No…no one can prove you have a file in your computer, unless the cartel gets a court order to inspect your computer (after you erased all the files in it, of course).

Also it is possible to download a movie file and after viewing the file movie and your government’s FBI “you are a criminal” embedded warning, you decided to erase the file.

And yes, it is possible that a program download files of any type, including movie and mp3 files, into your computer without your authorization and that you are unaware that the program does what it does. Of course after you erase all your files you cannot even know such a program was installed in your computer.

Not a troll.

Wow!
The above may be true regardless of how the movie files are distributed, wether lawful or unlawful, and regardless of the price. For example, if a free copy of a dvd is given to a paid for and dishonest movie critic by the movie producer (a frequent phenomena), it may and likekely result in limitless number of copies. A sold copy of a dvd will produce identical results.

What this all means is that once you send out the door a product that can be freely copied and the copies are pefect, the inevitable will result. People will copy. It is as natural as breathing.

Surely the judge that will handle the case copied records into cassettes when a kid, just as Clinton tried marujuana when young. It was to be expected, since no one lives an perfect vacuum.

What the cartels want to do is the equivalent of offering free food for the taking at the supermarket A and then expexting people to go to supermarket B, where the food is sold. The cartel expectations are foolish.

BTW, I wonder if any judge has ever inhibited him/herself from being named judge or from a a case because he/she copied cassettes and was thus a thief and criminal. They all copied cassettes and simply were never charged.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

MITIGATE DAMAGES – Taking action to avoid or reduce damages.

A person who claims damages as a result of an alleged wrongful act on the part of another has a duty under the law to “mitigate” those damages; that is, to take advantage of any reasonable opportunity he may have had under the circumstances to reduce or minimize the loss or damage.

So, if a Plaintiff [within the limitations of any disability he may have sustained] fails to seek out or take advantage of a business or employment opportunity that was reasonably available to him under all the circumstances, then the amount of damages awarded may be reduced by the amount he could have reasonably realized if he had taken advantage of such opportunity.

Mitigation: To act in such a way as to cause an offense to seem less serious.

Actually if plaintiffs never billed the alleged infringer, the plaintiff should not be paid anything, since the plaintiff did not mitigate the damages, which may be the earnings from the sale of the dvd. Not mitigating the damages means that no effort was made by plaintiff to collect the money it deserved to make, something that is required before a lawsuit is filed to collect the money.

This is important so that the courts are not flloded and made to be a debt collection agency.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

Paragraph 4 lines 5-13
Each time the Defendant unlawfully
distributes a free copy of one of the Plaintiffs’ copyrighted
motion pictures to others over the Internet, each person
who copies that motion picture can then distribute that unlawful
copy to others without any significant degradation in sound and
picture quality thus, a Defendant’s distribution of even one
unlawful copy of a motion picture can result in the nearly
instantaneous worldwide distribution of that single copy to
a limitless number of people.

Paragraph 10 Lines 4 -6
Each of the Copyrighted Motion Pictures contains a
copyright notice advising the viewer that the motion picture is
protected by the copyright laws

Paragraph 11 Lines 7 – 10
The Plaintiffs are informed and believe that
each Defendant, without the permission or consent of the Plaintiffs,
has used, and continues to use, an online media distribution
system to distribute to the public,

Paragraph 12 Lines 20 – 22
The foregoing acts of infringement have been willful,
intentional, and in disregard of and with indifference to the
rights of the Plaintiffs .

keep that in mind when someone kicks your ass for being an asshole.

Anyway after recovering from the shock of it all I wrote back to them essentially saying that I run a wireless server which has no encryption so someone probably logged into my computer and used my broadband to download. This is complete bull of course but hey… I’m dumb enough to download Clueless so I must be dumb enough to leave my wireless server unprotected. THEN at the end of the letter I said that I had DELETED the offending file and INSTALLED ENCRYPTION AND FIREWALL technology so prevent this from happening again.

Now if you know anything about computers (and most lawyers don’t) OR you’re playing hardball, you may say “I don’t believe you. Prove it or I’m taking you to court.” which is what they effectively said to me in their next letter. At that point it’s IMPORTANT NOT TO REVEAL A WEAKNESS so I wrote back basically saying “It’s the truth. I work in an office processing mail (or in your case, you’re retired and spend your time helping old folk). I am not a computer programmer or IT expert or a student so I don’t even know what P2P is. I just bought a computer to do word processing and the router came free of charge and my neighbour set it up for me because I thought it would be nice to surf in bed with my laptop (or whatever). So someone else must have broken in and done all of this. (Then I added some even more bull at the end by saying:) In fact, shortly after I received your letter, my computer had to be completely reinstalled because the intruder introduced a virus into my system so I had to pay $100 to a technician to come fix it.”

Then I said

“If you wanna prove to the judge that I, a working citizen with no formal training in computers had the ability to learn how to P2P download, then be my guest. You are suing me. You are the ones who must prove that I am lying and that someone didn’t really break in and do this on my computer to win your case”.

You can see how difficult this is would be for them to show, because at that point all they will have is an ip address and a file on your system. They will have no idea what your computer is or who has access to it. Now you may not be able to persuade someone that you are IT illiterate 50 years from now, but in our lifetimes it is still something we can get away with. Even in court. In fact the judge himself may sympathise with your story.

And guess what.. it has been over 15 months and I have not heard anything from them.

So the moral of the story is – don’t be afraid of going to court. If you stick to the same story, as long as it’s enough to introduce doubt that you were responsible for the downloading, and you are do not have an IT background, then the judge is MORE LIKELY TO BELIEVE YOU!

Obviousy I will remain anonymous here because I am divulging things which some may not like, but if you want to know more just post and I will pick up your comment.

Giving the cartels the benefit of the doubt, the maximum their “Settlement Centers” be asking for is the amount that a video rental store charges punters for each lost movie DVD’s plus a small collection fee. For two movies that should come to a very maximum of $300.00 assuming that she did not own a copy of either movie. Anything above this amount is extortion, plain and simple!

Why should it be illegal to begin with?

Just because I don’t want to pay $20 to see some crappy movie doesn’t make me a criminal.

If they are putting out good quality movies, they will surely see me as a loyal customer as they quality you get from downloaded movies are questionable at best.

Movies like Bewitched, I mean come on $10 admission plus $7 for drinks and pop corn?

WHY DON’T YOU THINK THAT IS ILLEGAL?

IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL TO PUT OUT CRAPPY MOVIES AND CHARGING CONSUMERS THROUGH THE NOSE TO SIT THROUGH IT.

A correction: the term used by the Loeb & Loeb lawyer was “windfall” and not “killing”.

Clearly what RIAA and MPAA want is a windfall killing whenever someone copies a song or a movie. And thelawyers also make a windfall killing in legal fees from cases that at best should only be small courts claim.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com