Funimation Sues 1,337 Torrent Users Over One Piece

[Simon]

Seems likes things aren't going well for Funi all round:

Funimation Sales Down More Than Half Since 2004

Originally Posted by bayoab

Can't say I agree with the judges ruling at all though as it's hard to argue that a bittorrent swarm is not working together.
(The issue is in the fine details for what is required for people to be "working together" for a crime if anyone is curious about why it isn't.)

I don't know the legal technicalities, but just considering the common sense notion of "working together" I'm in two minds here. Sure, BT requires sharing so anyone who joins a swarm is contributing to other leechers' infringement while they DL. But does helping make it possible meet the criteria for actively working together? Suppose I break a shop window to steal stuff, then you come along later, see it's broken, and also help yourself. I've helped you commit a crime, but are we actually accomplices?

I did like this quote from the article though - maybe the US Justice Department can hire Stone to work on terrorism cases:

Discovery is not a game, nor is it a tool to be wielded irresponsibly as a means in and of itself to coerce extra-judicial concessions from litigation opponents

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by Simon

Seems likes things aren't going well for Funi all round:

Funimation Sales Down More Than Half Since 2004

"You should be watching"

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Simon

Seems likes things aren't going well for Funi all round:

Funimation Sales Down More Than Half Since 2004

But the entire industry is down 50%+, so that really isn't saying anything new or that wasn't public before.

I don't know the legal technicalities, but just considering the common sense notion of "working together" I'm in two minds here. Sure, BT requires sharing so anyone who joins a swarm is contributing to other leechers' infringement while they DL. But does helping make it possible meet the criteria for actively working together?

(IANAL)The issue is supposedly because you don't "know" the person, you can't be working together. As in your example below, someone would have to prove you and the other person were in cahoots before hand. My problem with that is you have to "know" who the other people are on BT. Sure, you only know their IP addresses, but you still have a "name" for them and you are working together to pass the file around. (Yes, in theory you can create an XDCC style swarm where only the seeds hand out the file but that would look and act completely differently.)

Suppose I break a shop window to steal stuff, then you come along later, see it's broken, and also help yourself. I've helped you commit a crime, but are we actually accomplices?

Well, in the BT sense, most of the people there are working together to steal the stuff. Some may leave the scene and others enter, but it's not as if the store is ever completely empty at once.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by bayoab

(IANAL)The issue is supposedly because you don't "know" the person, you can't be working together. As in your example below, someone would have to prove you and the other person were in cahoots before hand. My problem with that is you have to "know" who the other people are on BT. Sure, you only know their IP addresses, but you still have a "name" for them and you are working together to pass the file around. (Yes, in theory you can create an XDCC style swarm where only the seeds hand out the file but that would look and act completely differently.)

The thing here is, they aren't acting together. A person downloads a torrent file, and opens it with a bt client, which then downloads and uploads in the swarm. The people themselves don't interact with each other beyond that. As such, they aren't actually working together, but each performing a separate act which happens to facilitate the others doing the same thing.

[Dr. Casey]

Glad to see that this seems to be headed towards a happy ending. Suck it, Funi.

[Vexx]

Personally, I think Funi *got* suckered by this con-artist *cough* lawyer who played to their fears and took money that could have been in the profits column for Funi. Now they're in the position of having pissed off many of their *buying* customers.

[elniro]

Honestly if people are going to download illegally then they should at least take some time to learn about their method of download.

Companies like funimation losing money is not exactly good thing, anime is a niche market in the west as it is, very few companies are willing to take the financial risk involved with it, if funimation took this move, it shows to me they're getting a bit desperate, wonder how long till they think about maybe actually shutting down?