This is a fishing expedition on the part of the respondent. They are going to try to claim that because the songs made X amount of money, their copyright infringement should fall under fair use. However, they can not show that the revenue would not have been greater if the infringement had not occurred.
All the claimant has to do is show a statistical projection of greater revenue using previous and current data.
And, even if it is shown that the decrease in revenue was not significant, there are three other considerations for it to be considered fair use.
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work
Let's take a look at the 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law which cites the following examples of what courts have rule is fair use:
quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment
quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations
use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied
summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report
reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy
reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson
reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports
incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.
There is no way the purpose and character of the use (which is for "sharing" to prevent having to buy the work and personal use) nor the amount (complete and total use of the work) falls under fair use.
It is not actual damages, it is punitive damages. I always love it when dumbasses such as yourself decide that judges and juries should do things that are not in line with the law because it would make your life so much better.
"I don't think we should be punished for doing something we know is against the law because we don't think it is wrong. And, if you insist on punishing us, it should be just a slap on the wrists!"
Here is a better idea. Stop breaking the law. Stop infringing on other people's rights. Stop being assholes.
The maximum penalty for willfully infringing on someone else's copyright is $150,000 per infringement. That would $150,000 x 24 = $3,600,000 as a maximum penalty.
The fact is that she was found to be infringing and was given a the minimum, then she challenged that and was found to be willfully infringing and given a median amount of $80,000 per infringement.
There is a pretty strong logical case that one should calculate damages according to the applicable laws and not by one person's (probably selfish) desires.
It looks like someone has forgotten that what is good for one's self is not necessarily good for everyone else.
The Linux Foundation says that the best solution at this point is for vendors to ditch FAT and come up with a new vendor-neutral format that can be used without having to pay licensing fees.
An industry-wide shift towards an open royalty-free format in the hardware space could potentially liberate device makers from this dependence on Microsoft's encumbered technology.
It may be the best solution for Linux advocates, but it is probably not the best solution for the device manufacturers. 90% of their market uses Windows. If the manufacturers moved to a "new vendor-neutral format", they would break the automatic compatibility with 90% of their market and they would also have to ship driver disks to install the drivers needed to read and write the new format with every device. This would increase the cost of manufacturing and packaging as well as make it harder to use the devices.
Perhaps Linux supporters should stop being so self-centered and start thinking of the larger picture before making such statements.
It may be that roads are paid for by all taxes (I seriously doubt any significant contributions by other taxes), that does not give bike riders the right to break traffic and safety laws then whine about how dangerous riding a bike is.
It also doesn't give Critical Mass the right to block traffic, run red lights, vandalize cars and threaten drivers.
all they should care about is how much people are buying, and as far as I can tell people are buying just the same amounts as they did before.
Show that people are buying the same amount as they did before and you might have an argument. Right now, you just have an unsupported, qualified assertion that has just as much chance of being wrong as being right.
And, the RIAA cares how much music people are acquiring without paying for, not how much music people are listening to. Quit trying to change the argument.
Besides the loss of quality with each successive copy mentioned in another comment, there was a cost associated with each copy. You or your friend had to spring for the cost of a cassette. That small cost kept copying down. But, with digital media, there is no cost for successive copy, nor is there any quality lost.
Before you had to pay for the cassette and the copy (copy 1)was of lesser quality than the original. Make copy 2 from copy 1, and copy 2 was of even lower quality. The quality quickly became less than the value of the blank tape. With digital media, copy 147494782652 will be the same quality as copy 1 and there is no media cost.
The music industry and RIAA seemed to live through that era. If one friend bought an album, all his friends would get a cassette copy if they wanted it.
That may be how it was back in the day, there was, again, a limit on the number of copies produced due to costs, quality loss, and the number of friends who would make copies. Now, there is no limit due to costs or quality loss, and the people being offered and receiving copies is no longer limited to a relatively small group of friends, but rather to effectively everyone one the internet.
It has gone from one person offering to make low quality copies for ten or twenty friends with a cost for the cassettes the copies are made on to one person offering 200,000,000 people he may or may not know extremely high quality copies with no copying costs to those making the illegal copies.
