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Author Topic: Another attempt at news  (Read 5383 times)

Johnny C

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Another attempt at news
« on: 27 Jun 2005, 23:42 »

Don't mess it up this time. Anyone with any kind of background in law: What does this mean to the consumer? What does it mean to smaller, independent bands and artists who used filesharing to spread the message? I'm assuming it won't mean as much to the latter category; A Ghost Is Born enjoyed pretty dern good sales for an indie album which lacked singles and was available for download before its actual release.

Still, kind of unsettling that one of the earliest forays into online music distribution has been shut down (even if it was, you know, P2P).
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Something Witty

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #1 on: 27 Jun 2005, 23:55 »

After skimming, it means this, based on my semi-legal background(Living with a Lawyer for almost 20 years):

Basically, in the pursuit of more money, and in an effort to put a stop to new P2P software coming out, making it easier to download songs/movies/whatever, the companies that have the problem with Copyright Infringement are attempting to make those who produce the P2P software responsible for the so called "Pirating" of software and music and whatnot partially respionsible for the pirating done with their software, hopefully resulting in little/no more P2P style software.


It's just more of the Media tryign to shut down the internet pirates.
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Mnementh

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #2 on: 28 Jun 2005, 03:42 »

Basically what happend is the Supreme Court didn't change anything.  They are simply allowing trial to proceed on this matter.  The out come of the trial in the lower courts will then determine the legal requirements of P2P software companies.

Honestly though, a lot of software companies have to perform some basic due diligence to determine who the end user is and what they will be doing with the software.  My company is not allowed to sell software to people who have been stripped of the right to export or other parties/countries the US Gov't determines to be a risk to national security.  Due diligence is rather simple, a quick call asking the person if they are the party listed on the State Departments list is enough to sell to an individual with a matching name, and an end use statement from users in most foriegn countries considered a risk is enough.

However, most people would rather scream about the man keeping them down.
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MilkmanDan

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #3 on: 28 Jun 2005, 06:32 »

Yeah, but no-one's talking about Grokster selling software to countries deemed a risk to national security. They are trying to sue the hell out of them becuase people use their free software to download copyrighted materials. It's not 'basic due dilligence', it's bullshit. Next they'll be suing Al Gore for inventing the internet!
The precident of Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios on the VCR debate should tell MGM to fuck right off, but I don't know. I hope so, because the precident it would set would fuck up all innovation for basically ever.
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Samari

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #4 on: 28 Jun 2005, 08:15 »

It's not as simple as that though.  The reason that SCOTUS found the way it did is because they saw clear evidence that the intent of the Grokster team was to create and promote the software for the purpose of infringing on copyrights.  The Court was very deliberate in their ruling to leave the Betamax decision untouched and actually said that if it weren't for the company's actions indicating their intent to profit from copyright infringement the Court would have found that they were supported by the Betamax decision.  So basically this case falls outside the umbrella of Betamax and nothing about this case reduced that protection.  

MGM didn't really get what they were hoping for.  They really wanted to be able to weaken the Betamax precedent and that didn't happen.
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MilkmanDan

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #5 on: 28 Jun 2005, 10:25 »

Ah. It would seem I didn't have the full story. I'm glad to hear the Betamax precident is untouched. So Grokster fucked up, but other P2P should be ok.
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Samari

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #6 on: 28 Jun 2005, 14:05 »

well, ok so long as they can navigate around the whole intent issue.  I guess the court figured it couldn't allow a company to set up a buisness model solely based on profiting from copyright infringement.  the difference from Sony I would guess is that Sony was selling a product that could be used to violate copyright laws, but it really made no difference to them whether or nor people were using them legally.  Grokster on the other hand has a vested interest in people illegally distributing copyrighted materials because the more people who are illegally distributing material the more attractive their program becomes.

It would have been better for technology in general had grokster won outright, but it's not a very big loss except for companies who use availability of copyrighted materials as a selling point of their product.
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Johnny C

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #7 on: 28 Jun 2005, 14:37 »

Quote from: Samari
It's not as simple as that though.  The reason that SCOTUS found the way it did is because they saw clear evidence that the intent of the Grokster team was to create and promote the software for the purpose of infringing on copyrights.

Upon a second read of the article, this actually isn't too bad, at the moment; it only seems to apply to P2P programs which specifically intend to profit from copyrighted materials.
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Sideways

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #8 on: 28 Jun 2005, 14:48 »

I'm a paralegal so I'll share my perspective on this ruling.

It means, essentially, that filesharing (P2P) providers are now held liable for copywrite infringement because they provide the tools necessary to locate and share media.

They always existed within a legal loophole.  Since they did not PROVIDE illegal material, only allowed individuals to share amongst themselves, they got away with it.

An appropos analogy;

You know a drug dealer.
You know a junkie.
You introduce the two of them, for no specific reason.
The drug dealer is now selling to the junkie (illegal).

What the hypothetical 'you' did in this scenario was perfectly fine... albeit negligent.  It wasn't a crime.

So this ruling would, based on the aforementioned analogy, mean that you could be charged with a criminal offence simply for allowing those two people to meet.

Now, back to the topic at hand... this means that programs like Kazaa, Soulseek, Morpheus, Napster, etc (P2P client-based programs) can all be held liable for copywrite infringement, even if they aren't HOLDING any illegal material.  I means they will likely all be shut down, or become 'pay for legal media' services instead.
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trolley

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #9 on: 28 Jun 2005, 15:42 »

And torrents will rule.
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Samari

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Another attempt at news
« Reply #10 on: 28 Jun 2005, 15:47 »

this wasn't about infringement though, it was about inducement.

as far as torrent goes, it's exactly the type of thing the betamax decision is supposed to protect.  The developer designed a system of distributing large files without putting stress on a central server, it happens to be a popular tool for sharing copyrighted material but the author never really promoted it as such and it does have a wide array of non-infringing uses (like distributing World of Warcraft patches).
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