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UK Has First Verdict in P2P Case 193

Posted by Zonk from the it-doesn't-look-good dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Two British men have been found guilty of illegally sharing music via a P2P network. The BBC reports that their defense of 'Not knowing it was illegal' and that 'There was no evidence' did not hold water, and they have been ordered to pay the BPI 'between £1500 and £5000' - probably with double that again in costs. Theis isn't the first time the BPI has launched a case of this kind - but it is the first time the accused has tried to fight instead of stumping up the cash straight away. Three other verdicts are pending."
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UK Has First Verdict in P2P Case More

UK Has First Verdict in P2P Case

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  • Ignorance... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zenmojodaddy ( 754377 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:53AM (#14579667)
    Since when has ignorance of the law been a valid defence?

    • Re:Ignorance... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Kookus ( 653170 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:54AM (#14579682) Journal
      Ask Bush, He'll tell ya how well that works.

    • Re:Ignorance... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by britneys 9th husband ( 741556 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:54AM (#14579692) Homepage Journal
      Since when has "There was no evidence" NOT been a valid defense?

      • Re:Ignorance... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jxyama ( 821091 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @12:03PM (#14579813)
        I remember on 9/11, some clever people took advantage of network shortages in Manhattan to withdraw money from ATM, thinking there was no consequence. Some of them were charged and found guilty.

        I also heard another case where some people in midwest figured out that they could swipe their drivers license at the gas pump and it would dispense gas for "free." Those people were charged and found guilty.

        In both cases, just like this P2P case, you can claim "I didn't know it was illegal." I am guessing that such naive "confession" isn't really applicable or effective as a defense (and shouldn't be, in my opinion) beyond certain point since people were getting things of monetary value for "free."

        In all cases, the prosecution had evidence on who and what was involved: withdrawer/money, motorist/gas, sharer/copyrighted music. All "I didn't know it was illegal" defends is the intent. That's not "no evidence."

        • Re:Ignorance... (Score:3, Interesting)

          by deviantphil ( 543645 )
          See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_ excusat [wikipedia.org]

          Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Latin for "ignorance of the law is no excuse") is a public policy holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely because he or she was unaware of its content; that is, persons have presumed knowledge of the law.

          • Re:Ignorance... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by IgnoramusMaximus ( 692000 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @03:41PM (#14582673)
            That is only sane of course if the law is either simple enough to be comprehended by an average citizen or is intuitively obvious. Unfortunately, not only this is no longer true, some, particularly those who profit from this situation, do everything in their power to make sure that average citizens do not have a chance to understand the law. Thus yet another form of tyranny is born. And it is no coincidence that a vast majority of politicians are ex-lawyers.
      • It's not a valid defense in those cases where there actually is evidence.

        • Re:Ignorance... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Antifuse ( 651387 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMryanwaddell.com> on Friday January 27, 2006 @12:21PM (#14580024) Homepage
          From TFA: The first defendant, from King's Lynn, said the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement, but the judges dismissed this and ordered him to make an immediate payment of £5,000. Does that mean that there WAS evidence? Or that the judge just said "Bah, we don't need no evidence!"? A very poorly written article.

        • Re:Ignorance... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by pla ( 258480 )
          It's not a valid defense in those cases where there actually is evidence.

          So of course, BPI has either pictures of these guys actually in the act of sharing music, or credibile witnesses that claims to have watched them do so?

          No evidence means just that. The BPI has an IP address and a filename. By the same standards of "proof", you could convict Richard Nixon of bank robbery on no better evidence than someone wearing a Nixon Halloween mask during the crime.


          As unlikely as you may consider it (from
          • The article gives no basis whatsoever on which to make a judgement one way or the other about whether there was evidence. The fact that he lost the case suggests that there might have been some, after all.

            Then again, he says that there wasn't and I'm sure that he's a completely unbiased observer, so that's that settled.

      • Apparently there was enough evidence to convict these two idiots.

        Ya know, there's an easy way to avoid this kind of thing...

        STOP SHARING COPYRIGHTED WORKS YOU DON'T OWN

        • Re:Ignorance... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Catbeller ( 118204 )
          "STOP SHARING COPYRIGHTED WORKS YOU DON'T OWN"

          So if I own the music, it's okay then.

