Well, I wasn't discussing not granting copyrights. I had been talking about -- though not proposing -- that noncommercial copying be exempted. Thus, people could share data via P2P, but you still couldn't charge people for such things. Commercial exploitation of the work, which will pretty typically include anything involving physical media, would still be exclusive.
At any rate, the point I was trying to make is simply that there is a continuum of copyright protection. It's possible to scale back without getting rid of the entire thing.
But yeah -- that is EXACTLY the consequence I anticipate. Sometimes, however, it is acceptable. Because we're overall better off without those works. I don't mean that as a bit of cultural snobbery.
Rather, I mean that if the loss of some original works coincides with an increase in derivative works, and an increase in public use (broadly defined), then the overall public benefit might nevertheless be greater despite the loss of those works.
That only is true, though, if we have been been granting excessive copyrights, since this draws us closer towards the optimal balance point. If we are not granting enough copyrights, such an action would be harmful.
Personally, I think we're on the side of excess right now, and it would benefit everyone to reduce copyright protections somewhat. But your opinion as to where we stand might differ.
The "something better" being advocated here is better only for the consumer.
Well, as it is the public that is sacrificing something in order to grant a copyright to begin with, it doesn't seem inappropriate for them to be the only people that count.
However, you're underestimating what the public wants. Essentially there are two goals. First, the public wants works created. Original and derivative works. Second, the public wants to use them. And not to merely use them, but to be able to get them for free, copy them, change them, distribute them, base derivative works upon them, etc.
So you're right: this would trade off some added satisfaction for the second goal in exchange for less satisfaction of the first. However, bear in mind that there is some addition satisfaction of the first goal in the form of derivative works.
Sometimes expanding copyrights will leave the public better off than before; other times it will be harmful. Sometimes reducing copyrights will leave the public better off than before; other times it will be less better off.
Note the subtle difference -- it's because at our baseline, where there is no copyright at all, there is nevertheless satisfaction of the first goal somewhat, and total satisfaction of the second. Too much copyright, however, might be able to reduce the overall public benefit below the baseline, due to overprotection inhibiting the creation of original works (perhaps because they're labeled derivative by entrenched interests) and of course as we've seen, inhibiting public use, in the broad sense above.
Basically, there's some optimal point out there, and the idea is to find it and stay atop it. At the moment, I think we're overprotective and have overshot the optimal point.
And as already noted, there is another option. To set aside taking pains to balance the system, and instead just satisfying specific goals. Perhaps due to administrability issues. If people wanted noncommercial copying to be legal, even though this might prevent the optimal point from being reached, so long as it is above the baseline, I don't have a serious problem with that.
In short: if fewer works are created, but everyone is overall happier and better off -- so be it. Some things come at too high a price.
The problem is that there is nothing more than a desire to get something of value for free on the part of the consumer in this case.
That is in fact the entire purpose of the copyright system to begin with.
The author (or owner) of the creative work is not paid what he is owed. How is that anything other than theft?
Well, assuming we're dealing with legal reforms, the question is in error. The author isn't owed anything to begin with if the law doesn't extend his copyright that far.
And theft of course is a pejorative that really has no place here. It doesn't describe what's going on in a legal sense, and the only reason people bother to invoke the T-word at all is to make a cheap character attack. Would it kill you to use the proper term? Aren't your arguments strong enough to work without slurs?
Copyright is basically a bargain between authors and the public (which includes authors as well).
The idea is that the public wants certain desires it has fulfilled more than they would be without any copyright law at all. It grants a certain extent of copyrights in order to come out ahead. The authors often like this as well, so it's win-win.
But there are two limits: First, that if the public isn't doing better than they otherwise would be, why should they have that copyright system? Shouldn't they change it to something that better suits them? Second, the public needn't even bother having one at all. True, we'd all probably be better off with a copyright system that was just right. But we can decide not to bother, in whole or in part.
So if everyone really does feel that it's okay to copy creative works and not pay for them under some circumstances -- and we realize that this will have certain consequences and we're alright with that -- then perhaps we ought to do that.
No, I think that property can be, and often is, a highly useful social construct.