It is much easier to live with the former than the latter.
Unless, of course, the principal and his friend created a letter to the editor for her. Then, the paper unknowingly committed infringement and is not liable because they had every reason to believe the letter came from her.
The paper did not commit willful infringement because it was deceived by the principal and friend. Only the principal and his friend committed willful infringement, and that was not for commercial gain.
a school principal downloading a rant form a former student's MySpace page and arranging with a friend to "out" her in the town newspaper
The paper's primary defense will be that the infringement was unintentional and caused by deceptive actions of a third party. They received what amounted to a work with forged permission to copy.
I think she would be better off going after the principal and the friend who helped him for copyright infringement, intentional infliction of emotional distress, etc.
Only republicans would do something like this and anyone who would do something like this must be a republican. Republicans are the source of all evil in the world.
How can you be so blind as to not see that?
Wait! You must be a republican! Get the pitch forks and torches! Start up the tar and get some feathers!!!
The problem with a space race is that one will not necessarily get the best outcome. Look at the last space race. New technologies were produced, but we didn't get a system for efficient space travel. What we got was a way to get to the moon first. The race was run and it was won, but the results were less than stellar.
His warranty is for 30 years. But if the efficiency of the solar cells falls of enough, the break even point could be pushed out to, or even beyond end of life. And, if efficiency falls off fast enough, the end of USEFUL life could come before the break even point
Copyright is copyright, and you are a hypocrite. "You" choose to listen to the music, buy the CD, and/or make unauthorized, illegal copies.
It does not matter what the software does on start up. She is responsible for it regardless.
Try to get that through your "everyone is a poor, helpless victim" mentality. She is responsible for what happened on her computer, under her ID. She is the perpetrator, not the victim.
Despite the $38,000 initial cost for the setup, Loyd is very optimistic after a $3,000 savings in one year, meaning that in about 12 years he will break even -- though he suspects ten years is a better estimate considering other factors.
How long are these solar panels supposed to last? Does their efficiency fall off with age?
I wouldn't go THAT far to say she lied. I would at least like to give her the benefit of the doubt before attaching labels.
In other words, you do not want to believe that she lied because it makes her look bad. She misstated the date of when the drive was replaced by more than a year. That was a lie, pure and simple.
The babysitter did it? On her computer, under her password protected user ID? I know it is hard for you to accept, but you have at least some responsibility for what other people do on your equipment when you allow them access. Just like when you lend someone your car.
There was another story this last week about someone going to jail for making an unauthorized copy of the movie "The Love Guru" and passing this same onto a relative. Something is amiss here in the legalese forest...$US1.92M for 24 songs, jailed for "distributing" a lousy movie (shame alone should be punishment)...what next?
Jack Yates, 28, was sentenced to six months in prison today for making an unauthorized pre-release copy of "The Love Guru," the Mike Myers comedy that Paramount Pictures released last summer. Yates made the illegal DVD when he worked at a Burbank-based tape duplication company that Paramount hired last May to make a promotional DVD copy of the film to show on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Soon after, a high-quality version of the movie popped up on the Internet -- and was subsequently downloaded more than 85,000 times (sadly, the film made less of an impact on audiences when it debuted in theaters on June 20th, receiving dismal reviews and grossing a paltry $13.9 million its opening weekend).
When confronted, Yates accused co-workers and Paramount employees of putting the contraband copy on the Internet. But videotaped footage showed Yates making the unauthorized copy of "The Love Guru" at work before leaving the building and then going into his car, Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik M. Silber said. Yates subsequently blamed his grandmother, saying that he showed the movie at her birthday party and she then gave it away to a cousin who gave it to a friend who was the former roommate of the man who is believed to have uploaded the movie, but has not yet been charged. In his plea agreement, Yates confessed to making a copy of the comedy and later distributing it to others.
Oh, yes, poor Mr. Yates obviously didn't know he was violating his employer's trust, making an unauthorized copy of a movie on stolen material, sneaking it out of the building, and then blaming everyone else. He is just a victim of MPAA and these pesky copyright laws he was completely ignorant of even though he works in the legal copying industry./sarcasm
I do not feel sorry for either of these people. Neither should have infringed on the copyrights of others. Neither would have gotten in trouble if they had not infringed. Moral of the story: Don't infringe on the copyrights of others. That is what you, in your infinite self-centered selfishness, miss. Every single person your little heart bleeds for and for whom you cry tears is in the wrong.
