Hogan takes on the fascists
Wired has an article about software developer, Shawn Hogan (CEO Digital Point), who received one of those calls from an MPAA lawyer claiming that he had downloaded an illegal copy of "Meet the Fockers" from BitTorrent, and demanded that Hogan pay $2500 for a settlement. Hogan refused and is planning on contesting and taking it to trial to challenge the legality of the MPAA strategy.
Good.
The heavy-handed tactics of both the motion picture and the recording industries have made intellectual property theft ethically acceptable, which was not the case before. Even if people are a little worried about lawsuits, they will wait until they're sure that the technology of fileswapping is untraceable again and then they'll be back in business in a big way.
I can't wait to see the discovery process uncover the methodology of how the MPAA is linking IP addresses to individuals, so that they can nail the individual "beyond a reasonable doubt."
There's plenty of ways that someone can hide their identity well enough to avoid being positively identified in a lawsuit--I think that the MPAA is bluffing and they're suing based on a "good enough" standard, figuring it will never go to court.
Posted on July 27, 2006
