Grokster Decision Won't Stop RIAA, MPAA Suits

akahige writes "According to this Reuters article, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the operators of Grokster and StreamCast are not liable for copyright infringement. On the other hand the *AA is appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, and has no intention of ceasing litigation against these or other P2P services. Next up, eDonkey. If ever there was a case where voting with your dollar made sense it was this one -- but too many people just can't get enough of Britney." We mentioned the court's decision a few days ago; this article stresses that the industry is gung ho to overturn it, and that this decision covers only part of the case.

Comments

Rather than voting with your dollar...

[TWX]

...try bugging the crap out of your representatives. Work to get copyright law changed. If enough people bug their senators and representatives they'll be forced to take some kind of action lest they be concerned with losing a re-election bid. As for this current situation, the Court has already ruled in the past that items, devices, and systems that have a legitimate use are legal, even if there are illegal uses for them. This is part of why they can't bust someone for drug paraphernelia unless they have actual drugs on them, because scales, paper, and the like all have legitimate uses. VCRs are legal even though they can be used to record copyrighted TV shows and copyrighted movies because they serve to allow consumers to legally view movies and tape shows for later review. The Court has already given its opinion that since Grokster is a filesharing service, not a specific music service, that it is theoretically allowing anyone to share or exchange any kind of content, and that users who abuse the law are the problem, not the existence of the software that technically as a side effect allows them to do this. P2P might be most heavily used by people downloading that which is copyrighted and not licensed for their use, but people do exchange legitimate stuff, therefore it should pass that test.

Re:"Vote With Your Dollar?"-The Pity defense.

[orthogonal]

organizations like NOW and the sierra club are near the pinnacle of human hypocrisy. They are morons if the think they're saving the planet/life. Life has survived long before humans, it will survive long after.

Well yes.

That's exactly the point: the Sierra Club and other organizations to protect the environment are trying to prevent us from destroying the environment to such an extent that human life is put at threat.

Supporting such organizations is almost entirely selfish: global warming and fresh water depletion threaten all human life on this planet. Understand that when the ocean encroaches on Holland and Bangladesh and coastal India, when fresh water depletion brings about famine in Iran and Pakistan, these peoples will not go gently into that good night.

And these peoples who will rage against the dying of their light, all have access to modern military weapons, in some cases including nuclear weapons.

So what do you expect will happen? Faced with starvation or homes inking beneath the waves, millions of people will be looking for new homes and fresh water and food. They won't be humbly petitioning you, "guv'nor can you spare a dime". No, they'll be showing up on your doorstep with machetes, Colt '45s, and cruise missiles to persuade you -- or their neighbors -- to share.

At best, you can expect environmental crashes to mean a greatly reduced standard of living for you as the world adjusts to waves of crop failure and famine. And even as your standard of living declines, as long as your world includes a TV and car and a personal computer and a PS/2 for each person, the guy living in a hut in a village that shares one TV among all inhabitants will look on with envy, and wonder if he's be better off with 72 virgins in Paradise after blowing himself up along with you.

At worst, a nice upstanding Dutch burgher will have to decide between seeing you survive or seeing his kids survive, and six million years of human fratricide bets that, nice as that Dutchman is today, he'll choose for his kids -- just as you'll choose for yours.

Melvin Konner, in the revised (and almost entirely re-written) edition of his classic book subtitled "Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit", The Tangled Wing, explains that (emphasis orthogonal's)

United Nations assessments [at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro environmental summit, 12 years ago!] found a continuing loss of topsoil and productive farmland and a growing scarcity of fresh water. In the late nineties a third of the world's people had inadequate fresh water, and this is expected to double to two-thirds by 2020.

Many future wars will be fought over water.

Like you, I was always somewhat contemptuous of "save the environment" activists, until I read about the numerous deserts created by man throughout prehistory, the Near East, in Americas (as by the Anasazi Indians), in the Pacific on Easter Island. Jared Diamond writes movingly -- even shockingly -- about this in several of his books, and in this article (emphasis orthogonal's)

The fifteenth century marked the end not only for Easter's palm but for the forest itself. Its doom had been approaching as people cleared land to plant gardens; as they felled trees to build canoes, to transport and erect statues, and to burn; as rats devoured seeds; and probably as the native birds died out that had pollinated the trees' flowers and dispersed their fruit. The overall picture is among the most extreme examples of forest destruction anywhere in the world: the whole forest gone, and most of its tree species extinct.

The destruction of the island's animals was as extreme as that of the forest: without exception, every species of native land bird became extinct. Even shellfish were overexploited, until people had to settle for small sea snails instead of larger cowries. Porpoise bones disappeared abru

Re:"Vote With Your Dollar?"

[h4rm0ny]

Just an unexplained dropoff in purchases will, as you suggest, be explained by the RIAA in such a manner as to demonize their opponents.

The RIAA however, may still realize the truth themselves, irregardless of what they put in their press releases. And more to the point, so may the labels that comprise it.

A boycott comes much more naturally however, when people can move to an alternative. I've started buying music from smaller labels more often. Have a look at Magnatune I also like being able to buy individual songs from iTunes. If the money stays in the public's pockets, that's one thing. If they see it going to someone else they'll change their tune pretty quick.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't spot that pun until I'd hit preview. Honest...