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

[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).

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).