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Court to Hear Landmark P2P Case
CrystalFalcon writes "Wired News reports that a federal appeals court is poised to hear arguments in a landmark case involving Grokster and Morpheus that could decide the future of peer-to-peer services, and may affect whether technology companies can be held liable for their customers' behavior." The appeal against last April's Grokster/Morpheus court win will take a while to shake out, though: "At Tuesday's hearing, each side will have 30 minutes to present its arguments and answer questions from the three judges. The judges will likely take several months to issue an opinion on the matter."
Let's round up not just P2P companies, but the gun makers as well, not to mention knife makers (stabbing), shoe makers (for jaywalking), God (for making rocks that other people used to beat heads in), and pretty much everyone who ever created a product that was ever used in a crime, ever. Idiots.
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
may affect whether technology companies can be held liable for their customers' behavior
I mean after all look at the tabacco companies... they did not force people to smoke yet they are held responsible for the people that smoke.
"The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
So this is a question for all those IAAL types out there.
If the judges take 60 minutes to hear arguments from plaintiff and defendant, why do they take months to render a verdict?
Is this the only case the judges are considering, or do they have a bunch of different cases ongoing at the same time.
If only one, they must be doing a lot of research in the interim.
the reasoning in the lower-court case is so solid (well reasoned, backed by precedent) that i'd be surprised if the opinion is reversed. either way, i'm sure the RIAA will attempt to take the case all the way to the supreme court.
smd4985
1.) The previous ruling can be upheld and P2P Technology will continue to cause innovation in the technological field.
2.) The previous ruling will be upheld and future P2P Technology will focus anonymity which results in more innovation in the technological field.
While there are other details that will be decided, the overall fate of P2P will not be sealed by either ruling made by this court. P2P itself is here to stay, simply because it is so vast and uncontrollable.
Jamon
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
Absolutely! The 9th circuit is indeed a disgrace. I mean when did Judicial legislation/judicial activism become ok. Judges are supposed to deal out the law as it stands, not create new ones with thier "interpretations" of it. Oh well, we know to expect another asinine decision will be forthcoming...
So many injustices..so little time..
that could decide the future of peer-to-peer services ...in which country? This will affect only the USA I (dare to) assume.
Whatever... Whatever.. I never liked those US movies...
"The Betamax was a product that allowed consumers to make copies. The defendants operate services which facilitate both unauthorized distribution as well as copying, and that continuing network is fundamentally different"
it's possible to distribute copyrighted material using a VCR. it's also possible to do this with blank cds. but with p2p programs, the problem is that the vast majority of users use it for illegal reasons.
I am writing this as a proposal for the geeks on this board who would like to take action against the **AA's of the world, yet don't want to be just another martyr. What I propose is a new kind of file sharing system that removes the need for the **AA's altogether. Although the system I envision will work nicely with music, it should translate fairly readily with books, movies, and other creative content as well. Done properly, it could be the 'killer app' Napster aspired to be and stand as incontrovertible proof that F/OSS systems pay off in ways other systems cannot. Please bear with me, because this will not be trite post.
1. If you can't join 'em, beat 'em.
We tried to be nice about it. We really did. We downloaded songs, books, and movies with a 'try before you buy' attitude. Buying what we liked, and declining what we didn't. But they didn't like that idea. Nooooo. God forbid we make an informed purchasing decision. They called us thieves, destroyed our centralized system, fought to strip us of our rights, crap flooded our networks, and took us to court. Well in the words of Bugs Bunny, 'Of course you realize this means war." So we've taken up the fight with new distributed systems, encryption, and plausible deniability. However, in our grand fight of "Us vs. Them" we've casually forgotten one of the 'Us'es. The artists, the creators, the people who produce what we download in the first place. Each and every one of our new distributed systems is just a more elaborate version of the one that came before. What we need is a system that gives the creators an incentive to share their works. We can continue to build better mice while they build better mousetraps, or we can start thinking of a ways to include the artists in our game plan. Kazaa, in a quest for legitimacy, is trying to do this. They are retrofitting a system onto a network that was designed with a single minded devotion to withstanding legal attacks. It wasn't meant to be what they want it to be and, as such, it is failing. As long as we exclude artists, they will continue to view us as the enemy. The entertainment industry is trying to pervert copyright through force of software, rather than law now. With DRM, the tables are turned. They're building mice and we're building mousetraps. Instead of focusing our efforts on breaking those systems, we should instead rectify those perversions by creating a system in the original spirit of copyright. Create a system that provides incentive to artists without stepping on the rights of the public. In doing so, we can create an open system in which the 'Them's can't compete, because the 'Them's aren't competitive anymore. We need the artists. What we don't need is the middleman.
2. Foundation for a new system.
Our new system has to perform three essential functions to supplant our much hated middlemen. Distribution, Marketing, Profit! By replacing the middleman's functionality, we can remove him from the process entirely. We are one third of the way there already. It's pretty obvious that we have distribution down to a science. Step two and three need more work.
