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Kazaa Ruled Legal in The Netherlands
DreamerFi writes "Developers of Kazaa cannot be held liable for the way people use their software, the Dutch Supreme Court has ruled. The dutch version of the RIAA, BUMA Stemra is now expected to start lawsuits against individuals, following the american lead, according to dutch news channels."
Well d-uh.
Any successful attempt at making code illegal will just turn it into samizdat and speed the adoption of encrypted & anonymous P2P apps (ala FreeNet). It's too bad the recording industry doesn't put as much effort into signing new and original bands as they do fighting to protect their antiquated business model.
Yes, I buy CDs but nothing you'd see on a Top 40 chart, will that make me a criminal one day?
Trolling is a art,
I use Kazaa to find the music that the recording industry refuses to sell online OR in CD stores. If they are so concerned about losing revenue, why don't they just sell the music?
The dutch version of the RIAA, BUMA Stemra is now expected to start lawsuits against individuals, following the american lead
It's about time some judge realizes that P2P is perfectly legal. If there is illegal activity going on (piracy), then it is up to the authorities/owners to find out who the perps are, and do what they feel is necessary.
Hopefully, if these RIAA-led anti-piracy campaigns are successful, it will be more ammo against the DMCA. After all, why would that unconstitutional law be necessary if they have a more effective means of enforcing their copyrights?
Because it's not the US - it's liberal Europe, with a different mindset. We've outgrown our empire building, and can relax with legal drugs, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, far fewer problems with racism, pornography etc. A far cry from the uptight US.
Let's say I use Quickbooks to bookkeep an illegal betting service at my school. Is someone going to sue Quicken Software (or whoever the mfg is) for my use of their software. NO! If anythingthey should allow programmers and designers to learn from the program and develop new ideas on future software. The fact the KaZaa had to be established on the Island of Vanuatu, where corporate laws are far different form US or other westernized economies is ridiculous! Let business flourish! As Adam Sith would say: "laissez faire!"
[Please sign here]
You mean 12-year-old girls? This isn't going to help either, the only way to solve the p2p piracy thing is to provide better ways for the customers to get music without them feeling robbed, buying a CD with 1 good song, and 10 fillers doesn't make the customer feel right at all, so customers use p2p instead.
Napster and iTunes are good steps on the way, lots of people are buying music through them instead of the old, above mensioned ways.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
So kudos to the court, who are dead right. Kazaa should not be a special case and made illegal, just like video recorders, DVD burners, CD burners, cassette recorders, MP3 player/recorders, codecs, etc etc. The music industry reply is that the files could easily be filtered to stop copyrighted material from being shared. I beg to know how they propose to find out from an MP3 file whether it is copyrighted; the "copyright" bit in the files is removeable so that's not a solution is it?
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
They blatently prodice a place/means for people to illegally share copyrighted material. this is its major purpose, and the kazaa developers know that.
If you know about a crime, and you don't do anything about it (or at least try to) you are breaking the law in many places. The fact that Kazaa has not ever tried to limit the music swapping is proof that they should be found guilty of at least neglegence.
Just because you provide a warhouse where people can trade goods, if the goods are mostly stolen property, and you know that, you are in deep shit.
I'm posting AC because this will likely get modded down, but this is the way it is people.
Although I don't have a plan for the future of the music industry, I believe that online music services are a temporary solution. What will replace them is unknown, but as long as there are programmers coming up with new ways to get files for free, there will always be the majority choosing free over 88 cents per track. Youre still paying 12-16 bucks per full album, NOTHING HAS CHANGED!
[Please sign here]
" far fewer problems with racism, pornography etc"
You mention those in the same breath. Pornography is not as much of a problem in Europe because it is accepted. I guess the same is true of racism.
France has in recent years has had massive anti-semitic rallies. "Oh. But it is not racism. Europe just recognizes the dangers of letting Jews get too much power."
"A far cry from the uptight US"
Yes. We do see racism as a problem, not a sign of a health open society.
When the VCR came out, the cinematography industry cried out that they would be destroyed. When the TV came out, the redio stations said that this would be their end. When the computers began, people said that paper would stop being used. Nonsese. Istead of trying to defeat the tide, musical industry should embrace mp3 and find a new bussines model. And I think they will, eventually, but not until they squeez the last dollar from this model.
- no sig.
That's already happened.
blame gun manufacturers
New York Sues Gun Makers
blame car manufacturers
Car manufacturers, dealers and mechanics are sued for consequences of breakdowns
blame alcohol manufacturers
Bourbon Drinker Sues For Son's Birth Defects
it's liberal Europe? I think that's an oversimplification. What I do think is that the Dutch are all free-traders (no pun intended). Their history is one of free-trade, global trade, and lower regulation.
This history and culture has continually influenced their laws and outlook on new technology. They always seem to be more matter-of-fact and realist when it comes to these issues.
It's an interesting insight into a way in a different culture.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
I wish back in high school that I could have known that, when I was buying records, I was providing the bands I liked with almost no financial support. More than 95% of my purchase price was going straight to one of the most corrupt industries on the planet.
