File sharing court setback

[arcadetown]

Anyone catch this story yesterday about file sharing services court setback?

Court: File-sharing services can be liable for music theft

About freakin time in my opinion. Wonder what the ramifications will be. You can't tell me the guys that wrote these file sharing services, and making millions from it, didn't intend for it to be used for piracy. But proving it will be another issue. Plus wonder if this will go beyond file sharing services and be used to force all device manufacturers to embed "reasonable" copy protection. Sony dropped some crippling stuff into our Vaio laptop's CD burner for example.

[ggambett]

I don't know. P2P as a technology has legitimate uses. For example, Linux distributions which come as 700 MB CD images can be shared using BitTorrent for example and thus be a lot less resouce-hungry for the project website.

FTP can be used for warez as well. WWW can be used for warez. Should we hold Tim Berners-Lee liable for warez sites?

It's the users (uploaders and downloaders) who use the service for illegal purposess who should be held liable.

[Abscissa]

I have mixed feelings about it. It does make me concerned about winding up with an equivalent of the Induce act (as ggambett pointed out with the examples of ftp and www). But at the same time, it seems that they are actively trying to separate legitimate technologies from the few people who do intentionally stomp all over copyright law and wash their hands with "but it wasn't me!".

What I mean is: I'm all for file-sharing, P2P and enforcement of the Betamax decision, but I don't believe for a second that Kazaa (just as an example) didn't specifically want people trampling copyrights with their software. And I think what this court decision is doing is attempting to make a distinction between the two. My only concern is whether they can successfully pull it off without letting any "Induce Act"-ish precedent slip in.

[papillon]

If common sense were applied, there are definitely a few people/companies/whatever out there who created services purely for the intent of profiting from piracy. That's not very nice, and giving them a good smack is deserved.

Sadly, common sense rarely comes into play in the American legal system, and whether companies will settle for suing obvious assholes who are trying to make a quick buck instead of also trying to quash innovation and legitimately useful technologies.... well. Who knows.

It won't spell the end of filesharing or piracy. It *might* give some jerks a good kicking (let's hope). It'll also probably be used as grounds for throwing lawsuits around madly (alas).

[HairyTroll]

Some of the P2P companies were actively promoting the illegal usage of their software as a major selling point and this is what was deemed illegal by the ruling - download any mp3 you can think of for free, etc.

The ruling did not make the actual p2p protocol, or other uses of p2p networks illegal.

Think of this as if JVC had advertised the first VCR as a way to copy movies off of TV and give to all your friends. Thank goodness they pushed the VCR as a way to timeshift TV for the viewers personal usage.

Unfortunately you can bet the the MPAA will take this ruling as an OK to attempt to shut down all p2p networks, including those that are used for distributing ISOs and other large files.

[soniCron]

...whether companies will settle for suing obvious assholes who are trying to make a quick buck instead of also trying to quash innovation and legitimately useful technologies.... well. Who knows.

In America? Hahahaha...

[Abscissa]

You can't tell me the guys that wrote these file sharing services, and making millions from it, didn't intend for it to be used for piracy.

I think it's entirely possible (not necessarily the actual truth, but at least possible) that Napster didn't intend piracy. They claim they intended it for non-infringing uses, such as garage bands getting their name out, and I think it's conceivable that was the case and that they just got overrun with "bad apples". It could be argued that either "they should have known what would happen" or "but you can't find new groups on Napster if you don't already know their name and type it in", but we all know that businessmen and software designers are not immune from occasional stupidity (especially after the "dot-bomb" era). But that said, I certainly think it's also possible that Napster did intend piracy.

Bittorrent, I also believe may have had (and even probably) did have honest intentions. I think the nature of Bittorrent indicates it's far more a solution to "How can we increase file download speeds?" than "Let's make a new Napster". It's really just a semi-obvious extention of download managers that open multiple connections: "Instead of opening multiple connections to the original host like we normally do, let's take advantage of the fact the the file already exists on the HD's of everyone who's downloaded it and open multiple connections to them, instead of draining the original host's bandwidth." It can also be viewed as an extention to mirrors: "There aren't enough people willing to host mirrors, so let's force all the downloaders to automatically be a mirror." So I think Bittorrent is potentially innocent too.

But, aside from Napster and Bittorrent, I have very little doubt that every other Napster-successor did intend piracy. Why? Because they saw what happened with Napster and had to have known that their services would get overrun with piracy too. Being the first, Napster has the potential to claim "we didn't know it would happen" (whether they did know or not). But if you're not the first, there's no way you can even *think* about playing the "we didn't know" card.

[soniCron]

I think it's entirely possible (not necessarily the actual truth, but at least possible) that Napster didn't intend piracy.

I can assure you that the original intent was illegal all the way. I was one of the original beta testers (~v0.3) when there were < 400 users, and Shawn was illegally sharing music himself. In fact, I got brought on when a friend of mine who knew Shawn said, "A buddy of mine made this great program so we can all trade MP3s!" There was no mention of "garage bands" or "underground artists" at the time. It was 100% illegal. Napster wasn't "legit" until money became an issue and it was safer to claim that than claim piracy.

