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Judge Rejects RIAA 'Making Available' Theory

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory, which is the basis of all of the RIAA's peer to peer file sharing cases. In Atlantic v. Brennan, in a 9-page opinion [PDF], Judge Janet Bond Arterton held that the RIAA needs to prove 'actual distribution of copies', and cannot rely — as it was permitted to do in Capitol v. Thomas — upon the mere fact that there are song files on the defendant's computer and that they were 'available'. This is the same issue that has been the subject of extensive briefing in two contested cases in New York, Elektra v. Barker and Warner v. Cassin. Judge Arterton also held that the defendant had other possible defenses, such as the unconstitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory and possible copyright misuse flowing from the record companies' anticompetitive behavior."

2 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Smart Judge by rockout · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It seems to me that while a majority of Slashdotters MIGHT be disaffected, most of them ARE fairly intelligent, and thus would not see Ron Paul as the best solution to America's problems. He does, after all, attempt to appeal to certain base instincts in parts of his platform - flat tax, anyone? sounds great! - that if enacted, in reality would cause even more problems, just different ones.

    --
    I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
  2. Re:kinda dumb by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    except that the people being sued don't know much about computers. It doesn't take a whole lot of knowledge to realize that if they're downloading all this "free" music, they're also providing it. I'm all in favor of the dumb user excuse, and have often supplied it myself in other circumstances, but give me a break...