Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
No-one has ever been prosecuted for using DRM removal software on music or ebooks.
One person has been prosecuted for creating DRM removal software for DVDs (and acquitted).
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The big cases which involved civil suits, NOT criminal prosecutions, involved file sharing sites mainly for music back in the early 2000's.
Operators of those sites and many uploaders and downloaders did receive subpoenas for large sums of damages. Their names and addresses were traced by their IP address and internet providers who furnished the information.
Since then I haven't heard of any new cases like that other than this one from New Zealand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload
The only other big civil suit concerning eBooks was filed by the US Government against 5 publishers plus Apple for colluding to keep prices high. Amazon was NOT named as a defendant.
However, it should be noted that many sites discussing eBooks make sure not to show links to Apprentice Alf or allow discussion of DRM removal techniques. Obviously, there is some fear of civil consequences.
If a person has built a collection of 40,000 eBooks by downloading from a bit Torrent site, using Calibre to organize them and the Alf plugin to make them all readable on any eReader, he MAY be running some risk of a civil suit sometime in the future. I doubt if there would ever be any criminal prosecutions.
Here is a 2013 civil judgment where excessive civil damages were reduced for someone sharing music files:
http://www.iplawleaders.com/copyrigh...oaders-beware/
From that case: "The jury, again, found the defendant liable and awarded damages totaling over $1.9 million. The district court, stating that the award was “shocking,” remitted the damages to $54,000 and the record companies moved for a new trial solely on damages."
That women shared just a few songs and now has a BIG LEGAL problem.
Here is another quote from that link:
"The First Circuit affirmed judgment in favor of recording companies, holding that the statutory damage award of $675,000 for willfully infringing 30 copyrighted songs did not violate the defendant’s constitutional right to due process." That person shared just THIRTY songs!
Personally, I think the eBook problem is much more serious than the song problem and may involve much more money in potential damages.