you missed one very important one, i do have a right to redistribute to people who have said viewing rights.

If you were correct and i did not have such a right then TV Stations would have won the right to force VCR to encode something in the beginning of recorded shows that would have prevented them from playing in another VCR.

THEY DID NOT.

IF power went out in my house and my vcr did not tape my favorite show, i had a right to get a copy fo that show from a friend.

When i upload to the swarm that is exactly the right i am using because as i have said before everyone who is illegally participating will get sued or cut off.


exactly my point
i paid for a certain level of rights, if i did not have those rights the ruling in the betamax case would not have been as such.
DRM, movie theaters, restricted use access are all legitimate, the BETAMAX case respects the right

The key to why this was the desenting position instead of the majority is that the technology in question must be implemented for the copyright holder to claim that they are so limiting rights. The end user must agree to that limitation of right to gain access to the content.


sure it is that why the RIAA tried to prove that she aquired the songs from the P2P network

you may want to make that arguement all you want but the problem is that your artificial expansion of copyright law would create a situation where the .torrent file would be entitled to the same protection as your copyright material.

Again, wrong. You are correct for points 1 and 2. But for points 3 and 4, sorry, but you are wrong. If you missed CSI last night, you don't have the right to go download it this morning. If you didn't happen to see that movie that played on HBO last night, you didn't suddenly get the rights to watch it today. The receiving gear and storage of material received is YOUR problem, not the industry's problem.

When you say "gain access from other liciences" (and I won't comment on the spelling) you miss the main point: everyone else is under the same restricted license with NO RIGHTS FOR REDISTRIBUTION. They have the same restricted rights that you had in watching it.

If you pay for cable TV this month, it doesn't mean that the cable company has to once again provide you access when the shows return as a repeat in the future. It doesn't mean they have to give you copies of the programs you might have missed.

You really don't get it, do you?

Yeah, that bothered me as well. I haven't read too deeply about the case, but I would want to see something more. If I remember correctly doesn't Kazza (sp?) continue to run after the user closes it out? I never used it personally, but from what I've heard alot of file sharing programs are like spyware. I know I've walked people through their task manager to stop the processes and their add / remove programs to get rid of it. :2 cents:

Gideon, again, you have it backwards - it isn't for the end receivers to decide if they have rights to something or not. You as a RESTRICTED RIGHTS owner don't have the right to make widespread distribution. The onus is on you to prove that each person that you gave a copy to had the rights to it. Putting the file on a torrent site is EXACTLY the same as starting your own TV station and broadcasting the tape. You don't have that right either.

not true you have no rights to share anything because you pay a cable bill.Do a google search with the words hbo and bit torrent. They are going after people for downloading hbo's shows. nothing in it about asking them for their cable bills.

Me'thinks Gideon is assuming he has rights that he, in fact, doesn't have.

Go RIAA! Score one for the good guys. :thumbsup

Since we are all spouting off about things we don't know (I am not a lawyer).

Try reading the public filing record listed here:

http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDFfull...tatementofCase

then spout off based on what you read.

BTW... Gideon.. as I read it, your claims to distribution are not based in case law. From what I read, the copyright holder retains distribution rights. Read the case law and let us know what you come up with.

Actually, I thought about it a minute, and I have to add this:

In this case, the RIAA won. Almost undoubtedly, the woman found liable had heard the songs on the radio. Perhaps, she even heard the songs on XM or some other subscription based service. It is also likely that the people who received free copies of the song had also heard the song in the same manner. Perhaps some of them even attended a concert where one or more of the songs was performed.

None of those things gave her the right to seed the files out for distribution.

None of those things gave anyone the right to receive those files.

None of those things created a right of ownership or granted unlimited distribution rights.

Gideon, you are making a major, major mistake in your logic assuming that a fee paid once for one type of right grants you all other rights without limit for as long as you want. That just isn't the case.

Thats alot of money

Alex.. in the case of a song over the radio or a show over the television, there is no fee paid! You don't get distribution rights.. period.. the end. Those are retained by the copyright holder.

You as an individual have a right to copy something for yourself. Plain and simple. The original is supposed to be owned by you, not by someone else. If you make a recording of a song off the radio.. fine.. back it up if you like. don't back it up for someone else or offer it to someone else.. that's a violation. Same goes for a television recording, software, video file, etc etc etc.

Or look up how the NFL went ballastic on an Indianapolis church who was going to show the 2006 Super Bowl on a big screen TV for their congregation.

Not to the webmasters of GFY. They wipe with that much daily.

cackle..

