May 8, 2008
Pirate Music, Lose Your House
Los Angeles County just added a new category to the rule that allows it to declare property a public nuisance. Under this law…
The county retains the right to shutter a property for up to a year for [engaging in music/video piracy] and also gives local authorities the right to bring a civil action to “temporarily restrain, preliminarily enjoin, and/or permanently enjoin the person or persons intentionally conducting, or knowingly maintaining or permitting the public nuisance from further conducting, maintaining, or permitting such a public nuisance.”
They can shutter your house for up to a year because you downloaded a song? Seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?
Update: According to Ars, Wired misrepresented this story a bit. Los Angeles County can shutter your house for “real” piracy (“manufacturing, distributing, selling, or possessing for sale of counterfeit goods, or recordings or audiovisual works which are improperly labeled under California Penal Code section 653w.”), not so much for getting busted downloading a song.
I have no problem with shuttering people’s houses for this kind of piracy.
