RIAA Victory Over Usenet.com In Copyright Case

ozydingo writes "The RIAA has scored a victory in a decision on a copyright case that they filed back in 2007. US District Judge Harold Baer ruled in favor of the music industry on all its main theories: that Usenet.com is guilty of direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. In addition, and perhaps most important for future cases, Baer said that Usenet.com can't claim protection under the Sony Betamax decision stating that companies can't be held liable of contributory infringement if the device is 'capable of significant non-infringing uses.' Bear noted that Usenet.com differed from Sony in that the sale of a Betamax recorder was a one-time deal, while Usenet.com's interaction with its users was an ongoing relationship. The RIAA stated in a brief note, 'We're pleased that the court recognized not just that Usenet.com directly infringed the record companies' copyrights but also took action against the defendants for their egregious litigation misconduct.'"

Comments

Any good news lately?

[Locklin]

I think we may be losing.

Re:Any good news lately?

[Anonymous Coward]

He could mean that, or he could mean fair-use advocates.

It seems that the judge's ruling that the Beta-max precedent didn't hold because of the 'on-going relationship' could strike a blow for any and all P2P networks.

Re:Any good news lately?

[houstonbofh]

And we will until enough people get upset at the abuses and stand up. Until the average person knows that he is caught in the RIAA net too, he won't care, and nothing will change.

This also applies to encroaching state policies. And yes, they are related.

Re:Any good news lately?

[Locklin]

If you say you have never infringed copyright (at least how the RIAA sees copyright), you are either a lier or a fool. Ever sang happy birthday in a "public venue?" Ever emailed a colleague a recent news clip, journal article or comic? For that matter, are any of those comic posted up in your office? Do you loan or give away books to friends? do you want to do that with e-books when they become ubiquitous? are you an artist that learned your trade by emulating others? perhaps in public venues?

Like it or not, these people want to make the world a less free place, where only money guarantees freedom and permission is king. File sharing just happens to be the current edge case where the battle is being fought. If they haven't made your life more difficult yet, they will once they have locked up the file sharers and can concentrate more energy on your pet infringement.

Re:Any good news lately?

[guruevi]

We have been losing since the beginning of the widespread use of the Internet. The state (which is ran by such enterprises) wants to keep tight control over this (originally free and open) medium because they want to turn it into a sales channel for their products.

And then the populace votes for these enterprises while feeling good that they had a choice and made the right one.

Re:Any good news lately?

[Bonker]

That assumes that the average American cares. Our population is currently massively bloated from top to bottom with those who neither understand, enjoy, or particularly want the freedoms they could have if they stood up for them.

I'm having difficulty finding the quote, but not long after our invasion of Iraq some very senior general was quoted as saying that he thought that the United States constitution would not survive another attack on the scale of the September 11th bombings and that our 'Experiment with freedom' would have failed.

That smacks of Mussolini-type fascism to me. Here's one of our most ranking military leaders indicating he thinks its about time to declare nation-wide martial law.

On the lower end of the personal power meter, Joe Midwest Sixpack has a very few things he cares about. He wants to be treated well at work and home. He wants his family to do what he tells them. He wants to feel like he's part of a larger animal that's going generally in the right direction. Those desires are met entirely by church and the kind of neo-conservative ramblings that pass for 'news' on cable television these days. He gets a sense of superiority that's entirely fictitious. (Another facet of old-school fascism. Mussolini had the farmer class eating out of the same hand all the WWI vets did.)

If he thinks about freedom at all, it's in the context of 'Obama better not take my guns!' without ever thinking about why the 2nd Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights at all. In the land of the 'Free and the Brave', this individual is neither free nor brave enough to stand up for his freedoms. He would, frankly, be happier with a absolute monarchy or theocracy.

Re:Any good news lately?

[houstonbofh]

Until the average person knows that he is caught in the RIAA net too, he won't care, and nothing will change. Since the average person probably isn't sharing copyrighted material, he probably won't have anything to fear from the RIAA.

It was not pirates caught with the Sony Rootkit. The non-technical grandfather, and the dead grandmother were not pirates. The license fee for the DRM on every BD disk sold is not payed by Pirates. The criminalization of p2p, even for legal purposes, is payed by more than pirates. Everyone is forced to watch that damned "Do not pirate me" add on legally purchased DVDs. (But not pirates)

Re:Any good news lately?

