RIAA Victim Wins Attorney's Fees 171
VE3OGG writes "Debbie Foster, one of the many caught-up in the RIAA's drift-net attacks who was sued back in 2004 has recently seen yet another victory. After having the suit dropped against her "with prejudice" several months back, Foster filed a counter-claim, and has just been awarded "reasonable" attorney's fees. Could this, in conjunction with cases such as Santangelo, show a turning of the tide against the RIAA?"
Open up your networks! (Score:5, Interesting)
However...
The bit that caught my eye, though, was the quote
Me like. If that can be said to be a precedent, it means anyone with an unsecured WiFi network has a strong argument for not being held liable for anything done on that network - it's open, after all. Anyone could drive by, park, download [insert bad stuff here], and drive off. Unless the prosecution has video surveillance of your house/apartment, it'll be very hard to *prove* who did what.
It seems the best protection may be none at all. How very Zen.
Simon
unsecured WiFi (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, that said, if they get a search warrant and strip your house bare and find that 'backup' cd hidden away with one of the files in question, your quite logical defense melts away like an ice cube in hell.
About time. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:unsecured WiFi (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Open up your networks! (Score:4, Interesting)
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
And now
Insecurity is protection
A few years late, but not unexpected..
Re:Open up your networks! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Open up your networks! (Score:3, Interesting)
My open WAP could (and has) been used like a cheap whore by many people.
Alas, the transparent proxy has thwarted many attempts at pure stupidity (using my WAP to do your banking is asking for it), thus https is blocked by default (as is port 21, and 25, and bittorrent).
-nB
We all know what "reasonable" means to the RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Open up your networks! (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's see them modify the law to state "...will be held accountable unless you're a big company".
I guess that's ultimately what will happen, only with wording that will make it less obvious. Sadly, the United States always seems to legislate in ways that screw the citizen while protecting the corporate entity. But who knows; we all might get a free-be here.
Re:RIAA already won (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
I had an email exchange today with their head lawyer, and he seemed a bit confused.
Yes they're going to do things differently. For one thing, they are never going to try that stupid secondary liability argument again. For another thing, in most cases they're going to drop the case sooner. Thirdly, they're going to act real, real polite to Marilyn Barringer-Thomson, the superb Oklahoma City lawyer who made this happen.
Re:RIAA already won (Score:1, Interesting)
However, the real perpetrators are a bit of a mixed bag which is why they prefer to sue their own potential customers. It's easier to sue a 12 year old who barely knows how a system works, or a dead granny, than it is to go after the people that reproduce CDs and DVDs for a living. It's just that the fear factor doesn't work when your economic model is so unrealistic that you still just get ignored.
Having said that, if they wouldn't charge so much it would kill piracy overnight - if I recall correctly that was proven in one country where they did just that. Literally overnight the market for pirated works collapsed.
Oh, and the MPAA should shut up that one participant that still wants region limiting. I've heard of quite a few execs themselves that region limiting is stupid. Typically, people that travel (i.e. with money to spend) buy a lot of movies on the fly, but only the ones they buy legitimately won't play when they get home from another region. How stupid is that?
Re:Open up your networks! (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is that? Is it illegal to have an open access point?
I definitely know how to secure my wireless network, but I choose not to. I want people visiting my place to be able to easily connect to my network and the internet. Exchanging lengthy WPA keys every time is too much of a hassle.
Re:ummm... no. (Score:3, Interesting)
A gun is not a Wifi connection, the sole purpose of a gun is to shoot and kill things ( which in some cases may be legal but in the majority of cases is not ) whereas a Wifi connection is a perfectly reasonable thing for anyone to run perfectly legal.
I would imagine that leaving your guns lying around on your porch is already illegal in most places whereas there is nothing illegal about running Wifi hubs. You are basically suggesting that accidentally leaving your car unlocked and it then being used in a robbery or hit and run child slaying would leave you open prosecution as well as the actual perpetrators of the crime.
If there was overwhelming evidence that you had set up your wifi for the sole purpose of encouraging illegal activity then you may well find yourself in trouble but no one but the most slack jawed, dribbling, shambling idiot would ever be so stupid as allow that to be the case.