Anti-piracy law firm gets F-ed in the A

[SineSwiper]

Go Team B-Tards!

[Julius Seeker]

Well, they committed several illegal acts against a law firm; what do you think the result will be?

Why are you happy about some illegal shit a bunch of pimply teenagers and ugly 40-year-old virgins do anyway?

[SineSwiper]

Anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law, who send out tens of thousands of letters demanding cash-settlements from often innocent Internet subscribers, became the new target. The company, which is headed up by lone principal Andrew Crossley, is widely hated among file-sharers and innocents alike and with 4chan’s Operation Payback now in full swing, payback is the operative word.
...
Financial problems? Interesting. Many tens of thousands of people who received letters from ACS:Law are also experiencing the same problem, having already paid up several hundred pounds each to make non-existent lawsuits go away.

Because these guys are a bunch of litigating assholes that should be ripped a new one. And unless somebody was stupid with the hack and passing the information, they will probably never get caught.

[Imakeholesinu]

And they operate like the mob, scaring people into paying a hefty who may be innocent.

[Julius Seeker]

And they operate like the mob, scaring people into paying a hefty who may be innocent.

Are you talking about 4chan or the firm?

[Imakeholesinu]

The firm.

[Julius Seeker]

It's infinitely more likely that the website is lying.

First of all, there are a huge number of people guilty of piracy; logically, there isn't any need to target innocent people when so many guilty exist.

Secondly, the source is a website which specializes in supporting websites which organize the mass theft of intellectual properties (such as The Pirate Bay). A biased and very untrustworthy source; you wouldn't trust Stormfront.org's take on a story revolving around a Korean owned Grocery store that got raided by white supremacists for the exact same reason you wouldn't trust a site called "torrentfreak" on this subject.

[Eric]

Yeah, cause in the history of anti-piracy nobody has ever targeted the average joe to send a message. -_-

[SineSwiper]

Fine, then look at the Wikipedia article on them. Before you start bitching about the accuracy, it's well sourced.

[Julius Seeker]

Fine, then look at the Wikipedia article on them. Before you start bitching about the accuracy, it's well sourced.

According to the article which the Wikipedia sources, it approximately 1.5% of the time there was a false positive. Also people were sent a letter that stated "an infringement has taken place but it may not be the account holder who has done it," (BBC). They were not bullied, nor were they falsely punished. All they need to do is make their case, and if they are innocent, then no punishment will take place.

Copyright laws are not the only place where people are inaccurately accused; recall Michael Jackson? Malicious attacks are not the answer when the court system is more than sufficient to clear a case. There is no reason, as a functional adult, that you should actually praise this sort of illegal behaviour; particularly as it compromises the integrity of the Internet as a business tool, that many of us largely rely on to make a living.


Whether or not average people pirate intellectual property, it is still not their property unless they pay the asking price for it. Just because the average idiot feels they are entitled to having all sorts of music, movies, and software in their possession for free, does not make it legal. They have still stolen intellectual property.

[SineSwiper]

Nice cherrypicking, Seeker. You seem to think that the RIAA/MPAA haven't been busy prosecuting grandmas who haven't downloaded a song or movie in their life, forcing them to spend thousands of dollars trying to defend themselves (or even more if they lose).

Don't bother replying. I'm not going to argue on this matter, since it's clear you're trolling again.

[Kupek]

They were not bullied, nor were they falsely punished. All they need to do is make their case, and if they are innocent, then no punishment will take place.

First, going to court at all can be seen as a form of punishment - one that most people can't afford, and will settle ahead of time to avoid, regardless of guilt. Second, even if we assume the people are guilty, the question then becomes: is what's happening to them fair? Or, from another perspective, is this how we want our legal system used?

Say the RIAA or MPAA accuses me of pirating a song or movie. They want $5000 in damages (I made this number up, but I think it's representative of actual cases). Let's assume I'm guilty, but I think $5000 is excessive. I could hire a lawyer and try to argue that in court. A lawyer competent enough in this area of IP and technology would probably cost more than $5000. Therefore I have nothing to gain, monetarily, by going to court. So I cough up $5000 out of court. The RIAA/MPAA have no reliable way to prove that my act cost them $5000 in damages, but they know that I'm unlikely to fight the lawsuit because it's too expensive for me. That is bullying.

