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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.
Yeah, like that would work. Every boycotted sale is another that is claimed the result of piracy.
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.
These rulings may weaken the case of the MPAA and RIAA if they get to the point of getting to a court, but I suspect their whole idea of litigation is much like the threats against individuals - no matter if they had a solid case against the MPAA/RIAA, just going through those motions would cost more than settling, so they'll push operators into a settlement under *AA terms.
As far as I know, none of the individuals that the RIAA/MPAA have "sued" ended up actually being sued, just settling due to the threats.
Is this what the MPAA/RIAA are doing now, despite the court's decision that p2p operators are not liable for copyright infringement?
You'd almost think these two associations would rather spend money figuring out how to intice people to pay money for something through a new business model instead of futilely throwing it away sueing your customers and not really putting much of a dent in peoples P2P ways. Besides, the question isn't did you break the law today but rather how many laws did you break today?
Nothing to worry! When one P2P goes down, there'll always be another. People get busted for drugs all the time, and yet I am always well supplied with pot. Thats the way the black market works :D
The real path to male liberation
Why not just fund your own shitty record company, then find people that have copies of your artists in unprotected ('shared') folders available via ftp, or http. Then sue Microsoft, because they make Internet Explorer, and the DOS FTP client. You can even produce a lot of data to turn heads, i'm sure 99.9% of all illegal software distributed around the world in the past 10 years was sent via FTP --It must be stopped!!
Or turn it into another suite based on the same principals. Sue Grokster because they are facilitating in the trade of child pornography, or sue M$ because people use IE for the same..
Chances are that the appeal to SCOTUS has a relatively low probability of success, but you can't fault the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/IDSA/Insert_Copyright_Fascist_Group_ Here from trying. Unlike the average joe, the trade associations are not crippled by throwing another lawyer or two towards their political agenda. And considering the stakes, and that they really have nothing to lose, an appeal to the Supreme Court is practically a certainty.
The INDUCE act is a far larger threat. The very existence of this act, and the fact that it has influential support amongst key senators, shows how true the statement "political representation is isomorphic to money" actually is. The INDUCE act is designed to overturn the Sony Betamax case-- the very case that the Grokster decision was based upon. It would be a big mistake if this major decision was overturned-- Innovation in technology and culture will simply occur outside the United States and its draconian Copyright regime-- if such events have not started to occur already.
Am I the only one who thinks that the subpoena powers granted to the RIAA are too broad? If a crime has been committed, fine. Then let the F.B.I. handle it and let the courts issue subpoenas where necessary. How in hell did private citizens come to be a the mercy of a trade group? I don't download files off Kazaa or anything, but nor do I like the idea of the RIAA being able to spy on people at its leisure. If there's need of an electronic wiretap, then let the Feds get a warrant for it. But this business of them serving subpoenas to whomever they like makes a complete mockery of the right to privacy. We have police agencies to investigate alleged criminal offenses. Since when did we start bypassing them for the convenience of big business?
...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.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Anymore, whenever I buy a DVD or CD, I make a point to buy it used, from places like Amazon. So far I'be bought several used movies that way and the quality has been all but indistinguishable from new. Just remember, every penny you put into their pockets is another penny that's available to pay their lawyers on this jihad.
Anymore I think of it this way:
- Tickets to Spider-Man 2: MONEY FOR THEIR LAWYERS.
- DVD of xxxxxxxx movie: MONEY FOR THEIR LAWYERS.
- xxxxxxx music CD: MONEY FOR THEIR LAWYERS.
And what galls me the most is that the bastards are probably laughing to themselves that we're so addicted to this stuff that we can't help but pay them to do this. Well I for one have decided, no more. NOT ONE RED CENT.
"Yeah, like that would work. Every boycotted sale is another that is claimed the result of piracy."
And why wouldn't it work. Have you actually tried it? Did you tell them in a written letter why you were boycotting their products. Or were you doing what legions of Slashdotters do? Simply come here and complain. Then wonder why you're getting no results.
How about using that "other" vote. Or are we going to have to put up with another "I'm weak and defenseless. Will someone be my white knight?"
