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BitTorrent users don't "act in concert," so judge slashes mass P2P case
- 0x12 15y agoEvery time a judge does something like this I have some hope that we will move past the current copyright legislation to something more appropriate for the digital age. I'm sure that copyright has had its use, and in many ways still has uses today. But I'm also sure that the time of 'easy money' by the simple act of reproduction will come to an end, and as far as I'm concerned that can't happen fast enough. Copyright, like any tool is a two edged sword, and the one edge has been systematically blunted whereas the other has been systematically sharpened. There was a balance where there is now a very strong imbalance and judges like this help to at least temporarily restore that balance, until we can move past the current implementation. I hope it will happen somewhere in the next 50 years, sooner is better. The closer we are to a balance the bigger the chance that we can move on. So thanks to this judge.
- sliverstorm 15y agoI'm sure that copyright has had its use, and in many ways still has uses today. My housemate, and his friend, have both told me copyright is a bastion in their industry- pharmaceuticals. It's not like they are Big Pharma shills either- he just graduated 2 months ago, and they both work for a tiny almost-company sheltered by a University. In general it seems to be this way in every industry that doesn't yet move as fast as computing. Which has long suggested to me that what computing needs is not copyright abolishment or even sweeping reforms, but simply drastically shortened duration, perhaps in the range of 3-5 years.
- chc 15y agoCopyright? I think you must have misheard. Copyright has to do with creative works, not with physical substances. The pharmaceutical industry mainly relies on patents AFAIK.
- sliverstorm 15y agoGah, I'm sorry. That's like the 3rd time I've conflated the two on accident.
- pseudonym 15y agoCould this be? A brief flicker of hope for the fact that maybe tech-savvy judges might be able to do something sane? I have to wonder, though, how long it'll be before everyone starts just opening their wifi as a "it wasn't me" defense. And how long that will last.
- trafficlight 15y agoUntil a law is introduced making it illegal to have an unsecured wifi access point.
- kinghajj 15y agoI don't see how that would stand up in court, but I'm sure that ISPs will enforce this more strictly. I believe most ISP agreements with homes already prohibit operating a publicly-available hotspots, anyways; they just need to crack down.
- 0x12 15y agoOpen wifi is't really a factor here, the word wifi is nowhere in the article. The first major point is that the defendants did not act in concert (see article title). The last point is this: "nothing in the BitTorrent architecture changes the fact that each defendant also will likely have a different defense." That part of the ruling revolves around the fact that the defendants are all allowed to have their own defense and that rolling the 188 cases into one deprives them of a fundamental right: that to a defense they themselves are happy with rather than a single unified defense for all of them. Of course that makes the case about 187 times harder to litigate than it was so far.
- jrockway 15y agoMany wifi passwords are trivially guessable, so the access points are already open. A more frightening question is, "how long until access points contain spyware to incriminate the owner in court?"
- redthrowaway 15y ago