BPI wins first court case against two men for illegal file sharing

is the only way to find out if something is illegal is to get sued for it ? i remember a recent article (from a lawyer no less) arguing the "grey" areas regarding the legality of allofmp3.com and how based on some very wordy export/import laws regarding "personal use" regard that if you can consider mp3's to be "phonorecordings" that it is 100% legal to pay allofmp3.com mere pennies on the dollar music (imported for personal use) for which you would pay to buy the cd @ the brick and mortar store or download it on itunes. i saw a digital road sign today which said "State Law - move over for stopped emergency vehicles" now i would understand changing lanes and slowing for an emergency vehicle traveling the same way on an interstate, to allow it to pass; or similarly to not go when the traffic light is green when you see an emergency vehicle. and i understand (after many long road trips) that its "common courtesy" to change lanes to not travel too close to a stopped vehicle on the side of the interstate, especially if there is NO traffic in the lane next to you. but i do not understand "moving over for stopped emergency vehicles" unless it infact means to change langes to allow the emergency vehicle a lane of "buffer" i keep meaning to ask an officer (police man) regarding this and another question i have regarding traffic law. though i have attempted to look up this information online (city website, state trooper website) and even asking one officer regarding speeding regulations (e.g.. 25+ is reckless endangerment vs 20+ just speeding) and they COULDNT tell me. if even the police DONT KNOW and they POLICE the citizens, how are we as citizens supposed to understand the laws which govern our actions through understanding or blind luck ?

"BPI had no direct evidence of infringement; however the judges dismissed this" That judge should be sacked as he is not obeying the law, the purpose if court is to proove if someone is guilty, not to dismiss anything and being biast towards people. Its just like killing someone going to court and telling the judge i didnt kill the person and he says ok, court dismissed Again makes the court system look like a joke :r

I have to agree with freonchill. How is the general public supposed to know EVERY law that governs them. Where can we go to learn such laws. Maybe the 'law makers' need to send every household a book of laws put in plain easy to understand words. They would have to update this book everytime they made new laws. I know it's stupid...but how could one know of the laws which he must follow? Shall we all go to the local library to read such a law book? Will the libraries have enough copies of the book for every adult? Ignorance is no excuse, I agree. But something is missing here it seems.

Hmmmm..so ignorance is no excuse eh? So next time a record company screws an artist out of royalties there are no excuses? ...and there is no excuse of the root kit fiasco? Yeah right! Like they say those with money have all the power.
[edited by rla on 01.02.2006 04:51]

Well first about law ignorance. It came I guess from old Roman code '“ 'ignorantia legis nocet" '“or something similar. Well it has some sense into it because if you took an axe and butchered your mother in law (if you had one I bet you have that thoughts) and then plead that you were not aware that Generally you should not do such a things like butchering you mother in law without her permission it is still a crime as we, societies, believe. Though I would like to comment about those damn law suits against randomly picked individuals all over the 'modern world". In my opinion is not about these people, it is not about even us '“ it is carefully designed plot against our children and onwards. What it really does it is creating an atavistic fear against deciding about property you acquired and you feel (at least at the moment) free to do with it whatever pleases you. Because the problem arises when this property stops having material form and Studios and Records Labels see this happening so they are using marketing techniques which were already explored to steer customers' believes '“ unfortunately in this case they are using fear. There were big campaigns about how harmful eating butter is '“ so society (trying to stay healthy) switched to margarine. This plot involved Doctors, Nutritionists. After ten years suddenly Produce companies started to advertise butter as the most healthy grease, screening commercials showing what it takes to produce yellow-white margarine from sort of black and stinking magma. Again supported by doctors, especially Oculists telling society that you are supposed to see better after easting one tone of butter. Unfortunately Studios and Labels liaison with legal system '“ and as you see this is dangerous for present people as they are being used as a tools (victims) in creating something which will protect profits in future. Why it is being done that way? Well, in my opinion, few circumstances. One is that this law is f. unclear about what is mine and what is not - is the movie itself main or is movie plus plastic mine '“ and if I personally detach movie from plastic what then is main (still both things? or only plastic). If I play movie from plastic but only sound no video '“ can I do that? Is this legal. Another circumstance is rooting from the above one is that this extracting the contend will continue and it is very close in time that content will exist only by itself. And Studios and Labels understand that there will be constant discussion what I can do with the content can I send it to my cousin to the next house (or next continent). Studios and Label taking easy way '“ in stead of fixing the thing properly they trying to scare everybody and build in Pavlovs dog effect especially in incoming generations. One thing is very apparent to me, those legal suits do not stop the crime in the long run '“ there is still a lot of drug dealers, murderers etc. Well I thing I need to stop here. If I continued I would drown the conclusion that actually Lawyer are those who sustain the crime to protect the profits. Regards. Marek :d

Marek, I believe that you are close in your thinking. The way I see it, the RIAA, MPAA, and soon publishers (noticed how many publishers are already owned by RIAA and MPAA companies) are preparing us for is the age of perpetual copyrights. That is, when you buy a "book", you'll only be able to buy an ebook and when you "buy" it from the book store, you only get 1 year's license to read it. After that, you need to buy another license to "keep" the contents and so one. This is fine with much of the books, magazines, newspapers, movies and music published nowadays, but then you still have some classics that you might want to keep around and those you'll have to keep your perpetual subscription up in order to keep access to the contents. I believe this is the ultimate goal of these guys. Not long after we get to this stage, any material in the public domain will either cease to exist or will be "republished" in electronic format by one of the publishers and therefore given a perpetual copyright and ownership of any material not copyrighted by the big publishing companies will be illegal. THAT is how I see it. So WAKE UP everybody! :c

Saruman - you reminded me of something i recently had to get some books for a college history class, and when both barnes and noble and borders didnt have them, it was nice of the borders employee to inform me that they didnt keep most books older than 5 years old on the shelf, unless it was a classic or such. this reminded me of last august when i went on a search for the emperor dune game for the PC, i ended up finding a copy on ebay (NIB) for $25. but it makes you wonder, if the software companies arent going to support or even bother to distribute a game, and if the bookstores arent bothering to carry a book after 5 years, then WHY should we be FORCED to PAY for information that they have "LOST FAITH" in and dont care about. i think we need to get legislature passed that when a company (such as microsoft in terms of win98 or such) that when they QUIT supporting, they GIVE IT AWAY for free and in turn, cant be sued for lack of support, lack of updates, or any of that jazz. you can see all over the place where "abandonware" games are free for download and the original company doesnt even bother to sue anyone b/c they just dont about the title anymore.

(Spam)