No, the federal government is a government of enumerated powers. It can do ONLY those things that are listed in the constitution, and then only subject to the limitations on their powers also in the constitution.
It's stupid because with copyrights, I know that I won't infringe anything as long as I write it myself.
That's not entirely true. If you independently create something, then yes, you aren't infringing by doing so. But if you even subconsciously drew upon a work you had access to, and which is substantially similar to your work, then you might have infringed.
You should read up on the issues surrounding George Harrison's My Sweet Lord for more about this.
Copyright is not an individual right. It's granted by statute, or at least by common law, and in neither case actually needs to be. Congress is entirely capable of abolishing copyright thoroughly within the US.
Patents promote the useful arts, while copyrights promote science. This only seems odd due to the fact that the meanings of those words has shifted since the constitution was written in 1789. Some echos of this still remain, particularly with regards to patents, as technologies can be 'state of the art,' and many standards hinge on the behavior or knowledge of a 'person having ordinary skill in the art.'
Please feel free to consult your pocket-sized unabridged Oxford English Dictionaries for further information.
For starters the idea of a natural copyright is in direct and total opposition to the somewhat better idea of a natural right to free speech. And it gets worse from there, particularly in that all the moral rights countries are hypocritical and allow the rights they're talking about to lapse, etc.
I would love to see the idea of natural copyrights totally die out. I would immediately do the jig of happiness.
without turning a copy over to the National Archives
Library of Congress. And also for a time, the Smithsonian.
The National Archives fall under NARA, and that's a seperate entity.
As far as I knew, patents are there to protect the inventors not the public.
Nope. Since the relevant clause in the Constitution deals with both patents and copyrights, I think it's fair to draw from both areas of caselaw.
The monopoly privileges that Congress may authorize are neither unlimited nor primarily designed to provide a special private benefit. Rather, the limited grant is a means by which an important public purpose may be achieved. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired.
"The copyright law, like the patent statutes, makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration. In Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U.S. 123, 127, Chief Justice Hughes spoke as follows respecting the copyright monopoly granted by Congress, 'The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.' It is said that reward to the author or artist serves to induce release to the public of the products of his creative genius." United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131, 158 (1948).
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).
A patent confers a monopoly on its holder, and the law does not allow the granting of these valuable franchises to private individuals, with consequent public detriment, unless there is a concomitant public benefit.
Beckman Instruments, Inc. v. Chemtronics, Inc., 428 F.2d 555 (5th Cir. 1970).
Your quote only describes what the PTO does. Not why, or even why we have a PTO in the first place!
As far as patents and public interest - most people could care less other then the fact that they want to get everything for free (thats too bad, because life doesn't work that way).
Nevertheless, getting everything for free would be ideal. While we can't have that unfortunately, we try to balance getting everything and getting it for free.
I think the caveman example is bad - for multiple reasons: 1) his patent expired 2) you cannot patent something you did not invent - and fire was not a man-made function.
1) He's a caveman. He never would've had a patent to begin with. But if you believe that patents solely should exist for the benefit of the inventor of the patented technology, then it is impossible to support their expiration.
2) If our patent system had been there, he could have patented fire. This is because he's uniquely gotten ahold of a controlled and limited form of fire made by man, and that doesn't exist in nature. The same reasoning is how you can patent substances that are particularly pure or easily gatherable, etc. where they nevertheless do exist in nature. Happens in the biotech field all the time.
It serves our interest to help them because if we don't - soon you will find that only major corporations own the farms (i personally hate KFC).
That's right -- and similarly, we only have a patent system to serve our own interests.
Here is a question: If an inventor should not have a right to collect a profit (as he see's fit) for something that he spent his time/money creating ---- why should someone who works at McDonalds serving hamburgers make a profit?
Apples and oranges, my friend.
Patents, like copyrights, are NOT awarded for labor. Whether an invention is made by a five year old in the course of fifteen minutes, or whether it's made by hundreds of scientists and engineers working together on a years-long billion dollar project, the patents they get are not materially different.
