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Grokster/Morpheus Hearing Recap
TrentC writes "An article in The Mercury News reports that Senior Judge John T. Noonan, hearing arguments in the Morpheus/Grokster case (yes, it's still going!), scolded one of the attorneys for the recording industry for 'using abusive language' in referring to P2P networks as 'trafficking in pirated goods'. Noonan also questioned, in response to a claim that a study showed that 90% of the 750 million files shared on Morpheus was illegally distributed files, if the other 10% -- consisting of public-domain works, recordings of public performances and works where the copyright holders have granted permission -- consisted of enough non-infringing use to meet the criteria set forth in the famous Betamax decision. Maybe 2004 will be 'The Year The Courts Get It Right'?" We mentioned this hearing a few days ago. The EFF has audio of the hearing and case documents available. Since this case will likely decide the general legality of P2P services, it could be quite important.
If the courts do get it right, you can be sure the legislature will come along and fuck it back up again. Gay marriage will be just one of the 'activist' court decisions that will get neutered.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402050 05057966
Worst
Looks like a skeptical 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel pressed the lawyers to defend their contention that file-sharing services should be stripped of the protections afforded technological innovation by the U.S. Supreme Court
"Judge Sidney R. Thomas, [is] regarded as among the most technologically astute of the 9th Circuit judges"
I have an idea. Well, I kinda stole it from something I read at Operation Clambake. Many of Scientology's "secret" documents are now available to anyone for free, because they have been subpoenaed during a lawsuit.
:)
So... perhaps one could run a filesharing operation based on the fact that documents presented as evidence in court become a matter of public record? Just get the files you were allegedly sharing to be part of the discovery, and bingo! Anyone in the world can download them!
This of course has the advantage that the courts can't shut it down or even declare it illegal...
These sigs are more interesting tha
I hope that the courts just let it go. And even if they do stop every single p2p network out there, someone else will start a new one, and people will share files over everything, heck even aim can be used. They will never be able to stop it. And for starting musicians, such as myself, it is awesome to get that kind of exposure so easily by spreading files on p2p networks.
When I see the figure that 90% is illegal, I have to wonder, is that 90% as individual items are counted? Or 90% by file volume?
When I run searches on P2P networks, there are a lot of porn videos advertising websites that are available, presumably legally. If there are 100 porn advertising videos that take up the space of one copy of Lord of the Rings, would the people that generated this statistic say that the content is 50% legal and 50% illegal? Or would they say that roughly 1% (1 video out of a total of 101) is illegal?
Do we have a Judge the Recording Execs can't pay off??
Evolution or ID?
"90% of files transmitted were copyrighted files."
Does that percentage include traffic to Canadian computers, where such downloads are legal?
Does that percentage account for people who own the songs they are downloading in some other media format?
Does that percetage account for people who tried to download a song but got a RIAA-hijacked song instead?
What a waste of resources. They are playing at a very losing game. Before Napster there was always IRC, usenet, and FTP -- those are still there. After Napster came Morpheus/Grokster, which may/may not be left alive. But already the file sharing community has moved past into DirectConnect hubs, bit torrent, private WASTE networks, etc. Why do they even bother anymore?
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
While that may help, it might be like saying Microsoft Windows is the most secure operating system among the average end user, or that Bob is more technologically astute than Bill because Bob can open a Dos prompt, and Bill has never used anything other than IE.
They say 90% of the material is copyrighted, but the statistic should rather be the percentage of copyright material that's unauthorized.
For example, Phish and Dave Matthews Band have been mentioned in some articles as giving their general OK to concert recordings being available on file-share services. These recordings are copyright of the respective performers. So do they fall into the RIAA's 90%? Or the remaining 10%?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Post and share as much public domain and open source info/data as you can get your hands on. Label it as such, so everyone knows that it can be downloaded without legal ramifications. We have yet to fully demostrate the greatest benefit of P2P: All of humanity's creative capacity available for free use at the click of a button. Imagine what Ben Franklin, Einstein, or Mozart could have done with such a resource.
We organize the occasional party in our garage. The local equivalent of the RIAA (the Belgian SABAM) came knocking and asking for their cut. They were very reasonable, a clean 15% of the gross. I asked whether this covered live groups too. Oh yes. How about artists that are not members of the SABAM? Oh yes. But we're willing to make you a gooood price. At which point I realize that this is just the local mob.
