Recently, we pointed out that what’s often called “identity theft” involving someone falsifying bank account info to take your money is really nothing of the sort, but is instead a bank robbery where the victim gets blamed. This comedy routine makes the point quite clearly:

“They took all the money? That sounds more like a bank robbery.”
“No, no. If only. ‘Cause we could take the hit. No, no. It was actually your identity that was stolen, primarily. It’s a massive pisser for you.”
“But, it’s actually money that’s been taken…”
“Yes”
“From you?”
“Kind of.”
“I don’t know what you want from me other than my commiserations.”
“You see it was your identity. They said they were you!”
“And you believed them?”
“Yes, they stole your identity.”
“Well, I don’t know. I seem to still have my identity, whereas you seem to have lost several thousands of pounds. In light of that, I’m not sure why you think it was my identity that was stolen instead of your money.”

To make this even more ridiculous, there’s now a case where a company who had $800,000 removed from its bank account is being sued by that bank, PlainsCapital, in a proactive attempt by the bank to have a court declare that it is not, in fact, liable for the lost funds. The bank had been able to recover about $600,000 of the money, but the company pointed out that the bank should repay the rest — and the bank responded by filing a lawsuit asking a court to establish that it was not at fault and had taken “commercially reasonable” steps to remain secure. This certainly does seem like one of these insult to injury situations.

Of course, it also seems like a massively poor way to market PlainsCapital. Not only will it not protect your money for you, if your money is taken by fraud from the bank, you may end up in court. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of PlainsCapital.

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As if Peter Mandelson’s Digital Economy Bill proposal wasn’t bad enough, Dave sends in yet another problem with it. While it does include a process for appealing if you are cut off for accusations (not convictions) of unauthorized file distribution or reproduction, you will have to pay up to appeal. So even if you are innocent, it will cost you money to make your case for why you shouldn’t have been cut off in the first place.

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It continues to amaze me that there’s anyone out there who thinks that the damages awarded in many copyright suits are anywhere close to reasonable or proportional to the “crime” at hand. Copycense points us to an article about a guy who was found guilty of putting software on the internet that allowed people to unlock Dish Network programming on unauthorized receivers. Because of this, Dish and another satellite TV provider, NagraStar, were awarded $51 million. $51 million — for putting the software on the internet. That’s all. The amount was determined based on the number of people who downloaded the software, even though, in all likelihood, a much, much smaller percentage would have ever actually paid for an authorized satellite TV account. Furthermore, this guy did not do the actual act of accessing the unauthorized signal, or breaking any encryption. He merely provided the tools to do so. Charging him with the bogus “cost” of each user of his software makes no sense at all. Even if you accept what he did was wrong and clearly illegal, it’s difficult to see how that justifies the ridiculousness of the award.

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We’ve already discussed how operations like DigiProtect and ACS:Law are operating a rather questionable business of purposely putting content online, tracking the IP addresses of anyone who downloads that content, and then sending letters demanding payment to avoid a lawsuit. While it’s not clear if any of these lawsuits are ever filed, many people are frightened into just paying up, even if they’ve done nothing wrong. And, in fact, it appears that many innocent users are receiving these letters, in such a blanket campaign. While some may call it “collateral damage” if a small percentage of innocent people receive these letters, it’s still quite problematic, and a highly questionable business practice.

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We’ve already described how ridiculously hypocritical it is for various newspapers to block UK aggregator service NewsNow from linking to their articles in its paid subscription service, but apparently it’s a difficult concept for some to grasp. The UK’s Daily Mirror has now started blocking access to NewsNow’s crawlers, claiming that its only problem is the fact that NewsNow makes money off subscriptions. If it wasn’t making any money, the paper wouldn’t have a problem.

Ok, quick question time. Does the Daily Mirror make money off of subscriptions? Oh, they do? And do they pay their sources on which they build their articles? No? Then doesn’t that make the Daily Mirror a huge hypocrite? Why, yes, it does.

NewsNow makes money selling a subscription service, absolutely. But it’s not doing it by misusing anyone’s content. It’s pointing subscribers to where they can go directly to the source. It’s providing a service to give The Daily Mirror more relevant traffic. At no cost to The Daily Mirror. And they want to block that? Meanwhile, The Daily Mirror makes its money by writing about individuals and companies and the news they create. And it doesn’t pay them anything either. In fact, many companies are happy to be written up (it’s called PR). In the case of NewsNow, it’s effectively providing PR for The Daily Mirror, and The Daily Mirror’s management appears too incompetent to realize this.

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After already targeting a bunch of users of a popular Lithuanian BitTorrent tracker, Microsoft has apparently now tried suing the owner of the torrent tracker itself, though the guy claims he stopped running it at the end of last year. But, again, it seems backwards to sue the operator of a tracker, when that tracker does not host or transmit any copyrighted material itself. On top of that, Microsoft has sued for $43 million, when Lithuanian law apparently limits the potential damages in this case to $53,000. Either way, due to the case, the (previous?) owner of the site has had his assets frozen — which seems pretty extreme based on just an accusation, rather than a conviction.

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This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com.
Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

Sun and Intel are interested in holding a webinar around the topic of building a business case for IT investments — specifically for server datacenters. They are looking for experts to be featured in a 1-hour online webinar that will be broadcast live in mid-February (exact time to be determined). A 1-hour practice run will also be required prior to the broadcast date.

We are looking for you to submit proposals that would describe a webinar topic that you would be willing to discuss. If your topic is chosen, then you will then need to be available to participate in the online webinar, hosted by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick.

The potential topics that we are interested in are:

1. An overview of the major factors behind IT investment decisions
2. Justifications that can turn a “nice to have” project into a “need to have” datacenter project
3. Success stories about long-term datacenter development strategies
4. Lessons learned from previous datacenter investment decisions
5. Mistakes to avoid for major IT investments

Your proposal does not have to deal with all of these topics; these are suggestions meant to serve as a guide.

In your proposal, please include:

• The headline of your proposed webinar.
• A description for the webinar that you would run.
• A description of how a Sun or Intel representative might interact with you during your presentation.

If there are any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

This is a case from the Insight Community, a powerful new marketplace that connects companies with intelligent communities like Techdirt. Click here to learn more.

• Earn up to $500 for Insights on this case.
• Insights Due: 3 Feb 2010, 11:59PMPT

View Case Details at InsightCommunity.com

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