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German Constitutional Court Blocks Napster Suit
djmutex writes "In an urgent ruling, the German Constitutional Court has temporarily blocked the Napster copyright violations class action of several American recording companies and artists against Bertelsmann. The court decided that the German court in Düsseldorf, which was, according to international conventions, required to serve the writ, may not do so until the Constitutional Court has checked that the suit does not violate Bertelsmann's rights granted by the German constitution. Since, according to those agreements, the service is a precondition for both the suit to proceed in the U.S. as well as the later acceptance of the U.S. ruling in Germany, the lawsuit is for now halted. It is unclear when the Constitutional Court will definitely decide, but it is not generally famed for its tempo on final rulings, and it also stated in the press release (in German) that constitutional rights could possibly be violated if "proceedings before state courts are obviously abused to discipline competitors through public media pressure and the risk of a conviction"." Reuters has a summary.
Well, it seems like yet another of our technological networking freedoms is being quashed by the state. Seriously, why do we need to have another form of communication censored? If these mechanisms such as email and the W3 client/server system weren't a problem back in the 1950s, 1960s and 1980s, what is the problem with them now? Does anyone genuinely believe that there were somehow through some twist of fate absolutely no music file sharers back when Ritchie and Thompson wrote UNIX in PDP-3 assembler? Why do we need to have HTTP, FTP, P2P, SMTP, LRP and YQP regulated by outside bodies? When did we need to eliminate selfpolicing?
The Internet was founded on the propogation of information as freely as possible. This means that Web surfing, Usenet threads and MP3 files are all equally valuable and important, and removing free peer-to-peer filesharign services would remove the infrastructure of one of the Internet's most fundamental protocols. Though it is true that some P2P users are fly-by-night peculiars such as trolls and paedos, we have to understand that they provide a service not unlike those of coin-operated telephone boxes and stamp-operated postal services, and that vigorously spying on free email users is tantamount to removing phone and mail boxes or tapping them.
Besides, keeping an eye on P2P software won't reduce the problem. If broadband pirates and spammers are determinted to get their messages through, then they can just use encryption, or the Freenet protocol to make them untraceable - or both, in which case nothing can be done. Public key encryption algorithm implementations such as RSA, DES and Freenet mean that the RIAA would reqire upwards of 30,000 manhours per OGG Vorbis file to discover inappropriate content; despite being impossible, this is still a flagrant violation of our privacy rights!
In addition to this, by carrying out these actions the police are effectively stating that paid-for music download accounts are in some way superior to those not sponsored. While they may be superior, there can be no way of saying that an MP3 from someone using iTunes is more reputable than one from WinMX or any other P2P user using open source software. Just because a P2P provider happents to use UNIX/Linux servers and isn't a corporation doesn't mean that they are necessarily infested with unsavoury characters.
I could continue, but I think that with more than a cursory notice the other multitudinous incarnadine problems with this new system become clear, and we must make sure that these plans do not become widespread. Fortunately, they are quite impractical, so a few negative anecdotes should encourage most middle managers in service providers and tech support to avoid implementing it.
Bash script for FP whores
In the United States a Corporation has the rights of an individual... the principle that the word person in the Fourteenth Amendment applies to corporations as well as natural persons and both are entitled to the equal protection of the laws under the Constitution.
I think that is a truely absurd legal doctrine. Coporations should have no more legal rights than the law specificly chooses to grant them. If the courts want to rule that corporations are people then I want to bring a lawsuit demanding a coprorate right to vote. The the courts choke on that one.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.