eldavojohn writes "We talked about Charlie Nesson of Harvard Law School before, and it may not have been known to you, but he is backing former student and Jammie Thomas' new lawyer, K.A.D. Camara. Ars is reporting that Nesson is upping the charges against the RIAA. Not only is file-sharing fair use, but the $100,000,000 the RIAA has collected through fear is due back to those wrongly accused. He's also increasing the number of fronts he's fighting. On Camara's website, he indicates that in another case, Brittany English (pro bono), they 'are asking the courts to declare that statutory damages like these — 150,000:1 — are unconstitutional and that the RIAA's campaign to extract settlements from individuals by the threat of such unconstitutional damages is itself unlawful, enjoin the RIAA's unlawful campaign, and order the RIAA to return the $100M+ that it obtained as a result of its unlawful campaign.'"
Doing this kind of work requires you invest tons of hours and probably a bit of money in expenses for which there is a high likelihood you can never recoup. Like any other investment the greater the risk the greater the rewards must be to attract anyone. Lawyers who do this sort of work are investing with time and materials that they could have been using to do work that was more likely or even certain to pay off.
Its often not something you can do on the side either. You are up against of team of lawyers with corporate backing, If you half ass it you probably don't stand a chance. How big a cut of something like this would it take for you to risk quiting your day job for? with odd that are probably quite long?
****
Now consider you are a member of the represented class you have been abused by the RIAA directly. You fought them and lost, or settled and paid up. You though you were out your 100K settlement or damages. Now someone comes along and puts the smack down on the thugs you could not defeat or did not think it was even to your interest to try and fight. They also manage to return 70% of your losses to you. I suspect most people would be great full to get 70K refunded to them of 100K they thought they'd lost forever.
I don't find the lawyer's take on these types of things all that outrageous when you look at it objectively.
Do you turn your back on NYCL so quickly just because some real-life Doogey Houser thinks he can take on an establishment that has been bought and paid for? Not only will there be high resistance from the courts, there will be heavy resistance from the DoJ and possibly even the Obama administration. These media people have a lot of favors they can call in.
This entire fiasco is full of horrible legal arguments. John Doe bulk filesuits, extortion, racketeering, the notion that you are your IP, settlement letters before suit is filed...you name it.
Having it close on a horrible argument would be poetic at this point.
He is just striking back "in kind". His claim is no more ridiculous than any and all claims made by the RIAA.
Imagine chest pains in certain board rooms at the thought that this could be ruled on against them. Just the thought, kind of like how their victims have felt.
I support the movement, but claiming that file sharing is protected under "fair use" is a horrible legal argument.
Actually the way you, and perhaps they, have expressed the issue is overly simplistic. "File sharing" is a broad term. There are many factual scenarios under its penumbra. Some of those scenarios would constitute fair use, some would not, and some would fall into a gray area to which we do not know the answer. There has been NO litigation of the "fair use" defense in the RIAA v. Individual cases, except for a single 2003 case in which the only question was whether running off unauthorized copies of unauthorized copies on a p2p file sharing network, and placing those in permanent hard copies on the defendant's computer, was a "fair use". The Court held that it was not. But there are many other possible fact patterns, none of which have presented themselves yet in a litigation context.
Meanwhile the constitutionality defense -- that the RIAA's theory of statutory damages fails to pass constitutional muster under the Due Process Clause due to the disproportionality to actual damages -- is certain to succeed, in my professional opinion, once the issue ripens.
Filesharing is partially PROVEN legal in holland. Downloading is 100% absolutly legal and judges have ruled on this multiple times.
So, it is only a horrible legal argument in countries where the law is owned by the copyright industry.
And please note, human civilization has DEPENDED on copyright "violations" for millenia. Rossetta stone anyone? Copied all over. How did you think books were made before the printing press? Hand copied over the centuries without any notion of paying the author. Modern copyrig
On Camara's website, he indicates that in another case, Brittany English (pro bono), they 'are asking the courts to declare that statutory damages like these â" 150,000:1 â" are unconstitutional
When it comes to the courts, including the Supreme Court, it seems that corporations' power compared to people are allowed to be practically infinite so long as they're not literally listed as infinite. See: extensions of copyright, corporate personhood.
