Be careful torrenters. You can get sued. Like these 5k ppl.

[Philipio]

To everyone that was calling private tracker members "elitists" in the other private tracker invite thread, this is why extremely exclusive private sites exist.

[wingFeather]

Piracy isn't theft.

[Loki]

Piracy isn't theft. I don't take anything when I torrent a movie. It's not as though if torrenting were not available to me that I would have gone out and bought that movie, so I don't see how I am depriving the company of anything. If anything it may be a positive towards the company if the movie is actually GOOD, as I will most likely spread good reviews of the movie. I think rich execs need some butt cream for their sore behinds.

You are stealing their potential profit. Before p2p networks if you wanted a movie you either A) rented it or B) bought it. Both options earned the studios money. Now...you are essentially stealing what they could earn from you.
Having said that...I am a thieving bastard of upwards of 8 gigs per day.

I don't think I'm stealing any potential profit. If I had not downloaded the movie, I would NOT have viewed it through any other means. I simply do not care about movies enough. No Netflix, no renting, no buying. There was never any profit to be made from me.

[AppleBonker]

Stealing intellectual property is still theft. And jeopardizes profit for the owner. I get your point, but it wont hold up in a courtroom.

Edit: and the problem is really more the sharing aspect of it. I don't know that they nail people for downloading the files so much as they go after them for uploading them back out (which you are almost always doing while torrenting). The issue is that you are distributing copyrighted work without authorization.

[IBCoupe]

I don't think I'm stealing any potential profit. If I had not downloaded the movie, I would NOT have viewed it through any other means. I simply do not care about movies enough. No Netflix, no renting, no buying. There was never any profit to be made from me.

Except that now you've seen the movie, where you otherwise would not have. That's enrichment.

[MinisterofDOOM]

There are few things I hate more than people who complain about having to face the consequences of their actions when they were fully aware of those consequences before acting.

You want to argue about how it's "harmless" and you're not stealing profit and all that crap, go right ahead. It changes nothing as far as your own consequences go. ALL of those people knew there were laws in place. They thought (probably something most of them should avoid) they would get away with it. They didn't. Now they're mad. There is NO justification for being angry, or upset, or offended, or feeling picked on. Disgreeing with the basis for the law is one thing. Proceeding to break that law in full knowledge of its existence and then complaining when you get caught is a whole different story.

If I stick my hand in a tub of molten lead, I don't get to be angry at the lead for burning me. It's my own damn fault for being stupid, or stubborn, or whatever else you want to call it.

[sci2000tech]

So where does streaming fall? It's not downloading, but is it still illegal?

[HashiriyaS14]

I don't have much sympathy for this.

Ever since piracy effectively killed the Dreamcast, I haven't been big on it.

Not saying I NEVER do it, but the guy who's asking the CEO not to prosecute is an idiot. Intellectual property and physical property are the same.

I torrent a lot, but mainly to get stuff that wasn't released stateside or released at all, or to get ROM's to games that are ages old and no one is making money off of anymore.

[Jesda]

Legally, it is theft, but the legal definition was created by our society. Its a fairly recent legal tradition. Its like deciding wearing blue pants is theft.

[Jesda]

I torrent a lot, but mainly to get stuff that wasn't released stateside or released at all, or to get ROM's to games that are ages old and no one is making money off of anymore.

Gosh, I hope they throw away the key and you never see your Miata again!

[IBCoupe]

Its like deciding wearing blue pants is theft.

Which is, in fact, so recent that it hasn't been decided yet.

Anyways...

WE'RE A NATION OF LAWS!

[Jesda]

Speaking of aliens, New York City had some hovering above recently.

Yeah, the media says they were just balloons, but I know the truth.

[breadbox]

Its a Ninja Turtle BLimp over NY.

Ever since piracy effectively killed the Dreamcast, I haven't been big on it.

Um no the retards that thought no one could hack dreamcast are to blame on that one.
Most of them didnt include any measure of software protection, all you needed was the ability to burn discs in the correct format.

The dream cast as far as innovation changed the whole face of console gaming.

but I Digress.

[dusred]

When I said:

Lets assume that I illegally download movies. Okay. It's just like speeding. You can do it and get away with it and it will make you feel good but when you get caught STFU and pay up. When you speed you take the risk of getting caught. The same applies to pirated movies and software.

This is what I was referring to:

There are few things I hate more than people who complain about having to face the consequences of their actions when they were fully aware of those consequences before acting.

