Has RIAA Abandoned the 'Making Available' Defense?

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's standard complaint (pdf) was thrown out last month by a federal judge in California as speculation in Interscope v. Rodriguez. Interestingly, the RIAA's amended complaint (pdf), filed six days later, abandoned altogether the RIAA's 'making available' argument. (Whereby making files available at all for download is infringement.) It first formulated that defense against a dismissal motion in Elektra v. Barker. This raises a number of questions: Is the RIAA is going to stick to this new form of complaint in future cases? Will they get into a different kind of trouble for some of its their new allegations, such as the contention that the investigator "detected an individual" (contradicting the testimony of the RIAA's own expert witness)? And finally, what tack will defendants' lawyers take (this was one lawyer's suggestion)?"

Comments

Defense?

[hazem]

Has RIAA Abandoned the 'Making Available' Defense?

IANAL, but I can't imagine the RIAA is offering to many defenses in these court cases. Maybe they're abandoning the complaint of "making available"? That's what the article seems to indicate...

Redundant Breakdown

[Nymz]

What happened?
-The RIAA claimed that simply making copyright material available online,
was proof of intention to commit copyright infringement (We got proof!)
-Defense Lawyers challenged that claim as insufficient evidence (No you don't!)
-A Judge agreed with the Defense Lawyers (Ya, that isn't enough proof, begone RIAA!)
-RIAA returns, but drops the 'making available' argument (Is this better?)

What could happen now?
-The RIAA would stop bringing cases based solely upon the 'making availble' argument (If it wasn't for those darn Slashdoters)

Re:At this point....

[mpe]

Reminds me of a Pennsylvania farmer I once knew. He made his living by poaching deer and selling the meat to some fancy, high dollar Maryland and D.C. restaurants. He would get caught poaching, pay the stiff fines out of a roll in his pocket and claim that it was only 3 days profits, and only got caught several times a year. Just a small operating expense...no big deal. He just laughed it off and even bragged about it.

The only unusual thing is an individual being able to use this kind of business model. Corporations have the advantage that they cannot be arrested.

They've lost the battle. Not the war.

[jimicus]

Look to past history.

Any technology which allows the end-user to produce their own media (and some which didn't) has scared the entertainment industry.

First there were records - "But who will pay to see live performances if they can just play the record?". Then they realised that they could make a roaring trade selling records themselves.

Then came analogue tapes: "But who will buy records if they can just tape from a friend?" - then they established a business in selling tapes as they're smaller and it's very hard to play a record in a car.

Then came videos: "But who will go to the cinema if they can record movies from the TV?" - then they established a business in selling pre-recorded videos.

Then came affordable CD burners: "But who will buy CDs if they can copy from a friend?" - well, actually rather a lot of people. Though that didn't stop a lot of countries being pressured to establish taxes on blank media and passing these taxes back to the recording studios.

Now audio and movies can be easily shared over the Internet: "But we must stop this, lest nobody buy music, movies or visit the cinema!". What they really mean is "We're not sure that this sits well with our business model and we haven't yet figured out how best to exploit it so it does. While we're in the process of doing that, please talk quietly amongst yourselves AND STOP SHARING MUSIC, DAMMIT!".

Re:Slashdot is just a pro-piracy site

[digitig]

I'm sick of slashdot pretending to be some kind of grown up adult web site, when in reality, like digg, its just a publicity machine for the idiots in the pirate party. You seem to be a little confused. /. is not a person. /. is a collection of lots of different people, including you, with different views, including yours. /. does not pretend or claim to be anything beyond "News for nerds. Stuff that matters", although individuals may pretend or claim that it is something else. /. cannot be a publicity machine for any interest group (except, perhaps, nerds) because although individuals may act as publicity machines for particular groups it's an open forum and so contrary opinion can always be expressed with equal weight (and the holder of that contrary opinion is just as liable to get mod points). Do try to remember that a couple of guys you happen to disagree with do not comprise the whole of /., and if you have a counter-argument to what they say then present it.

Re:This complaint is no better

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

It claims they "detected an individual" who is "distributing". But they don't actually detect any distribution. Nor do they detect an "individual". An IP address isn't an individual. If you're lucky, you might be able to connect it to a particular computer at a particular time. Precisely.

They say stuff like that based on the assumption, correct in some cases, that the judge doesn't have any understanding of computer technology.