Google Asks Court Not To Enjoin ReDigi

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Google has sought leave to submit an amicus curiae brief against Capitol Records' preliminary injunction motion in Capitol Records v. ReDigi. In their letter seeking pre-motion conference or permission to file (PDF) Google argued that '[t]he continued vitality of the cloud computing industry — which constituted an estimated 41 billion dollar global market in 2010 — depends in large part on a few key legal principles that the preliminary injunction motion implicates.' Among them, Google argued, is the fact that mp3 files either are not 'material objects' and therefore not subject to the distribution right articulated in 17 USC 106(3) for 'copies and phonorecords,' or they are material objects and therefore subject to the 'first sale' exception to the distribution right articulated in 17 USC 109, but they can't be — as Capitol Records contends — material objects under one and not the other."

Comments

Re:Can the courts decide A = !A

[robot256]

While it is possible for two separate courts to come to conflicting conclusions, it seems that Google's biggest worry should be that one judge will award damages based on both interpretations simultaneously. This would set a precedent allowing both distribution and counterfeiting laws to be abused in digital information cases, defining mp3 files as some sort of "hyper-product" that can be controlled in any manner the copyright owner likes.

Re:fp

[silverglade00]

First posts are NOT material objects.