[Don]

If it costs you $5000 to defend yourself it clearly costs RIAA even more to prosecute the case in the first place (since they've bigger infrastructure and probably better guys than whoever you can find who will want even more money). Now sure you can say those guys have a lot of money to throw around but it's still a lose-lose situation, which is probably why they're willing to settle outside of court for less. Now people will say they might try to make money by just settling but it's not clear to me getting $5000 from you is even going to cover their infrastructure, and if they sue you for $5 million and won it doesn't exactly matter much if there's absolutely no way you can pay $5 million.

I'm pretty sure these cases are a lose-lose for both sides because it's simply very hard to recover an amount of money that'd be worthwhile from your random filesharer even if you win every case 100% of the time. It's kind of like the theme of Liar Game where Nao figured out if she borrowed $1 trillion, give it all away, and ends up owing $10 trillion due to interest there's no way the Liar Game organization can possibly extract $10 trillion from her regardless of what powers they have since her networth is like $10K. In fact, it's really not clear if there's any direct financial motive to sue anyone at all regardless of the outcome. I assume they do this as a deterrent, but clearly it's not really deterring anyone.

[Imakeholesinu]

I'm pretty sure they would be suing you as well so you could counter-sue and have the MPAA and RIAA pay all the fees.

[Kupek]

If it costs you $5000 to defend yourself it clearly costs RIAA even more to prosecute the case in the first place (since they've bigger infrastructure and probably better guys than whoever you can find who will want even more money).

If you design your own processor, fabricating the first chip costs about $250,000. The second costs about $1.

Their costs are amortized, and the monetary gain is not their sole incentive. They want people to fear the fine. So, bullying.

Also, the situation I presented was being sued for $5000 in damages. Paying $5000 without going to court isn't "settling." It's giving in. Settling for less would probably require a lawyer.

[Don]

High profile cases end up with millions paid in lawyer fees. I think the McCourts divorce case (owner of Dodgers) cost millions and sure they got high profile lawyers but that's also just one case, whereas an organization like RIAA deals with a lot more than one case. Do you assume RIAA just pays $9.99/hour for their lawyer when they need them to do something? They might have a larger infrastructure to get comparatively better rates but presumably they also use people who charge more than whoever you're likely to find, and they probably got to pay them even while they're not doing anything unlike you. They also have to maintain that infrastructure even when they're not doing any major activity. If you assume that RIAA has a much better legal team than whatever you got, it is quite reasonable that they're also paying a lot more than whatever you've to pay to get a lawyer even if they have better leverage.

I've seen statistics published by RIAA and it says they pay for way more for their lawyers than whatever they get out of it. Again, that should not be really surprising. You've random guys that take some random no name lawyer who probably offers a deal like 'no fees until we win' to drag it out for a long time and maybe appeal it even, and remember RIAA is paying some pretty good lawyer all this time since it clearly doesn't want to lose (that'd be very bad). So after a lengthy process the judge says you owe RIAA $250 million plus lawyer fees, but as long as you don't have that money it really doesn't matter how much you owe them. If you can only come up with $50K at most anything beyond that is irrelevent. I don't think they can force you to sell all your possessions from civil cases but even if they could, and assuming that carries no negative impact to reputation, it's still nowhere close to the astronomical numbers. There has to be a threshold where if a case drags on this long it is no longer possible for your average guy to pay enough money to cover RIAA's expenses even if they win, and lawyers are not cheap at all so this threshold isn't likely very high.

[Julius Seeker]

They were not bullied, nor were they falsely punished. All they need to do is make their case, and if they are innocent, then no punishment will take place.

First, going to court at all can be seen as a form of punishment - one that most people can't afford, and will settle ahead of time to avoid, regardless of guilt. Second, even if we assume the people are guilty, the question then becomes: is what's happening to them fair? Or, from another perspective, is this how we want our legal system used?

