Judge Rules BitTorrent Cases Must Be Tried Separately 60
PhrostyMcByte writes: "TorrentFreak reports that Federal Judge Stephanie Rose recently put a thorn in the plans of copyright holders hoping to file cheap mass-lawsuits against alleged pirates. Rejecting all but one Doe for such a lawsuit, Rose's order mentions that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate the five Does in the case were a part of the same 'transaction' needed to be tried together, with an uncommon understanding of BitTorrent showing that '... even in all five cases where Doe defendants allegedly have "hit dates" on the same day and close in time, there is no showing that the earlier defendants were still connected to the Internet and actively distributing data through the BitTorrent client at the same time as the later defendants.'"
Well thats a first (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well thats a first (Score:5, Insightful)
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Aye, those 'suits make them look fat.
Re:Well thats a first (Score:4, Funny)
If only they pulled them out of the air. They actually pull them out of their asses.
After all this time, you'd think they'd need a new ass.
Re:Well thats a first (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe this will be the judge to finally rip them a new one.
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He's not. He's a lawyer. Read it again!
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No, they have a body that can really take that kind of punishment. Every once in awhile someone on here links to a pictures of their asshole demonstrating (except they never tell us they're linking to it for some reason).
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They make an ass of the law then they pull numbers out of it.
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These aren't "prosecutions"; they're lawsuits. Civil, that is.
And the law allows for statutory damages. The copyright holder doesn't have to show any "real losses".
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Wiktionary [wiktionary.org] disagrees with your suggestion in the terminology.
Fixed.
By the way, to understand legal terms, you might try a legal dictionary. Perhpas this one, if you insist on only using stuff that's online and free: thelawdictionary.org/prosecution/ [thelawdictionary.org]
Because ones you pay for are better. That is why government is so expensive.
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Real damages.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well In theory damages would be limited to (data uploaded) / (File Size) * $1.29 * 0.70 at most.
However when you consider that the common bit torrent user likely doesn't seed files long enough to even reach 1:1 ratio... well the lawsuits aren't particularly economical that way.
Instead they prefer to pursue each user as if they alone are solely responsible for uploading to the entire swarm!
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Re:Well thats a first (Score:5, Interesting)
The interesting thing is that there are no real losses in the case of bit-torrent, because the projections of losses are based on counterfactuals (if x had not downloaded y then...), i.e. possible worlds that are not the actual one. As long as the ontological status of possible worlds is not settled, the reality of the losses is not settled, and so being prosecuted for torrenting based on the supposed losses you have caused someone is no different from being prosecuted for imagined murder, or imaginary pickpocketing.
If David Lewis were still alive the RIAA/MPAA would be writing him such a massive fucking research grant cheque right now.
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And this is why statutory damages are usually sought.
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Statutory damages are supposed to be a reasonably likely figure to be used as a sort of judicial shortcut. Unfortunately, in these cases they are nothing of the sort. Of course, the statutory values were originally intended to be for cases of commercial violation where someone is selling bootleg copies for profit. The many X vs a bunch of downloaders are abusing the statutory value and the courts are letting them.
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There is some validity in computing probable losses based on well supported evidence. The problem is in the entirely unrealistic figures that are being used to justify the statutory values.
Those include assuming that the torrent user actually provided the data they downloaded to everyone else who ever downloaded the torrent. They compound it by assuming that 100% of the people who bothered to download it for free would have otherwise bought it at full retail price.
In fact, a more fair assessment would be th
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Basically, this has happened in the past, and while it changes the cost/benefit ratio it has done nothing to stop these trolls. Now they're starting to target people more discriminatingly. While that's better than the shotgun approach they've b
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Looking at this another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
This judge just assured himself and his lawyer friends of income for the rest of their lives...
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While I have a well earned disdain for lawyers, I see nothing wrong with having 4 lawyers and a judge entangled in a meaningless duel until they all die.
From the specifics of this story, I do want the defense attorneys to win the vast majority of similar cases, but anything that keeps more of the feral lawyer population away from defenseless civilians is a good thing in my mind. My apologies to those who will be caught up as defendants in this nonsense, but remember that your suffering in the company of th
Re:Looking at this another way... (Score:5, Funny)
While I have a well earned disdain for lawyers, I see nothing wrong with having 4 lawyers and a judge entangled in a meaningless duel until they all die.
