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Mark Cuban to fund Grokster vs. MGM case.
Deadric writes "According to Mark Cuban's latest blog entry, he will help fund the Grokster vs. MGM case, which threatens to destroy the Betamax shield."
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I hope he doesn't make it into a reality series.
a billionaire who owns the dallas mavericks, even i know this and i'm finnish!
You can see what he has done in nearly every business he has run. He has made it work, made it run smooth and gotten a lot of money for it when he sold it off. He took the mavericks and made them into a contending team instead of a team that never had a chance of making the playoffs let alone winning anything.
Its nice to see him getting in on this. He might be goofy and really into himself, but he is good at winning.
I think he started Broadcast.com or something and sold it to Yahoo for a gajillion dollars. Then he bought a basketball team and other stuff and laughed when all the people that didn't use their boom money lost it.
The Betamax shield doesn't necessarily fit the circumstances. With the analog VCR tech, there are generational losses and the machines aren't conducive to easy affordable mass-distribution because of their 1x record rates. One reason SCOTUS gave Betamax their blessings was that people at the time weren't trying to build libraries of videos, but rather watch TV shows at a more convenient time, but my impression of P2P users is that they are trying to build libraries, and of material that wasn't necessarily licenced for broadcast anyway. Even when the material was licenced for broadcast, the ads are often removed.
With P2P, there are no generational losses and it doesn't require any money other than a working computer and an internet connection to distribute as many infringing copies as the user likes.
I am not a technology owner.
;)
I call bullshit.
The coolest voice ever.
This is not the editors' best work.
Spelling errors intact from his blog(I added the bold) :
So , the real reason of this blog. To let everyone know that the EFF and others came to me and asked if I would finance the legal effort against MGM. I said yes. I would provide them the money they need. So now the truth has been told. This isnt the big content companies against the technology companies. This is the big content companies, against me. Mark Cuban and my little content company. Its about our ability to use future innovations to compete vs their ability to use the courts to shut down our ability to compete. its that simple
Dood wants to be a Hero - the Benefactor, the Mavericks, this guy is desperate for attention - not that I don't mind his neurosis helping protect my freedoms.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
Its MGM v. Grokster, not Grokster v. MGM. The way it currently reads in the summary, it gives the strong impression that Grokster is suing MGM and that Mark Cuban is defending MGM.
Its always Plaintiff v. Defendant, NEVER the other way around.
The
I don't know about the USA, but in England it has long been held that a manufacturer of a kitchen knife cannot be held responsible for a murder carried out using the knife.
One reason SCOTUS gave Betamax their blessings was that people at the time weren't trying to build libraries of videos, but rather watch TV shows at a more convenient time
...the court recognized that there were people who did this, who probably were in violation of copyright law. An actual infringement is one of the requirements for contributory infringement. What they decided was that the potential illegal uses did not negate the tool's legal uses.
There is no way to rule against Grokster without violating the Betamax shield. Essentially, a tool has legal and illegal uses (specific circumvention tools like DeCSS might not fall under this, but otherwise the Betamax shield is wide). Can we punish the producers because a significant amount of the population chooses to break the law, using their tools?
If so, I would like to see the class action suit against Ford, Mazda, Chevrolet, Toyota, Hyundai, BMW et al for creating tools of speeding. At least around here, official numbers say 90%+ speed at times (and the rest are probably liars). You can fine the perp, but you don't punish the toolmaker.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't know about the USA, but in England it has long been held that a manufacturer of a kitchen knife cannot be held responsible for a murder carried out using the knife.
In the USA, we use guns to irresponsibly kill each other. Only in rural and/or southern regions does the concept of a special "kitchen gun" make sense. Now you know!
not their best work?
you must be new here
this IS as good as it gets around here!
Betamax was never questioned in the case.
The original case went to a summary judgement over two laws: contributory infringement [A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. (114 F. Supp. 2d)], and vicarious infringement [Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc. (76 F.3d 262)].
In the original case, the judge notes during sumamry judgement that Grokster found a loophole in copyright law, which allowed them to dance around the conditions needed for contributory and vicarious infringement.
The language currently being used for this loophole is "willful blindness".
Who the fuck are the Dallas Mavericks?
Soccer team or something?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Living in Texas I've known several people over the years that have known Mr. Cuban. No matter which one you talk to they all say the same thing. He's a realy down to earth guy that hasn't let all the money and power get to him. It seems that if he sees something he likes, he makes it succeed, AND still manages to make money off of it too. So rock on Mark, because you're doing one hell of a job.
Keep Austin Weird!
Copyrights and patents are derived from article I clause 8 of the constitution. That could be changed, but not by everyone standing together and telling the goverment anything, you'd need an amendment. Of course, without copyright, there would be no recognition, any corporation could jack open source code & use for their own purposes without attributing any author (only the excercise of copyright via GPL, BSD license, etc. prevents that now). Most artists, inventors, software and authors would not go for this, I'd bet less than 10% of the populace wants what you want. Also, the goverment and most people would have a huge problem with you copying money, electronic funds transfer keys, nuclear launch codes, credit card numbers, etc. However, there are places on this earth where you can copy as you please; I've been to some of those places. if you live in such a place you'll be wanting to keep your self defense skills honed and carry weapons at all times, lack of regard for life seems to go hand in hand for places that have lack of regard for personal or intellectual property.
P2P networks are copyright neutral -- anything can go over the network.
Note that the same applies to the Internet itself, and to a plethora of its components: Routers, TCP, FTP, cabling, webservers, etc.
There is good reason to believe that a vast majority of the traffic on the Internet is "pirated" copyrighted material. If the movie, music, and broadcast industry conglomerates can use a "mostly used for piracy" argument to shut down one application or one protocol, they can use the same argument to shut down ANY or ALL of them.
The entertainment conglomerates would LOVE to have the Internet go away. (Some of them even flamed it systematically as it was catching on. Some of them still do.) It pulls eyeballs from their products and is thus perceived as cutting into their revenue.
Remember that the Internet itself was designed as a peer-to-peer system - an interconnection of a vast network of endpoints that exchange information. The perception of it as a client-server, vendor-customer network (like, say, a broadcast medium) is an illusion, created by three factors:
- The enormous success of a few client-server apps, such as the web, (where the servers are usually run by a corp or institution),
- the rise of ISPs (with terms of service discouraging consumer-grade customers from hosting servers), and
- the shortage of IPv4 address (leading to workarounds such as dynamic address allocation and NAT, which also impeed hosting a server on a consumer-grade connection).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way