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Teen Freed for Linking to MP3s
7 year old free from charges in swedish mp3-case
The district court of Skövde announces today that the 17-year old who had using links to mp3-files on his homepage, is now acquited. Justification being that the 17-year old had only been directing to, not distributing the actual files. The classification was "crime against the copyright law through digital mp3-technics".
Even though he is now acquited, the court thinks he is guilty of complicity to crime against the copyright law. But since he was never prosecuted for that crime, he is released.
This is the first time in Europe a mp3-case has been brought to court. Its the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) who prosecuted the 17-year ord. The organisation has charged him with fines, but crimes against the copyright law can result in up to two years in prison. IFPI has not yet responded if it will appeal against the judgement.
What music sites need to do is put their MP3's and other media under the GNU General Public License. That way, if some punk Swedish kid tries to link to them with an tag, he must subsequently make his whole home page GPL as well. But because MP3's are not GPL, anyone in the world can link to them, and possibly even download and play them back on a non-GPL MP3 client.
Seriously though. An URL is just an address of a file. Plain and simple. It's equivalent to a citation in a bibliography or footnote. This is "fair use". There is nothing wrong with making a link to a file, it's allowed for under copyright law (in the US), even though the lawyers and politicos may not think so. If the MP3 owner does not want people linking to it, all they need to do is put it behind a secure server.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
While I don't know the text of the Berne Convention by heart, I'd say it's only marginally relevant (legally speaking, it's not a law, by the way). The Berne Convention sets some minimum standards for copyright, but its primary purpose is to let foreign authors enjoy the same rights as the nationals of the country where copyright is claimed.
Before the Berne Convention was established in the late 19th century, a Swedish publisher could obtain a book by a British author, possibly translate it, and distribute as many copies he liked within Sweden, without the British author getting a say (or even receiving a penny in compensation)! Even today, copyright legislation is essentially national, with various conventions extending the rights given by national laws also to foreigners.
I don't think the Berne Convention says much about encouraging infringement or similar "side issues". The function of the Berne Convention (or perhaps some other convention) in this particular case was essentially to allow the recording industry to bring charges to the Swedish teenager on behalf of foreign musicians. The rest was up to the Swedish court to decide in accordance with the Swedish Copyright Act and other relevant statutes.
There is another potential twist related to the Berne Convention though: I don't know from what country the actual MP3 files were (and maybe still are) served. In this layman's opinion, charging somebody with assisting infringement by linking to those files will require their distribution to be illegal in the first place. What if they reside on a server in a country which isn't party to the relevant conventions, or where even domestic copyright law is insufficient? Can you be charged with helping someone abroad to commit an act that would be illegal if committed in your own country, but not where it's actually committed?
Note that making a single copy for your own personal use normally isn't illegal in Sweden, so I don't think you'll get anywhere by claiming the teenager was assisting those who downloaded the music to commit "petty theft of intellectual property" or something. The issue here is whether he in effect operated as the advertising agency of an actual pirate (something the court appearantly didn't address, due to sloppy homework on the part of the prosecutor).
That's the problem with mandatory minimum sentencing laws. In most cases, the judge is indeed powerless, since legally he is not allowed to give less than a certain sentence. The only other alternative he has is to overturn the conviction, which would be somewhat akin to lying. The person is guilty, but doesn't deserve the sentence, but the judge's sentencing leeway has been done away with by stupid laws, so he's in a no-win situation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well -- your ISP may have something to say about that, because 10^16 16 digit numbers will take something like 160,000 terabytes (give or take a few bytes for HTML headers). But assuming it's possible, you still aren't doing anything wrong, because, unlike the examples given above, you aren't giving anyone any information that isn't contained in the sentence "B of A credit card numbers are 16 digits long". If a man delivered a solid block of marble to my door, should I turn him in for selling me a fake of the Venus de Milo? After all, it's in there somewhere.
If on the other hand you posted the algorithm for generating valid credit card numbers, you would be a criminal, and I doubt anyone would argue with that. If your best mate set up a site with that algorithm on it, and you set up a site directing people to his site (maybe he lived in a country with no extradition treaty to the USA or something), then you're part of a serious crime.