          By the way, no one can own music. You can own an object, like a CD or if you're a record company, the master. But music is not property and you can't own it. You can hold a copyright, but that's it. Music belongs to the world. That's sanity. That's how it works.

          The idea is to give the copy-rights to someone for a limited time, to encourage the arts and help the artist get paid. Then the music is released into the commons.

          Thi

          • Re:Ignorance... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Tim C ( 15259 )
            That's all well and good, and forms part of a valid method of protest. However, in that case, you must be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions - protesting a law like that means being prepared to go to jail, protesting all the way that the law is wrong.
          • So can we take it that you agree with prosecuting people who share copywrited works less than 15 years old?
            • Make that "copyrighted". Sorry. Every crappy message board in the world has an "edit" function, except the one run by the uber-geek technomeisters. Go figure...

          • Re:Ignorance... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @01:10PM (#14580683) Homepage
            This has stopped. The contract has been broken; copyright is forever. We didn't break the deal, they did. So let the war continue, the sane versus the greedy. The war ends when copyrights stop being construed as "owning the music" whereever it exists, and become 15 year limited exclusive rights granted by the law. When music and ideas are not "property", a mad concept designed to meter people's minds.

            Excep that 95%+ of all copyright violators I know don't give a flying fsck about any of that. They couldn't care less about what was released 15 years ago, they want what was released at the cinema last week. The war is between the greedy and the greedy, And the people who are really getting screwed are the customers who'd like to make some sort of compromise. I've never ever gotten a rootkit via MP3s, do put it quite frankly. I've never had any downloaded movie tell me that I'm in the wrong zone or that it won't let me fast forward. And I sure haven't had a movie disable my player, like Blu-Ray threatens to. Trusted Computing is gong to make me a dog on a leash, only allowed to do what my master the TCPA computer will let me. "Leashed computing" would be much more accurate. Why should I let myself be treated this way? And with apologies to Harry Potter: "Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy."
    • It's every citizen's responsibility to be aware of the laws they must live by.

      However, I have an issue with this in the US. With federal codes comprising 50 titles plus who-knows-how-many state and local laws, and with them continually changing, I don't know how anyone is supposed to remember and keep up with all of them.

  • Clarification (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ctrl+Alt+De1337 ( 837964 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:54AM (#14579684) Homepage
    For those of you unwilling to RTFA, "BPI" is the British Phonographic Industry.

  • Evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kittyflipping ( 840166 ) * on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:55AM (#14579697) Homepage
    How is this possible? Aren't they using the file names to determine infringement? What kind of 'evidence' is that? If I purposely renamed a bunch of legal files to look like copywritten mp3 and make them available on P2P am I liable for damages too?

    • Re:Evidence? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by thefirelane ( 586885 )
      You realize, just because someone can go to extrodinary lengths to simulate a crime, doesn't mean that evidence of that crime is invalid in all cases. That's why we have judges to decide these things.
      • That's why we have judges to decide these things.
        The same judges who decided, and have still not backed down from the idea, that fingerprints meet standards of evidence in prosecution?

    • Re:Evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by OctoberSky ( 888619 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @12:07PM (#14579857)
      Well you can break the law through "intent to break the law" only.

      For instance if you buy 1 pound of baking soda off a guy but he sells it to you as cocaine, that is illegal. If you take the baking soda and then (thinking it is cocaine) try and sell it to another individual as cocaine that is also illegal (you intended to sell an illegal drug). This is different from the sale of baking soda as cocaine (which is also a crime). I think that is sale of an imitation controlled substance.

      If you unknowingly downloaded false files (unknowingly because you thought they were real) and shared them on the network as the real files (maybe you never checked them when you initially got them) then you might be charged with illegal file trading (or what ever they were charged with) because you intended to trade files that are copyrighted.

      But in your case, where you knowingly make up fake files and pawn them off as real (for whatever reason) I don't think they can get you for that. But if John Doe takes them from you and does the above (trades them as real) he might be brought up on charges because he intended to break copyright laws.