[GBGames]

Before Napster, it was perfectly fine for me to burn a CD and give it to a friend. The industry ENCOURAGED it. In fact, even when Napster became a big point of debate, the RIAA representatives would still insist that burning a CD to give to a friend was perfectly legitimate.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that Napster was just making use of a few new technologies that happened to allow otherwise legitimate sharing on an unprecedented scale that just wasn't possible before. It could very well be that piracy and illegality were the farthest things from the creator's mind. He was simply making it easier to share music.

But I am just guessing, and maybe he specifically new about how illegal it was to do what he was doing. I just know that the RIAA was saying that it was ok to share originally, but then decided that it wasn't ok when it was done on a larger scale. Somewhere it changed from "yes, please do give away music to your friends" to "you're committing piracy and stealing from hard working artists!"

[Savant]

Before Napster, it was perfectly fine for me to burn a CD and give it to a friend. The industry ENCOURAGED it. In fact, even when Napster became a big point of debate, the RIAA representatives would still insist that burning a CD to give to a friend was perfectly legitimate.

Are you sure about that? I would be very surprised to hear of any music industry executives encouraging people to copy and distribute the very thing they are trying to sell.

I remember the uproar over cassette copying when that was the norm way back in the day...

[soniCron]

Are you sure about that?

I think he may be confusing that with the whole "copy a CD for your own backup use" thing.

[Black Hydra]

Actually the people who made Kazaa sold it to another company after they saw how much piracy was going on.

Sometimes people have good intentions, even if they are dumb. Either that or they just wanted to be away from the blast when it went off.

[Abscissa]

Actually the people who made Kazaa sold it to another company after they saw how much piracy was going on.

Sometimes people have good intentions, even if they are dumb. Either that or they just wanted to be away from the blast when it went off.

Good points. Even still, the people who bought Kazaa had to have known what they were getting into anyway (piracy).

[dogbert]

Actually the people who made Kazaa sold it to another company after they saw how much piracy was going on.

The people who made Kazaa sold it as a means to escape legal action - they sold it to a company based outside the US. I don't think morals about piracy had anything to do with it.

[soniCron]

A very interesting turn of events about Bittorrent's creator, Bram Cohen, and his intentions with the Bittorent client and protocol can be found in this Wired News article. Apparently, on an old webpage of his, Bram claims he builds systems to "commit digital piracy". He argues his comment is taken out of context and represents parody, but after reading the page, I have a tough time agreeing with that.

[HairyTroll]

Bittorrent's creator, Bram Cohen, and his intentions with the Bittorent client and protocol...

A calm, in-depth discussion on this can be found on Slashdot.

No, wait - what am I saying?

[Abscissa]

A calm, in-depth discussion ... on Slashdot

Ah ha ha ha!!

[Didier]

Are you sure about that? I would be very surprised to hear of any music industry executives encouraging people to copy and distribute the very thing they are trying to sell.

I remember the uproar over cassette copying when that was the norm way back in the day...

You could also blaim the hardware companies.
Do you remember the time that these companies were advertising there CD-rom writers.
You can't say they did all that just to provide people with a back up utility.
They knew copying was popular and made use of it.

Same problem with DVD-rom burners these days

Didier

[GBGames]

I think he may be confusing that with the whole "copy a CD for your own backup use" thing.

I don't think I am confused about this claim. I can't find a transcript now, but I remember watching TechTV years ago and John C. Dvorak's show. They were talking about Napster and there was an RIAA representative who said that the RIAA always allowed making copies of CDs for a friend. Then the guy tried to claim that uploading MP3s to Napster was completely different and tried to call it theft by comparing it to stealing a CD from a store. Dvorak, before cutting to a commercial, pointed out that it isn't theft. I'll try to find documentation on this show.

[GBGames]

After getting impatient with my search results, I finally decided to email John C. Dvorak and ask if he knew. B-)

John,

This email may seem a weird request. I remember years ago watching
Silicon Spin on TechTV. You had a few guests on your show discussing
Napster. One of them was a representative from the RIAA. He tried to
equate file sharing with theft, and I remember you cutting him off and
saying that it is completely different from theft before going to a
commercial or ending the show.

Anyway, I also remember this representative claiming that making a CD for
a friend was perfectly fine in the RIAA's eyes. I am having trouble
finding documentation on the RIAA's stance on making copies of CDs for
friends. Do you happen to know what the actual statement was? In the
end, I'm just trying to find some documentation to prove that the RIAA was
claiming that CD copying was perfectly fine. I'll admit that it is just
to make the point in a forum post. B-)

Thank you,
Gianfranco

And the response:

I'm not sure they even admitted to this, to be honest. If I recall the guy
was saying that making a single copy for a friend was different than posting
a CD publicly for everyone to copy. That's about it. I believe he meant that
they were less concerned about the one-offs. NOT that they encouraged it.

So apparently I was wrong. But I was right about the "turning a blind eye" part to casual CD copying. I could have sworn that the RIAA was encouraging making copies of CDs for friends, though.