Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
The comparison to MLK is wrong-headed. It's actually the polar opposite of the situation with piracy. You're comparing someone fighting for justice for a group of ne'er-do-wells fighting for injustice, in the form of intellectual theft.
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No, it's fighting against an oligopolic industry, that is able to behave surprisingly like a cartel, without ever having really been investigated for that.
Especially with the currently surfacing idea in the US justice system that the RIAA is abusing the courts in order to push through its agenda, that is, to troll people into submission by threatening them with the possibility of humongous court fees if they go to court and lose. There was a recent judge that was very annoyed that the RIAA kept dropping cases after discovery of the names that were subpoena'ed in RIAA vs. Does cases, and then filing individual suits against those people. Apparently that sort of thing isn't 'legal', or somesuch. Sadly, they're never confronted, as they always drop the cases they stand even the smallest chance of losing. As soon as they become suspicious of the skills of the defense attorney, they'll drop the case like a hot potato, thus ensuring no precedent is created. See the working paper by
Pamela Samuelson for more.
Whatever you may think of "pirates", their existence does not warrant the behavior of the RIAA towards basically defenseless people, as no individual in his right mind will take the risk to be forced to pay the costs the RIAA can force on them
just by suing them. Those extortionist practices are absolutely pathetic, and only reinforce the "class justice" stereotype that is already dominant in some circles. And you will not be able to convince me that an industry that happily hires lawyers like that deserves any pity whatever.