FSF Reaches Out to RIAA Victims 329
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In what has been termed the ''RIAA's worst nightmare', the Free Software Foundation has announced that it is coming to the aid of the victims of RIAA lawsuits, by establishing an Expert Witness Defense Fund to assist defendants in RIAA cases. The purpose of the fund is 'to help provide computer expert witnesses to combat RIAA's ongoing lawsuits, and to defend against the RIAA's attempt to redefine copyright law.' The funds will be used to pay fees and/or expenses of technical expert witnesses, forensic examiners, and other technical consultants assisting individuals named as defendants in non-commercial, peer-to-peer file sharing cases brought by the RIAA, EMI, SONY BMG, Vivendi Universal, and Warner Bros. Records, and their affiliated companies, such as Interscope, Arista, UMG, Fonovisa, Motown, Atlantic, Priority, and others."
Good to see (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bad idea (Score:3, Informative)
new. This is nothing that companies like Microsoft haven't already created
FUD about. This is pretty much business as normal.
Who "supports the FSF" anyways?
Companies buy support contracts from Novell or Redhat.
They may not even be aware of the whole "GNU/Linux" thing.
Donate (Score:5, Informative)
It's easy to complain (Score:5, Informative)
But hard to do anything about it. You have a complaint - do you have a solution? Who would you suggest if not Mr. Beckerman?
He's passionate about the topic, a lawyer, and has (IMHO) the correct views on the problem.
this money wont go to help the average Joe fighting the RIAA, it will go to whichever Ray thinks will hit the RIAA the hardest
That's called preventative medicine, and is further proof that his heart is in the right place on the issue. If all he wanted was to get paid, he could endlessly represent vanilla RIAA cases until retirement. He's actually trying to solve the problem.
Disclaimer: Not associated with Mr. Beckerman, just a fan. Go Ray!
Re:Not good. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Go FSF! (Score:5, Informative)
Any other questions?
Re:Bad idea (Score:3, Informative)
I thought the EFF was the software equivalent of the ACLU?
--Rob
Re:The problem isn't so much copyright law (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Go FSF! (Score:3, Informative)
Any other ridiculous assertions to make?
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Because they are promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs, that's why. They see the connection between the shoddy evidence gathering of the RIAA and the possibility that merely possessing certain software programs will be considered as evidence of infringement.
The FSF has a policy against using proprietary software; it's not as if they are defending the illegal downloading of copyrighted material. Rather, it seems they are concerned, and rightly so, that a judicial precedent may establish the mere possession of file sharing programs as a de facto evidence of guilt, regardless of whether or not any infringement actually occurred.
Think about that for a moment. The whole Web is just one large, distributed, filesharing program. Imagine the consequences if everything was outlawed because of what it could be used for, rather than outlawing the specific act it might be used for. Even though the RIAA cases deal with copyright, it is more of a war on technology than anything else, and it has far-reaching implications for even those who do not infringe copyright. The real problem that the RIAA is fighting is filesharing itself - it could completely supplant them as the arbiter of music; their very survival depends on keeping individuals from sharing music - copyrighted or not - amongst themselves. The RIAA knows very well that once musicians discover publishing via filesharing, their stranglehold on the industry is over.
So what does the RIAA want? That's right - to control your computer, and dictate which software you are allowed to run. That's the only way to protect their content monopoly, and you can bet their going to try any means possible to accomplish it, consumer rights notwithstanding.
Re:And what about? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not good. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not good. (Score:4, Informative)