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RIAA's Request For Appeal Denied In Thomas Case
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's request for permission to appeal from the decision setting aside its $222,000 jury verdict has been denied by District Court Judge Michael J. Davis. In a brief, 6-page decision (PDF) the Judge dismissed the RIAA's arguments that there is a 'substantial ground for a difference of opinion' on the question of law presented, whether the Judge had erred in accepting the RIAA's proposed jury instruction that merely 'making files available' could constitute an infringement of the plaintiffs' distribution rights. He likewise dismissed their argument that granting permission for the appeal would 'materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation,' since (a) depending on the outcome of the trial, plaintiffs might not wish to appeal from the judgment, and (b) no matter how the appeals court rules on the 'making available' issue, the case will still have to continue in the lower court, since even if the RIAA wins on the 'making available' issue, the Court will still have to address the constitutionality of the large jury verdict, which may result in a new trial."
Oh wow it was first.... And I hope the RIAA continues to get trounced...
Fuck them. Will they not go away? I own 1800 cds collected over the last 15 or 20 years. I download the songs from the internet.. too lazy to rip em, so what? Fuck off already.
This is very welcome news. However, we need to remember that a cornered wounded beast has nothing to lose and can therefore be very dangerous. This isn't over.
Even Slashdot's Cookie displayed on the same page agrees: "State the problem in words as clearly as possible"
I cannot wait 'till the day the RIAA accidentally hits a judge's, congressman's, or senator's kids in a lawsuit. I wonder how long they'll be able to keep that lawsuit going.
And it seems to be better news than simply the RIAA getting smacked on their request to appeal.
The RIAA claimed this: "there is a substantial ground for a difference of opinion on the question of law presented"
Concerning: "whether the Judge had erred in accepting the RIAA's proposed jury instruction that merely 'making files available' could constitute an infringement of the plaintiffs' distribution rights"
Now, I occasionally have a difficult time translating from Lawyer to English, but it sounds to me like the judge is not only saying "no you can't appeal" but "making available isn't copyright infringement, and there is no wiggle room to discuss the matter further because it's obvious that it's not."
Do I have that right, NYCL? Because if I do it really sounds like bigger news than a trivial appeal request getting smacked down. Sounds like the Judge just dropped The Big One.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The RIAA shoudl just stop making the music available.
The "Recording Industry vs. the People" site has become incredibly ad-heavy. It now has layer ads that won't dismiss, a link farm, and regular Google ads. This thing has advertising from services I've never even heard of, like "shareasale.com". Amusingly, it has ads for RIAA-controlled music, and even for the iTunes store.
Block "st.blogads.com" to make it at least tolerable.
The term "piracy" has been misused on individuals. An individual may be guilty of theft, like a shoplifter, but it's not piracy. Someone that takes an item without paying for it is very different than a rogue company selling unauthorized copies of another company's product. The RIAA treats individuals like profit-seeking organizations, and until now they've been successful. It's refreshing to see a judge recognize the distinction. I believe most critics of the RIAA would be a little more sympathetic to their position if they were pursuing misdemeanor charges for stealing $0.99 songs.
This isn't a big deal either way. The judge denied an "interlocutory appeal", one made regarding some legal point before the decision in the case was final. Such appeals are rarely tried and even more rarely successful. The issue can still be appealed, just not until the current case is finished.
What's that mean in English?
...theft of service? It's quite real, yet quite intangible.
I hope someday the RIAA will be forced to pay back all the money they've collected from these lawsuits, plus substantial damages to the plaintiffs.
Right back to the first lawsuit.
Seems things haven't been going well for the RIAA and I hope it continues to get worse for them.
Sorry to ask such an obvious question, but what does "making files available" mean? Say I lose my laptop or mp3 player and it is used by even a single user, or say they dump in on Limewire.... What then? What would happen if I lost in the US? (Canuck here)
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
If you can read this, you're now a criminal.
Yes, the author's life plus 70 years has passed. Unfortunately I took this work from a compendium that owns the rights of reproduction that will persist well into the next century. This bit our our culture has been stolen from us by lawyers and sold legislators. Under current law there is no legal difference between you downloading Britney Spear's latest attempt at vocal rehab and your browser loading this poem written nearly a century ago on this page. That's wrong. That's very wrong.
