[WikiEN-l] Google Books class action lawsuit

[Anthony]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

> 2009/9/5 Anthony <wikimail at 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.