Hollywood wins Internet piracy battle

[Peachy]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/27/p2p_goes_down/The U.S. Supreme court overturned a lower court decision that allowed P2P software developer Grokster and StreamCast to escape liability for their users' illegal file sharing. The case will be remanded back to the lower court and judgement will follow based on the new interpretation of the "Sony law".

"Today's Court decision in the Grokster case underscores a principle Public Knowledge has long promoted - punish infringers, not technology," said Public Knowledge, a technology advocacy group. "The Court has sent the case back to the trial court so that the trial process can determine whether the defendant companies intentionally encouraged infringement. What this means is, to the extent that providers of P2P technology do not intentionally encourage infringement, they are exempt from secondary liability under our copyright law. The Court also acknowledged, importantly, that there are lawful uses for peer-to-peer technology, including distribution of electronic files 'by universities, government agencies, corporations, and libraries, among others."You can read the court's decision in PDF here.®

[epp_b]

I don't understand this. Sure, most of their users don't use the programs for "downloading RPMs" and such, but this software is simply a medium no different than a web browser, email client, or ftp client as they can all transfer files just as readily.The messenger has died.

[Dard]

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that software companies can be held liable for copyright infringement when individuals use their technology to download songs and movies illegally.Here is the link.

[havnblast]

cool - 3rd topic on the same subject now of course tho it is no suprise really

[Guest LilBambi]

I have posted two items on my blog about this very topic.http://jim-fran.com/BambisMusings/I want to believe this was a well thought out ruling by the Supreme Court that attempts to separate out the intent/inducement rather than the technology itself, but there are so many reasons why I am having trouble with this ruling at the same time.

[Peachy]

Here's an editoral from Tom's Hardware Guide: http://www.tomshardware.com/column/20050628/index.html

While it is common sense that free sharing of music has a limited future, today's decision will remove all motivation for the audio and video industry to innovate. Competition will be simply dealt with in lawsuits. Music publishers basically have reached their goal and we are back in the early nineties - for now. Publishers will determine once again how audio and video is consumed. Innovation will slow down. The outlook for the future: Digital rights management will limit the use of content for consumers more than ever before. Independent artists lose a valuable and often the only efficient distribution model. And all artists can be certain again to depend on music publishers to distribute their creative work or not.In terms of using written law to reach a compromise for publishers, artists and consumers, the legal system has failed today.

It's all about money; corporate money, that is. The dinosaurs are far from extinct and have used their lobbyists in Capitol Hill to retake all that Napster took away from them.

[Guest LilBambi]

I just found this article on the BBC which really sums up my concerns about this ruling pretty well in the last section of the article:

'Murky rules'Representatives from the technology industry are worried that the ruling could lead to uncertainty about the legality of new products and services."The court has done little to provide a clear path for legitimate innovators and manufacturers to avoid lawsuits related to copyright infringement over legitimate products and services," said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association."With this ruling the Supreme Court has handed a powerful new tool to litigious content creators to stop innovation."Innovators must now consider new murky legal rules and potentially overwhelming legal costs before bringing their product to market or even moving forward with an innovative idea."And experts have questioned how the courts will decide whether a product or service is "inducing" piracy."Obviously there is lots of room for interpretation, so courts and lawyers will be busy for many years on these cases," said Lauren Weinstein, a well-known net privacy campaigner."In the long run, the decision is like trying to use a wad of chewing gum to plug a leaking hole in a massive earthen dam," he said in an e-mail published on an internet mailing list."You may cut down on the dripping for the moment, but don't throw away your snorkel, for the flood is yet to come."

I have no problem with copyright holders doing what they want with the fruit of their labors and yes, they should be able to make money on their efforts. But this ruling won't help anyone but the big money cartels. I do not see how the small independent musicians will benefit from such a ruling.I do think spyware making companies and filesharing network software companies that make use of spyware in their software should be held accountable for something!But I do have a problem with rulings like this.It opens so many doors to litigation and the crapshoot court trials have always been, and the cost to innovators and new technology will be unbelievable. The cost for bringing a product to market is already amazingly high ... without this ruling!This seems like it will be a bad thing for innovators, and to the fair use of what we purchase such as being able to find software/hardware to make backup copies of CDs and DVDs that we purchase, etc.It is about the money Peachy ... and that is a very sad thing. Edited June 28, 2005 by LilBambi

[epp_b]

Sheesh, why don't they just outlaw TCP/IP all together :thumbsdown:Artists should completely boycot all these record companies and distribute their music digitally. There are enough honest consumers willing to pay in order to keep artists in the black.

