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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.)
It was in the BetaMax case. Very simply, a company cannot be held responsible for illegal activity if the product has legal purposes. I think going after the individual file swappers made a lot more sense (although I have issues with the shotgun approach they are using). In any court case, someone doesn't get their way. The RIAA and MPAA have to decide... are the users at fault or are the tools at fault? They can't have it both ways!
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
In a joint petition to the Supreme Court, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said that letting the lower court rulings stand would badly undermine the value of copyrighted work.
And I say that the changes to copyright law have made copyrighted works worth more for longer than they should be. It's just as ridiculous.
"These companies have expressly designed their businesses to avoid all legal liability, with the full knowledge that over 90 percent of the material traversing their applications belongs to someone else," MPAA Chief Executive Dan Glickman said in a statement.
Sounds like any business out there. Being able to avoid getting in trouble when their product fucks up. Isn't that what lawyers are for?
"That case was based on the principles established in the 1984 Betamax case, which has led to the largest and most profitable period of technological innovation in this country's history. Consumers, industry and our country have all benefited as a result."
Exactly. Current law (and the DMCA) have stiffled innovation as everyone is fearful of being sued. Let's end this non-sense and let the corporations realize that they cannot buy everyone.
If P2P is made illegal, then a lot of other tools should be made illegal.
Here is a short list: Guns, hammers, rocks, knives, forks, spoons, sporks, drills, axes, saws, chainsaws, javelins, baseballs, Windows, Linux, Office, pillows, electronic devices, sheets, bath tubs, lawn mowers, mail boxes, etc.
What do they all have in common with P2P? They all have legitimate uses because they are simply tools, but at the same time they can also be used for crime.
"BEHOLD, CORN!!" - Dr. Weird, ATHF
I don't understand how things would change if, somehow, they would win their case. OK, P2P apps are declared illegal. Majority of people who trade on these networks already know it's illegal, and do it anyway. Sure, it'll let them sue the p2p apps developpers... but they should know it's the modern version of Hydra : you cut off a head, it grows up 2 better ones. Do they really think they can get out of this without changing their (failing) business model? At least they seem to get the message lately, with all the online music stores... at last.
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More seriously, I'm not sure what they might do with this, but their recent Mickey Mouse decision doesn't make it look very encouraging.
See what I've been reading.
I'm only stealing what I would have never paid for anyway.
Learn About Outsourcing. http://www.pioutsource.com
The courts are ruling correctly.
What's the real reason that everyone flocks to KaZaA and Morpheus, despite the Virus, Worm and other dangers there? Because, MUSIC CDs ARE TOO DAMNED EXPENSIVE!
Rather than subvert Copyright Law to their will, these folks ought to look at lowering their level of greed, so that people might be inclined to purchase a CD rather than steal one. Once you've stolen one, what's another 50 or so?
The Movie industry caught on. I think its amazing that a movie DVD costs only twice what a Music CD does. A Music CD involves just a fraction of a fraction of the production costs -- a fraction of a fraction of the investment that a typical movie does.
When Music CDs start selling for $2, the piracy issue will only be a nuisance. I know plenty of people selling downloaded music CDs for $5 each and making a small fortune. How many are they gonna be selling if they can only get 50 cents?
If you're competing in a marketplace, and you don't respond well to competition, the courts can't come to your rescue -- that's not their job.
Let's just hope the Legislators in DC don't get the idea to help ...
My affinity for hyperbole knows no bounds
Now, if you want to change the rules, fine. If enough people agree, they'll change. But stop breaking the rules for and then casting yourself as a persecuted party. It's intellectually lazy and a cop out.
I think Rosa Parks would disagree with you.
Perhaps comparing the civil rights movement with copyright is a bit of a stretch, but I think the example still stands.
I do not feel I am under any obligation to follow 'rules' that I consider wrong. Of course, I consider murder, fraud, and robbery wrong. Most of things on my "that is wrong" index are in agreement with societies. However, I do not think "breaking the rules" when the rules are wrong is intellectually lazy, or a cop out.
Another application I've seen is an article I received the other day, about the BBC using BitTorrent to distribute programming to viewers (http://www.hyperreal.org/~mpesce/fbm.html).
Store
Retrieve
Burn to CD
and Listen to MP3 files. As well as:
Execute all the P2P programs available
which are likely Written using MS development tools.
There are probably people out there that have only bought computers with MS software on them for the sole purpose of connecting to the Internet to download free music.
None of this would be possible without Microsoft's enabling software. After all, I locate and download my illegal P2P software using Microsoft Internet Explorer, and run it all under Microsoft Windows.
My first point is that these attacks against P2P software companies seem exceptionally selective. If this was a true attack against the enablers of this technology, then Microsoft is the biggest infringer. And they get a complete pass on this.
On the more serious note my second point is, there are certainly a lot of other people who want to determine what you are allowed to write and run on your own d@mn PC (or Mac).
All this violates my overall sense of fairness and individual rights!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
- Actually the RIAA was the one who claimed it was ok to make copies of CDs to give away to your friends. To do so on a scale that Napster was able to make possible made them change their position. The RIAA was the one who changed the rules here.
Actually, they didn't. They said they couldn't police such small scale sharing and thus wasn't going to even try. Read the actual copyright notice on your CDs; most will explicitly prohibit even loaning the physical disc to anyone else.Napster was not sharing to one's friends. It was sharing with anyone and everyone who asked without restriction or limit. There is a line, and Napster was out arround Pluto beyond it.
