Innocent Infringer to Supreme Court
As we blogged about last month, Whitney Harper, a minor who has been pursued by the music industry for downloading songs, was allowed to and then denied from using an ”innocent infringement” defense, which would decrease the potential statutory minimum down from $750 to $200. The appeals court overturned the ruling, and said that Whitney should have known that downloading music was infringing because any CD has a copyright notice (even though she never saw the CDs of the music she downloaded).
Professor Nesson has been active in the case, having filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to consider the case, and we are excited to say that the Supreme Court has asked the RIAA to respond to the petition for cert. As Ben Sheffner of Campaign and Copyrights points out: “While the Court’s request is far from a guarantee that it will take the case, it only takes such action in a small percentage of cases, and it is an indication that the justices are at least intrigued by the issues presented and are seriously considering granting cert.”
::Fingers crossed::
I think WH should just go for fair use or whatever Joel is doing. Ignorance of the law is no excuse so change the evil law.
Any updates on Jammie Thomas? I think her trial is starting soon…
Screw the RIAA! Whoops another archetype there. Anyway, to “Thought for the day” Wikipedia says the trial starts on Oct 4…whoa. Feel like part of history. 1984 was the Betamax trial. Not my generation. Last year was Joel’s trial. It was my generation but I missed it. This time, I’ll be following ars technica or who(m)ever for updates
Also Joel, when you used the fair use defense before, what arguments in court did you bring? Did you include the Sony v. Universal Betamax decision? What were your arguments in court after they rejected your fair use defense? Did you use the arguments you posted in your previous posts?
sorry for much posts in a row. Joel just answer the questions if you have time and/or if you feel like it, of course. Ugh, is it true that people who are convicted or rape, pedophilia, (actual) robbery or even investment fraud get less than 675,000 in fines? Yeah I know it was reduced but come on…to even come up with that sum in the first place…
Last two, can you use the Jammie Thomas trial here? Like get your damages down because hers was reduced to 2,000 or something…and I’m not familiar with law and stuff…the court ruled that you gotta pay 67,500? When’s the deadline or what are you going to do?
The FBI Anti-Piracy Warning: say the FBI investigates piracy including infringement without monetary gain. The FBI and the RIAA calls this a crime of stealing. No where does it say certain people will be overlooked. While others were and are still being sued paying outrageous fines, some losing their personal property the FBI and the RIAA the PD and others ignored and continue to ignore the following conversation. This has also been reported to several other organizations and been ignored. If these types of conversations are going to be ignored they should give the people that have been sued their money back. A NC high ranking police officer was RECORDED discussing downloading music He named the name Kazaa and talked about how songs were arranged in groups and you choose songs and click and get them. He said it was the thing to do everybody was doing it. He bet his daughters had downloaded a thousand songs on his computer. He said he had to get a new computer HIS OLD ONE FILLED UP WITH MEMORY He laughed and said he hoped the federal government did not come in and investigate him.
Just kidding, I ain’t Joel. But you never who is whom on the net. But Joel might say something like:
To Mr. Morgan, good question. Two reasons really.
At least in the other reply he had that video link as proof it was him
Dan on February 22nd, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Asked of any RIAA witness:
1) May I, without attracting the wrath of your organization, hand the copy I have bought of my favorite CD to my friend sitting next to me at the defense table for him to enjoy for the weekend? (Yes.)
2) May I, without incurring multi-million dollar fines, make a backup copy of the CD I just bought, in case my friend loses the copy I’m about to give him? (Yes.)
3) May I, safe from subpoena and threats of litigation, hand that backup copy to another friend if my first friend loses the one I loaned him? (Yes.)
4) Must I not, then, take on good faith my first friend’s assertion that he lost the CD? (Perhaps/I suppose/What are you getting at?)
5) If my friend in fact did not lose the CD, am I acting in bad faith when I listen to my backup copy and/or loan it to a second friend? (No.)
5a) Is my second friend, playing that CD, acting in bad faith? (No.)
6) What is the fundamental difference between loaning the original CD and loaning the backup CD? (None, except that the first and the second must not be “active” simultaneously.)
7) Define “active”.
Regardless of the reply to question #7 there’s always a perfectly-legal corner case. Effectively, the shared MP3 is a backup copy of the song, the original copy on CD having been long since forgotten in someone’s dusty attic. A significant portion of the filesharing community owns a CD of the song. The only reasonable answer to question #7 is that no more than one person can play the CD at the same time. Can MediaSentry prove that more copies were being *played* simultaneously than the number of legitimate licenses owned by the filesharing community? If not, the P2P network is effectively a very fast, free-to-use version of NetFlix, distributing well-liked CD’s amongst friends for their listening enjoyment.