I think the analogies hold up, but the critique is interesting. Thanks.
jsm
I'm sorry if someone mentioned this earlier, but what about a place like mp3search.lycos.com? Do Lycos execs get hauled to court because they let a person search public FTP sites? What about normal search engines that happen to come upon an MP3 webpage with their automated spiders?
There's a very large amount of psuedo legal wrangling. Does a router that passes along MP3 data that is being copied illegal count as assisting, leading to arrest/prosecution of owner of said router/backbone? This'd certainly harken to the situation in Australia where people are being restricted in their personal freedom.
I'm amazed more people don't realise that freedom to choose == freedom to choose crime, and then try and make it harder to committ crime (by law), when no law will stop a person who wants to.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
So, did the guy know he was doing something bad, but thought that the technical facts about the Internet would mean he couldn't be caught for it? If yes, then guilty he is.
According to an interview today, he had been warned twice by IFTI (or whatever). He thought the first warning was a joke by someone, but he took the second warning serious---he moved his site abroad...
I think he is guilty of being stupid. There is definately a gray zone here, but if you are asked to remove your links because you are doing damage then I think you have an obligation to do so.
Reality or nothing.
This means that as the computer propogation into
our society greatens many "knowledge based"
industries will be made obsolete and thereby will
use their current economic power to find every
possible fashion of stopping and stifeling their
depleating place in the economy. Expect more
witch-hunts. Though there is a way around
this. It's called value added services. Take
Macmillian publishing and their personal
desktop service. Seeing that it was so simple to
copy their material (mainly books) they made them
free and used advertising to sustain the service
meanwhile offering the "ability" to purchase a "hard copy." Unfortunately greedy old companies don't like new business models. In Canada the CRTC has regulated the upstream cap on dialup and other transmission means from the public sector.
Well that's my 2 cents.
That surely does NOT make sense. Since most people have a free will (and there are laws governing the actions of those who don't) we can, in our very self-conscious, lawful way choose not to download copyrighted material (or kill, steal, whatever..) just because we are presented with the opportunity.
I don't buy this.
First things first; this comment is an example of what is usually an admirable principle; that control and prohibition should be kept as close in the causal chain as possible to the "bad act". This keeps the sphere of prohibition as small as possible, which is good.
But there comes a point at which it's just not possible to use the "other people have free will" argument, and when you have to suspect bad faith. Human beings aren't super-rational calculators running algorithms designed by Donald Knuth. They're funny, kludgey systems which react to stimuli in partly autonomous but partly predictable ways. And they're about as manipulable as the slashdot Karma system (no offense). People who behave in ways which influence the behaviour of others are part of the causal chain which leads to someone's rights being violated.
Should I be allowed to put up a site of credit card numbers? Hey, the people who download them have free will, don't blame me for what they do with them! How about if, for a fee, I introduce you to a guy who knows a hit man? How about if I publish the names and addresses of abortionists on the Net, with a red cross over the ones that have been killed? If you lent me your car and I left it out in a bad neighbourhood with the keys in the ignition, would you consider it to be partly my fault when it got stolen?
In a lot of these cases, I'm intending that crimes happen, and helping them to happen. I'm part of (an accessory to) the crime. I can claim that it's not my intention that these bad things happen (if I've got a good story, I might even get away with it). Some examples aren't crimes at all. But there's certainly a case to answer -- it's not the same as owning an automatically spidered search engine (and most search engines do attempt to keep themselves warez-free).
David Hume has a good few words to say about this, if I could only remember them.
jsm
With MP3's, you can create your own CD, promote and sell it on the web
:)
So says the hype. I've been down this route with my band for a demo tape, recording the instruments on my soundcard, using a multitrack app etc., and then the band went into a studio and recorded a 6-track EP; we could just about afford it. The audio quality was reasonable but not great.
The fact is that without access to expensive studio equipment it is extremely difficult to get a master recording at a high enough quality to sell. Getting a record deal makes this a lot easier as the record company pays for the studio (in exchange for most of your profit...) So, unless you're willing to sink pretty much everything you have into equipment and studio time, record companies still have a pretty big part to play for most bands. Plus, of course, it's a chick-magnet being able to say, "oh yeah, well, we got our new record deal last month"
axolotl
Two hundred years ago when there were wolves and marauding bears out in the woods, being inside the stockade made you safe. It also made you free to walk around outside shelters (but within the stockade) after dark. So safety made people free.