And an inventor who spends a fortune in time and money to invent something that has already been invented -- even if he didn't know about it -- gets ab
The sole reason we grant patents is to serve the public interest.
The public wants many useful, novel, nonobvious inventions to be made. Furthermore, they want the inventions to come to market in the form of products, so that they can truly be taken advantage of. But they also don't want to pay anything if at all possible, nor suffer any restrictions with regards to the inventions or products, or if that's unavoidable, then they want to pay and be restricted as little as possible. And the inventive work of others should not be interfered with at all, or if at all, as little as possible.
These are the multiple, equal, competing interests of the public, and the idea is to find a balance between them where these public interests are best served. Since very often increasing or decreasing the degree to which one is satisfied will have a disproportionate effect on another, it's fairly tricky. Furthermore, whenever one implements a patent system, it should be as simple and unrestrictive as possible in order to accomplish any overall gain in public good. And the public good must always be satisfied more than it would be if there were no patent system at all, since otherwise the best solution would be to abolish the whole deal.
In the realm of software, there is already a tremendous satisfaction of the public interest without any real involvement of software patents. Therefore, unless they will make things better still -- by causing there to be more invention, and more productization, and lower costs and restrictions -- they're a bad idea. And software has been going along amazingly well without patents, and seems to be doing worse when patents are employed. So it looks like software at least is an unusual environment where patents are harming the satisfaction of the public good rather than promoting it.
What is wrong with someone saying "this is my product, and if you want to use it you gotta play by my rules".... Why is it better for someone OTHER then the creators of the program to decide what should happen to it?
Because they have no leg to stand on. If a caveman came up to you and demanded $100 every time you used fire in some way (to smoke, to cook, to drive a car, etc.) you'd ignore him. And he couldn't do anything to stop you from using fire, even though he invented it.
The inherent nature of inventions is to spread and to be used by anyone who wants to use them and understands how. There is no natural right for the inventor of fire to be able to prevent other people from using fire. People can use fire against his will. And do.
Because this might frustrate inventors, and because we want them to invent stuff, and not just mope around, (actually we want all the stuff on that list above) we set up an ARTIFICIAL system whereby we might WILLINGLY not use their inventions if they don't let us, in order to prop them up.
Basically patents are a form of subsidy. It's like dirt farmers. In order to maintain what are seen as good prices on crops, and to avoid overproduction, the government pays farmers to not grow anything. If we let competition take its natural course, they would grow stuff, there'd be a glut on the market, and many farmers would go out of business. Clearly, they have no natural right to be paid for not doing anything. Hell, I wish that I could get a handsome salary for just sitting around. But we pay farmers because it serves our own best interests (since we feel we want small farmers and fairly stable prices). If we stopped feeling that farm subsidies were a good idea, they'd stop getting paid.
Same deal with patents: inventors have no natural right to control their inventions (other than to not make them or reveal them in the first place) but MAY have artificial rights granted if it serves the best interests of those who are granting the rights. And the grants don't have to be made.
Even if the text they read is public domain, the rights to the performance of the reading belong to the performer, and can be bought and sold if the performer chooses.
No, only if the performance is itself a copyrightable work. This means it will have to satisfy the requirement of being an original work of authorship without reference to the underlying work. Very basic sound engineering and performing might not suffice. Also, even if it does, it's not a given that the copyright would vest in the performer; it might vest jointly in several people, or as a work for hire.
That said, I generally agree with you, and share your concerns.
Hm? That's weird. My grandmother is legally blind (and doesn't drive), and she has a placard. Of course, she's also pretty old which makes it more useful for her.
The real question is, although this material is being produced thanks to a copyright exemption for the handicapped, doesn't any citizen have a right to the information once it is produced?
No.
The applicable exemption is 17 USC 121.
It permits only government agencies and nonprofit organizations with the primary mission of providing certain services to the blind to reproduce and distribute certain works if they are in specialized formats, exclusively for the use of the blind or disabled.
It really sucks how the less fortunate get all the breaks.