Actually, last year Nesson had the opportunity to shut the copyright nonsense down and dropped the ball. He basically refused to argue the practical merits of the case, sticking only to principles. The SCOTUS was tossing him softballs to allow him to show, basically, that the argument he wanted to argue was important enough that they should decide the constitutionality of it.
What he failed to consider was that, despite granting him the hearing (which was an extreme longshot in itself), and practically beg
It's actually funny how all they are fighting for seems just like common sense. The RIAA is blackmailing all the people they can, under ridiculously claims... Man, 150000:1, who in their right mind could come up with something that stupid !!!???!!!
Man, 150000:1, who in their right mind could come up with something that stupid !!!???!!!
I can't be bothered to dig up the year they last changed those figures, but it's old like before online copying was a problem. So if you got one guy making 100 copies of a book, one liability = 150,000$. In modern day file sharing everyone makes one copy - what's the point to having more than one copy - so you have 100 guys making 1 copy, 100 liabilities = 15,000,000$. Basicly the punishment is made for a completely different situation.
When seen in the context of an administration which is stuffing the Department of Justice with lawyers with strong ties to the entertainment industries, your post is even bleaker....
true, and for a limited time, that's a good thing.
More then 14 years is too much.
14 years is less then a generation; which is what it takes for something to really penetrate as part of the culture, and it's a little after the point wen most people are really getting any money.
Oh dear god, kindly fuck off.
Copyright is an amoral law that concentrates power over culture into the hands of profiteering publishers.
Copyright is based on precedent, one that originally promoted original art. Once upon a time, anyone with a printing press could take someone's work and make a book. Authors were getting screwed, particularly overseas authors: American publishers were printing Dickens without paying royalties and British houses were doing likewise to Melville (one reason he died a pauper - he was vastly more popular in Britain, but never saw a cent for his books printed there). Establishing Copyright and an international treaty made it possible for artists to make a buck.
Like any law, it needs retooling, but to dismiss the concept of copyright as amoral is puerile.
Yes, because it's all about the publishers. No artist could possibly want to sell their work. They'd much rather pack your bags at the grocery store and then go home to make music, video games, movies and books for you in the evening because they like you so much.
Yes, because that's the only alternative. No artist could possibly make money from their work if they didn't have a government-granted license to restrict other people's speech. They'd rather give up and go work at grocery stores than adopt a sensible business model that isn't threatened by technology.
If there was no law to prevent it, Sony or WalMart would simply grab all the music they could get and put it out on a CD you could buy. For the people that (a) don't have Internet broadband and (b) people that don't know any better this would be much more convenient. They would make millions and the artists would get nothing.
They could probably out-distribute the artists with their own work. Why not? WalMart is the biggest distribution channel in the world.
Sure, sell hard copies, merchandise, etc. to profit from your creativity, but you can benefit mankind much more by releasing your art to the public domain.
Oh, wait, sorry, did someone forget to inform you that copyright law is more than just making money? It also entails plagiarism and similar concepts.
You know what else also "entails" plagiarism and similar concepts? Anti-fraud laws. Lying about something in order to sell it is already illegal.
You don't need copyright in order to outlaw plagiarism. Even if you find that existing anti-fraud laws aren't enough, then you can pass a new law that specifically forbids passing someone else's work off as your own, and you still won't need copyright.
Why would you need to pass it off as your own? WalMart sells stuff every day that they didn't make. So they could just as easily sell artists work without compensating them. No copyright law means there would be nothing to prevent this from happening.
Trust me, WalMart and Sony have already figured this part out and know exactly what to do should something like the elimination of copyright law. They will make more money than ever before.
You don't lose anything if I steal your credit card information either.
No, that's quite true. If you copy my credit card information and do nothing at all with it, I don't lose anything. If on the other hand you copy my credit card information, then impersonate me and start buying things with it, then it costs me money. COSTS me money. As in, I have to pay the bills for your spending.
