It would seem that public opinion over lawsuits is not going in the Cartels favour still and worse for the extortion industry are being challenged
http://www.thetranscript.com/Stories/0,1413,103~9049~3011037,00.html"Music Industry Targets 765 Internet Thieves In New Round Of Lawsuits" screams the headline on the Web page of the Recording Industry of America -- what the accompanying story fails to reveal is that these 765 "thieves" are actually ordinary citizens who have done little more than the modern day equivalent of taping some songs out of their friend's record collection.
Welcome to the brave new world of acquiring music.
"It's always been a cat-and-mouse game," said Rapp. "Gilbert and Sullivan were going apoplectic because their plays were being performed in the United States and no royalties were being paid to them. Then there were the big piano-player roll wars in the first decade of the 1900s. Finally, records started getting made and then radio came along and everyone thought that it would be the end of the record industry. And then cassettes came along and then video cassettes, and every one of them was deemed a burglar's tool and the industry tried to shut them all down and this is just the next iteration in the endless cat-and-mouse game."
This is my favourite quote
Lawyers are making as interesting use of the situation. Rapp knows of one lawyer in New York who has filed a motion claiming that it is not enough to just provide a list of file names in a share folder to sue a music downloader -- the RIAA must provide proof that these files were obtained by illegally downloading as opposed to ripping the files from CDs.
Kazaa, the embattled file-sharing protocol, has lobbed its own countersuit at the music industry.
"When you download the Kazaa program you have to click through their user agreement," said Rapp, "and they're claiming that snooping on users in order to sue them is a violation of the user agreement. I love that one."
Well, what do you folks think ? I take the view that they are shooting themselves in the foot but thats nothing new, its the scaring old folks and children, in short "Bullying" by the Cartel I object to, scaring the weak end of society is reserved for criminals ... or so I though.
This next story highlights a lady who has refused to be bullied by some parasite waving a list of files that they claim where "available" in someones shared folder.
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050814/NEWS02/508140316/1020/NEWS04Santangelo's lawyer, Morlan Ty Rogers, who works in New York City and grew up in Sleepy Hollow and Ossining, said no one has challenged the "boilerplate" language of the lawsuits, adding that the record companies don't have enough evidence to bring their claims to court.
"Many of these lawsuits have been brought against people who are simply the names on the Internet account," Rogers said. He said that's not good enough to sustain a lawsuit. The companies have sued unsuspecting mothers, fathers, grandparents — people who have only grudgingly made the switch from vinyl albums to compact discs.
"It's really surprising" no one has attacked the record companies' basis for the lawsuits, he said, "because the record companies' claims are actually very weak."
Most of the valid points are covered here folks if you get a nice letter inviting you to part with 3-5 k of cash then remember that to be actually liable you need to have done the following
Installed a recognised peer to peer program and made files available to others on its network,
just being the person who pays the bill does not make you liable.Also make sure that you have the program or files on your machine as some folks have found out to their cost that unsecured wireless networking can mean others are commiting copyright infringement on your line, if this is the case, you are still not liable as you have not committed the complaint of copyright infringement made in any suit.
Could someone have tapped your phone line to commit any of the offences claimed ?
Or worse has your machine got a known backdoor program installed that could allow an attacker to take control and abuse your machine while you sleep ?
All of the items above are possible reasons why you may not be liable regardless of what is "Claimed", by the extortionists who work for the Cartel, get legal advice and seek a reputable computer tech to make sure that you have evidence, that either your machine is infected or it never had the program in it to commit the offence.