Fair use is codified at 17 USC 107 and was originally created by and applied by the courts as far back as 1841. No one credible doubts its existence.
If you copy anything, no matter what the source, unless you're the copyright holder, you're breaking copyright law.
Also wrong. First, not everything is copyrighable subject matter. Second, not all copyrightable subject matter is in fact copyrighted. Third, numerous exceptions exist as to copyright, as can be readily determined by perusing 17 USC 107-122, for example. Fourth, copyright holders can authorize others to engage in otherwise infringing activity.
To be honest, the other guy was closer to the mark than you are. You're way off.
1) If you read the Napster decision the problem wasn't only that they hosted the central index, but that they actually profited from people using the software (via advertising). hosting a torrent doesn't mean you profit.
Well, the profit can be quite indirect, but that only addresses vicarious infringement. Contributory infringement requires no profit.
2) Traditional copyright law has no "safe harbor" exception other than fair use.
17 USC 512. Read it, learn it, feel ambivalent about it. Really there's tons of exceptions that in effect are the same thing. Also there's 17 USC 1008, but given what the terms used in there are defined as in sections 101 and 1001, it's rare to see someone qualify for it.
Napster was destroyed on the basis that they ran a tracker, if you'll remember. You don't have to host, upload, or download, material to be an infringer. You can also be an infringer depending on your involvement with other infringers.
If you materially contribute to another's infringement, knowing of it, then you're liable too. If you have the right and ability to control another's infringement, and you profit somehow from it, then even if you didn't know of it, you're liable too.
Read the Napster opinion. You may find it enlightening. And it's all quite solid. Any court would've come out the same way.
How do they own something that is merely a duplicate of something they own?
They don't per se.
Rather, they are granted the right to prevent other people from making those duplicates. When you go ahead and make a duplicate anyway, you're infringing on their exclusive right (i.e. right to exclude).
One of the forms of relief for the copyright holder is to have you enjoined from doing it again. Another is to destroy the unlawfully made copies. Another is for you to pay damages for having done it.
But ultimately, it's the act that's illegal.
But that is just the issue at hand: what should copyright cover?
Which is a legislative queston. Courts don't know and don't care. They'll just take this law as it comes. You have a problem with the scope of copyright? Write your Congressman, they'll say.
Actually, you are allowed to quote/use up to either 30 seconds or 10% of the original work under fair use laws.
In the US, this is patently false.
I tell you what: you quote the specific language in the law or caselaw that says that that's allowed. You won't find it of course, because it's not there.
What is allowed are fair uses. What's fair depends on the circumstances. There is no bright line rule. At best there are some factors that can be examined that help a court determine if a use was a fair use or not, but that's it.
An additional point to be made, if the copyright holders intent is for their copyrighted work to be distroyed or become lost, then their copyright claim is invalid, and a criminal act as far as private contracts go.
Are you on drugs, or just fucking stupid? That's the biggest bunch of bullshit I've seen around here in a long while. It doesn't even make sense, let alone that it's wrong, wrong, wrong.
There is fair use, but that only covers what's fair. Which can vary wildly all over the place. It depends on the circumstances. But there's nothing that says even one second of reproduction is fair all the time.
As for your example below, that would never fly. No one is going to be stupid enough to fall for that.
Probably not. If copyright holders go after actual damages, then the extra distribution counts for something, but it might not really be all that much. Reproduction and distribution are equal infringements -- it's the number of them that matters.
If they go after statutory damages, then they're computed per work, not per infringement, and so it adds nothing.
The latter is probably more likely: A plaintiff has to prove their actual damages, and for most things on BT, they're not going to be amazingly high. OTOH, the statutory damages range from $700 to $30,000, and can go as low as $200 (if the infringer can show that he didn't know, and had no reason to know he was infringing) or as high as $150,000 (if the plaintiff can show that the infringement was done willfully). The actual number is determined by the court.
Ah, well, that'd be the sort where the reproduction is done by the copyright holder or with their authorization, which I mention as a potential substantial noninfringing use.
However, I had thought you meant commercially distributed videos.