I am playing the Gideon gamer now. When you listen to the radio, you pay a fee (by listening to the commercials, you pay with your time). That should be enough to grant fair use rights to Gideon so that he can reuse those songs any way he sees fit, including giving them to 100,000 of his closest friends and neighbors!

Like I said, Gideon makes the mistakes of confusing his restricted rights as a buyer of a CD or movie (or as a viewer on TV) with those rights granted to the original copyright holder or their licensees for distribution.

I hear what you're saying (and people who take legal council from anyone other than a board-certified lawyer in their own state isn't working in his or her best interests)... but claiming one has to be a lawyer to know the law is as misdirected as saying one has to be a physicist to understand gravity. :2 cents:

again you are missing the point
3. read it completely don't just cherry pick parts to prove your point http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/MGM_v_321...0219_Order.pdf

4. if you were correct and that the act of getting a replacement copy for material i had a licience to view from a friend then
BETAMAX case would have upheld the restriction requiring vcrs to have some type of encoding that prevented there viewing on another VCR. THEY DID NOT. I suggest you read the case law again because you haven't.

again i will get back to the entire point i was making at the begining, which you keep ignoring.

I wasn't claiming that you have to be a lawyer.. but they certainly understand the law 1000 times better than we do.

Point well made though and I do agree with you.

My intent was hoping that people read the court filing (especially Gideon) and recognize that rather than assumption and conjecture, there is legitimacy for what the RIAA is doing and case law to back up their position.

you assume that they have no right to distribute to people who have purchased a licienced right to view WITHOUT PROOF.

You ignore the fact that BETAMAX case actually recognized this right by not requiring VCRs to have an encoding schema that would have prevented the playing on another device.

You ignore the fact that when i am recovering my data from an online backup i am reaquiring a lost copy of said material.

VCRs without an ecoding schema that would prevent their playing on another VCR would be illegal if you were right.

Online backup would be illegal if you were right.

it is another A-B-A proof again and you know it

I will make it simple for you

Why did the BETAMAX case not result in a ruling that the technology was invalid until they implemented an encoding schema that prevented it from playing it on another device. If you were correct and the ruling DID NOT give me the right to aquire a missed copy from a friend such a ruling would be 100% legitimate.

I may have missed it, but what in this ruling is making your point. I could show you lots and lots of cases and say hey.. read them.... yeah.. whatever....LOL.. Wait.. I did do that didn't.. Well I did read the RIAA v Jammie Thomas and RIAA did win.. which means their arguments against distribution were valid for the time being.. which puts this as the most relevant case until the appeal is held.

I would venture to say that the restriction against encoding had more to do with my right to have my copy work on a subsequent machine that I own and is for my personal purposes than it did to allow you to share your copy with a friend. Me having rights to my copies is in line with fair use.. you distributing copies to friends because of a vis a vis assumption is not fair use. I may be wrong.. gimme the case link.. I want to read the opinion that has a judge saying its ok to share content of any type with your friends.

sometimes a judge is smart enough to protect us from our own stupidity (like restricting our personal right to do something for ourselves)... but their actions get misinterpreted.

So just to clarify...all those people who are all for the RIAA suing people like this have never downloaded anything of peer to peer networks? Stop being a hypocrite.

I'm not afraid admit that I download songs. But I also go to the record store on a weekly basis. I probably have around 500 albums on either cd or record, I go to shows and I'd probably buy a tshirt too if it wasn't a raping ($40-50 for a tshirt, give me a break they are poor quality and probably only worth $20).

This is a tough issue for me because I love music and I try to support it as much as I can (I think buying 5-10 albums a month is pretty fucking good) but there are still loads of albums that I want from artists that either don't have their product in the record stores here (Toronto), or I just don't have the money to buy it.

Downloading is obviously a problem, but suing your customers is really unnecessary in my opinion. They are victimizing their own customers. Somehow I don't think that these suits are going to stop downloaders or uploaders all that much since the percentage they go after is so so so low when you look at the population in the US. They need to figure out how to survive and be profitable in this new age otherwise they are going to loose their customer base and go out of business anyways.

I would argue (and win) that Clear Channel has hurt the music industry far more than p2p networks ever will.

I have never rejected the legitimacy of what they are doing, because that is exactly the act i have been arguing they should be doing-- going after the INFRINGING SEEDER directly.

What i reject is your arguement that this win grants the RIAA and you more rights than explicitly specified in the case.

(see your arguements that KAZZA and by extension Torrents/ torrentspy, isohunt, TPB etc) are liable.

This lady never produced any proof she owned the content in question
and secondly RIAA produced proof of infringement that exceed previously defined speculative claim (Interscope v. Rodriguez)


she is exactly the type of seeder who should be removed from the p2p network so that fair use people like myself can enjoy the technology available.

