Anti-Piracy Lawyers Accuse Blind Man of Downloading Films

souravzzz writes "As the mass-lawsuits against BitTorrent users in the United States drag on, detail on the collateral damage this extortion-like scheme is costing becomes clear. It is likely that thousands of people have been wrongfully accused of sharing copyrighted material, yet they see no other option than to pay up. One of the cases that stands out is that of a California man who's incapable of watching the adult film he is accused of sharing because he is legally blind."

Presidential Appointments are Important

[Jodka]

A former RIAA lobbyist, Beryl Howell, is a now a federal judge ruling on these copyright extortion cases and siding with the extortionists:

Most cyber-pirates are prosecuted in the nation's capital. More than 85,000 John Does are currently caught in ongoing litigation in the district's federal court, according to the EFF. Not only is D.C. the home court of Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, it is also the jurisdiction of Judge Beryl Howell, who worked as a lobbyist for the RIAA from 2004 to 2009, during the peak of the organization's anti-piracy campaign....

Naturally, Howell's background has prompted skepticism about her impartiality when it comes to ruling on John Doe cases. She was paid $415,000 to lobby on the RIAA's behalf as the Executive Managing Director and General Counsel at Stroz Friedberg LLC, a consulting firm, according to the Center for Responsive Politics and the implu Corporation, a company that tracks spending by lobbying firms.

This appointment mischief was covered previously [slashdot.org]on Slashdot.

As pointed out previously [slashdot.org], Beryl Howard is a Obama appointee, and not his first RIAA appointee.

Re:Check his palms for what?

[SpeZek]

Yeah, no. That makes no sense, and that's not the joke. The joke comes from the very old myth that masturbating makes one grow hair on their palms (hence everyone will know you're a bad person).
Don't explain if you don't know the explanation.

Re:And?

[cdrguru]

As someone that knows, you might find it interesting to understand the definition of "legally blind" vs. more functional blindness.

I lived with a blind girl for a while. She was functionally blind and could see only extremely bright and extremely high contrast objects. For the most part, she couldn't see anything and was around five years old before she realized other people could see things.

A friend of the blind girl's was "legally blind". This meant that she couldn't get a driver's license but otherwise was quite functional. She could certainly watch TV, go to movies and read large-print books.

Legally blind does not mean "can't watch a movie" in any respect.