Say the RIAA or MPAA accuses me of pirating a song or movie. They want $5000 in damages (I made this number up, but I think it's representative of actual cases). Let's assume I'm guilty, but I think $5000 is excessive. I could hire a lawyer and try to argue that in court. A lawyer competent enough in this area of IP and technology would probably cost more than $5000. Therefore I have nothing to gain, monetarily, by going to court. So I cough up $5000 out of court. The RIAA/MPAA have no reliable way to prove that my act cost them $5000 in damages, but they know that I'm unlikely to fight the lawsuit because it's too expensive for me. That is bullying.

I am not sure why it would cost you more than $5000 for a lawyer for a non-corporate civil suit; as far as I know, you shouldn't have to pay a cent in order to argue your case (does the state not provide public defense attorneys in the US?). If you are guilty, and you have been caught, but you think the $5000 settlement is excessive: bring the case to the court, state your case, and then allow the courts to decide. You will have to pay, but it is not really up to you, but the legal system to decide how much. If you actually are guilty, and you get dragged into the legal system, that is not being bullied, that is seeing the consequences of breaking the law.

In this particular case: If a person is innocent, and they provide their evidence clear to the lawfirm (as stated in the article), then they will drop the case (otherwise you would be able to counter-sue them, and that could get pricey for them). If you are guilty though, 500 pounds (not 5000 dollars as in your example) is a fairly small price to settle for, and will probably make it less likely that you will pirate again in the future.



I don't see anything wrong with the legal system in place to deter people from committing theft, nor to punish those who get caught doing so. This is a fairly serious epidemic that threatens the contemporary arts which have been increasingly reliant on new mediums (which unfortunately, are increasingly easier to steal), and the laws that are in place to protect the rights of those who produce them.

Where I do see something wrong, something criminal, is malicious Internet based attacks. The people doing these attacks are also from 4Chan, if you are somehow unfamiliar with this website - it is full of people who have a history of launching malicious attacks for no other purpose than to create mischief and satisfy their nerd-egos; this is just another one of those attacks. They aren't fighting for justice, they just claim that they are to gain support for their actions, and to support their nerd-egos.

[Kupek]

In the US, we are legally entitled to an attorney for all criminal charges against us. Lawsuits are civil charges. We have no guarantee of an attorney. One of my best friends works for the Legal Services Corporation which is a government funded non-profit which does provide lawyers to the poor for civil cases. Being sued by the RIAA would not get you a lawyer from the LSC: the cases they tend to handle are much more severe than this.

If you try to handle a civil lawsuit yourself, you will lose. Laymen (by which I mean, you, me, the rest of the board and just about everyone who would get sued by the RIAA, MPAA or any other large copyright holder) have no idea how to handle a civil lawsuit. The rules, procedures and precedents are beyond our ability to handle on the fly - and attempting to do so would be a full time job. That you would fail at.

If a lawyer expects to show up in court for you, $5000 is a pretty fair lower-bound.

[Don]

It is not profitable for RIAA to go through their considerable effort and bully you into settling for $1K just because you can't afford a $5K lawyer. Note that whatever you settle for has to be a lot less than what it'd cost you to fight the case, because otherwise unless you're 100% sure you're guilty and have no chance of winning, you'd just fight the case anyway. And if the amount to settle will ruin you financially anyway, you might as well fight the case even if you're sure you're 100% guilty. At least you can spend all your money while the case is going on before you invariably lose.

The cases are fought for fear, not because they want to get your meager settlement that most likely won't pay for their lawyer's time. Problem is that fear doesn't work because the chance of getting caught is too small so there's no way you can make the guys who get caught have to pay enough. Let's say each pirate costs RIAA $10, and your chance of getting caught is 1 out of 100000. You'd have to get $1 milion out of each person you catch. Assuming RIAA can win 100% of the time in court (I've never heard of them losing, because if it did it'd be a huge deal), they still cannot possibly extract $1 million out of each person they sue simply because the average person doesn't have that kind of money. You'd need to be able to lose $1 million if caught for the fear versus piracy to balance out, but it is not possible to lose $1 million since most people don't have that money, so there really is no fear even if RIAA has never lost a case (as far as I know). So currently it's just a lose-lose to everyone. If they sue you, you'd almost certainly lose and potentially ruined, but RIAA isn't getting anything out of it either.

