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Grokster Wins Big in Ninth Circuit
The Importance of writes "Grokster has won big in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Read the decision: [PDF]. It is a very strong decision, basically bringing the Sony-Betamax decision into the modern age. Of course, the decision does make it clear that if Congress wants to change the law, they can (cough*INDUCE Act*cough). Read the whole thing, the actual opinion is only 18 single-column pages. See also, commentary from Jason Schultz, Ernest Miller, Cory Doctorow, and Ed Felten. And don't forget to thank EFF."
Wasn't 9th the most overturned appeals court?
The owls are not what they seem
First of all, the technology in question must be equally available for non-infringing uses. Napster wasn't. It was specifically designed for MP3 trading, and that's the big reason why it got smacked.
Secondly, the court decision clearly leaves the door open for Congress to take up the matter. They feel that the court is not able to make decisions about new tech (what they call 'Art') - that's Congress' job. Think they won't be listening to Big Music's dollars? You bet your ass they will.
Look at the constant extension of copyright in the case of interests like Disney. If Mickey Mouse's copyright gets extended any further they might as well just say, 'Infinity + 1' and be done with it.
Finally, this still won't prevent you from getting sued by the music and movie industries for sharing their material. All this does is postphone the final decision on PtoP. The question is whether or not Congress will limit the technology to non-infringing uses (almost impossible to do), or ban it altogether (more likely - it's easier).
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
"From the advent of the player piano, every new means of reproducing sound has struck a dissonant chord with musical copyright owners, often resulting in federal litigation."
Get down with the catchy metaphor...I like it.
Is this normal style in opinions or is this rare?
EULA's are binding?
Tell ya what. Next time you buy a piece of software, open yer favorite hex editor and change the EULA to: "1. The company who produced this software package will pay 4 billion USD for installing this software package."
Save the binary and install the package. Now, since you didn't agree to said EULA when you purchaced the software package, you are only bound by the laws of copyright. Under those laws, you are allowed to modifiy that which you purchace, as long as you do not distribute. If the software company's no-longer-existing EULA is binding, then so is yours.
Think about that for a second.
--Demonspawn
Orrin Hatch wants to destroy your computer in order to please his friends (read campaign contributors) in the recording and movie industry. This particular reactionary thought it might be a good idea for those who feel their copyright is being infringed by these decentralized perr-to-peer networks ought to be legally able to write virus code that will destroy users' computers.
On the other hand there's Elliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York who found that many artists and writers were not being paid royalties because record companies had failed to maintain contact with the performers and had stopped making required payments.
I have a very good friend who is a CPA and worked as an auditor for a large CPA firm here in NYC. One particularly famous rock band from Long Island (long since broken up) had a member not too long ago who ran into a rather obnoxious member of the press (read papparizzi) who shoved him, then sued him when he struck back (he only hit him because he was trying to recover hos balance, honest).
The band member contacted their lawyer, who he had not spoken to for years due to the band's breakup. The lawyer told him that it would cost $5,000 to represent him and when could he expect the check?
The former rocker's answer was, "But I'm broke!
The lawyer rummaged around a bit and pulled out a standard contract which has a paragraph indicating that the band may audit the record company's books at any time and that the expense must be borne by the recording company if the band felt that there was any malfeasance.
The lawyer then asked the band member when the last time he had received a royalty check was.
The band member recalled the last one came in (and was all-too quickly spent) seven years before.
The lawyer suggested that the band had a strong case for malfeasance, as he, himself had seen someone purchase a CD of the band's music himself within the last year. My friend (the CPA) was hired and they found that the company typically under-reported album (later CD) sales when the band was active by 20%. Additionally, the recording company was on the hook for seven years of pretty good sales of the CDs made by the band as well as one anthology that the record company had produced that the band didn't know about.
This gave the band enough cash to put a little away in investments and also to initiate a comeback tour that was quite successful in both raising quick cash from venues as well as increasing their CD sales.
The RIAA says that the sales of CDs are dropping and that it's caused by peer networks. The movie industry said that fewer people were going to the movies and were purchasing videos and laserdiscs (later DVDs) because of home copying and later peer networks. I just cannot believe these theves.
Could the real reason why they say their sales are down be because they are underreporting sales in order to screw artists? Or is it that the current distribution model prevents anything compelling to the audience from ever being released? I wonder as I watch all of the caterwauling about copyright. Could it be that the only revenue stream they can come up with is through litigation instead of developing and releasing compelling content?
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.