Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.
Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry’s lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.
Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.
The industry’s lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are “unauthorized copies” of copyrighted recordings.
“I couldn’t believe it when I read that,” says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. “The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation.”
RIAA’s hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: “If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you’re stealing. You’re breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages.”
They’re not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota — the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury — Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That’s $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.
ad_iconWhether customers may copy their CDs onto their computers — an act at the very heart of the digital revolution — has a murky legal foundation, the RIAA argues. The industry’s own Web site says that making a personal copy of a CD that you bought legitimately may not be a legal right, but it “won’t usually raise concerns,” as long as you don’t give away the music or lend it to anyone.
Of course, that’s exactly what millions of people do every day. In a Los Angeles Times poll, 69 percent of teenagers surveyed said they thought it was legal to copy a CD they own and give it to a friend. The RIAA cites a study that found that more than half of current college students download music and movies illegally.
The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG’s chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that “when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Copying a song you bought is “a nice way of saying ‘steals just one copy,’ ” she said.
But lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.
As technologies evolve, old media companies tend not to be the source of the innovation that allows them to survive. Even so, new technologies don’t usually kill off old media: That’s the good news for the recording industry, as for the TV, movie, newspaper and magazine businesses. But for those old media to survive, they must adapt, finding new business models and new, compelling content to offer.
The RIAA’s legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only “created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies,” Beckerman says. “Every problem they’re trying to solve is worse now than when they started.”
The industry “will continue to bring lawsuits” against those who “ignore years of warnings,” RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said in a statement. “It’s not our first choice, but it’s a necessary part of the equation. There are consequences for breaking the law.” And, perhaps, for firing up your computer.
Archive
Archive for December, 2007Wal-Mart Abandons Online Movie Downloads Less Than a Year After Launch
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has closed an online movie download service it launched less than a year ago.
The retreat for Wal-Mart, which accounts for about 40 percent of all DVD sales, follows the company’s 2005 decision to abandoned efforts to build an online DVD rental service. The world’s largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc.
Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.
A message on Wal-Mart’s video download Web site said the store closed Dec. 21. The Web site said customers who already have bought movies could continue to watch them.
In a statement, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Collella said the company closed the store after Hewlett-Packard Co., which provided the software running the site, “made a business decision to discontinue its video download-only merchant store service.”
Wal-Mart did not say whether it would attempt to start the service again using a different company’s software.
Officials with HP did not immediately return a request for comment Friday morning. continue reading…
Red Mile Entertainment has announced that it signed an agreement to license the Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games, Inc. They are going to use it for the upcoming Sin City video game.
“We’re extremely excited to be working with Red Mile,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, Inc. “We have been Frank Miller / Sin City fans for a long time and are pleased that our technology will be a key factor, and we’re confident that they’re going to make a great game with it.â€
Evidence uncovered by retail store technicians (i.e. kiddie porn), is legally admissible as evidence in court because, “If a person is aware of, or freely grants to a third party, potential access to his computer contents, he has knowingly exposed the contents of his computer to the public and has lost any reasonable expectation of privacy in those contents…,” the Superior Court of Pennsylvania ruled December 5th. The case hinged on the question of whether kiddie porn a Circuit City tech found could be admitted as evidence, overturning a lower court’s decision. The Superior Court of PA also referred to codecs, computer video compression and decompression software, as “code X.”
Read more … Police Blotter: Can Circuit City techs legally peruse files?
Popular BitTorrent search engine TorrentSpy lost a copyright case brought against it in a US cought by the Motion Picture Association of America by default for destroying evidence, reports the BBC. The site’s operator’s apparently ignored an order to keep server logs of the IP addresses of people who facilitated the trading of files via the site.
“They have engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence and have provided false testimony under oath in a effort to hide evidence of such destruction,” wrote Judge Florence-Marie Cooper in her decision.
For their part, the defendants, site operators Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker and Valence Media, put forward multiple arguments for why they should not hand over server logs. Initially, they argued that because their servers were located in the Netherlands they were under the jurisdiction of Dutch law and were protected by a US court order to turn them over.
Later they told the judge that they could not comply with an order to turn over certain server logs because it was temporary information and was not able to be retained. The lawyer for the defendants said that they were reluctant to turn over records of IP addresses to protect the privacy of their users.
The BBC reports that TorrentSpy is expected to appeal. The MPAA was predictably pleased by the ruling, calling TorrentSpy a “one-stop shop for copyright infringement” in a statement.
Today Web developers everywhere breathed a sigh of relief when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team revealed their latest milestone: IE8 now renders the Acid2 face properly!
For those who aren’t familiar with this test, Acid2 is designed to determine how compliant a given web browser is with published HTML. A fully compliant browser displays a smiling yellow face. However, non-compliant browsers show varying degrees of garbage.
While we appreciate Microsoft’s effort to embrace open web standards (finally), there is something a bit suspicious about the wording of the announcement. Apparently, IE8 only passes the test when operating in something called “Standards Mode”.
We can only wonder what Microsoft is up to with such an odd distinction. Will IE8 run in Standards Mode or another mode by default in the future? Only time will tell.
It seems Blizzard has a new celebrity featured in their newest WoW commercial. Vern Troyer (of Mini-Me fame) plays WoW and shares a sneak peek in the video below at his character — which looks a LOT like him btw!
H/T: Gaming Angels
It’s 2006 all over again.
Sources tell me that Best Buy is sitting on a stockpile of Wii which they plan to unleash on the line-waiting masses in the coming weeks. I assume this will be done as some sort of weekend event advertised in their weekly circular. Now the real question is how many of the people willing to sit on cold asphalt overnight will be doing it for themselves and how many will be doing it to turn around and sell the console on eBay.
I’m not sure which I would prefer: Best Buy selling the system as they show up, or selling them in one big weekend blow-out.
Urges Microsoft to give consumers a genuine choice of standards-compliant Web browsers
Opera Software ASA, the only company that can put the Web on any device, filed a complaint with the European Commission yesterday which is aimed at giving consumers a genuine choice of Web browsers.
The complaint describes how Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by tying its browser, Internet Explorer, to the Windows operating system and by hindering interoperability by not following accepted Web standards. Opera has requested the Commission to take the necessary actions to compel Microsoft to give consumers a real choice and to support open Web standards in Internet Explorer.
“We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera. “In addition to promoting the free choice of individual consumers, we are a champion of open Web standards and cross-platform innovation. We cannot rest until we’ve brought fair and equitable options to consumers worldwide.”
Opera requests the Commission to implement two remedies to Microsoft’s abusive actions. First, it requests the Commission to obligate Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and/or carry alternative browsers pre-installed on the desktop. Second, it asks the European Commission to require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities. The complaint calls on Microsoft to adhere to its own public pronouncements to support these standards, instead of stifling them with its notorious “Embrace, Extend and Extinguish” strategy. Microsoft’s unilateral control over standards in some markets creates a de facto standard that is more costly to support, harder to maintain, and technologically inferior and that can even expose users to security risks. continue reading…