Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
Assuming they can afford to defend themselves without Legal Aid, how would they go about proving their innocence? Remember that the burden of proof is on the accused not the accuser. The accuser needs to present no evidence of wrongdoing.
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No, that's not the case. All the current legislation provides for is the process that I outlined about. ie:
1. Accuser makes allegation of copyright infringement to ISP.
2. ISP issues warning.
3. Periodically, rights holder can request anonymised list of subscribers who have exceeded a specified number of infringement allegations in a given period.
4. Rights holder presents evidence of wrongdoing to court.
5. Court issues order for ISP to disclose personal information.
6. Rights holder takes copyright infringement action against alleged infringer through the courts.
That's the limit of the law as it currently stands. In steps 4 and 6, evidence has to be presented to a court, just as it did under previous legislation. There's no change in the burden of guilt: it's still "innocent until proven guilty". Really the only change that the DEA makes is steps 1-3. A rights-holder accusing someone of copyright infringement has to provide exactly the same evidence to a court as they would have done previously.