Forget About Your House of Cards
I came across this story today. I’ll sum it up for you.
RIAA accuses Howell of copyright infringement for sharing music over KaZaA. Judge rules that “a distribution must involve a ’sale or other transfer of ownership’ or a ‘rental, lease, or lending’ of a copy of the work,” a major victory for Howell.
The RIAA turns around and claims Howell formatted his hard drive in an attempt to cover his tracks, and now the judge ruled for the RIAA.
How can you lose a case simply because you destroyed evidence? Shouldn’t you be found guilty of destroying evidence? Shouldn’t the other party still need to provide some sort of proof he was distributing the songs, instead of just sharing them?
Note to all you pirates out there. If you get caught, don’t reformat your hard drive. Or at least know what you are doing to make it look good.
