Isn't nice to be electronically tracked, spied on, searched and tagged. Thanks goodness for Section 8 of the charter.
quote:A forensic software company has collected files on a million Canadians... and the company, which works for the motion picture and recording industries, says a recent court decision (which took effect earlier this month) forcing Internet providers to release subscriber names and details is only the first step... his company is involved in another case that will see thousands of Canadians targeted in a sweep. The door is closing. People should think twice about downloading.
This is a story posted on a media empire's own "news" Web site.
good point.
The fact is that it doesn't matter if you're a downloader or not it's only if you win or lose the case. If your defense would be free it would be fine but you probably have to put up a minimum of $20K to defend yourself against an army of lawyers with unlimited funds.
If they make a mistake in the data collected it will end up costing you. This is looking similar to the debt collection fiasco running peoples credit because of "mistakes".
I have no problems with this as long as they pay for your right to defend yourself in court.
If your defense would be free it would be fine but you probably have to put up a minimum of $20K to defend yourself against an army of lawyers with unlimited funds.
This will be pursued in small claims where it will cost you nothing to defend yourself other than time to research the rules of procedure. If they file in general division the court will entertain a motion to move proceedings to small claims quite favourably.
What peterboro said, you can file to move this to small claims. Then it's as simple as an oral argument that perhaps your router was unsecured. In the worst case, you're unlikely to be fined more than the minimum $100.
That is an absolutely terrible article that seems to be catering to the self-serving hype being pushed by a "forensic software company." Just another example of how the media is letting down again by blindly reporting what they're given and being too lazy to research the facts.
Nothing they mention is any kind of change. Notice-and-notice has been going on for years, and it doesn't impose legal penalties. OTOH, the possibility of getting sued for infringement has always been there, subject to court order to identify IP addresses. This has always been true, and past challenges against copyright claimants have revolved around their attempts to get subscriber ID's without a court order, which they still cannot do.
The only thing that's changed is the passage of Bill C-11, and except for the government's intransigence on the terribly inflexible approach to digital locks which mimics the American DMCA, C-11 is generally pretty balanced with a number of provisions favouring the consumer. Of course this doesn't change the fact that if you pirate stuff and get ID'd via court order, they can sue your ass, but that's always been the case. Even there, C-11 caps the maximum liability for non-commercial infringement. I'll be the first to come out against some of the crap that The Harper Government has been trying to foist off on us, but for the most part C-11 isn't one of those, mostly thanks to enlightened community intervention from folks like Michael Geist. It seems that some folks won't be happy until they can get all music and movies for free, but out here in the real world, I think we're handling things pretty well.
I am essentially speaking, a ward of the state. I'm on a disability pension. I don't have any money to take.
Let them show up, my lawyers will be provided for me like everything else. If I win I don't pay, and if I lose, well like I said, I have no money to take.
I am essentially speaking, a ward of the state. I'm on a disability pension. I don't have any money to take.
Let them show up, my lawyers will be provided for me like everything else. If I win I don't pay, and if I lose, well like I said, I have no money to take.
yes my friend but how can you still afford an internet account ? would they take that as compensation ?
Let them show up, my lawyers will be provided for me like everything else. If I win I don't pay, and if I lose, well like I said, I have no money to take.
Legal Aid nor Community Legal Clinics will assist you on a civil action. There are ways to enforce a judgement on recipients of OW and ODSP.
"recent changes to Canadian copyright law limit liability in non-commercial cases to a maximum of $5,000 for all infringement claims. In fact, it is likely that a court would award far less - perhaps as little as $100 - if the case went to court as even the government's FAQ on the recent copyright reform bill provided assurances that Canadians "will not face disproportionate penalties for minor infringements of copyright by distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial infringement.""
I am essentially speaking, a ward of the state. I'm on a disability pension. I don't have any money to take.
Let them show up, my lawyers will be provided for me like everything else. If I win I don't pay, and if I lose, well like I said, I have no money to take.
yes my friend but how can you still afford an internet account ? would they take that as compensation ?
The only reason I have internet and this computer, is I am cool with walking......everywhere..... all the time. I don't own a car and wouldn't want one even if I was rich. I don't own a lot of the cliche actually. I have no cell phone for instance, never have.
I don't drink, nor smoke, nor indulge lotteries nor do I entertain drugs, or even coffee (although I like my hot chocolate). I don't like fast food either.
The end result is I live in a nicer place than most will in my income level, and I eat better. But I do tend to wear out even very good shoes in record speed.
If tomorrow though, someone told me they were suing me for some idiotic sum, I suppose I'd laugh at them, and tell them, look, I have nothing, how much of my nothing would they like? They can have all of my nothing if they insist, as I won't miss any of it after all.