The only sense in which the victims of copyright infringement lose money is that they don't get money they might otherwis
The only sense in which the victims of copyright infringement lose money is that they don't get money they might otherwise have had. That's a very different thing from taking away money which they actually did have.
Right -- and it's a thing we've all come to accept already as a fact of doing business.
If I decide not to see Terminator Salvation (because I've heard it sucks), the theater and the studio are "losing" money they might otherwise have had. The reviewers who convince me not to buy a ticket are every bit as responsible for that "lost" revenue as the file sharers who give out free copies so other people don't have to buy tickets. So if the anti-P2P forces are so concerned about lost revenue, why aren't they fig
But lost behind it all is the primary problem — "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document [wikipedia.org]", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.
Please review the documentary Good Copy Bad Copy http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/ [goodcopybadcopy.net] then return for the scheduled discussion 3rd period.
But lost behind it all is the primary problem — "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document [wikipedia.org]", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.
But lost behind it all is the primary problem â" "Thou shalt not steal".
The primary problem is not that people are stealing, the primary problem is that people don't think they are stealing.
And the primary question is: is the problem a problem with the moral health of people, or is the problem a problem with the entertainment industry's business model?
Are people as a collective allowed to decide what is publicly transferable? I would say, yeah. That's a bummer for those who profit when copies of works are scarce in the economic sense but then again times change. And the Ten Commandments don't contain any guarantees from God about the minimum level of profitability of the music business.
Of course one should always obey the laws of the land. Except when one shouldn't. For example, civil disobedience in protest of the arbitrary and disproportionate victimization of ordinary people by powerful elites has always gotten sympathetic treatment in the history books.
On this one, I predict the history books will portray the industry as a callous group who tried to enforce their will on the populace by making people terrified of their wrath.
And the primary question is: is the problem a problem with the moral health of people, or is the problem a problem with the entertainment industry's business model?
You could probably argue the former, but like most things that take on a new and typically abstract form, there's too much pychological distance for morality to play a significant role. Financial crimes, for example, typically cause more real loss or damage to people's lives than a bank robbery, but are rarely considered as serious. That's why s
File-sharing of copyrighted materials is not fair use.
Fair use is a doctrine of copyright law that defines a small set of activities that are regulated but permitted. So yeah, what you said was true, but clearly irrelevant to the discussion. Well done.
Why do you think big names like John Carmack no longer post on Slashdot?
Heh, John doesn't post on Slashdot because there's no point. See, there was a time when posting on Slashdot was considered a productive activity (shocking I know), now it is simply "fun" or, less generously, procrastination. Some people embrace procrastination, some people feel shameful from it, some people a
Care to demonstrate how demanding >$150K per downloaded song, when songs were $1.00 at Amazon etc. and which (IIRC) not even the RIAA claims to have been subsequently shared) is unselfish, or equitable, or even only a little greedy? Downloading is not right and the artists have a right to be compensated, but I fail to see how ruining someone's life is appropriate. As for the artists who support (either actively or by their silence) the RIAA campaign against their custome
"File-sharing of copyrighted materials is not fair use." You get modded down because you are just trolling here. You are telling exactly the opposite of what this story submission is about, and its the main argument to be tested in court.
What is piracy to begin with? The abuse of this word is stupid, and legally you can only talk about copyright infringement, because there is no stealing (removing a physical object) involved in sharing copyrighted works.
Copyright.. Copyright was made to do the opposite of w
Remember that Slashdot is very pro-Linux and pro-GPL, so there's an attitude of providing things for free. The thing is, the GPL relies on copyright to exist. It's actually a copyright and usage license, even though Slashdot often posts stories about how evil copyright laws and EULAs are.
The primary benefit of the GPL, according to many of us, is that it turns copyright against itself, restoring the freedoms that copyright took away in the first place.
In a world with no copyright, there wouldn't be nearly as much need for the GPL: we'd all be free to distribute software, patches, and reverse engineered source code. If you release a proprietary fork of Linux and refuse to give out the source code, that's OK, we'll just disassemble it and incorporate your changes into our open-source branch.
