is a lot of waste in government. Especially on the military side. And corporate welfare and all kinds of other things. Government spending is absolutely an issue. Creating a fairer tax code would help too. Also, having economic and tax policies that encourage reinvestment in our society, its infrastructure and instruments of personal advancement (education, fairer employer/employee interactions, health care, child care, etc., etc., etc.) would be extremely helpful, IMHO.
The Democratic party and the Republican party are completely under the control of our oligarchs. Wealth and income inequality, the limiting of social mobility (through poor education, the growth of the prison population, destruction of full-time jobs, etc., etc., etc.), the rise of the surveillance (both government, and more troubling, corporate) society and the huge lies being told and believed about who benefits are all consequences of this.
The Obama administration is doing the same things the Bush administration did. The House and Senate (regardless of party) are just as corrupt and broken. Just because the Democrats sometimes *talk* about social justice and equality of opportunity, doesn't mean they're actually doing anything about it. The political theater of the "left" and "right" (if you really look at the actual, not the stated, policies of both "sides" we're not really very far apart) sets us against each other while the oligarchs bleed us. It's really sad.
Massive government spending is just another symptom. The root of the problem is that our government is beholden to the monied interests. They aren't going to loosen their grip unless we force them to do so. I wish I knew how to do that.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
United States military spending is the highest in the world (higher than the countries in positions 2 through 9 COMBINED, and some of those countries are our staunch allies.) If you cut out our allies France, United Kingdom, and Germany we outspend the other 11 on the list on that Wikipedia page combined. Who are we afraid is going to invade us? Who are we planning to invade?
If we wanted to cut our spending to the point where we're outspending China and Russia combined by 50% (at which point our spending would exceed the combined military budgets of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and France) we could drop a little over 226 billion dollars. That's not a small chunk of money.
You'd think that'd be classified as extortion.
YES. There have been some RICO lawsuits started. I don't think they've been decided (or even heard) yet.
Not only is this pretty blatantly "racketeering", but when other companies tried to do this before, courts found that in order to tell who was infringing copyrights, the "detection" company had to be breaking the same laws as the people they were trying to out.
It is not permissible to break the law in order to enforce the law.
And yes, the basic business model is extortion. Every case I have read about lately having to do with this has run into courts that acknowledged that the methods being used were fundamentally extortionate. EFF has been winning left and right, as well. Where they haven't been directly involved in defense they have often provided amicus briefs to the court in the cases, and in a very high proportion of those cases, the courts have ruled just as EFF suggested was legally proper.
Oh, but don't worry. They are already lobbying for "IP address == real person". The "internet passport" is coming sooner than you might think.
Nonsense.
They've tried to pull the "ip address = person" BS for years. And they've been losing, right and left.
Not just frequency but increasingly courts are recognizing that not only does IP address not equal a person, but that it's not even CLOSE.
Take my case, for instance. I run an open guest internet account as a public service. Not just somebody next door but anybody in my neighborhood can connect to the internet from my router, and often do. In fact, I just looked and I see that there are 3 people outside my household who have connected just in the last 24 hours.
Sometimes it's someone living nearby. Sometimes it's someone walking or driving by with their cellphone. It could be someone in a car with a laptop. I don't know and I don't care.
I don't understand how you guys think you can get away with this.
How "us guys think we can get away" with WHAT? What is it you think I am doing wrong? Please be specific.
The law doesn't like losing, so it is phrased for the win.
"The law" isn't losing, it's winning. THE LAW says an IP address is not probable cause. Many courts, including Federal courts, have clearly said so. One court ruled not long ago that not only does an IP address not equal a person, often it doesn't even equal a house. As I illustrated in my example.
The people who are losing are those who are trying to extort money from others who are "innocent"... or at least who have not committed any crimes. That's a victory for THE LAW, not a loss. The law does not like extortion and intimidation of common citizens.
The account holder paying the bill is responsible for the usage so if you let other people use your connection you are responsible for what they do with it, especially even more so since you purposely failed to secure your connection by providing this "public service" you are even more on the hook for it
Is this what you think I have been doing wrong? I think you misunderstand. *I* am the account holder, and I pay for a premium account. *I* am letting my neighbors use my internet, which *I* pay too much to the cable company for.
But even if it was a misunderstanding of what you meant, you are still wrong. Legally, I am very much NOT responsible for what other people do with it.
If you loaned your rifle to a neighbor who was going hunting, and he killed somebody with it instead, does that mean you are guilty of murder? Of course not.
If somebody "borrowed" or stole the rake I left sitting in the front yard, and used it to kill somebody, would I be guilty of murder? Of course not.
THE LAW says that you are not responsible for what somebody else does with something of yours, unless you were complicit in the act. If you loaned your rifle to him SO THAT he could murder somebody, then yes you are a criminal. Otherwise, no.
In the same way: if somebody uses my internet to do something that isn't kosher, it's their problem, and it very definitely is NOT my problem, under the law. I am not required by law to police my neighbor. That is something that happens in police states.
Why should my home be any different from an "internet cafe"? If you went into one, and did something wrong with the internet, would they be responsible by law? Of course not. If they were, internet cafes would have ceased to exist.
(By the way: the courts have ruled that my home is NOT different from an internet cafe, in that respect.)
I pay very close attention to the law in this regard. I should also mention that (A) some major ISPs are now renting out equipment so their customers can set up the same kind of public networks, and (B) the EFF highly recommends it for everybody.
I understand if that offends your concept of how the law works, but that is the way the law does work, and also how it should work in a free country.