Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Good Discussion of our case

By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet

It's no big surprise that entertainment megacorp Columbia is suing more file sharers. But there is something quite shocking about its latest infringement lawsuit against Web site TorrentSpy.com.

With this lawsuit, Columbia is attempting to do nothing short of changing the way evidence is gathered via the legal discovery process. That means the entertainment industry has finally figured out a way to screw everybody in the United States -- not just the geeks using peer-to-peer software.

... read the full story

4 comments:

Unknown said...

i was thinking how the hell can you class whats in the RAM as information, it requires the program to interpret it

so what in that RAM is only data because it need the program to understand it and you cant take a image of the ram and then copy it to another computer and have that computer work, or even know where to look for the data.

hence whats in the RAM is only data not information

Data is ramdom facts
information is orgainsed data

any school will teach that

Sawyer said...

I think that what torrentspy.com should do is record the logs, like the court asks, but then encrypt it so that it's only openable by a program that they are the makers of. That way, they've given the data, but made it uninterperetable to anyone except themselves.

The data is in the courts hands, but by no means is torrentspy.com required to turn over copyrighted programs so that the court can interperet the data.

Brock Weller said...

lemon is incorrect. If you record it in such a fashion, you are required to make it intelligible for the court. A first year law student would be able to tell you that about discovery. Keep fighting!

Ultra_Sunshine said...

Not only do I understand your position, I support it. The most important avenue we have is the internet to disperse information. TorrentSpy went through the California court system with no publicity as to it "going" to happen and where. In the meantime a landmark decision on RAM went through our court system (the ramifications of this decision are staggering as to the abuses this could facilitate). It looks like the Betamax case is getting a beating over here. Jacqueline Chooljian's decision needs to be overturned. It's all fine and dandy to sit there and advertise FU letters traded between the MPAA and the like, but serious and pertinent information needed to be available at the main site. The fact that many Americans educate, entertain and receive all their news from the internet brings parallels to the Betamax Case. It may be time to just suck it up and pay the betamax fee on our hard drives, CDs and DVDs and eliminate any stand they have in the courts. There's the real fight, but in the meantime, these little courts that are making landmark decisions that essentially chip away at that decision need to be more publicized within the torrenting community along with ways to combat it. How can public opinion be known if we do not know where to combat such inroads to the violation of our rights.

Look, I've been in education for years. Made my living at teaching teachers. The way it works here in the US is that a few landmark cases in podunk counties against poor districts have caused nationwide changes in our educational system. The same can occur with these cases. We have the internet to make widespread, immediate information known, but without information coming from the litigants other than FU hahahahahaha responses to lawyers, every US citizen's hands are tied to help in any way. These cases are public information, but that information is all too often hidding. Broadcast the where information also. Help us help you.