What has led you to believe that knowledge just materializes into one's head? That is what you are suggesting, right, that people "just know" things with out source or experience?
Silly human, I remember the 1980s, even a good part of the 70s. I remember the wonderful disinformation put out by those TV shows.
My experties comes from being trained to actually understand and operate nuclear reactors. Now, come back when you actually have something other enviro-wacko pseudo-science.
I think it is probable that the military has re-assigned the satellites so that more are looking in the direction of North Korea and possibly Iran. It would make a lot of sense to point the satellites in that direction and keep it secret.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a fishing expedition on the part of the respondent. They are going to try to claim that because the songs made X amount of money, their copyright infringement should fall under fair use. However, they can not show that the revenue would not have been greater if the infringement had not occurred.
All the claimant has to do is show a statistical projection of greater revenue using previous and current data.
And, even if it is shown that the decrease in revenue was not significant, there are three other considerations for it to be considered fair use.
Let's take a look at the 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law which cites the following examples of what courts have rule is fair use:
There is no way the purpose and character of the use (which is for "sharing" to prevent having to buy the work and personal use) nor the amount (complete and total use of the work) falls under fair use.
His next move could be to pull out his checkbook to pay a fine and/or go to jail.
What was true for a business in the mid 1990s is not necessarily good for a different business in 2009.
It is not actual damages, it is punitive damages. I always love it when dumbasses such as yourself decide that judges and juries should do things that are not in line with the law because it would make your life so much better.
"I don't think we should be punished for doing something we know is against the law because we don't think it is wrong. And, if you insist on punishing us, it should be just a slap on the wrists!"
Here is a better idea. Stop breaking the law. Stop infringing on other people's rights. Stop being assholes.
The maximum penalty for willfully infringing on someone else's copyright is $150,000 per infringement. That would $150,000 x 24 = $3,600,000 as a maximum penalty.
The fact is that she was found to be infringing and was given a the minimum, then she challenged that and was found to be willfully infringing and given a median amount of $80,000 per infringement.
There is a pretty strong logical case that one should calculate damages according to the applicable laws and not by one person's (probably selfish) desires.
It looks like someone has forgotten that what is good for one's self is not necessarily good for everyone else.
It may be the best solution for Linux advocates, but it is probably not the best solution for the device manufacturers. 90% of their market uses Windows. If the manufacturers moved to a "new vendor-neutral format", they would break the automatic compatibility with 90% of their market and they would also have to ship driver disks to install the drivers needed to read and write the new format with every device. This would increase the cost of manufacturing and packaging as well as make it harder to use the devices.
Perhaps Linux supporters should stop being so self-centered and start thinking of the larger picture before making such statements.
There will be more dumbass cyclists who think that they have the right of way regardless of the law.
How dare you suggest that bicyclists might actually be responsible for their own safety and need to follow the law!?! For shame!!!
It may be that roads are paid for by all taxes (I seriously doubt any significant contributions by other taxes), that does not give bike riders the right to break traffic and safety laws then whine about how dangerous riding a bike is.
It also doesn't give Critical Mass the right to block traffic, run red lights, vandalize cars and threaten drivers.
Show that people are buying the same amount as they did before and you might have an argument. Right now, you just have an unsupported, qualified assertion that has just as much chance of being wrong as being right.
And, the RIAA cares how much music people are acquiring without paying for, not how much music people are listening to. Quit trying to change the argument.
Besides the loss of quality with each successive copy mentioned in another comment, there was a cost associated with each copy. You or your friend had to spring for the cost of a cassette. That small cost kept copying down. But, with digital media, there is no cost for successive copy, nor is there any quality lost.
Before you had to pay for the cassette and the copy (copy 1)was of lesser quality than the original. Make copy 2 from copy 1, and copy 2 was of even lower quality. The quality quickly became less than the value of the blank tape. With digital media, copy 147494782652 will be the same quality as copy 1 and there is no media cost.
