Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Takes Hard Look at P2P
Patrick Mannion writes "Supreme Court justices quizzed attorneys for file-swapping software companies and Hollywood studios Tuesday, in a case that will help determine the future of both the technology and entertainment industries. In their questions, the justices were critical of the entertainment industry's proposal, which would hold companies "predominantly" supported by piracy liable for copyright infringement. However, they showed little sympathy for the file-swapping companies' business model."
Indeed, many legal observers say the high court is likely to leave the law largely as is and if it wants a different outcome, to ask Congress to change the copyright law.
http://www.busyweather.com/
But the most popular are - and holding a company responsible for what people do with their legitimate software is wrong. This argument has been made before. No one sues Smith & Wesson because their product was used in a shooting. I think this is good news for P2P.
They could only find 18 singer-songwriters in Nashville that were desperate enough to talk / suck up to big-record-industry people that they'd go to DC? Sounds like a pretty weak group of people to me.
I don't hate musicians, or want them to starve, but I hate the slime they have to deal with now to distribute, and I want those people to starve. Twice.
I'm in favor of the entertainment industry having to undergo monstrously painful changes. From what I can see, many people are - the way it is currently designed is destructive to both society and art as a whole. What we hear and see being run by a bunch of profiteering luddites is completely unappealing to me.
Just thought I'd be one of fifty to present this argument in the next ten minutes.
My little site.
"However, they showed little sympathy for the file-swapping companies' business model." So there is a business model?
"Never trust a computer you can not throw out of a window..."
Darwin, while disputed frequently, did a decent job of proving that which fails to adapt will fade into history. Unfortunately when the times show you have no recourse to stop an action, you will do more damage to yourself to try and hold back the tides.
I anticipate a ruling in favor of file sharing networks. I suspect this ruling primarily because:
Hopefully such a ruling will encourage the RIAA to redefine themselves and evolve into something better
Or at least get rid of a few of the fluff artists.
There's a difference between getting sued and losing a lawsuit. Can you demonstrate one news article of a court deciding that a gun manufacturer was liable for injuries or deaths intentionally caused by use of their products? (Settlements with no admission of responsibility and legitimate products liability lawsuits, such as "I shot your gun at a target and the gun blew up in my hand," do not count.)
as a Hollywood content provider rooting for the p2p networks.
If you look at it from the POV of the businesses, they have these huge organizations where there's massive overhead between the artist and the receiver. Much of this goes to marketing, paying for coffee, internet usage by interns, the like. But the problem is that they all are publicly listed stocks and they have fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make sure they return value. This value of course is reflected in the stock price. These companies are on a hot plate to fix a problem which has been verily disruptive ever since it came into being. In the good ole days, sharing a CD was limited to those who were on solid lists, knew couriers or simply picked a large barrelled pistol and robbed a Tower Records. Nowadays, it's almost an expected experience that people have when they sign onto broadband.
By suing these sharing networks, the industry is trying to alleviate its "systemic" risk, allowing at least perceptions of control to come into play. Albeit this is a false sense of control, Sharman et al couldn't possibly be considered liable for what downloaders of their software do, but they're going to make a case for it regardless.
In a back room somewhere, some finance intern has calculated that by liquidating all these software developers in a successful law suit will apply the current value of those companies and bring the music industry to a break-even point which will in turn allow them to make their stock numbers. Allowing the CEO's and likewise glorified fattened calves to keep their jobs and drive their $100,000 motorcars, live in their million dollar homes, and guarantee their children into Harvard and Yale through endownment donations.
Yay Capitalism.
Is how there is absolutely ZERO discussion of the artists themselves. What do they want? Not even an issue. How can we help make sure they are supported and that we, the labels, can keep them as talent in our stable? Not an issue. And you'd think that second one would be; you'd think that the long term implications of keeping good talent happy and keeping consumers happy and buying would enter this thought process
The term I heard used today was "inducement." Basically, can it be argued that Grokster induces crime. I sure hope this thing is laughed out of court because, while I understand that physical world analogies fail and it's more complicated than a lot of folks will admit, the precedent that would be set if software is found to be inherently criminal would have the potential to set us into a freakin dark ages.
I mean, it's already happening.
I Want To Believe
I have zero sympathy for musicians in this situation. I remember the OLD days when they had to "perform" live to earn a living. Now they complain about not being able to sell retouched recordings from the comfort of their MTV crib jacuzzi's. So pitiful. All this P2P stuff doesn't seem to have made a dent in MTV cribs.
In their questions, the justices were critical of the entertainment industry's proposal, which would hold companies "predominantly" supported by piracy liable for copyright infringement. However, they showed little sympathy for the file-swapping companies' business model."
IANAL, especially not one who brings cases before the supreme court, but of what little I know of judges this isn't a surprise.
I've had a few traffic tickets and I've even taken an old landlord to court. Every one of those judges, fair as they were, were highly critical, probative, and stern in their questioning of both sides. In other words, they were grumpy and downright rude. However, fortunately in my cases, they showed no favoritism to either side and ruled impartially. I expect this behavior they gave to both sides. Hell if you think your case is important enough to take to the surpreme court you damn well better take any kind of rudeness they give you and say "yes your honor may I have another?"
A big part of this is because judges are never trained to be nice. Judges especially, but laywers in general often seem to lack basic courtesies, especially in court. Another large part of it is because the US system is set up as an advesarial system so there's a lot of bad vibes in a court room that would make anyone stressed and grumpy. But the biggest part is they are simply getting down to business and trying to find the facts. Setting both sides on their heels by asking tough questions is how the supreme court works and how they come to the final answer. If you are coming to the highest court in the land you better come prepared with some pretty damn good answers.