I generally have no money in the bank by the second of the month, as I remove the pension, pay my rent and set it aside as grocery funds in 4 weekly sums. My bank account is really just a mail box to me. Right now, this second, I don't even have enough cash to buy the daily hot chocolate.
Them telling me, they will target my income, well, it's not really my money to a point eh. It's the province's money. They'd be hitting up the government of Ontario. And I would say it like that too. Heck telling the province how it's going to be, I'd like to see them try that actually. You can't even get cooperation between agencies of the same governmental body. I don't think the courts would be very successful telling ODSP they are going to give their rare bucks to some gold digging bunch of assholes from Hollywood.
Let them show up, my lawyers will be provided for me like everything else. If I win I don't pay, and if I lose, well like I said, I have no money to take.
Legal Aid nor Community Legal Clinics will assist you on a civil action. There are ways to enforce a judgement on recipients of OW and ODSP.
I looked into this. They will cover civil matters. Just not this one it seems. Not 100% sure yet. But going by the criteria it seems these type cases don't meet the criteria. So you might be correct in regards to a copyright case. And yeah, it seems everything under 7,000$ you can ask to be moved to small claims as you stated elsewhere.
I suspect if they start monitoring torrenting then blokes will just move to usenet for downloads.... Then who would be responsible for the isp or the commercial binary newsserver (if you are indeed using one)?
... and then usenet will get knocked off next. Newzbin was taken offline recently and posts have been removed from various usenet servers.
I think the idea is that they want to make it as difficult as possible for people to steal content or at least portray it as a punishable action to dissuade people from doing it. News like this scares plenty of regular folk.
I suspect if they start monitoring torrenting then blokes will just move to usenet for downloads.... Then who would be responsible for the isp or the commercial binary newsserver (if you are indeed using one)?
The MPAA/Video Game Companies are already going after Usenet. Things that get posted don't stay posted very long as the companies have to now obey dmca takedowns and whatever the dmca equiv is in europe.
It depends some stuff is taken down automatically others aren't touched. With the right combo of apps you can get your content just after it's been posted on an indexing site.
Eventually people Are Just going to use VPN and start encrypting their connections.
I tried that out recently. I didn't realize how much CPU power goes into the encryption. It really has a negative impact on over internet speed (especially if your on fast packages. ie 50mbps). My router is pretty good (an rt-n16) and it can barely sustain 6-10mpbs through openvpn.
The current methodologies do not need to survive, only the desire to accomplish the end goal.
In the beginning it was dual tape recorders making tape to tape possible. I saw how easy it was for vhs to be dubbed (although it sucked in comparison to digital copying). I saw how easy it was to copy cds and then dvds and now even blueray is no challenge.
I recall when Zip.ca started out and the smart could order in dozens of videos a month for pennies if they simply dumped the data onto a computer and had the discs in the mail before the day ended. Lots of people denied they were doing this, and they were of course full of crap. Zip.ca eventually realized they were being exploited and they adjusted their prices and proceedures.
Torrents seem great as they seem free. But if you pay for a newsgroup you rapidly see how much better the speed truly is. On a good ISP a person can move a blueray file at speeds most will not even realise is simple.
But nothing is for ever of course and thinking so is silly. I have seen torrent sites squashed and I have seen news indexers mauled.
But if they killed off the torrent option and the newsgroup option, people will just seek another flavour. The rental scene might make a come back. And I can tell ya, it is brain dead easy to copy digital data, so that a film WILL never cost a person more than the cost to rent plus a blank disc. Thus, paying for it in a store is really only ever about getting a fancy storage container and spiffy looking discs. I bought Lord of the Rings on blueray even though I have it on super deluxe dvd sets because I love the hell out of that film series. But, I could just as easily burned it onto blank blueray discs for a small fraction of the cost. And it would look as good on the screen.
People are always looking for something for nothing. Our society is too wrapped up in how much we own. And dollars are finite, while things to buy are seemingly endless.
And they can try all they want to screw with downloading, but, in the end, they are simply not going to beat the problem.
People will continue to steal.
Hollywood steals in their own fashion, and governments steal in their own way, and why should joe nobody think he can't as well?
Looks like more people will be paying for VPN access this year. Its cheaper than a lawyer and less research to setup than small claims court.
Maybe if the MAFIAA would price their products appropriately they wouldn't have to worry so much about piracy. Right now dinner for 2 at a nice restaurant is cheaper than movies for 2.
Eventually people Are Just going to use VPN and start encrypting their connections.
I tried that out recently. I didn't realize how much CPU power goes into the encryption. It really has a negative impact on over internet speed (especially if your on fast packages. ie 50mbps). My router is pretty good (an rt-n16) and it can barely sustain 6-10mpbs through openvpn.
I suppose VPN will get better though.
Not everything has to be piped through said VPN though.