Mother Who Banned File-Sharing Still Held Responsible

enigmax
January 20, 2010
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A mother who doesn’t understand computers and forbade her children from downloading and sharing music on the Internet has been held responsible for their actions. A court in Germany ruled that parents simply banning file-sharing is not enough, and this has to be followed up to check compliance.

Following accusations from record labels that their copyrighted works were being made available via a file-sharing network from a specific IP-address, the companies managed to obtain the identity of the person who paid for the Internet connection in question.

The subscriber, the mother of several young children, was taken to court by four record companies on allegations that around 1000 music tracks had been made available on her connection.

The woman said that although she was the owner of the connection, she had no idea about computers and file-sharing. She denied carrying out any infringements but suggested that one of her children could have been responsible.

The plaintiffs hoped the court would find the defendant liable as “Mitstörer”, which means that although the woman did not directly commit the infringements, it’s possible she could be held responsible for not taking measures to stop them.

The Higher Regional Court of Cologne decided that even though the woman did not carry out the infringements and even forbade the use of file-sharing networks, parents still have a responsibility to monitor the behavior of their children, or take measures to ensure that file-sharing sites are blocked. This considered, the Court ruled in favor of the record companies.

This court case was about recovering the legal costs for bringing the copyright claim, which are calculated based on the value of the alleged infringements. The claim was for 1,000 violations at 50 euros per track (a value set by the court) which comes to a total of 50,000 euros.

According to Aldor Nini who helped with this article, based on the above the women will have to pay 2615 euros (less VAT) to the record companies’ lawyer, 1368 euros to the court, and up to 2,615 (less VAT) to their own lawyer.

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SomKen

PHAIL!
Anonymous

PWNED
eli

lol hopefully they got strong bankruptcy laws
d[-_-]b

ur mom!
yosh

That’s pretty awful, actually. I can understand that parents have to be held responsible for their childs actions, but there’s still no proof that her children downloaded on her connection. To short it down: It could’ve been anyone, but she is still held responsible. This way anyone that has a wireless connection can be held responsible for what happens through their subscription, even if they have no idea how to guard their connection. What next? 80 year olds without decent anti-virus accused of being part of a botnet?
Pizza

“What next? 80 year olds without decent anti-virus accused of being part of a botnet?”

I like this part of your comment..

We’re living in a strange world dominated by ignorance (in this case) and by greedy corporate interests..

sad :(
http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

Hmmm, I smell an appeal coming up…
Neo

I love it how hey say peer to peer is illegal so you must block all traffic lol what a bunch of n00bs
abolish copyright now

if copyright was abolished then the internet would become a vast source of information for everyone to access and to use and to benefit from as it should be in a free society.

society has decided that it will not be deprived of the free flow of information. this is called progress and you cannot stop it.

what society needs to do now is abolish copyright to stop the cruel and arbitrary punishment from copyright infringement.
gorehound

we should all stop buying new products from RIAA & MPAA.
just buy all your stuff used or pirate it.
fuck these asshole greedy corps
pwnt1

@9 your forgetting one thing the 3 ‘N’s of the internet
NO RIGHTS NO RULES NO REGULATIONS such things as laws and copy rights and governments and politics have no meaning here I just simply ignore it
dR435t4

who knows, maybe she was doing all the downloading, and then blaming the kids… but anywhoo that’s a bitch move for Germany, no warning, no threatening to disconnect the internet, but just straight to the guillotine. if this is how dirty the courts are going to be then I question the role of a government in a technologically inclined society.
What?

Like any of the artist will get any money out of this lmfao they make me laugh when they say it’s to protect artists.
Nick Savage

Wouldn’t ISPs be liable in that case, as a further abstraction? Filesharing is happening on their connections, and even if it is against the terms of services, according to this precedent, they are still liable.
Absurd

Another new low for those weasels
dR435t4

@13 what if their ISP is the reason they went to court? Ever think about that???
leecher from china

factually once anything online is connected there would be no such law or thing as copyrighted//

so those greedy mofo’s come and get me ! hahahaha

you suck balls and we wont take your scum actions any longer

you wait and see ! with in the next 15-20 years no one will ever buy a damn cd

come on people get with the program and they because you let them get away with this and greed of entertainment, they you are to be blamed. so why not boycott these companies

see, in china no one gives a rats ass! they the 1 billion |+ downloads including http://www.baidu.com free mp3 in minutes or just use utorrent…
btw. seriously those companies had it made too long and too used to getting what they want, so lets give them sh_t and see how long they will last ….
fuck the record companies

like we needed any more reason to see these companies absolutely crushed and destroyed.

