Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
One thing you're missing is that receiving copyrighted material is not an offence, regardless of intent.
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I'm not missing that that is your opinion. I have also stated, repeatedly, in this thread, that I tend to agree.
I'm just not getting why you seem to think that your opinion is law rather than just your opinion?
I simply don't think it is as clear clut as you claim.
As for why there are no cases about downloading specifically.......I would imagine it actually is because of nothing more than the fact that it would be too easy to defend against by simply claiming "I didn't know if it was subject to copyright." And note, that defence is not in anyway claiming that no offence has been made, only that the accused was unaware they may have been committing an offence.
In order to successfully sue a "downloader only" the companies would have to
1: Find someone who had never uploaded anything. With p2p being the far and away most common way of downloading and with the overwhelming majority of users of p2p programs both uploading and downloading, finding someone who has never uploaded anything at all would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
2: Find someone who had downloaded so much that the defence of "I didn't know, and no reasonable person could be expected to know, all this free stuff on the internet was under copyright or likely to be subject to copyright" would not be a reasonable defence.
Taking 1 and 2 together it becomes far easier to simply prosecute people for uploading rather than downloading whether or not downloading is an offence at all.
Remember, in some states in the USA it is illegal to pick up road kill and eat it. I don't think anyone has been prosecuted over it but that doesn't mean it isn't an offence.
All that is not to say downloading is an offence though, as I've said, my understanding leads me to think it isn't, but in all honesty none of us really know for sure. All we know is our interpretation of what the law states.
Cheers,
PKFFW