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RIAA, MPAA Lose Suit Against Streamcast and Grokster
ha-reed writes "News.com is reporting that a federal court judge in Los Angeles has handed down a ruling that Streamcast Networks (the company that makes Morpheus) and Grokster are not liable for copyright infringements due to files that are traded with their software. The judge made the comparison between file sharing software and VCR's that many supporters of file sharing often use." EFF has the decision (1.4Mb PDF) online (and a .torrent is
here
in case eff.org melts, which it won't). See our most recent story about the lawsuit.
Maybe Verizon can site this in their appeal.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
...for microsoft to release their sharing client >:D
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
What else has federal judge Stephen Wilson decided before this? Anything else of note?
The crux of the ruling seems to stem from the inherent deniability of the gnutella proto...
i.e. the plaintiffs could NOT prove contributory infringment, unlike in the Napster case.
All in all, a very interesting precedent is set, especially in light of Freenet.
They did it, and we should donate money to them to thank them!
I'm going to donate $20. I want to see each one of you who posted a msg here saying "Wahoo" donate at least $20.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Does the little guy feel it get warmer? If they can't kill the makers of the weapon -- they will now turn their resources to the people pulling the trigger. I personally think that the last good music sharing system died with Audio Galaxy. (*nix client anyone). I wont get caught dead using Kazzaa. (Not because I think using Kazzaa is wrong, but rather the OS that it runs on is against my perverted rule set.) And since AG and Napster went down, any client audio/video sharing available for *nix does not have enough users or mass to go beyond top 40. I personally was more interested in music that never made it to CD in the US, and the imports were to expensive or not in the Catalog anymore.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
The VCR is a program and cable provides the service allowing illegal copies to be recorded onto your VCR.
So should Cable be sued too?
Wait no, Cable is owned by time warner of the RIAA.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
first destruction of the Death Star in 'A New Hope'.
As a developer of open-source Gnutella software, I know we have a long ways to go to make p2p as ubiquitous and revolutionary as it can be, but not having legal concerns is a huge relief. I think this ruling will convince the RIAA to offer competing services instead of trying to maintain their unjust monopoly on music distribution. It will also make them go after individual users, which isn't good in general but a better strategy than attacking technology.
This ruling is very similar to Linus' recent views on DRM - don't build policy into technology, because you might disable good uses as well as the bad.
smd4985
What strikes me about the current situation is that there are so many court cases that have have occurred or that are currently in process that deal with similar issues to this. However, what is odd about this is that sometimes the ruling goes in the favour of the content producers but other times goes in favour of those who facilitate what the content producers see as the 'theft' of their property.
This lack of clarity seems to be as dangerous to our rights as a one-sided view in favour of the content producers. I am particularly worried whether this lack of clarity is because the judges do not have enough experience and knowledge to determine what is right and what is wrong and are simply out of touch with the Internet age. Perhaps we need some more 'net-savvy' judges?
... that Morpheus had search options that make sense for a legit service. It wasn't a straight MP3 service like Napster, you could find pretty much any type of file intelligently there. I even fired up Kazaa once so I could find a Linux distro.
No idea if those details made it into the courtroom or not, but it's really not such a hard sell when you use Morpheus to find stuff.
"Derp de derp."
Oops. It seems that I wasn't clear enough. I meant the $98 billion lawsuit against those college students who wrote an indexing service. It absolves those particular college students from any wrongdoing. In fact, it gives them a very strong case against the RIAA for defamation and malicious prosecution.
I am *SO* relieved to see a ruling for this case where the technological issues were not so opaque to the judge as to render his verdict senseless.
Of course, an appeal is sure to follow, but today was a great victory.
Thanks EFF! Thanks go out to all the persons and entities (Eff, Limewire, BearShare, etc) that donated time, money, resources, and effort to the assist the defendants in this landmark case.
-dave-
Now go ahead and get yourselves a "Still-Legitimate" kickass Gnutella p2p client here!
The pig browse. With Google. Sigh is to the chicken. Chicken is fool. Giggle. The DailyWTF giggle.
Perchance, do you know what his history/record on getting his decisions overturned?
I hope he's not like the 9th circuit court of appeals (which has a deserved liberal reputation), who keeps trying to come out with landmark cases but half the time gets slammed by the Supreme Court.
(Although, I tend to disagree with the 9th circuit, so I'm happy when the SC overturns their decisions many times (not always). I don't hope Judge Wilson's decision is overturned, however.)
KaZaA has proven it can shut clients out of the network (when it turned off the original Morpheus client)
Only by changing the protocol stack. They were able to make a client they did not write, not work with theirs. They cannot selectively turn off individual users. They basically rewrote KaZaa, and made everyone upgrade. That's Hardly "controlling that network" The original Morpheus clients could still talk to each other, but not supernodes, so that really didn't help them much.
--firearmns, any firearms, used defensively are used to shoot badguys. Badguys come in all sizes, colors, wear various pieces of clothing, and come in any number of configs. You use the appropriate tool to deal with the appropriate problem. One badguy right up close in your face, probably better to pull a handgun. 5 badguys across the room to 100 yards away, better to use a full auto. Any number of badguys more than 100 yards away, and given an exercise limit here of small arms-rifle class, it's better to have a bolt action rifle with a scope.
The US second amendment born-with right to keep and bear was about shooting badguys working for the exisiting regime at the time, who were so oppressing the people they decided to revolt, and used the highest tech available at the time to do it.
