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The article states: Data from the recording industry lawsuits, revealed in a court case, showed that 11,000 of the 18,000 Does settled immediately or had their

The article states: Data from the recording industry lawsuits, revealed in a court case, showed that 11,000 of the 18,000 Does settled immediately or had their cases dropped by the labels And: Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver generally asks for $1,500 to $2,500, threatening to sue for $150,000 if no settlement payment is forthcoming. Assuming that 90 percent of the current targets settle for $1,500, this means that the lawyers, studios, and P2P detection company would split $19.7 million. I accept that I could be missing something here and would welcome enlightenment from someone better informed than me, but I find it difficult to believe that the lawyers have downloaded 18,000 copies (i.e. one for each John Doe) of the infringing material. Without doing this, how can they have a case that actually stands up in court, and one that successfully proves that the John Doe actually made the material available? Surely it would only take a few hundred people to successfully challenge them for the profits to be lost?

roel_v 16y ago
You don't need to download a complete copy to convince a judge/jury of copyright infringement. Don't forget that these are civil cases. It's not that hard to write a custom bittorrent client that automatically searches torrent sites for the media you're after, gathers lists of ip addresses, feeds it into your case management system and have that spit out the paperwork. You come into your office in the morning, run the software, and you can file 500 cases before lunch. Actually I was describing this setup just a few weeks ago to my girlfriend. It's an awesome money machine, and it's what's going to eradicate 80% of todays user base of p2p programs over the next few years. Once a few high-profile publications publish stories of people paying thousands and Oprah runs an item 'how to prevent your kids from bankrupting you with p2p software', most casual infringers will become too scared to use illicit sources of media.
- mootothemax 16y ago
  Ok, I get that civil court cases have a much lower standard of proof required, but this still gets me: You don't need to download a complete copy to convince a judge/jury of copyright infringement Why on earth not? If the burden of proof is that low, why not defend along the lines of "I put a file on my computer with that name as a joke." I would love to see what evidence they use to prosecute, if it's only hashes or checksums alone, surely it'd be easy enough to write a fake client that lies?
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    I've helped defend victims in a few of these cases (in the UK) so this is my best guess. Ultimately the evidence they have is pretty good. They grab a torrent and begin to download the file, they watch which IPs connect - both seeds and peers - and record them. They then apply for a subpheona from the courts. The argument (for peers) is that the user has connected to the P2P network and is trying to download copyrighted material. Under civil law this is a reasonable burden of proof (and, honestly, I can't really argue with it). With seeds it is an even stronger argument; because the seed has at least a partial copy of the copyrighted work and is facilitating the sharing of it. This will stand up in court; and, to be honest, I don't think it is disputable under current law. What we should be disputing (and I have helped with successes here in the past) is that the damages are completely disproportionate. The way I've managed this is by explaining how P2P really works to judges/courts - and usually they start to come round to the idea. We also should, outside of the cases, be working to promote the idea of copyright reform so that this becomes less of a cash cow.
    - yosho 16y ago
      what about the argument that someone could have used my unsecured wireless network to download copyrighted material with my IP address without my knowledge? While most people protect their wireless, I know many mom and pops who still have no clue how to do any of that stuff and could be victims of their neighbor's crimes.
      - ErrantX 16y ago
        Yes, that is a good defense and, if true, should be brought up if you are accused.
      - roel_v 16y ago
        That would maybe work for a clueless old lady. The standard for someone with a technical background, of whom can be expected that he should know about these issues, would be higher than for someone who can make a reasonable case of not knowing about these things. At some point it becomes an "assumed liability" (that's probably not the proper term in common law systems) - what I mean is a liability for something not arising from doing or not doing something (like punching someone in the face - that's something you actively do), but rather from being in a certain position, like when you own a house, and a roof tile falls off on someone's head, you're still liable because it's your house (again this is technically not correct in tort-based systems but the principle holds). In the same way one could argue, in my opinion reasonably, that owning & using certain equipment (wireless routers) brings with it a certain responsibility, in this case making a reasonable effort to make sure that the equipment is not used to violate other people's rights. It will depend on the circumstances if this is acceptable.
ErrantX 16y ago
Hmm as I understand it they are suing for the fact that the person is downloading the unauthorized copy (i.e. suing the peers). As to suing seeds; I guess the argument is that they have made the copy available - are facilitating the transmission of a copyrighted works. Bearing in mind how P2P works Im not sure I understand why they would have to download 18,000 copies? The whole point of P2P is that you can download 1 copy from 18,000 [sic] people :) (I don't agree with their argument in the slightest but what you've said doesn't appear to sync up with what is being argued)

