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Grokster/Morpheus Hearing Recap 170

Posted by michael from the betamax-looming-large dept.
TrentC writes "An article in The Mercury News reports that Senior Judge John T. Noonan, hearing arguments in the Morpheus/Grokster case (yes, it's still going!), scolded one of the attorneys for the recording industry for 'using abusive language' in referring to P2P networks as 'trafficking in pirated goods'. Noonan also questioned, in response to a claim that a study showed that 90% of the 750 million files shared on Morpheus was illegally distributed files, if the other 10% -- consisting of public-domain works, recordings of public performances and works where the copyright holders have granted permission -- consisted of enough non-infringing use to meet the criteria set forth in the famous Betamax decision. Maybe 2004 will be 'The Year The Courts Get It Right'?" We mentioned this hearing a few days ago. The EFF has audio of the hearing and case documents available. Since this case will likely decide the general legality of P2P services, it could be quite important.
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Grokster/Morpheus Hearing Recap More

Grokster/Morpheus Hearing Recap

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  • The Year The Courts Get It Right? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If the courts do get it right, you can be sure the legislature will come along and fuck it back up again. Gay marriage will be just one of the 'activist' court decisions that will get neutered.

  • Groklaw (Score:3, Informative)

    by tr0llb4rt0 ( 742153 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @11:55AM (#8190672) Homepage
    http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402050 05057966

  • Nice to see (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 05, 2004 @11:55AM (#8190679)
    Looks like a skeptical 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel pressed the lawyers to defend their contention that file-sharing services should be stripped of the protections afforded technological innovation by the U.S. Supreme Court

  • Key quote that may explain the judge's opinion (Score:5, Informative)

    by blorg ( 726186 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @11:56AM (#8190688)
    "Judge Sidney R. Thomas, [is] regarded as among the most technologically astute of the 9th Circuit judges"

  • Court-ster (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CaptainAlbert ( 162776 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @11:57AM (#8190694) Homepage
    I have an idea. Well, I kinda stole it from something I read at Operation Clambake [xenu.net]. Many of Scientology's "secret" documents are now available to anyone for free, because they have been subpoenaed during a lawsuit.

    So... perhaps one could run a filesharing operation based on the fact that documents presented as evidence in court become a matter of public record? Just get the files you were allegedly sharing to be part of the discovery, and bingo! Anyone in the world can download them!

    This of course has the advantage that the courts can't shut it down or even declare it illegal... :)
    • There is one problem with this... how many of us would get fired for spending all day reading those documents looking for some conspiracy??

    • Re:Court-ster (Score:5, Interesting)

      by eidolons ( 708050 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:08PM (#8190810) Homepage
      Something else to consider, perhaps more to the point in this case. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering the Betamax [virtualrecordings.com] case as a previous legal blueprint to follow in this case. They are thus looking for an indication that at least a marginal percentage of usage is legal or non-copyright infringement use.

      So how about this: what if a major company decided to use a p2p network as it's MAJOR outlet for file distribution. Say, a shareware program or game demo. This would be proof that p2p file-sharing programs are not exclusively used as "stolen-goods" transfers, it is a mainstream sharing network for permissable transfers. That would blow these cases wide open, as the judges are just looking for a reason to refer to Betamax here.

      • Re:Court-ster (Score:5, Informative)

        by Txiasaeia ( 581598 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:18PM (#8190931)
        "So how about this: what if a major company decided to use a p2p network as it's MAJOR outlet for file distribution. Say, a shareware program or game demo. This would be proof that p2p file-sharing programs are not exclusively used as "stolen-goods" transfers, it is a mainstream sharing network for permissable transfers. That would blow these cases wide open, as the judges are just looking for a reason to refer to Betamax here."

        This has already happened -- Atari used Kazaa (normal) to distribute Temple of Elemental Evil; you could "unlock" the demo version to get the full version by buying it online. Hope this helps!

