Another RIAA Victory

"In a major victory for the entertainment industry, the Supreme Court this morning ruled that Internet file-sharing could be held liable if their products are used primarily to download copyrighted movies and music from the Internet."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/27/BAgrokster27.DTL

Yey for stiffling innovation in the name of lawsuits... isn't America great? So much for the guns don't kill people, people kill people arguement.

Whew... now I can finally sue Ford for building a car that let someone run over my cousin.

It's not all bad.

The SC was *very* clear that this does NOT overturn the earlier decision in the Betamax case - the fact that a device may have SOME infringing uses does not make it fall under this.

This case is strictly against file-sharing programs that are implicitly meant to illegally trade copywritten works, "but that would be WRONG nudge nudge wink wink". You know, Grokster, Gnutella, Limewire, etc, etc.

BitTorrent, on the other hand, is almost certainly safe - since it is actively and widely used to distribute all manner of files, including the patches for World of Warcraft, and doesn't have any sort on indexing ability on it's own - the torrent sites with lists of torrents to get stuff in violation aren't any different than the FTP and website lists of yesteryear.

Similarly, file-sharing programs that don't take the "but we have no control over what the users swap!" dodge but actively police things are safe.

I'm afraid for the possible boldness it might give the RIAA to push things further, but there's nothing at all bad about this decision in and of itself.

*waits for this law to be used on IRC technology. Then watch it get blown out of the water.*

Win for them? Of course. All the same, these are nothing but protectionist measures so an industry fat on profits can keep making millions. I also suspect small-term software engineers can't mobilize a team of highly-trained lawyers. In the words of Dilbert, "It's like sandblasting a soup cracker."

Guess there are reasons I listen to more indy music these days and stopped going to most major "films." Smaller-time creators are seeing a major boon in this age, as suddenly they can joust with juggernauts.

While I'm typically for upholding creator's rights (despite what some people think), these people are finding out the hard way that we live in an age of rapid transmission of data. They need to learn from their mistakes, not force them down everyone else's throat.

Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words:

From what I've read, the Court's ruling is not really any different than, for example, including the gang member "getaway driver" as an accomplice in a bank robbery.

If the "driver" is involved in the planning, they're an accomplice and that's nothing new under the sun. If they're just some schmuck sitting happily in their car and some robber walks cool and collected out of the bank, asks for and then receives a ride, the driver is obviously not involved in the crime.

Afaik, all the Court basically said is circumstance matters - not the technology. If Grokster promotes and encourages P2P for legitimate uses, they're free and clear. If they're basically supporting piracy, they're not. And lower courts can rule on those issues.

The way people are over-reacting leads me to believe those making comments like "They made P2P illegal!!!!" (which someone in SL just told me) don't care about the legalities; they only care about the loss of all the free content.

If you don't want to support the big media companies, don't buy their product. And oh by the way, you don't need to d/l it either. It's that simple. There are plenty of indie bands and low-budget filmmakers out there desperate for an audience.

When I posted I was mostly concerned about this stiffling innovation. As Mark Cuban said, "It won’t be a good day when high school entrepreneurs have to get a fairness opinion from a technology oriented law firm to confirm that big music or movie studios wont sue you because they can come up with an angle that makes a judge believe the technology might impact the music business."

There is good article on the ruleing in Forbes

Do you think this will have an impact on SL? What happens when someone snapzilla's Mickey Mouse and it winds up on the homepage? Could LL be seen as promoting copyright infringement? Does that make them the getaway driver? LOL

I don't support majors for the most part and I never fileshare, however I do sometimes think about creating things like secure encrypted groupware applications or a wide variety of social networking type applications. It sucks that I now have to get a lawyers permission if I want to call it "Darknet" or something that I think is cool and cyberpunk, just cause some suits think it sounds like I'm asking people to pirate content.

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There's a pretty big difference between a P2P company marketing specifically to people they KNOW are infringing and ENCOURAGING them to do so and those who create and market technology that MIGHT be used to infringe, but that isn't the intent of the provider, and they pursue and deal with anyone caught doing so.

The sky is not falling. Yet.

I agree the sky is not falling yet. I also think your more expensive lawyers can sway the opinion of the court better than me and my copy of "Lawsuits for Dummies". More important, even if they would lose the lawsuit, since I can't afford to fight it, I just won't make the technology if they threaten. Not that the RIAA has been known to threaten anyone before.

I read Cuban's piece when it was posted. He raises legitimate concerns. And Forbes echoes them. But I don't see this ruling as doing anything different than what's already done throughout the rest of society in many other situations. Being an innocent accused of a crime can be expensive. This isn't unique to P2P developers. Why should they be special?

Will today's ruling stifle innovation? Unknown

Have similar outcries occurred in the past? Yes (e.g. Government funding for HDTV tech)

Will it impact LL/SL? Unknown. But that issue has already been brought up by me and others on this forum.

Well now you've hit upon the true issue... but it is not 'who has the better lawyer', it is 'why are judges being swayed'.

The chilling effect doesn't get any respect outside the First Amendment arena, more's the pity.

For my part, I no longer purchase ANYTHING that is part of the system. I listen indie, I download indie, and I watch indie. Fuck the system. They just cannot abide that they no longe r control what we listen to (Thank you, Internet!) and all they have left to try and pull with is chasing down 12 year olds and suing them for actually wanting to listen to the pablum they're offering.

More and more artists are doing their own thing and those that do I suppose. Those that sell out to corporate interest get no listening love from me.

I agree, but even if you don't buy into the system, if someone uses technology you've created to steal from the RIAA, and your a little one or two man shop and can't really afford to police the technology (because your developing afterall), you'll find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit. You can stand in front of the judge and say, I only listen to bands on "Dischord!!!" and he most certainly won't care.

To diverge from this subject, lets think about the technical innovations that have come to light because of Napster... if it wasn't for Napster, mom and dad wouldn't know what an mp3 was, there would be no market for the ipod, podcasting wouldn't exsist, Trent Reznor would have never released his samples on the internet... the list goes on.

Yes Napster was illegal. Yet it was still an important technological innovation that came out of a dorm room... now students see students getting sued, and maybe that guy sitting in his dorm room starts thinking, "I don't know if this can get me sued... I can't afford a lawyer... I'll just study and go work for Microsoft".

Do I think this ruling in particular forbids innovative new technology? No... but I do think that threats from the media will. And now those threats have teeth. Even if everything you are doing is legit... you still need a lawyer to make your arguement.

Of course it remains to be seen what route this will take... but how much faith are you putting in RIAA/MPAA these days?

Man, I really...really wanna meet the girl who would wear the "RIAA with the red bar" thong, looks good in it, and understands the meaning.....


and would show me....



(ok, any chick in any thong will do......)