But that doesn't mean that copyrightable subject matter -- i.e. the work, as distinct from the copyright applied to that work, or any individual copy of that work -- is property.
If it were, boy, one would really wonder how to reconcile various current and historical aspects of copyright law, such as the limited terms, fair use, statutory exemptions, the failure of Congress to fully exercise its copyright powers, bars against noncitizens getting copyrights, etc., with something as simple as the 5th Amendment's takings clause.
A literary work isn't property. That doesn't mean that we cannot have a copyright system that works regardless. Personally I suspect that yet another person has been duped by the horribly misleading term 'intellectual property' into thinking that there really is property at stake.
But I'm no troll. You think that there's property involved here? Then don't shy away from the discussion. Convince me. And let me try to convince you. I love to have honest arguments. And yes, I really am a law student.
Which is lovely, but there's no property that's relevant here. The discussion previously didn't appear to be about copies of works that had not yet been distributed at all; rather it was about copies that had been distributed once already.
Thus, if author Alice sells a copy of her book to Bob, he can read it, he can sell it, he can rent it, and he can loan it out -- all for other people to read. Because reading is not an exclusive right of the copyright holder. The only property involved is the tangible book owned by Bob. The work itself isn't property, and the copyright applied to the work sort of is, but doesn't extend to reading.
[ 107] spells out very specific and narrow classes of use that are deemed by law to be non-infringing.
Not really.
Statutory fair use says, in part, In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use [apply the four factor analysis.] It doesn't say 'in any OTHER case.' So Congress meant for the four factor analysis to be applied to even the examples of what could be fair use they listed. If the specific use is of an enumerated type, but fails the analysis, it's still not fair use.
For example, there was a case involving President Ford's memoirs. They were reprinted in a news publication prior to actually being published authorizedly. It was without a doubt news reporting, but it wasn't fair use -- Ford won the case.
You, on the other hand, are deeply confused. That's nothing to be ashamed of. The law isn't really written for the averge Joe or Jane to understand it. It's written for lawyers, by lawyers, and trying to wrap your head around it without sufficient background in studying the law is just going to lead to this very sort of confusion.
Well, the first statement might be true. And I definately agree with the rest.
So I guess it's a good thing for me that I'm a 3d year law student now, specializing in IP law, and that I've been reading this kind of stuff for several years because I am really passionate about it. I'd hope that by now I have a "sufficient background in studying the law."
The presumption is that an licensed use is prohibited if it's not expressly allowed under 107.
Huh? If 106 (primarily) doesn't say that a use is exclusive to the copyright holder, then everyone can enjoy it. For example, I don't infringe on a copyright when I read a book, since reading is not exclusive to the copyright holder.
Besides which 107 doesn't expressly allow anything; it provides guidelines for a multifactor weighing test. Whether ANYTHING falls within 107 depends on the circumstances involved. No blanket statements can be made.
You get a license every single time you buy a copyrighted work. Every time, without exception.
Well, you're lying or you're stupid. 'Cos that is simply untrue. Hell -- even title 17 discusses the sale of copies of works. In 109, 117, 114 -- all over the damn place.
Because copying music via casettes and (some) CDRs is legal. The fees are a part of how that works. But you're right in that it breaks down when you're the copyright holder.
With the recent Grokster ruling it is legal to operate a search engine which catalogs public INTERNET shares indiscriminant of content.
Guess again. That's NOT what the Grokster ruling was.
First there's the fact that the Grokster ruling was the act of merely a district court and thus doesn't necessarily carry a great deal of weight.
Second, the actual ruling was this: if you create a search engine, but are totally unable to control its use (i.e. people run the software on their own computers, not your server) _THEN_ you're likely off the hook, all else being equal.
So a search engine that 3d parties can use but is running on your computer isn't shielded. At least, not by this. And that's what got those college kids, among other things.
Additionally, we don't want fair use defined. The whole point is that anything that is given its own unique circumstances fair (not necessarily what you'd think is fair) be allowed.
You were ALWAYS required to seek a license for any use of a copyrighted work.
Well, not for use qua use. That is, not for a use that isn't one of the enumerated rights in section 106. And not for those uses if you had a good defense or a statutory exemption.