And, of course, there are the stories of "stolen" GPL code, even though we constantly hear that "piracy isn't theft."
Remember that Slashdot is very pro-Linux and pro-GPL, so there's an attitude of providing things for free.
Sort of. It's more an attitude of free flow of ideas is good because it drives progress. In the whirlwind of progress that is software development, I think you'll find there is less sympathy for those who want to slow everything down while they figure out a way to make money off it.
The thing is, the GPL relies on copyright to exist. It's actually a copyright and usage license, even though Slashdot oft
Any crime in the physical world can be ignored if it is done using the Internet. This is especially true if the victim is not wise in the ways of the Internet. Bragging about your conquest tends to void this rule.
A low price trumps all other considerations. Free is best.
Anything that can be represented digitally is viewed as fair game for the taking on the Internet. If it isn't available from one source for free, keep looking. Someone else has already stolen it and is sharing.
The lowest common denominator is the only way anything works on the Internet.
One bad apple spoils the barrel. One stupid or ruthless user on the Internet can screw things up for the entire world.
Security is the responsibility of the end user. If you haven't protected yourself, it is your own fault. The entire world is out there looking for vulnerabilities in your computer and it is their right to do so. See item 1 if you have any questions.
Attempting to invoke the rule of law on the Internet is at best a joke. It shows your imcompetence. There are no laws and no rules.
I think it can be best summed up as "I want." Yes, I want to download movies and music for free. Anything that gets in the way of that is obviously oppressive and damages my fragile psyche. There should be laws against things like that.
hey, a modern saint! (Score:5, Funny)
skip the three steps, Vatican, and buy this man a gold chair and cape!
Re:hey, a modern saint! (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL, but consider this.
Doing this kind of work requires you invest tons of hours and probably a bit of money in expenses for which there is a high likelihood you can never recoup. Like any other investment the greater the risk the greater the rewards must be to attract anyone. Lawyers who do this sort of work are investing with time and materials that they could have been using to do work that was more likely or even certain to pay off.
Its often not something you can do on the side either. You are up against of team of lawyers with corporate backing, If you half ass it you probably don't stand a chance. How big a cut of something like this would it take for you to risk quiting your day job for? with odd that are probably quite long?
****
Now consider you are a member of the represented class you have been abused by the RIAA directly. You fought them and lost, or settled and paid up. You though you were out your 100K settlement or damages. Now someone comes along and puts the smack down on the thugs you could not defeat or did not think it was even to your interest to try and fight. They also manage to return 70% of your losses to you. I suspect most people would be great full to get 70K refunded to them of 100K they thought they'd lost forever.
I don't find the lawyer's take on these types of things all that outrageous when you look at it objectively.
Parent
Re:hey, a modern saint! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Go, Kiwi, Go! (Score:5, Informative)
After reading on Slashdot about this guy and reading more on the internet, I've become his fan. I wish him well.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you turn your back on NYCL so quickly just because some real-life Doogey Houser thinks he can take on an establishment that has been bought and paid for? Not only will there be high resistance from the courts, there will be heavy resistance from the DoJ and possibly even the Obama administration. These media people have a lot of favors they can call in.
Nonsense! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you turn your back on NYCL so quickly
Who says we have to have just one hero? All we've done here is to go from Superman to The Justice League.
So, more heroes please! Keep 'em coming!
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Then it's par for the course (Score:4, Insightful)
This entire fiasco is full of horrible legal arguments. John Doe bulk filesuits, extortion, racketeering, the notion that you are your IP, settlement letters before suit is filed...you name it.
Having it close on a horrible argument would be poetic at this point.
Parent
Re:Go, Kiwi, Go! (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine chest pains in certain board rooms at the thought that this could be ruled on against them. Just the thought, kind of like how their victims have felt.
Parent
Re:Go, Kiwi, Go! (Score:5, Informative)
I support the movement, but claiming that file sharing is protected under "fair use" is a horrible legal argument.