That may be how it was back in the day, there was, again, a limit on the number of copies produced due to costs, quality loss, and the number of friends who would make copies. Now, there is no limit due to costs or quality loss, and the people being offered and receiving copies is no longer limited to a relatively small group of friends, but rather to effectively everyone one the internet.
It has gone from one person offering to make low quality copies for ten or twenty friends with a cost for the cassettes the copies are made on to one person offering 200,000,000 people he may or may not know extremely high quality copies with no copying costs to those making the illegal copies.
It is much easier to live with the former than the latter.
Unless, of course, the principal and his friend created a letter to the editor for her. Then, the paper unknowingly committed infringement and is not liable because they had every reason to believe the letter came from her.
The only problem with your reasoning is that it was submitted to the paper fraudulently by the principal and his friend.
The paper did not commit willful infringement because it was deceived by the principal and friend.
Only the principal and his friend committed willful infringement, and that was not for commercial gain.
The paper's primary defense will be that the infringement was unintentional and caused by deceptive actions of a third party. They received what amounted to a work with forged permission to copy.
I think she would be better off going after the principal and the friend who helped him for copyright infringement, intentional infliction of emotional distress, etc.
Don't you know?
Only republicans would do something like this and anyone who would do something like this must be a republican. Republicans are the source of all evil in the world.
How can you be so blind as to not see that?
Wait! You must be a republican! Get the pitch forks and torches! Start up the tar and get some feathers!!!
The problem with a space race is that one will not necessarily get the best outcome. Look at the last space race. New technologies were produced, but we didn't get a system for efficient space travel. What we got was a way to get to the moon first. The race was run and it was won, but the results were less than stellar.
His warranty is for 30 years. But if the efficiency of the solar cells falls of enough, the break even point could be pushed out to, or even beyond end of life. And, if efficiency falls off fast enough, the end of USEFUL life could come before the break even point
Copyright is copyright, and you are a hypocrite. "You" choose to listen to the music, buy the CD, and/or make unauthorized, illegal copies.
It does not matter what the software does on start up. She is responsible for it regardless.
Try to get that through your "everyone is a poor, helpless victim" mentality. She is responsible for what happened on her computer, under her ID. She is the perpetrator, not the victim.
How long are these solar panels supposed to last? Does their efficiency fall off with age?
In other words, you do not want to believe that she lied because it makes her look bad. She misstated the date of when the drive was replaced by more than a year. That was a lie, pure and simple.
The babysitter did it? On her computer, under her password protected user ID? I know it is hard for you to accept, but you have at least some responsibility for what other people do on your equipment when you allow them access. Just like when you lend someone your car.
Really? Let's look at the actual facts of that "Love Guru" case (emphasis added):
Oh, yes, poor Mr. Yates obviously didn't know he was violating his employer's trust, making an unauthorized copy of a movie on stolen material, sneaking it out of the building, and then blaming everyone else. He is just a victim of MPAA and these pesky copyright laws he was completely ignorant of even though he works in the legal copying industry. /sarcasm
I do not feel sorry for either of these people. Neither should have infringed on the copyrights of others. Neither would have gotten in trouble if they had not infringed. Moral of the story: Don't infringe on the copyrights of others. That is what you, in your infinite self-centered selfishness, miss. Every single person your little heart bleeds for and for whom you cry tears is in the wrong.
And, just to hoist you on your own petard, why is it that so many slashdotters only thinks copyright is OK when it works for FLOSS?
What has led you to believe that knowledge just materializes into one's head? That is what you are suggesting, right, that people "just know" things with out source or experience?
Silly human, I remember the 1980s, even a good part of the 70s. I remember the wonderful disinformation put out by those TV shows.
My experties comes from being trained to actually understand and operate nuclear reactors. Now, come back when you actually have something other enviro-wacko pseudo-science.
Please state your source of knowledge on nuclear power and the dangers of same.
I think it is probable that the military has re-assigned the satellites so that more are looking in the direction of North Korea and possibly Iran. It would make a lot of sense to point the satellites in that direction and keep it secret.