Copyright zealots FAST to pursue 'far greater' fines for historic piracy

The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) will step up its campaign to penalise pirates by seeking to get back monies lost to “historic” illegal use. FAST claimed it had run educational awareness events to cut down on intentional illegal use of software programmes, but had received 100 reports in the past year of wanton …

[Zippy's Sausage Factory]

What's that sound?

It's the sound of businesses slowly, but surely, starting to evaluate open source solutions for their business instead... (well, if they've got any sense they are, that is)

[Anonymous Coward]

Mission Creep

imminent.

We are repleat with instances of 14 year olds being prosecuted for "illegally" downloading a song and seeing people and families destroyed by it. Much like the RSPCA, they will ONLY go after the cases where they are sure of a pay-out. Criminal convictions wont play a part in it, you will be fined, fined and fined again. Meanwhile, the cunts behind crypto-locker et all will all go unpunished, as will any gubbermint dept found out to be using dodgy software.

FAST are an utter joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

FAST are a joke. For a start their name is a lie: Federation Against Software Theft. It's not theft, it's Copyright Violation or License Violation. Having reported organisations for licensing violations in the past (long story and while I like to bash MS as much as most commentards, software should be paid for and I will not report a violation without having pursued all other avenues), what did they do about this? Did they contact me for more details? Did they contact the organisation involved or even do anything? No and no.

The only impression that I can get is that they are a joke and more of an income stream for their own board members and an 'old boys network' usable by members to slap competitors they don't like than an organisation to promote the correct and fair licensing of software.

Anon for rather obvious reasons!

[Anonymous Coward]

How will they demonstrate historic loss?

Losses in online intellectual property cases are always problematic. How many copies of an item have been pirated - we haven't got a way of finding out. What does your evidence look like? The courts will need proper proof of loss, not extravagant assertions. Does every pirated copy you can identify represent a loss at full retail price, at some discounted price, at the marginal cost of provision / distribution or some other basis? And FAST hope to do this for some notional "historic" period?

I get instructed in some of these legal cases - hence the anonymous posting.

[Little Mouse]

Re: How will they demonstrate historic loss?

I'm guessing that FAST will pluck some numbers out of nowhere, and it will be up to you to prove them wrong.

Isn't it usually the case with FAST "investigations" that the onus seems to be on the accused to prove that they did purchase the necessary licences, and not the other way around?

Quite how that sits alongside our current justice system is beyond me, but it seems to have worked out just dandy for them in the past.

[Wade Burchette]

Re: How will they demonstrate historic loss?

Remember the golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules. The public does not have enough money to get the attention of your elected representatives for such issues.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: How will they demonstrate historic loss?

"The courts will need proper proof of loss, not extravagant assertions."

I'd guess they hope to avoid this. Make extravagant assertions but offer to settle for a much smaller amount if it doesn't go to court.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sweet sound of desperation..

They must be getting rather worried now that there are fewer and fewer opportunities for their grandstanding to be had (and if I find the time I'm going to amuse myself with setting up some recorded stings as well). Microsoft is desperate to move to a subscription model, which will pretty much cut that revenue stream off at the knees, Adobe is already doing it and for the rest there is quite a move towards Open Source for the simplest, most powerful reason of all: money.

So yes, I'm sure they're trying to come up with new ways to play police games without any formal right to do so. There are ways to deal with license issues, but FAST is not part of the solution. They're just vermin IMHO.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tools to halt software theft

'distroWatch put the fun back in computing.'

[danny_0x98]

100 instances. Yowsa! The mind boggles at the ubiquity.

So... they want to get more money per suit.

I guess the frequency, and with subscription pricing, probably decreasing, isn't enough to keep the BMW's gassed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they going to persue the Linux kernel pirates?

I've got two phones here that have a pirated Linux kernel binary… I know it's pirated as the documentation did not point the way to where I get the kernel sources, nor is there media in the box that contains said sources.

Or does only commercial proprietary software count?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Are they going to persue the Linux kernel pirates?

Maybe an uninvited move into GPL enforcement is the next step.

[P. Lee]

Non-Profit?

Surely that's stretching the definition if you don't get the cash, but the companies providing all your funding do.