Constitutionality

Submitted by tkid124 on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 6:11pm

I am not clear on just what the Swedish law says, nor do I care since I don't live there, (no offense Swedish Geeks) but if a US company wanted to investigate into activity of a suspected law breaker, where they are the victim, they do have certain limited rights to do so.
Downloading copyrighted material is illegal in the US, like it or not, that is how it is.
So if an accountant embezzled $2 million from a company, you think they wouldn't conduct an internal investigation, would anyone be up in arms? No not about the investigation. But what if it's not an employee, what if it's Joe, from down the road? Say Joe robs a security company, kind of embarrassing. This security company if for no reason other than saving face would conduct an investigation in addition to that of the polices.
Now let’s look at a crime of theft, theft of a DVD, the police will come out and take a report, but when you have murders taking place, something has to be set aside to deal with them. So theft of DVD is still a crime, police still have it on record, and the police are now off investigating the murder.
The company who had the DVD stolen will look at its security tapes, question workers about what they saw, and conduct an investigation. Now say an innocent company such as UPS was used to ship the stolen DVD, the store calls UPS and says hey, could you look up something for us, if UPS has no contract implied or written forbidding them, then they have the option, and moral obligation, to look into the manner.

SHORT VERSION:
A copyright owner thinks someone is transferring copyrighted materials:
They can ask around, and will most likely ask your ISP, about the suspected activity.
If your ISP doesn't have a privacy policy in place, there is little reason they would be legally barred from disclosing if you were in fact transferring copyrighted materials, minus a little issue of bad business practice.
But keep in mind these are two companies, the result would be taking the information to the police for criminal charges or suing in civil court. The DA would still prosecute any criminal offenses.
Allowing this to take place in the US will result in the similar suits that the RIAA has just “stopped.”

**** No I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. ****
Use Hulu, duh

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re: Supreme Court?

Submitted by Vox-caster-Bravo on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 9:33pm

I am not a lawyer or an expert on American civil/common law, but yeah I would think it would be a big issue with the American Bill of Rights' Fourth Amendment (just/due process), maybe even the Fifth Amendment (depends on how the corporates handle the investigation) and depending on how far the coporates take it, the Eleventh Amendment would come into play as well (limitations the persecution of offenders outside of the state.)

From what I understand of the article, the Swedish courts have allowed direct interaction between an accusor and the courts without a third party impartial investigation. In English civil/common law, the courts and its enforcement arms like the police act as an impartial third party that will investigate and moderate a civil dispute between two parties. Basically in Sweden now it seems like the accusors have the right to handle their own investigation and make the accusation case based on that. That in my opinion is very bad.

 I can see this instance possibly happening:

Corporate lawyer No. 1: Yes your honour, we of the Offended Corportation hereby promise that the evidence presented today is impartial and professionally gathered.

Now, let us start by saying that the accused, a heavy user of Eskimo porn if I might add, is a ......

 Ummmhmmm...

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won't matter

Submitted by nekollx on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 5:10pm

constitutional or not if this law passed in the US their would be a riot, and hundreds of pissed off geeks.

 

In a tech depedent world of ours a Geek Revolution would be far more cripiling. 

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