fuck them. keep downloading until they’re out of business. it’s the only way anybody will be safe.
Big Daddy

I wonder if M.A.D.D.
(Mothers against drunk driving) will be changed to M.A.D.D
(Mothers against DRM downloading)
Anonymous

Let’s see our favorite copytard trolls, Reasoned Mind and neo, come along and tell us that the courts are 100% right in this one and the mother is completely liable because she didn’t turn her house into an authoritarian dictatorship in order to prevent her kids from using p2p.

Parents wouldn’t be able to stop infringement any more than antipiracy companies could. If a kid is technically proficient enough to use BitTorrent (having learned on his own, not just reading some guide online, following it to the letter, and never deviating from that path) and has parents that forbid p2p in the house, they will likely find ways around that restriction.

It’s just like wireless access points. You can’t stop p2p use through them any more than you can stop the sun from setting.
WaB

@13 (Nick Savage):

No, ISPs are access providers, the mother is not an access provider. Not sure, when she would become an access provider by law…
Anonymous

WTF, $77.4047 australian PER TRACK? is that right? What fucking pay-to-download site does the court use? Even if this value is set as a deterrent, wasn’t there an article on torrent freak which went over how damages couldn’t go much higher than the cost of a track?

Did the court seriously charge that much per track and be left wondering why people pirate?

Also, I can see the day where music studios start closing their ‘music’ branch to focus on extorting internet users. It sure as hell will make them more money. It’s pretty clear that there will be a point where you don’t have to have any evidence that someone is downloading ‘their’ music (it could just be legal to download stuff), just an IP you can randomly generate to scatter shot the internet community. You’re bound to get enough people who can be intimidated into buying you a new BMW.

Fuck these chimps, I hope the pirate party opens up an internet users Union to take these assholes on.
Max

Kids need to learn to stop seeding or stop using limewire.
bleh

germany sucking up to the big labels?

funny how they are happy to host thousands of high speed seedboxes tho… wonder what they think they are being used for
WaB

Most important bottom line: The artist(s) and record industry won’t get one cent from this judgement, the money she has to pay is just for record industries’ lawyers (getting active and sending some letters).
anonymous

how old are the kids?
townie2

don’t forget folks, the next time you see your kids downloading a song for their ipod or whatever, call the cops on them right away and turn them in to cover your behind. yeah, right.
Anonymous

It’s so infuriating to read articles like this, especially if the mother truthfully had little or no knowledge of computers. There’s no way in hell a person without any knowledge of the subject could have prevented it. Although parents need to be responsible for their children, they can only do so much with given a lack of knowledge of evolving technologies.

I feel bad for the lady, and the children are idiots to have gotten their mother in this situation. Seriously, if you’re the cause of your mother getting sued, then you’ve screwed up pretty badly.

I find it funny that I’m more interested in the relationship between the idiotic kids and the mother than the legal issues surrounding piracy. On the issue of piracy, remember to support the good artists. ;-)
C

I hope the judge has kids. *cough*
let’s get ‘em!

Füc~king german stormtrooper judge
Tomas

Well then if the children grow up to be thieves will the mother be sent to prison for their crimes? after all, she is their mother and although she forbade stealing, she didn’t actively take measures to stop it.

Every time I watch a film I see that stupid “you wouldn’t steal a film from a store” clip. They try to equate piracy and physical theft. So let’s do that then. It would be absurd to hold the parent accountable for a child’s physical theft so how can you make them account for digital theft and still claim the two are equal?
Ben Ben

Nicely done Germany. You have once more proven that your system is run by your huge corporations and that no-one cares enough to stand up for their neighbors and their own freedom.
A country full of robots programed to never question and always obey.
A country which is overrun by policemen who believe fear is an acceptable means to treat your citizens with.
A country where judges and politicians are bought and paid for by its corporate giants.
A country becoming a cliche in today’s world.
Anon

Well this if this case holds up.

Then it should be legal to sue the postal service for delivering hate mail. ISP’s for not only copy-write infringement but make them pay damages if your child was abused online.

