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

Stupid

[Antisyzygy]

"This provision was adopted in 1988, well before digital music files became available on the Internet"

So in other words "We get to bend the law to suit our corporate overlord's desires."

Re:Stupid

[tjhart85]

Wow, so their explanation of why they won't hear the case is based on the fact that she saw the copyright notice on the CD that she doesn't have? That's almost as bad as an EULA INSIDE the product you by and if you don't agree with it, you can't return the product since you've opened it.

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:Stupid

[yoyo81]

Not quite. That's precisely why Alito says they SHOULD hear the case. The reason why they're not hearing the case is because there is no dissent among the lower courts, so really they have no grounds to hear it. He hopes to eventually hear this case when the lower courts do disagree, as written in the summary, he thinks that the law is outdated. He also acknowledges what you're saying - that she did not have access to the copyright notice.

Re:Stupid

[DragonWriter]

Not quite. That's precisely why Alito says they SHOULD hear the case. The reason why they're not hearing the case is because there is no dissent among the lower courts, so really they have no grounds to hear it.

This is not correct. The Supreme Court has "grounds" to hear any case appealed on a question of law from a lower court (as well as those cases within its original jurisdiction.) The Supreme Court's apellate jurisdiction is, however, generally discretionary, so it may choose whether or not to here any case that someone wants it to hear on appeal. An inconsistency between the Courts of Appeals on a legal issue is one factor that is often cited, in the Court's decisions on whether or not to here an appeal, as weighing in factor of the Court exercising its discretionary jurisdiction, but it is not a prerequisite, and cases are not-infrequently heard where this condition does not apply.

He hopes to eventually hear this case when the lower courts do disagree, as written in the summary, he thinks that the law is outdated.

No, he says they should hear this specific case now, citing one of the specific factors that is frequently cited as weighing in favor of the Supreme Court exercising its discretionary jurisdiction when there is not a division among the Courts of Appeals -- specifically, the fact that "not many cases presenting this issue are likely to reach the Courts of Appeals". His position was a dissent from the decision of the court to not hear the appeal.

Re:Stupid

[blair1q]

The seeds of corruption of the Supreme Court are sowed early, and their appointments are utterly political. The conservative wing of the court were bought and paid for every time their careers advanced.

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.

All we need now is

[unity100]

wikileaks exposing this pieces of crap as they are. a few 'trade secret' communications in between execs and their henchmen should wake the whole public up to the shit these are pulling.

Re:This is how I see it

[tycoex]

True but the penalty is ridiculous. If you get caught stealing 3 cd's at a store and you aren't even an adult yet, they will most likely just take them from you and call your parents. At most you will get a small fine for stealing under $100 worth of goods, which is only a misdemeanor.

If this becomes the norm we might as well start actually stealing from stores, since the penalty is so much smaller.

Re:This is how I see it

[Monkeedude1212]

Well I guess I might as well as hop in the ring and get modded down as well. Time for one of those annoying point/counterpoint posts.

She knew exactly what she was doing. That would be like me shoplifting from a store that did not have a
Shoplifters will be prosecuted sign" and claiming that I did not know I could not shoplift.

No. It's not always like that. The article doesn't say when this took place. When I was 16, I didn't know downloading music was considered illegal. Like her - I naturally assumed that since you don't get the full content that comes with a CD, and that songs are played for free on the radio DAILY with no laws against recording the radio - that downloading music was not an issue at all. It was only once I started reading the news (as most teenagers don't actually read the news, go figure) that I found out the whole issue with Napster and Metallica causing a whole big stink. NOW I know there is an issue, and back then I didn't - which is what she's claiming.

Look. I pirate and many others on /. do as well. Everybody knows it is illegal and there is a chance of getting caught. I am just glad I am not the one getting caught, and I would be in trouble for much more than 37 songs.

Thats the thing - some of us disagree in it's illegality. Like mentioned with Radio before, they get to air it for free, and I can record any song on the radio, put the sound file on my MP3, and I am completely free of any Copyright issues. Mixed tapes were all the rage, why aren't there ridiculous lawsuits against every highschool romantic guy who ever made a mixed tape?

If you do something illegal and get caught, even if we think the penalty is horrible, the excuses some people use are ridiculous. If she was so naive to think that there was nothing illegal about downloading the music and not paying for it, then how in the hell did she figure out how to do it in the first place. I am trying to say that every single person that pirates knows it is illegal. Well, most people do. If you show grandma how to download Elvis songs, it is possible she could have no idea, but those cases are so far and few between, that I would put them in to 1% of all pirates in a study I made up myself to help out my argument.

This is EXACLTY the point she is trying to make: She was just a teenager. She wasn't some leet phreak hacker like you or I - she wasn't visitting Slashdot every day of the week and wasn't a proud supporter of open source technology. She was someone who probably went over to a friends house, they said "Hey, see this thing called Limewire? You can use it to download songs. Its great! Here', I'll set it up when I'm over at your house next".

She likely had NO idea of the consequences when this happened.

If you are going to download music, there is always a chance of getting caught. This excuse is a horrible excuse as well

Yes - but when you aren't aware it's illegal, thats where the contraversy arises. No - ignorance of the law is not an excuse - you can't say "But I didn't know!". What creates a problem is the double standards - when it is perfectly fine for someone to create a duplicate copy of a song in one way without any consequence but doing it in a certain way ends in multiple thousands of dollars in lawsuits.

Re:This is how I see it

[amicusNYCL]

If this becomes the norm we might as well start actually stealing from stores, since the penalty is so much smaller.

If you steal a music CD from a store, and then make a bunch of copies and start distributing them, expect the same penalty. The girl is not charged with theft, she's charged with distribution of a copyrighted work. Her defense is that she didn't know she was distributing it, and the court says that doesn't matter. This line strikes me as odd though:

claiming "innocence" was no defense

I guess there's a reason they wrote it in quotes, but I was under the impression that innocence, by definition, is in fact always a defense. Apparently not.

Re:This is how I see it

[Chris Burke]

They did not equate the two things, they compared them.

And it's a relevant and revealing comparison: Actual theft would be more acceptable and have a lesser penalty than duplicating bits.