Enough media hype of the judicial process... I want to know the answer the surpreme court comes up with!
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
piracy is just people wanting to get stuff for free
The sole purpose of copyright is to increase the amount of material in the public domain. Copyright exists to maximize how much free stuff we can get. When it interferes with free stuff copyright is malfunctioning. It is and needs to be fixed.
Unfortunately, the only tool really before the Court is an overturning of the Betamax doctrine, which was decided with a much more sympathetic defendent.
Or explaining in what way this is different from Betamax. The cases are similar in a general sense (a technology with potential copyright-infringement possibilities but also legitimate uses). But they're different in balance.
The Betamax technology already had a large installed base of users who were using it primarily for time-shifting. Although it could be used to copy movies, it was expensive (it took two VCRs) and the copies were somewhat degraded. It was also really slow, and you couldn't mass-produce copies easily. Sony wasn't making a big profit by supporting illegal copying; banning Betamax would do big harm to Sony and its legitimate customers and little good to the movie producers.
In this case it can be argued that the existing P2P programs are used primarily for copyright infringement. These companies appear to be making their existence largely on the backs of the copyright owners.
I'd hate to see them have to make this distinction, because it causes a lot of grief in the gray areas. BitTorrent in particular has important non-infringing uses, particularly in the distribution of Linux binaries, and nobody's making a profit off BitTorrent even when it's used illegally.
If the court ends up saying, "Grokster illegal, Betamax legal, BitTorrent just barely legal", they're going to have to elucidate some standard for future cases to judge by. I don't envy them that job.
I went to the supreme court this morning in hopes of being able to see the oral arguments for the case (I live in the DC area). Unfortunately, there was a huge line and I and many others didn't get in. I can report on what happened outside, though.
The pro-RIAA/MPAA/MGM protesters showed up first, at maybe 8:45am. They tried to go up on the steps leading to the court building, but police told them they needed to stay on the sidewalk. This group of folks then hung out for a little while with their signs (one which read "Thou shalt not steal. -God"), then some of them took out their guitars and started playing and singing.
Then at around 9am, the protesters from the Consumer Electronics Association showed up, with black shirts reading "Save Betamax" in white letters. They were met with a some cheers from some folks in the waiting lines as they left their bus and assembled on the sidewalk a little ways away from the rival protesters. They had more creative signs compared to the musician protesters. The interesting thing to note were different demographics of the two protesting groups. The musicians were mostly middle-aged white men. The electronics advocates were generally younger, and had more of a mix of genders and races.
The news media started showing up in full force at around 9:30, and took some interviews with various people, including folks from both protest groups, and random people (including a teenager from a school group). I saw cameras from NBC, ABC, Channel One and Reuters. The media seemed to be focusing a lot of attention on the musician protest group, as at least one of their members was always being interviewed. However, that might have had something to do with them having guitars and making music, which got them attention.
The crowd waiting to get in seemed to be either on the side of Grokster or ambivalent. I took some photos, which I'll put up on Flickr (tagged "Grokster" or something like that) or the dc metblog when I get home from work.
"Righteous speed demon and trust fund party darling of justice"
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
So much for the "NPR loves the little guy, FOX loves the big corporations" stereotypes.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
You are a moron. Not only that, but you use the obfuscating language of the copyright industry in a lame attempt to seize the moral high ground when there is nothing there but the law and your simplistic assumption that breaking the law is immoral.
Just because you like to call copyright infringement "piracy" or "theft" doesn't make it that. Anyone with the mental capacity of five year old understands that calling a lampshade a hat is wrong at best and sinister at worst.
This idea that somehow that you have to pay a "content troll" every time a copy of something is made somewhere simply flies in the face of common sense. The fact of the matter is that we are born with an innate desire to share and that is what the copyright industry is up against. That and the fact that technology has erased any barriers to that sharing. I suppose you'll be screaming about people stealing when technology has erased the physical copying barrier as well?
And BTW, it's also a fine example of capitalism at its finest: The copyright industry's prices are too high and so a black market has arisen to correct that. You right wingers who like to scream about capitalism as if it were holy writ like to have government intervention when your holy capitalism gets to that point.
Finally, personally, I find your morals to be repugnant. It's people like you that make other people take a dim view of humanity.
A few companies here advertise their high-speed internet. In many of the ads I have seen lines such as "Share music!" or "Download music!" They are actively advertising to their customers to use P2P.
Couldn't the music biz interpret this too as aiding file-sharing and destroying their business model? Perhaps Shaw and Telus (2 major high-speed ISP's here) need to be shutdown?
Vip
Piracy is still wrong (just as making bathtub gin was).
Why was making bathtub gin wrong? Perhaps you meant that it was illegal (unless you're at Stage 4 in Kohlberg's Moral Development scheme.)
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
I always wished groups had paypal account or such so you could send money to support them, but them being caught in a contract with the devil to publish their music, they can't just accept the money like that without letting others take their cut. When I find some good mp3's, I'd like to compensate the artists - not the record label execs, but right now there's no way of doing it.
Buying the CD gives most of the money to intermediates;
Buying a used CD gives those no money, but gives none to the artists either (only the used CD store makes a small profit);
And there is nothing worth using online (no, I don't want anything to do with iTunes or iTMS, nor napster, DRM and other crap)
If they were allowed to have some sort of paypal account and distribute their mp3's on the web or in a similar way (pay a few $ and you can download decent mp3's off the site?), I'm sure they'd make a killing at it.
Sure, there will always be a few who will abuse this, but they can't do anything to that (people have always shared, and you can't close all the holes). I think most people would gladly pay to support their artists.
///<sig