        • Re:Court-ster (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Dashing Leech ( 688077 )
          This would only work if it significantly affected the percentage of legal vs illegal files. The problem isn't demonstrating that legal uses are possible, even the RIAA/MPAA apparently admit in court that ~10% of files shared are legal, it's a question of what percentage of files traded are legal. So your hypothetical company would only be "useful" if it could significantly bump the percentage higher.
        • What about BitTorrented Linux distros? Every time a major revision comes out, I see BitTorrents springing up all over the place. Of course, BitTorrent isn't a file-sharing network, but it is a P2P network, so to some extent, it depends on your terminology.
      • The judge could easily seal the documents, I think. And even if he couldn't, the RIAA and MPAA would just pay Congress to change the laws regarding the issue. The idea would, at best, work briefly.

      • Re:Court-ster (Score:4, Informative)

        by One Louder ( 595430 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:22PM (#8190975)
        Just this last week, Lindows.com started officially distributing their "live" CD ISOs over P2P networks.
      • Yet another reason to flood the sharing networks with legally sharable documents using a Creative Commons [creativecommons.org] license.

      • Re:Court-ster (Score:5, Insightful)

        by shotfeel ( 235240 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @01:11PM (#8191613)
        They are thus looking for an indication that at least a marginal percentage of usage is legal or non-copyright infringement use.

        What I found interesting was the quote "One academic study found that 90 percent of the content exchanged on file-sharing networks is copyrighted, Frackman noted."

        Personally, I'm amazed its not closer to 100%. That still doen't mean infringement. After all, isn't Linux copyrighted, and aren't I allowed to share it via a PtP network if I want?

        So, IMO, the question isn't what percentage is copyrighted vs. public domain, but what percentage of it constitutes infringement?
      • I'd like to see apt support P2P as a source. :)

      • Re:Court-ster (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 )
        No, you're wrong.

        What the S.Ct. said in the Sony case was "Accordingly, the sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses."

        Thus, while it's ideal if the technology is actually being used in a noninfringing manner, it's still okay so long as it _could_ be, regardless of whether or not it actually i
      • How long until we see "spiders" that eschew illegal content and just shuffle bits around, to raise the percentages of legal content? You could easily do something like that with a screensaver like SETI@home.

        How long until the RIAA does the same with infringing material? They can legally copy such infringing material because they hold the copyrights, but still claim it's hosted illegally and that host sent out 1 million copies (pinky to mouth).
      • You mean like most of the linux distro ISO images? I guess in the eyes of industry, since they're free they don't count as a "useful" purpose of P2P.
    • IANAL, but I think in some cases, certain evidence that is exposed during discovery can be sealed under court order so that the public can not have access to it.
    • so what your saying is file a lawsuit against Microsoft questioning the ownership of the the Windows code, have it subpoenaed and bingo bango OPEN SOURCE!

  • it will never end (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 05, 2004 @11:58AM (#8190710)
    I hope that the courts just let it go. And even if they do stop every single p2p network out there, someone else will start a new one, and people will share files over everything, heck even aim can be used. They will never be able to stop it. And for starting musicians, such as myself, it is awesome to get that kind of exposure so easily by spreading files on p2p networks.
    • You completely miss the point of the lawsuit. The point isn't that people can share files. Despite the biased crap you read on slashdot, the RIAA does know that software companies can't be held responsible for the uninitentional use of their products. The distinction, however, is that these networks are designed specifically with the intent to facilitate copyright infringement. Or atleast, so goes the RIAA's argument.

      • Re:it will never end (Score:5, Funny)

        by Oliver Wendell Jones ( 158103 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:52PM (#8191357)
        The distinction, however, is that these networks are designed specifically with the intent to facilitate copyright infringement. Or atleast, so goes the RIAA's argument.

        Statements like this are like saying that "cars that can go faster than 65 MPH are intended to facilitate unsafe driving speeds and should be banned" or "knives that can cut through flesh, whether its dead cow or live human, are intended to facilitate the killing of people and should be banned"

        Now, I willingly admit that I haven't read the history, background and FAQ of every P2P system in existence, but I have yet to see one with a home page that reads "Hello and welcome to the home page of KAZAA-GROKSTER-MORPHEUS-EDONKEY-NAPSTER-BITTORRENT - The most popular client written from the ground up to facilitate the illegal sharing of other people's copyrighted materials without their consent!!!!"

