Two Florida Judges Quash Copyright Fishing Lawsuits 17
Fluffeh writes with a piece of good news on the privacy front: "Two rulings in related cases this week have dealt a serious blow to the plaintiffs and their dodgy legal strategy. Ordinarily, copyright law is handled by the federal courts, but Florida plaintiffs have begun using an obscure provision of state law called a 'pure bill of discovery' to attempt to force ISPs to reveal the identity of suspected file-sharers. The rulings, one on Monday and one on Wednesday, saw two different judges siding with the objecting ISPs. 'These back-to-back rulings against the plaintiffs suggest that they're likely to lose any time ISPs raise objections to fishing expeditions against their customers.'"
What is ISP is a copyright holder itself? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Time Warner, Cablevision -- will they protect their customers from "fishing expeditions"? Will they conduct expeditions of their own?
In cases like this, apply the following reasoning:
- Is the behaviour profittable?
- Is there any way of knowing about the behaviour?
If the answers are Yes and No, assume the behaviour is in course. There is no need to evaluate if it's legal or moral.
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If you know it's not stealing why did you say it? If you think it's not why accept it?
...what? (Score:2)
These back-to-back rulings against the plaintiffs suggest that they're likely to lose any time ISPs raise objections to fishing expeditions against their customers.'"
That's funny, last I checked, ISPs were happy to sell off any amount of customer data for a buck.
Let me guess, they're upset because the government only offered them fifty cents?
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Well, naturally, they're a business, and businesses exist to make money. This should not come as a surprise. It's basic math... if (money received) > (money spent + damage to customer relations) then they do it. If not, they fight it.
The bigger problem seems to be when an ISP decides to automate and streamline the process rat
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It's a battle of greed, the ISPs are willing to sell all the data they can, but the media industry isn't willing to pay for it, feeling that it's their "right" to fish endlessly... As long as both sides are greedy, we actually win. Heaven help us if they ever come to a compromise!
Two Florida Judges Quash Copyright Fishing Lawsuit (Score:2)
For a moment, I thought someone was trying to copyright fishing...
Of course, such an unprecedented discovery such as fishing should instead be worthy of a patent!
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No, fishing as been around for ages. Fishing on a computer on the other hand...
Has also [wikipedia.org] been around for a while, since 1982. "In 1982, Taito released an early golf game, Birdie King,[29] Tehkan released an early swimming game, Swimmer,[30] and Data East released an early fishing game, Angler Dangler.[31]"
Even fishing _inside_ a computer theoretically could be done, as long as you had a MacQuarium [wikipedia.org] or something similar.
Give a man a fish ... (Score:5)
Teach a man to fish and he becomes an intellectual property attorney for Hollywood.
MAFIAA legal evasive tactics = RICO offenses? (Score:4)
What this article highlights is that the MAFIAA are using state courts to evade the hurdles established by federal courts. They are twisting a state law out of the spirit of its original intention to expedite disclosure of true identities of "John Does". And once again they are attempting to pursue their case out of a single jurisdiction in direct contempt to federal legal precedent, even though the majority of ISPs named are outside the local jurisdiction. When certain ISPs opted to oppose their efforts, the MAFIAA merely removed the ISPs from their list rather than having their tactics exposed in a court of law.
These intentionally evasive tactics violated defendents' rights in the interest of minimizing legal expenses, expedited turnaround, and shielding lower courts from knowledge of case law. It is also a bullying tactic in that ISPs with weak spines had submitted when they were served with a subpeona obtained under shaky circumstances.
If this doesn't smell like a RICO lawsuit, I don't know what does.
Hillsboro Inlet Fishing Center (Score:1)