RIAA Victory Over Usenet.com In Copyright Case

ozydingo writes "The RIAA has scored a victory in a decision on a copyright case that they filed back in 2007. US District Judge Harold Baer ruled in favor of the music industry on all its main theories: that Usenet.com is guilty of direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. In addition, and perhaps most important for future cases, Baer said that Usenet.com can't claim protection under the Sony Betamax decision stating that companies can't be held liable of contributory infringement if the device is 'capable of significant non-infringing uses.' Bear noted that Usenet.com differed from Sony in that the sale of a Betamax recorder was a one-time deal, while Usenet.com's interaction with its users was an ongoing relationship. The RIAA stated in a brief note, 'We're pleased that the court recognized not just that Usenet.com directly infringed the record companies' copyrights but also took action against the defendants for their egregious litigation misconduct.'"

Re:In other news . . .

[iammani]

This is Usenet with a capital 'U'. Some crap upload and share service that got hold of the domain www.usenet.com

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:RIP Usenet

[Gizzmonic]

Sir, do you realize that this has nothing to do with Usenet (NNTP)? The courts just found against a file sharing site called usenet.com. Still, it's a nice little tribute anyway.

Re:FURIAA

[91degrees]

They sued usenet.com. Not usenet itself. This was because the company was contributing to copyright infringement, not because the technology was.

Re:So can you sue Google for finding my ISO files?

[thesp]

I really hate to have to point this out, but almost everything on the internet is copyrighted, in some aspect or another, at least. In fact, nearly everything has some copyrighted component.

I refer you to the US copyright office, with similar provisions applying in almost every other Berne-convention country (including my very own UK).

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#mywork [copyright.gov]

"When is my work protected?
Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

Do I have to register with your office to be protected?
No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created."

Copyright is not acquired, it is merely asserted.

Google cannot possibly have a policy that it only indexes works in which no copyright subsists. I suspect the real policy is that Google removes items from the index if there is a reasonable case that they are infringing copies of a copyright work, or that accessing them is likely to constitute infringement of copyright.

Re:RIP Usenet

[digitig]

Still, it's a nice little tribute anyway.

If a trifle premature, at least in the case of some moderated specialist forums.

Re:a new age in file-sharing is born

[Kabuthunk]

Except that goes contrary to the primary benifit (in my eyes) of music over the internet. The capability of listening to music that's NOT local and/or sold locally. A few of my favourite genres I'd have never encountered in my entire life if it hadn't been for the internet.

Re:Any good news lately?

[Matheus]

BZZT! Incorrect sir.

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp [snopes.com]

Re:In other news . . .

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Depends on the country. In Europe, the former is mostly fine. It is absolutely legally clean where I live, in fact, regardless of the source of the material in question (the only ones who disagree with this are the employees of the local equivalent to RIAA, but they never answer when you ask on what do they base theif opinion, different from the opinion of 99+ percent of local lawyers). I guess the latter is almost universally illegal.