rollin:
Many laws achieve their goals merely by shifting the burden of proof. If the burden is shifted to the party who can least afford to litigate, that person is the loser by fiat. That's what this law does and this invites powerful interests to misuse the law in ways that were not intended.
This is exactly what had been happening in the UK and termed 'speculative invoicing'. The idea is you send out tens of thousands of 'pay up or else' letters on the assumption that a lot of ordinary people will be intimidated into paying irrespective of whether they have done anything illegal or not. It's basically creating a 'guilty until proven innocent' scenario with a get out clause where you get to stump up whatever amount is being demanded. On top of that, the software used to determine who's illegally downloaded what is notoriously flaky with the inevitable outcome that a whole host of people get falsely accused. One particular firm in the UK, ACS:Law, had been 'speculatively invoicing' on behalf of a couple of film producers and one wonders why the general public are less than trusting of the media companies currently seeking to influence the US Government.
Anyway, in the case of ACS:Law the proverbial chickens eventually came home to roost and the solicitor behind it was suspended for 2 years and ordered to pay £76,000:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16616803There is no doubt that copyright violation is distressing for the copyright owner as well as potentially depriving them of income but two wrongs do not make a right and everything I see and hear tells me the media companies are not to be trusted, nor are they likely to be reasonable or behave responsibly.
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