NewYorkCountryLawyer Debates RIAA VP

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "At Fordham Law School's annual IP Law Conference this year, Slashdot member NewYorkCountryLawyer had a chance to square off with Kenneth Doroshow, a Senior Vice President of the RIAA, over the subject of copyright statutory damages. Doroshow thought the Jammie Thomas verdict of $222,000 was okay, he said, since Ms. Thomas might have distributed 10 million unauthorized copies. NYCL, on the other hand, who has previously derided the $9,250-per-song file verdict as 'one of the most irrational things [he has] ever seen in [his] life in the law', stated at the Fordham conference that the verdict had made the United States 'a laughingstock throughout the world.' An Australian professor on the panel said, 'The comment has been made a few times that America is out of whack and you are a laughingstock in the rest of the world. As the only non-American on the panel, that's true. We do see the cases like Thomas in our newspapers, and we think: "Wow, those crazy Americans, what are they up to now?" This whole notion of statutory damages is not something that we have within our Copyright Act. You actually have to be able to prove damage for you to be able to be compensated for that.' NYCL also got to debate the 'making available' issue, saying that there was no 'making available' right in US copyright law, despite the insistence of the program's moderator, the 'keynote' speaker, and a 'majority vote' of the audience that there was such a right. The next day, two decisions came down, and a month later yet another decision came down, all rejecting the 'making available' theory."

Bad link

[fastest fascist]

The first link is, I believe, wrong. The debate with Doroshow on statutory damages is here: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/05/transcript-of-march-28th-fordham-law_02.html [blogspot.com] How is it that no-one seems to have noticed there was no debate with Doroshow in the linked article?

Re:Bad link

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The first link is, I believe, wrong. The debate with Doroshow on statutory damages is here: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/05/transcript-of-march-28th-fordham-law_02.html [blogspot.com] How is it that no-one seems to have noticed there was no debate with Doroshow in the linked article? Reply to This

You are quite right. Sorry about that. First link should have been to statutory damages transcript [blogspot.com] or to post listing all 3 transcripts [blogspot.com].

Re:Making Available

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps someone should ask the RIAA this question.

It's not an interesting question because the issue of "making available" is different when applied to IP, which can be copied endlessly without cost and copies of which do not necessarily dilute its value, than when applied to physical goods, which when taken deprive someone of something (namely, the goods.)

Re:There is no 'I told you so' more poignent

[rawr1]

Actually the RIAA may be trying to forge "evidence" and committing fraud by artificially spamming take down notices in order to trigger legal clauses calling for penalties on academic funding and requiring the purchase and installation of their proprietary "deep packet inspection" spyware software programs. They've been pushing legislation that equates "take down notices" or subpoenas with evidence of copyright infringement requiring legislative action triggers. This is an attack on taxpayers, an attack on education, and an attack on Constitutional civil law.

Re:First post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright does not cover names, titles, or short phrases. (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ34.pdf)

Sorry!

(Your post is . . . mildly funny . . . for 2:22 AM on Friday night . . . but at least half-way get the law right.)

Re:jammie was a thief

[Khaed]

Most of the time the AC "unpopular opinion" I see is blatant trolling. You can disagree without sounding like an asshole simply looking for replies. Very, VERY rarely do I see an AC account posting something truly insightful -- because they have nothing to lose. They can say whatever they want and there's nothing tying them to it, so it attracts all sorts of morons.

I have nothing against AC posts, and I have posted in favor of copyright (and also in reforming the current stupidity that is copyright in the US), and I sometimes post as AC. But insightful, interesting posts don't often come from the AC bunch. Especially on hot-button issues -- look in just about any thread on an issue and you'll see dozens of ACs posting shit like OP did.

Re:Making Available

[EzInKy]

If I have been granted the power by the Constitution of the United States to have sole discretion over the manner in which my works are distributed...


The Constitution does not grant you any such power, it only gives Congress the option of offering you limited protection.

Re:There is no 'I told you so' more poignent

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I have to say way to go for NewYorkCountryLawyer to have the balls for telling it like it is to the VP of the RIAA. The fact that an Australian professor also agreed to the statements should have been a wake up call to Kenneth Doroshow that these tactics are ludicrous. However, it probably went in one ear of Dorshow and out the other. Sadly greed and power tend to block things like common sense and intelligence.

My impression was that it did not go in one ear and out the other. My impression is that Mr. Doroshow is well aware of how stupid he and his clients look.... and are. They are professional advocates, and will never back down until their clients call them off. But don't confuse what he says with what he knows, because if he believes what he says then he would have to be stupid; and I do not think he is stupid, far from it. If you look carefully at his 'keynote' address you will see that it almost entirely avoids addressing the primary subject of the panel, which was "statutory damages". Instead he talked about the facts of the Jammie Thomas case, a subject on which he could say whatever he wants since nobody in the room knows about the factual record as well as he. Prof. Samuelson immediately jumped on this rather gaping omission. Why did he avoid the subject? Because he has no non-ludicrous thing to say about it.