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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4831901" data-attributes="member: 40961">This is a civil case.  There's no prosecution.  Its plaintiff vs defendent. The burden of proof is rather low.  There's a bunch of technical explanation about first-actor effects and status quo biases, but basically the plaintiff and defense are on even footing.  Neither one has an advantage or disadvantage in civil court in terms of the burden of proof. The exception to this is in your prima facie case.  There are certain matters where one side has to first establish a basic case against the other, and until this is done the other side doesn't even have to try to defend itself- it will automatically win if the prima facie case isn't made.   I don't know the rules for a copyright case.  But if I had to guess, I'd guess it goes something like this: WotC will make a prima facie case that sounds something like: "These are our books that he did not have the right to distribute.  This is his file sharing account.  These are our books on his file sharing account.  We think he put them there because its his account."  Then he'll try to rebut by, apparently, arguing that he didn't have sole access to the account. Remember, its court, and just saying so doesn't mean everyone has to believe you.  Even if WotC responds only by rolling its eyes at him and saying "yeah right," that could be enough if the fact finder concludes that his defense is implausible. I'm not optimistic about the lost wallet defense. That being said, I'm not incredibly enthusiastic about lawsuits as a means of combating file sharing.  I kind of hate the "information wants to be FREE!!1!" guys, and so part of me doesn't mind seeing their self-righteous, self-justifying faces get bloodied once in a while, but the lawsuits as the remedy for file sharing system functions a bit unfairly. The idea goes kind of like this: people are rational creatures.  When dealing with acts for which they could be punished, they make decisions based on how big the possible punishment, and how likely they are to be caught.  For some acts, the likelihood of being caught is very high, so the punishment doesn't need to be very high to dissuade people.  But with file sharing, its the other way around.  The chance of being caught is very low, so the system has gravitated towards very large punishments. But even with this, the chance of being caught is really, REALLY low.  So low that the possibility of being sued never enters into people's minds.  What's probably needed is to take this out of the hands of privately driven law enforcement and put it into the hands of the government.  If file sharing were more like speeding, where file sharers who didn't earn any money from their acts were caught after every few files uploaded and issued hundred dollar tickets for each offense, the regular people who post things to file sharing websites would probably stop.  And the result would probably be a lot more fair all around.  I'd want to preserve the private option for companies who feel that they really have been harmed financially to the point where a lawsuit would be a fiscally responsible decision (is WotC really making money no this?  Probably not, its probably for intimidation of future file sharers), but for the day to day stuff my system would probably work better.</blockquote>

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