Really, licenses in the consumer sphere are highly unusual even today, are not traditional, and really are pretty pointless given the current law.
The machines put it there. They don't _like_ Zion, but they're willing to tolerate it as their catspaw to finding the One. Then, having found it, they destroy it and set up another one.
Sure, why not? The Mint makes coins -- if you can successfully pass off a printed copy of a quarter or half-dollar, then I say you deserve to get away with it.
Paper money is made by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
As far as I know, every RIAA action thus far has been against people who illegally offered copyrighted material for upload (from Napster to the latest rounds of cases). The RIAA has never, in court, argued that downloading is illegal, only the upload portion of the transaction. A precedent declaring downloading to be legal would, in the scheme of things, mean absolutely nothing.
That's only because it is easier to go after the people distributing music (uploaders) than the people copying music (downloaders). Both are illegal per 17 USC 106. And the Napster case in the 9th Cir. pointed out that both were illegal and that Napster was sufficiently helping both so as to make it responsible too.
Not in the panhandle. There are big thunderstorms pretty much every afternoon that come in off of the Gulf. Only last a little while, but they can get pretty bad.
In a lot of Florida they're regular enough to set your watch by, though each area gets them at different times. IIRC Tampa had their storms much earlier in the day than Tallahassee did.
He's in the Tallahassee area, I think. At least, his homepage lists a business address on Capital Circle. I grew up in Tallahassee. It's actually pretty hilly as far as Florida goes. With pine trees. If he's in the woods, then the woods are actually fairly dense.
Tallahassee also has a hilarious looking capitol building. Florida truly is America's wang, and it shows.
In the US the AHRA makes it legal to copy and distribute music -- provided, however, that it noncommercial, and analog. A certain bit of digital copying is allowed, but computers and mp3s don't qualify. DAT did, OTOH, b/c it had a sort of DRM onboard.
And there are things like fair use, or rebroadcasting, library exemptions, computer software backups, etc.
Not to mention that a GTA Boston with an accurate street grid would thoroughly kick ass.
I really gotta move back there.
Here in New Jersey on the other hand, we have basically abolished the concept of a left turn. If you want to go left, you typically have to go right onto a side street, turn there, and come up to an intersection perpendicular to the road you were on, and go straight.
Why can't the filesystem just do _that_ in the first place then? The filesystem itself is largely an abstraction -- the computer basically just cares about what sectors on the disk to read. No reason why the fs can't be better designed for users.
No it's not. Commercial impact is a factor, but not probative. Check out the 2 Live Crew case where the Supreme Court found it fair use to make a parody of the song Pretty Woman and sell it commercially. It is also a fun read.
It was 14 years, and if the author was still _alive_ in the last year, and opted for it, he could get the extra 14.
'Course music wasn't copyrightable back then anyway.
Incidentally, the public domain cutoff is 1923. Without going into details, anything published prior to that is in the public domain in the US. Some later materials may also be in the public domain.
Because I have finals. I'm on my lunch break and then I need to take my Federal Courts exam. I was already up all night working on my Laws of War and Terrorism take-home. Slashdot is my brief bit of relief right now, but I don't have a huge amount of time.
First generation drives? Fine. What about now? Sure, they can't take back the ones they have sold, but they are still making them. Or are you saying that Sony doesn't know that people are using their drives to break the law? Hah.
That's the great thing about the Sony case.
The manufacturer isn't liable for how people use stuff already in the marketplace. And he isn't liable because people _could_ abuse stuff he hasn't yet put in the marketplace.
So he can continue to build more drives because the mere capability inherent in them that could be abused isn't sufficient, no one's abused the new ones yet, and and likely when they do, it's out of his hands.
Like I said, the main trick is to avoid keeping control, though it is also very good if you can avoid gaining knowledge as well. (though willful blindness doesn't usually work)
Napster always had a centralized index that they could have filtered infringing files from, and that was a killer. These kids did the same thing.
Get all control into the hands of the users by making the manufacturer nothing more than a manufacturer, and you're probably okay. Though it helps to be cautious and run things by a real lawyer, which I am not yet.
So how about Google? Or MSN, or Yahoo, or any other search engine? Why didn't the RIAA go after them instead of these college kids?
