RIAA's 'Misspeaking' May Have Affected Verdict

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "David Kravetz of Wired.com covered last year's Capitol v. Thomas trial gavel-to-gavel. It's worth noting, then, his article saying that the RIAA's recent statement — that Sony's top litigation lawyer 'misspoke' during the trial. She said that making a copy from one's own cd is 'stealing', which (in his words) may have caused a major miscarriage of justice. Wired further points out that later on in the trial, during the RIAA's examination of Ms. Thomas, 'On the hard drive she [turned] over were thousands of songs Thomas said she ripped from her CDs. The RIAA's Gabriel suggested to jurors that copying one's purchased music was a violation of the Copyright Act. Gabriel, for example, asked Thomas whether she had ever burned CDs, either for herself, or to give away to friends.' Gabriel, the RIAA's lead attorney, apparently misspoke too — prejudicing jurors along the way."

Comments

Re:Can we define copyright as between two people?

[urcreepyneighbor]

I buy a CD, copy it, then some time later sell the original. According to your revised law I haven't broken the law even though 2 copies now exist. Let me respond for the collective: waaah! Fair use! waaah! Information wants to be free! waaah! Digital revolutions and dying business models! waaah! I want free stuff! waaah!