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Judge Rules Kazaa Distributors Can't Sue Labels
evenprime writes "Sharman Networks tried to file an antitrust lawsuit against record labels and movie studios. They alleged that the companies forced piracy to occur by conspiring to keep authorized and copy-protected versions of their songs and movies off Kazaa. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson
just dismissed Sharman's claims."
Thieves sued banks for forcing robbery to occur by not giving away free money.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
I think it's a good idea.
The people downloading music are of two types: the computer literate and the mostly ignorant masses.
Computer literate folks are likely to be following the cases and have some degree of knowledge about the latest DRM legislation. Most of you all know how the cases are going, you read them every day on slashdot.
Most of everyone doesn't. When the RIAA says: "Don't do this, it's against the law!", and it gets reported in the national media, people will stop downloading. It has nothing to do with whether or not they're right, they have media control, so they can change the opinion of the public. KaZaA et al. can only gain media attention by being sensationalist, and they generate press coverage this way.
Here's the crux of the "generate press coverage" arguement: most people tend to ignore the correction of information. Told a statistic, you will likely go on believing that statistic even if you are later alerted to the fact it's false. Since KaZaA can't generate "real" positive press coverage, it has to resort to this type of marketing.
No one will hear that the judge says KaZaA can't sue. Everyone will hear that KaZaA says it's doing the right thing by making music available. That's the point. It weakens their arguments to the small group of tech-elite, and widens their appeal to the masses.