Gideon, nobody is ignoring your point. You are ignoring everyone else's points though.

Wrong. You cannot take the physical limitations (or lack of) on a VCR and have it just wipe away copyright restrictions. At the time of the Betamax decision, the widest potential distribution for a single copy of a video was "immediate friends" and it wasn't an issue. VCRs are sold ot the public make only degraded copies (technically, they record less than the true image, compressing it and using less scan lines, then artificially puffing it up on playback. When you record that playback signal, the end result is even worse picture quality. But about the 5th copy, it looks like a snowman in a snowstorm at night). The courts didn't touch on or addres the concept of mass reproduction because that wasn't in the scope of the trial. The EXTREMELY LIMITED RIGHTS gained because of the betamax case in no way extend to mass redistribution or reproduction. Until you get this stupidity out of your head, you won't understand any of the other underlying concepts.

WRONG AGAIN!

Torrent files aren't "innocent pieces of data" anymore than guns are innocent repositories for gunpowder. People who trade torrent files aren't trading them for fun, they are trading them for the information they contain, the keys to castle as it were. Without the torrent files, there would be no P2P file sharing over TPB or any other torrent file site. Eliminating torrent trackers / torrent search engines would more significantly limit P2P file trading than attacking any single seeder. Without those things in place, the seeders would be seeding to NOTHING.

The entire process is what causes the copyrighted material to be shared without permission. Remove the locating services, remove the torrent files themselves, and there would be no method for anyone to find the stuff to start with. It is a "pimp and ho" sort of thing. The pimp profits from the ho. Get rid of the hos, and all you got left is a bunch of uneducated men in funny fur coats.

I don't download music... so I am not being hypocritical. I don't download anything. If I want it, I buy it. I expect others to do the same.

Supporting the industry is great... rationalizing that you buy enough, so at some point you are OK with getting it for free is not. Would you use the same rationale at your local grocery store? Hey.. I buy $800 in groceries from you each month.. it's not that big of a deal that I get some for free every now and then. Theft is theft.. plain and simple.

People have a right to protect their product. Just because it is mainstream and everyone knows about it (in the case of music) does not mean that RIAA or ClearChannel or others must adapt to the thievery market. They have a right to sell their product to legitimate users and to control the distribution. Why create a product otherwise?

You are wrong in that p2p or torrents don't really hurt the industry. Of course they do. These are all users that are potential purchasers which are now getting the product at no cost. Unless that usage is checked and stopped.. it will continue to increase, thereby decreasing legitimate purchasers. Everyone gets hurt except for the leeching users who say.. what's the big deal???? it's just one song.

Gideon.. keep going.. you didn't get to the part in the filing about distribution rights.... you can't avoid that part... nowhere in the case was fair use addressed that said you can share with others.

Point me to the case law that says you can do that... quote it.. take me to it so I can read it!!!

ok let look at the case in question

1. "The questioning then turned to her CD-ripping habits. In her deposition, Thomas said that she ripped no more than six or seven CDs per day"

assuming only a month (which was the time frame for the case in question) with 10 songs per cd that would be 600-700 per day for a grand total 21,000songs shared, she was only guilty for 24 songs. If "fair use" was as weak as you say it is, if copyright law was as strong as you say it was then she ADMITTED TO 21,000 violations and should have been convicted of a lot more violations, SHE WAS NOT. That the point i am making

AND THAT IS THE POINT YOU ARE IGNORING.

you are trying to expand the case to mean a lot more than it actually does. I have no objection to this ruling because only convicted her of copyright infringement for material she had bought no rights too. I believe that such an act is an infringement, and i WANT YOU TO TAKE THOSE PEOPLE OUT OF THE NETWORK so that i am only sharing with PEOPLE WHO DO HAVE A RIGHT TO THE CONTENT.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...ury-finds.html

According to this article, they brought her to court over 24 songs of the 1700 that were shared. Got hit for $9250 a pop for each song, even though there was no proof that the songs were indeed transferred to anyone.

The part about the judge initially requiring proof of transfer and then rescinding isnt talked about in that article, but I gathered that from several other articles of many that are circulating around about this.

My only problem with this whole thing is this - give me an outlet to legally purchase all the media I want to consume and I will pay for it.

I'm a music fan. Sadly, a lot of music is not available for sale in Canada or online. How do I get a copy legally? As a consumer I want to consume! Give me the product.

The grocery store analogy doesn't take the above into account...

