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"Innocent Infringement" Defense May Reach Supreme Court
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Several years ago a federal court in Texas ordered the RIAA, in an 'innocent infringement' case against a teenager, to either accept $200 per infringed work, or to go to trial over the innocent infringement issue, in Maverick Recording Co v. Harper. Recently, an appeals court reversed, saying that the defendant could not avail herself of the innocent infringement defense since there were CDs, bearing copyright notices, available in stores, even though the copies she had made were from MP3 files which bore no such notice. Now, a petition for certiorari has been filed on the defendant's behalf, arguing that the 5th Circuit's ruling would make it impossible for anyone to interpose an innocent infringement case, even where they had never seen a copyright notice. The lawyers filing the petition on defendant's behalf are the same firm that represented Jammie Thomas in her second trial, and the motion which resulted in her verdict being reduced from $1.92 million to $54,000."
I've always wondered about this portion of the law and thought that it would be more appropriate not to just find the files on the file-sharing user's computer but to also find the work being infringed.
The record companies have used the 'making available' justification to fry some and I almost buy that, if I take my purchased CD's and transcode them to a compressed format for personal use that could be fair use, bit for bit copies might not be but compressed should be.
If I take the same 'inferior' copies and place them on a file-sharing tool for the purpose of allowing others access I have, if I believe what I read made them available, this is where I suppose the IANAL bit comes into play but... posting the files with the copyright notice should make it clear that others are violating the copyright (my copy, archival or not) posting the files without the copyright notice should open the other users of the file-sharing tool to 'innocent infringer' status.
And since when did individual tracks count as a work infringed? If I copy the CD that was sold as a single item (oh I love this) how can the twelve tracks on it be anything other than fractions of the whole? If you can prove it was itunes or singles thats one thing but we are clearly talking about songs ripped from a CD, I think even if innocent infringement is tossed someone should be arguing (as the record companies and artists have tried to prevent Apple from doing) that a track represents a portion of the 'art' and as such should be treated as such in compensation. I would still like to meet the *moron* who thinks suing your customer base is a good business plan, than again, maybe I don't.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Copyright infringement, at least in the US, is a crime willeus tenspartum, which means "willingness demostrated" (roughly), in other words, you have to intend to commit the crime.
Then explain the million-dollar verdict against George Harrison in Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, in which George Harrison didn't know he was accidentally copying half of Ronald Mack's song "He's So Fine" into Harrison's "My Sweet Lord".
> I have trouble imagining anyone asserting with a straight face that a
> reasonable person would believe the songs were off copyright attached.
The discovery evidence from Viacom vs. YouTube/Google proves you wrong. We can thank Viacom for showing just how possible it might be that "viral"/pirate content is actually being distributed by the rights holder.
Most of us aren't chummy with the **AAs so that we can know what the reality is.
Sorry! Even those of us who still care (and I think that those who care just make sure that the artists they like get some of their money, regardless of the exact strictures of copyright law).