Comments on: Jury nullification and Santangelo

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 18:51:45 +0000

This is who it benefits now:

|————————-Creators—————————-|Public|

This is a more realistic representation:
|Creators|—————–Owners/Cartels——————–|Public|

The bulk of ownership is in the hands of recod companies, music publishers, movie companies, software companies, etc, who have set up scams so the they wind up owning what the creators create.

Of course the actual values are totally unknown, as the lobbies have mede sure the proper analyses are never made, on ne hand, and on the other hand the creators and artists are in total disarray and blacklisted if the talk too much.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 01:04:34 +0000

I have to disagree with part of this premise. You have to be assuming in your chart that shows Creators squeezing out the Public that there is no public value derived from from the creation and sale of that song while under copywright. If I make a song and you buy it from me for .99 cents then it was worth it to you. You got pleasure from it and I got .99 cents. Both parties in that transaction come out ahead. That is why we as a society lead the world in creation and consumption of songs, movies, software, books, video games, etc.

Specifically copyright itself is not flawed, but some of extentions to it like the Sonny Bono extentions do make copyright to long. Remember not to throw the baby out with the bathwater! Thanks.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 04:16:22 +0000

…but it’s been bastardized for so long, by so many people that it doesn’t do what it was meant to: allow creative types enough time to recoup their costs and make some profit before turning their invention/creation over to the public good.

This is the balance that copyright was supposed to create:

|———— Creators———–|—————Public————-|

This is who it benefits now:

|————————-Creators—————————-|Public|

I still think copyright is a good idea, but I can’t for the life of me find anyone who’s still using the original version.

Kinda the same way as I like a lot of what the Republican party is supposed to stand for – nice ideals, but until Republicans start following them, I’m voting Democrats (or independent where I can).

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 14:46:12 +0000

Sorry pal, but you say nothing.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 14:42:40 +0000

Why? What is your idea?

Sorry pal, but you say nothing. No legal theory.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 14:37:42 +0000

but when the prosecution tell them why that law actually exists, it turns out to be a common-sense law.

Come on…

Why a actually law exists can never be detrmined. Most laws either do not not state a purpose or state a purpose and proceed immediately to work against the stated purpose. This is because legislator’s agenda is hidden and driven by special interest’s hidden purposes and is hidden lobby driven.

The American Copyright Act does not state a purpose, but actually operates against what most songwriters, for example, beleive is its purpose.

For the music publisher, the purpose is is different and for these the law works fine. Thet make all the money and songwriters and artists, with few execptions, make no money.

Copyright laws are not common sense laws. Copyright laws are better described as nonsense laws. To see the copyright law at work, visit my site!

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 07:05:20 +0000

Most jurors would think it’s a stupid law too and possibly nullify the case, but when the prosecution tell them why that law actually exists, it turns out to be a common-sense law.

The fact that the jury CAN nullify just means the prosecution can’t run a sloppy case and expect to win – they have to justify WHY they are prosecuting the guy for giving the moose a beer, which will hopefully mean everybody on the case is trying to do a good job.

That’s something worth hoping for in any legal matter.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:47:40 +0000

No I think that that argument is a stretch.

Check out some real free speech at http://crotchless-lingerie.com

Thanks
Joey M
http://aaalegs.com

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:05:53 +0000

“because the RIAA’s case is so ridiculous and damaging to society”

May I add….

and dangerous to art and artists (culture).

and dangerous for the legal system.

Both culture and the legal system cannot exist primarily as means to make money at any cost under any scheme of exploitation of the victims. Just like for patriotism, democracy. religion, health care and medicines, education, defense/security, if you get the message.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 06:51:36 +0000

“If her children run up big phone or credit debt in her account name she would also be held accountable for that.”

This is a misleading statement.

If the word “her children” were replaced by “anyone” it would still be an argument. Simply put, if anyone allows anyone to use the phone, the account holder will have to pay. If an intruder enter a house and makes a 100 dollar long distance phone call using the house phone, the phone account holder will have to pay the bill. The phone account holder is responsible account, not the intruder.

The credit card is another situation. If an intruder steals a credit card and uses it, the owner of the credit card account has mechanisms to avoid payments for purchases made by the intruder. The owner of a credit card has also defense mechanism to avoid payment of improperly billed money.

The words “her children” was simply use to mislead and to make the senseless statement “Mrs Patti Santangelo is going to get fried.” beleivable.

BTW, there were no Santangelo owned RIAA accounts abused by anyone, Such accounts do not exist.