[Kupek]

The RIAA is not the only group I'm talking about. Copyright troll firms are popping up whose entire business model is to sue people who can't afford to defend the suit.

[Don]

Yes but copyright/patent trolls can potentially make a lot of money since their targets are generally business entities. Even if you only have 1% chance of winning against say, Microsoft, you certainly can extract many millions out of them if you do win. This is different from sueing a guy downloading movie/MP3 from torrents who you'll be expected to get maybe a couple thousand at best even if you've 100% chance to win (and you don't).

If there was an organization like United Pirates of America that represents the interest of every pirate in America, it'd be really easy to sue those guys and extract large amount of money (say when this organzation loses a million each member has to fork out 10 cents to cover the cost) successfully, and in this case there would be a financial motive to sue. Yes if such an organization existed they'd be able to afford pretty good legal protection, but with copyright laws as written it'd still be pretty hard for this hypothetical organization to win and they definitely do have the money to pay those ridiculous amounts that you hear about if they lose.

[Kupek]

How Many Words is Fair Use? Maybe More Than You and AP Thought: Let's Look at a Righthaven Case

Quoth a lawyer on a forum I post at,

The Righthaven model is disturbing to me not so much for its trolling aspects (and it does have those, since Righthaven will, in effect, scout out the terrain, find the offending pieces, and then approach the papers to get assignments on those items) as for its "collection agency" overtones: it is a business model built fundamentally on harassment of small players who more often than not have inadvertently stepped into it without even realizing what they were doing. This is not a defense legally (see this piece for a lawyer-type analysis of why those sued are indeed often in the wrong under current copyright law: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09 ... pyright-tr...), but it raises public policy concerns about whether copyright law should be so structured as to allow this. The law may say it's right but, as with collection-agency forms of abuse, it feels fundamentally unfair.

[Don]

Copyright law is just messy and it's something I never quite understood. I mean I believe everything I typed here is copyrighted by myself (pretty sure you can't just weasel it out with some disclaimer somewhere) so does that mean if Sine quoted me and then was quoted by RIAA I can sue them for a zillion dollar? Probably not but it seems like it's at least possible. Right now it really seems like you just get into a lose-lose situation and the only guys who win are the lawyers. Even RIAA says they don't gain money from their suits (it won't cover lawyer fees), and certainly the little guy rarely wins. I'm not one of those guys who say copyright needs to be abolished because technology has changed things, but the Congress definitely needs to come up with newer ways to organize copyright now that the difficulty of copying is no longer a meaningful deterrent in today's world.

[SineSwiper]

Nothing is copyrighted until you pay for the copyrights.

[Don]

Actually everything you produced is copyrighted to yourself. If you want to quote from "Don's rant on why Anime sucks" that I start every other week you technically need my permission to do it. Now fair use says you can probably use a few quote but if you want to just quote the whole thing you'd be violating copyright laws. Now it's not clear to me how I can possibly get any money out of this so I obviously won't be suing you but that's what the laws say. That's why it's really not clear to me how all this interacts with each other.

[Oracle]

Copyright should be 10 years, and software patents shouldn't exist!

That is all!

[Shrinweck]

"Don's rant on why Anime sucks" that I start every other week

Stop watching sucky anime :P

I always think of your anime threads as "Don's rant on anime that I (and probably he) already pretty much knew sucked."

[Kupek]

It's worth reiterating that you own a copyright to everything you produce even if you don't register it.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-g ... tml#mywork

When is my work protected?
Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

Do I have to register with your office to be protected?
No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.”

[SineSwiper]

All the more reason why copyright law is jacked up. Then again, so is patent law.

[Shrinweck]

Most laws are pretty jacked up. *takes a toke* Man, dude, like, wouldn't it be totally amazing if, like, there were no laws?

[SineSwiper]

No, most laws are fair. But the 1-2% of the laws that need correction end up being a pain in everybody's side. (Speeding laws, drug laws, patent/copyright laws, etc.)

