Slashdot Mirror
Falsely Accused Movie Pirate Deserves $17K Compensation, Court Says (torrentfreak.com)
An Oregon District Court has sided with a wrongfully accused man who was sued for allegedly downloading a pirated copy of the Adam Sandler movie "The Cobbler." According to the court's recommendations, reports TorrentFreak, the man is entitled to more than $17,000 in compensation as the result of the filmmakers "overaggressive" and "unreasonable" tactics. From the article: The defendant in question, Thomas Gonzales, operates an adult foster care home where several people had access to the Internet. The filmmakers were aware of this and during a hearing their counsel admitted that any guest could have downloaded the film. [...] "The Court finds that once Plaintiff learned that the alleged infringement was taking place at an adult group care home at which Gonzales did not reside, Plaintiff's continued pursuit of Gonzales for copyright infringement was objectively unreasonable," Judge Beckerman ruled. "The Court shares Gonzales' concern that Plaintiff is motivated, at least in large part, by extracting large settlements from individual consumers prior to any meaningful litigation. "On balance, the Court has concerns about the motivation behind Plaintiff's overaggressive litigation of this case and other cases, and that factor weighs in favor of fee shifting."
Diminished capacity defense.
Have gnu, will travel.
Isn't $17k more then this movie made?
The damages would have been quite higher if they could have proven he actually watched that terrible movie.
$17000 is a little absurd considering how many safeguards the industry puts in place to ensure false accusation doesnt occur. For example, does the accused sink, or float in water? is he capable of reading aloud holy scripture? these are valid and important precursors to ever filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement. For example, almost never has anyone accused of copyright infringement been brought before a court to testify after the MPAA has performed the important dunking and crushing under boulder tests to ensure the individuals absolute guilt prior to litigation.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The reason he deserves that much (and maybe more) is because his reputation is totally ruined. People now believe he actually wanted to watch The Cobbler with Adam Sandler and there is no coming back from that.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"