You apparently cleave to the notion that the law itself determines what is right and wrong, rather than the other way around.

The law is supposed to be an attempt at making legal what is right and making illegal what is wrong. In some areas, it has failed rather badly.

“Intellectual property” is one of them. The “tide of lawlessness” is the public reposne to such a law (or set of laws).

Also, in the specific case mentioned, the incredible “crime” that was committed was, in 3 of the 4 instances, NOT a crime at all (or even wrong by intellectual property laws), as the people in question had already paid for the right to see that material.

In fact, even in downloading it, there is not necessarily any wrong-doing, even by the most stringent standard, as the person has not yet actually made use of the content (intent matters – even the law recognizes this).

I’m all for protecting intellectual property to the fullest extent of the law. The attitude among the general population that piracy and theft are justified and even recommended (with ISPs even advertising their services as being ideally suited to the practice) a strong response is the only thing that may turn the tide of lawlessness.

Of course the result wherein the money goes to lawyers instead of those who lost because of that piracy (the content creators) is a bad result, but one that is preferable to letting crime go unpunnished.

Correct. The lawyers.

If it is not password protected to the point someone who doesn’t know the password can’t access the net, then you could be in this same situation. The MPAA and RIAA sue the owner of the IP at the time, not neccesarily who is doing the download.

Imagine: You are a upright citizen, believe strongly in copyright and don’t download music or movies from the net. You have a wireless router in your house but not password protected, and the 16 year old next door is using your wireless connection to download the latest movies and music from the web. Then one day you receive notice from your ISP that they have turned over your information to the RIAA or MPAA. You’ve never downloaded a thing right? You’re safe right? WRONG.

You will be contacted and told you have to pay $7000 or so but they will usually settle for $3500 to $4000. That is less than the legal fees you would pay, but still a form of extortion.

There is a presumption of guilt here and at that point the burden of proof shifts to you. You have no idea who or when your connection was used, but you know it wasn’t you. Do you pay? or Do you fight? (a loss here can bring statutory damages of $750 to $150,000 per song or movie offered to “share”) So the kid next door had 1000 songs in his shared folder. Fight and lose, you could be on the hook for a much as $150,000,000. The “settlement office” wields these these numbers about like a samurai sword, intimidating a number of people into settling. A few are starting to fight these cases.

Thus far in America, not one of these cases have gone to court. And from the numbers that have been released only about 1/3 have settled.

Oh and one more thing here. The money that is collected doesn’t go to the artist or songwriter it goes to support sending out more letters and filing lawsuits.

If he’s really innocent he should be able to recover the money from the kid’s parents (as the kid himself would not have been legally responsible for his acts at the time, his parents were).