Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The main discouragement to frivolous lawsuits here in the UK is that, in almost all circumstances, the loser has to pay both sides' legal costs. Is that not the case in the US?
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HarryT,
I will grant you that this woman *clearly* had every intent of stealing the music. I will grant that she had clear intent of sharing her ill-gotten goods with others - denying the music publishers' of their rightful profits. I will grant that even under the most liberal theft and intellectual property rights laws, this was criminal behavior.
HOWEVER! There's one fact you're wilfully ignoring about this. The lawyer made a statement - for the court record - that *ANY* attempt by a person to rip a CD from downloaded music - and she clearly chose to *NOT* narrow that down to illegally downloaded music - was a criminal act. There are websites which will legally sell a customer music to download. By her words, even though the customer bought the music legally, if they choose to rip a CD, for whatever purpose - even such as making a backup storage disc - they are committing a 'crime'.
Now here's the problem with that statement. As her words are part of the trial, if the judge decides the plaintiff is right *AND* does not clarify, as part of his ruling, that the act of ripping a CD for personal use/music backup is not covered by the ruling, under such a scenario other cases can be brought against those who *are* trying to legally back up their legally-purchased music. In essence, we could, by crass manipulation on the part of the plaintiff's lawyer and oversight by the judge, find ourselves 'made criminal' after the fact -ex post facto is, I think, the term. And that's wrong, morally wrong!
Derek