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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.'"
I just have a few questions which probably are irrelevant to all this but, what happens if you have 4 or 5 people split the cost of a few albums equally and then listen to the music between themselves on a folder available over a network connection... is this breaking the law? If that so when does it become legal? Would they have to be living with each other for example having music available to other family members over a network in the home? Or am I not even supposed to be doing that?
how is that different that leaving a CD physically out in the open? someone else is able to grab it and copy it. would that make me liable for leaving it there?
I think a better analogy would be: If you had a case of beer in your unlocked car and some kids opened the door and took it, would you be liable for distributing alcohol to minors? I don't know the law in this case (NAL), but it seems stupid to charge the person who bought the beer in this case. Unless, of course, they can prove that he got out of his car, looked over at a bunch of kids, and said, "Gosh, I sure hope nobody takes any of this beer out of my unlocked car, wink wink" then walked away
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
This could lead to some interesting complications when dealing with online storage.
For example, if a person has music online and believes that it is secured, would they be liable if someone breaks in and makes it available to others? I could see instances where this other person breaks in, makes the music available and then reports to the RIAA after a number of downloads are done.
Now some people would say that security is your responsibility, but how do you handle environments where someone else is providing a service and you don't control everything?
If you leave a CD lying around, and someone walks by and steals it, they are guilty of theft. I don't see that you'd have any liability. If on the other hand, someone walked by and copied it, they are guilty of infringement, you also should be without liability.
If you loan a paperback book to a friend, that's ok. (Libraries do it all the time) If the friend copies the paperback, they are guilty of infringement, but I don't see any liability for you.
I'd say he has a good case, unless he intentionally put an electronic sign on his files, saying "Copy These Please!!!"
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
The college that I work at has photocopy machines in the library. So whose fault is if I walk home with a copy of Harry Potter, the host, the technology, or me?
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
If I play music over my speakers others can hear it.
If I stream music off my hard drive, how is this different than playing it over the speakers?
If people play it off my hard drive how is that different than playing it over the speakers.
The above assumes private playing of a valid music source.
There is a very fine distinction to be argued here. That will have to cover buffering, decoding and all sorts of stuff.
Actually, to be exact- you left a Flash Card of some sort on the front seat of an unlocked car. You come back, the Flash Card is still there. Somebody else copied it in the mean time, but you haven't lost anything- you still have the data on your flash card. Was it your fault that the data was copied?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I think it's going to come down to how the publicly accessible folders are generally used. If they're usually used for storage and the student never advertised the music, then they'll have a good chance of the case being dismissed on the grounds of no intent. However, if the folders are generally used for sharing music and there's a culture of everyone browsing and copying from everyone else's folders, then I would imagine the judge would find intent based on the music being in the folder.
I have no idea where you got that quote from, but whoever wrote it is referring to Fonovisa v. Does 1-41, where the RIAA was ordered, in 2004, to cease and desist from the illegal practice of joining multiple John Does for its own convenience in a single case. The RIAA has been ignoring that order ever since. This Boston case is yet another example of the RIAA ignoring the Fonovisa v. Does order.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
lets say i lose my (80gb) iPod on a train...
does that mean that i have to throw away all my CDs at home? I mean, if that iPod is now in someone else's hands, i've "distributed" music - and would be liable under the rules... remember, a CD is nothing more than shiny plastic... i'm given a license to listen to that music... i don't "own" anything but the shiny plastic.
what if i was robbed? As far as i can tell, not only would i have been robbed of my iPod, but i'd have to go home and throw out my CDs on top of it, else, i'd be liable for distributing hundreds of CD's worth of copyrighted materials.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Am I breaking the law?
Are the people who made and sold this device breaking the law?
If yes to the above, why haven't they been sued out of existence yet?
(Note: this is an illustration to prove the ridiculous positions that the RIAA has attempted to stretch existing laws.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html
"if the performance is by audio means only, the performance is communicated by means of a total of not more than 6 loudspeakers, of which not more than 4 loudspeakers are located in any 1 room or adjoining outdoor space"
So if you set up a sound system that can scale to a larger venue, you can be considered to be intentionally broadcasting it. Putting data in an explicitly shared would be considered analogous to that.
These 'gray lines' people like to jump on in terms of real-world analogies have been recognized and answered in law already. You can probably reasonably tell whether the person's share was intentional or incidental (most modern OSes and large-scale networks make it hard to accidentally share data such that people can get it without circumventing or bypassing a mechanism meant to prevent it). If his directory was by default world readable, there is a fair argument he was using it for his own purposes never realizing the world could get at it. If he put it in something like public_html, it's hard to argue that he didn't mean it. In which case, public_html would be like putting a few hundred speakers throughout a town and playing the music, and then claiming you didn't mean for anyone but you to hear it.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Let's try a different take:
I make some modifications to my copy of Linux. I leave a copy of the compiled version in a directory that's accessible to anybody on the internet who knows where to look. When someone demands the source code, I tell him to go to hell because I'm not distributing anything. Can I get sued for violating the GPL?