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| Get your mind out of the Gutter! These Square Tarts are Lemony and Sweet unlike you know who (recipe link here) |
Reuters.com posted a well-researched (link) item about a dirty-trick played by Danielle Staub and the owners of her porn video "Raw".Thousands of people were named-as, "John Does" in a suit accusing them of illegally downloading Danielle Staub's sex-video, "Raw".
"...it's not too tough to figure out why the accused pirates settle. Statutory damages can be as much as $150,000. If you received a letter threatening to identify you publicly as an illegal downloader of Danielle Staub Raw in a court that might be hundreds or thousands of miles from your home, you might well be inclined to agree to pay a few thousand dollars to make the whole embarrassing, inconvenient mess go away."-(Reuters)The story goes-on to explain that the EFF, (Electronic Frontier Foundation) (link here), played a role in this case as well.
An important difference in this case was made between illegal-downloading of non-pornographic copyrighted material, like songs, movies, etc., where the suing/embarrassing/threatening/blackmailing of un-named defendants in this case were the primary motivation of the suit. -I'd even have to consider that viewers may have been purposely enticed and entrapped in the first place to download "Raw" without paying, as a set-up for being charged with this crime.
How many curious Real Housewives viewers may have been included in the 5000 plus "John Does", who received a legal notice threatening to expose and include their names and addresses in a public Superior Court trial in San Francisco, OR pay a $1500. "fine", and remain un-named?
This scam didn't just target internet porn-addicts or experienced file-sharing pirates. I'd have to guess that the intended victims here were naive Real Housewife fans, who didn't even realize that they were doing something that could be traced in that manner, and who would be mortified to receive a legal-summons charging them with downloading internet porn in an illegal way. So brilliant yet so nasty, I'd love to see the scheming that went into that on reality-tv! (on the other hand, I think I've seen just about enough of Danielle, and even-though she was declared the winner of a job on VH1's Famous Foods, the show itself was a box-office bomb in the ratings department-so don't quit your restaurant job Danielle)
I didn't watch the sex-video myself, but I was curious to see exactly what, "square-tits" (quote Kim G.) meant. I was able to see enough of the video on TMZ to satisfy my curiosity there so that I didn't have to go-looking for the extended-version.
If you or anyone that you know received one of these blackmail attempts from Ms.Staub's associates, the good news here is that the judge has basically thrown it out of court. Case Dismissed!
