Legal woes mount for TorrentSpy

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Tally another loss of liberties - this is getting old

I understand that they want to protect copyrighted information. That's the law, and it's not possible for someone to actually claim that copyrighted material should be free to anyone - that goes against the purpose of the copyright and would be foolish. Thinking that all media should be free would effectively end copyrights, and the first person who put something out and didn't get any royalties would be uber-pissed about that. However, stealing emails and getting away with it is a huge problem.

Here's an example of why this is a double standard -

In this case, because the email was "copied to a server" first, the email was considered to be free and clear for anyone who wanted to steal it, but I suspect that this is only because the material in question regarded copyrighted media. In my profession (accounting) any email correspondence is confidential, regardless of whether it is copied to server ahead of time. If a company or government agency hacks into our servers and steals client information for any reason, even if it is for a criminal proceeding, the information is not admissable because a WARRANT is required - search and seizure, 4th amendment, etc - and unless one is obtained, the information is regarded as stolen and therefore tainted (lack of a verifiable chain of possession means that the information could have been altered at any point before it is presented as evidence, so there is good reason why it's not allowed). There are statutes regarding stolen evidence, and to circumvent these regulations may seem like the best way to catch the bad guy sometimes, but it doesn't make anyone in the business world too pleased to know that our private communications are at risk because we have a forwarding service configured on our server.

I hope that they take this to the Supreme Court, I can just about guarantee that it won't pass the smell test. Regardless of how you slice it, these people paid someone to perform an illegal action that resulted in the theft of confidential information, and that is not only unethical, it's also illegal, yet they are getting away with it. Frankly, that's bulls***.

It would be nice if the people who run our country right now would stop and realize that most of us don't want "better security" as a trade off for the freedoms and liberties that used to make this country great. Now it's getting closer and closer to a police state, and Canada is looking better all the time.

Posted by: laura.b   Posted on: 08/29/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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