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Guest zzmikezz

Piracy Charges

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Of course conspiring to commit a murder is an offence. But an essential part of a consp[iary charge is that there has to be an agreement to do so. The point I made to illustrate the problems was that the four could raise the defence that they never agreed to infringe copyright laws themselves - even though others may have done so.Precedents are, as you say, resticted to their own jurisdictions, which is why a decision in a court in Sweden would have no effect in courts elsewhere.My view on the way to protect software from piracy is purely pragmatic. There have been, and always will be, criminals who will ignore any law. I don't expect the human race to change significantly, if at all, in that respect. The development of new technology has made law enforcement in the area of piracy ineffective. The law can, just about, deal with those who copy/counterfeit on a large scale. It's never going to be able to cope with individual cases such as teenagers who download a few items for private use. Being practical, whatever changes are made to the law in this area, the authorities will nver have the resources to police it. This is why I say that developers must protect themselves as best they can.I'd be interested to know what ideas you have for changes to the law that wuld be effective.

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Guest zzmikezz

Gerry,You wrote "... a decision in a court in Sweden would have no effect in courts elsewhere." You may have missed my point. If a USA judge decides to cite that Swedish decision as precedent, that precedent then would become the law within the jurisdiction of the citing judge, if we make the assumption that this new law would survive appeal.As for "I'd be interested to know what ideas you have for changes to the law that wuld be effective", this really isn't the time or place. But in a nutshell I think I see a way whereby FS addons could be construed as being music and therefore a consortium of developers might be able to become clients of RIAA. (!) If RIAA wins their current suit against YouTube, the situation with ISPs is going to change Big Time, and if we (developers) could operate under the protective firepower of RIAA, something might indeed be able to be done.If nothing else, folks, Francois Dumas of SimFlight allowed that I am at least thinking outside the box. The consortium Fat Lady hasn't sung yet and, if I may mix metaphors by quoting Yogi again, "It ain't over till it's over."

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I still disagree with your views on precedents. A prececdent is a legal principle or rule created by one or more decisions of a appeal court court. These rules provide a point of reference or authority for judges deciding similar issues in later cases. Lower courts must apply these rules when faced with similar legal issues. A judge sitting in a lower court cannot create a precedent because judges sitting in similar courts are free to ignore it. To become a precedent the case must have been appealed. The principle in the UK (and I suspect in the US) is that only the decisions of higher courts can form precedents on lower courts. Even so, it's neccesary to distingish between the acual reasons for the judgement and things the judges may have said in passing. The latter do not create precedents. You raised the matter of using the law more effectively so I'm at a loss to understand why you now say this really isn't the time or place. You either have ideas or you don't. I'm not sure what RIAA vs YouTube is about. My impression is that it is taking a stance against posting amateur videos using commercial songs. As far add-on developers working under the fire power of RIAA, membership of the RIAA is only open to legitimate record companies with main offices in the United States that are engaged in the production and sale, under their own brand label, of recordings of performances for home use, which seems to rule out add-on developers. I somehow doubt that the RIAA would change its bye-laws to admit add-on developers. They are just too small in relation to record companies.

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Guest zzmikezz

Gerry, I'll be happy to go into my ideas up to the point where Tom Allensworth complains. If he does, Francois Dumas at SimFlight.com almost certainly will be happy to host the discussion since he has done this once before. However, the most visibility will be here at Avsim.What do you want to do? Because I do want to discuss this, I'm simply juggling a number of other balls for the next couple of days and might not be as responsive as you would like.Edit: I'll defer to you regarding precedent only binding when something reaches an appellate court. However, do you agree that any lower court finding of precedent is almost certain to be appealed by the losing side? So that the appellate issue is effectively moot?Edit#2 My concern re Tom is that the subject is so inflammatory that he's already had to lock what had been the main piracy discussion thread.

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No, I don't agree that the appellate issue is moot. The loser may win the appeal in which case no precedent would have been set.So far this discussion has been conducted in a civilised fashion. I've no intention of changing that, so I don't see why Tom should wish to stop it.

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Guest zzmikezz

Okay fine, it

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Sounds logical so far...of course soon you'll reach the question of how you provide the international system of attorneys jurisdiction to those web sites (if their establishment takes place in a country outside the reach of the attorneys). I could be wrong, but isn't that a common tactic of pirates...locate in safe havens...as real pirates did by hanging out in the bahamas?Bob

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Guest zzmikezz

Yes, the safe harbors would have to be made to disappear.Everybody says that China would always be out of reach, to which my immediate reaction is, It's far from clear that the Chinese government would give free reign to a Chinese-based download or file sharing service. What is going on now is simply an experiment and, at this stage in their development, they are not likely to let the political genie out of the internet bottle.So. The action item list now reads as follows ...1 - Make the traditional hosting activities go away.2 - Make the safe harbors go away.Next?

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Guest zzmikezz

Next is another new viewpoint. The first was the possibility that payware could be considered not only copyrighted but in particular copyrighted music.The second, new, viewpoint, is that it might be possible to structure and release payware in such a way that it came under trade secrecy laws. Gerry probably will know immediately more than I do, but I think that enforeceable injunctions can be obtained up front in certain kinds of trade secrecy cases, well in advance of trial, because of the nature of immediacy of business harm.So let

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Hi,As a swede I would like to set some things straight.1. That site has not been closed in Sweden,...only in Denmark.2. The owner of that site was never convicted, since the site doesn


 

Staffan

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In the UK the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act already covers everything - music, films, pictures, programs and databases and, as far as I am aware there is little difference in the degree of protection offered to the different categories. Obviously the law could be changed but as it's now based on an EU directive changing it would need an EU-wide consensus. It might happen but I wouldn't hold my breath. Because of the on-going Microsoft vs the EU battle any changes likely to benefit software suppliers would tend to be judged on the basis of would they benefit Microsoft?The BPI (the UK equivalent of the RIAA) has been taking action against those who upload files not against those who download them. I think this is because under UK law the BPI could only claim for their actual loses and can't impose a penalty. The actual loss on a single down would be very small - loss of profit on one song?The BPI obtains their details from the ISP by means of a court order. EU law does not require ISPs to give this information. It's possible under UK law but not under Spanish law as the Spanish equivalent of the BPI found out. This will clearly present a difficulty especially as there is increasing concern about data security. Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs recently lost 2 CDs with the personal and bank details of 25 million (yes million!) families so any demands for wider access to personal data will go down like a lead balloon.I'm not sure what you envisage from trade secrecy laws. There is little harmonisation between countries. Also their generally has to be an obligation of confidence on the person who is claimed to have broken it. Obviously employees have a duty to maintain their employers confidence, and there will be other similar cases. But I can't see how that can be applied to a third party who uses a product.

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Guest zzmikezz

I'll be back later. You may well be right on most of those points but there is still a doctrine of contributory infringement and the hosting ISPs are clearly wide open to such suits. The suits might fail but they can be filed with a straight face.Later, my friend.

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Guest sandgate

>Yes, the safe harbors would have to be made to disappear.>>Everybody says that China would always be out of reach, to>which my immediate reaction is, It's far from clear that the>Chinese government would give free reign to a Chinese-based>download or file sharing service. What is going on now is>simply an experiment and, at this stage in their development,>they are not likely to let the political genie out of the>internet bottle.>The trouble is that anyone who has been to Beijing may have gone to a nice 5 floor warehouse-type building in Silk Street which has literally hundreds of stall-holders selling anything that you would like. Rolex watches...any model varying from 5 dollars to 30 dollars and on the face of it indistiguishable from the real thing. Latest fashion house items - Gucci, whatever - they're selling it! Nintendo lite (

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