But you have to exchange the freedom to wander the land for the safety of the compound. Exchanging one for another.
Much the same way, if bombs and gunshot are going off all around you, it's not very safe.
Much the same if I lock you in a box, you are very safe, but where is your freedom?
They may not be opposing poles but there is most definitely an inverse relationship between them.
+&x
Although it's good that he got out, there's stiull the issue of linking and the nebulous "assisting copyright crimes".
For example, say I, at school, decided to use a cd burner to record a song? Since it's their eq, would that be "assisting copyright crime"? What if I give someone a MP3->.wav converter? Or for that matter a CD ripper? Have I "assisted copyright crime"? The entire charge is both nebulous and overreaching. If I send an MP3 to someone under the assumption (which may well have been stated on his page, although I honestly don't know) that they already own the CD, and they happen not to, does that qualify?
Sorry about mixed-upness, it's not even 1000...
17 year old freed in Swedish MP3 case
The court in Skövde said that the 17 year old who had links from his homepage to MP3 files is acquitted. The reason is that the 17 year old didn't spread the files, but simply linked to them.
Today the verdict was delivered in the highly publicised case against a 17 year old who linked to MP3 files. The charge was crime against copyright laws using MP3 digital media.
Although he is now free, the court said he was guitly as an accessory to copyright infringements. But because he was not charged, he can go free.
First legal case in Europé
The case deals with the music industry's worries about pirate copying of music and the case is unique - the first time that an MP3 case case been taken up in Europe.
It was the recording insutry's IFPI, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, who prosecuted the 17 year old. The organisation has pressed for a fine, but copyright violations can carry a sentence of up to two years in prison. The IFPI has not said that it will not appeal the decision.
The court followed the line given by lawyer Per-Olof Almers. He argued that the case was not a crime. The 17 year old only showed interest in other's MP3 files.
(Very quick translation indeed)
A little planning goes a long way...
Bork Bork Bork!
that if I set up a site to point the finger at copyright abusers and link to their sites, that I'm assisting in the crime?
I thought the fellow was being sued -- that is, a civil proceeding, not a criminal proceeding. Thus reading that he has been "freed" by the court leaves me a little confused. Perhaps this is a translation error?
--JT
What if that person links to something legitimate, but then someone else buys the domain name and puts kiddy porn on it (assuming you get busted before you find out the link is bad)? You didn't originally link to something illegal. Could you sue them for changing the content of a site you linked to? Seems just a reasonable to me. Or, how about printed books? If I write a book, and I list another book as reference, can I be arrested if that book is considered illegal? As my wife says "We need to put all of the stupid people on an island and nuke 'em".
I think it could be argued that the difference lies in whether or not the information has the potential to be used innocuously.
For instance, if you walk into a 'head shop', you'll find a vast array of bongs, pipes, rolling papers, hydroponic systems etc. Ninety-five percent of them are surely taken home and loaded up with pot, but the fact that they can be used to smoke tobacco and other legal substances gives the storeholder the right to sell them.
In the case of the teenager, he might have a defence if he argued that he was somehow aware of the identity of the undercover cop, and was passing on the information to assist in bringing the dealer to justice. Otherwise he was certainly providing that information on the basis that it would be used to commit a crime.
With this approach, it would be straightforward to argue that linking directly to an mp3 file consituted an offence; less obvious that linking to the http://mp3.warez.com homepage was illegal; and very hard to argue that linking to a site which provided links to mp3 files was illegal (unless that site provided no other information).
Hamish
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
This was on the news here (though pretty deep in the broadcast) tonight, and one of the channels (the youth oriented Mtv clone) had an interview with the a representative from IPIF.
He said he felt the court had misunderstood the technical nature of the Internet (personally I would say he is the one who has missunderstood it) and that they would most probably appeal it. Court cases can always be appealed here.
He did however concede that the topic was a "difficult" one.
Ironically, I have never seen mp3s mentioned on the news here before this case. As an mp3 supporter I think it did us more good than bad here. There is nothing like getting a hand from the enemy.
Oh, and, Kids: Go ahead an pirate all the music that you want, but when you pirate an album, put 1$ in an envelope and send it to the artist. That is more than he would have seen of your 15 for the album.