Recording from TV *WAS* (and I believe *IS*) infringement.
Yes, but it is possible that that otherwise-infringing activity is in fact a non-infringing fair use under the time shifting theory.
since VCRs *could* be used for legal purposes (such as making copies of home videos), they weren't illegal.
First, individuals making copies of home videos is also infringing unless there is an applicable defense or exception, which there likely would not be. Second, the potential substantial non-infringing uses were those regarding copyright holders reproducing their own works, or authorizing others to do so, and some fair uses such as those that might be called time shifting.
It's like you've got the idea, but you're applying it backwards.
In Sony the claim was whether Sony was liable for infringing uses of its products via a contributory infringement theory. It was a civil case, brought by Universal Studios.
If they had been found liable on the basis of how their products could be used, then of course, they'd continue to be liable in the future unless they took the relevant products off the market, or redesigned them so as to avoid future problems, so in effect their liability could've been considered a ban on the technology, but it really would've been as to the liability of the manufacturers and distributors of it.
Grokster is ALSO a civil suit, and is generally pretty similar.
If the suit were criminal, first the question would be of guilt, not liability. Second, it would be brought by the United States, not a private party.
You pretty clearly haven't read Sony, and don't really grasp the difference between criminal and civil litigation. You might want to do some work before posting on this subject again.
Well, this is a more tangental thing, but I think that there are some patent reforms that are desirable even though they might favor the patent holder.
IIRC there have been cases in which a patent holder licened his patent to a second party under a most favored licensee clause, whereby if he ever gave anyone else any better license terms, he'd have to give them to this licensee as well in order to avoid having any other party be more favored. This having been done, the patent holder sues a third party for infringement, and collects damages (or perhaps settles) to cure the infringement -- and since the award is more favorable than the MFL terms, he has to repay the licensee!
That's a silly holding IMO and as long as we're addressing some reforms, we might as well do that too.
(Similarly while I'd like to see significant reductions in copyright, other things, such as the work for hire doctrine ought to be strengthened slightly, 203 termination ought to abolished, etc.)
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, we probably could, by also dropping out of the WTO, with it's horrific TRIPS agreement.
No, the federal government is a government of enumerated powers. It can do ONLY those things that are listed in the constitution, and then only subject to the limitations on their powers also in the constitution.
It's stupid because with copyrights, I know that I won't infringe anything as long as I write it myself.
That's not entirely true. If you independently create something, then yes, you aren't infringing by doing so. But if you even subconsciously drew upon a work you had access to, and which is substantially similar to your work, then you might have infringed.
You should read up on the issues surrounding George Harrison's My Sweet Lord for more about this.
Copyright is not an individual right. It's granted by statute, or at least by common law, and in neither case actually needs to be. Congress is entirely capable of abolishing copyright thoroughly within the US.
Just to clarify for those reading at home:
Patents promote the useful arts, while copyrights promote science. This only seems odd due to the fact that the meanings of those words has shifted since the constitution was written in 1789. Some echos of this still remain, particularly with regards to patents, as technologies can be 'state of the art,' and many standards hinge on the behavior or knowledge of a 'person having ordinary skill in the art.'
Please feel free to consult your pocket-sized unabridged Oxford English Dictionaries for further information.
that's not a crazy idea
Oh yes it is.
For starters the idea of a natural copyright is in direct and total opposition to the somewhat better idea of a natural right to free speech. And it gets worse from there, particularly in that all the moral rights countries are hypocritical and allow the rights they're talking about to lapse, etc.
I would love to see the idea of natural copyrights totally die out. I would immediately do the jig of happiness.
without turning a copy over to the National Archives
Library of Congress. And also for a time, the Smithsonian.
The National Archives fall under NARA, and that's a seperate entity.
Nope. Since the relevant clause in the Constitution deals with both patents and copyrights, I think it's fair to draw from both areas of caselaw.
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).
Beckman Instruments, Inc. v. Chemtronics, Inc., 428 F.2d 555 (5th Cir. 1970).
