RIAA, MPAA Ask High Court To Review P2P Decision

The Hobo writes "It's official: Hollywood studios and record companies on Friday asked the United States Supreme Court to overturn a controversial series of recent court decisions that have kept file-swapping software legal." (Previous /. coverage here.)

Comments

INDUCE Act

[PigeonGB]

The INDUCE Act is related and should be a concern as well. Check out http://www.eff.org for more info on this bill making its way through the Senate.

Re:It might get heard.

[dgatwood]

The 9th circuit is also the circuit that most frequently gets reviewed by the Supreme Court, largely because they see the most cutting-edge, controversial cases. In terms of overturned cases, though, only about 51% get overturned, about the same as almost every other circuit. Thus, you might make the argument that it is the most overturned court because their rulings are "wacky", but you would be wrong.

In fact, as a percentage of total cases reviewed, the 5th circuit (Texas/Louisiana/Mississippi) is the most overturned circuit, not the 9th, coming in at about 60% of heard cases overturned.

Re:Pro-copyright arguments - do they hold water?

[gbnewby]

A good question is whether shared items are copyrighted, and if they are whether they're licensed for redistribution (as is often the case for individual artists & writers), and if they are copyrighted and not licensed does the RIAA/MPAA legally represent the copyright holder (if not, it's MYOB under Title 17 U.S.C.).

Project Gutenberg contributed an amici brief with Prelinger & the Internet Archive. We welcome the opportunity to show how the use of p2p for legitimate copyright-free works has grown since we wrote the brief (and it was large then, already).

With the help of Magnetlinks (an open standard), all of the Gutenberg content is now available for direct download to enabled p2p programs via the Gutenberg search page. This is very cool, and helps our free eBooks to get around. If you use p2p software, consider sharing Project Gutenberg content in your "shared items" location.

On a somewhat different note, to anticipate a frequent /. contribution: it is still quite unclear whether individual readers (or listeners) violate copyright when they view/read an item for personal non-commercial use in many situations. For example, if you own a print copy of Orwell's 1984 and are in the US (where it's still copyrighted), is it legal for you to view the online copy of 1984 from Project Gutenberg of Australia? Or, if you are in Holland, can you view James Joyce's Ulysses from Project Gutenberg even though it still has copyright protection in life+70 countries? What if you already own a copy of the book? The core issue, yet to be decided for any media I can think of, is what happens when you purchase an "item" - did you purchase a right to use the item in various forms, or some piece of plastic or dead tree? The MPAA/RIAA & like-minded companies want all the benefits, so that if you lose your dead tree you need to buy another one (because you don't have the rights to the intellectual creation, just the crud it was printed on), but if you want to put a CD on your MP3 player you can't (because you own the piece of plastic, not a license to the music). The intersection between fair use, licensing and Title 17 (particularly the DMCA extensions) has not been addressed fully, and overlaps with issues like the applicability of EULAs. There's lots of work yet to be done.

Re:Finally

[danheskett]

This isn't bad. If the Court refuses to hear the case then the current ruling will work its way through different federal courts until (1) there a consenus on the side of file swappers or (2) there is a disagreemnet where at least one court disagrees with a peer or lower court. At that point the Court will either hear the case, or decline.

The only way this can be bad for fileswapping is if the Court hears the case and reverses the Betamax decision.

Re:Look, it's simple...

[nsayer]

It's called the `DAT tax'

It's more properly called the Audio Home Recording Act. It is the giant upon whose shoulders the DMCA is perched. At the time it was passed, it did not get nearly the outrage and attention it should have (that does not imply that it didn't get tons of both - it did, but passed anyway). It was the mechanism by which the Rio got hassled (the Rio escaped by the skin of its parallel cable - the fact that it was a computer peripheral was all that spared it). The AHRA, I believe, is every bit as horrible as INDUCE threatens to be today.

Re:Law is not C++

[elegie]

With P2P services, those who produce the software are not able to effectively control the content upon the services. The original Napster service was in a position to exert control because all communications relied on its central location. A P2P service could have a license agreement prohibiting illegal uses, but there would be no way for the makers of the software to enforce that agreement except by tracking down individual users. Should they be required to do that? The P2P manufacturer could add copy protection technologies (which might become outdated quickly) but there would be the same problem with people defeating them. In any case, copy protection would likely not be compatible with FOSS P2P software. If there was a P2P feature with absolutely no significant non-infringing purpose, then liability just might be considered. However, it should be noted that the fact P2P is decentralized has legitimate reasons: privacy (consider leaked documents about wrongdoing), efficiency (sharing the load), and reliability (no central control that can fail or be attacked.)

Consider the Freenet service which is said to be difficult to use but extremely resistant to being censored. It is said the service cannot enforce copyright and protect free speech at the same time. The emphasis of the project is to protect free speech although the service is likely used for illegal activities by some (not all) as well. The issue of illegal P2P usage i.e. illegal porn is mentioned, but it is said that people should not be denied certain freedoms because a few individuals might misuse those freedoms. Incidentally, some of the uses of Freenet (and its likely goal) are much more serious than enjoying the latest music. It is said that the Freenet software is used in China to evade official censorship, for instance.

It is interesting that there was a case with the Madster (formerly called Aimster) service. That service appeared to be centralized, but encryption was used for the communications. This meant that the communications could not be monitored for wrongdoing. However, individuals using the service might well have wanted privacy when communicating. In the end, the service came under fire. There was no evidence of significant non-infringing use. Of course, with the communications encrypted, there was no way for the service to accurately determine how much use was or was not infringing.