RIAA’s latest file share claim
p2p news / p2pnet: The members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel are spending endless streams of cash and instructing legions of lawyers in their efforts to gain total control of how, and by whom, digital files are distributed online.
At the tip of their carefully orchestrated US game-plan is their sue ‘em all campaign under which they’re using their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to try to sue former customers into buying product.
In their latest effort, they’re attempting to re-hoist an argument – that merely having a shared files folder that can be accessed is copyright infringement – already explicitly dismissed by judge Marilyn Hall Patel in her Napster decision.
In 2004, the Big Four, Warner Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Vivendi Universal, tried to get a Canadian court to force five Canadian ISPs to reveal the identity of 29 clients so the Big Four could sue them.
However, justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled, "No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorised the reproduction of sound recordings. They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer user(s) via a P2P service."
Now New York social worker Tenise Barker is under attack with the RIAA arguing that simply making a file available for distribution in and of itself constitutes a copyright infringement.
"Were the courts to accept this misguided view of copyright law, it could mean that anyone who has had a shared files folder, even for a moment, that contained copyrighted files in it, would be guilty of copyright infringement, even though the copies in the folder were legally obtained, and even though no illegal copies had ever been made of them," Ray Beckerman (pic), one of the attorneys representing Barker, told p2pnet.
Interestingly, Sony BMG of rootkit DRM spyware fame voluntarily dropped its case against Barker, although the other plaintiffs are still going ahead.
Recording Industry vs The People has a scan of the court document here.
Also See:
five Canadian ISPs – Keep on downloading! Cdn file sharers told, March 31, 2004
January 27th, 2006 at 5:38 am
Having a shared folder available on a P2P application is fundamentally no different than having a shared folder available via an HTTP, FTP, IRC DCC, etc. server. They are all the same thing, with different protocols for locating and accessing the data therein. Outlaw shared folders and you basically outlaw the Internet as we know it.
January 27th, 2006 at 5:45 am
If the RIAA does not stop their guerilla tactics, the courts can finally dismiss the case, reward the victims of these terrorists, finally make file sharing perfectly legal, and stop the RIAA and their affiliates. I say that their tactical procedures are definitely illegal (for one example is blackmail) because it is illegal to do the things they are doing even for us.
January 27th, 2006 at 9:04 am
What a riducous claim. I have a home network. I have shared files so that what is on one computer is accessable by another within my home net. With all the malware out there it is hard to prevent the info or even the data for all I know from being accessable to the net.
A strickly bogus and vapourous arguement.
January 27th, 2006 at 9:39 am
If one were to follow the RIAA’s reasoning regarding shared folders then if one were to leave a book or a CD laying out where someone could pick it up, copy it and return it, then merely leaving such copyrighted material unsecured in and of itself constitutes an act of copyright infringement. All of those “community bookshelves” (leave your old books/CDs/DVDs here for others to enjoy) in offices, dormitories, apartment/condo building lobbies, etc, are instances of copyright infringement then too.
It’s also interesting to note how the RIAA feels as though it can change the definition of words when it suits them. We now all know that something can be ’stolen’ that isn’t missing. Now ‘distribution’ has become a passive activity that can happen by merely having the incorrect permissions set on a directory. You can be fast asleep or 400 miles away from the computer, yet still be ‘distributing’.
Here’s a new word for the RIAA to ponder: ’specious.’
–TurboGeek
January 27th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
What a load of crap. If everyone followed Beckerman’s logic, there would be no libraries (someone could borrow a book and COPY IT! The horror!). People could be sued merely for lending a CD or a book to a friend, doctors could be sued for having copy written material in their waiting rooms. Etc. Etc.
January 27th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
hmm…I wonder. Lets say I buy a bunch of cds and rip them to my computer, not to a shared file but just to a regular file. But lets say that one of those cds was protected by the sony DRM rootkit virus. When I put the cd into my computer, the rootkit would automatically install itself, and we all know about the incredible security holes opened by the rootkit. Now lets say some hacker uses the rootkit as a back door to make a copy of the audio files on my computer for his/her use. Does that mean that Sony BMG, who created and distributed the rootkit, would be guilty of allowing copyright infringement? Could the copyright owners of the other audio files sue Sony BMG?
—0wnz
January 28th, 2006 at 1:50 am
“If one were to follow the RIAA’s reasoning regarding shared folders then if one were to leave a book or a CD laying out where someone could pick it up, copy it and return it, then merely leaving such copyrighted material unsecured in and of itself constitutes an act of copyright infringement.”
- it would also mean that if some steals a book, cd, movie etc. IF you are lucky enough to get it back, you would immediatly be guilty of copyright infringment, cause they might have copied it. Cuase if they git it it must have been insecure.
January 29th, 2006 at 12:23 am
Now you know what they’re really after
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:40 pm
read carefully! Ray Beckerman is the attorney for the DEFENSE! he is trying to protect people from the RIAA.
the RIAA is a bunch of morons. They will lose their pants off in court, because they are not very smart, as it has been shown time and again.
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I have AOL which has XM Radio who’s quality is that of a CD. Using my software I record hours of this music (CD quality) and place it in my shared folder after using an MP3 splitter to edit and tag each song with the appropriate artist. The shared folder allows my wife or daughter when they’re using their PC’s to play any song they desire on my local area network. Attorney’s with the right knowledge should be able to blow the RIAA away with that and force the RIAA to show evidence music was DL illegally. Sirus radio works the same way, just plug the output into your soundcard and record CD quality music uintil your heart’s content.
Chevy