[Tessian]

You can thank Disney for our totally fucked up copyright laws timing. Life of creator plus 70 years now isn't it? At least patents only last a few years

[SineSwiper]

Well, you can thank them (and Sonny Fucking "Watch Out For That Tree" Bono) for the copyright lengths, but not the whole other part of the law.

I wonder what will happen when the Mickey Mouse reaches its limit again? I mean, Congress can't possibly make it last until the end of time. Maybe somebody will realize that it's fucking insane and roll it back. Make it 10 years for software copyrights and 30 years for everything else.

[Zeus]

You can thank Disney for our totally fucked up copyright laws timing. Life of creator plus 70 years now isn't it? At least patents only last a few years

50 years if I'm not mistaken. Too lazy to confirm.

And "creator" can easily be a corporation, which is considered a "person" in the eyes of the law (that's why you can sue a corp)

EDIT: worst part about a corp being the creator is corps don't die so the copyright stays forever. That's what they gotta get rid of. If there hasn't been any activity with that particular copyrighted property for a course of 50 years, it should enter the public domain

[Oracle]

And "creator" can easily be a corporation, which is considered a "person" in the eyes of the law (that's why you can sue a corp)

I always knew this was out there, but is this only the case in civil matters? What about criminal matters? If a corp is a person, who serves a sentence? Or do they then look at who is accountable within the corp?

The whole 'corp = person' is bullshit anyways. They should be defined as a unique type of entity that has rights in a country, but not the same ones as a person.

[Zeus]

And "creator" can easily be a corporation, which is considered a "person" in the eyes of the law (that's why you can sue a corp)

I always knew this was out there, but is this only the case in civil matters? What about criminal matters? If a corp is a person, who serves a sentence? Or do they then look at who is accountable within the corp?

The whole 'corp = person' is bullshit anyways. They should be defined as a unique type of entity that has rights in a country, but not the same ones as a person.

Well, when it comes to lawsuits, you always have a representative. You don't need a real-life "person" to be sued or to sue. Particularly in civil suits where the person being sued or the person suing often doesn't even appear in court. As to serving a sentence, I believe the precedence set through court cases is for the CEO/President/who's in charge is the one who gets it (like Lay with the Enron crap) unless you can clearly prove it was someone else who actually committed the act. The corporation as a "person" does not actually perform the act itself and I believe the criminal courts look at who did the deed when determining punishment. It would be the same as a mob boss telling a goon to kill someone. The goon is charged with murder, the mob boss gets conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder, etc. Since the corp really didn't order anyone to do anything (it would be the CEO or President who did it or would be found criminally negligent) the corp is off the hook.

They have to be the same as a real-life person in order for our antiquated court systems to function. What you're talking about is a complete overhaul of the legal system and that just ain't gonna happen.

[Kupek]

EDIT: worst part about a corp being the creator is corps don't die so the copyright stays forever. That's what they gotta get rid of. If there hasn't been any activity with that particular copyrighted property for a course of 50 years, it should enter the public domain

Not true. Mickey Mouse is still copyright Disney because the length of copyright protection keeps getting pushed back, not because Disney has not "died."

Corporate personhood is not a law, but a legal precedent. It means that in certain circumstances, a corporation is considered a "legal person," and they are given some of the rights of a person. It wouldn't take restructuring our legal framework to change this, just applying the law differently. Civil suits, by definition, do not involve criminal matters, so no one ever serves a prison sentence for losing a civil suit. And corporations cannot be prosecuted for crimes, only people can.

[Zeus]

EDIT: worst part about a corp being the creator is corps don't die so the copyright stays forever. That's what they gotta get rid of. If there hasn't been any activity with that particular copyrighted property for a course of 50 years, it should enter the public domain

Not true. Mickey Mouse is still copyright Disney because the length of copyright protection keeps getting pushed back, not because Disney has not "died."

Corporate personhood is not a law, but a legal precedent. It means that in certain circumstances, a corporation is considered a "legal person," and they are given some of the rights of a person. It wouldn't take restructuring our legal framework to change this, just applying the law differently. Civil suits, by definition, do not involve criminal matters, so no one ever serves a prison sentence for losing a civil suit. And corporations cannot be prosecuted for crimes, only people can.

