Quote:
Originally Posted by zerospinboson
As stated before, and I thought fairly clearly, my issue with RS is that they're making money off the distribution of IP content that isn't theirs. And furthermore, that I am too obtuse to recognize the difference between "selling non-horribly-hamstrung access to files" and "selling files".
|
Direct vs indirect financial benefit makes a big difference regarding the equivalent to safe harbor laws. That's why ISPs can sell connectivity and respond to takedown notices, but why Amazon would theoretically be liable to copyright infringement for selling pirated eBooks. RS does not charge directly for IP content. They charge for the connectivity and bandwidth. What gets downloaded/uploaded with that service is the user's responsibility.
It's a classic example of DMCA safe harbor. Yes, RS definitely has a bad reputation, and there probably is a lot of infringing material, but you can't decide they're guilty because you don't like them. As far as I can tell, everything they're doing would qualify for safe harbor in the US. In order to go after them, you'd probably have to use something like contributory infringement, and argue that there are no significant non-infringing uses, which means that the relative comparison of infringing/non-infringing is relevant. An absolute number of one or the other isn't meaningful.
What's the difference in the services they provide between RS and YouTube? Why should YouTube be legal but RS not?
Quote:
|
making something available on a commercial scale and making a profit off that is not covered by "copyright infringement" laws, but by different ones, ones that carry criminal conviction possibilities.
|
What other laws are you talking about besides copyright? Yes, there is criminal vs civil copyright infringement, but it's still copyright law. Are there specific Swiss laws you're aware of that you're referring to? The only context I can speak from is comparing the situation to what would happen with a similar service in the US. Here, commercial profit off of unauthorized copyrighted material is definitely covered under copyright law.
The US DMCA safe harbor exceptions, which is basically what RS is relying on, specifically state direct financial benefit vs indirect.
The only other thing I can figure you're talking about is contributory infringement, which is where the "significant non-infringing use" comes into play.
Can you be more specific about what type of laws you believe they're violating?
Quote:
|
Sony vs. UStudios only applies to "home copying"; I doubt you could easily extrapolate that ruling to, to make an analogy with what RS does
|
It's already being used as the basis for filesharing cases, as well as for much of what is written in the DMCA.
Quote:
|
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a fair use "space shifting" argument raised as an analogy to the time-shifting argument that prevailed in Sony[/B].", which seems rather more relevant to the Rapidshare scenario.]
|
Fair use and space shifting are completely different from what RS does. They are claiming neither. From what I can tell, it looks to me like they are claiming the equivalent of safe harbor. I fail to see anything in your post that explains why they should not be able to, or even a clear definition of what laws you think they're violating. Something other than copyright, apparently?