  • 90% as measured how? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:02PM (#8190744) Homepage
    When I see the figure that 90% is illegal, I have to wonder, is that 90% as individual items are counted? Or 90% by file volume?

    When I run searches on P2P networks, there are a lot of porn videos advertising websites that are available, presumably legally. If there are 100 porn advertising videos that take up the space of one copy of Lord of the Rings, would the people that generated this statistic say that the content is 50% legal and 50% illegal? Or would they say that roughly 1% (1 video out of a total of 101) is illegal?

    • If there are 100 porn advertising videos that take up the space of one copy of Lord of the Rings, would the people that generated this statistic say that the content is 50% legal and 50% illegal? Or would they say that roughly 1% (1 video out of a total of 101) is illegal?

      That depends on who is paying them at the time.


      K

      • That depends on who is paying them at the time.

        Exactly. Statistics are always tailored to support whatever point you are trying to push. There are lots of different measurements you can take of a P2P network: number of files, size of files, number of users requesting a given file, number of users providing a file, number of transferrs, bytes transferred, and so on. With some creative interepretation, you can produce statistics all day long that support any conclusion you want to make.

    • Re:90% as measured how? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by back_pages ( 600753 ) <back_pages&cox,net> on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:11PM (#8190849) Journal
      Right, it's like alcoholic content by weight or by volume. Doubtless the RIAA and gang will use whichever method paints the more dismal picture.


      For my own part, I've downloaded probably 2-3 gigs of mp3s and programs, but I've also downloaded at least 6 gigs of linux ISOs. That's about 3000 illegal files and less than 20 linux ISOs. You know which method to use if you want to make me look like a bad guy.


      (And I make ample use of MD5s when getting ISOs from P2P. It's not perfect, but I'm not doing anything critical with them and I haven't had a problem.. yet..)

    • Remember...this is RIAA math. You know, the ones who "uncovered a piracy ring with 421 CD-ROM burners" [theregister.co.uk] in New York. This probably is (and no, I haven't RTFA, I'm just guessing) a count of audio files only. And not just any audio files...music audio files of full length songs. Unless they find a snippet of one of their recordings, then they'll count it. So when you consider only audio files of full length songs and audio samples of copywritten songs, then 90% probably isn't an inaccurate estimate.
    • It only makes sense to count the number of files, even in the case you are making.

      Copyright isn't concerned about volume of data. The copyright in one 3 meg song is the same as that in the Lord of the Rings movie. The size of the file has nothing to do with it.

      Similarly if you illegally download a tiny low-bit-rate highly compressed version of a song, it's the same violation as if you download the lossless (larger) version.

      Of course, one might try to argue that the highly-compressed version might be a de
    • The quote mentioned in the article is 90% copyrighted. So in your scenario, its 100% copyrighted, but not 100% infringing. That's the problem I have with the 90% figure.
    • When I see the figure that 90% is illegal,

      No, 90% is copyrighted. Linux is traded over P2P links. Linux is copyrighted. But trading Linux over P2P is not illegal.

      The RIAA is using intentionally confusing language to inflate their figures. This was to be expected. The real figure for illegal trading is undoubtedly lower (though whether it's 1% slower or 99% lower is anybody's guess).

  • I can't be... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:02PM (#8190752) Homepage Journal
    Do we have a Judge the Recording Execs can't pay off??

  • Where did they get their stats? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GreenCrackBaby ( 203293 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:03PM (#8190755) Homepage
    "90% of files transmitted were copyrighted files."

    Does that percentage include traffic to Canadian computers, where such downloads are legal [cippic.ca]?

    Does that percentage account for people who own the songs they are downloading in some other media format?

    Does that percetage account for people who tried to download a song but got a RIAA-hijacked song instead?

    What a waste of resources. They are playing at a very losing game. Before Napster there was always IRC, usenet, and FTP -- those are still there. After Napster came Morpheus/Grokster, which may/may not be left alive. But already the file sharing community has moved past into DirectConnect hubs, bit torrent, private WASTE networks, etc. Why do they even bother anymore?