In the 90's Congress saw that they could be liable. Courts were still hashing out the issues.
So they gave them legal immunity. If a search engine complies with 17 USC 512(d), (c)(2), (c)(3), and (i) they CANNOT be sued for contributory or vicarious infringement, at least related to their activities relevant under that statute.
It's very easy to do this, but these kids didn't. I imagine, and I repeatedly mention it so as to encourage this, that future college kids running local search engines will in fact comply with that law and be able to avoid getting sued.
Note that it doesn't protect you from direct infringement suits, so you can't actually go about downloading mp3s yourself. And these kids apparently did that too, so would have still gotten in trouble because they made themselves targets that the RIAA would have wanted to take down by any means.
But if you can restrain yourself, you can get away with a lot.
The legal system in the U.S. is such a cluster-fuck.
Meh. The system isn't that bad, though there are some weak spots. It isn't as though these things just pop up out of nowhere. The US legal tradition ultimately dates back to the Norman Invasion of 1066.
But I'll agree that our current copyright laws are in need of significant scaling-back.
However, until that happy day, it's important to have some understanding of what we have now, since that's what can be used against you now. Not liking it isn't going to make lawsuits against you go away.
Actually the list comes from the law, which I study a lot.
"Liability for participation in the infringement will be established were the defendant, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induced, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another." --From the Netcom case, 907 F.Supp. 1361 (N.D.Cal. 1995).
"Liability for contributory infringement is imposed when one who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induced, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another." --From the Intellectual Reserve case, 75 F.Supp.2d 1290 (D.Utah 1999).
"Traditionally, one who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induced, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another, may be held liable as a 'contributory' infringer." --From the Napster case, 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001).
(apologies for the sloppy citations, but I have finals and don't feel like bluebooking these)
I've added the third factor, which is more typically seen in the test for vicarious infringement. I think that it is useful in clarifying the issue of contribution towards infringement. If the alleged contributory infringer couldn't help it at all, then it seems wrong to impute liability to him. There's a little bit of support for this in the Netcom case cited above:
Netcom allows Erlich's infringing messages to remain on its system and be further distributed to other Usenet servers worldwide. It does not completely relinquish control over how its system is used, unlike a landlord. Thus it is fair, assuming Netcom is able to take simple measures to prevent further damage to plaintiff's copyrighted wrks, to hold Netcom liable for contributory infringement where Netcom has knowledge of Erlich's infringing postings, yet continues to aid in the accomplishment of Erlich's purpose of publicly distributing the postings.
How come the RIAA hasn't sued Sony (I know, a paradox) for making CDRW drives. It meets your three criteria.
Because it doesn't meet my three criteria. I'll explain that in a second.
Besides, this list you made up contradicts the previous sentence you wrote [about the Sony holding.]
Again it isn't made up -- it's just more than your pitiful mind can handle apparently. I invite you to look up the cases cited above, and to read them. God knows I have.
What the Sony case says is that if you build a machine that can help people infringe, the mere fact that it can do that isn't enough to impute knowledge to you. HOWEVER Sony did NOT say that there was no liability EVER just because your machine had substantial non-infringing uses.
If you have knowledge of specific infringements for some other reason, for example, because you yourself saw infringement occurring, then Sony doesn't help you at all. It prevented you from being considered to have knowledge from one source. It never said you could not gain knowledge from OTHER sources. And you can, oh you can.
But that's okay. The manufacturer of a CDRW drive doesn't know that people will infringe just because the drive lets them. And even though he might know that people do infringe once they get the drives because he has seen it with his own two eyes, or been informed of it by the copyright holder -- what is the manufacturer going to do to stop it?
He can't take the CDRW drives in use back. He can't force people to stop misusing them. And this is the third factor I mentioned previously. He doesn't meet all three criteria, so he escapes liability.
It's why a couple of P2P software developers just got off the hook: they write software, but they don't have any servers on the P2P network. Other people run those servers, other people run the indices. They cannot exert any control over what people do, and it was their saving grace.
