Technically I have to agree with you that the Viacom case doesn't set any precedent insofar as issues of licence/entrapment are concerned. Google argued for (and successfully obtained) a ruling that it qualified under the safe harbour provisions, so the issue of whether or not Viacom had licensed their content impliedly by uploading it themselves or through their representatives never came into question.

As for the reasonable expectation point, I'm not sure that is even a requirement in law at all, and can lead to absurdities if it is. For example, when a copyright owner puts up a file on torrent knowing it will be downloaded, if the downloading is deemed a civil cause of action or a criminal offence, aren't they then abetting the same? When a copyright owner puts up a file on torrent knowing it will be downloaded, isn't that an offer to the world at large to download the file? Or maybe to draw a simpler analogy, if you offer me something and I take it, can you then turn around and accuse me of theft? Things may not be as clear cut as it seems at first glance.

I too, would like a citation for this.

I've already done the obligatory Google searches, etc and can find nothing to support your view. The only remotely relevant case is the old MediaDefender and that was never litigated (or even got off the ground, for that matter).

The concept of Entrapment, although strictly speaking is limited to criminal liability appears to be somewhat relevant as well.

You can find a copy of the actual Comcast letter here.

For background :-

In June, Prenda and its boss John Steele were accused of running a “honeypot” based on an expert report authored by Delvan Neville, whose company specializes in monitoring BitTorrent users.

The report hinted that the law firm was seeding the very files they claimed to protect, and found that many of the torrents detailed in Prenda lawsuits originate from a user on The Pirate Bay called ‘Sharkmp4.

In an effort to expose the alleged honeypot, The Pirate Bay then jumped in and revealed the IP-addresses that ‘Sharkmp4used to upload the torrent files.

One of the subpoenas covered the Comcast IP-address 75.72.88.156 used by “Sharkmp4,” as can be seen at the bottom of the list of Pirate Bay IPs shown above.

After a few weeks Comcast returned the subscriber details that matched the IP-address at the time the files were uploaded. As can be seen from their response detailed below, this IP is indeed the Comcast account of Steele Hansmeier PLLC, which is directly connected to Prenda Law.

It's ironic that the method copyright trolls like to abuse, namely linking IP addresses to alleged infringers is now being used against them in this case.

As for your "good luck" comment, the same point was raised in the Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. lawsuit. Specifically, Google claimed that:-

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site.

Although summary judgment was granted to Google on other grounds, I'd say this argument has at least a fair chance of success.

I think that generally things have pretty much been as they always have been, wild and chaotic. Accidents happen, disasters occur, people die etc.

What is different is this climate of fear over terrorism permeating our society, in no small part fanned by those in power. Understandably so -people ruled by fear are much easier to herd in the direction the powers that be want them to move. Since the terrorism scare began, overly broad and severely restrictive laws have been passed (Terrorism Act/Patriots Act), personal liberties infringed and sacrified in the name of safety (TSA is a good example), huge chunks of national budgets have been appropriated for defence all of which the government could not have done if the public had not been coerced into it by fear of terrorism.

One example of how this climate of fear has changed our world is (with utmost respect to the deceased) the death of Lee Rigby. Prior to 911 I doubt this story would be deemed remarkable -a story about a lone soldier stabbed by 2 (crazed?) men. What gives the story prominence now is the motive for the killing, i.e. revenge for Muslims. And we have people like the Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair fanning the flames by calling the attack part of the broader "problem within Islam."

And as if to underline the point, the UK also gave us English defamation law, with this very attractive trait :-

English defamation law puts the burden of proving the truth of allegedly defamatory statements on the defendant, rather than the plaintiff, and has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world.

So you can sue someone for defamation and make them bankrupt if they fail to prove what they said was true. Pretty nifty when you need to sue say, a newspaper exposing your scandals -just sit back and bleed them with legal fees while they scramble for evidence (which you've already buried, of course).

Said victory is likely to prove pyrrhic in the long run. The only thing it did was to draw the public's attention to how the Terrorism Act 2000 can and has been abused against "enemies of the government". And how officers implementing said provisions can completely ignore the safeguards built into the statute- for example, that the powers be used only against suspected terrorists, of which David clearly is not.

Ok, so David was detained and his goods seized under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which states :-

Detention of property
11 (2) An examining officer may detain the thing—

(a) for the purpose of examination, for a period not exceeding seven days beginning with the day on which the detention commences,
(b) while he believes that it may be needed for use as evidence in criminal proceedings, or
(c) while he believes that it may be needed in connection with a decision by the Secretary of State whether to make a deportation order under the Immigration Act 1971.

In the first place, they had no right to detain the personal property. I wish the officers joy in explaining why he thought these items were "evidence in criminal proceedings" or were relevant to a "deportation order".

In the second place, nothing I can see therein allows them to destroy detained property, which is a very extreme response under any cricumstances. It also contradicts the intent of the section, which was to allow collection of property to be used as evidence.

Pretty ironic since the preamble states that the Act was "An Act to make provision about terrorism; and to make temporary provision for Northern Ireland about the prosecution and punishment of certain offences, the preservation of peace and the maintenance of order.". The only terrorism here I see is committed by the government.

terrorism
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

Is Netflix the right target though? What makes you think they want to have DRM in their product? The answer is, they don't. Netflix was forced by its content providers to use DRM.

Setting aside the debate around the value of content protection and DRM, they are requirements we must fulfill in order to obtain content from major studios for our subscribers to enjoy.

Netflix is not the only online delivery service forced to use DRM. Lovefilm, which operates in the UK was also forced to switch from using flash to Silverlight by the studios.