    • "Does that percentage account for people who own the songs they are downloading in some other media format?"

      This is still not legal. Besides, if you want the song in another format and you have the original CD of the song why not just rip it yourself?

      "Does that percetage account for people who tried to download a song but got a RIAA-hijacked song instead?"

      Stupidity is not a good legal defense. Intent will kill you on this argument most of the time.

    • Why do they even bother anymore?

      It's like trademark/copyright/surmark protection (one of those things at least..). To justify in a court of law, you have to vigorously defend your property, etc. Sure, we all know it's a waste, but they keep their legal muscle by flexing their legal muscle.

  • 90% (C)'d, but what about unauthorized? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:04PM (#8190766) Homepage Journal
    They say 90% of the material is copyrighted, but the statistic should rather be the percentage of copyright material that's unauthorized.

    For example, Phish and Dave Matthews Band have been mentioned in some articles as giving their general OK to concert recordings being available on file-share services. These recordings are copyright of the respective performers. So do they fall into the RIAA's 90%? Or the remaining 10%?

    • Re:90% (C)'d, but what about unauthorized? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      or OSS software. It's under copyright, but authorized to be distrib'd via P2P.
    • How much of their stated lost revenue would have been from people who bought the CD blindly and wouldn't have liked it?

      How did they come up with such a number in the first place?

      We both know they're going to use the highest possible number they can get away with, and if even their worst test doesn't give numbers they like, they'll fudge them even more.
      Fear of being laughed out of court is the only thing that's keeping them from claiming 100% of the traffic is copyrighted.
    • For example, Phish and Dave Matthews Band have been mentioned in some articles as giving their general OK to concert recordings being available on file-share services. These recordings are copyright of the respective performers. So do they fall into the RIAA's 90%? Or the remaining 10%?

      Technically speaking, don't the labels of these respective artists actually own the copyrights to the recordings of these artists? For an artist to even appear on the album of another artist on another label, permission lab
      • I dont know about Phish, but I do know that DMB pressed for and received such permissions during negotiations with their label before signing with them. They had been playing at various clubs independently before making it big, and gained significant popularity from allowing fans to make their own recordings (tape or video) of live shows. They wanted that to continue after going with RCA, and got it. Fans attending a DMB concert are permitted to record the show and do pretty much whatever they want with
    • For example, Phish and Dave Matthews Band have been mentioned in some articles as giving their general OK to concert recordings being available on file-share services..... So do they fall into the RIAA's 90%? Or the remaining 10%?

      Neither. They're only counting files that people actually want to download.

  • If you really want to support... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gothrus ( 706341 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:05PM (#8190774)
    Post and share as much public domain and open source info/data as you can get your hands on. Label it as such, so everyone knows that it can be downloaded without legal ramifications. We have yet to fully demostrate the greatest benefit of P2P: All of humanity's creative capacity available for free use at the click of a button. Imagine what Ben Franklin, Einstein, or Mozart could have done with such a resource.

    • Re:If you really want to support... (Score:5, Funny)

      by aug24 ( 38229 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:12PM (#8190858) Homepage
      Imagine what Ben Franklin, Einstein, or Mozart could have done with such a resource.

      Ignored it in favour of the excellent porn now available?

      Justin.

    • "All of humanity's creative capacity available for free use at the click of a button. Imagine what Ben Franklin, Einstein, or Mozart could have done with such a resource."

      Yeah, but just think how many copies of the Declaration Of Independence there'd be, and then all the ones with other peoples signatures photoshopped on, and the people downloading Declarations for a living and printing and selling them on the black market....

      It wouldn't be good.

    • Re:If you really want to support... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ben Franklin was a dork. But at least you didn't use Edison. It drives me nuts when people use Edison as an example of a great scientist. Einstein and Mozart were fairly cool, but they're both big on P2P already. Mozart obviously in the form of MP3 and Einstein in a variety of forms including the medium itself via his role in the development of lasers, but also in the popular Feyneman lectures that explain much of Einstein's work. They're everywhere on P2P. So, there's no need to imagine it, it's there alre

    • It's called a library (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is exactly what a library is except it isn't available, in general, in electronic form.

