Ky. Woman Fights Porn Companies' Anti-Piracy Suits (Extortion)

San Francisco ^ | Wednesday, July 11, 2012 | BRETT BARROUQUERE

[nickcarraway]

t's a common tactic for pornography producers trying to protect their product from online piracy: They sue unknown "John Does" who illegally download movies, then go to Internet providers to learn their true identities and collect.

Hundreds of porn companies have filed thousands of lawsuits across the country in recent years. Often, representatives will call up the defendants, offering quick settlements of $1,000 or $5,000 to avoid facing $150,000 claims and the embarrassment of being publicly outed.

Some defendants in the lawsuits are pushing back, arguing that they're being squeezed for quick settlements even when they claim to have never downloaded anything.

[cuban leaf]

Interesting. All this time I’ve only heard about the music angle. This is completely new. And it does have the “embarrassment factor”.

Pretty funny.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

"The assumption that the person who pays for Internet access at a given location is the same individual who allegedly downloaded a single sexually explicit film is tenuous, and one that has grown more so over time," Brown wrote. "It is no more likely that the subscriber to an IP address carried out a particular computer function — here the purported illegal downloading of a single pornographic film — than to say an individual who pays the telephone bill made a specific telephone call."

Now if we could only apply this kind of reasoning to red-light cameras and other forms of official harassment.

[DoughtyOne]

You bastard! No honey, I didn't download anything, honest!"

14 year old kid just around the corner in his bedroom snickers as he leans his head this way and that, to see what's on his computer screen better.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Disgusting.

[DeaconRed]

"Now if we could only apply this kind of reasoning to red-light cameras and other forms of official harassment."

I honestly believe that red light cameras can be beaten by going to court and requesting to confront the accuser.
Did we loose that constitutional right too?
However I don't want to be the one to test it. Me ole daddy taught me how to beat a speeding ticket. It is very simple. DRIVE THE SPEED LIMIT and don't get caught in the first place.

[Sherman Logan]

True story. Guy here in Florida claimed his cat downloaded the child pornography while walking on the keyboard at night.

Must have thought it was kitty porn.

[justlurking]

This article appears to have some serious errors. I'm not sure if it's the reporter being clueless, or if it's a calculated effort to obfuscate the issue.

When did it become a crime to download a file, at least one that doesn't contain proscribed content like child pornography?

You don't violate a copyright unless you redistribute a copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder. Simply downloading it doesn't do that.

Of course, if you use any kind of file-sharing client (which shares the parts you have downloaded with other people downloading the file at the same time), you are indeed redistributing the file. And, if you continue to share a copyrighted work after downloading, you are certainly violating the copyright.

Is that what this article is doing: equating "downloading" with "sharing"?

[DoughtyOne]

LOL, kitty porn...

I’ve always thought kitty porn was for pussies. ;^)

[bigbob]

Not advocating, but with all the open and easily-cracked WEP wi-fi systems around everywhere, anyone who wants to download “content” of any kind that could land him in trouble is an idiot for doing so from his own IP address.

[Gay State Conservative]

I don’t download porn (far too old for that stuff) but I do download music.I assume what I download is legal but if it’s not I wonder what would be a defense? I live in a condo complex.When I click “networks” on my laptop I get about a dozen different routers displayed.I wonder if you can claim “hey,someone must have tapped in to my router.I didn’t download that”.

[nickcarraway]

That defense has worked. I remember a few years ago some defendants beat the RIAA defense. One was a chearleading coach who had unsecured wifi and the court ruled the RIAA couldn’t prove she was the one.

[Atlas Sneezed]

However I don’t want to be the one to test it. Me ole daddy taught me how to beat a speeding ticket. It is very simple. DRIVE THE SPEED LIMIT and don’t get caught in the first place.

---

Sheep.

[Terry Mross]

Are you going to claim someone hacked your account on here and used your screen name to admit you downloaded music? Just kidding.

[Gilbo_3]

Did we loose that constitutional right too?

'traffic' is an entirely different animal...the judge is the jury and the burden of proff is on the driver...its setup [usually] so that the fine tax is preferable to the hassle in time/money...