Sunday evening, the night before the NY Times HavenCo story, Fox ran a Simpsons rerun. Homer, while housesitting for Mr. Burns, takes his friends on Burns' yacht to international waters. Why? Because it is Sunday morning, and Springfield law prohibits beer sales before 2:00 PM. Homer convinces Moe that "there are no laws" in international waters (conveniently marked with floating signs), so Moe can sell beer without legal trouble. Moe does, and they party. They taunt the coast guard, lurking just inside the signs, bet on monkey knife fights, and enjoy their legal freedom--until pirates show up. The pirates gather Homer and his guests into a net, dump them overboard, and loot the yacht. The coast guard cannot help, of course--no legal authority. The next day, I read the NY Times article. Remember, this was a rerun. Is Matt Groening an undisclosed sponser of HavenCo?
You can't just assert that concertgoers "own the copyright" of songs taped at a Metallica concert, even if Metallica allowed the taping, without analyzing the circumstances of Metallica's "encouragement". How did Metallica encourage listeners to tape concerts? Did they say that listeners were allowed to tape songs and distribute them without any limitations whatsoever? Or tape them only for personal use? Or did Metallica leave the scope of publication unstated? It is certainly arguable that one who makes a personal copy of a song available for unauthorized copying through Napster is engaged in copyright infringement, even if other users have not downloaded that particular copy of the song.
Explain, please. How has last Friday's decision changed the way we will be allowed to process and store information? Last Friday's decision, from a legal perspective, was not a surprise. If you were surprised, or perceive that somehow the decision changed the rules, that speaks more to the disconnection between one's perception of what is allowed, legally, and what the law does allow.
You oppose blocks on "communication in its free form"--may I assume you do so on grounds of free speech? If so, recognize that the First Amendment (which, provides, probably, the broadest legal protection of speech of any law, in any country) has not been interpreted to require that one relinquish ownership and control over one's own speech. One implication of your statement is that you oppose the right of a copyright holder to determine whether, how, when, and under what circumstances the copyright holder's speech is communicated. That is not a right I wish to relinquish, and it has nothing to do with money.
You might be interested in this November 1999 decision, from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which held in favor of Martin Luther King's Estate in its lawsuit against CBS for CBS' unauthorized use in a documentary of video footage of King's 1963 "I have a dream" speech: Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v CBS, Inc.
Re:Don't worry about it, Napster's a different iss
on
MP3.com Loses In Court
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· Score: 1
When you listen to a CD from myMP3.com (assuming you own the CD you registered with myMP3 and didn't borrow it from your neighbor), you are not listening to a CD you own. You are listening to a CD MP3 owns. When you buy a CD you buy that individual copy of that CD, not all copies of that CD. You have no more legal right to distribute the songs on that CD than you do to post your copy of Neuromancer online for others to download. The fact that available technology makes it easy to copy and share CDs does not negate the legal rights of the copyright holder. You are confusing ownership of the individual CD with ownership of the right to distribute songs on the CD. If you sell your one copy of Neuromancer, do you think you have the legal right to possess, distribute, or photocopy any other copy of that book you happen across? Legally, the analysis with respect to CDs is the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Sunday evening, the night before the NY Times HavenCo story, Fox ran a Simpsons rerun. Homer, while housesitting for Mr. Burns, takes his friends on Burns' yacht to international waters. Why? Because it is Sunday morning, and Springfield law prohibits beer sales before 2:00 PM. Homer convinces Moe that "there are no laws" in international waters (conveniently marked with floating signs), so Moe can sell beer without legal trouble. Moe does, and they party. They taunt the coast guard, lurking just inside the signs, bet on monkey knife fights, and enjoy their legal freedom--until pirates show up. The pirates gather Homer and his guests into a net, dump them overboard, and loot the yacht. The coast guard cannot help, of course--no legal authority. The next day, I read the NY Times article. Remember, this was a rerun. Is Matt Groening an undisclosed sponser of HavenCo?
You can't just assert that concertgoers "own the copyright" of songs taped at a Metallica concert, even if Metallica allowed the taping, without analyzing the circumstances of Metallica's "encouragement". How did Metallica encourage listeners to tape concerts? Did they say that listeners were allowed to tape songs and distribute them without any limitations whatsoever? Or tape them only for personal use? Or did Metallica leave the scope of publication unstated? It is certainly arguable that one who makes a personal copy of a song available for unauthorized copying through Napster is engaged in copyright infringement, even if other users have not downloaded that particular copy of the song.
You oppose blocks on "communication in its free form"--may I assume you do so on grounds of free speech? If so, recognize that the First Amendment (which, provides, probably, the broadest legal protection of speech of any law, in any country) has not been interpreted to require that one relinquish ownership and control over one's own speech. One implication of your statement is that you oppose the right of a copyright holder to determine whether, how, when, and under what circumstances the copyright holder's speech is communicated. That is not a right I wish to relinquish, and it has nothing to do with money.
You might be interested in this November 1999 decision, from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which held in favor of Martin Luther King's Estate in its lawsuit against CBS for CBS' unauthorized use in a documentary of video footage of King's 1963 "I have a dream" speech: Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v CBS, Inc.When you listen to a CD from myMP3.com (assuming you own the CD you registered with myMP3 and didn't borrow it from your neighbor), you are not listening to a CD you own. You are listening to a CD MP3 owns. When you buy a CD you buy that individual copy of that CD, not all copies of that CD. You have no more legal right to distribute the songs on that CD than you do to post your copy of Neuromancer online for others to download. The fact that available technology makes it easy to copy and share CDs does not negate the legal rights of the copyright holder. You are confusing ownership of the individual CD with ownership of the right to distribute songs on the CD. If you sell your one copy of Neuromancer, do you think you have the legal right to possess, distribute, or photocopy any other copy of that book you happen across? Legally, the analysis with respect to CDs is the same.