    • I agree. Project Guttenberg [promo.net] is one of the first things that come to mind.

    • Imagine what Ben Franklin, Einstein, or Mozart could have done with such a resource.

      They would be too busy reading Slashdot and download pr0n to come up with electricity, theory of relativity or concertos :p

    • It's true, we have plenty of information on the Internet. But don't expect humanity to use it to educate itself in some blissful utopian dream. The Internet already has the main thing people want: PORN.

      I like having so much information available on the Internet, and I'm a regular contributor to Distributed Proofreaders [pgdp.net], which definitely fits the bill for huge collections of public domain. But I'm under no illusions that most people will not ignore my recently-proofread "Studies in Civics" or "Babylonian

  • A funny thing happened today (Score:5, Interesting)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowardNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:08PM (#8190814) Journal
    We organize the occasional party in our garage. The local equivalent of the RIAA (the Belgian SABAM) came knocking and asking for their cut. They were very reasonable, a clean 15% of the gross. I asked whether this covered live groups too. Oh yes. How about artists that are not members of the SABAM? Oh yes. But we're willing to make you a gooood price. At which point I realize that this is just the local mob.

    It really makes me wonder... when you cannot stand up on stage and play your guitar for a public without having to fill-in a form and pay protection money. I don't see P2P ever being legit in such a world.

    Go on, mod me -1 irrelevant, but this was the first time I saw a music industry enforcer in action and I was quite impressed.
    • So, um, forgive me for asking, but... What would have happened if you just told them to get lost? Are you legally required to pay them, even though you haven't signed any sort of contract with them? If you are, then the laws are pretty wacked. If not, then as a performer, you probably had more muscle available (in the form of your band + audience) than they did, and you shouldn't have let them intimidate you.

      It occurs to me that it may matter a great deal whether you are playing your own material or co

    • Fo' real? You're on stage in your garage, and local music freak tries to extort you? Were you covering their member bands' songs in a legally public venue? if not, just tell them to piss off.
    • make it a free show and give them 15% of the money...
      "now lets see.... here you go... .15 times $0 is nothing so FOD!"
    • Like a couple others, I'm wondering: Are you serious???

      People come to your door when you're throwing a party?

      What if it is just friends, and you aren't charging money?

      What if you aren't playing any music at your party?

      What if you have a band of your own and am only paying your own music?

      What if you punch the bastard in the nose?

  • Save the EFF some bandwidth costs.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by smd4985 ( 203677 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:08PM (#8190818) Homepage
    Swarm the oral argument from here:

    20040203_oral_arg.mp3 [magnet]

    Should work if you have a magnet handler like LimeWire or Kazaa installed.
    • Here is a perfect example of how p2p technology can be used in a legal, useful and beneficial way. I'm wondering if the 90% study was done with the same logic as: one download = a lost sale. I know there is a lot of copywritten material floating around out on the networks, but there are legitimate uses too. How many Bittorent links have you seen posted in these very forums to prevent slashdotting? I'd like this issue settled so we can start finding more innovative uses for p2p networks. and pr0n of cou

    • That's funny. I searched for 'oral' and this was nowhere near the top of the results.

      I did, however, find a few other interesting files to download.

  • Difference with Napster is lack of central index (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blorg ( 726186 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:09PM (#8190828)
    "Substantial non-infringing use" is finally being accepted as a defence, because as Grokster/Morpheus don't have a central index, (unlike Napster) they can't control what the users do with the software.

    I just love the bit where the recording industry present their "90% of the 750 million files" study, and the judge whips back with, well, 75 million files is a lot, isn't it? A few more legitimate uses like this one [lindows.com] would do a lot to push the point home.

    • I still don't see any of the filesharing indexes having a truly non-infringing use.

      Remember, the users only share whats's popular, and what's popular is rarely free. The few do-gooders who only share what can legitimately be shared may find themselves flooded out by the cheapskates who think it's their right to everything and anything they want for free.

