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."

Comments

Re:Smart Judge

[terraformer]

But then I look at Ron Paul's primary results and slink back to my basement.

Right, had you and everyone else who was disaffected slinked to the polling station maybe his numbers would not suck so bad.

Re:Smart Judge

[strabes]

Give me a break. You're saying that people that voted for Ron Paul (i.e. libertarians) are by definition not intelligent? It doesn't get any more ad hominem than that. You can disagree with people's views, but please, don't insult their intelligence. It will immediately cause them to not take you seriously.

Re:Smart Judge

[Shakrai]

I think the libertarians got themselves all up in a frenzy that Ron Paul could actually win,

If Ron Paul was serious about winning with the platform that he stands for, then he would have run under the Libertarian Party. Trying to run as a Republican when you are against the Iraq War and in favor of ending the War on Drugs is just not going to be remotely effective. It won't get support or even enough press coverage to bring your ideas into the public debate. It'd be about as effective as Ann Coulter running for the Democratic nomination.

I don't agree with the good Doctor on very much but I think he's about as Republican as I am. Maybe once upon a time the party stood for what he stands for, though I doubt even that -- the expansion of the Federal Government that Libertarians like to complain about started under the very first Republican President -- Lincoln. Why the hell is he still a member of that political party? It stands opposed to nearly everything that he claims to believe in.

The "Goldwater Republicans" have as much influence on the modern day Republican Party as the Dixiecrats retain on the Democratic Party, in other words: None at all.

Re:Clueless.

[Shakrai]

For the record, Ron HAS gotten quite a bit of support (like the thousands that showed up at the Austin Rally a couple of days ago or the activities happening in many local government GOP groups). But if you only pay attention to the big picture presented by the media, you'll never hear about it.

Maybe because that "quite a bit of support" has translated into zero electoral success? You can't blame the media for the voters rejecting Ron Paul in small elections (read: Iowa and New Hampshire) where he had the ability to campaign on an individual and town-hall level. I know it's popular in the Ron Paul camp to blame the media for all your woes but has it ever occurred to you that the voting public rejected his philosophy?

Next you'll say that it wasn't the voting public, just the Republican Party Primary voters, but that will take me back to my original point of wondering why he isn't trying to strengthen the Libertarian Party instead of pretending to be a Republican?

The only reason Ron hasn't gotten more support is because FOX, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, et al. have all spent the last YEAR keeping him and his message out of circulation or distorting it and marginalizing him -- even going so far as to actually say or imply that he had dropped out of the race for many many months now.

And I'll go back to my original point: If you can't compete in the Iowa Caucuses or New Hampshire Primary with weeks to campaign door-to-door then how the hell do you think you are going to win a nationwide election come November? C'mon! I've seen Ron Paul supporters all over the place, even in my small city (Binghamton). I'd say he had a ten to one advantage in lawnsigns plus actual volunteers on the ground -- for all the conclusions that you can draw from that -- and yet he got a whooping 897 votes out of 13,730 cast in Broome County. Gonna blame that on the media too?

This whole primary process is designed to give a voice to the outsider candidates. Slightly easier among the Democrats (no winner take all over here), but still doable among Republicans (at least for awhile -- recall McCain in 2000). And yet he didn't gain any meaningful support. At what point do you accept the fact that your ideas were heard and rejected?

Re:Smart Judge

[spun]

Here I thought it was, "If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you're a conservative at 40, you've sold your heart for a false sense of security." I say this as a 37 year old liberal, who knows, maybe I'll have a change of heart at 40. But I sure hope not.