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RIAA Brief Attacks Free Software Foundation
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has requested permission to file a response to the amicus curiae brief filed by the Free Software Foundation in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Boston case against a Boston University grad student accused of having downloaded some song files when in his teens. In their proposed response, the RIAA lawyers personally attacked The Free Software Foundation, Ray Beckerman (NewYorkCountryLawyer), and NYCL's blog, 'Recording Industry vs. The People.' The 9-page response (PDF) — 4 pages longer than the document to which it was responding — termed the FSF an organization 'dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs,' and accused the FSF of having an 'open and virulent bias against copyrights' and 'blatant bias' against the record companies. They called 'Recording Industry vs. The People' an 'anti-recording industry web site' and stated that NYCL 'is currently subject to a pending sanctions motion for his conduct in representing a defendant' (without disclosing that plaintiffs' lawyers were 'subject to a pending motion for Rule 11 sanctions for their conduct in representing plaintiffs' in that very case)."
'open and virulent bias against copyrights' and 'blatant bias' against the record companies.
Funny. I always thought the RIAA has an open and blatant bias against Fair Use. (yes, I know file sharing is not F/U, but those guys don't even want you copying your own stuff even if you never share it)
Need more useless stuff to read on teh internetz?
Five of their lawyers are now placed in high-level positions within the Department of Justice?
I dunno. It could be something else, or just a coincidence, but this does seem to be the simplest explanation among those them...
Speaking abstractly, it's not a bad national strategy in a way. We're fucked economically, and have no manufacturing base to speak of. There's not much we can do except enforce "intellectual property" overseas. The downside is the implicit effect that this will have on domestic freedom and true innovation. I suspect we (as knowledge workers) will be learning some hard lessons in the next few years. I would not be surprised if the FSF and EFF (among others) are forcibly nationalized and destroyed/reorganized within four years.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Freedom can be seen as something absolute, or something relative.
Some 30 years ago, in South West Africa (now Namibia), I was startled when, at checking in, people were asked to hand in their ammunition (they got to keep their guns) when boarding the plane from Windhoek to Cape Town. Most people protested at this violation of their freedom (while disregarding that only white people woudl get such freedom in the first place), but my seat neighbour winked at me and showed me his trouser pocket full with ammo. Body searching would have been unthinkable, and indeed I saw many people clamly reloading their guns as the plane departed, and the stewardess just ignoring them.
30 years in fast forward - my wife was just insulted and her deodorant stolen by check in staff because the volume of the deodorant bottle was 110ml, and only 100ml were "allowed". The fact that the deodorant was 3/4 empty didn't matter. That on a flight back from Vanuatu to Sydney -100% tourists, 90% thereof probably scuba divers, can't get much lower in risk potential on flights I guess.
Give them your little finger, and they not only take your whole hand but proceed to bite off your head after eviscerating and raping you.
Either we have freedom - and it is absolute, or we don't have any. Thus, at present we don't have any. A person without freedom is - a slave.