Empty Pockets
February 28th, 2003, 02:41 AM
My younger brother got "the letter" so I started doing some looking trying to understand how DirecTV can get away with these accusations without any real proof. While I'm not in the hobby, it seems to me that DirecTV knew what it was doing when the selected the $3500 payoff. Low enough that many will settle because it's cheaper than a lawyer and high enough to attract the law firms to be their hit men.
The class action lawsuit seems like a long shot considering the negative media coverage of MP3 and movie downloading on Kazaa. It's obvious that DirecTV's case is weak but stranger things have happened in the legal system.
The reason I mentioned a trend, a friend of mine recently received a letter from the Software Publisher Association, telling him that he had 30 days to show all of the software in his business was legally licensed. My friend doesn’t even have a business. He made up a business name one time to get some free catalogs on networking tools and wiring.
He called the SPA and they told him that they purchased a mailing list from some company (they wouldn’t mention the company by name) and they simply sent out the letters to everyone on the list.
He bitched and threatened to get a lawyer if he ever heard from them again, they apologized and said they removed him from the mailing list. I wonder what would have happened if he had ignored them ?
The recent court ruling against Verizon that says ISPs will have to identify users suspected of violating copyrights could get ugly. If DirecTV prevails in these cases, I can imagine a letter campaign against users sharing files online.
Remember, the DMCA doesn’t say these companies have to prove anything to get the personal information. They just have to ‘believe’ you’ve got illegally copied material to get the court order to track you down. No need to raid any businesses to get records, just write a script to collect filenames and IP addresses.
The letter will threaten legal action and possible criminal charges under the DMCA. I don’t think they would go for $3500, maybe something like $500. Again, cheaper than a lawyer but enough to make some money and make parents of teenagers with cable modems sh*t their pants.
This game is far from over……….
Just my 2 cents.
The class action lawsuit seems like a long shot considering the negative media coverage of MP3 and movie downloading on Kazaa. It's obvious that DirecTV's case is weak but stranger things have happened in the legal system.
The reason I mentioned a trend, a friend of mine recently received a letter from the Software Publisher Association, telling him that he had 30 days to show all of the software in his business was legally licensed. My friend doesn’t even have a business. He made up a business name one time to get some free catalogs on networking tools and wiring.
He called the SPA and they told him that they purchased a mailing list from some company (they wouldn’t mention the company by name) and they simply sent out the letters to everyone on the list.
He bitched and threatened to get a lawyer if he ever heard from them again, they apologized and said they removed him from the mailing list. I wonder what would have happened if he had ignored them ?
The recent court ruling against Verizon that says ISPs will have to identify users suspected of violating copyrights could get ugly. If DirecTV prevails in these cases, I can imagine a letter campaign against users sharing files online.
Remember, the DMCA doesn’t say these companies have to prove anything to get the personal information. They just have to ‘believe’ you’ve got illegally copied material to get the court order to track you down. No need to raid any businesses to get records, just write a script to collect filenames and IP addresses.
The letter will threaten legal action and possible criminal charges under the DMCA. I don’t think they would go for $3500, maybe something like $500. Again, cheaper than a lawyer but enough to make some money and make parents of teenagers with cable modems sh*t their pants.
This game is far from over……….
Just my 2 cents.