Your quote only describes what the PTO does. Not why, or even why we have a PTO in the first place!
As far as patents and public interest - most people could care less other then the fact that they want to get everything for free (thats too bad, because life doesn't work that way).
Nevertheless, getting everything for free would be ideal. While we can't have that unfortunately, we try to balance getting everything and getting it for free.
I think the caveman example is bad - for multiple reasons: 1) his patent expired 2) you cannot patent something you did not invent - and fire was not a man-made function.
1) He's a caveman. He never would've had a patent to begin with. But if you believe that patents solely should exist for the benefit of the inventor of the patented technology, then it is impossible to support their expiration.
2) If our patent system had been there, he could have patented fire. This is because he's uniquely gotten ahold of a controlled and limited form of fire made by man, and that doesn't exist in nature. The same reasoning is how you can patent substances that are particularly pure or easily gatherable, etc. where they nevertheless do exist in nature. Happens in the biotech field all the time.
It serves our interest to help them because if we don't - soon you will find that only major corporations own the farms (i personally hate KFC).
That's right -- and similarly, we only have a patent system to serve our own interests.
Here is a question: If an inventor should not have a right to collect a profit (as he see's fit) for something that he spent his time/money creating ---- why should someone who works at McDonalds serving hamburgers make a profit?
Apples and oranges, my friend.
Patents, like copyrights, are NOT awarded for labor. Whether an invention is made by a five year old in the course of fifteen minutes, or whether it's made by hundreds of scientists and engineers working together on a years-long billion dollar project, the patents they get are not materially different.
And an inventor who spends a fortune in time and money to invent something that has already been invented -- even if he didn't know about it -- gets ab
The sole reason we grant patents is to serve the public interest.
... Why is it better for someone OTHER then the creators of the program to decide what should happen to it?
The public wants many useful, novel, nonobvious inventions to be made. Furthermore, they want the inventions to come to market in the form of products, so that they can truly be taken advantage of. But they also don't want to pay anything if at all possible, nor suffer any restrictions with regards to the inventions or products, or if that's unavoidable, then they want to pay and be restricted as little as possible. And the inventive work of others should not be interfered with at all, or if at all, as little as possible.
These are the multiple, equal, competing interests of the public, and the idea is to find a balance between them where these public interests are best served. Since very often increasing or decreasing the degree to which one is satisfied will have a disproportionate effect on another, it's fairly tricky. Furthermore, whenever one implements a patent system, it should be as simple and unrestrictive as possible in order to accomplish any overall gain in public good. And the public good must always be satisfied more than it would be if there were no patent system at all, since otherwise the best solution would be to abolish the whole deal.
In the realm of software, there is already a tremendous satisfaction of the public interest without any real involvement of software patents. Therefore, unless they will make things better still -- by causing there to be more invention, and more productization, and lower costs and restrictions -- they're a bad idea. And software has been going along amazingly well without patents, and seems to be doing worse when patents are employed. So it looks like software at least is an unusual environment where patents are harming the satisfaction of the public good rather than promoting it.
What is wrong with someone saying "this is my product, and if you want to use it you gotta play by my rules".
Because they have no leg to stand on. If a caveman came up to you and demanded $100 every time you used fire in some way (to smoke, to cook, to drive a car, etc.) you'd ignore him. And he couldn't do anything to stop you from using fire, even though he invented it.
The inherent nature of inventions is to spread and to be used by anyone who wants to use them and understands how. There is no natural right for the inventor of fire to be able to prevent other people from using fire. People can use fire against his will. And do.
Because this might frustrate inventors, and because we want them to invent stuff, and not just mope around, (actually we want all the stuff on that list above) we set up an ARTIFICIAL system whereby we might WILLINGLY not use their inventions if they don't let us, in order to prop them up.
