Supreme Court Refuses P2P 'Innocent Sharing' Case 351
yoyo81 writes "The Supreme Court has refused to hear an 'innocent infringement case' in which Whitney Harper shared some music on the family computer when she was a teenager and was subsequently hit with a lawsuit from the RIAA. An appeals court overturned an earlier ruling from a federal court that reduced damages to $200 instead of the statutory $750 claiming 'innocence' was no defense, especially since copyright notices appear on all phonorecords. She appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear her case, but Justice Alito stated, 'This provision was adopted in 1988, well before digital music files became available on the Internet' and further,
'I would grant review in this case because not many cases presenting this issue are likely to reach the Courts of Appeals.' For now, though, Harper's verdict remains in place: $750 for each of the 37 songs at issue, or $27,750."
Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
"This provision was adopted in 1988, well before digital music files became available on the Internet"
So in other words "We get to bend the law to suit our corporate overlord's desires."
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not as though supreme court justices need to be reelected every few years. Once they're in they're pretty much in for as long as they want to be. So, unless the record companies are remodeling their houses or sending personal 'gifts' for the holidays, I see it as less likely than usual that this a case of corruption. Now, the actual laws that the justices are interpreting... there you have a point.
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If you read Alito's comment (even the part listed above), you might notice that he was in favour of hearing the case.
Your comment rather suggests the opposite. Whi
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I doubt being "out of touch" is the reason they declined to hear the case. Supreme Court justices aren't just sitting in some dusty old room reading law books alone, they have an entire organization of clerks to do research and advise them. It's common for 25 year olds (the top of the classes from Harvard/Yale law) to have tremendous sway over the court and our nations' laws through their clerk duties. A justice here and there may say something dumb, but the Court as a whole is quite well informed.
This p
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It's common for 25 year olds (the top of the classes from Harvard/Yale law)
Precisely the problem. What percentage of Harvard and Yale students also come from wealthy or semi-wealthy backgrounds? Do they have a concept of how severe a punishment such as the aforementioned is for a lower/middle class person? Do the professors who teach these students at Harvard and Yale have anything in common with a lower/middle class?
Perhaps the last question is a bit of a stretch, but as far as justice is concerned : This woman should be able to make a case she is an "innocent infringer" simply b
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, we get it, you think all rich people are idiots with no empathy. Awesome. Can we move on now?
Not idiots, just out of touch in the "let them eat cake" style. And no, most rich people do not have empathy. It might affect their bottom line.
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It's not as though supreme court justices need to be reelected every few years. Once they're in they're pretty much in for as long as they want to be. So, unless the record companies are remodeling their houses or sending personal 'gifts' for the holidays, I see it as less likely than usual that this a case of corruption. Now, the actual laws that the justices are interpreting... there you have a point.
While it's no indication that they can be bought, fact is people are still greedy. And at $200k-$230K (roughly), there's plenty of buying room for corporate interests to exploit - assuming there are greedy enough people on the SC. Does it mean it happens? No. Does it mean it doesn't? No. Does it mean it's possible? Hell yeah.
People making far more have been bribed... I'd suspect the possibility of buying/bribing someone who's locked into a job for life is probably at least a little higher than bribing som
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The seeds of corruption of the Supreme Court are sowed early, and their appointments are utterly political. The conservative wing of the court were bought and paid for every time their careers advanced.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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He also acknowledges what you're saying - that she did not have access to the copyright notice.
I propose each and every song released from now on should have the copyright notice read allowed by the performer at the beginning of the song. That should make for some interesting radio indeed.
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Could be worst. It could be the entire lyrics [wikipedia.org].
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Yes, put that in and make it and unskippable on every CD. Then it'll be just like the DVD release.
Oh, they should also put in ads for other songs. I love that.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not correct. The Supreme Court has "grounds" to hear any case appealed on a question of law from a lower court (as well as those cases within its original jurisdiction.) The Supreme Court's apellate jurisdiction is, however, generally discretionary, so it may choose whether or not to here any case that someone wants it to hear on appeal. An inconsistency between the Courts of Appeals on a legal issue is one factor that is often cited, in the Court's decisions on whether or not to here an appeal, as weighing in factor of the Court exercising its discretionary jurisdiction, but it is not a prerequisite, and cases are not-infrequently heard where this condition does not apply.
No, he says they should hear this specific case now, citing one of the specific factors that is frequently cited as weighing in favor of the Supreme Court exercising its discretionary jurisdiction when there is not a division among the Courts of Appeals -- specifically, the fact that "not many cases presenting this issue are likely to reach the Courts of Appeals". His position was a dissent from the decision of the court to not hear the appeal.
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And the fact that SCOTUS has to shed load just to avoid drowning in paperwork is a testament to the abuse of the legal system.
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The reason why they're not hearing the case is because there is no dissent among the lower courts, so really they have no grounds to hear it.
Yes, I'm sure the Supreme Court would never reopen a previously decided case that wasn't even before them for no good reason just because they wanted to overturn a century's worth of precedent. That would be unimaginable. (cough, citizens united, cough)
The truth is the Supreme Court can hear any case it wants. They can bring in a case waiting for initial appeal if they want. They could probably stop an ongoing proceeding that wasn't an appeal and hold the initial trial in the supreme court, in which
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
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If i had the mod points, I'd throw them to you. +1
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It was a politically-charged joke. However, counter-point: Why are some laws still taken so seriously after 50-200 years and others simply re-evaluated because "(some new thing) happened"? New things happen all the time. We recognize that firearms are no longer needed for 1. Hunting because you can just get a steak at the store, 2. Protection from animal attacks because we have simply killed off or made irrelevant most predator species, and 3. Protection from criminals because we have a standing police forc
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Spoken like someone who's spent his entire
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She was a teenager and couldn't enter into a legal contract anyway. That would have been the crux of my defence if it was me.
