In Spain, a judge (juez Paz Aldecoa) has just decided that downloading, where exchange of money is not involved, is legal. In the case the government was asking for a two year jail sentence plus a hefty fine of about $8,000 for the downloader.

BTW, before this court decision how was the downloader to know what was legal and what was not? Just think about this question. Why should a person be penalized for doing something when no one knows if it is legal or not as RIAA and others pretend. No wonder these deserve to be demonized. Whatever hapenned to common decency in the USA?

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

Recently in the news was an article that M$ had capitulated and now will pay the cartels a $1 or so for every Zune sold. Just think of what moneys they are thinking they are losing out on from other manufacturers. Theres the other mp3 makers, there is the mp3 players for computers, the hard drive makers, the computer makers, and on and on. When looked at it that way it makes far more sense in their terms and means diddly once again to the consumer who is viewed as the cash cow.

If they can’t drive them to the market one way, then there is always the round about way. Given that it may be likely that they will come out of sue’em all with a black eye and a bad rap, this is a logical next step. Should the courts decide that the cartels are misusing the statutory penalties as they were intended (and it is very likely they are) it would then shut down the freebees they’ve been getting through extortion. This appears to be a backdoor extortion attempt to the makers of hardware that will once again raise the price of their goods to cover the needed addons on to the customer yet again.

Just as was done with the blank media that “could be used for copying” so to can the computer be considered as such in extremist views. I’ve no doubt that this is the set-up for that move.

*SECOND ATTEMPT AT VALIDATION

RIAA president Cary Sherman’s comment that the Supreme Court, in its MGM v. Grokster ruling, has ruled file sharing illegal, is illustrative of the extremist position of that group, especially given the fact that the Supreme Court merely overturned a dismissal in the defendants’ favor, and remanded the case back to district court.

Specifically, Grokster only says that a service provider may be liable for copyright infringement if the provider’s intent is to induce copyright infringement. The issue whether file sharing constitutes copyright infringement was never before the Supreme Court for review.

In fact, the question whether file sharing is copyright infringement is only being addressed in the sue-em-all suits against individual downloaders. In these suits, actual, specific file shares can be placed under analysis, rather than vague conclusions being drawn about file sharing as a whole.

The public is saying as loud as they can, the only way they can, that they do not agree with how the cartels are wanting to do that business. No one but the holders want DRM. No one but the holders want the prices so high for what amounts to vaporware in the form of 1’s and 0’s. Even more importantly, no one is buying it in the marketplace in substancial amounts; that’s why everyone but Apple is having problems with online music sales. Apples’ case is different. Their selling music to advertise their mainline, the iPod. They have developed the niche “coolness” market that keeps them afloat. Others trying to do the same thing are missing the boat. Those such as the Zune will never make it in the marketplace for the same reason the online sites aren’t making it. No one that buys wants the extras of DRM or rental plans that assure what you buy isn’t yours.

The RIAA is facing the same thing they dished out. They were the ones to demonize their marketplace and customers and somehow it doesn’t sit well with them? Well tough titty, the damage is already done and it started as one of their own making. I have no sympathy for them and their dying off as a business could not happen soon enough for me.