Patent and Copyright Wars Gone Wild 197
snydeq writes "While Apple and Samsung fight over patents and prototypes, other copyright trolls are waging an X-rated battle on innocent users, as lawyers representing some adult movie companies are sending letters accusing users of illegally downloading their movies and saying that, for a price, they can make the charges go away. 'Cases like this, usually involving pornographic content, are very common,' Mitch Stoltz, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation said. At least 250,000 individuals have been named in group lawsuits over the last few years. There's a very common belief that if someone pirates your Wi-Fi connection or uses your computer without your permission, you are responsible for illegal downloads of copyrighted material. That's not true, says Stoltz; the law is quite clear. However, the lawyers who bring those cases use that misperception to convince innocent people that they had better pay up. Since $3,500 is just a fraction of the money it would take to fight a case in court, most people simply settle."
Stonewall or Fight! (Score:5, Informative)
IAAL, and I've worked on a bunch of these cases. The real problem is, it's almost always cheaper to settle than to fight. This is what we call a "cost of defense" shakedown: if it would cost $5k to fight, then it makes sense to pay $3k to make it go away. However, there are a few things to keep in mind:
* The trolls are very unlikely to go after any individual, no matter how much they huff and puff. The reason is, if they have 1000 Does in a complaint, and they start going against one of them, that Doe will (eventually) get copies of the evidence against him. If it's sh!t (and I believe it will probably turn out to be) then the other 999 Does will see that, and no longer be willing to pay.
* The insurance industry had a problem with cost-of-defense complaints: crappy auto accidents that weren't worth more than a few grand in damages. But they banded together and fought every single one of them (paying just the actual damages & medical, and fighting almost every "pain & suffering" claim). And now, you can hardly find a PI lawyer to take a small case -- they know there's no money in it. So the insurance companies don't have to fight any more, and they don't even consider paying anything you can't produce a receipt for.
The only way to clean up these trolls is if some Does sack up and fight, or if the courts stop going along with the shakedown.
They tried this in the UK... (Score:4, Informative)
And the courts weren't happy about it. The wording of the letter has to be extremely precise and boils down to:
We think you've been downloading porn, but we can't prove it. We'd like you to pay us some protection money, but legally we can't force you to without you agreeing to show us what's on your hard drive.
So, there's no onus on you to pay up whatsoever. Remember that IP addresses are still not considered solid evidence in most countries. To the extent that if your laptop gets stolen and you have an IP address and a GPS fix on the crook's address, the police often refuse to go round and batter the door down because it's they need more proof.
Not universally. (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dear Proprietarians and Patent Trolls (Score:5, Informative)
This. Holy shit that hurt to read.
This guy gets paid to write this article that's all over the place? Did he smoke a fattie while writing it or was he just drunk?
Yes, it's an actual issue. You're much better off reading Ray Beckerman's blog.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
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BMO
Re:Dear Proprietarians and Patent Trolls (Score:4, Informative)
However, I do wish more people that were unhappy with those in power would go and vote and write in "no one" or some such nonsense. It wont have a bearing on who is elected - just like staying home - but it will at least let those that are elected and those that lost know that you are unhappy and not just lazy. And maybe they will start to court your vote.
Re:Stonewall or Fight! (Score:4, Informative)
There are still some reasons to be hopeful. First, most judges are NOT very sympathetic to plaintiff attorneys representing pornographers, so they're looking for something, anything, to get those cases out of their courtrooms. This makes many judges very sympathetic to even the most amateur Motion to Quash Subpoenas [fightcopyrighttrolls.com] filed by pro-se Does or indeed just about any other motion that would give them an excuse to dismiss the case and get the aforementioned smut peddlers the hell out of their courtroom. If more people would take an hour or so to fill out and file some of these motions to quash their subpoenas or even just to dismiss the case, they might find that judges are sympathetic to their requests, amateur though they may be.
Re:Dear Proprietarians and Patent Trolls (Score:5, Informative)
Can we please just vote for "No President" for the next four years?
Belgium had between June 2010 and November 2011 no functioning central government (only a managing administration without own majority in the parliament) - and the country still functioned. So yes, "no president" could be an interesting and working way of politicking.