You want to argue about how it's "harmless" and you're not stealing profit and all that crap, go right ahead. It changes nothing as far as your own consequences go. ALL of those people knew there were laws in place. They thought (probably something most of them should avoid) they would get away with it. They didn't. Now they're mad. There is NO justification for being angry, or upset, or offended, or feeling picked on. Disgreeing with the basis for the law is one thing. Proceeding to break that law in full knowledge of its existence and then complaining when you get caught is a whole different story.

If I stick my hand in a tub of molten lead, I don't get to be angry at the lead for burning me. It's my own damn fault for being stupid, or stubborn, or whatever else you want to call it.

Do it all you want but when you get caught no bitching. You (or me) had it coming.

[Jesda]

Failing to court developers is what killed Dreamcast. Sega treated it as nothing more than a vehicle for its own homegrown titles (which were awesome) while Sony aggressively pursued software publishers. Fittingly, Sega is now primarily a software company.

[Alfador]

I did not pirate the film. I stated earlier that my old IP (from Qwest) was on the list but then deleted that out of the original posting. I did not want to get some BS from people like Alfador who go on about how pirating is bad mmkay? I know its bad. Don't try to give me a little kids lecture about it.

I was a victim of having an open router. The whole neighborhood was using my internet.

I changed my ISP to Comcast literally the month this all started. Comcast hooked me up with a configured router and made sure it worked.

It's a bit of an extrme example, but if you leave your car running in your driveway, and someone uses that opportunity to jump in it and drive off, then hits some little kid, or even just a mailbox while blasting down your street, I would say you are at least partially at fault for that due to negligence. I don't see this very differently. If you left your wireless router open for everyone in the neighborhood to use, that's your problem.

To be perfectly honest, even if making the extremely poor decision of not securing your router was an excuse, you probably should have left that noted in your post.

To answer apple's points...

Yes, I'm that big of a d!ck that if someone was trespassing on my property, and was aware they were trespassing on my property, I would not object to the sentence. I probably wouldn't push for something that harsh myself but I'd have absolutely no problem with someone else doing it. I probably wouldn't sue someone for 25 Benjies if I were in that company's position but I'm honestly fine with them doing it.

As far as DUI's go, as far as I'm concerned every single First offense for a DUI should involve jail time and a permanently revoked license, and even just in general, when people make that argument that "crime X is worse than crime Y but has a lower punishment, therefore punishment Y is unreasonable" My response is almost always "punishment Y is reasonable, punishment X is just too lenient.

[IBCoupe]

I would say you are at least partially at fault for that due to negligence.

Morally, maybe, but legally, it would depend on whether you should have reasonably foreseen those consequences of your actions. In getting out of the car that's still running, should you have reasonably foreseen that it could lead to a kid being killed? Or a mailbox being knocked over?

If the charge against you by the tortfeasor is that you negligently left your router unencrypted and that led to people to use your wireless network to pirate copyrighted material, then that's the question that gets put to a jury: assuming that you didn't see that coming, should you have?

However, if the charge against you is that you pirated copyrighted material, I imagine that you could argue that it wasn't you, and that it was possible that someone else used your network. Now, I haven't seen any cases that take that route in my limited research on the matter, and I didn't notice anything in the DCMA that spoke to it, so that may be something that just hasn't been addressed yet.

But there's a couple of things to keep in mind: I don't see any reason why you couldn't argue that, and I don't see any legal reason why it would be eliminated as an option to you. After all, if they allege that you pirated copyright material on such and such a date, and you can demonstrate that you were backpacking in Prague at the time, that could be a convincing argument to your defense that "Someone else might have been doing it on my computer without my permission or cooperation."

The other thing to keep in mind is that if you did make that argument, they could say that you negligently allowed it to happen, and then we get to the point of arguing to a jury that you should or should not have reasonably foreseen someone using your unencrypted network. On the internet, with a bunch of fairly tech-savvy people talking about the ins and outs of internet piracy, that might sound like a really convincing argument (and it very well might be), but remember that a jury pool isn't just us. It's some number between 6 and 12 (varies by jurisdiction) average Americans who couldn't find a way out of jury duty.

[VMPhil]

I will say suing for a reasonable amount is actually a step in the right direction. Suing someone for 25k for downloading a movie is down right ridiculous. 2.5k is reasonable. I am not saying I agree with it but at least it wont break someones bank.

[IBCoupe]

I tentatively agree with you, on that, but I feel I shoudl explain how I get to that agreement.

