Bah, who am I kidding . . . of course there will be.

Second. Sharing copyrighted material over the internet is illegal in every country, but only the USA makes a big deal out of it (dutchie here).
I wonder why

Third. I’ve read some posts here about people who laughs at the poor woman but are proud of not sharing downloaded files. Well, get a life then and buzz off, ’cause this torrent-thingy over here will not survive without sharing. Nice knowing that there are people who still believe in hit and run and laughs at those who do not know much about P2P, torrents, filesharing etc.
Thank you!!! NOT.

Fourth.
Indeed, some people can’t afford buying movies/music although they want to. And guess what! They get in touch with programs like kazaa, napster, limewire, some lucky bastards find torrent programs and PG or friends. Don’t know a thing about it, but hey! They’ve got their movies and music!! Happily ever after..not..Suddenly they got sued.
Nice..
It’s not the file sharers this RIAA must go after; because that’s also a very lame thing.
You catch my drift?

For example, if X goes to a restaurant and, by mistake, takes Y’s scarf instead of her own, she has physically deprived Y of the use of the property (which is the actus reus) but the mistake prevents X from forming the mens rea (i.e. because she believes that she is the owner, she is not dishonest and does not intend to deprive the “owner” of it) so no crime has been committed at this point. But if she realises the mistake when she gets home and could return the scarf to Y, she will steal the scarf if she dishonestly keeps it. Note that there may be civil liability for the torts of trespass to chattels or conversion in either eventuality.
“Theft” – Wikipedia

of course part of the problem is that historically property has been physical tangible unique, but now sending a copy doesn’t necessarily permanently deprive the original owner/possessor

I do agree 100% with rslog’s position…imagine Galileo, Newton etc. seeking copyright protection for their ideas?

Back on topic;
What a bullsh*t, RIAA trying to scare people off. I wonder how many RIAA employees download themselves, or their families, or their friends..

Piracy will exist, allways…

“If you dont have the cash, you download it” – Poor fellah

Ok, thats about all I can comment atm.

I’ve never used IRC myself. I tried, back when RLSLog was down, but the IRC client I tried to use kept crashing on me. The second one I tried complained that it couldn’t connect, or that I was doing something wrong. At that point I gave up.

RickySlade,

I download copyrighted material, so I can’t exactly argue that I’m against court decisions like this because I only want to protect people’s rights. However…

I think that the current laws with regard to copyright are ridiculous. Copyright terms now extend well beyond anything the creators of copyright law ever envisioned. Not only that, but in the USA at least, the subject of copyright infringement is treated as the number one issue threatening the world. In fact, NBC went so far as to say that the FBI’s priorities are wrong and that they should go after copyright infringement first and foremost;

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070615-copyright-coalition-piracy-more-serious-than-burglary-fraud-bank-robbery.html

If we’re to believe the RIAA and MPAA, drastic measures need to be taken or the entire economy will collapse and plunge the world into a new dark age! This despite the fact that music sales continue to rise and the movie industry just had their best summer ever.

What I think should be done (a pipedream, I know);

1. Reduce copyright terms to something more reasonable, like 30 years max, less for games (which are outdated faster). This would keep corporations from hoarding older works and eliminate the problem where your favorite work isn’t available to buy. It would also ensure that plenty of works are added to the public domain for other creators to draw upon. Finally, it would force corporations to output more works if they want to remain profitable, rather than relying on the sales of their older works.

2. Force corporations to pay a yearly fee for each work they want to retain the copyright to. Individuals would also have to pay, but a much lower amount. This would force companies to re-evaluate which copyrights are worth hanging onto, so that lesser works could pass into the public domain sooner.

3. Reduce penalties for copyright infringement to something much closer to the actual amount lost by the corporation. If someone shares something that the corporation isn’t making any money on, the person shouldn’t be charged at all, or a very small amount.

4. Make digital copies of music and films available in a hi-quality, unrestricted format, for a good price, that provides all the benefits of the illegal copies with none of the risk. Piracy will never be 100% eliminated, but this would entice people who don’t like the current restrictions and who would otherwise turn to illegal sources.

5. Make the RIAA and MPAA stop opposing every single new technology that comes out related to audio and video and insisting that every new audio/video technology be crippled with DRM. No broadcast flags, no region coding, no CSS, etc.

These things would benefit consumers, build some goodwill between the corporations and consumers and do more to combat piracy than the current campaign of elevating copyright infringers to public enemy #1. Eventually, that’s going to backfire on them in a big way.