pedr
Explorer
A few scattered comments to try to illuminate some of the legal stuff - although I'm no expert on either US Federal lawsuits nor copyright in general...
I believe the standard of proof in US civil cases is 'a preponderance of the evidence'. I imagine this means something quite similar to the English concept 'a balance of probabilities'. In other words, which party has the better case, when you weigh them up.
The burden of proof is on the plaintiff - WotC have to adduce evidence which would show the infringement complained of. The defendant may then try to rebut that, or argue that the purported evidence does not actually come close to proving that he did in fact infringe.
While copyright has a criminal element, that ought to be irrelevant here, as this is not a criminal prosecution (and I believe that, unlike in the UK, the states of the US and the US itself reserve to themselves the right to bring criminal prosecutions - even if WotC wanted these defendants prosecuted for a crime, they could not do that themselves and would have to convince a state actor to bring the case.)
Finally, I seem to recall from the .pdfs of the court documents that WotC had opted not to seek a jury trial. I do not know which party gets to make that choice in a civil case in the US - we do not have juries for civil cases, except for defamation. From WotC's point of view, though, I imagine that they'd think juries to be unpredictable on this issue, whereas a judge ought to stick firmly to pretty established law - clearly if the defendants have done what is alleged, they are indeed liable for copyright infringement. WotC may not wish to trust a jury to be willing to accept the consequences that the law states can flow from that!
I believe the standard of proof in US civil cases is 'a preponderance of the evidence'. I imagine this means something quite similar to the English concept 'a balance of probabilities'. In other words, which party has the better case, when you weigh them up.
The burden of proof is on the plaintiff - WotC have to adduce evidence which would show the infringement complained of. The defendant may then try to rebut that, or argue that the purported evidence does not actually come close to proving that he did in fact infringe.
While copyright has a criminal element, that ought to be irrelevant here, as this is not a criminal prosecution (and I believe that, unlike in the UK, the states of the US and the US itself reserve to themselves the right to bring criminal prosecutions - even if WotC wanted these defendants prosecuted for a crime, they could not do that themselves and would have to convince a state actor to bring the case.)
Finally, I seem to recall from the .pdfs of the court documents that WotC had opted not to seek a jury trial. I do not know which party gets to make that choice in a civil case in the US - we do not have juries for civil cases, except for defamation. From WotC's point of view, though, I imagine that they'd think juries to be unpredictable on this issue, whereas a judge ought to stick firmly to pretty established law - clearly if the defendants have done what is alleged, they are indeed liable for copyright infringement. WotC may not wish to trust a jury to be willing to accept the consequences that the law states can flow from that!