Basically patents are a form of subsidy. It's like dirt farmers. In order to maintain what are seen as good prices on crops, and to avoid overproduction, the government pays farmers to not grow anything. If we let competition take its natural course, they would grow stuff, there'd be a glut on the market, and many farmers would go out of business. Clearly, they have no natural right to be paid for not doing anything. Hell, I wish that I could get a handsome salary for just sitting around. But we pay farmers because it serves our own best interests (since we feel we want small farmers and fairly stable prices). If we stopped feeling that farm subsidies were a good idea, they'd stop getting paid.
Same deal with patents: inventors have no natural right to control their inventions (other than to not make them or reveal them in the first place) but MAY have artificial rights granted if it serves the best interests of those who are granting the rights. And the grants don't have to be made.
Well sure, but it's generally illegal. Usenet and the various P2P networks are cheaper still.
Even if the text they read is public domain, the rights to the performance of the reading belong to the performer, and can be bought and sold if the performer chooses.
No, only if the performance is itself a copyrightable work. This means it will have to satisfy the requirement of being an original work of authorship without reference to the underlying work. Very basic sound engineering and performing might not suffice. Also, even if it does, it's not a given that the copyright would vest in the performer; it might vest jointly in several people, or as a work for hire.
That said, I generally agree with you, and share your concerns.
Hm? That's weird. My grandmother is legally blind (and doesn't drive), and she has a placard. Of course, she's also pretty old which makes it more useful for her.
The real question is, although this material is being produced thanks to a copyright exemption for the handicapped, doesn't any citizen have a right to the information once it is produced?
No.
The applicable exemption is 17 USC 121.
It permits only government agencies and nonprofit organizations with the primary mission of providing certain services to the blind to reproduce and distribute certain works if they are in specialized formats, exclusively for the use of the blind or disabled.
It really sucks how the less fortunate get all the breaks.
Actually, there is no "fair use", period.
No, that's also wrong.
Fair use is codified at 17 USC 107 and was originally created by and applied by the courts as far back as 1841. No one credible doubts its existence.
If you copy anything, no matter what the source, unless you're the copyright holder, you're breaking copyright law.
Also wrong. First, not everything is copyrighable subject matter. Second, not all copyrightable subject matter is in fact copyrighted. Third, numerous exceptions exist as to copyright, as can be readily determined by perusing 17 USC 107-122, for example. Fourth, copyright holders can authorize others to engage in otherwise infringing activity.
To be honest, the other guy was closer to the mark than you are. You're way off.
1) If you read the Napster decision the problem wasn't only that they hosted the central index, but that they actually profited from people using the software (via advertising). hosting a torrent doesn't mean you profit.
Well, the profit can be quite indirect, but that only addresses vicarious infringement. Contributory infringement requires no profit.
2) Traditional copyright law has no "safe harbor" exception other than fair use.
17 USC 512. Read it, learn it, feel ambivalent about it. Really there's tons of exceptions that in effect are the same thing. Also there's 17 USC 1008, but given what the terms used in there are defined as in sections 101 and 1001, it's rare to see someone qualify for it.
Napster was destroyed on the basis that they ran a tracker, if you'll remember. You don't have to host, upload, or download, material to be an infringer. You can also be an infringer depending on your involvement with other infringers.
If you materially contribute to another's infringement, knowing of it, then you're liable too. If you have the right and ability to control another's infringement, and you profit somehow from it, then even if you didn't know of it, you're liable too.
Read the Napster opinion. You may find it enlightening. And it's all quite solid. Any court would've come out the same way.
How do they own something that is merely a duplicate of something they own?
They don't per se.
Rather, they are granted the right to prevent other people from making those duplicates. When you go ahead and make a duplicate anyway, you're infringing on their exclusive right (i.e. right to exclude).
One of the forms of relief for the copyright holder is to have you enjoined from doing it again. Another is to destroy the unlawfully made copies. Another is for you to pay damages for having done it.
But ultimately, it's the act that's illegal.
But that is just the issue at hand: what should copyright cover?
Which is a legislative queston. Courts don't know and don't care. They'll just take this law as it comes. You have a problem with the scope of copyright? Write your Congressman, they'll say.
Actually, you are allowed to quote/use up to either 30 seconds or 10% of the original work under fair use laws.
