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Canadian Copyright Notice-and-Notice System: Citing False Legal information
An anonymous reader writes Canada's new copyright
notice-and-notice system has been in place for less than a
week, but rights holders are already exploiting a loophole to send
demands for payment citing false legal information. Earlier this
week, a Canadian
ISP forwarded to Michael Geist a sample notice it received
from Rightscorp on behalf of BMG. The notice falsely warns that the
recipient could be liable for up to $150,000 per infringement when
the reality is that Canadian law caps liability for non-commercial
infringement at $5,000 for all infringements. The notice also warns
that the user's Internet service could be suspended, yet there is no
such provision under Canadian law. In a nutshell, Rightscorp and BMG
are using the notice-and-notice system to require ISPs to send
threats and misstatements of Canadian law in an effort to extract
payments based on unproven infringement allegations.
I am not sure, I agree with that in general. Some kinds of infringement may be less serious than some kinds of extortion, perhaps, but here is perfectly legal speech being used to suppress illegal actions. Shrug...
I'm also quite certain, that you'd call it "extortion" even if every word in the notice were perfectly truthful.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
IANAL, but suppressing copyright infringement is neither unfair nor unlawful. Whatever else may be wrong about it, fraud it is not.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
No, it does not. Fraud:
When used to suppress illegal activity (such as copyright infringement), lying is neither "unfair" nor "unlawful" gain.
Are you committing fraud, when threatening to shoot a burglar? If one doesn't actually have a weapon and would not shoot a human being anyway — such a person is lying to the criminal and deceiving him to protect his own person and property. Is that fraud?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.