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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."
The current ruling is about *compensation*, not punitive damages. If he wants to file for punitive damages, he's now in a position to file for that. It's two separate things.
Jack Valenti, who shaped the modern era of the MPAA as its President for 38 years, was not Jewish. His parents were Italian immigrants, so it's fairly likely that he was Catholic.
On Valenti's stepping-down in 2004, Dan Glickman was made President of the MPAA. He admittedly was Jewish, but he doesn't appear to have changes Valenti's policies too dramatically.
Glickman left the MPAA in 2010 after only six years, to be replaced by Chuck Dodd, who is not Jewish.
So for the last fifty years, someone whose religion can be described as Jewish was the head of the MPAA only 12% of the time. This seems to rather invalidate your argument.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Doesn't sound sufficiently punitive to me.
The defendant did NOT ask for punitive damage but only the rewards which are expenses that the defendant had to pay out of pocket during the litigation.
*** From the court document ***
Gonzales has filed a motion for an award of costs and attorney’s fees. (Def.’s Mot. Att’y Fees, ECF No. 47.) Specifically, Gonzales seeks $264.60 in costs and $17,222.40 in attorney’s fees, for successfully defending Plaintiff’s contributory infringement claim.
That wasn't what happened, however. The court determined that it was unreasonable for the studio to continue to pursue litigation when they knew that the person did not live there (irrespective of whether or not he was innocent), and that is why he was awarded damages.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'