Are you a RIAA mole?

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 05:51:33 +0000

Here a new argment for Santangelo:

The American Copyright Act was changed in 1976 to say as follow:

Sec. 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 120, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

Let us analyse the text “copies or phonorecords”.
Clearly phonorecords are not considered “copies” because the use of the word “phonorecords” in the law would then be redundant, if phonorecords (plastic disks or magnetic tapes) were also considered copies.

So, “copies” must refer to the a paper with the work printed on it.

Before the 1976 change in the law. the copyright law (1909 Act) in effect refered to only “copies” and did not mention “phonorecords” at all.

And phonorecords were not proptected by the law. Before 1976 a phonorecord with a public domain song had no copyright protection from the Copyright Act of 1909. This is a well established fact.

So, a possible interpretation of the current law is then that the copyright holder has exclusive rights to make copies and to make phonorecords (which mst now include CDs?) but has no exclusive rights for other type of copies.

The law then gives no exclusive rights for making other types of reproduction, such as a digital reproduction on a hard disk, which are certainly not paper printed copies nor phonorecords.

If my analysis is right, all RIAA lawsuits against downloaders may be doomed. Can some legal mind out there comment on this? Are there holes in the analysis?

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 01:03:45 +0000

Dear Alex H. and all,
I am not a lawyer but 5 minutes of research leads to the conclusion that your argument from start to end is based on a very faulty premise. Jury nullification only applies to criminal jury trials and this may well be a civil jury trial (if someone is a lawyer and knows this for sure, please correct me if wrong- thanks). If it is a civil trial then it is decided by 9 of the 12 votes. And since the jury vetting selection procedure allows a certain number of no questions asked no-selects then the civil jury would tend to be neutral to only very slightly biased on way or another (with no extreme views represented on either side). Therefore jury nullification would not be very likely at all.
Sincerely, An interested bystander.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 13:23:28 +0000

hey she looks like an older version of daphne fom frasier!!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 11:43:11 +0000

Wishfull thinking Alex H from Sydney. Mrs Patti Santangelo is going to get fried. She doesn’t have a leg to stand on. If her children run up big phone or credit debt in her account name she would also be held accountable for that. The Prosecuting lawyers are going to eat her in front of your eyes. Hey it might even be pod cast. No seriously the poor women is learning a very painful and expensive lesson. Here’s a suggestion since Kazaa caused it maybe they can kick in some of their Skype dollars to pay for some decent representation for Patti. It’s common knowledge that Mark Dyne and Kevin Bermeister of Brilliant Digital Entertainment organised Nikki Hemming to be the patsy for the Altnet/Kazaa Sharman con. The Skype duo were never removed from the picture, they were only hiding behind a small British born women called Nicola Anne Hemming who had an ego the size of the US deficit and subsequently really thought they included her for her acumen. How about you investigate and report that story Jon Newton and Alex H.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 09:18:37 +0000

for godssake it’s not just the two of them is it? Patti should have ONE technical expert on this case at the very least due to the technical nature of the case, and especially since so much is riding on this for her and the larger p2p community. i haven’t heard from any other tehnical experts for the defense in any of these cases. aren’t there any others out there doing work like me, or do you guys know something I don’t? did i pick the short straw? why haven’t the other legal teams around the country produced any technical experts to refute the RIAA’s unscientific and baseless accusations? i haven’t heard from any of them. it would seem logical to have a technical person, no?

Glass sounds like he just finished law school and passed the bar. he seems to have little/no experience and i’m worried. as much as I hate to agree with the guy who says he doesn’t have snowball’s chance in hell, this is what it looks like unless they can get some tech expert(s) on board to fight the RIAA’s deluge of garbage “evidence”.

The RIAA did something very stupid (again!), which Ray Beckerman will probably announce in the next day or two on his blog. Recall that Whitehead said in his second declaration that **ALL** the Does are indeed Limewire users, when his first declaration put in pages of Kazaa screenshots. He back peddled and I said he shot himself in the foot. Well, look for more laughs to come. It’s pathetic what Whitehead and his goons are calling an “investigation.”

/zi.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 01:36:48 +0000

Let’s hope Glass and other lawyers with RIAA victims as clients pay attention to this.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 21:14:39 +0000

“Or that Alaskan law that makes it illegal to feed alcoholic beverages to a moose?”

you mock this law but just think of the poor individual walking to their car in Alaska who is cornered by a drunk amourous moose looking for a little cuddle time…. there is a reason for the law.