And while we are at it. Public Transportation department is responsible for letting the man who drove to your house(using public roads) to kill your sister too.
Jeff

@ 18: You forgot to add the obligatory pre-emptive strike when dealing with those two here:

“Obvious troll is obvious.”
Anonymous

That’s terrible. Where did they get that arbitrary number of “50 euros per track” from? Of course, they don’t need to provide any justification… maybe she should be glad it wasn’t 500 euros per track. Ridiculous.
FrankV

@ Ben Ben or better Dumb Dumb

You have once more proven that you
know nothing about Germany Asshole.
Anonymous

50 euros per track… and the artists got how much of those 50 euros?
Soro

Serves her right for banning her children. She should have supported them and stood up to the copyright industry. Instead she tried to blame her own kids. What does she expect?!
Ben Ben

@32 Well that’s where I live, so I am simply describing what I’ve experienced. Not to say there are no exceptions. To give you some advice though, using profanities does not strengthen your point. Try talking to people you’ll find it more effective.
If your house is burning down closing your eyes doesn’t make the fire go away. So I suggest you open your eyes.
DefaultUser

Yes, lets destroy the life of a simple woman with children so a few rich fucks can get even richer
germanmusica85

she deserves jail time and to have her children removed permanently. No holds barred, no mercy, die pirates die!
Trelew

Another pathetic corporate show trial. Let’s beat the crap out of anyone because they can do so. This is an absolute abuse of power, corruption of both government and the courts. Makes me wonder if Big Business is actually impeding evolution of the human species through its greed and corruption.
abolish copyright now

@34 that is why it is very important to spread the truth about copyright so people will not be forced to accept copyright law and society can work together to abolish copyright law.

learn more about the truth of copyright law at:

http://questioncopyright.org/promise
germanmusica85isghey

For #36

http://www.fishgoth.com/blog/pics/lovemycar.jpg
Unauthorized Content Consumer

I’m sure that by fining this mother millions of dollars will stop piracy dead in it’s tracks.

Now, I must go back to downloading off of a neighbours unsecured wireless. xD
Pen15

IP != a person. Someone needs to give this court a lesson in internet. Not that it matters they were probably paid off. Who in their right mind believes a mother has to dedicate 24 hrs a day to monitoring her internet connection? Im sure she has a full time job and enough on her plate.

Obvious tool judges/jury is obvious.
TM Elmo

just another corrupt court … it’s amazing what money can buy !
infringer

wired.com has a story up on verizon turning off the net to infringers

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/verizon-terminating-internet-accessinternet-access/
knux

@7

Does she know how to appeal? Seriously people, fucking wise up to both tech and your rights! If you choose to have a computer and not learn about it then maybe you do deserve to drown at the hands of money grubbers. Ignorance killed the cat and ignorance will bankrupt your ass.
Reasoned Mind

Aren’t parents routinely held responsible for their children’s actions in countries all over the world?

Where is the news story here?
hms-one

The vaue of a copyrighted song in mp3 format is 50 EUROS per track?! Itunes sells them for 99 cents and even that is ridiculous. This sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me. In other words, status quo for these mafia f*cks. I hope they burn in hell for suing this poor german mother whose only ‘crime’ was not stopping her kids from downloading stuff from the internet.
Alex

Copyright is GOOD.

I will say that again: COPYRIGHT_IS_GOOD.

It enables innovation instead of copying, so that prevention of, for example, one person might make a book and another will copy it and sell it.

However, it has been abused in our society. For example, now, simply downloading a book without paying for it is under copyright, in some weird way. Even though you in specific aren’t benefiting from it in any ways except for the personal interest of reading the material.
Copyright laws have been bent.

We need these big companies going after those people who make a living off of downloading torrents, burning them on disks, and selling the disks.

There’s the scum for you big companies.
Pingback: Germania: una donna, deve pagare 50.000 euro per la pirateria dei figli
Ninja

Disgusting.. And when I look at my last comment on the article b4 this it seems a bitter irony.

Like here, my mother and my father can barely send an e-mail. There’s no way they could regulate what their kids are doing (now the connection is mine and they use it too).

And they are not destroying a single life there.

Just disgusting. Well, at least they are not getting money from me anymore. I’d rather give to the artist directly than for some bastards that don’t seem to have any bottom when it comes to their lack of morals.

I’ve been reading a lot about this p2p battle, along with TF articles. So far the media industry managed to make me completely disgusted with them. And I used to be a good buyer.
Reasoned Mind

MILF
Anonymous

@29

It’s cheaper to try stealing from a record store than pirating.
Unauthorized Content Consumer

I’m must glad that EMI Records is teetering on collapse. Now we can just hope that the stockholders finally do a run on the bank so The Beast loses its last breath and collapses under it’s sheer mass and greed..

