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?

[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.

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...

[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...

[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: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.

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....

[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: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.