MPAA Offers To Settle (Again)
There is an "Early Neutral Evaluation Conference" on May 23, 2006 to determine if this matter can be settled. Personally, it seems like an utter waste of time because at this point about the only thing I would settle for is if they dropped the case, paid my attorney fees and then dissolve their whole organization.
They offered me an initial settlement of $2,500 (before they decided to take it to court), which was rejected on the basis of principle. Then today I talked to my attorney and they are offering a settlement of $3,500.
Bahahahahahaaha! So if I refused your $2,500 out of principle, what exactly makes you think I'm going to give you $3,500 now? That's comedy. 
From everything I've read online, the MPAA (and RIAA) has been pretty much extorting everyone simply because they can't afford to fight it. This certainly will give me something interesting to blog about. I just pray it goes to a full trial, where they will lose and then give everyone else that is being sued a nice lawsuit they lost as a reference for their lawsuit... "MPAA vs. Shawn Hogan" That has a nice ring to it. Maybe this loss will be the start of their demise. (Hmmm... I seem to have quite the aspirations, eh? haha)
From a purely business standpoint, I think all the lawsuits that the MPAA and RIAA are throwing out are only hurting them in the long-run. From everything I've read, it does not curb piracy at ALL. I would even argue it increases it because all of a sudden people that weren't aware you could download music/movies now realize you can (and some will start). Then you are going to compound this by everyone talking about it and reading other's blogs. I'm a perfect example... from talking my attorney and then researching stuff online as a result of that, I now know that if you have the proper software installed, you can download pretty much any movie (or anything else) you want.
Not only that, but you would think they would be wiser about who they choose to extort.
For as big of an organization they are, my website gets roughly 10,000 times more traffic than theirs (hell, this stupid blog gets more traffic than their site). Then again, digitalpoint.com more traffic than buy.com or adobe.com.. hehe
So what just happened? Well now a few hundred thousands people per day were just educated about 1. about their general extortion and 2. they also now know that you can download whatever you want. I'm starting to think maybe the MPAA might actually kill the movie industry (which this dude shares my viewpoint). If they were smart, they certainly would choose their racketeering targets a little wiser (like maybe someone without the resources to fight and a captive audience of 80 million people per month that will read my viewpoint). This could turn out to be some good/interesting reading though. Reminds me a bit of the Winn and Sims fiasco.
Wanna see something else funny? Check Google's top 10 results for "MPAA"... It seems I'm not the only one that thinks the MPAA is looney.
http://www.google.com/search?q=mpaa
Oh, and just as a side note, they are utter liars... They told me they identified the specific computer that did whatever they claimed and they traced it back to me (of course I knew that was a lie since it never happened). But now they are saying they don't have any such information (MAC address basically). {rolls eyes}
I'm a boy... from San Diego, CA (USA). And I don't really have a whole lot else to say about myself.