Although it is worth noting, incidentally, that we only found this out BECAUSE the movie studios sued the manufacturer of VCRs.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I wasn't discussing not granting copyrights. I had been talking about -- though not proposing -- that noncommercial copying be exempted. Thus, people could share data via P2P, but you still couldn't charge people for such things. Commercial exploitation of the work, which will pretty typically include anything involving physical media, would still be exclusive.
At any rate, the point I was trying to make is simply that there is a continuum of copyright protection. It's possible to scale back without getting rid of the entire thing.
Heh. That would be nice.
But yeah -- that is EXACTLY the consequence I anticipate. Sometimes, however, it is acceptable. Because we're overall better off without those works. I don't mean that as a bit of cultural snobbery.
Rather, I mean that if the loss of some original works coincides with an increase in derivative works, and an increase in public use (broadly defined), then the overall public benefit might nevertheless be greater despite the loss of those works.
That only is true, though, if we have been been granting excessive copyrights, since this draws us closer towards the optimal balance point. If we are not granting enough copyrights, such an action would be harmful.
Personally, I think we're on the side of excess right now, and it would benefit everyone to reduce copyright protections somewhat. But your opinion as to where we stand might differ.
The "something better" being advocated here is better only for the consumer.
Well, as it is the public that is sacrificing something in order to grant a copyright to begin with, it doesn't seem inappropriate for them to be the only people that count.
However, you're underestimating what the public wants. Essentially there are two goals. First, the public wants works created. Original and derivative works. Second, the public wants to use them. And not to merely use them, but to be able to get them for free, copy them, change them, distribute them, base derivative works upon them, etc.
So you're right: this would trade off some added satisfaction for the second goal in exchange for less satisfaction of the first. However, bear in mind that there is some addition satisfaction of the first goal in the form of derivative works.
Sometimes expanding copyrights will leave the public better off than before; other times it will be harmful. Sometimes reducing copyrights will leave the public better off than before; other times it will be less better off.
Note the subtle difference -- it's because at our baseline, where there is no copyright at all, there is nevertheless satisfaction of the first goal somewhat, and total satisfaction of the second. Too much copyright, however, might be able to reduce the overall public benefit below the baseline, due to overprotection inhibiting the creation of original works (perhaps because they're labeled derivative by entrenched interests) and of course as we've seen, inhibiting public use, in the broad sense above.
Basically, there's some optimal point out there, and the idea is to find it and stay atop it. At the moment, I think we're overprotective and have overshot the optimal point.
And as already noted, there is another option. To set aside taking pains to balance the system, and instead just satisfying specific goals. Perhaps due to administrability issues. If people wanted noncommercial copying to be legal, even though this might prevent the optimal point from being reached, so long as it is above the baseline, I don't have a serious problem with that.
In short: if fewer works are created, but everyone is overall happier and better off -- so be it. Some things come at too high a price.
The problem is that there is nothing more than a desire to get something of value for free on the part of the consumer in this case.
That is in fact the entire purpose of the copyright system to begin with.
The author (or owner) of the creative work is not paid what he is owed. How is that anything other than theft?
Well, assuming we're dealing with legal reforms, the question is in error. The author isn't owed anything to begin with if the law doesn't extend his copyright that far.
And theft of course is a pejorative that really has no place here. It doesn't describe what's going on in a legal sense, and the only reason people bother to invoke the T-word at all is to make a cheap character attack. Would it kill you to use the proper term? Aren't your arguments strong enough to work without slurs?
Why not?
Copyright is basically a bargain between authors and the public (which includes authors as well).
The idea is that the public wants certain desires it has fulfilled more than they would be without any copyright law at all. It grants a certain extent of copyrights in order to come out ahead. The authors often like this as well, so it's win-win.
But there are two limits: First, that if the public isn't doing better than they otherwise would be, why should they have that copyright system? Shouldn't they change it to something that better suits them? Second, the public needn't even bother having one at all. True, we'd all probably be better off with a copyright system that was just right. But we can decide not to bother, in whole or in part.
So if everyone really does feel that it's okay to copy creative works and not pay for them under some circumstances -- and we realize that this will have certain consequences and we're alright with that -- then perhaps we ought to do that.
Oh, boy. Another "anti-property" troll.
No, I think that property can be, and often is, a highly useful social construct.