I urge everyone to keep sharing music and to never buy another CD ever again until all corporations collapse. However, support artists by going to their concerts and buy directly from them.

Remember it’s not the artists that we’re against; it’s the greedy and dangerous executives and lawyers we hate that are out to destroy entire families.
Recton Kracke

50,000 euros? Is that all?

In the states where lawyers behave like pro athletes when it comes to money, they’d be trying for MILLIONS outta this lady.

Just more disgusting news.

Zero sum game on the plaintiffs part; If they win filesharers will hate them forever and if they lose fileshsarers will hate them forever for trying her in the first place.
jon

rent your house dont own anything go on the pension 1c a track or 50$ a track or 5000$ a track you got no money blood out of a stone anybody lol find me you bastards on my vpn ps i may be in australia i may be in the netherlands good luck lol
Jonnara

@10 NO RIGHTS NO RULES NO REGULATIONS

I only wish that was true, I will be visiting sites like this one from a VPN soon, as our politicians are getting ready to put up the GREAT FIREWALL OF AUSTRALIA.
Gotthard

Is the issue downloading in Germany, or it really about unauthorized distribution? Did they actually provide evidence of either the downloading of 1,000 files or actual distribution of the the same 1,000 files? If unauthorized distribution is the case then let’s see their evidence that all 1,000 of those files were actually transferred from the IP address in question to their data gathering systems. I may rip a CD I own and advertize that in a file-sharing client, but if there is no actual occurrence of transfer of the files from my machine then no infringement has been made. Observing a list of files being made potentially available for others to access is no evidence of them having been distributed at all.

EVIDENCE. Let them demonstrate their evidence for either the unauthorized distribution, or downloading of said 1,000 files. Note: A list of files is evidence of neither.

What infringement actually took place.

The act of the proclaimed authority demonstrating a belief that it’s realistically possible to actually block access to file-sharing services is itself revealing of their lack of understanding of what they are dealing with.

The system’s a joke.
TerribleTony

Wow, I mean, wow.

Is this a joke? It must be.
Kenny

If I was this woman I’d say, “Yes, yes, you’re all exactly right. These artists got ripped off, my children stole from them, and this courts decision proves I was in the wrong for not having the education to have prevented them from doing so. I would like to thank the RIAA for protecting artists from these kinds of atrocities. 50 euros per track seems like the appropriate justification for the crimes I have committed and I not only intend on paying this money but I will take it one step further. I plan on personally writing and sending a check for 50 euros for each infringement to every artist that was wrongfully stolen from and I will not give one cent to anyone else. Ever.”

I’ll bet the only artist that would ever cash that check would be Metallica.
Anonymous

No justice no peace.

Be prepare for the worldwide insurrection of the 21st century.
Anony

It’s still a mind-bender to me how anyone can really prove anything with DIGITAL data.

Not to mention proving the transfers all happened.
Anonymous

She should’ve bought a VPN account and told her kids to go at it instead.
by Reasoned Mind

A troll is a troll keeping on trolling.

Troll.
Reasoned Mind

Woof!
Reasoned Mind

I am trolling, I am trolling, I am trolling for Vivendi!

Trolling!
TerribleTony

@59 Let the politicians play their games, they have to look like their doing something. I suspect the Firewall of Oz will have the very same sieve-like properties of the Chinese one.

I wouldn’t worry about, the non-techies are always ten years behind the techies.
Predator

The advantage of a society without justice going after the innocents is that while cops an lawyers are busy doing that people can deliver some serious blow against the corporations of parasites with impunity.

This is welcome because frankly our occidental society is crumbling under the unbearable weigh of corporate greed and something has to give.
Neocreo

Excellent, so using an airport WiFi for filesharing, or an internet café for filesharing – then THEY are guilty and have to go to court if I have given them false credentials and they cannot identify me. Sweet.
ROFL

HAHAHA stupid bitch… thats what you get for letting your kids use Limewire hahahahaah!!!
Unauthorized Content Consumer

Oh Limewire sux.
Anonymous

Another proud moment for record label fags.
Anon

Don’t pay the fine. Go to prison instead. Never EVER give the music industry financial power!
Anonymous

“Parents still have a responsibility to monitor the behavior of their children, or take measures to ensure that file-sharing sites are blocked.”

