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eBay Beats DMCA
pgrote writes "eBay won a court battle that brought to light a key provision of the DCMA. The judge says, "Although it may facilitate the sale of pirated material, "eBay does not have the right and ability to control such activity," a standard required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the judge wrote." So does that mean that the P2P file trading programs are legal since the pirating occurs off the sites? This is could be a very important precedent. " In talking to some lawyer friends, their perspective on part of the Napster case was that by being very difficult in the beginning, Napster almost doomed itself. But, as always, IANAL ? .
This probably wouldn't have any effect on P2P programs themselves, as the courts would have to decide whether the intent of such software was to deliberately facilitate copyright infringement, but this could take the heat off of ISPs and give them more leeway when they are told by someone (like, say, the MPAA) that a user is sending pirated software through their service. Remember the salon.com story about a person accused of copyright infringement on USENET whose access was immedeately suspended while they were on vacation, no investigation necessary? ISPs may now have more freedom to say 'prove it' when the MPAA, RIAA or another such organization comes knocking.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Does this mean they can start allowing import games to be sold? I've bid on a number of Japanese import Dreamcast and Saturn games, where the auction has subsequently been pulled. Turns out that Sega demanded that eBay pull any such auctions, suggesting that they "promote piracy", although afaik there is no law prohibiting the resale of import games.
If he'd done things the acceptable way instead of trying to let lawyers solve his problem, he'd probably have the problem solved already. America needs more lessons like this.
Hear hear. The problem is that the US has so many damned lawyers, and our law schools are churning out tons more all the time. A few years back, the statistic I heard was that the US has 5% of the world's population, but 75% of the world's lawyers. Makes me wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.
The problem with churning out all these lawyers is that the law is a self-germinating profession. For example, what happens if you have too many house painters in an area? Well, prices go down, service levels probably go up, and some of those painters have to diversify or move into other fields to make a living. Like most professions, an over-abundance of practitioners yields negative pressure for an increase of practitioners.
What happens when you have too many lawyers in an area? Well, they just start taking on more frivolous cases and filing more suits, which does what? Creates work for opposing lawyers, which actually increases the demand for lawyers! They clog our legal system with crap like a credit card company clogs your email box with spam.
Worse yet, having lost most of their senses of morality and ethics plying the legal trade, these bastards are the first ones likely to go into politics. That's where they really start creating extra opportunities for their fellow attorneys.
Lawyers are pure evil. Oppose the sharks that are the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, and any politicians in their back pockets. They make the RIAA and the MPAA look like a bunch of guppies by comparison.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
EBay provides auctions, not internet service, so they are an "ASP", not an "ISP".
When a judge dismisses a case, they do so based on legal reasoning that does set a precedent. This can come in one of two forms. A case can be dismissed for failure to state a claim for which the court has the power to provide a remedy, or it can be concluded on "summary judgement" which means that there were no disputed material facts requiring a trial so that the question is one of pure law. Both types of order are usually supported with a written opinion.
I cannot tell which actually occured and the article doesn't link to the opinion.
Damn. I was really hoping they could throw out the whole takedown procedure in the first place. Or does the ruling indemnify E-Bay from any liability at all, allowing them to throw away the procedure?
I'm reminded of the posting here a week or two ago from someone who couldn't sell a personal copy of NT, CD and License, 'cause Microsoft kept complaining....
I had a similar, if far more trivial, case. I posted an auction with a digital picture of the item being offered. Another seller "stole" my picture (and most of my clever auction listing text) to use in his own auction of an identical item. It was obvious that the image was the same (it was shot on my desk) and the words were clear plagiarism.
A few notes exchanged with eBay, along with an "affirmation" that I took the image with my own digital imaging device, and the offending auction listing was history. It eventually re-appeared, with a poor(er) quality picture and revamped words, but my point had been made.
Too bad for Mr. Hendrickson that he didn't comply with such an oh-so-simple request. It worked for me...