Copyright Laws

[CptSternn]

Asur -

I'm not arguing that music should be free and downloading should go on with no restrictions. The point I was arguing is what does it say about society when the penalty for copying a song is higher than the penalty for taking away someone elses life.

Slán

[CptSternn]

In the next round of people the RIAA want to sue to maintain their fleeting grasp on the industry...

YouTube Guitar Lessons Pulled in Copyright Spat

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=11778602

Thousands of guitar students lost a valuable resource last week. The most popular guitar teacher on YouTube saw his more than 100 videos yanked from the site. The reason: a music company accused him of copyright infringement for an instructional video on how to play a Rolling Stones song.

Thats right, because the RIAA doesn't want people to 'copy' the music they 'protect', they have called on YouTube to remove hundreds of clips of people playing guitar, because if you play more than 3 notes, your in violation of copyright law.

Whats next? Going pub to pub arresting musicians who play a song they didn't write? Going to high schools, collecting posters for gigs and arresting teens in their basements for playing their favourite Metallica riff?

I guess we will have to wait and see...

[CptSternn]

Score one for the good guys...

Capitol to cover costs in piracy case

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...&cs=1&nid=2567

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has ordered Capitol Records to pay nearly $70,000 to cover the attorney fees and litigation costs of a woman the company unsuccessfully sued for illegal downloading.

Ruling, issued by a U.S. District Court in Oklahoma, marks the first reimbursement of expenses to a defendant in the music industry's lawsuits against alleged online pirates.

Case dates back to 2004, when Capitol sued Oklahoma resident Deborah Foster for alleged copyright violation via unauthorized downloading. A year later, Capitol amended the complaint to include Foster's adult daughter, Amanda, as co-defendant.

Capitol eventually won a default judgment against Amanda Foster but continued to pursue her mother until offering to settle out of court. Failing to reach a settlement, Capitol dropped its case against Deborah Foster.

Foster then petitioned for recovery of expenses, submitting an itemized claim of more than $114,000. After reviewing the claim, the court ruled on Monday that Foster is entitled to $68,685.23.

Capitol had argued that Foster wasn't entitled to an award since it was her decision to keep fighting the charges rather than accept a settlement. Judge Lee R. West sharply disagreed, stating, "Throughout the course of this litigation, the plaintiffs have alleged that had the defendant appropriately assisted their copyright infringement investigation and litigation, she could have avoided being sued. The court has rejected this argument on numerous occasions and declines to entertain it yet again. The defendant was entitled to litigate the claims the plaintiffs chose to bring against her and ... she is entitled to recover reasonable attorneys' fees."

The RIAA issued a statement saying, "We respectfully believe that this ruling is in error and is an isolated occurrence. Our interest in these cases is enforcing the rights of the record companies and artists, while fostering an online environment where the legal marketplace can flourish and the music industry can invest in the new bands of tomorrow. In the handful of cases where the person engaging in the illegal activity in the household is not the person responsible for the ISP account, we look to gather the facts quickly and do our best to identify the appropriate defendant."

In the thousands of suits the industry has brought against allegedly illegal downloaders, five other defendants have sought recovery of attorneys' fees. None succeeded, according to the RIAA.

Ray Beckerman, an attorney who has represented some defendants in the illegal downloading suits, predicted that the Oklahoma court decision "will be seen as a landmark" for several reasons. "The court has indicated that the RIAA's theory for trying to pin liability on a parent is marginal," Beckerman said. "The court has held that the RIAA cannot insulate itself from liability for attorneys fees by just dropping the case, and the award will encourage (a) defendants to fight back, and (b) lawyers who have not yet done so to join the fight."

[CptSternn]

PIRATE Act dons eye patch, swashbuckles back into Senate

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...to-senate.html



The PIRATE Act is back, and this time it means business.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) yesterday introduced the Intellectual Property Enforcement Act (PDF), with Leahy saying, "The PIRATE Act has passed the Senate on three separate occasions; this should be the Congress in which it becomes law."

Like previous incarnations of the PIRATE Act, this one tries to force the Department of Justice to bring suits against individual file-swappers, something that could save the recording industry plenty of money and could also displace some of the "bad guy" stigma that the labels have acquired after suing people like Jammie Thomas.

The bill would give the Department of Justice authority to bring civil (not just criminal) cases against infringers, though it does limit penalties to those that could be imposed in criminal proceedings. The Attorney General can also bring such civil suits only when the act in question constitutes a crime (such civil suits can be easier to win).

Leahy and Cornyn want Justice to start prosecuting file-sharers, which sounded like a bad idea the first time we heard it and hasn't gotten any better since. Since the No Electronic Theft Act passed in the late 1990s, the DoJ has actually had the authority to bring criminal cases against file-swappers under certain situations; to date, it has not filed a single one.

The Department would no doubt rather be busting gangsters, child molesters, and even actual counterfeiting rings, but it seems like some members of Congress are intent on pressing Justice to get involved in the P2P lawsuit game—something that Big Content would dearly love to see happen.

The bill also provides more funding to counter intellectual-property crimes involving both computers and Internet, along with more FBI agents to investigate such crimes.

"Copyright infringement silently drains America's economy and undermines the talent, creativity and initiative that are a great source of strength to our nation," said Leahy. "When we protect intellectual property from copyright infringement, we protect our economy and our ideas."


Not having enough law enforcement involved in watchin average Americans, the bush administration wants to monitor, and prosecute, people who download music like they do drug dealers and terrorists. I wonder what catchy slogan they will come up with for this? The 'war on pirates' no doubt...