That’s impossible. You can even break copyright laws by using youtube with a firefox plugin. Indeed, it is HARD not to break them!
Hitler

gas the bitch and her offspring!!
Rob

There just playing dumb to make money. Still, anyone can own a car, but you can’t drive without a licence. But anyone can own a computer despite a total lack of knowledge and freely go online. I am tired of parents blaming facebook for there daughters meeting weirdos when if they bothered doing sum PARENTING its quite easy to sniff passwords etc etc and totally legal if you own the network. They just can’t be bothered to even google it but are quite happy to pass the buck to anyone who isn’t them for the blame.
Lets see

One Down one hundred million to go….Lets see how they stop all of them lol
Pax

We need a national belt the crap out of an IPFI layer day. We can all take part. How much fun would that be.
Jay of Kay

I see it this way:

Satan-and-Death-loving corporations who “own” copyrighted works didn’t do enough to protect “their” belongings by not investing enough of their time and money in inventing perfect DRM/copy protection system that would prevent any copyrighted work to ever be freely available in digital form on the internet, and such system is possible in this Universe given enough resources invested in it. Therefore, Satan-and-Death-loving corporations could have and should have prevented liberation of “their” copyrighted works but they haven’t. They just “banned their children” to let their copyrighted things be freely copied aka produced cheap and ineffective copy protections and failed to achieve the desired goal. Absolute control. They are parent who failed to control their child and now blame others and expect them to achieve that control instead of them.
guy_nxt_door

next time hide the computer from your mother when sharing files over the internet….
Anonymous

This is idiotic, if either of my parents attempted to set up website blocks or to filter me I’d be able to get around it in less than a day probably. Plus, they know nothing about computers (even though they use them all the time) so they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to do that anyways
nightflier

Another case of greedy record companies picking on children and parents and as for the judge who ruled in favour of the record companies its obvious he’s in there pocket disgraceful.
wolfric

I don’t like it any more than other people do but to be fair, if the mother was found innocent, every kid would just get a free pass to download as much as they wanted without being prosecuted. It’d be the ultimate loophole out of the law. Of course once you hit 18 you’d be on your own.

There’s also other possibilities to consider. What if someone was stealing her wifi?
Pingback: LA SVOLTA « I Silenti
Dan

@ 85 wolfric

Even a 94 years old grandma would be responsible for securing her Wifi with WEP. Though your ISP will never tell you how to do this and they will never tell you that you should do it.

That’s how things work. All the world is being controlled by a few people that WE elected, and we have to shut up.
Riiight

When does things turn around? Im still waiting for new judges with younger and more realistic minds to come up.

This is so wrong in so many ways.

Coporate bitches.
Hopefully someone will go Dirty Harry soon with psychical violence.
Dan

“Parents still have a responsibility to monitor” – “or take measures to ensure that file-sharing sites are blocked”

That’s F**king stupid and heres why:

1. My mum knows nothing about file sharing
2. She doesn’t know how to use the net let alone block every single file sharing site.

The courts are living in their own perfect world where reality means jack s**t
prodigydancer

@86 Jan 21, 2010 at 15:46 by Dan
“All the world is being controlled by a few people that WE elected, and we have to shut up.”

Do you believe that there have been – even if just once – an honest election in the history of humankind? Come on, don’t make me laugh. We all know that so-called “democracy” is a farce.

The world is controlled by rich elites, because we always shut up, because we always passively allow it to be this way.

But there’s power in number and this power is unquestionably on our side. United, we can make them squeal for mercy and that’s exactly what we must do.
Shreyashi Ganguly

This is insane. Firstly presence of tracks in a “potentially distributable” form is no evidence for actual evidence. Second, how on earth do they calculate 50 Euros per track. Third, people without knowledge of computers cannot be held liable for action others committed with their computers.

Anyway, I usually only buy my music directly from the artists and that is what I intend to do. S*** the record companies. Artist protection comes from showing support for their concerts and other acts. We needn’t be the people feeding the fat RIAA arses.
Whatever

It is true that parents are responsible for their children however there is technology now parents understand less than their children.

In this case Microsofts can be blamed for making an OS demanding admin rights to do just about anything otherwise there would have been no way to install P2P for the kids. (Btw, most things don’t really need admin rights but knowledge and a lot of time is needed to find out how).

