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Anonymous User Challenges RIAA Subpoena
Arclightfire writes "First there was the setback of a New England judge throwing out an attempt to uncover the names of students at MIT accused of piracy and now CNet is reporting that a 'Jane Doe' is arguing that the subpoena violates her right to due process." There's also a Reuters story.
The RIAA is not responsible for finding artists. That's the job of the labels. The RIAA is just a group of the top record companies that formed to retain the rights of the companies (read: make sure they get all the money they can while screwing over whoever they need to).
But I do agree, they could definitely be spending money elsewhere. They're trying to fix a bullet hole with a bandaid.
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
Uhh while that may be true you didn't closely read the article. The main argument is that the RIAA's tactics are unconstitutional because they violate due process. Sure she's going to say she didn't do anything wrong but even if she did I think the case has merit on the grounds of the due process argument and that would very much help the public.
The Anti-Blog
People who think they have to use kazaa to download music will most likely think they must use kazaa to play what they downloaded with it, most likely because they don't know how to get to the files with some other application (like the file browser).
me: "Where are all your downloaded files?
user: "In Kazaa."
There's a button on the toolbar to show you all the files in your shared folder, and it breaks them down by media type, and you can play them from there.
In Sweden it's currently (come Jan 1st most certainly) legal to _download_ but not to _upload_. I.e - using KaZaa is perfectly legal as long as you don't share yourself.
it's in my head
So have can a subpoena *violate* due process of law?
IANAL, but IIRC, the problem is that DMCA allows any "rights holder" to "subpoena" any information that they believe to be related violation of their copyrights, or whatever. Basically, until the DMCA rolled along you had to have a court issue a subpoena or a warrant. Now the RIAA can just cut the judge out of the loop.
Quick U.S. law primer for citizens.
I agree with your sentiment, i.e., that due process protects citizens from bullying by the government and/or powerful interest groups. However, you are confusing criminal law with civil law. No one is found "innocent" or "guilty" in a civil case, and there is no doctrine of "innocent until proven guilty" in civil law. In civil cases, it's just about whether someone's conduct caused [financial] harm to another party, which must be established only with a preponderance of evidence (as opposed to "beyond a reasonable doubt" as in criminal cases).
This goes for posts above saying the RIAA should have to file complaints with the police vis-a-vis file trading. No. File trading -- and copyright infringement in general -- isn't criminal conduct (yet).
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Sorry, but no. Fair use does not give you the right to make copies of music you haven't paid for, even if you delete them later. Fair use is not a "try-before-you-buy" law, it lets you do certain things which copyrighted items you have legally purchased.
just like me handing a tape to my friend to listen to for a week is a legit "fair use" doctrine.
Fair use doesn't even enter into this. If you lend a friend a tape you are not making a copy, and so copyright law has absolutely no bearing. You are simply lending out a physical item, like a library. If you mean making a copy of a tape for a friend, then fair use certainly DOES NOT allow this. It is simply too minor a crime to be prosecutted for, however.
If you'd like to review the fair use doctrine for yourself try here or here. BTW, you are correct in that there is absolutely nothing illegal in using P2P services to share non-copyrighted items, or copyrighted items where you have the owner's permission to share.
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
From the State University of New York at Albany:
This strikes me as a statement made by someone who knows he is going to lose. What he failed to mention was that it was upheld by the DC Circuit Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
Now if you've ever studied the law, you probably know that the circuit court decisions are only considered binding in the circuit in which they were filed. When a Massachusetts court ruled that the subpoenas were invalid in their court system, that means that the RIAA in those cases is now bound by the decisions of the 1st circuit courts, which may not match those of the DC circuit (and probably won't, given that the DC courts are one of the more conservative circuits, and thus more likely to be friendly to the RIAA than the 1st circuit would be....
Now enter Jane doe in Sacramento, CA. California is part of the 9th circuit. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is well-known to be one of the most liberal circuits in the country. It also issues the most zany rulings of any circuit, probably largely to force touchy issues to the Supreme Court. (It is the circuit with the most overturned rulings as well, though, so don't assume that a favorable ruling there will necessarily stand.)
The point is that this won't end until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the issue, and to my knowledge, they have not. This injunction filing in a California court is a very good and potentially effective step towards kicking the abusive parts of the RIAA squarely in the nuts.
Not all of the RIAA is technologically inept, though. I've dealt with parts of the RIAA recently, and they were very professional and courteous. It's too bad their upper management has taken that organization, which performs a lot of very useful services, and corrupted it, co-opting it to make abusive attacks on the public. I daresay that they do not speak for all of the RIAA, much less for all of its members. Here's hoping they get put in their place.
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
so how would anyone new join in? by sharing worthless files? or do you want to keep people away and maintain a small clique of 1337 h4x0rz ?
The parent does not quite understand the eMule network. lowid is when a client is behind a firewall or proxy or something and can't accept incoming connections. eMule doesn't have a penalty for not sharing enough files. Although the client will up your maximum download rate if you raise your maximum upload rate.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
While this particular usage (temporary P2P downloading) isn't explicitly stated in the body of law, it could very well be supported by a judge anyway. There are other means by which you can do the same thing---the radio, the music store, the library---and as such, creating that copy does no more harm than walking to the music store, demoing the CD on one of their little machines, and leaving without buying it. In all cases, you have listened to it once, but have not kept a copy.
Generally, in order to obtain damages, there must be harm. A copy made without harm, such as an archival backup copy, cannot be ruled as infringement. Temporary copies of computer programs for execution purposes are not infringement according to the DMCA. Section 512 provides similar protection to ISPs who cache temporary copies of material.
However, what really throws things in the computer user's favor is Chapter 10, subchapter D, section 1008.
Care to explain how a computer doesn't qualify? Or, for that matter, how making a tape for your friend doesn't qualify (since that's the exact thing that this passage of law was meant to protect)? Are we not paying that $8 to the government so we can use that CD burner in that way? Are we not paying extra costs on the media to go back to the copyright holders?It seems to me that this whole thing is a sham. The RIAA and others got laws passed that cost us money to protect their copyrights. Then when people actually start taking advantage of the intended purpose of those laws, they come back and whine that "oh, those laws don't apply here."
I call bullshit.
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.