And now you're a dirty information property stealing criminal. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
No wonder the RIAA plans to abandon individual suits; because when individuals take it to trial instead of "settling" for a life of debt, the RIAA appears to be getting pounded.
Even on Youtube they don't comment on the RIAA
Begging the question is a form of circular reasoning. The GP was actually trying to answer the question of whether or not copyright infringement is theft.
Also, music isn't a product or a license. It's art that's protected by copyright. Copyright is surely about things that can be copied, that's the whole point. That the current form is broken isn't in doubt, the question should be as to what the new form of copyright is. What rights should be all have when we purchase a copyrighted work?
No need to redraft copyright in terms of rental contracts or what have you.
Actually, the Judge indicated that an appeal was unlikely to prevail as part of his reasoning for the denial of the IA- and explained why it's unlikely to do so.
There's precedent (as indicated in the denial order by the Judge) indicating that "making available" doesn't constitute an act of infringement- and that having made this instruction to the Jury, the Judge did, in fact, predjudice the trial conclusion, thereby requiring a mistrial to be declared. They can appeal all they want- unless they can find that the relevant jurisprudence is wrong or get into a position to get the SCOTUS to decide on the matter, they're not going to get very far on that front.
You've just invented a new business model. Did you think to patent that?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Copyright does not protect portions of derived works that lack originality. That principle is the basis of the recent court decision Bridgeman Art Library vs. Corel Corp.. Unless the publisher has made substantial changes to Kipling's work, I dare say we are not dirty rotten intellectual property stealing criminals after all.
Maybe that is why they don't talk about it on YouTube? There is seriously quite some music on YouTube, some of it is good and often linked to a site where you can get a hi-quality version, buy the CD or otherwise support the performers/producers directly. Who needs the RIAA?
[citation provided]
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Time? That is quite tangible... You'll never have that time again, at least by current physical reckonings.
Karma is for whores
> Who needs the RIAA?
Slashdot does... because since quite some time now slashdot has no other content than sensation...
that is why slashdot is dead to nerds...
In economics I was taught that transactions are supposed to ideally be an equal exchange of value. What do you suppose is the result, over time, when a large number of transactions are consistently not equal in favor of the same party, or limited number of parties?
It's called concentration of wealth. Socialists define that as harm, as well as the more obvious "force and fraud". In place of force and fraud, the tools of this trade are now various forms of manipulation: indoctrination, hype, addiction, miseducation, misdirection, misframing, distraction. The result may not be as extreme or as obvious as it was in prior periods and places in history, but it's most definitely still a problem here and now. We have to keep it in check, if we are to actually live the values we (most of us) espouse as a society and species.
What is unique now, as opposed to eras prior to the industrial age, is that more humans are "working for" a minority of other humans than was previously the case. You might say that self-employment has been steadily taking a nose-dive ever since the invention of mass production (fueled of course by petroleum). An even larger majority is now directly dependent upon a minority for their daily well-being than was the case at any prior time in history. That makes us and our entire economy much more vulnerable to the effects of this concentration. It has led to revolutions in other parts of the world, and I don't rule out the possibility of it happening here. All it would take is an educated and aware populace, which is still a minority but perhaps also growing.
Internet enabled stationary bike FTW!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
for the longest run-on incomprehensible sentence I've ever read here or anywhere else.
Any of you /.'ers actually ever had a class in grammar?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Most of Machiavelli's advice had been around for centuries. Compare the chapter in Aritostotle's Politics on how a tyrant can keep power. What made Machiavelli different is that rather than saying `tyranny is a bad thing but if a tyrant were to arise, this is how he keeps power ...', he flat out said, `there is no virtue qua virtue, only success and failure.' Machiavelli ushered in modern political science by removing the question of virtue (and the common good) from political life, thereby eliminating questions of good and evil from politics.
That was a huge change. And, IMO, one that Machiavelli is properly villainized over.
That should certainly ake the independant artists happy should it happen.
Free Martian Whores!
I'm speaking of a situation where someone taps into a cable line with a de-scrambler. Or where someone conveniently dumps their garbage into someone else's dumpster. In both situations, the fixed costs to the provider are already covered.
Another blow to the tyranny!