Slightly-alternate argument: There is no difference between loaning someone an MP3 and loaning someone a physical CD because there’s no such thing as “moving” a file in the computer world–only copy and delete. Thus, everyone’s taking it on good faith that the file they’re receiving is being deleted, or at least never again accessed, after being sent.
Last suggested argument: Can the prosecution prove, based on the preponderance of evidence, that the accused never held a license to the songs, the sharing of which he is being accused? Can the prosecution prove that the accused accessed the file for his personal use after having shared it with others; i.e., that’s he’s not just offering a convenient backup service?
Let me know what you think; IANAL.
THE TRUTH, PLAIN AND SIMPLE on September 13th, 2010 at 10:15 am
To the person who called Joel Tenenbaum an “infringer,” which my man JT isn’t, the RIAA, MPAA, CRIA, MAFIAA, etc always resist new technologies.
Here’s an analogy. When Betamax/VHS came out, the labels thought that since people would be recording movies, no one would watch them on TV. It would be the death of TV since everyone could borrow from their friends. Thankfully, Sony, who was sued by Universal, is fucking rich, so it won.
[Note: YES, they bought justice.]
But did it kill cinema? TV? radio? No! Those things have been brought down to us from generation to generation. What they feared was that they would lose money. But they’re not. Even though people wouldn’t watch TV for a certain movie, they would watch TV for more movies!
I.E. When Napster/Grokster came out, these companies feared. No one would buy CDs. The only way they could adapt was to post music online then rake in the ad revenue. So far, they have not done this.
But will this kill music? No! ThePirateBay and other torrent sites will actually become obsolete if the industry does this. By making movies and music free online, more people will be able to watch hence more people WILL watch, and they will not lose the money the fear they will.
Refer to Viacom’s last line in Hank Green’s YouTube vs. Viacom watch?v=usaOKXVErqc
“Workers of the world unite!”
Or in this case: Artists of the world unite!
Hey Joel, what’s your status with the RIAA now? I’m not very versed in legal stuff. The court ruled that you have to pay 67,500…and since you can’t pay, you’re going to file for bankruptcy? You WILL file or you are filing? or you’re going to make an appeal or what?
Check out the whole article here
riaa.com/reportpiracy.php
Have you ever thought of including videos to your blog site posts to have the visitors more interested? I mean I just read through the whole article and it had been quite great but because I am significantly more of a visual learner, I found that way to be a lot more useful. well, let me know what you think.
What is so inherent regarding intellectual property, copyright, etc that since the dawn of time makes the forces of production declare the means of production guilty until proven innocent while cases of murder, rape, robbery, fraud, etc follow the usual innocent until proven guilty?
Good point, there! And why is it that the RIAA gets to violate the fourth amendment and get away with it? (Screw the rules, I have money!)
“If piracy was really theft… there wouldn’t be any need for copyright laws.” - wizardprang
By the way, any update on the Thomas-Rasset case? I heard there was a new trial starting Oct 4…
Good article
JOEL, ANY UPDATES ON THE CASE? You don’t have to blog about the evils of the RIAA stuff just some one line updates would be good. When are you going to court next? What’s next for you? Etc
Good job Kinda Impatient. Looks like Joe posted your link on his twitter
Must we go through this again? File sharing is stealing, plain and simple. Pay for what get, simple. A little kid stealing from a candy store still merits liability because that little kid knows that the candy is meant for sale and wants to get for free what other people have to pay to get.
Good link =D
Mr Mendes,
File sharing is not stealing, you got that wrong !!
File sharing is illegal and shouldn’t be done… that’s true.
What is being requested here is to reduce the potential for abuse by the RIIA.
If you want to talk about morality, it’s much more immoral what the RIIA does by bullying all these people just because they can’t figure out how to satisfy the market demand. Let the music industry follow the same rules than any other market: innovate and adapt or become extinct !!
File sharing is not stealing and should not be illegal. FUCK THE RIAA
Joel, can you be a little more consistent in blog posts? For example, once a week, twice a month, etc
Thx 4 d links on d Jammie Thomas trials
My view is that all learning “disrupts.” Learning brings change. Change means “trouble” for those who have achieved positions of status under the unchanged system. Good teachers are troublemakers. Good journalists are troublemakers. Good thinkers are troublemakers. Socrates was a troll. The penalty for trolling in the old days was to be forced to drink hemlock.
thanks
Any Song Free Download…100% FREE
English Songs, Sinhala Songs,Hindi Songs, Audio Songs, Video Songs,
Rock, Hip-Hop, Audio, Pop, Rap, RNB,
Classic, Reggie, Techno, Vocal, Blues, Jazz, Remix