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D.C. showdown looms over file swapping
October 7, 2004 -
Judges rule file-sharing software legal
August 19, 2004 -
Judge: File-swapping tools are legal
April 25, 2003
The decisions have been among the biggest setbacks for the entertainment industry in the past several years, as they have tried to quell the rampant exchange of copyrighted materials over peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and Morpheus.
In a joint petition to the Supreme Court, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said that letting the lower court rulings stand would badly undermine the value of copyrighted work.
"This is one of the most important copyright cases ever to reach this court," the groups said in papers filed with the court. "Resolution of the question presented here will largely determine the value, indeed the very significance, of copyright in the digital era."
The ongoing case has helped define the limits of what is legal for software companies, as the entertainment companies have tried to hold peer-to-peer developers responsible for the widespread copyright infringement of people using their products.
Record labels had made this claim successfully against Napster, which ultimately shut down under the pressure of court-ordered network filters. But a Los Angeles federal judge said Grokster and StreamCast Networks, which distribute software allowing people to trade files without any further intervention by the companies, should not share the same fate.
"Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends," federal Judge Stephen Wilson wrote in his 2003 decision. "Grokster and StreamCast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."
Wilson's ruling was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in August.
In their legal briefs, the entertainment industry attorneys said the lower courts' rulings conflict with rulings in the Seventh Circuit against Aimster, another file-swapping company. That court ruled that Aimster was liable for the actions of its users, and ordered the network to be shut down.
The file-swapping companies should have a responsibility to design their products to help counter massive illegal activity, the entertainment companies argued in their legal papers.
"These companies have expressly designed their businesses to avoid all legal liability, with the full knowledge that over 90 percent of the material traversing their applications belongs to someone else," MPAA Chief Executive Dan Glickman said in a statement. "Now is the time for the courts to review these businesses that depend upon violation of copyright."
Technology consumer groups said the lower court's ruling had been right and that the Supreme Court should not accept the case.
"There is no reason the Supreme Court should review the (lower court's) decision," Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said in a statement. "That case was based on the principles established in the 1984 Betamax case, which has led to the largest and most profitable period of technological innovation in this country's history. Consumers, industry and our country have all benefited as a result."
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First, the record companies start with their (joint?) research on the "optimum" retail price -- what enough people will pay such that the ones unwilling to pay that much don't matter. Then they set a wholesale price high enough to make sure retailers don't get more of a margin than they need to barely survive but without having to charge more than the optimum price determined by the record company.
Second, there is no competing rental channel. The record companies successfully lobbied Congress to prohibit rentals without their consent. DVDs that cost several times more to make than CDs may be sold cheaper for the simple reason that sales are competing with rentals. Rentals are real cheap because if not, people would just buy them. But by eliminating competition between sales and rentals. the record companies compete only with the pirates. (If CDs could be rented, the pirates might not have such an open field.)
remember the last time I bought a CD that had more than 2
songs on it that I'd listen to and $15 for 2 songs is
ridiculous! Improve the quality of music or live with the file
sharing.
Mixing fantasy and real life simply doesn't work, boys. Get it straight.
Give their legal beagles a few years longer and they will.
Honestly, I am not expecting the Supreme Court to rule differently than the lower courts. The lower courts had a good point about how other products like Xerox are not band from selling copy machines just because they can be used and are used illegally when it comes to copyright laws.
http://allwaysmusic.modblog.com/
If you are not trying to copy for profit there shouldn't be any restrictions. In fact, statistics have proven that file sharring has not slowed down the sale of music, rather it has promoted greater sales.
What about the cassette?
What about VHS?
It didn't affect those!
Thanks for the voice.
Boogs
You have the ultimate control, all you have to do is control yourself, their product is not a necessity, spend your rntertainment dollars somewhere else. When their revenue drys up, they'll get the message.