Thread: New Litigation Campaign Targets 20,000 BitTorrent Users

I agree with you, stealing is stealing, doesn't matter how you put it. And "by law", you are absolutely right! Proving specific damages is another matter entirely. The problem is, when you are about to punish counterfeiters that make money, public is behind you. When you are about to punish "hackers" that break into computers, public is behind you. But when you are about to punish ordinary citizens (and in some cases, school kids) it is not that simple. Sure, if we are talking about people like us, registered at private trackers, invite only entrance, keeping their ratios intact, we are talking about savvy "pirates"! We know exactly what we are doing! But what about school kid, or a mom, innocently browsing the web, comes across a link that says - "DOWNLOAD THIS MOVIE FOR FREE"? He or she just clicks on the link, gets an offer to install client program to download content, and just downloads that movie! As simple as that! And the very next day, BAM! You are being sued for copyright infringement!

I just remembered a case when a woman sued McDonald's for not putting warning on a cup of coffee about the drink being HOT!!!! And she won!

Originally Posted by Rellik

Here's the thing: copyright damages are prescribed by statute. A plaintiff does not have to prove they lost even one cent (or ruble ) to recover damages that can seem staggering relative to the infringement (link). One example: last year Joel Tenenbaum lost a lawsuit vs. the RIAA and was ordered to pay $675,000 in damages for downloading and sharing 30 songs, or $22,500 for each song! This is because of the statutory damages remedy for copyright infringement as I can assure you that the plaintiffs could never have proven that Tenenbaum sharing 30 songs cost anyone anything close to $675,000.



Ah yes, the infamous McDonald's case where a woman was awarded $3 million for burning herself with coffee. Well known but little understood. Wikipedia has a nice write up of the case if you are interested.

Right, and the key quote from your link, IMHO, is: "At least in America, the original rationale for statutory damages was that it would often be difficult to establish the number of copies that had been made by an underground pirate business and awards of statutory damages would save rights holders from having to do so."

If you begin to apply this law to ordinary citizens that broke the law, but did not "profit" from breaking it, you are loosing the rationale. I don't want to start "saving" vs "profiting" debate, technically, "saving" is "profiting" :001_smile:. If we get thousands of cases agains ordinary people who downloaded copyrighted material, the law will be changed and, probably, such "crimes" will be qualified as shoplifting at most :001_smile:

The problem with MCD case is that it contradicts common sense. Law for the sake of law just does not work. Potential implication of the MCD case was that any business was suddenly potentially liable for clumsiness (I would like to use another word here :001_smile:) of its customers. In a civilized world, that would mean only one thing - higher insurance premiums, which will be included in the price of goods and services. And at some point, it is just to much to pay just for the sake of law :001_smile:

I guess, I am just trying to say the following. Even if you have basis for a lawsuit, it might not be wise to go to court. The reason is simple. If copyright holders push too far, the law might change to _require_ them to protect their material against unauthorized digital distribution! Move this battle to purely technical ground, so to speak. But they already lost that war :001_smile:

This is scary.

I have a some questions. First, would using PeerGuardian, Transmission's IP blocking feature, or a similar technology protect me?

Also, I have made donations to both What and Waffles. Do these donations put me at risk? Do What and Waffles store my PayPal info? Could these industry associations force What and Waffles to reveal my PayPal info? Could PayPal report me to these industry associations?

Finally, how difficult would it be for these industry associations to infiltrate private trackers? Couldn't they take the What IRC interview and get invites to trackers just like we can?

@thetorrent

Well, my friend, there are two opinions in this thread. It depends, which one, you think, has more merit :) No question, Rellik's argument is well though out, supported by quotes and reference links . If you think he is right, you better save something close to $1 million, just to be safe. And I am not going into your PayPal private tracker financing activity! That could get you in trouble with federal authorities (Rellik will correct me, if I am wrong, but you are actively participating in a cross-state illegal distribution enterprise :001_smile:). If you think that my argument has more merit, then using common sense is enough to keep you out of trouble :001_smile: PeerGuardian, or similar program, will block well known IP blocks used by P2P adversaries. Using proxy or VPN service from another country will make it much harder to track you down, but will definitely kill your upload speed. And most important thing is, use common sense when you choose things you are about to download! Stay away from torrents that distribute content that is actively sold by its copyright holder at the moment. It is pure economics, if you are downloading movie theater screener, you are not paying for a movie theater ticket :001_smile: Thus, you are having conflict of interest with copyright owner.

@Rellik Well, it is time for me to admit that you won the argument . But for our mutual good, I hope that my scenario will prevail :001_smile:. Otherwise, US of A will be flooded with lawsuits