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."

Comments

EFF is great!

[tetrahedrassface]

We need to top piracy, but we should also encourage authors/songwriters/performers/composers, to do what the BBC did the other day.. Namely release a copyrighted work for personal use..

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!

Re:How to increase Linux penetration

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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).

Re:How to increase Linux penetration

[Daengbo]

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.

Re:The whole thing is very clear

[Anonymous Coward]

Plausible deniability may not be enough. It's far better not to promote illegal actions, period. Judges and courts aren't generally stupid, it's not a technology issue, it's a matter of intent.

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.

Re:EFF is a Failure

[David Price]

First: the broadcast flag was a legal case: Am. Library Ass'n v. FCC , decided by a unanimous panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. You're right, there never was a broadcast flag - thanks to the efforts of EFF and Public Knowledge. If they hadn't intervened, the broadcast flag would today be the law: the FCC had ordered it to go into effect on July 1, but the result of the litigation was a finding that the FCC's order overstepped its legal authority.

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.

Not Disconcerting

[Stephen Samuel]

The decision (so far) doesn't bother me much in the Grokster case. What it seems to say is that it's OK to distribute Technology, but it's not OK to encourage copyright infringement.

This may, overall, be good.

The Madpenguin interview TFA starts by pointing out a study that indicates Copyright infringement may be good for Microsoft.

.... We found that in countries where piracy is highest, Linux has the lowest penetration rate. The model shows that Microsoft can use piracy as an effective tool to price discriminate, and that piracy may even result in higher profits to 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.