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Grokster Case Aftermath: Busy times Ahead for EFF
Tractorjector writes "Mad Penguin has published part two of their MGM vs Grokster interview series (the first part was featured on Slashdot on 2005-06-27). This time the focus is on EFF Director Shari Steele. A very compelling (and somewhat concerning) interview."
Concerning or Disconcerting?
Sure there were strings attached but when isn' there?
I really don't understand why these companies think thier stuff is the only media to be had. They think they have us over a barrel, and currently they do..
As a community we should shun copyright infgringement, but at the same time we should encourage the copyright holders to release their material for personal use..
Thats how I do my stuff.. My songs are copyrighted, or CC, but they have "no profit" without permission clause.. You are free to have them as long as you don't sell them.. Its really really simple.
Since I started posting my little songs up on the net I have contacted by BMI.. I am going to join, but only because they can help me if an artist took something i have written and recorded it/ changed it. etc and proffited without compensation or permision from me..
I need the EFF to ensure that I have the right to make my stuff available. They fight the good fight for us honest little people.
Long the the EFF!
But people need to think they beat the system! heck, I keep a Windows 95 CD with the serial written on the disk just the the sake of remembering the pleasure I had in the mid-90s when I though that, after all, I didn't pay for the steaming pile when I finally ditched it (which, incidentally, probably helped me ditch it earlier: if I had paid for it, I'd probably have put up with it much longer than it deserved).
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
That quote is BS, at lest in Thailand. Piracy is in the high 9x% (98.5 a few years ago), and Linux is huge there. Heck, my brother-in-law told me that he wants Linux because the Prime Minister uses it and says that Windows is old technology. You can't walk into a subway newsstand without seeing Linux for sale.
Put identity in the browser.
The basic point of the ruling is that you need to be able to have plausible deniability when it comes to promoting illegal actions.
No. The point of the ruling is that if a judge & jury think that you're trying to encourage illegal activity, you'll be responsible for it when it happens.
BitTorrent gets buy because Brian DOESN'T encourage illegal use of bittorrent. He may not DISCOURAGE it, and he may even utilize his technology that way, but he doesn't beat a drum for folk to use BitTorrent for illegal file sharing.
IMO, all that anyone who develops a file-sharing tool needs to do is to encourage LEGAL use of their tool. Such as, for example, encouraging and facilitating creative commons verification within the tool.
No they don't have us in a stranglehold. Maybe they believe they do, or the public does, believing it is forced to buy certain items. But I think this may be just a result of history, and the role of copyrights. Basically, a game of numbers. How many people there are (world population), how many of those are creative spirits, and how well people are connected.
Imagine a primitive world with only 5000 souls, where only 1 in 1000 is exceptionally gifted/smart/genius. Then you have only 5 of those to provide that world with new creative works, scientific breakthroughs and so on. The discovery/birth of another genius would be a major event. And in a primitive world, anything new could take a long time before it reaches remote corners of the world. An inventor that takes a secret into his grave, makes a great loss for society. A copyright system that puts a lock on the works of those few, can make a huge difference in that world's development. I think that copyright as a concept is mostly based on the idea that creative spirits are a rare commodity.
Fast forward to here and now. With a world population of 6 billion+, modern mass media, and a general high-tech base to start with, the picture isn't anything like the above. That same 1 in 1000 people would mean 6 million creative spirits in this world, and anything they come up with, reaches far corners of the world in no-time. Then a single genius isn't as important as it used to be. Rather, you have some sort of 'environment', where scientific knowledge and creative works move in certain directions. At some point in time, the next step/development will become 'obvious' (read: very likely), and then... somebody (one of those many gifted folks) will do it. If that specific individual wouldn't, somebody else would. An inventor that takes a secret into his grave, doesn't make much difference to society.