      And I doubt the Betamax decision comes into play, seeing as how limited the potential distribution was for anything copied via it. In fact, I hope that fa
      • Linux is pretty popular, and free, and legal.

        The fact that someone can do something illegal shouldn't prevent me from doing similar legal things.
        • So use Bittorrent. Does a damn fine job. Or grab it from your friends FTP. Or hell, contact one of the various companies out there that'll send you a cheap CD-R copy for $smallnum.00

          Linux has substantial legal usage.

          A VCR has substantial legal usage.

          In many areas, lockpicking tools don't. Thus you have to be licensed. In others, slimjims are banned entirely. Sure both have legal uses (unlocking things you own,) but people found that their main use tended to be theft (picking other peoples locks to take t
  • "Judge Sidney R. Thomas, regarded as among the most technologically astute of the 9th Circuit judges, noted that users of the file-swapping networks could continue to trade files, even if Morpheus and Grokster were shut down immediately.

    ``If that's true, aren't we chasing the wind here?'' asked Thomas.

    Frackman countered that the Morpheus system would eventually degrade and file-swappers would lose interest."

    I for one got fed up with getting 10kb/s over my 1.5mb line 2 years ago... and though I got tir
    • I wouldn't be suprised if there was a direct correlation between how much you use p2p and how wealthy you are. I'm sure a high-school kid who wants to mess around with some digital pictures he took isn't going to plop down $600 for a copy of photoshop. I don't see this as a huge problem for Adobe though, because he wouldn't have bought it anyway. By the same token, I doubt a graphics professional would spend hours on p2p networks trying to get an iso of photoshop -- if he's making $50/hr, his time is worth
  • Is it illegal to put mp3s you have legally purchased on a P2P network, and then download them from somewhere else, say at work?

    Would it be legal to put their DRM files (which I understand are trivial to break) up on the P2P network so you can download them from somewhere else?

    • Is it illegal to put mp3s you have legally purchased on a P2P network, and then download them from somewhere else, say at work? Would it be legal to put their DRM files (which I understand are trivial to break) up on the P2P network so you can download them from somewhere else?

      IANAL etc etc.

      It all depends upon which jurisdiction you are operating in, but generally speaking everywhere recognises 'fair use' provisions which would make your first scenario legal provided no one else d/loaded the MP3s. If s

      • How does a library get out of this type of "illegal distribution" mess? Someone can go in and photocopy and entire book, which I'm pretty sure is outside of fair use. It seems like just the person that actually made the illegal copy would be guilty of performing an illegal act thought, and not the library.

        With respect to the DRM files, I'm not suggesting that the person that puts them up cracks them. I'm suggesting they put up files that are protected by DRM, and so unless the downloader actually breaks th
        • How does a library get out of this type of "illegal distribution" mess? Someone can go in and photocopy and entire book,

          First, the library did purchase a copy of the book, they don't make any copies themselves.

          Second, it would cost more to photocopy most books than to buy them. OTOH you can also check out CDs from your local library and copy them fairly cheaply, but the library has demonstrated significant non-infringing use for several decades.
          • First, the library did purchase a copy of the book, they don't make any copies themselves.

            I said I was putting MP3s I had legally purchased up on a P2P site so I could download them from somewhere else.

            Second, it would cost more to photocopy most books than to buy them. Thats irrelevant for the point of my question...

            OTOH you can also check out CDs from your local library and copy them fairly cheaply, but the library has demonstrated significant non-infringing use for several decades.

            My point exact
            • I understand your point, and its a good question.

              The one difference with the library is that they have to "loan out" a physical copy. During the time that physical copy is out, the library cannot loan it to anyone else. The mp3, however, can be "borrowed" by more than one person at a time and you are not deprived of its use while it is being loaned out.

              Made me wonder if there was a way to do a PtP network where works were "moved" instead of "copied". That way you could more literally loan me your music an

  • One academic study found that 90 percent of the content exchanged on file-sharing networks is copyrighted, Frackman noted.

