begin quoting Paul G. Allen as of Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 05:40:15PM -0700: > On Fri, 2007-03-23 at 19:27 -0500, Todd Walton wrote: > > On 3/23/07, Paul G. Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Due process must be followed and I must be notified of ANY search > > > before the fact, not after!
I don't think due process requires that. > > In this case, they didn't search his computer. His computer announced > > to the world what it's contents were. Yup! > Does that make it true? That is an interesting question... if you announce that you have a specific file (name, size, and checksum) that matches a known-copyrighted work, are you in fact violating copyright? I think probably not -- but you *are* poisoning the torrent-space, in which case, the torrent people will be up in arms about your evil ways. You can't win for losing. > Who was looking and why? Does it matter? If my car is stolen, I can go wandering around looking for it. If I see that you're advertising a car that matches the description of my car, I can certainly go by your house and see if you have said vehicle parked in front. The cops can look for it, I can look for it, I can have friends look for it, I can hire private investigators look for it... it doesn't matter. So long as the law isn't broken when looking for such things, I may look, and if I find, I can reclaim it. > Did someone see Bob put > it on the computer? Did someone else put it on there without Bob's > knowledge? Did Bob break the law or did someone else? Doesn't matter. If my stolen car was put on your property (but nobody saw you park it there) and your address was listed in the advertisement (nobody saw you submit the advertising copy), I can *still* go and reclaim my vehicle. It doesn't matter how the vehicle got there, it's still stolen property, and it may be reclaimed _without_ first obtaining your permission. It's a far better thing that Bob be told to remove the offending file than for the copyright holder to subpoena all of his computers to have said files removed to the law's satisfaction. It's a far better thing to have this issue resolved civilly than to actually prosecute Bob for breaking the law. I don't think he, as an individual, can claim "common carrier status". It's _his_ network connection, _he_ is responsible for what comes from it, at least as so far as everyone else on the network is concerned. (I think that people who have computers that are part of a zombie network should be held responsible for what their computer does. I also think that we, as developers, should ensure that user can *know* what their computers are doing without having to work at it. But that's a different thread.) > Following Due Process would answer *ALL* these questions and more as > well as stop the abuse of the RIAA and MPAA as well as reduce the burden > on tax payers and the court system. That's the reason for it - to get > the facts straight, punish the guilty and protect the innocent. You're contradicting yourself; we *want* a great many issues resolved outside of the courts, and especially outside of the criminal courts. By directly contacting the ISP, the copyright holder can inform the ISP of a suspected copyright violation; upon confirmation of that violation, the ISP can restrict the further dissemenation of the copyrighted material. (This is assuming that Cox actually connected to the torrent and verified that yes, the material was indeed infringing. If they failed to do that, it's probably a failure of due diligence, not due process.) Since encrypted traffic effectively hides the ability to selectively block the transfer of copyrighted information, and you can open up an encrypted connection to anywhere, the /only/ effective way to block the transfer of copyrighted information is to block ALL traffic. Is it a breach of contract? Who knows -- you'd have to check the contract. Is it overkill? Quite possibly. Is it worth involving due process? You really want a complaint to be made to the police, and for the police to mount an investigation to monitor what information Bob offers to random strangers who connect to his system... and if they find evidence that, indeed, his machines do such a thing, they would the be forced to arrest him, confiscate his computers (for forensic analysis), and run him through the legal system. This is your contradiction. We're not wasting taxpayer money. "Ah!" you cry. "But it WASN'T HIM." Indeed. Let us return to car analogies... If I loan someone my car, and they commit a crime with it, the police may indeed arrest me and impound my car, and investigate the issue further. This is not injustice. When the person I loaned my car to confesses to the misdeed, the police will likely apologize handsomely (unless I made it a point to piss 'em off) and let me go. Bob didn't do it. But someone he let on his network *did*, apparently, and Bob was temporarilly inconvenienced by it, without involving the police, arrests, evenings in jail, bail, or any of that unpleasantness. Blocking access and THEM calling HIM would have been better customer service -- "Sir, you may have noticed a slight difficulty in your network access. I'm calling you to let you know why, just in case this in an inadvertent transgression...." -- but they didn't, and this is no suprise, 'cuz they're COX. Customer support is not their gig. This is not unexpected. (There's a reason I went with DSL. Slower, more expensive, but hey! It ain't COX. It's worth it.) I dislike the DMCA. But let's protest actual abuses. Bob got egg on his face (and I'm with Gregory -- his friend needs a dope-slap) and had a bad customer-service incident with COX. No harm, no foul. -- Gotta let a man say "whoops, sorry, I'll fix that right away". Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