[TitusC3v5]

I think the 'younger' portion of your statement should have been bolded for emphasis. A large part of the problem is that for the most part, all three of our branches of government are filled with 40+ folks, a large portion of which simply don't understand current technologies and how they've changed the game. They understand only the spin that the lobbyists have memorized, and you can imagine where that comes from.

Even if public outrage is evident, I think we're going to see any significant and positive changes until today's 20-30 generation are the ones in office and sitting on the judicial bench.

Re:Any good news lately?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Since the average person probably isn't sharing copyrighted material, he probably won't have anything to fear from the RIAA.

Maybe not from the RIAA as such, but there's something else to consider.

Up until recently, the RIAA and its member corporations had much to fear from pirates. They did not only compete on price, but also on quality of the product itself: in many cases pirate sites offer a superior product that has not been encumbered with DRM. And the industry has taken note and is responding, with legal download sites for music, soon perhaps even movies, and by removing DRM in some cases like the songs sold on the iTunes store.

Now imagine that the RIAA and MPAA actually win against pirates, in a way that makes it almost impossible for John Q Public to find and download pirated works. They would no longer have an incentive to offer a competitive product at a competitive price. DRM would return in a big way, I expect. Plans for legal movie downloads would likely be shelved.

What does that mean for the man in the street? The return of DRM is the most notable effect, one that will have an ever increasing impact. DRM didn't matter much for upstanding citizens when it was just a region code on DVDs. But with many people downloading music from legal sources, proliferation of "media tanks" (why are they called that anyway?), more and more gadgets being capable of playing audio or video, and more of these gadgets being internet-capable, DRM and online verification of licenses will potentially have a great impact on consumers. DRM does not affect you? Hmm... Want to buy a movie abroad, one perhaps that is not even sold in your own country? Sorry, wrong region. Want to rip your Bluray to a central hard disk so you can stream it to any TV in the house? Not possible... and under the DMCA, potentially a crime. Play a movie on the go on your iPhone? You can't, unless you buy a separate copy for that phone. Borrow a CD from a friend? It won't play since the license for it has been tied to his equipment. Oh, and those movies you purchased online a while ago, they are not playing anymore, how odd. Oh yes, the company that sold them went out of business and the certificate servers are offline. Oh, and if your iPod breaks and you decide to get something else instead of an Apple product, you may have to buy all of your songs all over again. That is potentially the future of DRM, and is what gives every honest-to-goodness media exec a hard-on just by thinking about it.

I am all for paying for whatever I get. But when I pay for it, I want to own it in perpetuity, be able to sell or lend it, be able to play it on any compatible device, and be allowed to convert it to suit other devices. A Dutch parliamentary commission recently recommended something along these lines, and I think it is something wonderful (for once) that the EU could accomplish: set down what our fair use rights are (more or less the above), and then forbid the sale of equipment that actively prevents the exercise of those rights, i.e. any DRM or copy protection. If we have our fair-use rights, the RIAA can have their fair-sue rights, and be as tough on pirates as they want.

Re:Any good news lately?

[tsa]

What has this got to do with fair use?

If you ever go to court...

[pieterh]

...do not piss off the judge! It really is batshit stupid to do things like destroy evidence and make witnesses vanish (even temporarily). Why not go to court naked except for a t-shirt that says "Guilty as Hell" on the front and "Kiss my hairy butt" on the back?

The only way to handle such things is to find a way to be the victim of the situation, to prove that you did what you could to help, and that the case is unfair, aggressive, and misplaced.

And, if you don't like the law, work to change it, don't sell ways to get around it. Bad laws exist because people pretend they are helpless to change them.

Re:If you ever go to court...

[east coast]

But... but... Aren't we the victims?

In some ways I'd like to think this was said tongue-in-cheek but given some of the rants I've seen on here in recent years...

You're not the victim. Downloading copywriten works is not your right nor do you have some special privilege to it. As the OP said, if you don't like the system, change the system. I agree that copyright is extended in a manor not fitting the original intent and that copywriten out of print works should have some way of being made available if the copyright holder allows without the copyright holder losing their rights to the distribution of the work. But I still do not see "ripping off the man" as a valid form of protest.

I know that these facts aren't going to stop a single download but an artist should have some limited rights to the use and distribution of their works. If a non-artist copyright holder pays for the privilege it should be upheld to the same standards as the original artist. If you think it's a rip off than, by all means, produce your own work and release it as public domain. People will love you for it and maybe if you follow through on the process and create works of high enough quality you'll understand the need for limited protection under the law. It's a lot of work and money to produce something worthwhile.

