NewYorkCountryLawyer Debates RIAA VP

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "At Fordham Law School's annual IP Law Conference this year, Slashdot member NewYorkCountryLawyer had a chance to square off with Kenneth Doroshow, a Senior Vice President of the RIAA, over the subject of copyright statutory damages. Doroshow thought the Jammie Thomas verdict of $222,000 was okay, he said, since Ms. Thomas might have distributed 10 million unauthorized copies. NYCL, on the other hand, who has previously derided the $9,250-per-song file verdict as 'one of the most irrational things [he has] ever seen in [his] life in the law', stated at the Fordham conference that the verdict had made the United States 'a laughingstock throughout the world.' An Australian professor on the panel said, 'The comment has been made a few times that America is out of whack and you are a laughingstock in the rest of the world. As the only non-American on the panel, that's true. We do see the cases like Thomas in our newspapers, and we think: "Wow, those crazy Americans, what are they up to now?" This whole notion of statutory damages is not something that we have within our Copyright Act. You actually have to be able to prove damage for you to be able to be compensated for that.' NYCL also got to debate the 'making available' issue, saying that there was no 'making available' right in US copyright law, despite the insistence of the program's moderator, the 'keynote' speaker, and a 'majority vote' of the audience that there was such a right. The next day, two decisions came down, and a month later yet another decision came down, all rejecting the 'making available' theory."

Comments

Re:Ms. Thomas had 100Mbps feed to the Internet?

[blind biker]

It's why Hitler was so successful. It's amazing how easily one's conscience conforms to the more profitable/useful/practical side.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here. Not really - I've been reading Slashdot since about 1998, back when it was really "news for nerds", not "third rate lawyers seeking publicity by defending teens' right to download music they don't want to pay for".

This should be, as you yourself have admitted, a nation of laws, not a nation of hoodlums. So, if you don't like RIAA, tell people to neither purchase nor download music associated with RIAA. P2P vs RIAA has degenerated into thug vs thug because neither side has any respect for the law.

But you won't do that, because that won't get you publicity, and the resultant $$$ that you, like a typical lawyer, see flashing before your eyes. It is the very fact that a special intermediary is required so a man may understand his own laws - i.e. the existence of lawyers - that allows this country to become ruled by an intellectual elite. Next time, think harder about what people say to you, as it might be that those more senior than you have a better awareness of your very nature than you do.

As it is, people like you are the gift RIAA could previously only dream of. You represent the best that the freeloaders have to look up to, and you'll be eaten up. And you will lose.