A Warning To "Content" Users

I am grateful to Morrison and Foerster LLP for an article drawing attention to the rights--at least of European copyright owners-- to sue copyright infringers in multiple jurisdictions where their copyrighted work is made available without permission online.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e6054e53-3392-4ecb-a1a3-b2592562540a&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2015-05-12&utm_term=

This doesn't help American authors, but it is a good start.

Rightscorp is an anti-piracy organization that has had some recent trouble in uncovering the identity of alleged copyright infringers. One can sympathize. In my experience, online sites that host alleged pirates as well as honest folk may have privacy rules that prevent a copyright owner from pursuing an infringer.

For instance, unless the copyright owner actually purchases something from an alleged infringer on an auction site, there is no way to discover the alleged infringer's real name and contact information. I've written about my opinion of EBay's protection of copyright infringers. As far as I can see, EBay is still acting as a fence for illegal sales of ebooks and apparently using what I would call willful ignorance as a figleaf.

But, I digress. Rightscorp seems to be somewhat like MUSO (which locates potentially illegally hosted files and links, and sends takedown notices where the copyright owner asserts that the links and files are indeed illegally hosted) except, Rightscorps seems to specialize in BitTorrents, and Rightscorp apparently sues.

Alleged pirates don't like that, and some have sued Rightscorp for trying to identify them.
An interesting discussion took place here:

https://phillylawblog.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/bad-things-happen-when-lawyers-stop-representing-clients-and-start-representing-causes-john-blaha-ordered-to-pay-rightscorp-attorneys-fees/

The warning in this one is that it appears at this time that the plaintiff (not Rightscorp) appears to be on the hook for the defendant's (Rightscorp) legal fees.

My apologies for the brevity.

Rowena Cherry