roel_v 16y ago

You don't need to download a complete copy to convince a judge/jury of copyright infringement. Don't forget that these are civil cases. It's not that hard to write a custom bittorrent client that automatically searches torrent sites for the media you're after, gathers lists of ip addresses, feeds it into your case management system and have that spit out the paperwork. You come into your office in the morning, run the software, and you can file 500 cases before lunch. Actually I was describing this setup just a few weeks ago to my girlfriend. It's an awesome money machine, and it's what's going to eradicate 80% of todays user base of p2p programs over the next few years. Once a few high-profile publications publish stories of people paying thousands and Oprah runs an item 'how to prevent your kids from bankrupting you with p2p software', most casual infringers will become too scared to use illicit sources of media.

mootothemax 16y ago
Ok, I get that civil court cases have a much lower standard of proof required, but this still gets me: You don't need to download a complete copy to convince a judge/jury of copyright infringement Why on earth not? If the burden of proof is that low, why not defend along the lines of "I put a file on my computer with that name as a joke." I would love to see what evidence they use to prosecute, if it's only hashes or checksums alone, surely it'd be easy enough to write a fake client that lies?
- ErrantX 16y ago
  I've helped defend victims in a few of these cases (in the UK) so this is my best guess. Ultimately the evidence they have is pretty good. They grab a torrent and begin to download the file, they watch which IPs connect - both seeds and peers - and record them. They then apply for a subpheona from the courts. The argument (for peers) is that the user has connected to the P2P network and is trying to download copyrighted material. Under civil law this is a reasonable burden of proof (and, honestly, I can't really argue with it). With seeds it is an even stronger argument; because the seed has at least a partial copy of the copyrighted work and is facilitating the sharing of it. This will stand up in court; and, to be honest, I don't think it is disputable under current law. What we should be disputing (and I have helped with successes here in the past) is that the damages are completely disproportionate. The way I've managed this is by explaining how P2P really works to judges/courts - and usually they start to come round to the idea. We also should, outside of the cases, be working to promote the idea of copyright reform so that this becomes less of a cash cow.
  - yosho 16y ago
    what about the argument that someone could have used my unsecured wireless network to download copyrighted material with my IP address without my knowledge? While most people protect their wireless, I know many mom and pops who still have no clue how to do any of that stuff and could be victims of their neighbor's crimes.
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      Yes, that is a good defense and, if true, should be brought up if you are accused.
    - roel_v 16y ago
      That would maybe work for a clueless old lady. The standard for someone with a technical background, of whom can be expected that he should know about these issues, would be higher than for someone who can make a reasonable case of not knowing about these things. At some point it becomes an "assumed liability" (that's probably not the proper term in common law systems) - what I mean is a liability for something not arising from doing or not doing something (like punching someone in the face - that's something you actively do), but rather from being in a certain position, like when you own a house, and a roof tile falls off on someone's head, you're still liable because it's your house (again this is technically not correct in tort-based systems but the principle holds). In the same way one could argue, in my opinion reasonably, that owning & using certain equipment (wireless routers) brings with it a certain responsibility, in this case making a reasonable effort to make sure that the equipment is not used to violate other people's rights. It will depend on the circumstances if this is acceptable.

ErrantX 16y ago

Hmm as I understand it they are suing for the fact that the person is downloading the unauthorized copy (i.e. suing the peers). As to suing seeds; I guess the argument is that they have made the copy available - are facilitating the transmission of a copyrighted works. Bearing in mind how P2P works Im not sure I understand why they would have to download 18,000 copies? The whole point of P2P is that you can download 1 copy from 18,000 [sic] people :) (I don't agree with their argument in the slightest but what you've said doesn't appear to sync up with what is being argued)