MPAA Sues Grandfather For $600k — While Admitting He Did Nothing Wrong

Legal Issues

from the that's-a-problem dept

Ever since the entertainment industry started on their brain-dead, own-foot-shooting campaign of suing their own customers, we’ve wondered how they can get away with suing people who obviously didn’t do the crime, such as parents or grandparents. While the industry would have you believe that it’s whoever owns the connection that’s guilty, the law would certainly suggest otherwise. Earlier this year, we noted that some parents are finally fighting back and the courts seem sympathetic. However, the entertainment industry still hasn’t gotten the message. They also still don’t recognize the terrible PR they get with headlines about how they’re suing a grandfather who doesn’t even like movies for $600,000. In this case, the grandson was responsible — even if he downloaded movies that he already owned on DVD (3 out of the 4). Also, the article, once again, claims that he’s being sued for downloading — but every lawsuit we’ve seen hasn’t been for downloading, but for uploading by offering to share it — something that some courts are even questioning as well by noting that just leaving a file open to be shared is not the same thing as actively distributing it. So, to review, we have someone who wasn’t involved at all being sued by the movie industry for something he didn’t do for possibly distributing some movies, when the evidence doesn’t even support whether or not he really did share the movies.