I'm intrigued a bit at the history, so I did some quick research:

You can thank some idiot court reporter for allowing the precedence to be set:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... d-a-person

But it did actually start in Roman times:

http://money.howstuffworks.com/corporation-person.htm

Looks like the last time the copyright laws were changed was in 1998 by Bono. Anything receiving a copyright prior to 1978 gets up to 95 years assuming it's been renewed during the 28th year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... _copyright) and it's the corp that owns the copyright now. I was always under the impression that the clock didn't start until the corp either died or didn't renew (I figured that's why corps copyright stuff, not people, to be able to hold on to it forever). But I was wrong, that ain't the case. There's always some sort of clock. So it looks like Mickey Mouse will be coming up pretty soon judging by that logic, assuming he was copyrighted in 1928 when created. 13 years to be exact. So I'm sure Disney will lobby for that change very soon. I can't imagine them allowing him to enter the public domain.

Now that the very quick history lesson's over with, let's get on with the rest of the reply. Maybe in theory you could apply the laws differently but considering we're now going on 100+ years of history, changing the corporate personhood precedent would be a seismic shift in the application of law that I don't think our legal system can really handle. We already have this enormous subsection of law that is corporate law and it's built on that principle. If all of a sudden corps weren't legally "people" and you went straight to the people in charge for everything, what would be the point of even having a corp? The entire point of incorporating at all is limited liability, they do not exist for any other reason. Corporate personhood is how we apply limited liability. There has to be some liability in order for it to be limited. Take that away and corporations don't even need to exist. Either that or there is no liability for a corporation at all since it cannot be held liable. I'm sure no one wants that, not even hard-core Republicans.

Your only other options would be as a sole proprietor, for which there is no legal difference as the person is the company, or a partnership. In a partnership, the only thing you can do is shift blame. You use your partnership agreement under the umbrella of prior precedence or some specific types of partnerships (for instance, up here, law and accounting firms form a Limited Liability Partnership, or LLP, which allows other partners to not be liable for one "bad apple's" mistakes) in order to determine who gets the blame. The partnership itself can never be held liable, just the partners. So apply that to the stock market. What would you invest your money in and who is responsible for making your investment grow? If you go down to the individual level, who would own the IP (to ensure there's no confusing, that means intellectual property)? Would it leave with the CEO or scientist who created it? If so, what incentive do the other partners (or stakeholders of any kind, like those who invest in shares) have to invest their time and money into anything? You need to treat the corps as a legal person in terms of liability particularly considering the increasing complexities of corporate structure and the attempts by the legal system to be able keep up and to enforce properly.

So not only would it change the game completely in the legal system, it would fundamentally change the very core of and environment within which businesses function. It can't happen, period.

[Kupek]

We already have this enormous subsection of law that is corporate law and it's built on that principle. If all of a sudden corps weren't legally "people" and you went straight to the people in charge for everything, what would be the point of even having a corp? The entire point of incorporating at all is limited liability, they do not exist for any other reason. Corporate personhood is how we apply limited liability.

Your entire argument hinges on the idea that we need corporate personhood to apply liability, but you have no support for that. For criminal matters, you always go after individuals, never the corporation itself. "Limited liability" applies to financial liability, and I see no connection between it and granting corporations some of the rights of an individual.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability

[Zeus]

We already have this enormous subsection of law that is corporate law and it's built on that principle. If all of a sudden corps weren't legally "people" and you went straight to the people in charge for everything, what would be the point of even having a corp? The entire point of incorporating at all is limited liability, they do not exist for any other reason. Corporate personhood is how we apply limited liability.

Your entire argument hinges on the idea that we need corporate personhood to apply liability, but you have no support for that. For criminal matters, you always go after individuals, never the corporation itself. "Limited liability" applies to financial liability, and I see no connection between it and granting corporations some of the rights of an individual.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability

Ok, so what would you replace corporate personhood with?

[Kupek]

Ok, so what would you replace corporate personhood with?

