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Appeals Court Knocks Out "Innocent Infringement"
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A 3-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has ruled that a Texas teenager was not entitled to invoke the innocent infringement defense in an RIAA file-sharing case where she had admittedly made unauthorized downloads of all of the 16 song files in question, and had not disputed that she had 'access' to the CD versions of the songs which bore copyright notices. The 11-page decision (PDF) handed down in Maverick Recording v. Harper seems to equate 'access' with the mere fact that CDs on sale in stores had copyright notices, and that she was free to go to such stores. In my opinion, however, that is not the type of access contemplated in the statute, as the reference to 'access' in the statute was intended to obviate the 'innocence' defense where the copy reproduced bore a copyright notice. The court also held that the 'making available' issue was irrelevant to the appeal, and that the constitutional argument as to excessiveness of damages had not been preserved for appeal."
Whether she was innocently infringing or not isn't really the point because it's fairly obvious that no teenager on the planet who pirates music doesn't know that it's illegal.
The problem is that she's in court for downloading 16 songs. Randomly attacking people who will find it difficult to defend themselves legally isn't the right way to go about reducing piracy.
So is "stealing" when applied to copying a CD.
An argument _does_ exist that it is stealing... it's just that what one is stealing by doing so isn't what the copier actually cares about, and so doesn't even notice that they took it from the copyright holder.
Copyright is supposed to be an _EXCLUSIVE_ right to copy the work... (right to copy = copyright). Anybody else requires permission by virtue of that exclusivity. If somebody else does it without permission, they literally *DO* deprive the copyright holder of some measure of his or her exclusivity on their right to copy their work, since by definition, exclusive means that nobody else is supposed to be doing it.
As I said, however, somebody who is copying a CD likely isn't thinking about the exclusivity on the copyright they are depriving the copyright holder of, so it tends to go completely unnoticed.
Some might offer the counterpoint that you can't steal something intangible like "exclusivity", but really, how different is it from tangible materials if one can still actually deprive somebody else of it by their actions?
Whether or not such exclusivity on the right to copy is a good idea in the first place is another matter, although without it, copyright loses a lot of its value for most people.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Nope, the reason they don't go after the counterfeiters at flea markets is because that's not the "threat" to them...(how many people do you know that buy fake cds at flea markets)...kids downloading songs off bittorrent is. The price of legal downloads has very little to do with it...yes there are a few people out there that make choices of pirate vs buy based on price/value/etc, but for most, it's "free vs pay?" and free always wins. (yes, you can argue that YOU would just buy instead of pirate if it was just cheap enough, for whatever magical value of "cheap enough" you've defined, but if so you are either a minority or a liar)
So they go after kids who download, and shoot for as big a penalty as possible. Not because they themselves even believe that the penalty is correct, but because they are trying to scare other people away from downloading. If people think "wow, my life will be ruined if I get caught" then the RIAA believes just maybe less people will illegally download.
Now I'm not saying it's right, but it's at least reasonably logical.
Of course he gives a dishonest summary... He is after all a lawyer. That's pretty much his job.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Don't forget to mention that only people who have a weak case use inflamatory language to bolster their argument that viewed in the cold light of day would barely arouse any sympathy.
And that's why the copyright cartels will never submit to your proposed reasonableness.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
> you should have to pay the consequences
The "consequences" should not be glorified sharia law.
We even have a bit of constitutional law here in the US of A to that effect.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
They will lose money on the overall deal.
If you include the people they've pissed off so badly they will no longer give any money to any media company for any reason whatsoever, and will do whatever they can to deny them income beyond that, I'd say the damage they've caused themselves goes quite a bit beyond losing money.
Personally I can certainly afford buying a lot of media, but people raping teenagers simply are not getting my money.
Indeed, but even as far as innocence or not, apparently she was 15 years old - at that age, we deem someone incapable of being informed or capable enough to make decisions such as having sex, taking a photo of themselves say topless, buying a lottery ticket, having a drink, smoking a cigarette. In some places, they can't do that for years later.
But apparently, at 15 they're expected to fully understand the ins and outs of copyright law, as well as being fully aware and liable for damages.
Yes, there is a good reason for punishing children who commit criminal offences, where they are a danger to society. But piracy is a civil issue. Children can't even enter legal contracts - should they be liable under civil legal issues?
(And don't be too sure that everyone knows the law, even adults, and even musicians - e.g., UK artists Lily Allen who, after accusing pirates of being thieves, was revealed to have been illegally distributing other artists' works in order to promote her own commercial material, in the form of mix tapes, and then defended it with "i didn't have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry back then" - what 15 year old has a knowledge of the music industry?)