In the US, this is patently false.
I tell you what: you quote the specific language in the law or caselaw that says that that's allowed. You won't find it of course, because it's not there.
What is allowed are fair uses. What's fair depends on the circumstances. There is no bright line rule. At best there are some factors that can be examined that help a court determine if a use was a fair use or not, but that's it.
An additional point to be made, if the copyright holders intent is for their copyrighted work to be distroyed or become lost, then their copyright claim is invalid, and a criminal act as far as private contracts go.
Are you on drugs, or just fucking stupid? That's the biggest bunch of bullshit I've seen around here in a long while. It doesn't even make sense, let alone that it's wrong, wrong, wrong.
In the US there is no rule like that at all.
There is fair use, but that only covers what's fair. Which can vary wildly all over the place. It depends on the circumstances. But there's nothing that says even one second of reproduction is fair all the time.
As for your example below, that would never fly. No one is going to be stupid enough to fall for that.
Probably not. If copyright holders go after actual damages, then the extra distribution counts for something, but it might not really be all that much. Reproduction and distribution are equal infringements -- it's the number of them that matters.
If they go after statutory damages, then they're computed per work, not per infringement, and so it adds nothing.
The latter is probably more likely: A plaintiff has to prove their actual damages, and for most things on BT, they're not going to be amazingly high. OTOH, the statutory damages range from $700 to $30,000, and can go as low as $200 (if the infringer can show that he didn't know, and had no reason to know he was infringing) or as high as $150,000 (if the plaintiff can show that the infringement was done willfully). The actual number is determined by the court.
Ah, one thing you might want to note. The substantial non-infringing use needn't be actual; only potential.
Ah, well, that'd be the sort where the reproduction is done by the copyright holder or with their authorization, which I mention as a potential substantial noninfringing use.
However, I had thought you meant commercially distributed videos.
Law student. Like the .sig says, I'm not a lawyer. But I get sworn in in a week, so I'll have to change that.
Recording from TV *WAS* (and I believe *IS*) infringement.
Yes, but it is possible that that otherwise-infringing activity is in fact a non-infringing fair use under the time shifting theory.
since VCRs *could* be used for legal purposes (such as making copies of home videos), they weren't illegal.
First, individuals making copies of home videos is also infringing unless there is an applicable defense or exception, which there likely would not be. Second, the potential substantial non-infringing uses were those regarding copyright holders reproducing their own works, or authorizing others to do so, and some fair uses such as those that might be called time shifting.
It's like you've got the idea, but you're applying it backwards.
No, you're wrong.
In Sony the claim was whether Sony was liable for infringing uses of its products via a contributory infringement theory. It was a civil case, brought by Universal Studios.
If they had been found liable on the basis of how their products could be used, then of course, they'd continue to be liable in the future unless they took the relevant products off the market, or redesigned them so as to avoid future problems, so in effect their liability could've been considered a ban on the technology, but it really would've been as to the liability of the manufacturers and distributors of it.
Grokster is ALSO a civil suit, and is generally pretty similar.
If the suit were criminal, first the question would be of guilt, not liability. Second, it would be brought by the United States, not a private party.
You pretty clearly haven't read Sony, and don't really grasp the difference between criminal and civil litigation. You might want to do some work before posting on this subject again.
Well, this is a more tangental thing, but I think that there are some patent reforms that are desirable even though they might favor the patent holder.
IIRC there have been cases in which a patent holder licened his patent to a second party under a most favored licensee clause, whereby if he ever gave anyone else any better license terms, he'd have to give them to this licensee as well in order to avoid having any other party be more favored. This having been done, the patent holder sues a third party for infringement, and collects damages (or perhaps settles) to cure the infringement -- and since the award is more favorable than the MFL terms, he has to repay the licensee!
That's a silly holding IMO and as long as we're addressing some reforms, we might as well do that too.
(Similarly while I'd like to see significant reductions in copyright, other things, such as the work for hire doctrine ought to be strengthened slightly, 203 termination ought to abolished, etc.)