It's already happening: you buy or download a copy of your sleek new OS and the first step is to configure the downoad manager to connect to some ftp mirror in one of the free countries of the world. Do I care that mp3s or css are "protected technologies?" Fuck no - and neither do the people I've helped free themselves from the redmond overlord.
Let'em sue. Won't make a damn bit of difference either way - you think ho-town is going to ignore a few Billion chinese who adopt different technological platforms than those of us in the "civilized" west? You really think Russia or Ukraine or even Poland are going to change their copyright system because the screaming brat in the west says so? Fucking christ, have none of you ever ordered online from an overseas vendor?
Already these nations are becoming less vocal about their EU intents: they've already seen one empire crumble this last century, it doesn't take a genius to see we're legislating ourselves into global irrelevance.
I know a lot of people agree with this, and many people have started petitions and things like that, but we in the "tech" community really need to organize a continuing and consistant lobbyist group to take on the ridiculous and continuing legislation being pushed by many large corporations and organizations who look out for their own interests over technological innovation. It's time we stand up and make our point realized that it isn't the governments job, to create legislation to protect antiquated business systems such as those in place for some of the parties involved with pushing the induce act. Too many people, not just general consumers but media types fail to understand simple things like fair use with regard to copyrighted materials for example, that would allow even copyrighted material to LEGALLY be transmitted via a peer to peer system for example. Just because something is copyrighted doesn't necessarily make any re-distribution of it criminal or piracy. But the RIAA doesn't want you to know that, and thus most people don't. This link from Groklaw should explain a lot of this. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402050 05057966&query=RIAA+
It's time to take action and start lobbying for ourselves. Let others know the legal truths, and don't allow the rules to be changed around us any longer!
Instead of going out and attacking something new and different that you don't understand, like you did with the cassete tape, and how mix tapes off the radio would ruin you, accomodate.
Make a new liscence upon which a file share system can purchace and then share. Make it of a reasonable cost, then hunt down the radicals. Its radio OVER a packet-switched network with a device analagous to the cassete recorder at the end. The entire economy is in a slump, and you are offering what is at times an inferior product. Filesharing may have contributed, but so have you. People might take you seriously if you had more than one reason for the slump, some of which were internal.
Go Mr *AA man and sue to your hearts content. The precedent is there now, and its not in your favor. Find a new way.
Noble stance. However, buying used still benefits the *AA. Every used copy you buy reduces the supply of used copies and can thus boost *AA profits on new copies--either because there are fewer used ones availible (and thus some people buy new instead), or because the used copies are more expensive and therefore new ones can also be sold at a higher price, etc.
It's basic supply/demand economics. If you want to really want to accelerate the *AA's inevitable demise, stop buying their products altogether.
The problem is that it isn't just Britney. You, presumably, are part of the problem, and your attempt to disavow any personal responsibility by pointing to "Britney" fans, is indicative of the prevailing, pathetic attitude.
It's not just the "lame" artists. All artists who have signed contracts with RIAA member studios are guilty, and financially supporting any of them, implicates you too.
I have not and never will knowingly financially support proprietary music. By proprietary, I mean any music for which it is not granted at least those freedoms guarunteed by the GNU GPL for software.
I will not be the fan of any man. But I will gladly partake amongst any as a fellow.
Don't buy into the fan/artist power structure. The only free society is a horizontal society.
Please do yourself a favor and pull your head out of your ass. In case you haven't noticed just about every movie and record album available in the US is published by RIAA or MPAA member companies. Sales of Britney Spears records alone aren't filling the coffers of *AA member companies. This meme is a logical fallasy and a completely ludicrous preposition.
Unfortunately I see this meme perpetuated more and more, people want to equate what is in their opinion bad music with the ridiculous actions of the RIAA. The bands that are cool to like are signed with the same labels as the pop favorites. The same is true of cool movies, they're made and published by the same studios that are responsible for films like Gigli and Kazaam.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Well, I think it would best to start small, I have no artistic talent in the visual sense whatsoever, and while I have a background in journalism, my legalese is severely lacking to adequetely write up goals and agendas. But I have decided to start a Yahoo group, and if enough people are interested in helping from there we can start a site and move on.