3. Marketing
We need a way to 'spread the word' about content creators. I am convinced, as are a handful of others, that collaborative filtering is the way to go. A couple of notable mentions are iRate and AudioScrobbler. If you haven't used one of these systems, allow me to briefly describe iRate. When you launch the program, it downloads 20 'seed' songs. Songs that are popular across various groups of users. You rate these songs on a scale of 1 to 10 and it then tries to guess what songs you are likely to enjoy by comparing your ratings to the ratings of other users. It then sends you a few more songs, rinse, repeat. The longer you use it, the more accurate its guessing becomes. This is far superior
As much as I dislike the RIAA and how they treat artists, I have to disagree with your statement about them doing nothing.
They provide:
Recording studios and equipment
Initial cash for distribution
Advertising
Manufacturing
etc. etc.
Now, I'm not saying that they aren't a bunch of bastards who rip off artists and try and restrict technology, but they DO do a lot.
Only on /. does this get modded Informative. I'm tired of people badmouthing the 9th circut. Out of them all, only the 9th really seems to believe in this thing called the "Constitution." For all the whining over things like the "under God" ruling, they held to their belief that gov't shouldn't interfere in personal affairs such as religion. I would argue that it isn't the 9th Circut smoking crack, but all the other courts.
#define DRM chmod 000
not that i hope this happens, but i'd be interested to see what exactly could be done about P2P networks if they were ruled to be illegal. it would set a precedent for closing down the highway system - think of how it facilitates the distribution of pirate materials. never underestimate the bandwidth of a 1975 Dodge Dart full of DVDs.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
As much as I dislike the RIAA and how they treat artists, I have to disagree with your statement about them doing nothing.
They provide:
Recording studios and equipment
Initial cash for distribution
Advertising
Manufacturing
Actually, the ARTIST pays for almost all of that. All the Record companies actually do is provide a loan to the artist so that they can accomplish all of them above--and to top it all off, the record company ends up owning the end product.
It's like buying a house, paying the bank for 30 years, and at the end instead of giving you clear title, the bank says "Thanks for the house."
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Speaking of the RIAA, has anyone noticed that digital music trade seems to be all that company is about anymore? Check out their website. Virtually every link on the homepage is all about music piracy. The only artist listed on their homepage, Elvis Presley, is long since dead.
What they heck did this organization do before Napster? Surely they had some other business function. It seems like they've completely morphed into judge, jury, and executioner within 4 years.
There is going to be very little evidence to submit, contrary to some of the popular posts above. An appeals court does not validate the evidence or the warrents gained from claims on the evidence, the only thing they do is validate the constitutionality of the case and the constitutionality of the evidence.
In other words, they make a judgement if any of our rights under the constitution have been infringed upon.
Only in extrodrionary circumstances will the court look at evidence and make warrented assertions on it. I am by no means a legal scholar, so someone please correct me, but I do not remember this happening in any largely publisized case recently.
What will go down is something along the lines of the RIAA (or what ever legal firm is handling it) saying " violates the artist fundemental right to the pursuit of happiness. This is demonstrated in our orignal evidence we provided in x, y, z exhibits." Right of happiness a fundemental right normally associated with making money; which is also where "copy right" rights are derrived from.
The p2p people will come back and say "Actually, the artists right to pursuit of happiness is not infringed, as they are already making exhoberant amount of money, and p2p doesn't impact this at all, as is demonstrated in evidence a, b, c." The p2p people will probably also try, ablit unsuccessfully, to throw in there that the RIAA and their cronies are using unconstitutional scare tatics, but that won't be listened to and will eventualy result in one of the largest cases of violation of rights ever seen in resent times (I'm talking about the RIAA police).
Somone with more knowledge on the subject please feel free to correct me, I only have several years of debate team expierence and a few law classes, not too much, but enough to give my 2 cents.
- Simrook
'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it...
*free as in Beer
Shoot targets? play a game, use an air-gun
Accuracy matters in most shooting games.
Shoot cows? farmers have a limited need for extremely simple single shot rifles (no magazines, break-reload)
Hand gun is easier to wield. (Granted I don't know what they usually use.)
Self-Defense? once we get rid of the guns some mace and a bat will be fine
God made man. Colt made them equal. Do you really expect your mom to overpower a couple teens with a bat? Your mom must be quite the brute, too bad my mom isn't, I'd rather have her have a gun.
There is no pressing need for guns.
Nor is there a pressed need for computers at home either. But you see that great part of living in a free country is that we get to use our freedoms, one of which is to buy and use a computer at home, another is to own a gun. If you don't like it, move to England.
Your arguments are just like those who hate SUVs. Some people need SUVs (like myself within a year or so as I am building in the country this year). Other buy them just because the want one. Who are you to determine what I can or cannot do with my own money? Freedom is about letting people do with their own property and time what they choose whether you like it or not.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is totally the wrong kind of thinking. I sell you a product, and now I'm liable for what you do with it?
What ever happened to having to deal with the consequences of the choices you make? The whole thing makes me sick!
That being said however, if the court does settle in this direction, I wonder if this applies in all cases or just P2P. (If in all cases, how many of us will you find in the line to sue good ol' MicroSoft for all the virus infested email their customers are responsible for sending?)
This post is not meant to be a troll. I'm just broadening the scope of how the resulting judgement of this case could affect us in the US.