Topic: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law (Read 54636 times)

Brentai · « **Reply #180 on:** June 18, 2009, 09:11:45 PM »

Quote

The judge ordered a retrial in 2007 after there was an error in the wording of jury instructions.

The fines jumped considerably from the first trial, which granted just $220,000 to the recording companies.

That's... some pretty epic legal douchebaggery, there. WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP SYMPATHIZING WITH THE THIEVES???

Royal☭ · « **Reply #181 on:** June 18, 2009, 09:13:21 PM »

See, here's the thing. 24 songs. That's two albums. What do you think you'd get if you stole 2 albums from a store?

Brentai · « **Reply #182 on:** June 18, 2009, 09:14:20 PM »

Depends. Does Wal-Mart still have that "We don't persecute shoplifters under $20" policy?

Niku · « **Reply #183 on:** June 18, 2009, 09:15:00 PM »

BETTER MAKE IT ONE ALBUM IF SO

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #184 on:** June 19, 2009, 07:28:02 AM »

It's $30 now. At the store where I work, though, if they catch you attempting to steal anything, they stick you with vandalism and trespassing charges.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #185 on:** June 19, 2009, 08:55:33 AM »

Which is a charge that still won't put you anywhere near $1.9 million in damages.

SCD · « **Reply #186 on:** June 19, 2009, 11:05:47 AM »

I find it interesting that the mother is still willing to go all the way with it such as a martyr. She has probably been listening to the talking heads regarding how excessive punitive damages are unconstitutional.

I don't think this one is over quite yet.

JDigital · « **Reply #187 on:** June 19, 2009, 11:17:52 AM »

By chance I looked up the Minnesota Crime and Punishment chart a while back.

Burglary with Dangerous Weapon or Explosives carries a fine of up to $35,000. Burglary Involving Misdemeanor, a fine of up to $3,000. Tresspassing, a fine of up to $700. Theft of Receiving Stolen Property ($250 or less), a fine of up to $700.

In other words, if this was treated as theft and not copyright infringement, she'd be looking at a fine of certainly no more than $15,400, and probably much less.

Thad · « **Reply #188 on:** June 19, 2009, 09:25:27 PM »

Quote from: SCD on June 19, 2009, 11:05:47 AM

I find it interesting that the mother is still willing to go all the way with it such as a martyr. She has probably been listening to the talking heads regarding how excessive punitive damages are unconstitutional.

I don't think this one is over quite yet.

Oh, there's no question. Perversely, I think this is actually the BEST possible outcome of the case in the long term.

Because she DID break the law. That's indisputable. And she probably did it knowingly, though that's a lot harder to prove. Her entire case hinges on the fact that the punishment is grossly disproportionate to the crime -- and they have proven her point about forty thousand times over.

ZDnet has more -- I'm not sure the author is right in his definition of "willful" (IANAL and he is, but CNet notes that the word has different definitions in different branches of law, and in copyright law it seems just to mean "intentional"), but other than that I think he's spot-on.

Quote

There’s no doubt, Ray [Beckerman of Recording Industry v. the People] said, that this case can be the test case to question the constitutionality of the statutory damages in the law. But before we even get there,

Quote
There’s a very long body of law, that statutory damages have to bear a reasonable relationship to actual damages. Courts have repeatedly held that statutory damages can be more than acual damages but only by two or three time.

Then we get to the Constitution. In BMW v. Gorethe Supreme Court held that “grossly excessive” punitive damages awards violate due process. The court established three factors to analyze this:

Most importantly, the degree of reprehensibility
The ratio of punitive to actual damages
The relationship of the award to criminal sanctions

In that case, a jury found that BMW had sold as new a repainted car and awarded punitive damages of $2 million — 500 times the actual damages. The Court found that was grossly excessive.

That's pretty fucking good precedent. And those bullet points? As far as "degree of reprehensibility", I don't think sharing 24 songs even registers on that meter; ratio of punitive to actual damages is much higher than 500:1 (and may in fact be a divison by zero since I doubt they can prove any damages occurred at all); and as noted by JD, "relationship of the award to criminal sanctions" is that she would have been charged a fraction of this amount if she had actually literally stolen the albums at gunpoint.

Mongrel · « **Reply #189 on:** June 30, 2009, 07:30:04 PM »

Pirate Bay sold to a group who will turn it into a for-pay site.

Detonator · « **Reply #190 on:** June 30, 2009, 07:32:49 PM »

Quote from: Mongrel on June 30, 2009, 07:30:04 PM

Pirate Bay sold to a group who will turn it into a for-pay site.

I don't think they've said for sure that it will be a pay site. I've also heard that they will be using ads to support the share of free content, but I'm sure at this time it's all just rumors.

Mongrel · « **Reply #191 on:** June 30, 2009, 07:34:57 PM »

Frankly, the world's next # 1 Pirate site really is going to have to move to Russia, China or somewhere else that doesn't give a hoot. Regardless of where this goes, I've been expecting SOMETHING would happen to the Bay for some time now.

Brentai · « **Reply #192 on:** June 30, 2009, 07:42:04 PM »

Like Napster and Morpheus before it, the most serious offenders have pretty much all moved on to their preferred subvariants and are more than happy to have the IP holders feel like they've done their job.

Saturn · « **Reply #193 on:** June 30, 2009, 09:09:12 PM »

from what i'm hearing, the sale is a roundabout way of getting around certain legal issues

relevant link

Thad · « **Reply #194 on:** July 20, 2009, 05:23:46 PM »

So, here's a fun one: as a result of international copyright confusion, Amazon has "recalled" a couple of its ebooks. Except in this case, the recall is involuntary; people turn on their Kindles and suddenly find that the books they purchased are gone and their money refunded, without Amazon bothering to ask their permission.

And, pushing the very boundaries of irony itself, one of the books in question just so happens to be, yes, motherfucking 1984.

...anyway. Cue up the DRM apologists explaining to me why it's okay for a merchant to delete files off my storage without asking. This oughta be good.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #195 on:** July 20, 2009, 05:27:03 PM »

Well, you were just leasing the book. Even though every other part of the transaction said it was a purchase. It was just a lease.

Digital is the future!

Related: RIAA says DRM is dead... for music

Thad · « **Reply #196 on:** July 20, 2009, 05:38:07 PM »

Incidentally, as mentioned in another thread I'm currently working on putting together an HTPC. I was considering buying a Blu-Ray drive as you can find a few under $100 these days, but it turns out the format has shit support -- there are a few programs that'll play it under Windows, but fucking nothing for OSX or Linux. There's software to RIP them on OSX and Linux, but not to play them directly.

As your average retarded monkey could probably tell you, it is of course entirely possible, indeed downright EASY, to download pirated Blu-Ray movies. It's just, you know, a huge pain in the ass to play ones you've actually legally purchased.

So guess whether I decided to buy a player and start building a Blu-Ray collection or not. Go on, guess.

Cthulhu-chan · « **Reply #197 on:** July 20, 2009, 07:12:06 PM »

So glad having a PS3 makes that decisions moot.

I don't have a single blu-ray that isn't a game, though.

Niku · « **Reply #198 on:** July 20, 2009, 09:01:17 PM »

Quote from: Cthulhu-chan on July 20, 2009, 07:12:06 PM

I don't have a single blu-ray that isn't a game, though.

Even having only watched the first episode so far, I can recommend it without hesitation.

Cthulhu-chan · « **Reply #199 on:** July 20, 2009, 09:04:42 PM »

Yeah, people keep saying that. So expensive, though. Do I look that

?

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Author Topic: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law (Read 54636 times)