Boston University Student Challenges RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A Boston University student identified only as one of the 21 'John Does' in Arista v. Does 1-21 has challenged the RIAA's alleged right to get his or her identity from the school, bringing a motion to vacate the ex parte discovery order obtained by the RIAA, and to quash the subpoena served on the university. John Doe's court papers (PDF) argue, among other things, that the RIAA's papers are 'based on a flawed theory that having copyrighted music files on an individual's computer or on an assigned folder on Boston University's server is a "distribution" of such copyrighted music files, where such folder is merely accessible by others.'"

Comments

Re:his argument seems flawed

[Mr EdgEy]

If i leave my car outside unlocked are you free to take it? Of course this is different because data can be duplicated, but just because something is there doesn't mean it has to be taken.

Re:his argument seems flawed

[dschuetz]

Essentially, as I read it he's arguing for no criminal liability for illegal redistribution due to having no intent to distribute. Yet he admits to having placed copyrighted works in public folders on a public university system, which allowed others to copy his work. Further, he must have had the ability to set filesystem permissions to intentionally prevent redistribution. I think he's liable. If they can't prove criminal misconduct, at the least by his own admission they can prove civil negligence.

This argument would damn every soccer-mom and burger-flipper who plugs a home computer into their cable modem without remembering to set up a firewall. I think that, reading the citations in the motion, they make a good point -- copyright infringement, they argue, requires both intent and commercial gain, not to mention actual infringement (which nobody has proven even happened).

Though I've grown weary of all the crazy analogies flung around on Slashdot of late, I feel the need to provide one of my own: You're sitting in a university library with your laptop, and the guy across the table from you gets up to search the stacks for something, leaving his folder of music CDs on the table. You grab one, stick it in your laptop, and in a couple minutes have ripped a perfect digital copy of it, before the guy even returns. Is he then criminally liable for having permitted you to infringe the copyright of that CD, because he didn't lock up the discs or take them with him? Or, worse, if you have the ability to do exactly what I just described, but don't take advantage of it, is he still liable just for having provided the opportunity for infringement?

BTW, I'm not sure this motion is on the behalf of a single defendant, but all of them (it's listed as representing Does 1-21).

Re:I say...

[rhartness]

So... public libraries are illegal because anyone can check out a book and photocopy the contents of copy righted material? What about the music CDs of movies that you can access there? It's the same principle, in my opinion.

Re:I say...

[Applekid]

Book publishers seem to be kicking themselves for not organizing into crime syndicates like the RIAA and MPAA, otherwise libraries WOULD be illegal.

Of course, he might not be distributing it

[0p7imu5_P2im3]

But what if his intent was only to give himself access to his data from any location on campus?

In that case, it is not distribution. It is giving himself location free and operating system unlimited access to his purchased content.

If possession is 9/10ths of the law, then my receipt says I can do whatever I want with my legally purchased content so long as I don't produce copies for financial gain.

There is law against selling copies of content without access to copyrights. There is law against copying content without access to copyrights. There is no law against making one's legally purchased content accessible to oneself (unless you break encryption in the process).

Re:Of course, he might not be distributing it

[goombah99]

agreed. it depends on the degree of willful or negligent behavior. Leaving a case of beer on my front porch is, perhaps, enticing minors, leaving it on my back porch is probably not. We can't hold everyone responsible for data security but perhaps expecting them to know what a public folder is possibly like knowing the difference between the frontyard and the backyard.

A better analogy...

[Junta]

A better analogy would be to say he has some music files, and he puts it on a shared folder somewhere.... oh wait...

But seriously *WTF* is with all the analogies. The original concept is not that hard to completely understand. If he put it in his home directory, and the default permissions were open (i.e. umask being set stupidly), then I would say he has an argument. However, if he had to explicitly change permissions on it, or put it in something analagous to a 'public_html', intent to distribute can be argued. If you put a big sign on your drive saying 'I put music on here, feel free to copy it', it's obvious you are inviting the activity.

Re:I say...

[jnaujok]

I think that your comparison is fallacious. A more apt comparison would be if I made a set of CD's with music that I own, ripped to MP3 for my use and then burned to a CD. I then take a stack of those CD's and place them in my truck, tucked into the CD holder I have strapped to the visor. Then, when I park my car, I leave the window rolled down.

Now, the comparison to the RIAA's case is -- a police officer walks up to my truck, reaches in and takes the disks out of the visor.

And then he arrests me.

And *I* get charged with a crime.

If that's the legal definition of distributing copyrighted materials, then we have a much bigger problem with our legal system then just the RIAA.

Re:I say...

[MeanderingMind]

It boils down to these questions:

1) Is it illegal to borrow a legally published version of copyrighted material?
2) Is it illegal to copy borrowed material?
2b) If 2 is true, who is at fault when material is copied, the copier or the lender?

Given libraries are legal, 1 is a definite "no". 2, I think, is most likely illegal. The key question here is 2b.

I can't see any viable way the vendor/lender can be held responsible for items sold/lent being used illegally. With the possible exception of regulated/dangerous items such as guns or other weapons, it's not criminal for a store to sell someone a hammer without making them sign a statement claiming they won't use it for illegal purposes. It's not the store's fault some nut bought pencils and started killing people with them.

Similarly, if it is legal to "borrow" music but not copy it is not the student's fault the files were copied. The other users could simply have listened to the music files from the shared folder without copying them, and thus "borrowed" them. That they weren't content to simply "borrow" the music isn't the fault of the student who opened his music collection to the public.

That's how I see it anyway.