On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2009/9/5 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
Ok, so it would be publisher or author, then.
And how are they going to find out about it?
The same way file sharers get caught when they share lots of music and films?
Can't do it that way. "File sharers" allow anonymous individuals to connect to their computers, that's how they get caught.
Or were suggesting that the book companies will just start randomly suing infants and grandmothers like the record companies have been alleged to have done?
It is not likely that anyone would "steal" enough books in this
manner to make for a worthwhile case in itself, but they might choose to sue anyway in an attempt to intimidate others out of acting similarly.
Assuming Google, the proxy maintainer, and the ISP are willing to release the records, and/or some advanced traffic analysis becomes available (all unlikely), there's still the question as to what they'd charge them with. Copyright infringement, I suppose, but it's not even clear that this is valid (who makes the copies, Google, the downloader, neither, both?). Any computer trespass or similar charge would be between Google and the individual, the book company would likely not have standing to sue. Tortious interference? Maybe that would be the best charge. But fighting such a cross-jurisdictional case could get extremely expensive, especially if someone gets a high profile lawyer on their side (and if they plan on publicizing their lawsuit that's a good possibility).
They could also try suing Google (again?). Not sure if the terms of the settlement requires Google to actually keep non-US people away or if it just requires them to kinda try to keep non-US people away.
Yes people get sued for bypassing DRM (*), but not many.
(*) Maybe. Has anyone been successfully sued for merely *bypassing* DRM, and not trafficking in DRM bypassing devices? The very short list of DRM cases I know of are all trafficking cases.
You may be right, I haven't researched it in detail.
Oops, maybe you shouldn't have made such a claim before you checked whether or not it's correct.