Slashdot Mirror
EFF To Defend Music Swapping Service MusicCity
MattW writes "Yahoo is carrying the CNET story that EFF has come to the defense of MusicCity, which produces peer-to-peer software, but does not run central servers as Napster did. EFF has a whitepaper on the Sony Betamax case, and it discusses the implications of various court decisions during the Napster case and their effect on it as a precedent. A MusicCity lawyer, who was responsible for the successful defense of the Rio, is quoted, astutely observing: 'This case shows more clearly (than Napster) that what the plaintiffs are most concerned about is control of technology. This is all about whether they can leverage copyrights into control over software development.' And that's truly what the RIAA's interest in Napster was about: not money, but control."
It's not fair use to give near-perfect recordings of copyrighted material to everyone on the planet. This is not the same as making a tape for your friend.
Actually, it's exactly the same thing. The only difference is scale, and there is no legislative or judicial pronouncement which says that fair use may not scale.
Let's see, first it was ftp server hiden in machines at work or college, they conviced companies and colleges to shut them down. then came napster, they sued and won. napster is no more.
Now the target is Music City. The may eventually win this too, and they can even win some kind of legal stuff to force ISP to filter Gnutella trafic...
But there's more thing in the oven. Cult Of Dead Cow, the same group tha gave us BackOrifice, is developing what they call "project X" that will be ablle to do peer-to-peer file sharing despite censorwares installed in the midle...
And if RIAA wins over "project X" too ??? smart hackers (in the good sense) will come with aven another tool to share files.
RIAA is just trying to atract free publicity to the copyright issue, because technically speaking, it's a lost war for them, and I think they know this.
What ? Me, worry ?