
Condemned by unverifiable IRC logs? Wow. I have a "chat log" here that says that Sony employed editors to index their usenet content on newzbin..
The High Court has found a man liable for copyright infringement carried out on the file-sharing Newzbin websites and ruled that he is also part of a conspiracy to infringe copyrights and defraud film studios. Mr Justice Barling said David Harris was jointly responsible along with his Newzbin Limited business for copyright- …
<IANAL>I've made this point once already today. But, yeah, textual documents are taken as facts, on the balance of probabilities.</IANAL>
Check out his court transcripts. IRC data was quoted by the prosecution. (Bear with me - this is my first attempt at putting a hyperlink in an el reg comment - it might not work!)
Meanwhile I am willing to pay $10+ a month just for the FX channel (owned by Fox one of the plaintiffs) internet only but due to the cable pigopoly here in the states I can't legally do that unless I spend far more for a bunch of other channels on cable I don't want in addition to having to agree to a two year contract which is pretty much mandatory along with usually have to pay rent on the mandatory set top box I don't want or need. Corporatism and crony capitalism at its finest. Say anyone have a stream link? (just kidding of course)
All pirates and facilitators of piracy get in the UK is a slap on the wrist. That's precisely why they violate law for profit. Now if this chap were to lose everything he owns that he acquired via piracy and then gets say a 200,000,000 Euro fine and 30 years in prison, then he might conclude piracy wasn't such a good idea.
>and 30 years in prison
Trust me even over here in the states the righties who are usually all for being tough on crime finally figured out locking someone up for decades costs a shit ton of money and is only worth it for the most serious of crimes which software piracy doesn't rate on most people's radar.
"...and 30 years in prison, then he might conclude piracy wasn't such a good idea."
Why not just save the cost of imprisonment and publicly burn him at the stake? Then you can use him to set an example to all those other vile, thieving pirating scum. Would that satisfy your thirst for vengeance justice sufficiently?
Personally, I think we should take every copyright maximalist in the world to a deserted tropical island, strip them naked, drop them into an unclimbable pit and cover them in a few metric tonnes of various ravenous and carnivorous insects. As insurance, we should give it about three days then nuke the island. Twice.
I don't even understand the "auren.txt" transcript. Is it just my browser (?) but it isn't complete. Being a stubborn bugger I looked further. I can't understand the ruling I found either. It was complete (gibberish) to anyone outside of intensive legal training.
When my granny used to suck eggs, back in the middle ages, just after t'plague, me and t'mother used to be really litigious toward t'landlord. Serfs they called us but after plague, serfing we were. In Ibiza the moon settled in t'morning & sun rose in t'night, yet we called it day. Well at least that was what me mam said as we'd left granny at home on account of her being in a coffin 'n' all. Not that she was dead. She just liked to sleep there. "A vampire deprived of rest is one less vampire to molest a virgin" she used to say, only she had to write it down, having an egg in her mouth & therefore unable to converse properly.
Methinks I just went off on one there. Nevertheless, the law is too complicated these days!