Torrent users sue US Copyright Group for fraud and extortion

[matrix86]

PanicX said:
The lawsuit then clearly defines how the defendant LIES about the publication dates to inflate the proposed damages and extort more from their victims, while having no proof of damages and never intending to actually litigate.

I don't think you could have hit the nail on the head any harder. Even I deviated from the point of this article. Thanks for bringing us back to speed.

Darkshadoe said:
Also since this is a threat letter, they have not officially filed the lawsuit against the defendant so erasing or destroying the hard drive would not be destruction of evidence.

Shoot, forget that. Just go buy a new hard drive from a parts store (considering you still have your OS Installation disk) and store your current one at a friend's house before the police come to claim your drive...but now i'm assuming the average person is smart enough to do this, lol.

 

[Guest]

Pirates or no pirates, you manipulate the legal system at the expense of another person, you deserve no mercy from it when you are placed in the machine.

 

[dividebyzero]

I have to say, your blind, unyielding defense of the RIAA, MPAA and friends, really detracts from any legitimate point of view you'd like to express. Defending intellectual property / copyrights definitely has a strong argumentative advantage, but ignorantly evangelizing the methods of reciprocity used by these companies easily pegs you as a shill and ultimately invalidates your opinions.

+1
I don't think I could have phrased it any better

 

[matrix86]

Guest said:
Pirates or no pirates, you manipulate the legal system at the expense of another person, you deserve no mercy from it when you are placed in the machine.

Indeed. What these lawyers don't understand is that by doing this the way they are doing it, not only will they face charges, but their case against the pirates can be dropped. So they face legal repercussions, having their case thrown out, and a lawsuit from the pirates...not very smart lawyers.

 

[Guest]

Since when did you have to prove innocence.....

 

[Guest]

how can i reach you guys so i can sue too....

 

[Guest]

Why don't these fools try to sue us here in Philippines?
I haven't even tried any original games in my life. I haven't seen
any of my friends who bought one. (except SC2)
I don't buy movies, music, software, magazines, ebooks.
They're all available online, we just download them.


Try implementing copyright laws in our country - if you can.
We double dare you!!!

Can somebody sue me now please so I can go to jail...

 

[Guest]

The courts tend to "look the other way" when a corporation commits a crime where copyright is involved. It's not fair, but hey, Momma never said life was going to be fair.

Fact remains that the downloaders committed copyright infringement. I see this going badly for the plaintiffs. Just because the company commits a crime doesn't excuse the plaintiffs from the fact that they commited crimes themselves. I see this going one of two ways:

1. Both parties are fined heavily, and/or spend jail time.
2. (more likely) The corporations will be exonerated through circumstance, and the plaintiffs will spend time in jail.

If it were up to me, I'd go with #1.

 

[Guest]

lets ban TomSEA from TS

please, post a pool in the main page

im tired from his crying about the piracy

 

[Guest]

I REEEAAALLLLLLLLLY don't care about stealing movies/music/video games. Now my momma always told me 2 wrongs don't make a right. Well I disagree. If the government wants to enforce fair competitive business practices, if the businesses decide to protect their consumers interests by striving to offer fair competitive services and pricing, then I'll be glad to pay those prices. Meanwhile, a stealing I will go. I will not deprive myself of entertainment I should have been able to afford, neither will I reward companies by paying their price.

 

[Guest]

These lawyers lied and abused the legal system and their position to scare people into paying their outrageous fines.

No better than street gang member who threaten to kill you unless you pay protection money up front.

If they want to protect their intellectual property they need to come up with a better system then what they have in place now. Steam comes to mind for example.

But of course they rather hire thugs in suits to do their dirty work.

 

[Guest]

the rules barring deleting of electronic discovery kick in upon notice of the likelihood of a lawsuit, not when a lawsuit is actually filed. At that point, you're supposed to put a hold on your data and begin the process of preserving it. Significant penalties can arise out of deleting or even manipulating or altering files which are the subject of a lawsuit when you have been given notice that a lawsuit is looming, but not yet filed. See qualcomm cases and similar decisions. In some cases, the deletion can turn into an instruction to the jury to consider the deletion as an admission of the existence of the subject data.

Please consult an attorney before trying to come to legal conclusions.

This message brought to you by the shark foundation.

 

[princeton]

dividebyzero said:

I have to say, your blind, unyielding defense of the RIAA, MPAA and friends, really detracts from any legitimate point of view you'd like to express. Defending intellectual property / copyrights definitely has a strong argumentative advantage, but ignorantly evangelizing the methods of reciprocity used by these companies easily pegs you as a shill and ultimately invalidates your opinions.

+1
I don't think I could have phrased it any better

It's nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks tom needs to rethink his views on piracy.

 

[princeton]

Guest said:
lets ban TomSEA from TS

please, post a pool in the main page

im tired from his crying about the piracy

I hate to be mean but I was thinking the same thing. And I bet I'm not the only one...