From the specifics of this story, I do want the defense attorneys to win the vast majority of similar cases, but anything that keeps more of the feral lawyer population away from defenseless civilians is a good thing in my mind. My apologies to those who will be caught up as defendants in this nonsense, but remember that your suffering in the company of these creatures is time that they won't be threatening others with their cancerous philosophy.
Oh, sure, it's quite comfy under this bus. Come join us.
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Re:Looking at this another way... (Score:5, Funny)
This judge just assured himself and his lawyer friends of income for the rest of their lives...
Since the summary specifically says 'Federal Judge Stephanie Rose', are you assuming the first payments will be going towards gender-reassignment surgery?
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are you assuming the first payments will be going towards gender-reassignment surgery?
Hell no! Isn't the State responsible to pay for that surgery? After all it is a right to be happy all the time for free is it not?
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Federal judges get lifetime appointments. Apparently neither you nor the people who modded your post have taken 12 grade Social Studies yet.
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In reality, they have to be convicted of a crime to lose their jobs.
Seems right (Score:3)
I don't see any other outcome as reasonable. The one catch is going to be that I'm not sure that this will apply to judicial circuits.
Court Locator [uscourts.gov] - Shows court boundaries.
How painful this is for the plaintiff... (Score:5, Informative)
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Interestingly, it does suggest a strategy to deter litigation if you are ever caught up in one of these cases or to crumble the plaintiff's whole scheme if the defendants could all coordinate.
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Interestingly, it does suggest a strategy to deter litigation if you are ever caught up in one of these cases or to crumble the plaintiff's whole scheme if the defendants could all coordinate.
The defendants can't coordinate, because they are all John Does. Nobody knows who the defendants actually are. Including the defendants. If _you_ are a defendant, then you can increase the cost of suing you by insisting that you are not part of a group.
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Which means paying about 20 more money for lawyers etc. Suddenly it's not a way to make money anymore.
Well it just means it is far more expensive. Also it means much more revenue for the court system. At the bare minimum, each trial means a separate filing fee. This means instead of a few hundred dollars to the court, the court gets tens of thousands of dollars. Some might see this as a greedy motive but the filing fee helps defray the costs that taxpayers must fund. A court hearing 100 cases should get 100 filing fees to help pay for the administration of the court system.
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That's a relief. (Score:4, Funny)
I was really wanting to get more Linux ISOs for my collection!
Might not be the best way forward (Score:2)
Re:Might not be the best way forward (Score:4, Insightful)
That $140,000 is per instance of copyright infringement. Even though they are lumping the cases together, they are still claiming that each John Doe engaged in at least one instance of copyright infringement.
What this does do is increase the costs of the person suing for copyright infringement. Before they needed to file one case against 100 John Does, argue their case, collect the 100 names, and then send the "settle or else" threat letters. If this ruling gets applied to all cases, they will need to file 100 different cases - each against 1 John Doe. In each case, they will need to present evidence to get the name and then send their settlement letters. The costs involved just skyrocketed to the point that suing people for non-commercial file sharing (as opposed to, say, selling movies to people online when you don't have the permission to) will be a money-losing proposition.
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And at least one judge ( in a Prenda case, I think) has said that the plaintiffs can't claim that they are all part of the same infringement for the purposes of joining all the defendants to a single case, and then claim that each person seperately committed the purported copyright infringement for th
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That $140,000 is per instance of copyright infringement.
Assuming that you're talking about the $150,000 maximum on statutory damages for copyright infringement, no, you're wrong.
Statutory damages are calculated per work, not per infringement. The number of infringements might perhaps have some bearing on the amount of damages which is just, between the minimum and maximum. But there is only one award, no matter how many separate infringements of that work there are, at least in the same case.
The relevant statute is 17 USC 504(c)(1) [cornell.edu].
This issue is raised again and again in these case (Score:2)
In a huge amount of these cases, the issue of whether the members should be sued individually comes up again and again.
Seemingly, each judge seems to make their own decision on this. In the cases where the judge rules that they should be split up, the case is dropped. Then rinse and repeat with a new judge and new set of defendants.
After 3-4 years of this, hasn't there been a precedent or something or higher level court getting involved so that all these judges don't have to reconsider the same argument ove
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After 3-4 years of this, hasn't there been a precedent or something or higher level court getting involved so that all these judges don't have to reconsider the same argument over and over again?
No... and there won't be a precedent, until the RIAA finds a judge willing to solidify the precedent that is favorable to them.