But that doesn't mean that copyrightable subject matter -- i.e. the work, as distinct from the copyright applied to that work, or any individual copy of that work -- is property.
If it were, boy, one would really wonder how to reconcile various current and historical aspects of copyright law, such as the limited terms, fair use, statutory exemptions, the failure of Congress to fully exercise its copyright powers, bars against noncitizens getting copyrights, etc., with something as simple as the 5th Amendment's takings clause.
A literary work isn't property. That doesn't mean that we cannot have a copyright system that works regardless. Personally I suspect that yet another person has been duped by the horribly misleading term 'intellectual property' into thinking that there really is property at stake.
But I'm no troll. You think that there's property involved here? Then don't shy away from the discussion. Convince me. And let me try to convince you. I love to have honest arguments. And yes, I really am a law student.
Property belongs to its owner
Which is lovely, but there's no property that's relevant here. The discussion previously didn't appear to be about copies of works that had not yet been distributed at all; rather it was about copies that had been distributed once already.
Thus, if author Alice sells a copy of her book to Bob, he can read it, he can sell it, he can rent it, and he can loan it out -- all for other people to read. Because reading is not an exclusive right of the copyright holder. The only property involved is the tangible book owned by Bob. The work itself isn't property, and the copyright applied to the work sort of is, but doesn't extend to reading.
[ 107] spells out very specific and narrow classes of use that are deemed by law to be non-infringing.
Not really.
Statutory fair use says, in part, In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use [apply the four factor analysis.] It doesn't say 'in any OTHER case.' So Congress meant for the four factor analysis to be applied to even the examples of what could be fair use they listed. If the specific use is of an enumerated type, but fails the analysis, it's still not fair use.
For example, there was a case involving President Ford's memoirs. They were reprinted in a news publication prior to actually being published authorizedly. It was without a doubt news reporting, but it wasn't fair use -- Ford won the case.
You, on the other hand, are deeply confused. That's nothing to be ashamed of. The law isn't really written for the averge Joe or Jane to understand it. It's written for lawyers, by lawyers, and trying to wrap your head around it without sufficient background in studying the law is just going to lead to this very sort of confusion.
Well, the first statement might be true. And I definately agree with the rest.
So I guess it's a good thing for me that I'm a 3d year law student now, specializing in IP law, and that I've been reading this kind of stuff for several years because I am really passionate about it. I'd hope that by now I have a "sufficient background in studying the law."
The presumption is that an licensed use is prohibited if it's not expressly allowed under 107.
Huh? If 106 (primarily) doesn't say that a use is exclusive to the copyright holder, then everyone can enjoy it. For example, I don't infringe on a copyright when I read a book, since reading is not exclusive to the copyright holder.
Besides which 107 doesn't expressly allow anything; it provides guidelines for a multifactor weighing test. Whether ANYTHING falls within 107 depends on the circumstances involved. No blanket statements can be made.
You get a license every single time you buy a copyrighted work. Every time, without exception.
Well, you're lying or you're stupid. 'Cos that is simply untrue. Hell -- even title 17 discusses the sale of copies of works. In 109, 117, 114 -- all over the damn place.
Because copying music via casettes and (some) CDRs is legal. The fees are a part of how that works. But you're right in that it breaks down when you're the copyright holder.
With the recent Grokster ruling it is legal to operate a search engine which catalogs public INTERNET shares indiscriminant of content.
Guess again. That's NOT what the Grokster ruling was.
First there's the fact that the Grokster ruling was the act of merely a district court and thus doesn't necessarily carry a great deal of weight.
Second, the actual ruling was this: if you create a search engine, but are totally unable to control its use (i.e. people run the software on their own computers, not your server) _THEN_ you're likely off the hook, all else being equal.
So a search engine that 3d parties can use but is running on your computer isn't shielded. At least, not by this. And that's what got those college kids, among other things.
Additionally, we don't want fair use defined. The whole point is that anything that is given its own unique circumstances fair (not necessarily what you'd think is fair) be allowed.
You were ALWAYS required to seek a license for any use of a copyrighted work.
Well, not for use qua use. That is, not for a use that isn't one of the enumerated rights in section 106. And not for those uses if you had a good defense or a statutory exemption.