How many digital cameras are used for producing porn? How many registered domain names are used for porn?
How many handguns are used (as in fired and hit something living) for hunting or self defense versus committing a crime?
How much marijuana is (debatably) purchased according to state laws versus illegally purchased in states that have legal uses?
How many people are killed by drunk drivers? Beaten by drunken spouses? How many people are really better off after a few drinks?
What's the point of making nicotine a legal drug?
How in hell is it legal for the fast food industry to sell us the unhealthy crap they do but an elderly person with a terminal illness can be court ordered to take medication to prolong his life|suffering?
I'm not refuting/supporting the implications of your question, but trying to show that without a MUCH broader context, the question cannot have much meaning. In fact, I'm inclined to agree that P2P filesharing is on shaky ground based on its "legitimate use", but then so are handguns and liquor. The bigger question, to me, is why this ought to be even considered at the federal level.
If you made a product out of coathangers, and it turned out that people discovered that they could replicate your product with their own coathangers, is it right to get a federal law preventing people from bending coathangers?
I'm more than happy to pay for copyright media if I feel like I'm getting a fair value. Throughout the whole MPAA/RIAA/P2P controversy, I've continued to buy plenty of DVDs but not a single CD. I really thought about getting The Roots latest CD, but since that group makes such a fuss about P2P crap like hookers for their record label, I just downloaded it instead. I'll still go see them live, though.
Blah, anyway, I got Columbus Day off, sat home drinking beer, and wrote a rambling 5 page response to a 2 sentence Slashdot post. How about you?
Now, things like the DMCA have changed the rules for digital media. I think it's still legal to take a cassette tape and copy somebody else's CD , tape or record, but I'm not sure if it's legal to make a copy digitally, like make an mp3 of somebody else's CD (or even tape or record) anymore. I suspect it still is, though I'm sure the RIAA wouldn't agree.
The usual reason for the special treatment for digital media is that `digital copies are just like the original' ... and I guess in some cases that's true, but in many cases it's not. An mp3 of a CD is not the same as the CD itself, though the mp3 can be copied (if done properly) through many generations with no further loss of quality, and that's what they claim to be afraid of.
Of course, the RIAA IS getting paid. If you copy a CD onto an Audio CD, the RIAA gets a cut. (It's called the `DAT tax'. Google is your friend if you've never heard of it.) I guess they're just not getting paid enough ...
The courts (and juries) are perfectly capable of distinguishing between WWW/FTP/Windows/VCRs and Kazaa, in spite of the fact that they serve logically equivilent purposes.
The difference is intent, and the difference is how the software is used, both as perceived by a reasonable person.
The web isn't, by and large, almost entirely composed of attempts to infringe copyrights. Neither is Windows, nor is FTP.
90% of existing P2P is. And I bet you'd have a really hard time convincing a jury that it wasn't designed with that in mind (first of all, all of Slashdot would be subpoena'd as evidence to the contrary).
And, frankly, neither were VCRs. The vastly overwhelming usage of VCRs was and is not to infringe copyright, but to make (at least reasonably) fair use of copyrighted materials. You really don't see (and never have seen) people using VCRs to make 1000s of copies of the 6 O'Clock News and give it to 1000s of people they don't know.
Don't get complacent.
Copyright by the way had a limit of 14 years with a possible additional 14 year extension and was only created to further innovation by allowing artists and authors to profit for a time from their work before it entered into the public domain, which is where any released work went prior to these laws. It had a limited scope in order to foster creativity and the advancement of science.
If the original laws stood unaltered we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. the volumes of information that should be rolling into the public domain and the value that information holds for the advancement of American culture and for the advancement both culturally and technologically of the entire world is immeasurable. That information is ours and it's been stolen for no other reason than to protect Mickey Mouse from imitators.
My keyboads not woking popely.
The problem arises from the RIAA not knowing what it is that they sell. Do they sell the CD? If so I should be able to loan it out whenever I choose to whomever I choose. Or do they sell the license? In this case only I may listen to my CD, however the CD were to break, or become obsolete, I should recieve a free replacement with whatever the current medium is.
RIAA and the MPAA, putting the "F U" in "fair use".
Thus they only need to state that they represent the "copyright-owning" party, and not that an actual copyright violation is taking place under penalty of perjury.
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
Are you just too young to remember the idiotic refrain "America: Love it or Leave it!" repeated by jingoistic supporters of the ill conceived (and ill fated) US involvement in Vietnam? Because you've managed to reinvent it, albeit in a considerably less catchy phraseology.
There are not "lots of societies on this planet to choose from." One needs the wherewithal to relocate to some hypothetical other society, and that society's approval of one's immigration.
So, no the argument that there exists some sort of implied social contract is just an attempt to make the lack of any real choice look like consent. Most of us obey the law because we were born into the society in which we live, subject to mostly preexisting laws. We have neither the means not the legal right to relocate to some hypothetical other society.
Arguing that individuals have some responsibility because we live in a representative republic would ring more true if we didn't also live in a country where Presidential elections can be stolen by recourse to a corrupt Supreme Court - two of the justices, Thomas and Scalia, who voted for Bush had substantial interests in the outcome of the case, and so, under federal law, should have recused themselves.