File-sharing case prompts push for copyright reform

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses a recent file-sharing case in which Joel Tenenbaum was convicted of illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs. His original verdict was an award of $67,500 in damages to the music companies... a tenth what the jury voted to award the music companies, and an amount still under appeal by both sides.

But for copyright-reform advocates, a lawsuit filed against Mr. Tenenbaum by the music industry has provided an instrument to sound alarms about a broader issue: how fear of enormous damages can chill innovation that involves even a minimal risk of copyright liability.

Those advocates, represented by lawyers from the law schools of Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley, are now pushing the court to set a legal precedent in the Tenenbaum case that they hope would help universities, artists, and others whose experiments may stretch the boundaries of copyright law.

Arguing for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, advocates hope to set precedents through Tenenbaum's case, so other users of digital media will have an idea what to expect from the legal process, and that "reasonable" penalties can be set for violations. The concern here seems to be related to the difficulty in securing rights and permissions of some digital media, and the fear of lawsuits that sometimes follow.

For instance, the brief points to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives at the University of California at San Diego. Scripps houses a collection of more than 100,000 photographs, many of them donations from people who took part in oceanographic voyages, but it displays only 4,000 of those images online because many of the photos lack official copyright documentation, the brief says.

More detail in the article.

[tubemonkey]

The moral of the story is to never share what you illegally download. Sharing is what upsets them and sharing is what will land you in court.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The moral of the story is to never share what you illegally download. Sharing is what upsets them and sharing is what will land you in court.

Survey says?

>BRAAATT!<

Oh, I'm sorry, the moral is that copyright needs to be reformed! But thanks for playing, here's a copy of the home game, bye-bye!

[mr ploppy]

I think the only way to avoid those sort of ridiculous punishments is to do away with civil damages cases completely. Make things like that a legal matter and hand out punishments that are approriate for the seriousness of the crime when there is enough evidence to prove guilt. Listening to music without authorisation getting a harsher punishment than mugging an old lady is just plain silly.

But I don't think it will stifle innovation. All the innovation of recent years has come from the pirate community initially, then been legitimised later.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Oh, I'm sorry, the moral is that copyright needs to be reformed! But thanks for playing, here's a copy of the home game, bye-bye!

Yeah, it does. The penalties are too high. Outside of that, what else? You have no right to use someone else's work without their permission. How does that stifle innovation?

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I think the only way to avoid those sort of ridiculous punishments is to do away with civil damages cases completely. Make things like that a legal matter and hand out punishments that are approriate for the seriousness of the crime when there is enough evidence to prove guilt. Listening to music without authorisation getting a harsher punishment than mugging an old lady is just plain silly.

But I don't think it will stifle innovation. All the innovation of recent years has come from the pirate community initially, then been legitimised later.

He basically got the only punishment allowed under civil law most of which are non violent crimes that get settled with fines. A violent mugging is a crimianal offense which could land said mugger in jail for over a year.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Yeah, it does. The penalties are too high. Outside of that, what else? You have no right to use someone else's work without their permission. How does that stifle innovation?

I agree on the latter point: Innovation does not have to depend on copywritten works; but obviously there are some areas where it does, at least to some extent (as in the example mentioned in the article), and raises the possibility of important work not being done properly, or at all, if a legal minefield of irregular and unpredictable copyright penalties scares people off.

As for the penalties, it's hard to argue their size. Penalties should be set according to the amount of "punishment" appropriate to the person and the crime... but it's a very subjective thing, since it's relatively impossible to assess actual damages done, or why a certain amount of "punishment" is not enough for one person and too much for another. The EFF and the advocates will have their hands full establishing standardized penalties and rules for setting them.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I agree on the latter point: Innovation does not have to depend on copywritten works; but obviously there are some areas where it does, at least to some extent (as in the example mentioned in the article), and raises the possibility of important work not being done properly, or at all, if a legal minefield of irregular and unpredictable copyright penalties scares people off.

The example being the photos from Scripps. If the photos aren't being used for financial gain, can't they display them under Fair Use? If a copyright holder appears, then the photo(s) can be removed. No harm. What about laws for orphaned works? do they exist? and what's the procedure?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The example being the photos from Scripps. If the photos aren't being used for financial gain, can't they display them under Fair Use? If a copyright holder appears, then the photo(s) can be removed. No harm. What about laws for orphaned works? do they exist? and what's the procedure?

All of those questions illustrate the need for copyright reform, to establish all of those answers to everyone's satisfaction.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Yeah, it does. The penalties are too high. Outside of that, what else? You have no right to use someone else's work without their permission. How does that stifle innovation?

Napster and Bittorrent were both innovative products in their time that were originally used for almost entirely unauthorised content distribution, and have been adapted to work in a commercial way (mostly for TV content).

More recently, Amazon's new Cloud Player service has been described as being like legalised murder, and there are already plans to squash it dead due to copyright concerns.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

He basically got the only punishment allowed under civil law most of which are non violent crimes that get settled with fines. A violent mugging is a crimianal offense which could land said mugger in jail for over a year.

Which is why it should be changed to a criminal case. Only then will the punishment be made appropriate for the crime. Until recently I would have also said they would then be eligible for Legal Aid, but that won't be the case any more.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Napster and Bittorrent were both innovative products in their time that were originally used for almost entirely unauthorised content distribution, and have been adapted to work in a commercial way (mostly for TV content).

More recently, Amazon's new Cloud Player service has been described as being like legalised murder, and there are already plans to squash it dead due to copyright concerns.

The ends don't justify the means, no matter how innovative they were. Anyway, lawsuits can do wonders to force one to legitimize.

Storing my files on someone else's computers accessible by only me violates copyright how? They're barking up the wrong tree.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The ends don't justify the means, no matter how innovative they were. Anyway, lawsuits can do wonders to force one to legitimize.

Nevertheless, without them the TV broadcasters would need to spend a lot more on getting their programmes to online viewers. You could also argue that without piracy they wouldn't have that entire revenue stream anyway.

And I doubt there would be any legal ebooks now if it wasn't for the efforts of early pirates creating a demand for them.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Storing my files on someone else's computers accessible by only me violates copyright how? They're barking up the wrong tree.

Their lawyers obviously think otherwise, because they are already taking steps to squash it. I know it would definitely be illegal in the UK, which will be why it is currently US only.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Storing my files on someone else's computers accessible by only me violates copyright how? They're barking up the wrong tree.

It's making a copy on someone else's computer. Copyright law doesn't address who has access to the copies; it just says you're not allowed to make copies without permission.

You did say, "You have no right to use someone else's work without their permission." By that logic, if they don't give you permission to copy it to Amazon's servers, then you don't have that right.

(In reality: you do have the legal right to use someone else's work without their permission, within certain limitations. That's what fair use is all about. Advocates for Amazon's cloud storage will insist that these copies -- whole copies of entire songs, books, and movies -- are within the scope of fair use.)

[ardeegee]

Copyright enforcement does drive innovation. Every time a medium of distribution is attacked, someone finds a way to make a new one that is even more difficult to find and stop, such as protocol obfuscation and trackerless torrents using distributed hash tables.

Sad, too, that the music compaines have to eat their $75,000,000,000,000 loss.