Supreme Court Takes Hard Look at P2P 489
Patrick Mannion writes "Supreme Court justices quizzed attorneys for file-swapping software companies and Hollywood studios Tuesday, in a case that will help determine the future of both the technology and entertainment industries. In their questions, the justices were critical of the entertainment industry's proposal, which would hold companies "predominantly" supported by piracy liable for copyright infringement. However, they showed little sympathy for the file-swapping companies' business model."
They will leave it to congress (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed, many legal observers say the high court is likely to leave the law largely as is and if it wants a different outcome, to ask Congress to change the copyright law.
Re:Business Model? (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's to Nashville (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't hate musicians, or want them to starve, but I hate the slime they have to deal with now to distribute, and I want those people to starve. Twice.
I'm in favor of the entertainment industry having to undergo monstrously painful changes. From what I can see, many people are - the way it is currently designed is destructive to both society and art as a whole. What we hear and see being run by a bunch of profiteering luddites is completely unappealing to me.
Just thought I'd be one of fifty to present this argument in the next ten minutes.
Aha! (Score:2, Interesting)
When Law and Technology Fail (Score:5, Interesting)
Darwin, while disputed frequently, did a decent job of proving that which fails to adapt will fade into history. Unfortunately when the times show you have no recourse to stop an action, you will do more damage to yourself to try and hold back the tides.
I anticipate a ruling in favor of file sharing networks. I suspect this ruling primarily because:
Hopefully such a ruling will encourage the RIAA to redefine themselves and evolve into something better
Or at least get rid of a few of the fluff artists.
Re:Business Model? (Score:5, Interesting)
Count me in (Score:3, Interesting)
business issues (Score:3, Interesting)
By suing these sharing networks, the industry is trying to alleviate its "systemic" risk, allowing at least perceptions of control to come into play. Albeit this is a false sense of control, Sharman et al couldn't possibly be considered liable for what downloaders of their software do, but they're going to make a case for it regardless.
In a back room somewhere, some finance intern has calculated that by liquidating all these software developers in a successful law suit will apply the current value of those companies and bring the music industry to a break-even point which will in turn allow them to make their stock numbers. Allowing the CEO's and likewise glorified fattened calves to keep their jobs and drive their $100,000 motorcars, live in their million dollar homes, and guarantee their children into Harvard and Yale through endownment donations.
Yay Capitalism.
The Best Part of This (Score:4, Interesting)
The term I heard used today was "inducement." Basically, can it be argued that Grokster induces crime. I sure hope this thing is laughed out of court because, while I understand that physical world analogies fail and it's more complicated than a lot of folks will admit, the precedent that would be set if software is found to be inherently criminal would have the potential to set us into a freakin dark ages.
I mean, it's already happening [slashdot.org].
Working Artists? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nothing new about the questions they ask (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL, especially not one who brings cases before the supreme court, but of what little I know of judges this isn't a surprise.
I've had a few traffic tickets and I've even taken an old landlord to court. Every one of those judges, fair as they were, were highly critical, probative, and stern in their questioning of both sides. In other words, they were grumpy and downright rude. However, fortunately in my cases, they showed no favoritism to either side and ruled impartially. I expect this behavior they gave to both sides. Hell if you think your case is important enough to take to the surpreme court you damn well better take any kind of rudeness they give you and say "yes your honor may I have another?"
A big part of this is because judges are never trained to be nice. Judges especially, but laywers in general often seem to lack basic courtesies, especially in court. Another large part of it is because the US system is set up as an advesarial system so there's a lot of bad vibes in a court room that would make anyone stressed and grumpy. But the biggest part is they are simply getting down to business and trying to find the facts. Setting both sides on their heels by asking tough questions is how the supreme court works and how they come to the final answer. If you are coming to the highest court in the land you better come prepared with some pretty damn good answers.
Enough media hype of the judicial process... I want to know the answer the surpreme court comes up with!
Re:What /. pirates don't want you to know (Score:1, Interesting)
The sole purpose of copyright is to increase the amount of material in the public domain. Copyright exists to maximize how much free stuff we can get. When it interferes with free stuff copyright is malfunctioning. It is and needs to be fixed.
Re:Hard Cases = Bad Law (Score:3, Interesting)
Or explaining in what way this is different from Betamax. The cases are similar in a general sense (a technology with potential copyright-infringement possibilities but also legitimate uses). But they're different in balance.