If the badguys in some regime insist on using better and better tech, the good guys have every moral and legal right to keep up with them, and frankly, are nuts if they don't. AKs are useful because they are fairly robust and strong, function well, are easily understood and handled, relatively inexpensive to manufacture, and are an example of a tool that "just works" inside it's design-specifications envelope. They also can be switched from semi automatic operation to full automatic operation, again, a useful feature.
The concept of self defense is relatively simple. You either are for self defense in all situations, or you are not. It is a binary decision any human is free to make. Anyone may choose to not engage in self defense. The converse is true too, and the people who choose to be armed with both hardware and knowledge and have aquired the skills to be effective in self defense should never be demonized. That is intellectually and morally bankrupt, IMO.
Like all tools they may be abused, but all in all, the concept is quite easy to understand, and just because someone else may abuse something, is no reason to deny or demonize those who do not.
That is the crux of the anti-gun argument, and it boils down to only victims or potential victims are required to not be armed.
It's quite insane. It's also illogical to an extreme.
From: http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID= 15970
"On what appears to be the eve of her scoring an 11th number one hit in UK, Madonna has a simple question for those more interested in trading her song, 'American Life', online, rather than sending it to the top of the retail charts: 'What the f--- do you think you're doing?'"
-Valiss
Actually, it's worse than that. The decision centered on two things. First, neither of these companies is currently operating a Kazaa "root supernode," and each of them lacks control over either the underlying protocol(Morpheus/Gnutella) or the software itself (Grokster). Things look pretty bad for Kazaa, since it has control over all of the items listed above, and it presumably operates Kazaa "root supernodes." I suspect that they are liable, at least for vicarious infringement, based on the operation of root supernodes.
The judge declines judgement on people who provide (for instance) lists of gnutella nodes. These people may still be liable for contributory and/or vicarious infringement.
Of course, the users actually doing the copying are direct infringers, so they should not expect protection by the courts.
Likening a computer to an AK-47 is like.. wait.. it's likening a computer to an AK- 47. One is a piece of silicon that does logical analysis and the other is a fucking gun.
Actually, it's an understatement of what the RIAA thinks. They see a computer as a Weapon of Mass Infringement, something like an economic WMD against their profit line. And they'd reaaaaaaally like to send in the marines (lawyers) and DisaRM us. No, there's nothing wrong with my shift key.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This is so pathetic (and typical of alot of users on Slashdot).
A filesharing program gets cleared in court due to the fact that there actually ARE alot of legit ways and reasons to use one, and immediately the slashdot forum is filled up with lame posts along the line of "woohoo, open season on warez, most DVDrips when he dies wins"
Seriously, you don't give a fsck about the legit reasons at all.
Bunch of hippocrites.
I dare you to admit it openly wihout resorting to posting AC.
(English is not my first language, so if there are any grammatical or spelling errors you nitpicking ACs who has nothing interesting to say anyway can lay of the lameness)
"GNU's not Unix....it's Linux" / Kami "kokamomi" Petersen
Who said that? I sure didn't. I used the DC snipers as an example of someone who fit your criteria for justifying gun ownership and yet should not have had access to a gun.
And I can give a dozen more examples of people who drive cars, yet shouldn't. People do stupid things with whatever tools are available to them. Yes, they have every right to have access to a gun. They do not have a right to kill people. That is the difference.
No, you don't necessarily have a "right to a gun".
Oh, I don't? Sorry, pal, in my country I do.
Unless your firearm is to be used as a well-regulated militiaman, you do not have a literal "right" to it. But then again, it's also not criminal or necessarily "wrong" to have that firearm either. If your skewed view of the 2nd Amendment were true, then why not take away an ex-criminal's 4th amendment rights as well. If we're throwing away people's "rights", they should all be up for grabs...or isn't that the exact same reasoning that gun lobbyists used to defend why we should not infringe on the 2nd Amendment by continually outlawing more and more firearms?
Why guns are good: It protects you. It protects you from burglars, nasty governments, invaders, and anything you need to be protected from.
What isn't told is how often guns stop crimes. Only how they are used to commit crimes. You realize that one of the school shootings a few years back was stopped because a kid ran to his car and got his gun? If I have someone try to break into my house, and they happen to catch a glance of me walking with a desert eagle in my hand they are probably going to walk away. If they don't, well, not my problem.
Guns are not bad. People are bad.
Also, please don't use such specious logic as "fists and bombs...why not outlaw those". I said I don't necessarily advocate the criminalization of the tool. If you're simply trolling for a fight, there's nothing left to be said.
You are saying that guns are used to commit crimes. Guns stop crimes. Canada has more guns per capita, and much less violent crime than the US. The US is just more violent. US brings violence out in people. It's not video games, it's just life. By the time I was 18 I had 4 guns shoved in my face. One was because I was in Morocco and accidently wandered onto the kings beach house, so that's excusable. If I would have had a gun, I wouldn't have pulled it the other 3 times. If you are breaking into my house, or trying ot mug me, it's Mr. Pistol time.
My right is to defend my home. Defend myself. Defend my family. My gun helps with that. If you don't want to protect your family, and believe that the cops can do it for you, than lots of luck to you pal. Don't pass your delusional hope onto me.
I have had a family member murdered by somone breaking into her home... He got 7 years in prison.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Only older FT clients use the supernode server; the latest Kazaa is totally decentralized. But this probably will have little effect on the ruling - Kazaa has in fact admitted to operating a root supernode server. Whether this matters at all is debatable.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
It also happens that someone places a legit N-megabyte file on his web-page, but after this file becomes popular ISP disables the account. Without filesharing systems the file is lost. With them it can remain available forever.
P.S. And note how many game-related sites set up their own P2P systems in order to distribute demos, trailers and other heavyweight stuff.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.