• @UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT
    link
    English
    155 months ago

    You can be actually be sued for piracy? Is this mostly in the United States?

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      75 months ago

      The most common method for this to happen is to get sued for distributing pirated material. They go after you for the upload from your torrent. They stoped doing this about a decade ago though.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      65 months ago

      I think you can be sued in the civil court for anything if someone has the time and money and can convince a lawyer to take up a case against you. For copyright infringment, you can also be criminally prosecuted in some cases.

      • @[email protected]B
        link
        fedilink
        English
        55 months ago

        Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

        Criminal copyright laws prohibit the unacknowledged use of another's intellectual property for the purpose of financial gain. Violation of these laws can lead to fines and jail time. Criminal copyright laws have been a part of U.S. laws since 1897, which added a misdemeanor penalty for unlawful performances if "willful and for profit". Criminal penalties were greatly expanded in the latter half of the twentieth century, and those found guilty of criminal copyright infringement may now be imprisoned for decades and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars. Criminal penalties, in general, require that the offender knew that he or she was committing a crime, while civil copyright infringement is a strict liability offense, and offenders can be "innocent" (of intent to infringe), as well as an "ordinary" infringer or a "willful" infringer.

        to opt out, pm me ‘optout’. article | about

        • Pika
          link
          English
          45 months ago

          What is wrong with this bots opt out message lmao

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            45 months ago

            Could be that your client, like mine, doesn’t support this particular flavor of markdown, or the markdown could just be wrong. I’m honestly not sure which.

            • Pika
              link
              English
              45 months ago

              I figured it was a markdown thing, all I see is carrots

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              45 months ago

              It’s the former. This, for example, also appears weird in Jerboa. Seems fine in the web version though.

    • TWeaK
      link
      fedilink
      English
      55 months ago

      You can be sued in any court for copyright infringement, but the US is generally unique in that punitive damages can be awarded - ie the rightsholder can be awarded more than the damage they actually suffered. In other, more reasonable jurisdictions, only actual damages are awarded. Thus it is not worthwhile to prosecute in those jurisdictions, because the damages are less than the cost of prosecution.

      On top of this, I believe copyright is one of the rare exceptions in the US where legal costs of the plaintiff are paid by the losing defendent. Given that the plaintiff in copyright has so much money, they can afford to front the cost of the most expensive lawyers, further penalising their target. Other jurisdictions generally award costs to the winner by default (both ways), rather than only in specific exceptions, but they also limit those costs much more reasonably.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      25 months ago

      I heard that this is a common thing in central Europe, but i would love anyone to confirm it.