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  >> A person has no idea that they are violating the copyright of copyright
  >> holder X when they download the file."
  >
  > And this is my whole point.

No, it is not your whole point. They are being sued based on the contents of the file when the file with masquerading as something completely different. The fact that they intended to violate copyright in the first place is irrelevant. In this case, the files were masquerading as copyrighted works that this plaintiff does not hold the copyright for. It would be up to the copyright holder to attempt to sue these people, not someone completely different just because it will 'teach people a lesson.' This kind of 'teach people a lesson' bullshit is no different than when the DoJ was trying to say that violating MySpace's Term of Service was tantamount to Computer Hacking/Fraud because there were no other laws to punish that lady that caused the student to commit suicide.

The idea that someone should be punished for something they didn't intend to do, even though their original intent was bad in the first place is an abuse of the legal system, IMO.

It's probably easier to boil it down to this:

The user is being sued for 'violating the copyright of copyright holder X' not for some nebulous 'violating copyright but it doesn't matter what copyright' infraction or else I could sue you for violating someone else's copyright.

Therefore the question should really be, "is it reasonable to have expected the user to know that they would have violated the copyright of copyright holder X when they downloaded/uploaded that file?" You're trying to phrase the question as, "is it reasonable to have expected the user to know that they were violating any copyright when they downloaded/uploaded the file?"

Ask your lawyer about intent [1] some time. It could be educational.

You are claiming that because the copyrighted work they attempted to download contained a different copyrighted work that the owner of the actual work that got downloaded lacks standing [2]. And it may be that the argument supports a summary dismissal, however it can be reasonably argued that the person intended to download a copyrighted work in the first place.

My point (#3 go at this, then I give up) is that educating people who are naive (which is to say don't know any better) that downloading copyrighted material from the web without the express permission of the copyright holder is illegal, and thus if they wanted access to that work they should seek out a legal source for it, is a positive outcome for what is otherwise a pointless and wasteful exercise.

[1] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/intent

[2] http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/legal+standing

From your link:

  > In tort an individual is considered to intend the consequences of an
  > act—whether or not she or he actually intends those consequences—if the
  > individual is substantially certain that those consequences will result.

IANAL, but in this case I would assume that 'those consequences' would be that copyright holder X was harmed. If that's the case, then there was no way that the user intended to harm copyright holder X by downloading something they thought was by copyright holder Y.

"IANAL, but in this case I would assume that 'those consequences' would be that copyright holder X was harmed. If that's the case, then there was no way that the user intended to harm copyright holder X by downloading something they thought was by copyright holder Y."

You're comment is what a lawyer would use in an argument that the plaintiff lacks standing. And it certainly might prevail in this case (I've not seen a copy of the pleading).

But if you look at this thread (or at least my contributions to it) you'll notice that I've never expressed any opinion one way or another about whether or not Titan Media will prevail in its efforts. I make only three claims;

1) People sued by Titan Media will feel inconvienienced by it and they will associate the suit with their action of downloading "something" from the internet.

2) Those people will associate 'downloading stuff from the internet' with this inconvience.

3) They (and their friends who had to listen to their tale) will stop doing this because the 'risk' has risen above the 'reward.'

I used the short hand of relating this process as 'educating the naive.' I stand by that analysis.

Getting free copies of copyrighted stuff over the Internet is often not illegal. For example, my Debian update does exactly that every single day (and sometimes I download FOSS manually).

If you are going round advising people to the contrary, then you will, in at least some cases, wind up encouraging them to give unnecessary money to charlatans with inferior products (for example the people who burn free software to a CD-ROM and sell it on ebay).

For that reason, I find your behaviour to be unethical, and that's before we start considering the possibility that you are intentionally shilling for such people.

>Everyone knows the correct way to get copyrighted content from the internet. You use iTunes, or Amazon's MP3 service, or NetFlix, or Hulu, or any number of services. Everyone also knows that when you get a legal copy of a copyrighted work there will be a 'payment' or a 'subscription' involved.

No. No they don't know. And no, no there isn't payment for every legal copy.

You mention Hulu. Lets look at that real quick. What if someone sets up a website that mimics hulu's free video system, with a different brand but just as legit looking and with pirated material, hell, lets say they even run ads. No one would know if the website was legit or not, especially not if there were no news articles about it.

Furthermore, look at youtube. The version of video X uploaded by hulu has no copyright violation, the version uploaded by hulo does violate copyright. Congresspeople upload clips from CSPAN. Are they breaking copyright? Did they get authorization from CSPAN for every single clip? Really? How do I know that?

Don't act like that the user knows. I still find myself explaining to the less technologically inclined that getting songs with whatever p2p software they're using is illegal. Don't even pretend that you can put the burden on the user to determine what websites are kosher.