cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37157681
The battle over a $1 billion piracy judgment against internet provider Cox Communications has reached the Supreme Court, where the company receives broad support. Amicus briefs from the U.S. government, major tech companies, and various other parties, warn that the current ruling creates a dangerous precedent. They argue that the Fourth Circuit ruling, which makes passive service providers liable for their customers’ actions, invokes broad liability and puts people’s internet access at risk.
They really don’t understand piracy at all. Piracy has got plenty of people into purchasing more products and supporting the economy.
OK recording industry. Riddle me this. If you manage to cut off my internet access, how am I supposed to purchase your media?
Their (incorrect) logic is that if you were pirating you weren’t purchasing their content anyway.
I don’t think anyone is an exclusive pirate or purchaser. Everyone is on the scale between one of the other, whether that’s someone who mostly pirates but goes to the movies on occasion, or someone who mostly pays for Netflix but will hunt down something Netflix doesn’t have.
You and I know thats true and piracy in some cases is shown to increase sales because people decide its worth money and/or talk about it more. Heck some people pirate things they already own just because they’re too lazy to find the copy they own.
This is absolutely the gatekeeping and control Trump’s dictatorship wants to wield over companies and people. I’d be surprised if they stuck to precedent; their whole shtick is to rewrite application of law to their objectives, sidestepping Congress.
So my question is, do we want ISPs to be liable? If they are, they will be more likely to cut alleged pirates off. If they aren’t, then a legal door is open for the rights holders to go after individuals directly.
Imagine the utilities company that provides homes with water being liable for somebody getting drowned in a bathtub …
Absolutely not. They should be common carriers with zero weighting and even zero knowledge about what transits their network.
Agreed. This whole lawsuit is one giant looming catastrophe. If ISP’s are found liable for copyright infringement, that will be the effective end of the open internet. From there, I can already see the argument taking shape that ISP’s, telco’s, and account holders are all effectively accomplices in all sorts of crimes facilitated using communications networks.
Oh, hell no.
You do not want the ISPs to be the cops. They are a neutral provider that gives basic Internet access. If that access is to be terminated, it should be done by a court, and there should be a police case.
Having the ISP’s doxx the users is an unfavorable but more proper answer. But every one of those should be a court case at least. Innocent until proven guilty, not just shut down because they think you might be guilty.
about as much as the telephone company is liable for what you say.
arguing over the implementation of a broken system is pointless anyway, they are gonna do whatever is in the shareholders best interest; always.
