Beware: a very bad precedent set

Mon Aug 31 21:55:12 UTC 2009

that is so sad....  makes me very angry reading this.

-g

________________________________________
From: nanog at wbsconnect.com [nanog at wbsconnect.com]
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 5:35 PM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Beware: a very bad precedent set

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Louis-Vuitton-Awarded-324-bw-3561952192.html?x=0&.v=1

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Louis Vuitton Malletier, S.A. (“Louis Vuitton”) part of LVMH, the world’s leading luxury group, today announced that it has won the lawsuit it filed in 2007 against the California based Internet hosting business of Akanoc Solutions, Inc., Managed Solutions Group, Inc., and Steven Chen (the “Akanoc Defendants”) in the United States District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose). On August 28th, the jury found the Akanoc Defendants liable for contributory trademark and copyright infringement, and awarded statutory damages in the amount of $32,400,000.00. The court is expected shortly to issue a permanent injunction banning the Akanoc Defendants from hosting websites that sell counterfeit or infringing Louis Vuitton goods.

Any and all nefarious activity alleged in this lawsuit was conducted by a customer, of a customer, of a customer yet the hosting provider was found liable, not the actual criminal manufacturing and selling the fakes.

We had all better watch our backs since it seems that claims of not being able to inspected tens of millions of packets per second is no longer a viable excuse.