At last, someone who has a barrel of cash is taking on the MPAA, their extortion tactics that target often innocent users to demand cash from ( so called "Settlements"), have hit a major snag.
http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.08/start.html?pg=3Last November, Shawn Hogan received an unsettling call: A lawyer representing Universal Pictures and the Motion Picture Association of America informed the 30-year-old software developer that they were suing him for downloading Meet the Fockers over BitTorrent. Hogan was baffled. Not only does he deny the accusation, he says he already owned the film on DVD. The attorney said they would settle for $2,500. Hogan declined.
Now he’s embroiled in a surprisingly rare situation – a drawn-out legal fight with the MPAA.
The organization and its music cousin, the Recording Industry Association of America, have filed thousands of similar lawsuits between them, but largely because of the legal costs few have been contested and none have gone to trial. This has left several controversies unresolved, including the lawfulness of how the associations get access to ISP records and whether it’s possible to definitively tie a person to an IP address in the age of Wi-Fi.
Hogan, who coded his way to millions as the CEO of Digital Point Solutions, is determined to change this. Though he expects to incur more than $100,000 in legal fees, he thinks it’s a small price to pay to challenge the MPAA’s tactics. “They’re completely abusing the system,” Hogan says. “I would spend well into the millions on this.”
Its nice to see the Cartels legal abuse stopped in its tracks, I expect another of the MPAA,s lighting pull outs of the case as often happens when they are rumbled as having no real evidence of what they allege, I hope this guy sues hard for damages when they do try to drop their claims, for too long corruption in congress has allowed the Cartels to deliver lighting threats of bankrupcy on folks whos only crime was to use the internet while Certain Media Mafia paid companies went fishing for new victims for the scam.
Let justice be done and the truth about the extortion campaign made very public.