Actually the way you, and perhaps they, have expressed the issue is overly simplistic. "File sharing" is a broad term. There are many factual scenarios under its penumbra. Some of those scenarios would constitute fair use, some would not, and some would fall into a gray area to which we do not know the answer. There has been NO litigation of the "fair use" defense in the RIAA v. Individual cases, except for a single 2003 case in which the only question was whether running off unauthorized copies of unauthorized copies on a p2p file sharing network, and placing those in permanent hard copies on the defendant's computer, was a "fair use". The Court held that it was not. But there are many other possible fact patterns, none of which have presented themselves yet in a litigation context.
Meanwhile the constitutionality defense -- that the RIAA's theory of statutory damages fails to pass constitutional muster under the Due Process Clause due to the disproportionality to actual damages -- is certain to succeed, in my professional opinion, once the issue ripens.
Parent
Dutch law would disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Filesharing is partially PROVEN legal in holland. Downloading is 100% absolutly legal and judges have ruled on this multiple times.
So, it is only a horrible legal argument in countries where the law is owned by the copyright industry.
And please note, human civilization has DEPENDED on copyright "violations" for millenia. Rossetta stone anyone? Copied all over. How did you think books were made before the printing press? Hand copied over the centuries without any notion of paying the author. Modern copyrig
I doubt that'll work (Score:2, Interesting)
When it comes to the courts, including the Supreme Court, it seems that corporations' power compared to people are allowed to be practically infinite so long as they're not literally listed as infinite. See: extensions of copyright, corporate personhood.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, last year Nesson had the opportunity to shut the copyright nonsense down and dropped the ball. He basically refused to argue the practical merits of the case, sticking only to principles. The SCOTUS was tossing him softballs to allow him to show, basically, that the argument he wanted to argue was important enough that they should decide the constitutionality of it.
What he failed to consider was that, despite granting him the hearing (which was an extreme longshot in itself), and practically beg
Don't let their legal thugs off the hook (Score:4, Insightful)
Make sure their lawyers are disbarred too.
Re:Don't let their legal thugs off the hook (Score:5, Informative)
Make sure their lawyers are disbarred too.
Especially the five that now hold senior positions at the Department of Justice.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
goodluckwiththat
Seriously, getting lawyers knocked out of the DOJ?
You're reaching into a political hornet's nest.
It would take a watergate to get them out.
Re:My Take (Score:4, Interesting)
It's actually funny how all they are fighting for seems just like common sense. The RIAA is blackmailing all the people they can, under ridiculously claims... Man, 150000:1, who in their right mind could come up with something that stupid !!!???!!!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Man, 150000:1, who in their right mind could come up with something that stupid !!!???!!!
I can't be bothered to dig up the year they last changed those figures, but it's old like before online copying was a problem. So if you got one guy making 100 copies of a book, one liability = 150,000$. In modern day file sharing everyone makes one copy - what's the point to having more than one copy - so you have 100 guys making 1 copy, 100 liabilities = 15,000,000$. Basicly the punishment is made for a completely different situation.
Even worse with DoJ in **IA's pocket (Score:5, Insightful)
When seen in the context of an administration which is stuffing the Department of Justice with lawyers with strong ties to the entertainment industries, your post is even bleaker....
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
There good lawyers who now have a different client.
I think they were some excellent recommendations.
Re:Even the criminals have rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh dear god, kindly fuck off.
Copyright is an amoral law that concentrates power over culture into the hands of profiteering publishers.
Parent
Re:Even the criminals have rights (Score:4, Interesting)
true, and for a limited time, that's a good thing.
More then 14 years is too much.
14 years is less then a generation; which is what it takes for something to really penetrate as part of the culture, and it's a little after the point wen most people are really getting any money.
Parent
Re:Even the criminals have rights (Score:5, Informative)
Oh dear god, kindly fuck off. Copyright is an amoral law that concentrates power over culture into the hands of profiteering publishers.
