Judge — "Making Available" Is Stealing Music

JonathanF writes "If you were hoping judges would see reason and realize that just using a program that could violate copyright law is about as illegal as leaving your back door unlocked, think again. An Arizona district judge has ruled that a couple who hosted files in KaZaA is liable for over $40K in damages just because they 'made available' songs that could have been pirated by someone, somewhere. There's legal precedent, but how long do we have before the BitTorrent crew is sued?" The New York case testing the same theory is still pending.

Comments

Re:Ok, which is it.

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

It's not that geeks are digital and humans in general are analog ... it's the criminals that are analog, always looking for an excuse to justify their actions, to make their crimes not appear to be crimes, to blur the line between them and what society finds to be acceptable. Every prison is full of innocent people, just ask them! They all have a story that excuses them somehow.

Why must I keep repeating this?

It is theft.

You have deprived the record company of the money they would have received had you obtained their music legally.

You don't think that music is just for entertainment do you? Surely the crap that is promoted today with it's brutal production quality (everything as loud as possible at all times) shows you that the point is not the music. The function of the original item is to make money for the owner. Breaking the copyright breaks the original item depriving the owner of it's value.

Any other interpretation is purely denile and shirking of responsibilities.