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The man who uploaded the first pirated copy of 'The Simpsons Movie' - a 23-yr-old Australian, Jose Duarte - was fined AUS$1000 in a local court this week.

Bearing in mind that the illegal copy was downloaded more than 3000 times in the two hours before it was removed by the copyright owners, that's not a very big fine.

Apparently, the court accepted his claim that he didn't know it was illegal to upload the copy he had videoed on his mobile phone. said he thought only downloading was wrong.

And his lawyer, Ken Stewart, gave a speech that must have been telling: "It would appear that this young man had the sophistication of a dead fish," Stewart said. "I have sat and spent time with this young man, ... and I am quite satisfied that he had no idea what he was doing."

The lawyer said his client had two goes at uploading and wasn't sure he had succeeded. The only response must be "Doh!"

Can you think of some possible uses of similar claims for mitigation?

"I had no idea the bank would go bust!?" Nick Leeson

"I didn't understand the documents - how did I know it would do any harm to sell them to Russia!?" Aldrich Ames

"We only wanted it because it was shiny - was it really worth all that?!"

etc. etc. I'm sure you can do better.

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