We’ve been asked to make this change by the Studios who provide us with the films in the first place, because they’re insisting – understandably – that we use robust security to protect their films from piracy, and they see the Silverlight software as more secure than Flash.

I agree that as customers, we should not have DRM forced on us. And yes, a consumer boycott is a way to show our displeasure. But to be consistent, target the true masterminds behind the DRM scheme, the movie studios by refusing to watch their movies on any medium. Consider this -if you boycott and kill Netflix, the studios will be happier because they earned more from the old system pre-Netflix.

Now, contrast the studios' dismal quarterly numbers with Netflix's performance during the same period. The video-rental service, which mails DVDs to subscribers as well as streams films and TV shows over the Web, added 3 million subscribers in the quarter--largely on the growing popularity of its streaming service, the company said.

It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it shows significant numbers of consumers are moving to Netflix, a service that all but eliminates the need to own movies.

While I agree broadly with the main thrust of your argument (they should really stop fraudulently advertising that you 'own' digital products when you so clearly don't) I think your characterisation of Steam users here is inappropriate.

For a majority of Steam users, I believe, it is a simple matter of economics and convenience. The benefits can be rather compelling :-

1) During periodic Steam sales, the games could be substantially cheaper than a retail box. Sometimes up to 75% or more.
2) You can DL the game and play it on the same day.
3) You dont have to physically travel to the store.
4) You don't have to hunt for and patch your own games.
5) You don't have to deal with harassed sales staff on release days.

Most Steam users I believe, have done up the sums and are willing to give up the privilege of owning their games for these benefits. It is a choice they make. For those who insist on owning their games, as in the old days, they can still buy retail boxes. That is also their choice, a different choice but a no less valid one based on their personal values.

If you are concerned about the dilution of the First Sale Doctrine and ownership rights generally, I agree that it is a concern. As individual consumers however, when it comes to non-essentials like games and entertainment, we always have the power to vote with our wallets. The most recent example is the furor over the drm of XBoxOne which eventually caused MS to reverse their policy.

More likely because you can already get the shows Netflix has by DLding, without depending on Netflix as the source.

Well the MS design intent is for all WinRT devices to be locked down.

Microsoft mandates that Secure Boot on Windows RT devices isn’t user-configurable, so you won’t be able to remove Windows RT and install Linux or another operating system.

Since MS Secure Boot has already been cracked, it will probably be a matter of time.

First, you show up, making an emotional rant about "Google apologists". An emotionally loaded term only a biased party could use.

Secondly, half of your original rant is incoherent, while the other half consists of ridiculous assertions like "Nobody would or has deemed that behavior acceptable from Microsoft but somehow because its Google its ok."[sic] If you actually bother to read the rest of the thread, you will find plenty of people criticising Google. Your statement is so clearly untrue only a wilfully blind person could miss it.

Thirdly, in your original post there was not a single complaint about MS at all. This is a dispute between two parties, MS and Google. You attack one without talking about the other. What does that suggest?

Now, in your response, you shyt on MS -conveniently after being challenged as a shill. Too little, too late.

I stand by my statement, Mr. AC. And I notice you have conveniently ignored my arguments and the link I posted about MS paid shills - because its true perhaps?

And I like your final touch ; "There is absolutely no way to criticize Google on this site without its devoted, unthinking drones like you calling it the work of Microsoft". On the contrary Mr. AC, thinking, critical people will challenge you when you make silly, baseless and emotional assertions.

As you have pointed out, European 'Chip-and-PIN' Cash-Card Security have already been cracked by criminals.

And fair enough, generally cards with chips are still more secure than their magnetic counterparts.

What I am more disturbed about is, from the point of the consumer, it appears that in Europe at least the supposed security of the chip and pin system have been (ab)used by banks to deny refunds to their defrauded clients.

However, the chip and PIN system came under question in 2010, when researchers found that transactions could be executed without PINs.

In their paper, the Cambridge researchers asserted that, based on their conversations with bankers, "banks systematically suppress information about known vulnerabilities, with the result that fraud victims continue to be denied refunds."

Bond asserted that banks are aware of the problem but routinely “stonewall” customers-turned-victims because their transaction records show that the PIN was used.

From the POV of the consumer, I would not favor the use of this newer, more secure system if it shifts the burden of fraud on me with the excuse that "it's unhackable, you must have given them your PIN".

In most cases, period of notice is something which is in stated in the contract. To me it is a personal promise, that you will not leave the company without letting them know X weeks in advance. It should therefore be kept unless there are really exceptional grounds for not doing so.

Lets face it, nobody leaves their current employ unless they're unhappy with it. In most cases, most people will feel that their current employer treated them like shyt. This does not mean you should not take the high road and carry out your part of the bargain.

To illustrate, say old man Grouch has been making my life hell working under him for the last 5 years. But he pays the salary on time. I'd probably give proper notice and stick it out.

OTOH if I worked under Mr. Nice and just found out that he had been porking my wife behind my back for the last few months... or that the company was doing something illegal and I was going to be made the scapegoat... I would probably bail with no notice. Why? Because the company/bosses are the ones who have betrayed you. They deserve no respect.

Ad hominem attack - check
False attribution -check
Argument from personal incredulity - check
Moral high ground fallacy -check

High probability parent post is a MS shill. See, the reason why MS has such a bad rep compared to Google (and considerably less trust from the public) is because of their past bad conduct.

As an example, I am more likely to believe that you are a MS shill because it is a proven fact that MS does in fact employ shills to flood public discourse.

This is what I personally believe, and unlike you I am willing to post on my account instead of as AC and take the karma hit. It does not mean I love Google, just that I trust Google more than MS because MS has been so terribly, terribly naughty in the past.