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Record Labels Sue Morpheus, Again
Brushfireb writes "In a move that most Slashdotters will find suprising (/sarcasm), the RIAA has once again sued Morpheus, over a service that Morpheus never launched, known as StreamCast Networks. This comes not long after the RIAA lost the case to Morpheus, as you may remember from this Slashdot article."
Lets hope that the RIAA doesn't win this case. This would be a big boost for the P2P community, and would probably in the end mean that P2P wouldn't always be related by piracy.
Why does the RIAA always think they can boss everyone around, they act like everyone is a little child, and that they can be squashed.
Doesn't help with the current state of the US justice system though..
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
From the article:
I'm sorry, but why would they have to notify the copyright owners? There are thousands of radio stations that do this same exact thing.
Now, if Morpheus planned on not paying appropriate royalties, there might be a case. There might also be a (unjest, nevertheless still legal) case if any of those CDs are copy-protected. But simply making a database should not be illegal.
Hopefully this will be dismissed for the farce it is. Morpheus should countersue the RIAA for filing frivolent lawsuits.
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
Company A pays large amounts of royalties for CDs for music to be broadcast across the internet. Company A transfers the legally paid for music to another medium for internal use only, in preparation for a service that would pay an additional fee. Company B-F, represented by the RIAA, sues company A for copyright infringement.
The RIAA has been making the case for quite some time, unsuccessfully, that consumers do not have the right to meduim-shift the music they purchase licenses for. It is no surprise that they are attacking an old enemy with this old stick. If they win, they have a powerful prescident and a hobbled competitor. If they lose, they still progress in their plan to litigate threats to death.
This suit is saying that you don't have the right to make a casette copy of a CD for play in your car, a right courts have upheld time and time again.
Frivolous.
The ______ Agenda
RIAA: We don't care if we win or we lose. We have
all the money people buying our way overpriced
products have paid to bring about as many pointless
lawsuits as possible til these punks learn who their
corporate masters are.
Morpheus: Gee, I hope we get the same Judge we did
last time.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
And what exactly does this have to do with the lawsuit?
http://use.perl.org
He's busy defending Zion, and things look dire. This is the LAST thing he needs!
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
There's something ripe here, and it's not the RIAA's case.
They should have to wait until there such a service is launched before suing, just like those who fear being sued under the DMCA seeking affirmation of legality beforehand have been rebuffed by the courts.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Lets please try to keep things in perspective here.
More than willing to, but it would seem that in the case at hand, that the RIAA is filing suit against the Morpheus people for:
Streamcast bought thousands of CDs with thousands of songs and then transferred the music onto a digital database on computer hard drives and other memory devices without the permission of the copyright owners.
Basically, the RIAA is sueing Streamcast for doing something that has been repeatedly held as legal fair use. They didn't ever make the songs available, in fact they didn't because they couldn't get the necessary license to do so. It would seem that they were at least trying to do things the right way, but the RIAA wouldn't play ball, so they stopped. Remembe, if you buy a CD, you are allowed to format shift the contents of that CD. This is just a frivilious lawsuit designed to bleed Streamcast dry of money.
So, there's the perspective for you, its the RIAA with a very clearly frivilious lawsuit. Now please, before you rant off next time RTFA.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.