Supreme Court Refuses P2P 'Innocent Sharing' Case

yoyo81 writes "The Supreme Court has refused to hear an 'innocent infringement case' in which Whitney Harper shared some music on the family computer when she was a teenager and was subsequently hit with a lawsuit from the RIAA. An appeals court overturned an earlier ruling from a federal court that reduced damages to $200 instead of the statutory $750 claiming 'innocence' was no defense, especially since copyright notices appear on all phonorecords. She appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear her case, but Justice Alito stated, 'This provision was adopted in 1988, well before digital music files became available on the Internet' and further, 'I would grant review in this case because not many cases presenting this issue are likely to reach the Courts of Appeals.' For now, though, Harper's verdict remains in place: $750 for each of the 37 songs at issue, or $27,750."

Comments

Re:Stupid

[Tom Boz]

I think you misinterpreted what Justice Alito said - he *wanted* to hear the case; that sentence comes from his dissent. He would prefer to reexamine the laws which were written before a new medium was available (or at least widely available).

Re:This is how I see it

[drinkypoo]

Actually, recording from the radio and making mix tapes has always been illegal for the same reasons as today.

Actually, according to the RIAA, recording from the radio to an audio tape cassette (specifically a tape cassette, mind you) is acceptable. You may not loan the recording to a friend. Further, time-shifting has been shown to be fair use by the supremes in the Betamax decision, so you are legally permitted to record audio or video for your own use regardless of media, since January 17, 1984. Otherwise the VCR would have ceased to exist.

So no, recording from the radio and making mix tapes has always been legal and has explicitly been legal since 1984, or basically, as long as it has been an issue. Redistribution of that content is illegal, but you knew that.

Re:Stupid

[Foobar of Borg]

Ok, we get it, you think all rich people are idiots with no empathy. Awesome. Can we move on now?

Not idiots, just out of touch in the "let them eat cake" style. And no, most rich people do not have empathy. It might affect their bottom line.