Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Heard" data-source="post: 1560649" data-attributes="member: 7280">Of course you're a lawyer. In this world today I find myself often considering the notion that when dealing with lawyers in general that the best course of action is either full compliance with any request or absolute rejection. I know that any failure of mine to comply with even a simply request could backfire and cost me a huge chunk of cash defending myself in an area where I'd be defended mostly by my ability to afford to pay another member of the profession. Counterwise, by flat rejection I can only hope that sufficient will can't be mustered to force me by legal means. That's the essence of argument of the oppositional behavior of the RIAA lawyers in most of the infringement cases, when you're being charged with enormous and ridiculous statements of damages (legal or not it) amounts to extortion by forcing a settlement. I understand that's normal for the legal process, but just because the RIAA might somehow force a 10k settlement from 30% of it's customer base doesn't mean that it's ethical, right, or sane to do so. That the RIAA would no doubt cheer such as a victory and use the money to further lobby for more power to extort money from the other 70% is almost a given. It's an environment of greed and fear, there's no good faith in any of it. At this point paranoia would demand that I not give my real name to any organization affiliated with big copyright. Such a dealing is almost guaranteed to be unethically balanced in my disfavor. Even if I could make such a simple, time consuming, request of a copyright holder I wouldn't find any assurance that it wouldn't lead to invasive scrutiny on some sort of suspicion of wrongdoing. Perhaps that's a misrepresentation of how things are, but that's certainly the environmental miasma that surrounds big copyright. It's much simpler to find the tools to unlock such media on one's own, and to simply not deal with the sort of people who are most dangerous to my way of life.</blockquote>

Verification