Really, licenses in the consumer sphere are highly unusual even today, are not traditional, and really are pretty pointless given the current law.
The machines put it there. They don't _like_ Zion, but they're willing to tolerate it as their catspaw to finding the One. Then, having found it, they destroy it and set up another one.
Sure, why not? The Mint makes coins -- if you can successfully pass off a printed copy of a quarter or half-dollar, then I say you deserve to get away with it.
Paper money is made by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
As far as I know, every RIAA action thus far has been against people who illegally offered copyrighted material for upload (from Napster to the latest rounds of cases). The RIAA has never, in court, argued that downloading is illegal, only the upload portion of the transaction. A precedent declaring downloading to be legal would, in the scheme of things, mean absolutely nothing.
That's only because it is easier to go after the people distributing music (uploaders) than the people copying music (downloaders). Both are illegal per 17 USC 106. And the Napster case in the 9th Cir. pointed out that both were illegal and that Napster was sufficiently helping both so as to make it responsible too.
Not in the panhandle. There are big thunderstorms pretty much every afternoon that come in off of the Gulf. Only last a little while, but they can get pretty bad.
In a lot of Florida they're regular enough to set your watch by, though each area gets them at different times. IIRC Tampa had their storms much earlier in the day than Tallahassee did.
He's in the Tallahassee area, I think. At least, his homepage lists a business address on Capital Circle. I grew up in Tallahassee. It's actually pretty hilly as far as Florida goes. With pine trees. If he's in the woods, then the woods are actually fairly dense.
Tallahassee also has a hilarious looking capitol building. Florida truly is America's wang, and it shows.
When in a democracy, more than 80% of the people support something then by definition it should become legal.
Yeah, which is how we wound up with stupid crap like prohibition. Even supermajorities can be stupid at times.
Well, there are limits.
In the US the AHRA makes it legal to copy and distribute music -- provided, however, that it noncommercial, and analog. A certain bit of digital copying is allowed, but computers and mp3s don't qualify. DAT did, OTOH, b/c it had a sort of DRM onboard.
And there are things like fair use, or rebroadcasting, library exemptions, computer software backups, etc.
Not to mention that a GTA Boston with an accurate street grid would thoroughly kick ass.
I really gotta move back there.
Here in New Jersey on the other hand, we have basically abolished the concept of a left turn. If you want to go left, you typically have to go right onto a side street, turn there, and come up to an intersection perpendicular to the road you were on, and go straight.
Why can't the filesystem just do _that_ in the first place then? The filesystem itself is largely an abstraction -- the computer basically just cares about what sectors on the disk to read. No reason why the fs can't be better designed for users.
Yeah, you'd think that. But it was only for maps, charts, and books.
Music in any form wasn't eligible for copyright until 1831. (and they still didn't have sound recordings, so they meant lyrics and composition)
No it's not. Commercial impact is a factor, but not probative. Check out the 2 Live Crew case where the Supreme Court found it fair use to make a parody of the song Pretty Woman and sell it commercially. It is also a fun read.
It was 14 years, and if the author was still _alive_ in the last year, and opted for it, he could get the extra 14.
'Course music wasn't copyrightable back then anyway.
Incidentally, the public domain cutoff is 1923. Without going into details, anything published prior to that is in the public domain in the US. Some later materials may also be in the public domain.
Juries ;)
(but you ask a lawyer first since he might have an insight into what the jury will decide, and it's cheaper and faster than going to court)
why didn't you post this the first time?
Because I have finals. I'm on my lunch break and then I need to take my Federal Courts exam. I was already up all night working on my Laws of War and Terrorism take-home. Slashdot is my brief bit of relief right now, but I don't have a huge amount of time.
First generation drives? Fine. What about now? Sure, they can't take back the ones they have sold, but they are still making them. Or are you saying that Sony doesn't know that people are using their drives to break the law? Hah.
That's the great thing about the Sony case.
The manufacturer isn't liable for how people use stuff already in the marketplace. And he isn't liable because people _could_ abuse stuff he hasn't yet put in the marketplace.
So he can continue to build more drives because the mere capability inherent in them that could be abused isn't sufficient, no one's abused the new ones yet, and and likely when they do, it's out of his hands.