Copyright is based on precedent, one that originally promoted original art. Once upon a time, anyone with a printing press could take someone's work and make a book. Authors were getting screwed, particularly overseas authors: American publishers were printing Dickens without paying royalties and British houses were doing likewise to Melville (one reason he died a pauper - he was vastly more popular in Britain, but never saw a cent for his books printed there). Establishing Copyright and an international treaty made it possible for artists to make a buck. Like any law, it needs retooling, but to dismiss the concept of copyright as amoral is puerile.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining personal profit without individual responsibility."
- Ambrose Bierce
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, because it's all about the publishers. No artist could possibly want to sell their work. They'd much rather pack your bags at the grocery store and then go home to make music, video games, movies and books for you in the evening because they like you so much.
Yes, because that's the only alternative. No artist could possibly make money from their work if they didn't have a government-granted license to restrict other people's speech. They'd rather give up and go work at grocery stores than adopt a sensible business model that isn't threatened by technology.
Re: (Score:2)
If there was no law to prevent it, Sony or WalMart would simply grab all the music they could get and put it out on a CD you could buy. For the people that (a) don't have Internet broadband and (b) people that don't know any better this would be much more convenient. They would make millions and the artists would get nothing.
They could probably out-distribute the artists with their own work. Why not? WalMart is the biggest distribution channel in the world.
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Without copyright, artist would loose money because publishers/music/movie corporations would just take it.
Re: (Score:2)
Make it free.
Sure, sell hard copies, merchandise, etc. to profit from your creativity, but you can benefit mankind much more by releasing your art to the public domain.
Re:Even the criminals have rights (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, wait, sorry, did someone forget to inform you that copyright law is more than just making money? It also entails plagiarism and similar concepts.
You know what else also "entails" plagiarism and similar concepts? Anti-fraud laws. Lying about something in order to sell it is already illegal.
You don't need copyright in order to outlaw plagiarism. Even if you find that existing anti-fraud laws aren't enough, then you can pass a new law that specifically forbids passing someone else's work off as your own, and you still won't need copyright.
Parent
Re:Even the criminals have rights (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would you need to pass it off as your own? WalMart sells stuff every day that they didn't make. So they could just as easily sell artists work without compensating them. No copyright law means there would be nothing to prevent this from happening.
Trust me, WalMart and Sony have already figured this part out and know exactly what to do should something like the elimination of copyright law. They will make more money than ever before.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
For "file sharing" is much closer to actual theft (of tangible things), than the Freedom of Speech is to selling pornography [about.com], for example.
Nobody loses anything if you download a song. If I steal your car you lose your car.
How many times do we have to go over this?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's quite true. If you copy my credit card information and do nothing at all with it, I don't lose anything. If on the other hand you copy my credit card information, then impersonate me and start buying things with it, then it costs me money. COSTS me money. As in, I have to pay the bills for your spending.
The only sense in which the victims of copyright infringement lose money is that they don't get money they might otherwis
Re: (Score:2)
The only sense in which the victims of copyright infringement lose money is that they don't get money they might otherwise have had. That's a very different thing from taking away money which they actually did have.
Right -- and it's a thing we've all come to accept already as a fact of doing business.
If I decide not to see Terminator Salvation (because I've heard it sucks), the theater and the studio are "losing" money they might otherwise have had. The reviewers who convince me not to buy a ticket are every bit as responsible for that "lost" revenue as the file sharers who give out free copies so other people don't have to buy tickets. So if the anti-P2P forces are so concerned about lost revenue, why aren't they fig
Re: (Score:2)
Becasue it's different when you actual partake in the service and not pay.
Re:Even the criminals have rights (Score:5, Insightful)
But lost behind it all is the primary problem — "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document [wikipedia.org]", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.
The Ten Commandments != The Constitution
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey wait.. that explains George W. Bush's entire presidency!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Even the criminals have rights (Score:5, Funny)
But lost behind it all is the primary problem — "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document [wikipedia.org]", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.
It's not like they're set in stone.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Excellent job of laying the problem at the feet of those namby-pamby liberals! Bravo, sir!
If you want to debate the merits of strict constructionism, do that on your own time. Don't try to shoehorn it onto the infringement v. theft debate.
For what it's worth, there is a good chance that these damages are unconstitutional under precedent from BMW v. Gore and Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker.
