p2pnet - rss feed: Grokster case: the fallacies
p2pnet.net News :- As Grokster v MGM begins, if the entertainment industry has done nothing else, through a massively aggressive PR campaign it’s been able to convince many people around the world that file sharing is a wicked crime perpetrated by an evil, hard-core criminal class it’s dubbed ‘pirates’.
At a time when both the multi-billion-dollar movies studio and record label cartels are reporting record profits, they’ve nonetheless been able to forge Hollywood-style images of themselves as honest industries beleaguered by p2p file sharing with their profits and, hence, their workers, seriously injured.
They’re also promoting three fallacies:
- That file sharing is stealing. (It isn’t – and no money changes hands)
- That file sharing is a crime. (It isn’t, and never has been and the people being pilloried are ordinary men, women and children, not criminal master-minds)
- That thousands of people have been ‘convicted’ for ‘stealing’ music online. (No file sharer has ever been found guilty of anything in either a civil or criminal court because not one of the entertainment industry’s victims has the financial or legal resources to take it on before a judge)
In fact, as we’ve said elsewhere, the entertainment industry is run by venal, narrow-minded, chronically ignorant and technically challenged people who have no idea how to treat either the music fans or the performers who have made them so wealthy.
Instead, they’ve made a religion out of refusing to accept the fact they’re no longer in the physical 1970s, but in the digital 21st century.
Grokster v MGM opened on March 29. The US Supreme Court must decide if the companies which make and market commercial p2 file sharing applications should be held liable for what users do with the software.
In the process, they’ll also be deciding whether or not Hollywood and its associates should have direct and untramelled control of technical innovation in America, and indirectly, elsewhere.
The mainstream print and electronic media outlets have been largely responsible for carrying the messages of the Big Four record label and Big Seven movie studio cartels to the world. But with enormously powerful technological giants, afraid of what could happen if Hollywood gets its way, now strongly in the background, the press is less inclined than in the past to repeat the non-stop entertainment industry outpourings as if they come from credible sources.
Below is a selection of Google headlines as they were at 5:40 PST.
Blame users, not software: Newsday - A case pitting entertainment industry heavy-hitters against companies that make computer software used for sharing music and movies has saddled the Supreme …
Innovation pitted against piracy: Taipei Times, Taiwan - The powerful interests of the entertainment and high-tech industries clashed in the US Supreme Court on Tuesday in a case pitting the freedom to innovate …
Grokster File-Sharing Case Hits The Supreme Court: MTV.com - The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday from representatives of major film studios and the recording industry who are seeking to shut down peer-to-peer …
US court set to rule on copyright: Age (subscription), Australia - Facing the music . . . the court’s decision will touch those who carry digital music players …
Creative work makes for slippery private property online: Christian Science Monitor - As the Supreme Court weighs the legality of file-sharing on the Web, some are calling for a new kind of copyright …
Court mulls file-sharing future: BBC News, UK - Judges at the US Supreme Court have been hearing evidence for and against file-sharing networks. The court will decide whether producers …
Grokster in the dock for illegal downloads: Times Online, UK - The powerful interests of the entertainment and high-tech industries clashed at the US Supreme Court in …
Justices wary of barring tools for file-sharing: San Jose Mercury News - In the most important copyright case in two decades, the US Supreme Court appeared skeptical of …
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See:-
chronically ignorant -File sharing, p2p criminals, p2pnet. March 12, 2005