      But I am not a Lawyer, I just play one on TV. And by play one on TV I mean I make shit up and post it on Slashdot.
      • On the other hand, if John Doe didn't realize that the actual files he was after were under copyright, and he ended up trading blank files, then presumably he could not be Ãpuished? First, he did not _intend_ to commit a crime and second, he did not _actually_ commit a crime . . . so ignorance can still be bliss :-)
      • Two words for you -- caveat emptor. Without trusting the seller or sampling the merchandise, you have no way of knowing what you're getting. In the case of RIAA lawsuits, if they're suing on false pretenses, this could be grounds for a countersuit.

        ObDisclaimer: IANAL.
      • Intending to break a law isn't illegal.

        Attempting to is (e.g attempted murder, attempted drug buy, etc). Selling imitation controlled substances is a statuatorily defined offense under US Federal law, by the way it is also a very good way to get yourself killed.

        We don't have "mindcrimes" yet.

      • For instance if you buy 1 pound of baking soda off a guy but he sells it to you as cocaine, that is illegal. If you take the baking soda and then (thinking it is cocaine) try and sell it to another individual as cocaine that is also illegal (you intended to sell an illegal drug). This is different from the sale of baking soda as cocaine (which is also a crime). I think that is sale of an imitation controlled substance.

        But what about this...

        You're sitting at home with a box of baking soda. You say "does
      • Impossibility is a valid defense ... You can't have sold cocaine if you didn't have any. You might be accused of conspiracy or attempting to commit particular crimes.
      • So if I were to download a file with the expectation that it was bogus then I'd be in the clear? Example, I see a file "Copyrighted.mp3". I decide to naively believe that nobody would put a copyrighted music file on the internet, so I download it to see what it really is. I realize that it is a copyrighted music file, so I "delete" it. I then seach for another file with the thought that the last download was just a fluke, and the cycle repeats. Since there are files on P2P networks that aren't what the
    • If I purposely renamed a bunch of legal files to look like copywritten mp3 and make them available on P2P am I liable for damages too?

      If you by a preponderance of evidence can show that you did do that, and that you did not download those files thinking they were real and that you were violating copyright, yes. Good luck with that. It's like seeing a car having been beaten up with a sledgehammer lying nearby, and then picking it up and waiting for the owner to see you.

      And the same goes for uploading too, bu

      • It's like seeing a car having been beaten up with a sledgehammer lying nearby, and then picking it up and waiting for the owner to see you.

        I don't buy that analogy. In that case there is clear evidence that a crime was committed. Not just a suspision that one was, but real evidence. And you've just went and implicated yourself. A slightly closer analogy would be if you picked up a beat-up car from the salvage yard, parked it in some parking lot and sat in a chair next to it holding a sledge hammer. A

  • Conversion (Score:2, Informative)

    by creepynut ( 933825 ) *
    £1500-£5000 == $2678.25-$8927.50 USD

  • It's A Brave New World. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:56AM (#14579716) Homepage

    "Ignorance is not a defense" That's a classic one. Seriously though... what if you played stupid like you don't even know what p2p is and stick to denying d/l. Of course they'll come back and say we have IP logs. But can't you use the "IP spoofing" or "I have a wireless router" idea? I would argue, ok if I stole this song... where is it? Show me that the one you apparently saw on my computer exists? A good defense could win the case I bet.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
    • For one, you can definately 100% not be the expert witness, neither should any of your good IT buddies who'd do it as a favor. Plus, someone has to make a legal defense out of the IT person's testimony. Anything that makes you look techy-savvy like making a good legal defense regarding computers would be self-defeating, you will need a lawyer to argue your case. As this point with a lawyer and an expert witness, you're already racking up a huge bill. And the best you're likely to get away with is not to get
    • Now maybe I'm wrong about this, but I always thought this would work:

      Say you get sued for DOWNLOADING, not uploading, 5 $GENERIC songs. Could you not simply go out and buy the CDs that those songs are on (cash purchase at used record store) and claim fair use? They would have no way to prove when you purchased those CDs, and spending $10 a CD would be a lot cheaper than settling with a record industry. I know that not settling would probably mean that you would have to go to court and that in itself is quit
      • Say you get sued for DOWNLOADING, not uploading, 5 $GENERIC songs.