    This reminds me of a problem from my Micro theory class:

    In a discussion of tuition rates, a university official argues that demand for education is completely price inelastic. As evidense... tuition has doubled over the past 15 years, but applications have remained the same [quality&quantity]

    Now the question really wanted you to realise that you can change the supply and demand cu

  • Post the audio on P2P (Score:3, Interesting)

    by OYAHHH ( 322809 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:46PM (#8191287)
    What better way to show to the judge a perfectly acceptable legitmate usage of P2P than posting the oral arguments on a P2P system.
  • Judge's comments at oral arguments are generally irrelevant to what the judge's final decision is. In fact, the judges usually question both sides pretty thoroughly. It is possible that this article merely didn't include the questioning of the other side.

  • This judge gets it! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Performer Guy ( 69820 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @01:16PM (#8191700)
    This is just beautiful. A judge finally recognizes the true nature of the situation. Their rights to control & restrict certain I.P. are unnatural and statutory. The limitations placed on citizens are enacted in law and are specific. RIAA et.al. are running around calling everyone a thief for doing what comes easily and naturally as a progression of technology, when infact this is just not against the law. An activity should not automatically be defined as criminal just because a bunch of incumbent monopolists don't like the consequences and the judge is right to tell this lawyer to cut the invective.

  • I can't believe noone has posted this groklaw link (Score:4, Informative)

    by onceler ( 111704 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @02:47PM (#8193012)
    The story on Groklaw [groklaw.net]

    Includes the exact quote from the judge:

    "Let me say what I think your problem is. You can use these harsh terms, but you are dealing with something new, and the question is, does the statutory monopoly that Congress has given you reach out to that something new. And that's a very debatable question. You don't solve it by calling it 'theft.' You have to show why this court should extend a statutory monopoly to cover the new thing. That's your problem. Address that if you would. And curtail the use of abusive language."
    Good to see at least one judge "gets it".

  • I don't understand.. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by kertong ( 179136 )
    I don't get why P2P is under fire.

    P2P is a perfectly legal technology, its just a network protocol! When these courts and RIAA talk about P2P, they speak as if P2P itself is illegal. No.. its just the distribution of "illegal goods" that is illegal, not the P2P network itself.

    One gripe I have is that the courts and RIAA seem to completely disregard the Copyright Act of 1976. According to that act, redistribution of files were ok as long as it was under "Fair Use". The "Fair Use" guidelines evaaluated

  • "Illicit copying is theft" get its comeuppance. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Thursday February 05, 2004 @04:41PM (#8194629) Homepage

    Of course, those who pay attention to the FSF will not find this to be news. The FSF has discussed this misframing of the debate [gnu.org] for some time now:

    Copyright apologists often use words like ``stolen'' and ``theft'' to describe copyright infringement. At the same time, they ask us to treat the legal system as an authority on ethics: if copying is forbidden, it must be wrong.

    So it is pertinent to mention that the legal system--at least in the US--rejects the idea that copyright infringement is ``theft.'' Copyright apologists are making an appeal to authority...and misrepresenting what the authority says.

    The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.

    RMS has also been clear about this issue in his talks. He also takes on the misframing of the issue in the phrase "intellectual property", giving credit to GNU when discussing the variant of the GNU OS featuring the Linux kernal [gnu.org], saying "commercial" software to refer to non-free software, and distinguishing between the open source and free software movements [gnu.org].

    • I agree with what you are saying, and quoting, but question whether the majority of Americans would "get it."

      In some Psychology text I remember it described different levels of morality. The first level is when you are young and you really don't have much choice in the matter because your authorities are bigger than you. The second level is the appeal to authority. It is "because I say so." The third level is when you really have an understanding of right and wrong, and make these decisions for yourself.

      D
  • At a recent party we played Pirraties (I'm not sure how you would spell it. It is pronounced like Pillates.)

    Anyway, we watched Pirates of the Carabian (I know that isn't spelled correctly, and yet somehow I don't care right now.) and every time someone in the movie said "pirate" we would all shout "Pirate!" and take a drink.

    Maybe we could play the game with RIAA trials as well. Although, somehow I don't think the judge would care for it in the courtroom.

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