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Boston University Student Challenges RIAA
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:40 PM
from the back-off dept.
from the back-off dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A Boston University student identified only as one of the 21 'John Does' in Arista v. Does 1-21 has challenged the RIAA's alleged right to get his or her identity from the school, bringing a motion to vacate the ex parte discovery order obtained by the RIAA, and to quash the subpoena served on the university. John Doe's court papers (PDF) argue, among other things, that the RIAA's papers are 'based on a flawed theory that having copyrighted music files on an individual's computer or on an assigned folder on Boston University's server is a "distribution" of such copyrighted music files, where such folder is merely accessible by others.'"
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MIT Student Plans to Take on RIAA 169 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "MIT's online newspaper, The Tech, reports that a student named as a John Doe by the RIAA is planning to fight back against their questionable legal tactics. The anonymous student told The Tech that he is 'the victim of a fishing expedition by the RIAA,' and is 'disappointed that MIT isn't going to step up ... Other schools like Boston University and the University of Oregon have resisted RIAA subpoenas of student records more actively than MIT has, he said'. Maybe his attorneys will be able to get some assistance from some of the Harvard Law School students in Professor Nesson's 'Evidence' class, who have been assigned — as part of their coursework — the drafting of a motion to quash an RIAA subpoena."
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A few questions... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A few questions... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Security hacking and online storage (Score:5, Interesting)
This could lead to some interesting complications when dealing with online storage.
For example, if a person has music online and believes that it is secured, would they be liable if someone breaks in and makes it available to others? I could see instances where this other person breaks in, makes the music available and then reports to the RIAA after a number of downloads are done.
Now some people would say that security is your responsibility, but how do you handle environments where someone else is providing a service and you don't control everything?
I wish they would sue those boom box cars (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes they distribute music to her from 5:30am to 2am.
One more analogy... (Score:5, Funny)
The "making available" issue (Score:5, Informative)
Re:his argument seems flawed (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:his argument seems flawed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:his argument seems flawed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:his argument seems flawed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:his argument seems flawed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:his argument seems flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
This argument would damn every soccer-mom and burger-flipper who plugs a home computer into their cable modem without remembering to set up a firewall. I think that, reading the citations in the motion, they make a good point -- copyright infringement, they argue, requires both intent and commercial gain, not to mention actual infringement (which nobody has proven even happened).
Though I've grown weary of all the crazy analogies flung around on Slashdot of late, I feel the need to provide one of my own: You're sitting in a university library with your laptop, and the guy across the table from you gets up to search the stacks for something, leaving his folder of music CDs on the table. You grab one, stick it in your laptop, and in a couple minutes have ripped a perfect digital copy of it, before the guy even returns. Is he then criminally liable for having permitted you to infringe the copyright of that CD, because he didn't lock up the discs or take them with him? Or, worse, if you have the ability to do exactly what I just described, but don't take advantage of it, is he still liable just for having provided the opportunity for infringement?
BTW, I'm not sure this motion is on the behalf of a single defendant, but all of them (it's listed as representing Does 1-21).
Parent
A better analogy... (Score:5, Insightful)
But seriously *WTF* is with all the analogies. The original concept is not that hard to completely understand. If he put it in his home directory, and the default permissions were open (i.e. umask being set stupidly), then I would say he has an argument. However, if he had to explicitly change permissions on it, or put it in something analagous to a 'public_html', intent to distribute can be argued. If you put a big sign on your drive saying 'I put music on here, feel free to copy it', it's obvious you are inviting the activity.
Parent
Re:his argument seems flawed (Score:5, Informative)
What he is arguing is, at least as I see it: "Just because I left it in a public place does not mean anyone actually copied it. You have not claimed anyone but your agent has copied it, you have not claimed that I invited anyone to copy it, you have not claimed that I was aware anyone has copied it, nor that I as even aware they they could be copied." (Emphasis mine, the original word was "alleged")
A possibly poor analogy: I leave a CD on a table in a public place (a public park, say), for whatever reason. An RIAA agent comes by, sees the CD, and noticed he can pick it up. They then subpoena the town/city for all records of who was in the park that day, sitting at that particular table, because someone was "distributing" music illegally.
The kicker is, he cites supporting law verbage and other court cases where this situation was determined to not be copyright infringement.
IANAL though. Grain of salt for ya...
=Smidge=
Parent
Re:*Ding* (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently a judge (most likely federal) told them that they *must* sue individuals and not large groups of people, unless those people were all involved in the alleged lawbreaking as a whole unit (ie. conspiracy) or a single occurance. Basically the judge told them they couldn't do this just because it was convenient for them. What it amounts to is that a single case with 21 "John Doe" persons = 1 filing fee (read; less money). But since each person's alleged infringement has no relation to the other's, they are *supposed* to file 21 separate cases (read: significantly more money).
Also, by doing it this way, it costs more money for the court to send out the proper notices to the participants. Money that they aren't getting from the RIAA.
*Money that we pay in our taxes.*
Parent
Re:*Ding* (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:*Ding* (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:*Ding* (Score:5, Interesting)
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Easy fix, dude. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:I say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, the comparison to the RIAA's case is -- a police officer walks up to my truck, reaches in and takes the disks out of the visor.
And then he arrests me.
And *I* get charged with a crime.
If that's the legal definition of distributing copyrighted materials, then we have a much bigger problem with our legal system then just the RIAA.
Parent
Re:I say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's try a different take:
I make some modifications to my copy of Linux. I leave a copy of the compiled version in a directory that's accessible to anybody on the internet who knows where to look. When someone demands the source code, I tell him to go to hell because I'm not distributing anything. Can I get sued for violating the GPL?
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Re:I say... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I say... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Is it illegal to borrow a legally published version of copyrighted material?
2) Is it illegal to copy borrowed material?
2b) If 2 is true, who is at fault when material is copied, the copier or the lender?
Given libraries are legal, 1 is a definite "no". 2, I think, is most likely illegal. The key question here is 2b.
I can't see any viable way the vendor/lender can be held responsible for items sold/lent being used illegally. With the possible exception of regulated/dangerous items such as guns or other weapons, it's not criminal for a store to sell someone a hammer without making them sign a statement claiming they won't use it for illegal purposes. It's not the store's fault some nut bought pencils and started killing people with them.
Similarly, if it is legal to "borrow" music but not copy it is not the student's fault the files were copied. The other users could simply have listened to the music files from the shared folder without copying them, and thus "borrowed" them. That they weren't content to simply "borrow" the music isn't the fault of the student who opened his music collection to the public.
That's how I see it anyway.
Parent
Of course, he might not be distributing it (Score:5, Insightful)
But what if his intent was only to give himself access to his data from any location on campus?
In that case, it is not distribution. It is giving himself location free and operating system unlimited access to his purchased content.
If possession is 9/10ths of the law, then my receipt says I can do whatever I want with my legally purchased content so long as I don't produce copies for financial gain.
There is law against selling copies of content without access to copyrights. There is law against copying content without access to copyrights. There is no law against making one's legally purchased content accessible to oneself (unless you break encryption in the process).
Parent
Re:Of course, he might not be distributing it (Score:5, Insightful)
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