Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Agreed, as for other alleged civil offenses. But it wouldn't be reasonable to allow the defense that some other member of your household must have been the downloader. This is comparable to a parking ticket, where the owner of the car is presumed responsible for misuse of said vehicle.
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If you get a parking ticket, I believe they must prove you were the one driving as it's the driver who entered into the parking contract, not the owner of the vehicle. Many people have avoided private parking charges based on that. Whether that applies to council issued parking tickets, I'm not as sure, the laws differ between the two.
With speeding, it's a criminal offence, so I believe they must prove beyond reasonable doubt you were the driver or charge you with failing to disclose the identity of the driver (in which case they need to show you knew who the driver was). There was a pretty long winded discussion on this not too long ago (in the IP thread). Here's a recent court case as an example
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-18863644
Of course, the difference is piracy is still treated as a civil offence, reasonable doubt does not apply and it's possible that the 'someone else in the family did it' defence won't apply unless you can show who that was. The problem is that the punishment is quite harsh compared to the standard of proof required.
None of the above is legal advice, just armchair quarterbacking/opinion