When I was writing that post I was thinking about what I could do, but like many of the other people here, I'm just a poor college student with minimal funds and time to spend, however, if enough people put their free time (myself included) towards organizing something we can start a new trend.
Since your suggestion of the name techrally was taken for a Yahoo! Group, I came up with OpenTechnology meaning opening up technology rather than closing it via legal restrictions (this as opposed to the open in open source).
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OpenTechnology/
The group is completely open to anyone with a Yahoo! account who wants to join. Let's try to get organized and see what we can accomplish.
The majority of the people just don't care much about this issue. They know downloading songs and movies is illegal but will keep doing it as long as they feel they can get away with it. When they no longer can they'll stop or find another way of getting the content. Right or wrong, this issue just isn't that big a deal outside of the libertarian /. crowd. Ask a few people outside of your normal crowd. Most of them will probably yawn.
First, IANAL.
In my country (Norway) we have quite good Fair Use laws (y'all will probably remember the "DVD-Jon" case and its positive outcome).
We can:
1. Copy any media (CD, DVD, LP, MC, VHS, whatever) for our own use as much as we want to.
2. Share with family (parents, siblings... maybe 1. cousins but that's it)
3. Share with close friends, and this is interpreted in a strick sense. Your best friend that you grew up with? Sure! Someone from class or a cow-orker? Nope, not close enough.
This complies with my sense of justice pretty well. After all, is it fair use to share your new CD with music with people you meet on the bus?
As a compensation for this, artists get paid from a fund. It's the same fund that was started when MC copying started and is/was funded by sale of empty music cassettes.
I bet that most audio copying today does not go straight to P2P networks. How many of you rip your CDs to a) play them on your DAP (mp3/ogg) player or b) have a copy in your car, but do not put the ripped files on P2P? I bet there are a lot of you out there. Maybe this can be used to make statistics to counter the RIAA drivel.
Any time I rip a CD with CDex, it does a lookup to freecddb.org. There are other services for this, like gracenote and others. We could assume that the total hits to these pages, minus lets say 10%, are legitimate rips of CDs. Then we would have an estimate of the amount of legal (legal as in fair use) ripping out there.
//TheToon
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)
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)
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Well, then they're pretty much screwed even if they can shut down the peer-to-peer networks, then, unless we're going to have DMCA death squads machine gunning face-to-face traders.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
By aggressively targeting unencrypted P2P networks, the RIAA's attempt at halting filesharing, specifically of pirated music, will fail miserably. The reason is simple: more and more users will switch to anonymous and encrypted P2P networks such as bittorrent and WASTE, both of which basically nullify the possibility of lawsuits and make it impossible to track offenders / pirates. I have been at LAN parties where some users have connected to 50-100+ Peer WASTE networks. Unless an insider is present, each user is connected to the network through a PGP style 2048 (or higher) bit key. It is almost impossible without a hell of a lot of, literally, undercover spies (tens of thousands), to break a WASTE network. It's also ridiculously illegal to even attempt to find one. WASTE lets you fill your hard drive with whatever you want without basically any fear of big government or big agencies like the RIAA eavesdropping. By suing users using "lighter" P2P networks, the probability of the RIAA succeeding becomes even lower as more users will simply switch to methods to get files that are untraceable. This is a culmination of the effects of the recording industry first attacking Napster, which used a centralized server method; now users have moved to a decenteralized server method (ALL of the current protocols follow a super-node configuration) which basically means it's impossible, unless a LOT of lawsuits are filed, to halt the network. When the RIAA attempts to stop the third level of file sharing, i.e. completely anonymous and/or encrypted file sharing, it will reach a roadblock that it cannot hurdle over with ANY form of legal action. The RIAA has made two giant mistakes: not embracing Napster, and now not embracing supernode style P2P networks; it is nearing the end of its life and further lawsuits demonstrate that it is only capable of acts of desperation. The end is near for the RIAA as a functional part of the music industry.