I do believe that the $25,000 fine would be excessive, but I can see the reason for it: they want to send a message. A $25,000 fine would scare the daylights out of me, so maybe I wouldn't want to run the risk of incurring one. But that the fine was that high might lead me to think that it's that much more rare. If we saw them levying $2,500 fines, we might come to the conclusion that their legal fees are accounted for by a fine that low, which must mean that they're fining a lot more people, which might mean that I'm more likely to be hit by it. Though I could take the hit now, I don't think I want to. And that's why I agree with you that a $2,500 fine is better, but I don't know that I use the same reason as you do.

[VMPhil]

I tentatively agree with you, on that, but I feel I shoudl explain how I get to that agreement.

I do believe that the $25,000 fine would be excessive, but I can see the reason for it: they want to send a message. A $25,000 fine would scare the daylights out of me, so maybe I wouldn't want to run the risk of incurring one. But that the fine was that high might lead me to think that it's that much more rare. If we saw them levying $2,500 fines, we might come to the conclusion that their legal fees are accounted for by a fine that low, which must mean that they're fining a lot more people, which might mean that I'm more likely to be hit by it. Though I could take the hit now, I don't think I want to. And that's why I agree with you that a $2,500 fine is better, but I don't know that I use the same reason as you do.

no that's pretty much what I think. Its like getting a really expensive ticket. It can happen again but I would try to avoid it.

[HashiriyaS14]

Failing to court developers is what killed Dreamcast. Sega treated it as nothing more than a vehicle for its own homegrown titles (which were awesome) while Sony aggressively pursued software publishers. Fittingly, Sega is now primarily a software company.

That certainly had a lot to do with it.

I should have said "what killed the DC in the Asian market". (not Japan)



I certainly grab copyrighted stuff sometimes, but it's never anything I would've actually purchased. I'm a collector, a hoarder, and generally I'd rather just have the shiny piece of physical media with neat packaging if I can actually get it.

if, however, it's the September 2010 Best Motoring release or something that they don't release here....then I'm downloading. If they don't give me the option to buy locally, I'm not going to bend over backwards to source a legit copy.

[Philipio]

Legally, it is theft, but the legal definition was created by our society. Its a fairly recent legal tradition. Its like deciding wearing blue pants is theft.

I haven't read the whole thread up until this point so I apologize if this was mentioned already, but:


Downloading pirated material is actually considered copyright infringement, not theft.

[Alfador]

lots of text

I agree, legally it's questionable. But my point is that I still hold zero sympathy. Were it my decision, I would argue that the consequences of an unsecured router are reasonably forseeable. Hell, it's blatantly obvious. It's not as if they haven't been drumming it into our heads for the last 5-10 years at this point.

The easy solution is to just to pursue damages on the basis that they facilitated the filesharing (which every client on a torrent tracker does by virtue of uploading during the torrent). Several of the big-moneys situations that came into play over the past few years ultimately involved that principle more than the actual download itself. Similar reason police go after pimps instead of hookers and, dealers instead of users, etc.

Also, I doubt they're going to get many judgements, or need to. Whether you think it is right or wrong, the fact of the matter is a ridiculous majority of lawsuits are resolved with a settlement of some sort. Very few actually make it to a judge or jury verdict. In cases like these, it's often because defending against it is prohibitively expensive. People wind up paying settlements of half or something instead of having to hire a lawyer and pay them at least that much to defend a claim they might lose anyway.

Tech savvy or not, people have an obligation to understand the basics, especially if it's drilled into them every single day. Not knowing to secure your router in this case is akin to not knowing to have brakes serviced and then trying to sidestep the issue when they fail and you rear end someone.

if, however, it's the September 2010 Best Motoring release or something that they don't release here....then I'm downloading. If they don't give me the option to buy locally, I'm not going to bend over backwards to source a legit copy.

Maybe its a bit hypocritical of me, but I do see that as an entirely separate issue. I'm of the personal belief that copyright holders have an obligation to continue the propagation of their media. That said, I still wouldn't complain if I was caught doing such a thing.

In the case of these filesharing situations though, the issue is quite plain. The material was very easy to find and respected the more or less industry standard release structure for movies.

Perhaps my biggest issue with filesharers though is that they make it more of a pain in the a** for legitimate paying customers, who have to put up with all sorts of deterrent nonsense under the assumption that it will keep them honest. I hate what, for example, Ubisoft has done, forcing you to have an internet connection consistently during play, but at the same time I resent them for it, their hand was forced.