The Betamax technology already had a large installed base of users who were using it primarily for time-shifting. Although it could be used to copy movies, it was expensive (it took two VCRs) and the copies were somewhat degraded. It was also really slow, and you couldn't mass-produce copies easily. Sony wasn't making a big profit by supporting illegal copying; banning Betamax would do big harm to Sony and its legitimate customers and little good to the movie producers.
In this case it can be argued that the existing P2P programs are used primarily for copyright infringement. These companies appear to be making their existence largely on the backs of the copyright owners.
I'd hate to see them have to make this distinction, because it causes a lot of grief in the gray areas. BitTorrent in particular has important non-infringing uses, particularly in the distribution of Linux binaries, and nobody's making a profit off BitTorrent even when it's used illegally.
If the court ends up saying, "Grokster illegal, Betamax legal, BitTorrent just barely legal", they're going to have to elucidate some standard for future cases to judge by. I don't envy them that job.
Went to the supreme court this morning (Score:5, Interesting)
The pro-RIAA/MPAA/MGM protesters showed up first, at maybe 8:45am. They tried to go up on the steps leading to the court building, but police told them they needed to stay on the sidewalk. This group of folks then hung out for a little while with their signs (one which read "Thou shalt not steal. -God"), then some of them took out their guitars and started playing and singing.
Then at around 9am, the protesters from the Consumer Electronics Association [ce.org] showed up, with black shirts reading "Save Betamax" in white letters. They were met with a some cheers from some folks in the waiting lines as they left their bus and assembled on the sidewalk a little ways away from the rival protesters. They had more creative signs compared to the musician protesters. The interesting thing to note were different demographics of the two protesting groups. The musicians were mostly middle-aged white men. The electronics advocates were generally younger, and had more of a mix of genders and races.
The news media started showing up in full force at around 9:30, and took some interviews with various people, including folks from both protest groups, and random people (including a teenager from a school group). I saw cameras from NBC, ABC, Channel One and Reuters. The media seemed to be focusing a lot of attention on the musician protest group, as at least one of their members was always being interviewed. However, that might have had something to do with them having guitars and making music, which got them attention.
The crowd waiting to get in seemed to be either on the side of Grokster or ambivalent. I took some photos, which I'll put up on Flickr [flickr.com] (tagged "Grokster" or something like that) or the dc metblog [metblogs.com] when I get home from work.
Pay to Play! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:NPR puff piece on the subject (Score:4, Interesting)
So much for the "NPR loves the little guy, FOX loves the big corporations" stereotypes.
How about some TRUTH about the matter (Score:1, Interesting)
Just because you like to call copyright infringement "piracy" or "theft" doesn't make it that. Anyone with the mental capacity of five year old understands that calling a lampshade a hat is wrong at best and sinister at worst.
This idea that somehow that you have to pay a "content troll" every time a copy of something is made somewhere simply flies in the face of common sense. The fact of the matter is that we are born with an innate desire to share and that is what the copyright industry is up against. That and the fact that technology has erased any barriers to that sharing. I suppose you'll be screaming about people stealing when technology has erased the physical copying barrier as well?
And BTW, it's also a fine example of capitalism at its finest: The copyright industry's prices are too high and so a black market has arisen to correct that. You right wingers who like to scream about capitalism as if it were holy writ like to have government intervention when your holy capitalism gets to that point.
Finally, personally, I find your morals to be repugnant. It's people like you that make other people take a dim view of humanity.
Are ISP's next? (Score:4, Interesting)
Couldn't the music biz interpret this too as aiding file-sharing and destroying their business model? Perhaps Shaw and Telus (2 major high-speed ISP's here) need to be shutdown?
Vip
Re:P2P is like Prohibition (Score:3, Interesting)
Why was making bathtub gin wrong? Perhaps you meant that it was illegal (unless you're at Stage 4 in Kohlberg's [wikipedia.org] Moral Development scheme.)
Re:what's the best way to support musicians? (Score:3, Interesting)
Buying the CD gives most of the money to intermediates;
Buying a used CD gives those no money, but gives none to the artists either (only the used CD store makes a small profit);
And there is nothing worth using online (no, I don't want anything to do with iTunes or iTMS, nor napster, DRM and other crap)
If they were allowed to have some sort of paypal account and distribute their mp3's on the web or in a similar way (pay a few $ and you can download decent mp3's off the site?), I'm sure they'd make a killing at it.
Sure, there will always be a few who will abuse this, but they can't do anything to that (people have always shared, and you can't close all the holes). I think most people would gladly pay to support their artists.
Re:Here's to Nashville (Score:3, Interesting)