You don't need to replace it with anything. It would just mean that corporations are not assumed to have the same rights that people do, as long as the right makes sense. For example, a person has the right to vote, but corporations obviously do not vote. But under current interpretation of the law, corporations have a right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment. I think that is ridiculous. Corporations are a legal fiction that we created. We can decide what "rights" do and do not apply to them however we see fit. Corporations obviously could not function if they were not allowed to engage in contracts, so we should grant them that. But I see no reason to grant them free speech protections.

[Zeus]

Ok, so what would you replace corporate personhood with?

You don't need to replace it with anything. It would just mean that corporations are not assumed to have the same rights that people do, as long as the right makes sense. For example, a person has the right to vote, but corporations obviously do not vote. But under current interpretation of the law, corporations have a right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment. I think that is ridiculous. Corporations are a legal fiction that we created. We can decide what "rights" do and do not apply to them however we see fit. Corporations obviously could not function if they were not allowed to engage in contracts, so we should grant them that. But I see no reason to grant them free speech protections.

So if a statement is released under a corporate banner that would normally be protected under the First Amendment and we don't grant personhood in those cases, we are then to apply that to who, the HR person reading it? The CEO? Who does that statement belong to in order to be protected? Technically, it belongs to the corporation not any one person. Or are we simply to say "corps aren't people, that statement isn't protected" and allow for litigation to be possible on something that would normally be protected if a person released it themselves? And if we are to go that route where we forced individuals working for corporations to release statements in order to be protected, are they then personally liable for those statements? What if they were forced to release it under external and/or internal pressures? Who's then responsible for that coercion? The CEO? What if he had nothing to do with it?

This "legal fiction" we created is to allow our legal system and business environments to function properly without confusion. For the last 100+ years these limited personhood rights we've bestowed upon corporations have been tested repeatedly and are under constant revision. No one has been able to come up with anything better. So we don't have to agree with it morally but from a societal functionality point of view, we have yet to either falsify or provide a superior alternative. So, using scientific reasoning, we continue with the application of this theory until we do.

[kali o.]

In the US, we are legally entitled to an attorney for all criminal charges against us. Lawsuits are civil charges. We have no guarantee of an attorney. One of my best friends works for the Legal Services Corporation which is a government funded non-profit which does provide lawyers to the poor for civil cases. Being sued by the RIAA would not get you a lawyer from the LSC: the cases they tend to handle are much more severe than this.

If you try to handle a civil lawsuit yourself, you will lose. Laymen (by which I mean, you, me, the rest of the board and just about everyone who would get sued by the RIAA, MPAA or any other large copyright holder) have no idea how to handle a civil lawsuit. The rules, procedures and precedents are beyond our ability to handle on the fly - and attempting to do so would be a full time job. That you would fail at.

If a lawyer expects to show up in court for you, $5000 is a pretty fair lower-bound.

For the record, it is the same deal in Canada (if you don't have the means to pay and meet certain guidelines, usually you can find/apply to a local law society group - ie: University law student nfp groups, etc for advice and representation...pretty sure US is the same).

Piracy needs to policed by the police. Monetary/civil action needs to be dealt with only on a distribution level and after a criminal trial (and by that, I mean more than simple sharing through torrent technology). That's my opinion at least. But at the end of the day, let's face it, people are stealing. The industry's inept and archaic business models and greed aren't an excuse.

Edit: Bill C-32 won't make it anyway -- the digital lock nonsense needs to go. So I got at least 2 years of worry-free pirating before we see any legitimate legislation.

[SineSwiper]

Piracy needs to policed by the police.

Under what criminal definition?

[kali o.]

Piracy needs to policed by the police.

Under what criminal definition?

The same definitions under which theft already exists (valuation at the retail price). Keep thousands of dollars of illegal software, expect a federal case if you get caught.

A seperate standard doesn't need to be created just because the "goods" aren't physical.

At this point, I am just talking the basic "ideal", I am ignoring the details (such as releaxing fair use, eliminating digital lock criminality, whether ISPs should provide 'some' info/monitoring if requested with cause, etc).

[Zeus]

Piracy needs to policed by the police.

Under what criminal definition?

Theft of property. Tangible or not, it is property.

