AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

Re:AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown by kragen on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @01:31PM (#18401091)

The story doesn't have any such details. Please remember that the most famous such case, the prosecution of Aaron Swartz until he committed suicide, was for downloading academic papers from JSTOR, presumably including many century-old texts, and that the current best system for obtaining academic papers you're legally allowed to get — Sci-hub — is on the receiving end of a series of lawsuits from companies who didn't even write the texts being copied in the first place and never paid their authors.

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Re:AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown by dionidium on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @01:50PM (#18401212)

The prosecution of Aaron Swartz, a farcical tragedy, has nothing to do with this story.

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Re:AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown by vorpalhex on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @02:01PM (#18401299)

It has everything to do with the story because it shows that most copyright claims are done in absolute bad faith and consumers are given no real tools to defend themselves.

Right now for the majority of people who get a DMCA, there is nothing they can do. There is no functional appeals process, there is no office in charge of handling bad DMCAs. Shy of actually going to court with a lawyer and attempting a suit, if a company files a bogus DMCA then you are boned.

That is an abortion of free speech and property rights, and the Swartz case is a perfect example of that. Most of the papers Swartz obtained were supposed to belong to the public, and yet he was sued into oblivion for DOING NOTHING ILLEGAL. He had no counterclaim short of going to full court with lawyers, something entirely out of his grasp and reach, and because he felt he had no alternatives to having his life ruined, he committed suicide.

It's not a farcical tragedy, it's a flipping shame for the human race.

edit - language

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Re:AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown by dionidium on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @02:07PM (#18401363)

Whatever else we might disagree on, let's be clear that I agree with you about Swartz.

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Re:AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown by notyourday on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @05:30PM (#18402925)

Without defending AT&T:

Schwartz was prosecuted by a US Attorney. If anything he is a poster boy of over reach of government.

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Re:AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown by rfrey on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @07:16PM (#18403430)

Government officials seemingly beholden to corporations.

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Re:AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown by kragen on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:42PM (#18453721)

The corporation in question (JSTOR, a nonprofit) indicated their desire to drop the case several months before Aaron's suicide.

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Re:AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown by coldtea on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @02:53PM (#18401828)

At has at least 2 things to do: it involves copyrights, and it shows that copyright enforcement (and strict at that) is not just about "the latest hits" (like with movie/music piracy for example).

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