Re:If you ever go to court...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not the victim. Downloading copywriten works is not your right nor do you have some special privilege to it. As the OP said, if you don't like the system, change the system.

What the hell are you smoking?

You said two completely incompatible things there.

Re:If you ever go to court...

[funkatron]

Downloading copywriten works is not your right nor do you have some special privilege to it.

Getting paid when someone copies some content you once worked on is not your right nor do you have some special priviledge to it.

That was too easy

Re:If you ever go to court...

[causality]

You're not the victim. Downloading copywriten works is not your right nor do you have some special privilege to it.

I think the real problem is that people who don't download copywritten (copyrighted?) works are also being affected. Just look at the legions of users, particularly of PC games, who find to their dismay that the people who pirated the game have an easier time using it than the people who purchased the game. That's just one side-effect of DRM. Look at some of the other side-effects of DRM, such as the possibility of killing off the first sale doctrine (this is properly called a power grab) and the generally unfriendly practice of telling you what you may do with media after you purchase it and use it legally.

As the OP said, if you don't like the system, change the system.

Do you have millions of dollars that you're willing to part with, a small army of lawyers and lobbyists, and perhaps also the ability to run a national media campaign? Because that's what it would take to even have a chance.

I know that these facts aren't going to stop a single download but an artist should have some limited rights to the use and distribution of their works.

Sure. That was once twelve years, and at a time when the mechanical printing press was the most technologically advanced method of distribution available. Just think of how many more copies of a work we can produce and sell in twelve years with modern technology and digital distribution. That would be a system that people can respect once again because it represents a good balance between the artists' temporary monopoly on their works and the public-domain benefit of society for being willing to grant that monopoly. When you make something respectable, people have a much higher chance of respecting it.

That's much better than making something unworthy of respect and grossly out of balance and then threatening people into going along with it. That's what the system is doing today, and gee, I just can't imagine why it's not working out ...

If you want to get an idea of what kind of people you're dealing with and why there is increasing resistance against them, try this link.

Re:If you ever go to court...

[Travelsonic]

You're not the victim.

Tell that to the deceased, those without a computer, and those who were mis-identified (IP address)and were targeted by the RIAA.

Re:If you ever go to court...

[RedK]

It might have been easy, but the privilege is afforded by the Copyright Act, so it's just false. The law is what it is, if you don't like it, change it.

Re:If you ever go to court...

[east coast]

Getting paid when someone copies some content you once worked on is not your right nor do you have some special priviledge to it.

This is one of the kind of inane rants I was speaking of. While perhaps not an outright rant it's certainly not a valid defense.

And the fact that it got modded up also shows how pathetic the debate has gotten.

If you're going to take part in a civil society you need to play by the rules. If the rules aren't to your liking we have legal ways of changing them. If that still doesn't suit you than you're going to pay a price for being uncivil to the rest of the members who decide to abide by the law.

Re:If you ever go to court...

[causality]

DRM is a side effect of people who feel that theft is a valid response to copyright. It can be argued how effective it is but do you really think media producers enjoy producing DRM for their own amusement? And again, I agree that some aspects of copyright need redone, so let's redo it.

No, DRM is one way to deal with the problem of piracy and it's adversarial towards the paying customers. Revamping your business model so that instead of being based on control, it is instead based on catering to your customers, giving them what they want the way they want it, at a reasonable price, and being a real joy to do business with, is another way to deal with the problem of piracy. That's how I feel about the issue as I refuse to limit myself to "pro-DRM versus pro-infringement."

That's why I call for copyright reform and not the full abolition of all copyright. I think most of your response reflects that this did not occur to you. You really seem to be lumping me together with other people who make different arguments that superficially sound like mine, hence your repeated suggestions that my goal is to say that infringement ("theft") is fine and good. I have never claimed that copyright infringement is some kind of impeccably right or correct thing to do, only that it was quite predictable and that one need not be a student of human nature to recognize this.

I am not saying you are or are not doing this, but just that generally this is how I feel about these discussions. When someone denies that there is a connection between being a needlessly adversarial, universally reviled asshole on the one hand, and having people feel that it is justifiable to rip you off on the other hand, I feel that I am dealing with either a deluded person or an intellectually dishonest person. Just as soon as the media companies quit being their own worst enemies, then and only then is it reasonable to talk about whether the government should create new laws to help them out.