Like I said, the main trick is to avoid keeping control, though it is also very good if you can avoid gaining knowledge as well. (though willful blindness doesn't usually work)
Napster always had a centralized index that they could have filtered infringing files from, and that was a killer. These kids did the same thing.
Get all control into the hands of the users by making the manufacturer nothing more than a manufacturer, and you're probably okay. Though it helps to be cautious and run things by a real lawyer, which I am not yet.
So how about Google? Or MSN, or Yahoo, or any other search engine? Why didn't the RIAA go after them instead of these college kids?
In the 90's Congress saw that they could be liable. Courts were still hashing out the issues.
So they gave them legal immunity. If a search engine complies with 17 USC 512(d), (c)(2), (c)(3), and (i) they CANNOT be sued for contributory or vicarious infringement, at least related to their activities relevant under that statute.
It's very easy to do this, but these kids didn't. I imagine, and I repeatedly mention it so as to encourage this, that future college kids running local search engines will in fact comply with that law and be able to avoid getting sued.
Note that it doesn't protect you from direct infringement suits, so you can't actually go about downloading mp3s yourself. And these kids apparently did that too, so would have still gotten in trouble because they made themselves targets that the RIAA would have wanted to take down by any means.
But if you can restrain yourself, you can get away with a lot.
The legal system in the U.S. is such a cluster-fuck.
Meh. The system isn't that bad, though there are some weak spots. It isn't as though these things just pop up out of nowhere. The US legal tradition ultimately dates back to the Norman Invasion of 1066.
But I'll agree that our current copyright laws are in need of significant scaling-back.
However, until that happy day, it's important to have some understanding of what we have now, since that's what can be used against you now. Not liking it isn't going to make lawsuits against you go away.
"Liability for participation in the infringement will be established were the defendant, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induced, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another."
--From the Netcom case, 907 F.Supp. 1361 (N.D.Cal. 1995).
"Liability for contributory infringement is imposed when one who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induced, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another."
--From the Intellectual Reserve case, 75 F.Supp.2d 1290 (D.Utah 1999).
"Traditionally, one who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induced, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another, may be held liable as a 'contributory' infringer."
--From the Napster case, 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001).
(apologies for the sloppy citations, but I have finals and don't feel like bluebooking these)
I've added the third factor, which is more typically seen in the test for vicarious infringement. I think that it is useful in clarifying the issue of contribution towards infringement. If the alleged contributory infringer couldn't help it at all, then it seems wrong to impute liability to him. There's a little bit of support for this in the Netcom case cited above:
How come the RIAA hasn't sued Sony (I know, a paradox) for making CDRW drives. It meets your three criteria.
Because it doesn't meet my three criteria. I'll explain that in a second.
Besides, this list you made up contradicts the previous sentence you wrote [about the Sony holding.]
Again it isn't made up -- it's just more than your pitiful mind can handle apparently. I invite you to look up the cases cited above, and to read them. God knows I have.
What the Sony case says is that if you build a machine that can help people infringe, the mere fact that it can do that isn't enough to impute knowledge to you. HOWEVER Sony did NOT say that there was no liability EVER just because your machine had substantial non-infringing uses.
If you have knowledge of specific infringements for some other reason, for example, because you yourself saw infringement occurring, then Sony doesn't help you at all. It prevented you from being considered to have knowledge from one source. It never said you could not gain knowledge from OTHER sources. And you can, oh you can.
But that's okay. The manufacturer of a CDRW drive doesn't know that people will infringe just because the drive lets them. And even though he might know that people do infringe once they get the drives because he has seen it with his own two eyes, or been informed of it by the copyright holder -- what is the manufacturer going to do to stop it?
He can't take the CDRW drives in use back. He can't force people to stop misusing them. And this is the third factor I mentioned previously. He doesn't meet all three criteria, so he escapes liability.
It's why a couple of P2P software developers just got off the hook: they write software, but they don't have any servers on the P2P network. Other people run those servers, other people run the indices. They cannot exert any control over what people do, and it was their saving grace.
Although it is worth noting, incidentally, that we only found this out BECAUSE the movie studios sued the manufacturer of VCRs.
This