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Originally Posted by Daithi
No, that's not my argument. I am arguing that they are purposefully engaged in the distribution of stolen Intellectual Property.
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I assume that is just your opinion, or do you have any evidence of this?
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I'll go back to the Pawn Shop example. If a pawn shop knowingly sells stolen goods they are committing a felony and depending on the circumstances they will be hit by fines and/or prison time. To protect themselves they record the ID and list of merchandise that people sell or pawn them.
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Selling stolen property has nothing to do with copyright infringement, but you probably already know that.
In this case, RS falls under similar laws to the US's DMCA. I don't know the equivalent laws where RS is, but according to the US they are doing everything legally (as far as I can tell), and would qualify for safe harbor. As long as they honor takedown requests, which they claim to do, then I don't see what the problem is. Do you have evidence that they don't?
If your point is that you want to make hosting sites and ISPs legally responsible for any data that they serve on behalf of their customers, then you're pretty much going to outlaw the internet. The model that it works under now is that hosting sites store/distribute content on behalf of their customers. Whether that material is legal or not is the responsibility of the individual user. If the hosting site is served a takedown request, then they honor it. That's how the system was designed, and that's what the laws say. As far as I know, RS is operating under that system. RS may have a certain reputation, or you may not like them, but you can't decide if what they are doing is legal/illegal based solely on that. You either break the current model (and basically the internet) and say that hosts/ISPs are liable, or you say that the users are liable and hosts/ISPs have to respond to takedown requests when provided.