I wonder if this “higher court” themselves are able to “block ALL filesharing sites”. I bet they couldn’t secure their own computer in such a way (would be an interesting test). And technically impossible unless you use a whitelist (also very difficult to get any whitelisted site to work 100 percent if sites have content linked or embedded from other sites like commercials, flashgames, youtube).

Yes, other OS’es exist but very unlikely here so i assumed its Windows.
James Woodson

No way dude that is just downright messed up . Sorry.
GermanyIsA-Judicial-3rdWorld

Seems to me tracks are worth 1.99 on Apple iTunes, and the customer gets digital artwork too. Since the kids only stole the digital data, the crime is small. The true profit or loss is much less than one track, considering marketing, advertising, packaging etc.. 2 Euro per track might be fair, but 50? Come on.
Germany”s court system is still Medieval. No Jury, and usually one presiding judge and two lay judges, who don”t have anything to say any way. Lower courts often ignore rulings from their own upper courts.
In addition, every computer and recording device has a special media tax on it, going to the GEMA. It seems to me she has already paid for something.
Get serious Judges. Learn your shit!!! My wife is extremely smart, but she is unable to do much with computers. I know she couldn”t block file sharing. Send the judge mail!
Pingback: Los hijos descargan música y su madre es declarada culpable | ALT1040
USisA3rdWorld2

@92 The US courts aren’t far behind. Most judges, and prosecutors for that matter, know little if anything on how P2P and internet security actually work.

Also, the US courts hand out astronomical fines as well if the accused decides to fight the charges. Look at the US woman who was slapped with a $200,000 verdict, appeals it, then gets hit with almost 2 million in damages equating to roughly $222,000 PER SONG!

As for the price per track, if you shoplift something they don’t just fine you the cost of the item, theres also an additional fine. So those $200 designer edible panties you stole can get you a fine of up to $10,000.
redbaron

“She denied carrying out any infringements but suggested that one of her children could have been responsible.”

lol What a lovely mother. It’ll be even better if she’d narrowed the circle up to 2-3 of her children.
Anonymous

You sue me you die.
Anonymous

The worrisome thing for the corporates music and movie executives is the large number of people who would sheer if one of them get killed.
Anonymous

@ 86
Don’t pretend to be all knowing. WEP takes 10 minutes to crack on a cheap laptop with just a few commands.So NO you should not use WEP and when using WPA DO NOT USE A DICTIONARY WORD IN ANY LANGUAGE!
Rob

@ 86
Don’t pretend to be all knowing. WEP takes 10 minutes to crack on a cheap laptop with just a few commands.So NO you should not use WEP and when using WPA DO NOT USE A DICTIONARY WORD IN ANY LANGUAGE!
Also you don’t need to block every torrent site you fools you just have to block all ports on your router except the ones you use like port 80 etc then your torrent app simply can’t connect. Like I have stated previously, READ some info on it from the net before shooting your mouths off. If you don’t know what your child is doing on the internet then stop watching eastenders and start parenting
anon

@ 98

just so u know, WPA can be cracked just as easily with the right resources, it might take a while tho, but still, im sure a hacker would rather leave his PC on for a day to crack ur password and gain access to an annonymous, but most importantly – a seperate connection, so his downloading/uploading speed is unnafected by the amounts hes downloading from your network using his secondary pc.. AND j/w why exactly did they charge some poor woman for no reason? have they got real physical evidence – e.g. a hardrive from their house? cmon I can accuse anyone of piracy and demand money, doesnt mean they have to pay on accusation, and if I take you to court, it doesnt mean u have to pay all the court fees either, as some asshole who accused you, doesnt have any evidence – except the evidence they bought – a word document saying – OMG shes downloading songs and a 1000 of them =D lets get her boys! – which clearly lacking something.. actual evidence – anyone can make these logs and demand cash! all it takes is an asshole and a PC. anyway! since i finished my computing course and will get a degree in law in a few years, i wud surely like to participate in anihilation of these corporate f***** <– (use your imagination) and hopefully see some d** *f h**** f******* muahaha try to decipher that <.<
to retard above

Block all ports but port 80 that is your genius way to stop torrents good luck with that they will use one that isn’t blocked.
Anonymous

@48 Verizon now says no piracy disconnections yet | Electronista http://ow.ly/16ogsA
@Rob

Yes, block everything but tcp 80, because that would really prevent ‘children’ from being able to access and distribute ‘unauthorised’ content through services like Rapidshare, Megaupload, YouTube, [your_service_here],… and of course it would be completely impossible for a person to simply configure their file-sharing client to use port 80 (as a kind gesture from an uncensored friend to allow the censored access, for instance), and there’s no way the kids could ever form their own little tight-knit and downright impenetrable groups of peers exchanging content between friends in this way, for example. Something like that could never be arranged during school hours, for instance.