I'm not at all surprised to hear that the Netherlands' version of the RIAA is now going after individual users. The industry has clearly decided that the threat of litigation is about the only thing that's going to keep people buying CD's.
Except for one tiny thing. In the process of trying to scare people, they've made people like me their lifelong enemies. Now, where music is concerned, I have only two ambitions: one is to give the artists I like as much support as possible. And the other is to not give another penny of my money to RIAA labels. Quite simply, the RIAA has a completely different vision of the future than that of music lovers. They want to keep themselves as the middlemen in perpetuity, despite the fact that technology has the potential for making major labels irrelevant.
That's one reason why, as much as I love the iTunes radio store, I would never purchase an album from there that was produced by an RIAA affiliated label.
What people disgusted by RIAA actions need to do is to work hard to educate the public about why the industry does not deserve our support. Music lovers ought to be doing everything possible to starve out the RIAA affiliated labels, and to channel as much of their entertainment dollar directly to artists. And we should especially support artists who are wise enough to help us in this task -- artists who sign with magnatune, or who have a website set up so that they keep the bulk of every purchasing dollar.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
However, I don't see how this ruling changes anything. It doesn't matter what is legal where, because people will always find a way to swap files. There are a million peer-to-peer apps, there's IRC, there's UseNet... I cannot see how any ruling in any country is really going to change the way things are, because I cannot see how any nation can actually enforce that ruling. Perhaps that's one of the reasons they didn't rule against it in the Netherlands. How do you stop a country from swapping files? Even the RIAA with its police powers isn't able to do that here.
I'd like to believe that more workable business models will evolve that can exist peacefully with file swapping, but I guess only time will tell.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
"She received third degree burns over more than 5% of her body"
Yet, 99.99% were able to consume this coffee, of the same temperature, without this problem. Maybe they didn't spill it on their genitals!
"simply because McDs stored the coffee at a temperature far higher than was necessary. And they knew it was dangerously high"
No, it was necessary (the customers prefer it this way), and not dangerous. Millions of cups drank, no problem.
Yes, it is dangerous if you do something stupid with it, but so is everything. Did you know you can suffocate on those paper McDonald's napkins if you stuff them down your throat and nostrils? Just like you can get burns from pouring hot coffee on your 'nads.
The problem with these frivolous suits is that Person A is made to pay for the actions/guilt of Person B.
Decriminalising is exactly what they did not do! Holland is famous for our "gedoogbeleid", which means "the policy of turning a blind eye". most of the stuff we are famous for is still illegal; these law are simply not enforced. While I think taking small-time dealing and usage of soft drugs out of the arena of criminals is a good thing, I do not think that not enforcing the laws is the way to do it. Either something is illegal or it isn't. Make the laws accordingly.
Why? Because many of these issues are fundamental questions that should be answered by parliament. As things stand now, these issues are handled on a local level ie. by municipal governments, since they simply can choose to enforce (or not enforce) these laws. The "gedoogbeleid" gives them that power.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Every time I read a statement like this, I consciously append "... less 30% and expenses."
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
Can anyone say Tobacco lawsuits?
We are quickly becoming the "poor me" society here in the US.
Although I detest smoking, and the tobacco companies, anyone that actually ever thought that breathing smoke wasn't harmful lacks common sense.
It goes like this: make fire, breath smoke, cough, cough, die. Any firefighter could tell you that.
w2^7me out.
>>However, thanks to this, we now have Nixon as an example of how antisemitism in the US is as bad as it has been in Europe (where French citizens quite happily turned in Jewish neighbors to their new Nazi overlords)
Do you honestly believe that, had the US been occupied by Hitler, those 40 millions Americans who lapped up anti-semitic propagande in the 1930s would not have done the same? Or that leading American industrialists who expressed Nazi sympathies and anti-semitic opinions in private would not have collaborated? It was luck and the Atlantic ocean that saved American Jews, not the inherent superiority of the US citizenry.
>> Show me one single Jewish person who has been killed (or even assaulted) as a result of Farrakhan's adolf-immitations.
Farrakhan is a symptom of widespread antisemitism in the US. Did you know that according to an Anti-Defamation League poll in 2002, 17% of Americans hold "unquestionably anti-semitic views" (up from 12% in 1998). That rises to 35% among african-americans. The NY Post reported last week that number of anti-semitic attacks in New York City TRIPLED in the last year. True, nobody has died -- yet. But remember back in 1999 there was a gun attack on a Jewish kindergarten. We're not talking about mere graffiti.
>>Funny you should mention the word "deny", as you are engaging in a variation of holocaust denial.
That is one of most insulting things ever hurled at me on slashdot. To deny the holocaust would be to deny the murder of my grandfather's entire family. Nothing I have written has denied the existence of anti-semitism in Europe. I'm just trying to point out that it's not a European disease. It affects the US just as much, and it's about time Americans realised it.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.