I work in an industry that creates media and I get paid based on people paying for entertainment products. I understand how piracy can be detrimental to the health of industries like mine. I also understand how morally and legally murky the waters are around the concept of file-sharing. There are some incredibly fine lines between legitimate sharing of entertainment media and illegitimate theft of goods. Sadly, the fact is that technology has completely outpaced the law and the judges that preside over cases involving technology rarely have the kind of expertise necessary to make a sound judgement. I doubt that the issue will be resolved any time soon.
That said, the RIAA and the MPAA continue to demonstrate that they are far more like criminals than the people they randomly sue over alleged file-sharing incidents. According to this article , the MPAA is arguing that they don’t need any proof to extract payment from individuals suspected of file-sharing. As far as they are concerned, since technology allows people to mask their identity and avoid detection during file-sharing activities, suspicion alone should be enough to allow them to seek as much as $150,000 in compensation.
They are essentially asking the courts to write them a carte blanche when it comes to extracting money from people they “suspect” of stealing their copyrighted material. If you don’t think that’s absurd, think about what our legal system would be like if the cops could pull you over for driving a nice car and arrest you because they “suspect” you could have used this car recklessly. Or to make the concept even more crystal clear, imagine that your school, church or home office has a wireless network that is either open to the public as a service or is accessible through some other means. If some random person not affiliated with you or your organization uses this wireless network to download copyrighted material and the MPAA happens to be (illegally) monitoring network traffic, they don’t need to prove it was actually YOU who stole their goods to force you to pay $150,000 in compensation for their “lost revenue.”
Absurd? Absolutely. But that doesn’t seem to stop the MPAA from making the argument in court. They want the ability to ignore privacy law, monitor private network traffic, use malware as a weapon against consumers and then extract money from anyone they please? Now who’s the criminal?
