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Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

arstechnica.com

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Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#81

Post by mnau »

greyw wrote: post #53
arboles wrote: post #3

If you download one book you're a criminal. If they download millions of books, that's just business.

Depends on your jurisdiction. In Switzerland, downloading games, books, music, movies etc. for personal use is always legal even if the copy is "pirated". Work just needs to be published in any form. Dont know any other country where it works like this.

Czechia. In theory, there is a fee for every media (e.g.HDD) that is paid to OSA (authors organization) and OSA pays to authors through some distribution scheme. Since user already paid fee, downloading is OK.

This is mostly leftover before computers were a thing (think cassettes and paper copiers).

In practice, it's a racket and OSA is a mafia that doesn't pay to anyone. Also, the fees are rather small considering the the purpose (I think it's capped at ~$5 per device), but since authors don't actually get money from it(OSA practices) , it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, downloading audiovisual media is fine, seeding is not.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#82

Post by moring »

visarga wrote: post #75
idiotsecant wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate side effect is that a megacorp gets to vacuum up the sum of human knowledge for free, boil it down, and sell it back to us for a nice profit.

Ah you mean like Google Search?

Google doesn't "vaccuum up" anything. Every site indexed by Google is still available without using Google at all. They are _copying_ information, not moving or removing it.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#83

Post by DrScientist »

In the end it's it about the money? ie the loss to the copyright holder.

One of the reasons people sharing were gone after is you could aggregate the loss to one lawsuit - the person sharing was responsible for every lost sale - rather than chasing the thousands of individual lost sales, one at once, for each download. Not sure that actually made the best sense from a legal perspective as the sharer wasn't necessarily benefiting - but it was pushed for practical reasons.

In this case I'm assuming Meta downloaded as many pirated books as it could get it's hands on in order to avoid paying for them.

Seems common sense what they did is/should be illegal.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#84

Post by d1sxeyes »

mrweasel wrote: post #56
isaacfrond wrote: post #5

It's certainly nice to see someone accused of bittorrenting with the bankroll to come up with a decent legal defense team.

Isn't Meta going to be battling the full legal team of the entertainment industry with this argument? I think Meta did something stupid with this argument, because there is no way that Hollywood or the music industry is going be pleased with a precedence for legally downloading copyrighted material. They will now do everything in their power to get Meta found guilty.

Or, more likely, drop the case to avoid establishing a precedent.

Sounds like Meta are banking on the entertainment industry looking at it and deciding that the risk of losing this case is too high given Meta’s almost infinitely deep pockets to mount a legal defence.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#86

Post by rozab »

stevage wrote: post #78

> Evidence instead shows that Meta "took precautions not to 'seed' any downloaded files," Meta's filing said. Seeding refers to sharing a torrented file after the download completes, and because there's allegedly no proof of such "seeding," Meta insisted that authors cannot prove Meta shared the pirated books with anyone during the torrenting process. Are they actually claiming only that they didn't share after the t…

I think it's possible with the optimistic unchoking feature of BT but it would be slow and rely on generous clients.

But at the end of the day I don't think Meta care enough. They see themselves as being above the law and likely didn't seed 'more than necessary' only because it didn't benefit them.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#87

Post by d1sxeyes »

stevage wrote: post #78

> Evidence instead shows that Meta "took precautions not to 'seed' any downloaded files," Meta's filing said. Seeding refers to sharing a torrented file after the download completes, and because there's allegedly no proof of such "seeding," Meta insisted that authors cannot prove Meta shared the pirated books with anyone during the torrenting process. Are they actually claiming only that they didn't share after the t…

But that’s not quite how the law works. Meta’s response here is “you have no evidence of any wrongdoing”.

The fact we’re even discussing this shows that there’s at least some doubt that Meta could be successfully prosecuted for downloading alone.

With regards to uploading, legally speaking, it sounds like they’re right. Generally, the presumption of innocence means that whoever’s doing the accusing carries the burden of proof, and without any evidence that Meta did anything wrong, it also sets a worrying precedent that Meta would proactively have to prove their innocence in the face of no evidence to the contrary.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#88

Post by ramblerman »

weberer wrote: post #44
selamtux wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz didn't seed or distribute articles too

Swartz killed himself before the trial actually took place. Its entirely possible that the court would have ruled in his favor.

Maybe, but getting arrested with the FBI involved is a pretty traumatic event for a citizen. Having your company's lawyers mail back and forth with the DoJ less so.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#89

Post by visarga »

weberer wrote: post #44
selamtux wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz didn't seed or distribute articles too

Swartz killed himself before the trial actually took place. Its entirely possible that the court would have ruled in his favor.

Probably not because there was a DA who needed to make her career on his back.
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