I’m crap at coming up with things off the top of my head, but I can assure you that with only a modest amount of thought you and others could undoubtedly come up with literally thousands of other methods to completely defeat any of these cute little attempts at access restriction on the Internet.

And yeah, that sounds like a really good idea… to sit and monitor your ‘kids’ (teenagers, even?) as they utilise I.T., each and every single day, all the time, after another long, shit day at work, for example. Yes, I’m sure there are literally millions of parents lining up to perform such a task lest their ‘kids’ figure a way to listen to and exchange music with each other for free [shock/horror]…

I actually want the state to run these games, because I look forward to the consequences. Their efforts will prove to be consistently humiliated and thus provide for much entertainment.
NolF

At #9
If everything was freely given at no expected cost, what would be the incentive of people to create anything? It is the selfish desire of success and wealth (not necessarily a bad thing) which drives many people to work as actors or singers. What you seem to desire is a communist system in which everything is of everyone, no ownership of what one creates.
Dipper

I would love to visit a court etc and download gay porn etc so that ACS-LAW etc will then have to go after the judge for allowing piracy, or even hack into ACS-LAW’ network and then download from there.hahahah
Im anti anti-piracy

Fucking dickwad’s just dont get it. How the fuck can a mother be responsible for there children on the internet, when they don’t know jack squat about the internet.

My mom

- Doesn’t even know how to search for a video on youtube

- Doesn’t know how to email

- Doesn’t know how to make one

- Doesn’t know what the fuck filesharing is. She doesn’t even know what Piracy is.

This is fucking ridicoulous. And I want a look for appealing.
Cordelia

Is she supposed to go and get a Masters degree in computing just to raise teenagers?

That’s asking quite a lot!

Perhaps the government should provide free courses about bittorrenting for all parents so that they can learn about this?

Do parents need to be one step ahead of their kids in every area where it is possible for the kid to break the law?
german

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abolish copyright now

@103
if you want to be paid for the work required to create and develop information then create and sell a packaging(physical object) or service(presentation or website or concert) which embodies the information.

the ownership of information does not exist.

if copyright was abolished creators would still be paid but society would be able to access, use and benefit from the free flow of all information including information that had been or would have been copyrighted without being prosecuted for copyright infringement. the end result would be that there is much more information for society to benefit from when copyright is abolished.
Surys

WHAT THE F**K…

Parents are expected to be more tech-savvy than children?

This only demonstrates that law-makers, enforcers and judges greatly misunderstand technology and youth.

Most kids can hide stuff on their computers from their parents… so this ruling is simply moronic.

The Higher Regional Court of Cologne, at least based on this incident, is a disgrace.
Surys

@Reasoned Mind…

If the parent(s) have a reasonable chance of KNOWING the activity is occurring, then yes.

But if they are unaware because they focus on feeding their kids, getting them to school and making sure they’re not behaving anti-socially… then that should be considered.

A “reasoned” mind does consider that doesn’t it? (it’s a rhetorical question… so you can save your carpel ligaments for your favourite hobby!!) ;D
NolF

@108
How is physical packaging any different from digital packaging?

You write “if copyright was abolished creators would still be paid”. If I spend 2000$ and produce a single. Without copyright people can freely put it on their own CDs, use it for commercials, or just listen to it for free. How am I going to make a dime?
what

I heard there’s Pirate Party in Germany. If that’s not a perfect opportunity to show people that they aren’t “pirates in name only”and can actually do something useful, I don’t know what is.
Quartz

This case is legally unsound in more ways than one and the lady should appeal on both data protection grounds and also seek proof of their claims, its pretty clear she herself did not commit the offence and thus that fact alone should have ensured the case was thrown out, at least in her name.

If they want to charge her children and go after them then thats what they should do, however the law across the entire EU is clear, only the person who commited an offence is liable for paying any costs inolved in it.

