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Comment This is big (Score 5, Informative) 189

This ruling is huge.

Ever since I first got involved in fighting the RIAA's litigation campaign, and blogging about it, in 2005 [that's almost 8 years ago] I've been arguing that it is not a sufficient basis to bring a lawsuit against someone that an internet access account for which he or she pays the bill was used by someone for a copyright infringement. Even though I, and lots of other lawyers, and lots of other techies, and lots of other people from all walks of life knew this, I have never -- until this ruling -- seen a JUDGE dismiss a complaint because of this.

If those of you who are saying this is "not a big deal" or "was expected" know of any prior decisions like this, please show them to me. Otherwise, STFU about it not being big. After about 10 years and hundreds of thousands of frivolous lawsuits, finally a judge has pointed out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes.

It is one of the most newsworthy copyright posts I have ever seen on Slashdot.

Submission + - Troll complaint dismissed; subscriber not necessarily infringer (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The courts are finally starting to get it, that the subscriber to an internet access account which has been used for a copyright infringement is not necessarily the infringer. In AF Holdings v. Rogers, a case in the Southern District of California, the Chief Judge of the Court has granted a motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim where the only evidence the plaintiff has against defendant is that defendant appears to have been the subscriber to the internet access account in question. In his 7-page opinion (PDF), Chief Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz noted that "just because an IP address is registered to an individual does not mean that he or she is guilty of infringement when that IP address is used to commit infringing activity"."

Comment Re:"the Native American Minnesotan" (Score 1) 146

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#42274911) Attached to: Jammie Thomas Takes Constitutional Argument To SCOTUS

Why do we care that she's of tribal descent? Are we now saying tribal American's are exempt from copyright laws? I flatly refuse to redefine native they way the PC crowd does, if you were born in the US you are native. I happen to be of Cherokee linage as well, but that doesn't matter, I'm native because I was born here.

In this case, I personally believe that she was discriminated against by the jury, because she was a Native American. She was tried many many miles from where she lived and worked, and did not have a jury of her peers.

Comment Re:Question for NYCountryLawyer re illegal downloa (Score 2) 146

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#42274829) Attached to: Jammie Thomas Takes Constitutional Argument To SCOTUS

Was she really convicted of "illegal downloading?"

1. She wasn't "convicted" of anything; this wasn't a criminal case. She was found liable for copyright infringement by making copies through downloading, thus violating the record companies' exclusive reproduction rights.
2. She was also sued for "distributing" and "making available for distributing", but the judge threw out the "making available for distributing" claim, and there was no evidence offered of the "distributing" claim.

So yes, the only thing she was found liable for was downloading.

Comment Re:by my estimation (Score 1) 146

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#42274729) Attached to: Jammie Thomas Takes Constitutional Argument To SCOTUS

This case is Capitol vs Thomas, not RIAA vs Thomas. Capitol is a music publisher, and this case was about their works.

1. Capitol is but one of the plaintiffs.
2. The RIAA was in fact running the case, with the aid of the record company plaintiffs.
3. Capitol is a record company, not a music publisher.
4. The case was about the recordings of several different companies.

Submission + - Jammie Thomas takes constitutional argument to SCOTUS (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Native American Minnesotan found by a jury to have downloaded 24 mp3 files of RIAA singles, has filed a petition for certioriari to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the award of $220,000 in statutory damages is excessive, in violation of the Due Process Clause. Her petition (PDF) argued that the RIAA's litigation campaign was "extortion, not law", and pointed out that "[a]rbitrary statutory damages made the RIAA’s litigation campaign possible; in turn,that campaign has inspired copycats like the so-called Copyright Enforcement Group; the U.S. Copyright Group, which has already sued more than 20,000 individual movie downloaders; and Righthaven, which sued bloggers. This Court should grant certiorari to review this use of the federal courts as a scourge"."

Submission + - How should one dealing with a DDoS attack?

Submitted by TheUnFounded
TheUnFounded writes: A site that I administer was recently "held hostage" for the vast sum of $800. We were contacted by a guy (who was, it turns out, in Lebanon), who told us that he had been asked to perform a DDoS on our site by a competitor, and that they were paying him $600. He then said for $800, he would basically go away. Not a vast sum, but we weren't going to pay just because he said he "could" do something.

Within 5 minutes, our site was down.

The owner of the company negotiated with the guy, and he stopped his attack after receiving $400. A small price to pay to get the site online in our case. But obviously we want to come up with a solution that'll allow us to deal with these kinds of attacks in the future.

While the site was down, I contacted our hosting company, Rackspace. They proceeded to tell me that they have "DDoS mitigation services", but they cost $6,000 if your site is under attack at the time you use the service. Once the attack was over, the price dropped to $1500. (Nice touch there Rackspace, so much for Fanatical support; price gouging at its worst).

So, obviously, I'm looking for alternative solutions for DDoS mitigation. I'm considering CloudFlare (https://www.cloudflare.com/) as an option; does anyone have any other suggestions or thoughts on the matter?

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