Copyright has a totally different meaning and effect in that situation (IMHO, something that is only about economics, and/or politics). Not to say that brilliant individuals don't matter anymore, but there's always enough of them to go round, copyright locks or not.With grokster in particular, it was gross, not only did they encourage illegal actions, they bragged about it and used it as a selling point. EFF shouldn't defend these guys, I won't give them another dollar if they do.
Bitorrent isn't in the line of fire yet but it very well could be. Attitudes need to change. How many large trackers have gone done because they had pirated torrents? They claimed to not be liable for what people uploaded but that didn't fly and it won't, they need to be responsive and take some precautions, simply saying don't upload pirate stuff, winking and then looking the otherway is not responsible enough. The search engine might need to be rethought as well. At some point, if (like I believe it is) most torrent traffic is pirated and companies start making requests for bitorrent to help them correct that and they don't take any precautions then they could be a target also.
This is as much a cultural problem as it is anything else, I'd be wary if my company was trying to profit from it all though. If that's the plan I'd start crossing my T's and dotting my i's and make sure I was taking some precautions against piracy and I'd make damn sure that nobody in house was pirating stuff with the technology. That'll bury you when you're knowingly doing nothing about it.
There was an intersting exchange on Slate about Grokster. One of the points made it that the rule announced is basically a rule of etiquette. This seems a good analogy, and points out the limited effect.
What will be intersting is when this ruling is put up against non-commerical products. Commerical speech is subject to a lower level of protection. Non-commerical speech is not as limited, and I don't know that applying this ruling to a non-commerical sitution would be more of a speech problem.
Or, in the words of George Bernard Shaw:
What on earth is the true faith of an Armorer?
UNDERSHAFT. To give arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons or principles: to aristocrat and republican, to Nihilist and Tsar, to Capitalist and Socialist, to Protestant and Catholic, to burglar and policeman, to black man white man and yellow man, to all sorts and conditions, all nationalities, all faiths, all follies, all causes and all crimes.
Second: EFF legal victories since its founding - from the Steve Jackson Games Secret Service raid to the Diebold memos. Has EFF won every case? No. Few advocacy groups do. But you don't get to throw around statements like "[a]ll their cases have failed miserably" without some facts to back you up. You don't have them.
This may, overall, be good.
The Madpenguin interview TFA starts by pointing out a study that indicates Copyright infringement may be good for Microsoft.
I think that this probably can be extended to the MPAA, RIAA and friends -- in fact, there's the infamous stats that showed a CD buying spree as napster's fortunes rose, and the popping almost the week that napster got shut down.If you want to hurt the copyright cartels, obviously the best thing to do is discourage your friends from comitting copyright infringement and encourage them to by local and independently sourced music. and/or music or software that is under an open license. This also tends to result in more money staying in the local economy (good for you in the long run).
Just like Linux has forced Microsoft to produce better software, lower their pricing and even give at least lip service to 'open' (cough cough) standards, if your friends start ignoring content that is copy protected and going for stuff with permissive customer rights, then those companies are going to have to respond in kind to keep their market share.
What I liked about grokster was the peer-to-peer distribution network. What I disliked about it is that they openly encouraged copyright violation that effectively supported the mega-corps. This Supreme Court decision seems to open up the possibility of a peer to peer company that actually promotes independent music over the mass market pablum.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
... responsible for WMDs?
For clearly what other possible intent could there be in the manufacturing and sale of such items?
Or at least this is the thought that comes quickly to mind in reading about this grokster case.
Now I'm not an expert on Hubbardisms, but I strongly suspect that the word you're thinking of is "engrams".
If the author of Darknet is to be believed, industry spokespeople (not sure about their lawyers) consistently make overreaching statements about what you're not allowed to do with their copyrighted works. The grassroots people (and their lawyers) he quotes contradict these boisterous pronouncements, in keeping with "common knowledge" about fair use.
If you write a letter asking permission for almost any use, you'll be turned down. That's a matter of company policy and not law. I'm confident that if an unreasonable prohibition of fair use existed, both sides would advertise it.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
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