EFF Jumps in Against RIAA for Copyright Misuse

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Arguing that the RIAA and big record labels may be misusing their copyrights, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has jumped in on the defendant's side in a White Plains, New York, court conflict. The case is Lava v. Amurao, and the EFF will be defending Mr. Amurao's right to counterclaim for copyright misuse. EFF argued that the RIAA, by deliberately bringing meritless cases against innocent people based on theories of 'secondary liability', are abusing their copyrights. In its amicus brief, EFF also decried (just as when it joined the ACLU, Public Citizen, and others on the side of Debbie Foster in Capitol v. Foster) the RIAA's 'driftnet' litigation strategy. They argue that the declaratory judgment remedy must also be made available to defendants, in view of the RIAA's habit of dropping the meritless cases it started but can't finish."

Watch out RIAA

[physicsboy500]

At least the RIAA now knows they have to have some sense of decency in their hearings and lack thereof will have consequences.

Re:Watch out RIAA

[Doctor-Optimal]

Only if they lose.


(Hope hope hope...)

Unclean Hands

[Suzumushi]

IANAL, but Copyright Misuse is related to Unclean Hands if I'm not mistaken, and the RIAA/MPAA's pursuit of legitimate non-law enforcement"pre-texting" [wikipedia.org] is about as unclean as it gets, not to mention this "drift-net" and "extortion" strategy.

Wonderful letter, but now lets hope the judge thinks so too.

About time.

[Plekto]

Of course, the question gets murkier since they in theory could lose their patent/copyright if they abuse it too much - or at least the ability to enforce it at all, which would spell the end of the RIAA if I read it right. And get more than a few companies and artists mad at them in the process.

Re:Unclean Hands

[Plekto]

But the RIAA *can* lose its ability to enforce the copyrights at all. The original copyrights are intact - just the industry wold have to find other means/another method to do it. And of course, it would invalidate all of the RIAA notices in the music you bought to date. Now, the music still is copyrighted, so copying it illegally is still as wrong as it ever was - but the companies would have to come after you individually - at least until they get a new method in place.

I can definitely see a judge thinking this way.

Re:Hm

[Ungrounded Lightning]

If the RIAA did only once or twice, the RIAA could say it was a simple mistake and/or blame it on the lawyer. With many cases in many states, it establishes a pattern. They don't do their homework. They sue people without cause. They do it often.

More importantly:
  - They continue to initiate new suits doing the same thing after it has been established that they're doing things wrong, and
  - they admitted in public that they knew they were hurting innocents and that they considered this collateral damage legitimate.

I suspect that these were the last two ducklings that had to fall in line. Once they were in position the EFF could fire their shot the next time a case got to the stage that exposed the target.

Danger danger, Will Robinson! Mixed metaphors off the starboard bow!

I've said it once...

[pak9rabid]

...and I'll say it again. Take that you fuckers!

Re:Unclean Hands

[kcbrown]

Since acting as its members' copyright-enforcement organization is virtually the entire function of the RIAA such a decision would utterly sink it.

Leaving exactly the decision-makers who chose to proceed with these tactics, along with the hirelings who implemented their policy when they should have known it was wrong, looking for work.

Which means they'd likely do what most corporations in such positions do: dissolve and form up as a different corporation, which would then sign the same contracts the RIAA currently has with its members, and then continue with business as usual.

In other words: same players, same game, different name.

The only way to really kill the RIAA is to break through its corporate veil and nail its members.

Re:Watch out RIAA

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

Their purpose is much like the president of the universe. It's purpose is to draw the negative attention away from the record companies.

Re:There's a thought.

[arth1]

geekoid (135745) proposed:

Get convicted of abusing copyright, the work becomes public domain.

They've already hornswoggled you, I see. The way copyrights work is that the work immediately becomes public domain, and in return for this, the artist (and, through later legislation, whoever the artist sold the rights to) gets a time limited exclusive right to control copies. What the *IAA wants you to believe is that they own the works.

The artist can retain ownership, but then he would have to not claim copyrights, and instead distribute copies of the works through other methods, like sales contracts. That gives him the right to go after copiers for contract infringements. But he can't have the cake and eat it -- either time limited copyright protection in exchange for making the work public domain, or ownership and no copyright protection.

And yes, the distinction matters. Because the works are public domain from day one, you are free to do what you like with them except copying. Cause you're the rightful owner. That's one right the *IAA wants to take away, with their fight for perpetual extension of copyrights and their talk about "theft" instead of copyright violation. You can't steal something that already belongs to you, but when they get enough people to believe they have ownership, including judges who grow up "knowing it's so", then copyrights no longer hold any meaning -- it's free protection in return for nothing. Which never was what was intended nor promised.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:Hm

[Anonymous Coward]

...they considered this collateral damage legitimate.

Aah, the old "Timothy McVeigh" defense.

Re:Tides are turning but what next?

[rm69990]

I doubt legislation like that would pass. Considering, for instance, the relative ease of hacking into and (ab)using a wireless router, there is simply no practical way to completely control your internet connection, especially for non-techies.

Re:attempted translation

[presidentbeef]

nycl, a question: if i were to go online now and, using a well-known, well-trafficked file sharing site, downloaded a well-known track, and this were to attract the attention of the riaa driftnets, is it safe to say that i could survive the legal attack

Golly, how many times must this be said?

No one gets sued for downloading. The illegal activity is distributing copyrighted materials without consent of the copyright holder. So, go download as many songs you would like, you are not going to be sued unless you also redistribute those files.

The people who are getting in trouble are those who are (at least allegedly) sharing out a massive amount of songs, very possibly without even realizing it. It is the default (and, rightly so, it's the point) for most P2P applications to share whatever you download. BitTorrent explicitly makes this a necessity. The RIAA is not going to send you a cease and desist letter for downloading a song off of a website (standard HTTP or FTP connection). However, the person operating the website can be sued...because they are distributing the materials.

Not to be too hard on the OP, but this is what they (the *AA) want you to think: downloading is evil, morally wrong, and illegal. That is not the case (at least not the illegal part).

Re:Tides are turning but what next?

[Kadin2048]

You say that like it matters. If the music industry could get some sort of strict liability pushed into law, the courts would just treat that unsecured wireless router like they treat a loaded handgun left sitting around. They'd just say that your failure to secure it was so grossly negligent that you're automatically responsible for any misuse that occurred as a result.

Sure, it would mean fining a lot lot of grandmothers (and children, and dead people, and children of dead people, etc.) into bankruptcy, but do you really think that's not acceptable to the RIAA, if they feel that their cash cow is in jeopardy?

I don't think the RIAA is ever going to go quietly. It's not just going to wink out of existence some day. It, by which I mean the people who make it up, have too much invested already to not go down without a fight. Which means they're going to call in every favor from every two-bit politician and lobbyist that they have, and get things passed (tack on to this must-pass bill here, another voice-vote there...what the people don't know, they can't blame anyone for later, right?) without any regard for the consequences.

Re:Easy

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Yes they are trying to use dirty legal trickery to torture his family, to punish him for having hired a good lawyer and pushed back.