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Supreme Court May Tune In To Music Download Case
droopus writes "The US Supreme Court is weighing into the first RIAA file-sharing case to reach its docket, requesting that the music labels' litigation arm respond to a case testing the so-called 'innocent infringer' defense to copyright infringement. The case pending before the justices concerns a federal appeals court's February decision ordering a university student to pay the Recording Industry Association of America $27,750 — $750 a track — for file-sharing 37 songs when she was a high school cheerleader. The appeals court decision reversed a Texas federal judge who, after concluding the youngster was an innocent infringer, ordered defendant Whitney Harper to pay $7,400 — or $200 per song. That's an amount well below the standard $750 fine required under the Copyright act. Harper is among the estimated 20,000 individuals the RIAA has sued for file-sharing music. The RIAA has decried Harper as 'vexatious,' because of her relentless legal jockeying."
Really RIAA? Really? You are accusing someone else of "relentless legal jockeying". /head asplodes
There is a war going on for your mind.
... is complaining about someone else's relentless legal jockeying? How much blacker can the pot get while impugning the kettle's color? Until this girl (or any other individual) has the means to write and buy their own federal legislation, the MPAA should STFU.
If I'm going to face a life time punishment (how long it takes to pay off a million dollar fine), it might as well be for something worthy.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Since the advent of these cases it has been clear that the intent was to bury people financially and for the **AA to use the courts as a bludgeon to scare the rest of the populace--not the pursuit of justice. Now they're upset because someone with nothing to lose (ruinous legal judgments that cannot reasonably be paid back by an individual tends to create that mentality) has decided to use their own strategy against them? Tough $#@! **AA. Bed. Made. Lie.
How do you like this taste of your own medicine? Hopefully this kind of thing will catch on and more people will choose to drag their cases out for as long as possible and this will cost the **AA so much more than they anticipated.
--bornagainpenguin
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Ignorance is no excuse, and all of that, but I really think we'll start to see more of this. As filesharing becomes easier on the user's end, how is a new/naive/young user supposed to know it's illegal? I mean, type the name of any current pop artist into Google, followed by "rapidshare", "yousendit" or one of the myriad other large file sharing services, and usually one of the first links Google finds is the file itself, ready for download.
The fact that these types of cases are coming up again and again make clear that it's a contentious issue, at least for some. Someone out there takes issue with all this content being freely available.
To be clear, I'm not arguing one way or another on the filesharing/copyright issue. I'm just saying that as we move forward with the web and user interfaces, and searchability, then a 12 year old kid who has some brains and can figure out some clever search "hacks" becomes able to just find files that are publicly available to download with no warning, no mention of "this could be copyrighted", etc.
I've tried explaining the process for finding files like this to my father, who is probably a lot like most of your parents. Able to get online, but not really understanding the full intrecacies of the interwebs. I tried explaining how illegal this is, and that it's up to him to take that leap. I'm sure there are teenagers and preteens out there figuring this stuff out, too. Do you think that they're explaining the legalities and potential consquences to their friends, when they pass on the instructions?
As this knowledge passed down to further "generations" ofkids, and technology progresses, I could actually see how an ignorance defense could be fairly legitimate.
And just out of curiosity can someone tell me why punitive damages should be awarded to the plaintiff? Why should someone make more money in a court of law then they otherwise would. I mean real damages I'm ok with, they're real. Punitive damages though are just some arbitrary number assigned to case. The plaintiffn has no right to that money, it doesn't belong to them, so why should they be awarded it.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
What we should be considering is whether the $750-to-200,000-per-file fine is constitutional, more than whether someone knew it was copyright. Seriously, find me another crime (especially civil) that has a heavier penalty, even a punitive one.
It's more silly than that. From what I've read, the defendant wants the case to go to trial instead of being forced into a settlement. That's "vexatious" in the eyes of the RIAA.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's not wrong, it's illegal. There's an important difference.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
If the 'innocent infringer' defense doesn't fly, how about awarding full damages? $0.99 cents per song seems reasonable. If she left bittorent running till the share ratio hit 2.0, maybe she should even pay &1.98 per song. Thats like 70 bucks, or three albums. The price is steep, but she did "steal" the songs. The RIAA deserves to be fairly compensated for their losses.
What I find more entertaining is how the MafiAA - who've been slapped back and forth for filing false testimony (perjury), filing mountains of paperwork trying to bury defendants (barratry), caught in price-fixing collusion (conspiracy), falsifying evidence (forgery), providing "evidence" that was the result of deliberate computer crime on the part of their own "investigators", using "investigators" that they knew were not licensed for the investigations, and repeatedly filing SLAPP lawsuits against groups like the EFF - have the temerity to still be pushing this garbage.
Oh, and then there's their abusive filings of dozens if not hundreds of lawsuits at once, based on nothing but "information and belief" with no actual evidence, where they try to get the identities of people and then harass and threaten them in what has been best described as an organized, big-business-sanctioned extortion ring.
What a lot of these judges in the past have written at the lower-court level, especially when they greenlight these extortion racket tactics, make me suspect bribery to be in play as well.
The "conservative" SCOTUS will probably rule in favor of the record industry, tightening the strangle hold corporations have on the US. They have been systematically stripping individuals of rights while handing more power to the government (in the form of police and secret police powers) and corporations for at least 20 years now.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Well, yes and no. The RIAA's position is that her petition has been already asked and answered by the courts, twice.
What gets me is that if the RIAA is correct, then her settlement offer of $1200 should have been acceptable, but they refused it. So their own vexatious accusation makes them in the wrong for rejecting a fair settlement, which is in and of itself vexatious if not frivolous.
What I find more entertaining is how the MafiAA - who've been slapped back and forth for filing false testimony (perjury), filing mountains of paperwork trying to bury defendants (barratry), caught in price-fixing collusion (conspiracy), falsifying evidence (forgery), providing "evidence" that was the result of deliberate computer crime on the part of their own "investigators", using "investigators" that they knew were not licensed for the investigations, and repeatedly filing SLAPP lawsuits against groups like the EFF - have the temerity to still be pushing this garbage.
Yes, and yet the girl is "vexatious" for demanding that her legal right to a fair trial be upheld.
The fact that today's music largely sucks is far from the only reason I haven't bought music in years. (And no, I don't download it illegally either).
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."