 TorrentSpy Isn't Paying $100 Million Court-Ordered Fine The case should not be considered precedent for copyright cases Saturday May 10 2008 13:03 EDT BitTorrent tracker TorrentSpy was punished with one of the largest fines in copyright infringement history ($111 million) after a lengthy battle with the MPAA last year. TorrentSpy’s lawyer wants people to know that the business is bankrupt (after closing shop in March) and won’t actually be paying the fine. The reason he considers this important is he wants other businesses in this position to realize that the MPAA may flaunt this as a win but that it’s not necessarily so cut-and-dry. In addition to the fact that the MPAA won’t be getting any money from TorrentSpy, it’s notable that the fine was imposed only after TorrentSpy refused to turn over documents to the court and not as the result of what was actually found to be copyright infringement. This means that the case shouldn’t be considered precedent for other torrent sites that are battling the big guys. A case that could set precedent is the case against ISOhunt which is currently pending; the operator of the site says that the TorrentSpy decision has caused him some concerns about his chances in court but that he’s not about to give up the fight. |
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It's all about graftThis country runs on graft and payoffs. Every Govt. official has their hand out for graft, the record and movie and broadcast industry supply graft and they get whatever laws they want passed. The courts are full of judges who are tecnophobic morons that still read newspapers for their information. If I showed them an AAA battery and said: "This promotes infringement" (with a suitable graft payoff) they'd probably outlaw AAA batteries!
Patent and copyright laws are running amok, fair use is in the toilet, what's next? TV sets with credit card slots on them?
None of this is about 'protecting' anything but a few industries that refuse to change their way of doing business. Does anyone realize that Napster is almost TEN YEARS OLD? These industries have had TEN YEARS to come up with a new business model and their response is to sue everyone in sight that tries to make them change! If they had their way there would BE no Internet!
Finally, think about how much technology has changed in the past 10 years. Ten years ago, we had Windows 95 running on 486 computers with 24 megs of RAM and 2 gig drives. Everyone used dial up connections-with 28.8 kbps if you were lucky! AOL was bigger then the Internet. Look where we are now-and how far we've come. NOW look at the movie and record industries-who still want us to come to THEM and pay inflated prices to see a movie ONCE or to pay inflated prices for a big, stupid moving disk that holds 14 songs!
Should I have to mention that those stupid CDs played just fine on that ten year old computer-or for that matter the Windows 3.1 computer before them?
They have found their allies in the elected officials who LOVE having their palms greased! It's a lot cheaper to throw 100 grand to a few corrupt pols and judges then to re-do your business model.
Of course, ten years ago, no one had heard of HDTV or IPod or MP3 or Satellite Radio or online radio or DSL or broadband or wifi or DVD or Myspace or Google or, or, or....
And if you could afford a cell phone then it was the size of a lunch box and full of static during the call...
These are all things that have happened while the RIAA and MPAA just sat there on their ever widening A$$e$-paying off anyone that could help them keep their 'buggy whip' like business model!
Has it occurred to anyone that while the RIAA, MPAA. US politicians and courts continue fighting to keep us back in the mid 1980s media/technology wise, that the rest of the world is passing us by? We're more and more losing our technological 'edge' and instead becoming more and more irrelevant?
These are the typical reactions of American companies these days: SHORT TERM GAINS and LONG TERM LOSSES!
The problem is that we CAN'T do this any more. We're already treading water as it is....soon we'll be drowning!
Come to think of it, it's too bad for AOL that they never considered graft. If they had just bribed a few judges and pols, there'd likely BE no USA Internet and we'd all still be dialing into our local AOL portal for everything. Too bad, AOL! | |
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