And don't give me this crap about respect. It has nothing to do with the issue. The issue is much simpler than that but people confuse the issue by bringing all kinds of false pretense to it. Respect for the customer is just one of those false pretenses. I know that if I feel a company doesn't respect me as a customer I stop buying from them. It's that simple and respect shouldn't be another crutch of defense for breaking the law.

I clearly indicated that the respect I was talking about was for copyright law. Y'know, as an institution. Whether or not I want to buy a CD from Sony won't rewrite copyright law. Whether our collective political priorities and goals change because enough people decide that the status quo isn't working very well for anyone, including the media companies, now that might do the trick. I'll say the same thing about this that I said about the companies themselves: anyone who denies that there is a connection between whether or not the average person respects copyright law because he can see that it is right and good (i.e. balanced) on the one hand, and the rate of infringement on the other, is either deluded or intellectually dishonest. If you think you can change this or make it go away by calling it crap, well, good luck with that.

If you think it's so offensive why do you deal with them or their product in the first place?

I don't think it's offensive. I think it's wrong. I generally do not deal with them or their products. However, what they are doing is wrong whether they do it to me or to someone else. So, I don't see the point in bringing up what I personally do or don't do.

The only people I feel bad for in all of this is the honest citizen who abides by the law but gets caught up in it all.

You have now identified the one and only subject of my entire post, the part that I consider to be wrong and not merely "offensive".

Re:If you ever go to court...

[mrrudge]

And if the legal system is compromised ?

If the laws are written by, and in favour of, one side of the argument, who then these laws to appropriate more power, and more laws, and who also inflict massive permanent, unwarranted damage on small infringing members of the public ?

What then ?

I'm not trying to defend copyright infringement, but your concept of society seems far from pragmatic. This debate may have become stale, but as it's unresolved and affects a large ( and increasing ) volume of the population and comes very close to ( and is possibly an intended attack on ) Free speech, it's very, very far from pathetic.

I'd say we're getting into civil disobedience territory, copyright was broken by the advent of the Internet. Many, many people have a perfect copying machine ( apart from the guy above who gets scratches in his mp3's ), and the people chosen by this society to create a system which benefits and encourages the creation of artworks via copyright is not doing it's job.

If the majority of a society is uncivil, that society should adjust it's idea of civility. Please don't think there isn't a price for being civil also.

Re:If you ever go to court...

[Endo13]

When copyright is so messed up that a company is making $2 million per year on five minutes of work "composing" a 6-note tune ripped off from someone else, written by someone back in the 1890's who's been dead for over 60 years, with words written by no-one-knows-who, then it's no surprise that the public blatantly disregards it.

FURIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't that cover about anything on the internet, ftp, http, ssh.... Gee they could sue just on a grounds that the technology "maybe" used for illegal activity.

Hmmm.. sue the founders of tcpip because they allow for the "transport" of such illegal activities...

Re:In other news . . .

[The Pirou]

When people are paying subscription fees to binary aggregators like Newzbin and Giganews to get 90% of their daily media (music, movies, etc) content it's understandable why the RIAA is taking such steps. Of course this isn't the trading of copyrighted files - it's a simple download and doesn't behave the same way as P2P networks.

So can you sue Google for finding my ISO files?

[iCantSpell]

So does this mean Google is in the same boat? Technically google can do the same thing with filetype.

filetype:iso has been one of my greatest search modifiers when looking for my pirated copies.

Re:So can you sue Google for finding my ISO files?

[zwei2stein]

Nope.

a) Google actually reacts to DMCA-like request and does remove search results if companies ask them to. see: http://www.google.com/dmca.html

b) Their business model is not build around enabling piracy, very much unlike sites that depends on it to exists and make profit, hence a) works and there is no reason nor legal grounds to sue them.

Compared to cookie cutter pirate site where a) will not ever work because b) they will be out of business if they complied and removed copyrighted material as they would be out of content and ad revenue fast. At best they will post childish reaction on their site.

Bear noted that Usenet.com differed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bear noted that Usenet.com differed from Sony in that... ...they weren't a multibillion dollar multinational corporation with deep pockets and more lawyers than law school reunions.