I urge this lady to seek a real lawyer and appeal this travesty of justice.
JaTheory

Damn these insecure home wi-fi’s . She was clearly hacked and someone else was using her connection!! (sarcasm is off).
me

Excellent! Every now and then, MAFIAA needs to remind those little consumer slaves (little kids and clueless mothers) who their real masters are. Nothing like a good sound whipping via the court system to reinforce this lesson. Now, back to our regular up-/downloading schedule.
Rashad

Thats what they can, because they cant do better than that. It is all they can do. Fuck you assholes motherfuckers. Held a mother for forbidding children. So why cant they catch hackers fucking their asses everydad. sun of a bithes.
Rob

God some people here need a brain transplant. Port 80 is your HTTP port so you can’t use utorrent on it as utorrent requires port 80 for tracker connections. Not to mention it would block your web browsers. Like I have stated a thousand times, before shooting your mouth off READ BOOKS, LEARN FACTS
network

@118

Compelete NONSENSE
of course you can configure a p2p client to use port 80, the only limitation is you cant run multiple servers on one port on one ip, also http is only be default on port 80, you can do http://host:port/ if you want to use a different port on http, port 80 is just the default
also there is no restriction that traffic on port 80 MUST be http, it usually is, but any protocol can theoretically run on port 80
and there is no limitation that if a program connects to port 80 on a remote server, that another program can’t connect to port 80 on a different server
network

and one more thing, if you run a server on port 80, you can still connect to other servers on port 80, running a webserver on your system has no effect on whether you can connect to other systems, the only limitation is that there must be a listening server on the remote system on that particular port
abolish copyright now

@112
physical packaging is sold and digital packaging is free on the internet.

this illustration is from another poster on torrentfreak:

“When I buy music (and I own almost 500 CDs) I want to actually buy something real… I want an actual thing… not a piece of data that I could download for free. I want my disc and album cover and booklet. I want to have a collection of music I can actually see. That I can put on a bookshelf (or media shelf) to
display my collection. Right next to my bookshelf with books for the same reason, I read books from the library and buy the ones that are really good to add to my collection, many of which I’ve never opened cuz I already read it from the library or a paperback passed from friend/family.”

digital content is advertising for physical packaging and services.

creators who can get their work widely copied and used will thrive. you benefit from other people using your work. creators who are monopolists of information
will not be able to compete and will eventually fail.

advertising other companies products can be used in physical packaging and services such as websites.

if you are concerned about fraudulent producers or publishers the best advice to protect the small guy against a producer fraudulently using the small guys work of authorship is for the small guy to be sure of the producers reputation. a good producer will not risk their reputation by fraudulently using the small guys work of authorship. also it is a whole lot more trouble to exclude the small guy rather than work with the small guy as needed during production.

the end result would be that there is much more information for society to benefit from when copyright is abolished.

for a better understanding of a post copyright world including the fund-and-release system for making money please read the following article and post your comments:

http://questioncopyright.org/promise
german01

In germany the idea is, that somebody ist got to be held responsible. They just want fileshating to stop by all means. You can find a lot of informationd about the situation in germany on the homepage of the layer Wachs : http://www.dr-wachs.de
Rob

Not running a web server! Where did you get that from? Your totally missing the point, it follows from my previous statement about blocking all ports except 80. READ READ READ READ how many more times!

@118/119
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from germany

Try to turn their rules against them..
For anyone savvy enough to read log files for attack attempts, do so – and check whether any of the botnetted static ips that happen to attack you are related to that business, i.e. one of the users of such an ip happens to be a MI or anti-piracy lawyer website.
Anyone going to volunteer with a list of ip addresses?

That court, and other court rulings before, have said it: if you operate a computer, you sort of endanger the world. If that applies to a home box on dsl, it should apply to a box in a computer center that has 100mb wiring

also think the french way (three strikes) the other way: if a music company is found guilty for pirating somebody’s songs (that has happened for sure) why not cut their website?

After all, both german and french laws say that the same laws apply to anybody
me

#124: “the same laws apply to anybody”

… but law enforcement doesn’t. C’mon, whom would your state (i.e. procecutors) go after: the little guy who has barely enough to survive day to day, or huge multibillion dollars/euros of taxes generating multinational entertainment cartels that, incidentally have enough leverage to make or destroy politicians’ careers? I mean, seriously?
96edwy

haha why should she block file sharing sites, its not the sites that are illegal, stupid courts. it could have been anyone on that connection if it was wireless
anonymous

Wait a minute, who’s to say the mother didn’t do it and she’s just blaming it on the kids?
So how old are these “several young children” exactly?
I have a hunch these “children” are probably 5-10 years old and have no idea how to use a computer let alone download and share a torrent.

TorrentFreak

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