Instead of spending so much money on prosecuting these infringers (who are completely in the wrong, I agree) spend the money on creating outlets for people to purchase the product and be good consumers.

Bah...

Do you even know what FAIR USE is? If I bought a CD and made 100 copies and just gave them away that is still ILLEGAL.

You need to read up a little more on the case. The defendants lawyer succeeded in getting the RIAA's proof of ownership for the 1700+ songs i question tossed out, which would have meant a very long trial, as each song or group of songs would have required different expert testimony, and would potentially have lead to discovery motions on all of the contracts that grant the rights to the record companies and the RIAA. As a result, they select 24 songs that were accepted as "owned", and moved forward. Considering the net result of $220,000 dollars, there is no reason to think that any more songs would have been needed to make the point.

Key in this case: Having the files in the Kazaa "shared" folder is enough to prove intent to distribute. Likewise, having files "seeded" on a torrent program would likely be more than enough as well.

Important too: Just because the end user(s) are found guilty doesn't in any way limit Kazaa's liability. There is nothing in the judgement that I can see that would say that.

And this is the argument that they will continue to use until they realize that suing their customers is only hurting themselves.

The grocery store example does not translate to the Music industry where the cost of production is relatively low these days if we are talking about production. The act of recording songs would take place if recorded music is sold or otherwise as it is a necessary step in the songwriting process. If I steal food at the grocery store I have physically taken something and not paid for it whereas when you download a song you do not have the physical product (the album with artwork the cd or record) what you have is a relatively poor quality copy of it no different from copying a movie on VHS back a few years ago.

The main problem is that artists no longer really need the industry to support them as they can do everything by themselves over the internet at a very low cost which Radiohead is about to prove (and Pearl Jam already did by selling their live shows for $10 for a digital download). The record companies are just not too happy about this fact and are trying their hardest to stay in business. Their great plan to accomplish this is by suing the people who are supporting their artists.

Bands make their money mostly through touring and merchandise sold at those events. They make very little on the actual album. So downloading songs and telling your friends about a band is actually helping them because it means the difference of doing a small tour at small venues or doing a bigger one at larger venues. And it also gets people like me who like to collect to buy the album. For example, this summer I saw Dispatch. They rose in popularity because of Napster. They never sold that many albums and haven't made a record since 2000. Yet they were able to sell out MSG for three nights in a matter of minutes. So there is just one example of p2p helping out artists.

On to Myspace...why do you think bands are so active on there and put up songs for us to listen to? Because radio is all but dead (because of Clear Channel) and MTV and MuchMusic choose to play reality TV instead of music. So where are bands supposed to promote themselves? Why do you think NIN and Prince are also giving away albums for free? Because they understand that for them getting their material out there is more important than making sales off of it (so they can sell out huge arenas and stadiums).

This is not an argument that is going to be won by either side. But it is a changing of the guard and that much is obvious. It's like any industry that goes through change for any number of reasons...you have to adapt or risk going out of business.

I don't care if she had 5 songs or 1000 songs... each violation counts. Just becuse she only put up 24 songs is only part of the argument. They apparently were shared 1700 times. There's your $130 per violation.

If you read the law, RIAA had the right to request actual damages vs. statutory damages. They went with option 2.


17 USCA 106
17 U.S.C.A. s 106
UNITED STATES CODE ANNOTATED
TITLE 17. COPYRIGHTS
CHAPTER 1--SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT
Current through P.L. 105-153, approved 12-17-97

s 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works

Subject to sections 107 through 120, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

Please go to section 107 (which is where fair use resides) and show me where my right to distribute has been trumped by your right to share with anyone else. (it's not there) Ok now point me to the case law (which you havent') that says you can do so. Don't say that BetaMax does.. show me if you can find something.

I was being a smartass and yes I do know what Fair Use is. It is located in US code 17 subsection 107. I have read it many times.

But you are right.. giving them away is still illegal. Thank you though.

Lost mind, I would suggest you complain to your favorite artists that you can't buy if that is the case. They are the ones entering into restrictive contracts, rather than allowing the music to "be free".

One of the funny stories right now is the whole Radiohead deal. For those who don't know, this band (who no longer has any recording deal) self produced an album which they will sell on the internet for "whatever people want to pay", minimum being about $1 to pay for processing. They are also selling an upscale box set of the album for about $80.

Many people in the "record companies suck" world are pointing to this as the way of the future, how bands could just set up shop, record their own albums, and sell them by themselves, making the money and no longer feeding the money hungry record companies.

Hahahahahaha. Fuck that makes me laugh.