 

[Guest]

The Real problem here is that no actual law was violated ... These people that have downloaded the game from a torrent site probably committed no legal crime. They only found a program that was already put forth by someone else and downloaded it. Only if these people contributed to uploading the product would it be a legal offense. Thus only the initial distributor of the product of the internet is liable for the crime as long as the other down loaders did not themselves seed or upload any information to the site....

 

[Yoryka]

Im gonna jump on board the LOL train with this, copyright, seriously, its like lets makes games easy as hell to hack, movies to download, then allow the peoplel to put movies from a dvd onto there computer, yeah, lets sell blue-ray burners, its not the people taking the product, its the retards that made the product to easy to take...... KIINND of like we can profit MORE for suing someone for stealing, then we can for selling a single copy, if you catch my drift, if you ask me its the companies, knowingly basicly giving there products away for a little extra cash, think how hard it is to shop lift, then think how hard it is to download a movie........ bells not ringing?

 

[matrix86]

princeton said:

Guest said:
lets ban TomSEA from TS

please, post a pool in the main page

im tired from his crying about the piracy

I hate to be mean but I was thinking the same thing. And I bet I'm not the only one...

Come on guys, you can't ban someone simply for their opinions. No matter how blind or misguided they are. I don't agree with the guy, but he's done nothing to violate techspot rules.

Back to the subject, I wonder if the courts would have overlooked this extortion if someone else hadn't pointed it out...I bet "yes" (isn't it sad when you have no faith in your justice system? lol)

 

[Guest]

umm if im correct copy right or not if you really wanted to get by this use the "fair use" act of 1976 i believe this states that all material being used copy writen or not, if you are not profiting from that of anothers product its fair game maybe im wrong... but idk, also these lawyer's had no grounds or no ability to know of the pirating... other than hacking, and that invasion of privacy... (dont get me wrong hacking is fun)

 

[Guest]

Amen brother

 

[Guest]

Pfft.. Texas has some of the most IP "friendly" judges in the country. Many companies file lawsuits in the eastern district of Texas specifically because of this: http://www.innovators-network.org/2010/02/01/eastern-district-of-texas-preferred-venue-for-ip-lawsuit-plaintiffs/

 

[Guest]

Hey smart guy, they are being prosecuted in civil court for monetary damages, not criminal court.

 

[Guest]

You sir are the classic example of someone with a little knowledge being very dangerous. But the danger is only to the rest of us, you are one of the many who follow along blindly believeing anything you are told.

There is no proof of guilt in any of these cases. It's like me telling the cops I saw my neighbor steal something from me. They will ask f I have any proof, I will say well I saw it. My neighbor will deny it, the cops will go, ok work this out unless you have any actual proof that he stole it.

They said these people were downloading the files. Were they actually able to get on the persons computer and verify that the file exists? Or did they see a link with the name of a file that happened to be of the same name. Did they also download this file to verify that it was an illegal file? If so then they are also guilty of sharing out that file, unless they turned off uploading, but I would guess they were not that savy.

The burden of proof is on the prosecution and an IP is not necessarily enough. There is no way they can prove that the person did not mistakenly download the file and delete it when they found it was not the one they were looking for. So this is blackmail and a threat.

There is no proof that other than they believe they saw someone downloading a file which was copyrighted. And how did they do this? By checking IP addresses, any tech worth their dollars will tell you that it is quite possible to spoof your ip address. In fact they could make it look like the ip being used is actually your IP Tom, which would mean you are guilty of downloading that file, based solely on your ip address.

If you don't believe this, go and do some research on the IP stack in linux and windows. ButI have a feeling you will ignore this because you need to go get your daily fix of opinions you can share as your own from CNN. Good luck

 

[Guest]

Actually, it is extortion. It violates the Fair Debt act which makes it a crime to claim you are going to sue somebody to collect money when in fact you have no intention of actually doing so, as appears to be the case here. The people downloading aren't the only ones breaking the law.

 

[Guest]

Fact remains that the downloaders committed copyright infringement.

The act of downloading copyrighted content is NOT illegal! It is the act of uploading content, or distributing content. Your naivety on this subject invalidates your entire argument.

I see this going badly for the plaintiffs. Just because the company commits a crime doesn't excuse the plaintiffs from the fact that they commited crimes themselves.

Is no one innocent until proven guilty any more?

 

[Guest]

In some cases, the deletion can turn into an instruction to the jury to consider the deletion as an admission of the existence of the subject data.

Assuming a file to have been present on an HD because it can't be found is ludicrous. The absence of evidence is not proof of guilt, except in a corrupt court. Such an instruction is no different than a forced confession, or forcing one to testify against themselves.

That it would happen in America today is of little surprise, considering how corrupt both ALL three branches of our government are. We have the best government money can buy, voted for by citizens whose main interest are self-entitlements, i.e., government handouts. We have arrived at the old Russian proverb: "There is no truth in the news and no news in the truth", and, "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us."