-
Mp3's is the only thing that can save music from itself at this point. Having worked in the music buisness ( Before my transforamtion into an uber-geek ) I can assure you every major record company is scared out of their pant's. The biggest worry they have is not really copyright issues. It's the fact that music act's don't really need record companies anymore. With MP3's, you can create your own CD, promote and sell it on the web. Look to Public Enemy for an example,
"When I look down I miss all the good stuff, When I look up I trip over things..."-Ani DiFranco
Well, if linking to warez is illegal, we'll soon get quickly moving underground warez-links sitez and people will link to those.
Will they then get sued for linking to a site that links to a site that has warez?
Researchers showed that the Internet is 9 clicks wide, so pretty soon all the Internet will truely be illegal.
EjB
Likewise encoding huge chunks of your CD collection onto one CD using MP3 compression would also be covered under fair use as long as you don't give the CD away, sell it or otherwise distribute the files on it. You can use it for your own use so you don't have to stop and change CD's every 72 minutes.
You're getting into some hazy areas with linking. IANAL, but I'll take a stab at it. Linking is just telling someone where to find something else. If you say I can be prosecuted for copyright violations for linking, you'd damn well be ready to go down that road.
1) If I call you on the telephone and tell you where to find MP3 files, can I be prosecuted for copyright violations?
2) If I say on a radio show where to find MP3 files, can I be prosecuted for copyright violations?
3) If the MP3's are legit, obviously I can't be prosecuted for copyright violations.
4) Can you prove I knew the MP3's weren't legit? Should you have to?
5) If I link to a site that has displays one image that violates copyright laws, can I be prosecuted for copyright violations?
6) Do I have to ask permission before I do this?
You'd better be willing to answer "yes" to most of these questions if you want to go down that road. Apparently the RIAA is willing to answer yes to most of these questions. Are we?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What you're talking about isn't any different from any other small startup. You've got some people together with nothing but an idea and some talent (one hopes) to realize it. What you don't have is the money to make it happen. You want an audience; the audience wants quality (among other things). Quality costs money.
Maybe, if your band is good enough, you can attract financial backing. Startup capital. Sell shares of your future earnings for what you need to get going now. If you have commercial promise, why wouldn't investors go for this?
Of course, most bands suck, just like 90% of everything sucks. Investors need to spread the risk around, so maybe a group of them will wind up backing 100 bands, and a couple make it and make up for the rest. Everyone's happy, everyone gets paid, the bands get to do their thing, except for those who couldn't even make the initial cut (keep the day job..) Investors will get together and form some company that supports bands with at least some promise in the that some, even a tiny few, will pop. And since there are so, so many bands, the people with the money would have enormous leverage in any deal. Bands need them much more than they need any single band. It's venture capital plain and simple.
Of course that's the music industry. Why would - or should - it be any different than, say, tech?
The report on the major and respected newspaper Svenska Dagbladet's web site (www.svd.se) contradicts what has been reported here somewhat.
"The prosecutor never charged the 17-year old with assisting a crime. Therefore the court does not take any stand on that issue."
This case vaguely reminds me of another case I heard about a couple years ago. I'm a littly sketchy on the details, gut the gist of it was:
An undercover cop walks into a party. Asks a teenager if he had any drugs for sale. The kid says "No, but that guy over there might." The cop proceeds to buy a large amount of, if I recall correctly, cocaine from the person the kid pointed out.
The kid is prosecuted for his "active participation" in this drug deal, and since the amount purchased crossed over some legal limit in that state, he received a mandatory life sentence with no possibility for parole.
So this is not just an Internet issue. In both cases a fairly innocent teenager was prosecuted for nothing more than passing along information.
It seems to me that the prosecution of someone who merely points out where something is available is simply one more way our society has devised of removing responsibility from where it truly belongs: with the person actually committing a crime.
What's next? Do I get a speeding ticket for telling someone "If you push that pedal on the right further down, your car will go faster."
According to the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) piracy is not the key issue facing the music industry. She feels that by locking down internet music distribution people might be encouraged even more to 'steal' [music].
This was said in front of a lot of music industry suits at the recent Digital Distribution and the Music industry '99 conference.
I've seen a lot of arguments for the free electronic distribution of music via the internet. One that usually surfaces is that people will be encouraged to buy the original after having easy&free access to it.
My question is: will people or are people currently doing this? I have to admit that the most of the MP3's on my workstation != the CD's in my car!
something wicked this way comes...