[SineSwiper]

Piracy needs to policed by the police.

Under what criminal definition?

Theft of property. Tangible or not, it is property.

Is copying legally considered "theft of property"?

[kali o.]

Is copying legally considered "theft of property"?

I can't speak for zeus, but that's exactly why I included my little caveat at the end -- so you wouldn't bother asking that.

If you are copying for private use (back up, etc) or public use (with not-for-profit fair use ideals / educational), the laws need to account for that. Breaking drm and swapping medium/storage should not be criminal for personal use. Until the laws reflect that, I will never support any legislation -- and will actively actually oppose it. We are moving towards a digital age, everything is going to include software at some point. I refuse to hand over all rights for products I purchase (nevermind just entertainment media!) to the company that makes them...that's idiotic. It redefines ownership with the consumer on the bottom.

At the same time, I realize that there is a group out there that simply wants private/fair use as loop holes to continue stealing. They want an anarchic internet, they don't actually want copyright reform. Something has to be given up and I suspect it will be privacy at the end of the day...ie: monitoring/licensing. I won't expand why, it's too much typing. But when the government actually becomes literate in technology and consumers get screwed enough, laws will reflect the rights of the public, not solely the corporations.

On a slightly related note, I was reading the proposed Canadian copyright bill (C-32) and, while it's terrible, I was thinking on the digital lock portion. It seems to me, if left as is, all that needs to occur for piracy to still work is to protect files in some fashion before distro. People would have to break the law (defeat the lock on the packaged pirated copy) to prove you broke the law...which seems funny to me. Am I reading it wrong?

[Zeus]

Theft of property. Tangible or not, it is property.

Is copying legally considered "theft of property"?

See, that's where the issue is. If you use a car, you're using the original, not a copy. So if you take the car without permission, the person who owns it has lost use of the asset, thus it's pretty clear that it's theft of the property. However, if you download a copy of a DVD, the original is still out there to be used by the original owner (forget for a sec that the purchased DVD is itself a copy). So are you really "stealing" it, particularly if the original owner gave permission, such as making a copy himself and sharing it on a torrent site? Not really, it's like borrowing a car except you can both use it at the same time. The fact that most people don't see downloading copies of music/movies/games also, in a way, supports the fact that it's not actually theft. After all, no one is losing the ability to use the product since there's no physical product you're taking away. And as much as some would like us to forget, laws are only as strong as the masses believe they are.

This is why you technically don't own a DVD. By purchasing it, you agree to a licence to watch the copy of movie at your discretion on an approved device. That way, there's legal recourse for the owner of the IP to come after you, which the studio and MPAA try on a semi-regular basis. I believe it technically works the same way for CDs.

But to play devil's advocate, what other way can the creators and owners of the IP protect themselves? They have to create a situation where copying and sharing is illegal in order to ensure that IP has future earning power. Even if it really isn't in the eyes of practically everyone, having a copy NEEDS to be illegal. I may not care myself and will gladly download stuff that I would otherwise have to pay for. But there are a lot of people like me who will pay for what they want....if the price is right.

Look at music downloads. They're only $1 per song, so cheap that people (even myself) feel it's a wonderful price. Sure, there's still lots of people like me who just get them through torrents anyways but there's no denying there's a huge revenue stream from iTunes and similar sites.

To get back to the question, are you "stealing" it? Guess it depends on which definition of stealing you're referring to. Traditionally? No. Legally? Sort of....mostly. Public opinion? Definitely not

[SineSwiper]

So, again, I ask, under what criminal definition? If you don't have a solid criminal prosecution, it's not going to work. Criminal law favors the defense more than civil law.

Look at music downloads. They're only $1 per song, so cheap that people (even myself) feel it's a wonderful price. Sure, there's still lots of people like me who just get them through torrents anyways but there's no denying there's a huge revenue stream from iTunes and similar sites.

How can you consider that cheap when you don't even buy the songs? Paying $10-12 album isn't cheap, especially when there's a ton of music out there. I'd go broke if I was paying that much for albums.

On a slightly different note, I just found out that MP3Sparks supports credit card payments again.