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RIAA Says P2P Encourages Illegal Downloads
stlhawkeye writes "The RIAA is at it again, attacking inconvenient technology because it can be abused. They have sent another round of letters to P2P services, asking them to stop "encouraging users" to illegally distribute copyrighted material. eDonkey, LimeWire, and Kazaa are all on the RIAA's hit list, along with 2Hub, BitTorrent, WinMX and Free Peers, maker of file-swapping software BearShare. One wonders how they intend to attack BitTorrent, which can be and is used in legitimate mass distribution efforts of legal material, such as World of Warcraft patches. Are FTP and /usr/sbin/scp next?"
The article points out:
1. "Other companies in the peer-to-peer file-swapping market include i2Hub, BitTorrent, WinMX and Free Peers, maker of file-swapping software BearShare."
2. "BearShare, WinMX and LimeWire were identified in a Wall Street Journal story as recipients of the letters."
How does this equate to threatening BitTorrent, exactly? They're threatening companies with similar models to that of Grokster. Get a grip.
The context for this latest RIAA PR crusade is the Supreme Court "Grokster" decision this past Spring. The Court found that, of the P2P SW publishers which were sued, the ones which could be liable for illegal abuse of their SW by users were those publishers which "encouraged" the abuse. The Court found that Kazaa was liable, because its internal memos showed that they were expecting such abuse, and it designed external promotions consistent with that detected strategy. The other publishers, including Grokster, were not found liable, lacking that evidence of promotion.
Whether the Court was correct in finding such encouragement by Kazaa is now merely post-game quibbling. So also are arguments about whether a person can be held liable for another person jumping off a bridge just because the person told them to. The Court has ruled. So the RIAA is now portraying any P2P operator as encouraging or promoting abuse, because that's the basis for attacking them under what will now be known as the "Grokster doctrine". Any publisher, developer, designer, or user of P2P SW (or anyone else associated with it) must now invest in producing evidence that they do not promote illegal abuse. How to produce evidence of something not happening is extremely expensive and ultimately impossible.
So, as usual, only the lawyers have won, and the RIAA can do whatever it wants under these deeply flawed legal doctrines. People who just want to use the content we own, fairly, have to look elsewhere for some way to protect our rights.
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make install -not war
I think he's new; probably hasn't read the handbook yet.
"It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)
The poster states that "eDonkey, LimeWire, and Kazaa are all on the RIAA's hit list, along with 2Hub, BitTorrent, WinMX and Free Peers, maker of file-swapping software BearShare." If the poster RTFA, he would have learned that 2Hub, BitTorrent, WinMX and Free Peers were NOT sent the letter. BearShare, WinMX and LimeWire were identified in a Wall Street Journal story as recipients of the letters.
In the article, it states that "Other companies in the peer-to-peer file-swapping market include i2Hub, BitTorrent, WinMX and Free Peers, maker of file-swapping software BearShare." THIS DOES NOT PUT THEM ON THE RIAA "HIT LIST". Come on now, learn to read.
MacroHard - Boning you in a big way! (TM)
Well, I agree that the new standard isn't complete, as it's sent back to the 9th Circuit. And then further cases will be argued within those criteria to demonstrate which acts fall on which side of the lines that are declared. All of which will be composed mostly of lawyerly bribery, whining and trickery.
But you're off the mark in what convinced the Supremes. They decided on evidence which was already settled as established "matters of fact". The arguments before them are predicated on that evidence, centrally internal memos. Not enough evidence, as I pointed out, like nonexistent evidence of actual public promotion of abuse. But insufficient evidence is nonetheless evidence. And incomplete judgements are nevertheless judgements. Sufficient for the RIAA to roll out another intimidation campaign under its rubric. Especially before they possibly see some of their threats directly circumscribed by the 9th Circuit's reruling.
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make install -not war
Actually, it's not.
Here are a list of reasons that you can refuse to sell a gun to someone in the US.
Of course, your local laws may have addendums to these statures.
The restriction of a constitutionally amended right is not easily defended by saying the purchaser spoke about potentially using it in a crime. It could easily be argued that the statement was a joke, or that the statement was never made, and the prosecution would have a field day. Most gun outlets can't afford to fight that fight.
This is the "error" in RIAA's new campaign: they're claiming p2p networks have to stop "enabling" copyright violation. This isn't what the Supreme Court said, and I'd put money on the idea that RIAA knows it.
For this reason, and the fact that they're going after BitTorrent (a system in which the inventor specifically warned people off of copyright violation using the system, and which is routinely used for legal downloads), I think this is a true desperation move, and one that's not entirely about stopping illegal file sharing.
Kythe