Question: How does anyone know Radiohead from a hole in the wall? They do only because (a) they had a number of albums released and distributed worldwide by record labels, (b) they received marketing support, advertising, and promotion from the record labels, and (c) they received advances of funds from the record companies in order to be able to record the albums.

What Radiohead is doing today is taking all the market exposure, all the build up, all the promotion, and all the brand awareness built up by the record companies involved and turning it to thier favor. Without the record companies, they wouldn't be here to start with.

Without the capital to record, produce, master, duplicate, and distribute widely a significant number of records in a significant number of markets, most musicians would be eating whatever the local version of Kraft Dinner is for the rest of thier lives, playing gigs for bar tab money.

They way overstep their boundaries by stating that you can't even lend the album to your friend. I say suck a nut. Everyone here has lent their friend an album, DVD, a book. If not, you are either way too uptight, way to straight edge, or more than likely a bad friend. This is exactly why I say screw the RIAA! Your time is over.

something you can hold in your hand vs. something that is on your computer/IPod... they are both product. They are both taken without being paid for.

They are proving and disproving at the same time. You cannot say that just because RadioHead and PearlJam were successful that others will be as well. The industry helps to protect all artists.. not just some. They bought into it when they got their start, and now that they are huge.. they wish to get away from it. But they must still respect the system.

I do not make my money by seeding the world with my product and then inviting them to exclusive events. My product is sold just as a loaf of bread is sold.. you buy it.. you consume it. Music works the same way.. although they do have the added aspect of live performances. not all products work that way. A book couldn't work that way. Could JK Rowling have made the billions if she gave away all her books and charged for individual readings by her? LMAO.. of course not.

myspace, etc etc. are great for bands that aren't known but want to be, or bands that want to get away from the controls within the industry. Once they are big enough, they want the money as well. no one wants to make a product for free. You make the point that NIN and Prince give it away so they can sell out arenas. Sure.. makes sense for their product. Does not make sense for all products, nor does it make sense for all artists.

Adaptation is understandable.. but not adapting to thievery. If creating product for free ultimately wins out then fine, that's the new business model, but there are a lot of creators on the other side fighting it tooth and nail and will be for a long time. A few success stories such as Pearl Jam does not represent an entire industry or copyright issues on the whole

They way overstep their bounds??? LMAO.. you think it's unreasonable for Movie Studio XYZ to say that you shouldn't copy something to give to your friend?

Loaning an albumn to a friend.. that you know.. that you physically hand it to them.... yeah.. that's one thing.

Seeding it on a sharing network with people you have never met nor will ever meet without any sort of controls?????? completely different.

All the information I have seen, hasn't said anything about 1700 file transfers. She had 1700 songs shared. The RIAA chose to take her to court on 24 of those files, with no record or evidence of those files ever being transfered. Two completely different things.

The difference is, taking food from a grocery store causes a tangible loss to the grocery store. Copying a file from one computer to another does not amount to any appreciable loss for the record companies. Thats why its not theft. Just copyright infringement.

sorry... I have misread.. yes... 1700 potential songs.. 24 of which are verifiable. No mention of how many distribution violations.

Again.. actual vs. statutory damages.. they chose #2

You are sot of right, but that is only because Radiohead came to the forefront when the record companies were making money and were the only game in town. A time when you pretty much had to go to a recording studio to record your music because the equipment was so expensive. That is not the case today where most albums can be produced with a computer and some software that is accessible to anyone who can save up a little bit of money.

The internet is a far better avenue for promotion than the radio and Music videos are dead...it is far more direct and more cost efficient. So you are wrong that bands can not take the DIY approach. Perhaps it will take them longer to build a fan base, but when you consider a band like No Doubt took about a decade to become popular, I don't think the time line is going to be very different. What we will loose is the cookie cutter groups like Spice Girls or Averil Lavigne because they need a promotions giant to force themselves on the public.

Like I said before, a record for a band is only a tool to get people to their live show which is where they make their money. So in that respect, no physical product is needed, everything can be done by streaming audio or MP3, the latter being a better option because then people can burn it or put it on a portable player and give it to their friends to listen too in the hopes that they can get people to the live show.

Plus there are always going to be music rags like Rolling Stone that will review new music that will give these DIY bands even more exposure. So in short, there is not as much need for the huge record companies as there was even 5 years ago.

The ole.. it's just a song argument... it's only worth 99cents.

Who cares.... did it belong to you before you got it? Do you have the legal right to either distribute it or receive it? NO on both cases. Broken law.. pay the fines...

That business model may work for music.. but again, it doesn't work for all musicians so you can't blanket the whole music industry nor can you blanket all copyrighted works.

Books don't work this way.. my internet product does not work this way.