4 ms·

How about a lawsuit insurance scheme? Pay $X per month and if you get sued the insurance company will take the case to court and pay any damages. This would ki

How about a lawsuit insurance scheme? Pay $X per month and if you get sued the insurance company will take the case to court and pay any damages. This would kill the effortless €600 extortion scheme, and probably also DDOS the court system. Possible backfire: It makes the labels even more lawsuit happy knowing that there is a pile of cash there if they win, and / or the cash reserves of the insurance are not sufficient and it goes bust fighting suits.

electromagnetic 14y ago
Actually this would likely be very effective. It's like the traffic-ticket lawyers. Even if you committed the crime, they normally severely reduce the penalty if not let you walk. Cash piles mean nothing, going to court is extremely costly. The defence lawyers would be very good at their jobs. I know here in Canada, the Carter defence (using an expert, arguing that given bodyweight and the times of, and amount of alcohol consumption, that the machine was calibrated wrong) against DUI was made inadmissible - which is currently being fought on constitutional grounds - as it was 90% effective at giving a judge reasonable doubt when a person blew under a 0.14 (legal limit is 0.08, but suspension above 0.05). Now the lawyers are experts on breathalyzers, will get a court order providing them with all maintenance on the machines so they can argue directly that the machines are calibrated wrong. They're apparently getting the success rates up above 60% now.
jlgreco 14y ago
I suspect that lawsuit insurance already exists, probably meant for businesses. I wonder how much convincing insurance companies would need to offer this to consumers. Maybe there is some reason they don't think it would be a very good deal for them, or maybe they simply haven't perceived a demand and haven't bothered offering/advertising it as a result. Perhaps worth looking into, if you have enough assets already that a lawsuit would present a large concern.
steelcm 14y ago
I doubt this would work. If you are not willing to pay for a CD,DVD, Software...etc why would you shell out on a monthly basis on the off chance that you are caught?
- Cass 14y ago
  I, and about fifty percent of people I know, would be happy to pay a small monthly sum (say, up to nine euro) to be able to listen to and download any music we want, at any time, without risk of persecution. Ideally, this money would go to support the musicians, but that's not necessarily a requirement. Unfortunately, no such service exists right now - most of the music streaming services only work for the US, streaming's useless to many of us anyway because we listen to music in the car and need it on CD, spotify doesn't have half the musicians we like... There's lots of grey area between "doesn't ever pay for any media, ever" and "I refuse to pay $ 12 for a single DVD with unskippable ads and warnings if I can get the movie off pirate bay in seven minutes, wtf".

electromagnetic 14y ago

Actually this would likely be very effective. It's like the traffic-ticket lawyers. Even if you committed the crime, they normally severely reduce the penalty if not let you walk. Cash piles mean nothing, going to court is extremely costly. The defence lawyers would be very good at their jobs. I know here in Canada, the Carter defence (using an expert, arguing that given bodyweight and the times of, and amount of alcohol consumption, that the machine was calibrated wrong) against DUI was made inadmissible - which is currently being fought on constitutional grounds - as it was 90% effective at giving a judge reasonable doubt when a person blew under a 0.14 (legal limit is 0.08, but suspension above 0.05). Now the lawyers are experts on breathalyzers, will get a court order providing them with all maintenance on the machines so they can argue directly that the machines are calibrated wrong. They're apparently getting the success rates up above 60% now.

jlgreco 14y ago

I suspect that lawsuit insurance already exists, probably meant for businesses. I wonder how much convincing insurance companies would need to offer this to consumers. Maybe there is some reason they don't think it would be a very good deal for them, or maybe they simply haven't perceived a demand and haven't bothered offering/advertising it as a result. Perhaps worth looking into, if you have enough assets already that a lawsuit would present a large concern.

steelcm 14y ago

I doubt this would work. If you are not willing to pay for a CD,DVD, Software...etc why would you shell out on a monthly basis on the off chance that you are caught?

Cass 14y ago
I, and about fifty percent of people I know, would be happy to pay a small monthly sum (say, up to nine euro) to be able to listen to and download any music we want, at any time, without risk of persecution. Ideally, this money would go to support the musicians, but that's not necessarily a requirement. Unfortunately, no such service exists right now - most of the music streaming services only work for the US, streaming's useless to many of us anyway because we listen to music in the car and need it on CD, spotify doesn't have half the musicians we like... There's lots of grey area between "doesn't ever pay for any media, ever" and "I refuse to pay $ 12 for a single DVD with unskippable ads and warnings if I can get the movie off pirate bay in seven minutes, wtf".