Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing

Subject: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: DMcG
Date: 27 Jun 05 - 12:54 PM

See this account.

Filesharing itself has been discussed here many times, for example "downloading music".

I'm interested in the concept that a manufacturer is responsible not only for what s/he produces, but what other people then do with them.

Can we expect kitchen cutlery producers to be prosecuted if someone uses a knife they made for a murder?

Or staying in the computer field, can Microsoft be sued if someone uses their C compiler to write a filesharing program?

Subject: RE: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: DMcG
Date: 27 Jun 05 - 01:07 PM

Me again ... ok, now I've read the judgement itself rather than the reports, this idea of indirect responsibility doesn't really apply, as the judgement depends on whether or not the manufacturer created "a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright" which is a law based on their actions, not other peoples. That I can get along with.

Subject: RE: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Jun 05 - 02:55 PM

Despite the grandstanding by those who "won," the statement by the court is not really an "overturning" of the BetaMax precedent:

"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright ... is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties."

This leaves a clear challenge to any suit that does not clearly demonstrate the intent to promote a program or device based on it's suitability for an illegal purpose. The implication is that the Court believed that the maker of this software took some action to promote the illegal use of the program, and that legal uses in this case didn't outweigh the illegal ones.

A product that has legitimate and legal uses, and that is sold for such legal use, likely cannot be held liable under this ruling if someone exerts significant effort (like getting instructions from a Blog) to convert the product to an individual illegal use. ...But of course we'll need to see the full text of the decision to make any real evaluation of effects.

John

Subject: RE: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: Snuffy
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 08:26 AM

If it really did overturn the BetaMax precedent, then where would that leave handguns?

Subject: RE: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 08:56 AM

It's a case of the law (including copyright law) failing to keep abreast of technology. I really have no idea where the concept of copyright is going, but there really has to be a better way than what we have now. The recording industry is in trouble -- CDs are being replaced by MP3, and who knows what will come after that? If I scan a page of music from a book, creating a jpeg file, and then send the file to someone in England (as I have), I am, technically, file sharing. If I use software I have to copy LPs onto my PC, pick out the songs from the LPs I like, and burn them to a CD which I give to my friends, I'm file sharing (also if I put them into MP3).

The problem is not that I can do this, the real root of the problem is that the artists and the recording companies aren't getting paid.

As I said earlier, the law is behind the technology. The law and the recording companies have not yet understood the changes that are sweeping the industry. If they don't, they're both going to be swept away.

Subject: RE: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 09:29 AM

Copyright was once held for only a short period of time - similar to patents. Greedy US corporations bought up nearly expired rights, then lobbied (bribed?) the politicians to change the Law - apparently making it also retrospective - to increase their personal gain. This sounds pretty close to corruption to my layman's ears.

Subject: RE: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 01:27 PM

Sam Clemens thought that copyright should be for the life of the author plus seven years, not the 21 years it was at the time.

Subject: RE: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 08:28 PM

I also find it bemusing that the AUTHOR now has almost nothing to do with copyright - as many copyrights are owned almost in perpetuity by vast multinationals anyway - allegedly many authors get very little from the real 'owners'...

It's a pity that the guys with lots of money don't have the talent to create worthwhile things themselves - parasites they are.

Subject: RE: Supreme Court Rules against Filesharing
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 12:11 AM

There is music that went into the public domain and was then removed from the public domain by a change in the copyright laws. The beneficiaries, as pointed out above, are the publishing companies, not the authors, most of whom are long dead.

The thing that angers me is the idea that the publishers believe that they have an absolute right to profit--whether they sell anything or not. I pay royalties to publishers on my own material when I burn it to CD, because there is a built in royalty in the price of blank music CD's --They recently came   up with a plan to charge college students a monthly royalty feeas part of their tuition to compensate for any music they might download. Whenever sales are down(which always happens when the economy is bad) they claim that someone is stealing from them, and demand a fee be attached to something, somewhere.

They claimed that they were being robbed back in the eighties when radio stations started playing whole albums. The claimed that they were being robbed by restaurants who played recorded music without paying performance fees, and one of these days, they are going to try to put a royalty fee on musical instruments because playing your own music cuts into their CD sales.