Racketeering suit filed over smut-piracy charges

A Kentucky woman has started a class action suit against five pornography vendors after harassment over claims that she was downloading their content over BitTorrent. The suit, filed on behalf of Ms. Jennifer Barker, states that she started getting phone calls claiming that she had been named in a case regarding piracy of …

[cyke1]

its a load

this companies file a class action suit against a list of people pay a 1 time court fee of few hundred bucks at most and to get a subpena for 100's or 1000's of IP's. Abuse the court system just so they can nothing more then extort money from people with nothing more then an IP and a time it was seen on a torrent. But like judge in other cases has said when AP for open anyone can download data through it and person that pays the bill is one in the cross hairs. Even if its a protected AP and it gets hacked same story. Its nice to see Judges starting to wise up to all this crap and seeing an IP address doesn't identify a person directly, on DHCP which most connections are for home users, an IP could be used by 1 person at one time an hour later its being used by another so even a small type-o could put wrong person in the chair.

[Ole Juul]

Re: its a load

Its nice to see Judges starting to wise up to all this crap and seeing an IP address doesn't identify a person directly, on DHCP which most connections are for home users, an IP could be used by 1 person at one time an hour later its being used by another . . .

It's worse than that. In rural settings like where I live the IP doesn't change (despite DHCP) and there are literally hundreds of people are on the same IP because of NAT being used for these rural wireless networks. Whoever came up with the notion that an IP related to even a specific house was obviously a huge fan of computer fiction.

[Trygve Henriksen]

Re: its a load

Actually, just about anyone using a Router with firewall functionality is using NAT.

The closest the authorities can get is the IP of the Router.

(Unless they use ComCast, which doesn't like their users to protect themselves with a Router/Firewall, and say they don't support it... )

That IP can change if the user restarts the router, or something else happens, but will usually stay unchanged for long periods of time.

When people are using a NATing Router/FireWall, the address visible on the net will of course be the address of the Router, not the usual 192.168.xxx.yyy that is used on the 'inside' network, so yes, they can track it to the correct address, but no further.

[andreas koch]

...find it handy.

I see what you did there...

Paris. Well, because.

[Rab Sssss]

Hmmm

Yeah a swift kick to the nuts of wankers doing this is good. but the last bit is streching it a bit.

[kain preacher]

Re: Hmmm

One of things that can screw them is filling a lawsuit in another state. You must sue some in their home state. So what they do is file a discover law suit against a john doe in Fl. Once they get what they think the want they drop the law suit and file against you in your home state. It's the filing the john doe law suit that can get them. Plus ad to that they had no intention of going to court.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope she screws them good

They thoroughly deserve it.

[Fatman]

Re: I hope she screws them good

ME TOO!!!

Considering that they represent pornographers, karma would dictate that those s-cum sucking bastards do some sucking of their own.

They should spend the rest of eternity on their knees performing oral sex on every demon in hell, all the while Satan himself, is reaming them a new one!

[CD001]

Re: I hope she screws them good

< . <

> . >

Not . sure . if . serious.

[LinkOfHyrule]

Ring ring....

"Hello"

"Yo bitch, give us a few thousand dollars or we're guna tell everyone you're a lesbian perv porno watcher and rob you!"

- I hope the class action kills these twats off, for a porn company you'd think they know the correct way of screwing people, this aint it!

[Oninoshiko]

porn not useful?

the court isn't going to TOUCH that, it's a nasty bag of cats to open. Once they require the arts be useful, every tele- and screen-play can be tossed right out!

Nothing will be copyrighted that doesn't air on the discovery channel!

[KjetilS]

Re: porn not useful?

Nothing will be copyrighted that doesn't air on the discovery channel!

Actually, not much on Discovery counts as useful these days either...

It used to be a good channel, but now they mostly do quasi-reality-shows about fishing, buying/fixing/selling vehicles or other stuff made catering to the lowest denominator.

[Great Bu]

Re: porn not useful?

Also, how is porn not useful ? Without porn I would need a wheelbarrow to carry my nuts around in.......

[RICHTO]

Re: porn not useful?

Or how are for instance any Hollywood movies useful?

[Anonymous Coward]

You and me, baby

Ain't nothing but mammals...

[Mr Grumblefish]

Mr Grumblefish

finds porn extremely useful.

[Mr Grumblefish]

I mean,

have you ever tried to masturbate to "The C Programming Language, 2nd Ed". It's hard work , I tell you.

[Mr Grumblefish]

And not "hard"

in a good way.

[Tony Paulazzo]

>Action has also been taken over defamation of the client's character, causing intentional emotional distress<

Actually, couldn't we use that one here in the UK as an accusation when falsely accused? I really think the UK needs a class action suit to be allowable against these megacorporations (and I'm not just talking porn barons).

[Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT)]

So, Andrew Crossley and ACS:Law have finally found somewhere new to set up business then?

[James Micallef]

Copyrightable

"I think there's a real question that this pornography they are saying was downloaded is even copyrightable," he said. "According to the constitution, copyright is to protect those works that benefit sciences and the useful arts, and there's nothing useful about pornography."

In that case, surely the vast majority of trash that pass for songs/films being peddled by the RIAA/MPAA are not copyrightable

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are just trying it on...

...in the hope that people who don't owe them anything will pay up, couldn't a case where somebody did pay up amount to Wire Fraud? Implying that they could be "fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both."

[CD001]

Re: If they are just trying it on...

Would almost be worth paying the "fine" they're asking for just for the sake of bringing the fraud charges afterwards...

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

"there's nothing useful about pornography"

That statement is downright ridiculous, especially when coming from a wankerlawyer.