        AFAIK the record industry hasn't yet set up a bunch of honeypots to spot that - and that's the only way they could get you for downloading.

        Not because they couldn't (they could), but because it's easier just to fire up your handy-dandy P2P client, go searching for a well-known track, then sue the people behind the first few IP addresses which claim to have the track available.

        Given the number of people using P2P, the RIAA/BPI could quite easi
        • The UK copyright law has a entire chapter devoted to various exemptions to copyright restrictions, aka "fair use".

          i.e.,Chapter III, Acts Permitted in relation to Copyright Works

          It doesn't necessary cover the example given above though.

  • Puh! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:58AM (#14579737)
    Evidence, schmevidence!

  • Declining CD sales are inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Friday January 27, 2006 @12:02PM (#14579800)
    The BPI says it believes internet music-swapping has led to a decline in sales of singles since 1999.

    As for the opinion that most music today just isn't that great (IMHO) and therefore leads to declining CD sales - was never mentioned.

    People legally downloading songs, on the other hand, might have been another argument, but that wasn't mentioned either.
    • Increases in costs (taxes, etc) in Britain since 1999 mean that people have less money to spend on frivolous things.

      Increase in uptake of alternative media (games consoles, DVDs, etc) also meant that limited budget is being spread around more things.

      Of course people are going to stop buying music. It's the easiest thing to access (radio, tv) and it isn't important to own. Especially if it isn't that good.
    • "As for the opinion that most music today just isn't that great (IMHO) and therefore leads to declining CD sales - was never mentioned."

      Not another person saying music today is not as good as the crap I listened to growing up. Give me a break.

  • A law is just what is declared to be a law. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Maljin Jolt ( 746064 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @12:12PM (#14579920) Journal
    Two British men have been found guilty of illegally sharing music via a P2P network.

    Perhaps they should consider to seek political asylum in France.

  • Scary (Score:4, Interesting)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @12:15PM (#14579958)
    The first defendant, from King's Lynn, said the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement, but the judges dismissed this

    I'm no law scholar here, but doesn't the judge have to actually refuse any defendant's claim with some logical arguement instead of simply claiming "nah, I'm pretend I didn't hear that?"

    • Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shark72 ( 702619 )

      "I'm no law scholar here, but doesn't the judge have to actually refuse any defendant's claim with some logical arguement instead of simply claiming "nah, I'm pretend I didn't hear that?""

      Yes.

      I'm guessing you're assuming this didn't happen because you didn't read about it in the article? Keep in mind that it's a 15-sentence writeup on a mainstream news website. The brevity of the writeup should not be taken to mean that something didn't happen just because it did not go into detail.

      The likelihood

  • More information? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Teiresias_UK ( 413251 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @12:16PM (#14579963)

    According to the Register:

    The organisation began pursuing alleged copyright infringers in October 2004, and to date has come to terms with 88 people, some of whom have paid up to £6,500 to avoid a court hearing.


    Considering the number of people downloading music from P2P clients in the UK, you're going to have to be really really unlucky to be one of the 88.

    One thing to consider is how 'targetted' these cases were. Do we know if the BPI are chasing the people who are providing the files for download or just those downloading? I believe the RIAA were doing chasing the content providers in attempt to 'cut off the supply' of files available for download.

    It might also be interesting to find out what client that these guys were using - more for my own personal benefit so I never use it ...

  • Bravo! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @12:22PM (#14580043) Homepage Journal
    The more of these people who are legitimately caught via law enforcement instead of bullying extortionistic letters from the attorneys of the content cartels, the better. This can only be good for the rest of us, who never download anything illegally, and just want the government to keep its laws off of P2P technology. This is how copyright infringement should be handled - as a law enforcement matter - rather than lobbyists trying to make DRM a legally-mandated hardware feature for new playback devices. This is a great example of people who really are breaking law getting caught and punished via the court system rather than pushed around by a bunch of attorneys. I expect this to be universally lauded on Slashdot.

