Developers of the MP3 Have Officially Killed It

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

You may be thinking of the RIAA's project early this century where they decided to randomly select around 250 minor infringers to make examples of them; they had previously only concerned themselves with those who shared on a large scale.

It turned out that there were single mothers and children included (the parents of children were told that writing a cheque to the RIAA for several thousand dollars would avoid their being taken to court) and it was, of course, a public relations disaster. From the large music groups Warner Music strongly opposed the project, claiming it was silly to attack potential customers, and the longstanding head of RIAA at the time also opposed it and resigned in protest. Other music groups, particularly the main protagonist Universal, even lost artists, many of which also resented attacks of that type on their fans.

A lesson to be learned for those who have the peripheral vision of a snake in a pipe and can only see strict literal interpretations of the law in front of them; matters such as wider interpretation and actual implementation of legislation, and in business competitive strategies and marketing are hidden from them by the pipe's walls.

Very good point. the RIAA's court cases back then were the very definition of pyrrhic victory. They won the court case, but lost the battle. Weird Al even wrote a song mocking them. The breaking point was when the RIAA sued a grandmother whose computer(a Mac) was incompatible with the software she was accused of using.

The important thing isn't to look at the letter of the law, it's to look at the practical application of the law. The actual letter of the law for things such as copyright protection and anti-trust is actually in a practical sense, unenforceable. Fair use was originally a pure judicial invention with no basis in the written law. Congress eventually added fair use, but that was after the fact. Anti-trust law as is currently implemented has very little basis in the literal letter of the law. While the US not suppose to be a common law country, quite a bit of the law is common law (common law is law that is decided by judges rather than written by the legislature).

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

You may be thinking of the RIAA's project early this century where they decided to randomly select around 250 minor infringers to make examples of them; they had previously only concerned themselves with those who shared on a large scale.

It turned out that there were single mothers and children included (the parents of children were told that writing a cheque to the RIAA for several thousand dollars would avoid their being taken to court) and it was, of course, a public relations disaster. From the large music groups Warner Music strongly opposed the project, claiming it was silly to attack potential customers, and the longstanding head of RIAA at the time also opposed it and resigned in protest. Other music groups, particularly the main protagonist Universal, even lost artists, many of which also resented attacks of that type on their fans.

A lesson to be learned for those who have the peripheral vision of a snake in a pipe and can only see strict literal interpretations of the law in front of them; matters such as wider interpretation and actual implementation of legislation, and in business competitive strategies and marketing are hidden from them by the pipe's walls.

I had heard it was a rock group that took this woman and her son to court. She said in court that he had to steal the music because she couldn't afford to buy it for him.
Needless to say that one was found guilty but my guess would be "he wasn't just "stealing" for personal use. "

So we may be thinking of different cases.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I had heard it was a rock group that took this woman and her son to court. She said in court that he had to steal the music because she couldn't afford to buy it for him.
Needless to say that one was found guilty but my guess would be "he wasn't just "stealing" for personal use. "

So we may be thinking of different cases.

That was Metallica and they sued Napster directly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica_v._Napster,_Inc.

Funnily enough... well, watch for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPRx9Q4IFHI

[ottdmk]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Well... yes. Maybe. In the US anyway. Audio recordings are explicitly covered by the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992. There is no equivalent law for video recordings so we have to rely on interpretations of fair use doctrine for video.

And there's this: per FCC regulations, American citizens can legally receive and record any legally broadcast signal, and we can do pretty much whatever we want with those recordings for personal use. We cannot redistribute without permission from the copyright holders but otherwise it's fair game. But this only covers aerial broadcasts. Wire line transmissions like cable TV are not covered.

But! the DMCA screws us because digital music and video services encrypt their signals so while we're entitled to receive and record, we're prohibited from "unauthorized" decryption.

But! the DMCA also (allegedly) protects us. It's what makes Stingray devices illegal without court orders because cellular phone signals are encrypted.

TL;DR: don't treat anything discussed here as legal advice or anything vaguely comprehensive regarding the complexities of even one nation's copyright laws.

Yeah, things get messy. Glad I live in Canada; things are a (tiny bit) less messy here.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's not entirely true, is it? I'm sure you'll recall that a few years ago the company who makes "RealPlayer" were taken to court over a program that bypassed the DRM on DVDs, and were prohibited from selling it. The judge in the case ruled that the right to make a backup of media such as DVDs does not grant the right to remove DRM in order to do so.

If I recall that case correctly I thought the ruling was on the distribution of DRM removal tools, not the use of them?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

If I recall that case correctly I thought the ruling was on the distribution of DRM removal tools, not the use of them?

Yes, it was, which is precisely what I said .

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, it was, which is precisely what I said .

Not exactly

You said

Originally Posted by HarryT

The judge in the case ruled that the right to make a backup of media such as DVDs does not grant the right to remove DRM in order to do so.

Where the Judge didn't deny the right to remove DRM, they denied the right to distribute the DRM removal tools (Splitting hairs I know, but that counts in legalese). So RealPlayer can't distribute the removal tool but the end user isn't stopped from using it - same end effect, different ruling.

The difference means that there still hasn't been a clear ruling on if the US fair use clause trumps DRM removal or not.