It really makes me wonder... when you cannot stand up on stage and play your guitar for a public without having to fill-in a form and pay protection money. I don't see P2P ever being legit in such a world.
Go on, mod me -1 irrelevant, but this was the first time I saw a music industry enforcer in action and I was quite impressed.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Swarm the oral argument from here:
20040203_oral_arg.mp3
Should work if you have a magnet handler like LimeWire or Kazaa installed.
smd4985
I just love the bit where the recording industry present their "90% of the 750 million files" study, and the judge whips back with, well, 75 million files is a lot, isn't it? A few more legitimate uses like this one would do a lot to push the point home.
The judge could easily seal the documents, I think. And even if he couldn't, the RIAA and MPAA would just pay Congress to change the laws regarding the issue. The idea would, at best, work briefly.
This reminds me of a problem from my Micro theory class:
Now the question really wanted you to realise that you can change the supply and demand curves to get the same results, but nevermind that.In both examples we are comparing a measurement that doesn't have the relationship it at first seems to.
They, in fact, have the same rather different relationship.
They are the upper bounds of the equations, but nothing 'deeper' than that.
What better way to show to the judge a perfectly acceptable legitmate usage of P2P than posting the oral arguments on a P2P system.
Caution: Contents under pressure
It all depends upon which jurisdiction you are operating in, but generally speaking everywhere recognises 'fair use' provisions which would make your first scenario legal provided no one else d/loaded the MP3s. If someone else did d/load the tracks and you don't have permission from the copyright holder then you are guilty of infringing distribution and liable to some fairly serious legal penalties (provided an interested party can be bothered to sue you for it). Note that if you were in Canada (rather than, say, the US) you would be covered by the media levy for copyright holders they have their and your distribution would be kosher - I have no idea if this would apply if you were to distribute to someone outside Canada however.
The second scenario would follow the first insofar as distribution is concerned, but some jurisdictions (notably the US with the DMCA) make it an offence to bypass or crack DRM. In which case you could find yourself liable for circumventing the DRM even if you were in the clear with respect to distributing copyrighted material.
Regards Luke
#include witty_one_liner.h
So use Bittorrent. Does a damn fine job. Or grab it from your friends FTP. Or hell, contact one of the various companies out there that'll send you a cheap CD-R copy for $smallnum.00
Linux has substantial legal usage.
A VCR has substantial legal usage.
In many areas, lockpicking tools don't. Thus you have to be licensed. In others, slimjims are banned entirely. Sure both have legal uses (unlocking things you own,) but people found that their main use tended to be theft (picking other peoples locks to take their valuables/cars,) which is why the above happened.
I'm personally of the opinion that the P2P networks are simply a slimjim for copyrighted works. You can trade files P2P using FTP, HTTP, and IRC (even bittorrent) all of which have very substantial non-infringing uses.
Sure you can't easily find the latest warez, mp3s, DVD rips and cracked games, but hey, isn't that what all this is about?
This is just beautiful. A judge finally recognizes the true nature of the situation. Their rights to control & restrict certain I.P. are unnatural and statutory. The limitations placed on citizens are enacted in law and are specific. RIAA et.al. are running around calling everyone a thief for doing what comes easily and naturally as a progression of technology, when infact this is just not against the law. An activity should not automatically be defined as criminal just because a bunch of incumbent monopolists don't like the consequences and the judge is right to tell this lawyer to cut the invective.
Includes the exact quote from the judge:
Good to see at least one judge "gets it".Actually, the 9th Circuit has some rather astute judges. One is Alex Kozinski - an unofficial website of him is here - it lists some of his writings. One is Real nerds don't buy computers. They make them. Apparently, he is also a gaming reviewer.
Of course, those who pay attention to the FSF will not find this to be news. The FSF has discussed this misframing of the debate for some time now:
RMS has also been clear about this issue in his talks. He also takes on the misframing of the issue in the phrase "intellectual property", giving credit to GNU when discussing the variant of the GNU OS featuring the Linux kernal, saying "commercial" software to refer to non-free software, and distinguishing between the open source and free software movements.
Digital Citizen