Re:RIP Usenet

[schmidt349]

File sharing is the only thing keeping Usenet alive right now. If the RIAA can successfully shut down that segment of the service by targeting prominent big-pipe Usenet providers, then the whole thing will come crashing down in a couple of years at most. Looks like Oct. 1, 1993 finally arrived.

Back in my day....

[zepo1a]

Back in my day (I'm 48)....

When I was a young whipper snapper in the 70's-80's. I'd buy an album and copy it to tape for my car. If asked by a friend for a copy, I'd take a blank cassette tape and make a copy in my cassette recorder with the high speed dub feature.

I'd also ask friends the same, and they'd make me a tape of an album I didn't have.

I'd also buy cassette tapes of music at the store.

Now my 69 Dodge Dart back then is carting around 150-200 cassette tapes, some my own made copies, some a friend made copies for me and other store bought tapes.

The music industry and RIAA seemed to live through that era. If one friend bought an album, all his friends would get a cassette copy if they wanted it.

I don't ever recall the cops ever asking me if I got pulled over for speeding or something..."BTW son, Do you have a license for all those home recorded cassette tapes back there."

Seriously, what are the RIAA trying to prove here. I just can't wrap my head around all this frivolous suing.

Now get off my lawn, etc...

Re:Back in my day....

[Robin47]

They want more power. Money is portable power. They don't care how they get it as long as they get it.

Re:Back in my day....

[cil1mia]

Here! Here! Also living through the 70's, 80's AND 90's when this was all the norm! Even recording TV shows on your VCR to loan to a friend who missed that episode of Dallas! HAHAHAHA!

The only reason I can figure is mainly because most of the "mainstream" music that has been coming out sucks horribly! So the recording industry had to figure out a way to make up for lost revenue seeing they couldn't figure out a better business model or find/make better bands!

Lets not forget the whining of Lars Ulrich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS6udST6lbE that really started all this mess! And now he see's his mistake and downloads his own music off the internet! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Ulrich

You also never really hear of the actual BANDS out there complaining about file sharing. They know the truth that the more people that get a taste, the more they will actually go out and buy the whole album/cd/what ever, the more people that will come out to see them live! I can't tell you how many albums I bought when I was younger after hearing a song on a "mix tape" at a party or something!

Which brings me to another thought. What the hell ever happened to making music for the pure joy of it? Oh that's right, greed!

Re:In other news . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Usenet is a useless service these days. So much so in fact that it's not even worth looking at or mentioning ever again. Please, stay away. Let the trolls post and download in peace. They like their happy little home.

Re:RIP Usenet

[L4t3r4lu5]

You have forgotten the first rule.

Re:In other news . . .

[cayenne8]

"Of course this isn't the trading of copyrighted files - it's a simple download and doesn't behave the same way as P2P networks."

Someone HAS to upload those file my friend. That content doesn't just magically appear there by itself.

Re:In other news . . .

[IbnSlash]

This is Usenet with a capital 'U'. Some crap upload and share service that got hold of the domain www.usenet.com

Before you go down further and start panicking please make note of what he said, it's really important. usenet and Usenet are two very different things.

And always remember:

[Hurricane78]

This has nothing to do with the rights of the artists. It's purely about the copyright.

May they live forever, only wishing they could finally die from the horrors.

Digital Changed The Game

[Slashdot Parent]

The music industry and RIAA seemed to live through that era. If one friend bought an album, all his friends would get a cassette copy if they wanted it.

But what happened if the friend tried to make a copy for his friend, and that other friend tried to make a copy for his other friend. Surely you remember that, don't you? The quality stank so badly nobody wanted to listen to that copy, thanks to lossy analog dubbing.

With digital media, each copy is lossless, so if a friend copies a song for a friend, who copies it for another friend... even 10, 20, 1000 friends down the chain, and the music still has its original quality.

So I don't think your Dodge Dart comparison is particularly apt here. The game has changed.

Now mow your fucking lawn, pops.

Re:In other news . . .

[suso]

I see a lot of new faces here tonight, which means that a lot of you have been breaking the first two rules or fight club.

Re:In other news . . .

[arclyte]

I just checked. What he said is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. Usenet is completely dead. Full of spam. Entirely worthless. Nothing to see here, people, so just move along... I wouldn't even bother checking it out for yourself as there's just nothing there worth looking for.

Re:RIP Usenet

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh... usenet.com is a provider of usenet (NNTP) access, it's not just some kind of "file sharing site." It's a usenet based file sharing service.

So, how dose this not have anything to do with NNTP again?