Sincerely,
An Originalist
Re:Even the criminals have rights (Score:5, Insightful)
But lost behind it all is the primary problem â" "Thou shalt not steal".
The primary problem is not that people are stealing, the primary problem is that people don't think they are stealing.
And the primary question is: is the problem a problem with the moral health of people, or is the problem a problem with the entertainment industry's business model?
Are people as a collective allowed to decide what is publicly transferable? I would say, yeah. That's a bummer for those who profit when copies of works are scarce in the economic sense but then again times change. And the Ten Commandments don't contain any guarantees from God about the minimum level of profitability of the music business.
Of course one should always obey the laws of the land. Except when one shouldn't. For example, civil disobedience in protest of the arbitrary and disproportionate victimization of ordinary people by powerful elites has always gotten sympathetic treatment in the history books.
On this one, I predict the history books will portray the industry as a callous group who tried to enforce their will on the populace by making people terrified of their wrath.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
And the primary question is: is the problem a problem with the moral health of people, or is the problem a problem with the entertainment industry's business model?
You could probably argue the former, but like most things that take on a new and typically abstract form, there's too much pychological distance for morality to play a significant role. Financial crimes, for example, typically cause more real loss or damage to people's lives than a bank robbery, but are rarely considered as serious. That's why s
Re: (Score:2)
File-sharing of copyrighted materials is not fair use.
Fair use is a doctrine of copyright law that defines a small set of activities that are regulated but permitted. So yeah, what you said was true, but clearly irrelevant to the discussion. Well done.
Why do you think big names like John Carmack no longer post on Slashdot?
Heh, John doesn't post on Slashdot because there's no point. See, there was a time when posting on Slashdot was considered a productive activity (shocking I know), now it is simply "fun" or, less generously, procrastination. Some people embrace procrastination, some people feel shameful from it, some people a
Re: (Score:2)
Care to demonstrate how demanding >$150K per downloaded song, when songs were $1.00 at Amazon etc. and which (IIRC) not even the RIAA claims to have been subsequently shared) is unselfish, or equitable, or even only a little greedy? Downloading is not right and the artists have a right to be compensated, but I fail to see how ruining someone's life is appropriate. As for the artists who support (either actively or by their silence) the RIAA campaign against their custome
Re: (Score:2)
"File-sharing of copyrighted materials is not fair use." You get modded down because you are just trolling here. You are telling exactly the opposite of what this story submission is about, and its the main argument to be tested in court.
What is piracy to begin with? The abuse of this word is stupid, and legally you can only talk about copyright infringement, because there is no stealing (removing a physical object) involved in sharing copyrighted works.
Copyright.. Copyright was made to do the opposite of w
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Remember that Slashdot is very pro-Linux and pro-GPL, so there's an attitude of providing things for free. The thing is, the GPL relies on copyright to exist. It's actually a copyright and usage license, even though Slashdot often posts stories about how evil copyright laws and EULAs are.
The primary benefit of the GPL, according to many of us, is that it turns copyright against itself, restoring the freedoms that copyright took away in the first place.
In a world with no copyright, there wouldn't be nearly as much need for the GPL: we'd all be free to distribute software, patches, and reverse engineered source code. If you release a proprietary fork of Linux and refuse to give out the source code, that's OK, we'll just disassemble it and incorporate your changes into our open-source branch.
And, of course, there are the stories of "stolen" GPL code, even though we constantly hear that "piracy isn't theft."
I
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Sort of. It's more an attitude of free flow of ideas is good because it drives progress. In the whirlwind of progress that is software development, I think you'll find there is less sympathy for those who want to slow everything down while they figure out a way to make money off it.
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a legitimate reason why bootlegging on the internet is A-OK while bootlegging on a street corner is not and never has been.
The fact that one is for-profit and the other is not seems like a legitimate reason to me.
Basic Rules of the Internet (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it can be best summed up as "I want." Yes, I want to download movies and music for free. Anything that gets in the way of that is obviously oppressive and damages my fragile psyche. There should be laws against things like that.
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