[epp_b]

No kiddin'The best deal for a band (U2, I think) I've heard of is 1$ per CD, per band member. Granted, that's a lot of money if you sell, say, a million CDs, but this is a very popular band with a very good deal. I would bet a lot on the fact that other bands don't get this kind of cut.Secondly, there is nothing anyone can do to stop digital piracy, because it's all based on software. Hardware requires software which has bugs. Always has, always does, always will...and there is always a way around it. The only thing Hollywood is doing is delaying the piracy until someone soon finds a hole...then it's onto the next system until someone breaks it, and so forth.Case in point, give it up. All these huge DRM acts are putting legitimate customers (which, by the way, I'm sure the numbers of are decreasing) at a huge inconvenience, just so Hollywood can grab all the money possible up front.I sure hope that, sooner or later, bands are going to think: "Hey, wait a minute...why don't we just invest in a customized system with which we can sell our music online? We could charge like a buck per song flat and make way more money per song than the records our giving us! We'll sell it in a standardized and portable format without any remote controls like DRM and, even if people do share it without paying, we'll still make more money in the long run..."I'm already feeling under-the-weather today, but this topic makes me even more sick just talking about.(P.S.: Temmu, have you considered investing in a keyboard with a couple of shift keys? )

Edited June 28, 2005 by epp_b

[epp_b]

Hey, has anyone thought of a positive thing that could come out of this? It probably puts a wrench in Micro$oft's Avalanche

Edited June 28, 2005 by epp_b

[FuzzButt]

Oddly not mentioned yet is this. This is the second really bad deision from the supreme court in a week. Last weeks issue that was real close but went the way of business too.Best way around both of these dumb judgements is to boycott the businesses in question. Eventually they might get hip to the fact that without customers they have to change their ways or slowly die.If big business decides the laws then we are all screwed.

[havnblast]

Always has been big business, always will be..... What scares me is the gov. making decisions on stuff they don't understand. How many senators know the ins and outs of computing?? I would guess not very many.How many law enforcement officials understand computing?? I have seen this first handed and it truely worries me.Like Temmu said earlier - can we sue GM/Gun Manufacturers cause some idiots out there used them in the wrong way???

[epp_b]

How many senators know the ins and outs of computing?? I would guess not very many.

You're too kind. Replace "very m" with blank and there's your answer...

[Marsden11]

The two companies in question tried to hide behind "See no Evil." 'We have no idea or control over what our users are doing so how could we possibly be liable for infringement?'The court did not buy that excuse! Read the actual Supreme Court ruling... it explains in detail why they ruled the way they did.This decision has absolutely no bearing on software innovation as long as the innovation does not aid in infringement of copyrighted works.

[FuzzButt]

Well I'm thinking about taking up structrual engineering. I admire structure. Don't really know much about it realy but think I can do better than the engineering firm of X, X & Associates. What can it hurt really? I was good with Lego's when I was a kid that should count for something.Come on this is absurd. Our Law Makers, Justices and even the Executive branch (FCC, Police etc...) all need a serious overhaul. I am not a political person but thes jokers are really starting to get me angry with their never ending stupidity. Last week I was listening to "Science Friday" on NPR and Ira mentioned that Bush cut something like 100 million from the NSF budget. Really let's cut funding for science. No real reason for it I guess. All the advances in the past 75 years or so that this great country has had must be all the science we need. I thought that Clinton was bad but this guy makes him look like a saint and does it so well we can't even see the wool anymore. Here's for short term limits, 90 day election cycles and no more pork on the books. Oh ya and maybe the experts should make all the decisions and not the laymen.

[Guest LilBambi]

Blog Maverick - Kaboom!Well, now here is something interesting:

There wasnt a Kaboom, there wasnt a whisper in the market. Not one buyer or seller of stocks gave a D***. Warner Music Group. probably the only public company that is a pure play proxy for the music business traded almost exactly the same number of shares as it does every day. The stock was down a nickel.In other words, no one cared. No one on Wall Street thought that this decision would impact the music business at all.Of course thats because it wont.The MGM Grokster decision wont help the content business make more money. It wont help artists make more money. This deal gave something to both sides, but it gave the most to lawyers and lobbyists. The good news is that at least the SCOTUS kept the focus on how technology is marketed rather than what it does.The bad news is that the MPAA and RIAA will jump all over the slightest double technolgy entendre that any marketing blurb or item could have.Im not sure how companies are going to protect themselves against it.How are companies who invest in technology going to protect themselves and their investments against it ?This is from a contract for an investment that I was looking at.  It was a very smart move to ask for this protection and i have every intention of stealing it and using it in any digital asset acquisition I undertake in the future. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Compliance.  Seller has complied with all the requirements in Section 512© and 512(i) of Title 17 of the United States Code to qualify for a limitation on liability for copyright infringement, including without limitation (i) having no actual knowledge that any material or an activity using the material on the Seller Websites is infringing; (ii) having no awareness of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; (iii) upon obtaining knowledge or awareness that material or an activity using the material on the Seller Websites is infringing, acting expeditiously to remove or disable access to any infringing material, and (iv) upon receiving notification of claimed infringement, responding expeditiously to remove or disable access to material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity. With the Grokster ruling, going forward,  just how onerous will the protection language be for purchases of, or investments in digital technology ? Will it be enough for the target company to promise that they complied ? 

[Peachy]

The Register has an interesting analysis of why both the RIAA and the technology developers just don't get it: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/29/after_grokster/

Let's recap: we have a compensation crisis, not a copyright crisis on our hands. If the artists represented by the Recording Industry Ass. of America were being compensated, there would be no Grokster case. Computer networks allow the dissemination of culture on an unimaginably wide scale; the only aspect that's missing is a compensation framework.

Also, I love this article because it provides a solution to the mess we have: Why wireless will end ‘piracy’ and doom DRM and TCPA – Jim Griffin Enjoy the reading and leave Bush and Clinton out of it since that's what you guys would want anyway.