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RIAA-fighting Maine Law Professor Speaks Out
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an interview with Jon Newton of p2pnet, Prof. Deirdre Smith of the University of Maine says that 'our students are enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance'. The UM Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic is the first law school legal clinic in the U.S. to have taken on the RIAA, to have the opportunity for hands-on experience fighting the RIAA's effort to rewrite copyright law. Smith went on to say that the case is probably one of the first intellectual property cases the clinic has ever taken on, and that if it proceeds further, she expects to also 'draw on the considerable expertise in IP among members of our faculty and the Maine Center for Law and Innovation, another program of the Law School'. "
He is clearly trying to strike a blow and trying to destroy the very foundation of our society, which is intellectual property. And if he is successful at undermining that, in any way, he'll attack physical property. And using brainwashed law students to help him do it, thus also destroying our future. This man has no shame!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
While it's debatable whether this challenge has much of a legal chance - from what the lawyer the lawyer types I've spoken to told me, it's not much of a challenge - the simple fact that this defense sets a rather important precedent - that schools shouldn't bend over without fighting it out first.
That's no more of an arbitrary way to compensate a copyright holder than the legislated way of doing it that has become disconnected from the stated purpose for the government granted limited monopoly.
By "arbitrary" I mean that copyright and patent monopolies are a creation of government. Government could very well decide that copyright no longer exists and, unlike natural rights, there would be no appeal to a universal notion of human rights. If it became too burdensome to protect copyright for, say, recorded performances, governments could rationally decide to not protect them, or to scale back protection to where infringement would be inconsequential under law. This is very different from the rights government is prohibited from infringing on, and that are presumed to exist with or without a government that is instructed to respect those rights.
So, literally, it is up to people to decide what to pay.
I wrote parts of this stuff
if people haven't brought up examples it is because they don't care to respond, not because they don't exit. i don't even care too much about this issue, but i read your post - spent 5 minutes on google and found this. it is a bit long so i'll throw the relevant part into my post.
Rep. Howard Berman (D-Hollywood) recently introduced the P2P Piracy Prevention Act (H.R. 5211). This law essentially gives any copyright-holder the right to break any existing law while engaging in technological measures (such as hacking) in the course of protecting their content. They must give prior notice to the government, but there is no approval is required, and the government must keep secret any notice it receives. Large copyright holders sought this immunity in the counter-terrorism bills that greatly increased penalties for hacking, but the absurdity of equating file sharing to terrorism forced them to withdraw their bid that time. The chances of success are hopefully slim, but it's hard to tell.
so in 2002 copyright holders tried to gain the ability to completely ignore the law to go after those they thought to be violating copyright and tried to do so under the auspices of counter-terrorism. like i said, it took 5 minutes to find that with a google search on the words "copyright violation equated with terrorism".
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
That is a perfect illustration of how copyright is positioned, incorrectly, as equivalent to a human right.
Antigua and Barbuda has won the right, in an international tribunal, to disregard copyright protection of U.S. recorded performances.
If, instead, they won the "right" to kill Americans, that would be different, no? In reality, no tribunal could grant such a "right." And there you have the difference between copyright and self-ownership.
The right to waive U.S. copyright isn't even as significant as, say, a letter of marque. So copyright is really pretty low on the rights food chain.
I wrote parts of this stuff
...the problem is not that the RIAA is re-writing the copyright laws... I beg to differ. Here's just one example. The RIAA insists that "making available" is the same as copyright infringement. But take a look at Title 17 USC 106(3) which defines the exclusive distribution right as "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending". This is the statute that the RIAA uses to sue, that is, they claim their exclusive distribution right granted by this statue is being infringed. But note, this statute clearly indicates a "sale or other transfer of ownership", and courts have consistently ruled that this means an actual transfer must take place to be considered infringement. The RIAA was successful in getting the judge in the Capitol v. Thomas case to instruct the jury that "The act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners' exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.". So it may be true that the RIAA is not literally rewriting copyright law (they have lobbyists that do that), but they sure are trying to rewrite copyright law by establishing precedents via cases against those who can't afford to defend themselves.Regards,
Art (IANAL)
What's very interesting is that the companies that are part of the RIAA have been repeatedly charged with illegally price fixing and keeping CD's at above market value (aka they're stealing from the whole country). The MPAA broke copyright to bring you the "University toolkit" and refused to co-operate with the copyright holder. The Sony Rootkit was based on open source software that was used without permission and broke copyright. It's obviously OK to steal. It's just uncool to get caught doing it.
Why would it be tacky for me to post an important story from p2pnet that happens to quote me? Usually I'm posting important stories from my own blog which quotes me even more heavily.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
1. They're not college students, they're law school students.
2. They're not in it alone, they're working under the supervision of a very eminent lawyer.
3. Many if not most of the best briefs written in the legal profession are written in large part by young people working under the supervision of a more experienced lawyer. The younger lawyers and law students may have more time for scholarship and writing than us oldsters who are so busy taking phone calls and meetings and sending out bills and supervising youngsters.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
you don't care about the facts.
these businesses tried to pass copyright law inside anti-terrorism legislation. that's not a strawman. it's not lame. you are saying that the author imagined that this was an anti-terrorism bill?
as i insist? i don't insist anything. Jack Valenti testified before the government in an investigation entitled "International Copyright Piracy: Links to Organized Crime and Terrorism". Are you going to tell me that he wasn't there to talk about copyright and ties between piracy and terrorism? the name is a straw man imagined up by whoever chaired the subcommittee?
you asked for examples. i was bored - took ten minutes to find you a couple and you then turn around and say they aren't examples at all. i see in other parts of this thread you've equated violating copyright with murder. at the same time your original post i replied to says that the statement certain legal whores who allow or act to bring certain types of "private lawsuit" is alluding to the riaa as terrorists. so gaining the right to hack people's computers in an antiterrorism bill is a straw man - but the words private lawsuit in quotes is a satisfactory allusion to terrorism. you live in a weird reality. and the funny thing is, you just haven't done any homework. google riaa and terrorism. you will find hundreds of hits where people clearly and definitively state that they believe the actions of the riaa are terrorism. you can drop your weak example. why i'm helping you out with that, i don't know. you should really do the work yourself.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?