    Unless, of course, we don't really care about P2P and just want free music and all of our righteous and indignant howling over curtails on p2p technology is a reaction to having buy all the trash music we claim so much to hate.

    • You remind me of a rich french merchant applauding Robspierre.

      We want free information, we'll take the battles as they come.

      And the least risky and seemingly most proffitable is music...

      We know that more music will be produced once the industry falls in fact the quality will probably rise. Artists only get about 3-4% of a sale currently, and most of the rest is spent marketing music in various ways...

      We're not being unrational or really acting unilaterally. We're trying something out... And if sharin
      • We want free information, we'll take the battles as they come.

        Information is free. If you want to listen to music for free, turn the radio on. If you want free books, borrow them from the library. Free CDs and movies? The same. I haven't paid to rent a DVD in years, the public library has a fair collection that you can borrow for no charge, they even have an external drop-box and the late fee is like eighty cents. Our library even has a web interface to reserve hard-to-find copies from other librari

    • Re:Bravo! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Shimbo ( 100005 )
      The more of these people who are legitimately caught via law enforcement instead of bullying extortionistic letters from the attorneys of the content cartels, the better.

      Erm, this was a civil case, brought by the BPI against people who got the letter and declined to settle.

  • other piracy news (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lurking Grue ( 3963 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @01:01PM (#14580562)
    Last week, based-upon a tip from the RIAA, the US took action against the global piracy problem [cnn.com]. Fortunately for the men on the ship there were no bootleg CDs or illegally downloaded mp3 files onboard. In a formal statement released after the event, an RIAA spokesman was quoted as saying, "There's no need to detain these individuals. We regret the inconvenience this has caused the innocent folks on that ship."

    When questioned privately about the incident earlier this week, one RIAA representative said, "Damn! I was sure there was piracy going on out there."

  • Bad Lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TorontoImporter ( 917204 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @01:10PM (#14580679)
    I agree with some earlier comments regarding a bad defence. There are many reasons that the judge in this case got away with deciding them in this manner:

    1. Bad lawyers for the defendants. (There was obviously a lack of professionalism)

    2. Most lawyers in both the U.S. and Europe have little, if no understanding of the copyright system. For example in the U.S. alone the copyright laws have been amended so many times that only a handful of lawyers even understand what the law "says", let alone is interpreted as.

    3. Pressure! (These lower court decisions obviously have huge pressure inflicted by the lobbying groups involved, it would take a good lawyer to get taken seriously)

    4. The arguments involved in defending yourself for these sort of cases tends to be much more complicated then typical civil action. In these cases the defendant must prove "lack of evidence" under a much wider argument generally along privacy, fair use, copyright details, what is infringment etc...

    5. The judges in these cases generally don't have a lot of precedents to refer to.

    6. The world is undecided currently on what to do with the Internet in a legal sense of rights and fair use.

    Hope this clarifies some issues a bit.

    • "Bad lawyers for the defendants. (There was obviously a lack of professionalism)"

      Obviously? You were able to glean from the 15-word writeup that the defendant's lawyers were unprofessional? Perhaps the fellows really were sharing all those songs with Kazaa or whatever? It's interesting that a common sentiment on Slashdot is "There are millions and millions of filesharers! You can't stop us!" and then when the occasional unlucky few out of the millions and millions get caught, a common assumption is

      • You were able to glean from the 15-word writeup that the defendant's lawyers were unprofessional?

        Well, that's likely the truth: any sane lawyer would have told them to settle. Getting a summary judgement against you with a defence of "I didn't know it was illegal" sounds a bit lame. Possibly they weren't legally represented, this being a civil case; or the defendents were just too pig-headed to take advice.

        You're right though the details are a bit thin: maybe there will be a better report in tomorrow's news
    • "I agree with some earlier comments regarding a bad defence. There are many reasons that the judge in this case got away with deciding them in this manner:"

      7. They're guilty.

      I hope this clarifies things even more.
  • It should be noted that this was a civil prosecution, not a criminal one: The term "illegal" refers only to criminal cases and not civil cases such as this. Also, the judge seems to have ruled against the defendents for simply making the files AVAILABLE for download - whether they actully uploaded them to anyone else or not.

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