MPAA p2p ’settlement’
p2p news / p2pnet: At least Refugio Verdugo didn’t wind up in jail, unlike Chan Nai-ming, a Honk Kong man destined to spend three months inside because he allegedly shared three movies online.
Verdugo ’settled’ with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), which was accusing him of sharing digital versions of Spider-Man 2 and White Chicks on the p2p networks.
As with RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) settlements, people are blackmailed into buying protection from legal hit firms such as Shook, Hardy Bacon, or Jenner & Block.
In the process, innocent men, women and children are made to appear as if they’re guilty of something without ever having appeared in a court.
The MPAA also says it ‘won’ another case by default because the victim, Clay Hoggard of Ridgecrest who was said to have shared Without a Paddle, didn`t show up in court, says the Bakersfield Californian, going on:
“At the time the suit was filed, Refugio`s wife, Angelina, denied they had illegally downloaded anything, saying they barely knew how to turn on their new computer.”
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
three movies – Man jailed for file sharing, November 7, 2005
Bakersfield Californian – Movie pirating cases settled, won by MPAA, November 6, 2005
November 7th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
The MPAA clearly know that if you tell someone something often enough, people will believe it eventually, in this case “you cannot win”, even if you weren’t even playing in the first place, so it seems.
Okay, I can understand the MPAA not wanting rampant piracy to go on, but you’d have thought by now they’d realise their reputation is sliding with every story like this.
Ultimately it doesn’t really matter: as long as they keep making examples of people, they’re doing their job; they bank on people being too clueless or too tired to question the MPAA’s tactics.
November 7th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
“At the time the suit was filed, Refugioâs wife, Angelina, denied they had illegally downloaded anything, saying they barely knew how to turn on their new computer.”
At least they can turn theirs on. Half the time mine refuses to turn on when I push that little button on the front. Hmm, does that mean if I get nailed for copyright infringment there is only a 50% chance it was really me?
November 7th, 2005 at 5:00 pm
“Okay, I can understand the MPAA not wanting rampant piracy to go on, but you’d have thought by now they’d realise their reputation is sliding with every story like this. ”
YES BUT ENOUGH PEOPLE HAVE NOT STOPPED GOING TO THE MOVIES
November 7th, 2005 at 9:32 pm
As I’ve said before, the settlement figure is a number that they carefully determined. It is just enough to hurt most people but not enough that it makes fighting this in court. The evidence they use is questionable at best.
– Tin
November 7th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
first intentional mistake of the day.
November 8th, 2005 at 12:59 am
A world without clearly defined sociol/economical hiearchy
makes things entirely too confusing. People who are better,
should look, act, and dress better, without fear from any
legal reprecusions because they got political connections.
The rest of the people,we peasants, or morlocks if you
perfer, poor folk, we are just commodities with bright futures
inside the prison factory system. Who needs slavery when
we can just make every damn thing illegal, and send the
prisoners to work in factories?
poverty level or below wages, inescapeable debt, combine it
with unbelievable expensive medical care, and a long played
out death due to lack of funds.
I will never go to see another Mpaa movie,RIAA music, or any of thier products. ever again. Throwing jackasses in jail just for swapping 3 or whatever movies? that’s just disgusting. There is greed, and then there GREED.
Too bad most of the amatuer/independent stuff sucks, but I think I can get used to it, maybe even appreciate real people, Actual People, not the plastic wrapped airbrushed scripted ‘art and entertainment’ .
Hell, I’m probably just some crazy dude sitting in a basement under a bare lightbulb cranking out angry propoganda against the pimp’s who are running the show, but, man, it’s just going to be more and more restrictions on anyone and anything not already part of the cartels.
Hey, once those rfid chips are working correctly,maybe they can make them keep track of all the copywrited stuff we see or hear, so that the value can be deducted out of our bank accounts instantly….or maybe for speaking seditiously or bitchin’ bout the goverment, give us a little ‘incentive’ electric shock. Now that would be just swell.
I think I’m gonna go cry now.