IANAL but my L is.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes they can, and have if they find that the law is unconstitutional.
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Or if they find it in contradiction of other more established laws. It's a common misunderstanding that they can only deal with strictly constitutional issues because, normally, only constitutional issues make it all the way through the appeals.
Their general charter, if you will, is to ensure the development of orderly federal law.
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The Supreme Court can rule that, e.g., an Act of Congress purporting to be a law is not a law, because it is outside of Congress's Constitutional authority, or that a state law, because it conflicts with federal law (whether the Constitution, statute, treaty, etc.) cannot be enforced by the State. These actions are often described as "striking down existing law", but they are, actually, interpreting existing law.
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First, I think you mean "interpret".
Second, in refusing to hear the case here which raised a question of whether the lower court correctly applied the existing law to the facts of this case, the Supreme Court isn't interpreting any law (except, implicitly, the Constitutional provision granting it discretionary rather than mandatory appellate jurisdiction), it is choosing not to bother to here the arguments and interpr
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write/speak to your congress (wo)man.
The same ones bowing down to large corporations? It likely won't work.
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If you want the laws changed, write/speak to your congress (wo)man.
I laugh every time I see this. First off, if your congress (wo)man's political party opposes your view, you are immediately S.O.L. Secondly, if you want to effect change, a letter isn't going to do anything except prompt a bland response via form letter. Every time. Join or form a lobby and donate LOTS of money. Donate to the target party's/parties' campaign(s) as well; now that donation limits have been abolished, your ability to "help" your party has only improved, right?
Know their proper function please.
Just wow. It's their function t
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Your military cannot be used against its own population. Life isn't like GTA when you call in the army when the situation gets out of control. The military is to defend the state against actions of an outside state; it is there to protect sovereignty.
The army isn't going to attack US civilians. That's the FBI's job.
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"This provision was adopted in 1988, well before digital music files became available on the Internet"
So in other words "We get to bend the law to suit our corporate overlord's desires."
LoL, while I think your modding (so far) is warranted, I find it humorous that the first poster pretty much said the same thing but was modded troll. I think you're both probably right (as some other recent USSC cases have proven), and hopefully the AC will earn some better moderation for a probably accurate first post - heck, the attempt at an on topic first post alone should warrant a + mod of some sort (rarity that it is). ;-)
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The interesting thing was that the lone dissent was Alito, whose dissent make it sound like he was giving serious consideration to protecting innocent infringement.
That one really surprised me. There may be hope for him yet.
It's equally likely that he would like to see a Supreme Court decision concluding that "innocent infringement" doesn't exist and that all infringement is willful.
This is how I see it (Score:4, Insightful)
She knew exactly what she was doing. That would be like me shoplifting from a store that did not have a Shoplifters will be prosecuted sign" and claiming that I did not know I could not shoplift.
Look. I pirate and many others on
If you do something illegal and get caught, even if we think the penalty is horrible, the excuses some people use are ridiculous. If she was so naive to think that there was nothing illegal about downloading the music and not paying for it, then how in the hell did she figure out how to do it in the first place. I am trying to say that every single person that pirates knows it is illegal. Well, most people do. If you show grandma how to download Elvis songs, it is possible she could have no idea, but those cases are so far and few between, that I would put them in to 1% of all pirates in a study I made up myself to help out my argument.
If you are going to download music, there is always a chance of getting caught. This excuse is a horrible excuse as well
Re:This is how I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
True but the penalty is ridiculous. If you get caught stealing 3 cd's at a store and you aren't even an adult yet, they will most likely just take them from you and call your parents. At most you will get a small fine for stealing under $100 worth of goods, which is only a misdemeanor.
If this becomes the norm we might as well start actually stealing from stores, since the penalty is so much smaller.
Re:This is how I see it (Score:5, Interesting)
If this becomes the norm we might as well start actually stealing from stores, since the penalty is so much smaller.
If you steal a music CD from a store, and then make a bunch of copies and start distributing them, expect the same penalty. The girl is not charged with theft, she's charged with distribution of a copyrighted work. Her defense is that she didn't know she was distributing it, and the court says that doesn't matter. This line strikes me as odd though:
claiming "innocence" was no defense
I guess there's a reason they wrote it in quotes, but I was under the impression that innocence, by definition, is in fact always a defense. Apparently not.
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Her defense is that she didn't know she was distributing it, and the court says that doesn't matter. This line strikes me as odd though:
Easy enough to do if your a nub and you use something like DC++ (but mostly it comes down to being a Nub).
claiming "innocence" was no defense
I guess there's a reason they wrote it in quotes, but I was under the impression that innocence, by definition, is in fact always a defense. Apparently not.
Yeah - I lol'd at that too. However essentially what her defence came down to is "Ignorance" - which is not a defence here in Oz and probably isn't accepted as a defence in the US too.
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Yeah - I lol'd at that too. However essentially what her defence came down to is "Ignorance" - which is not a defence here in Oz and probably isn't accepted as a defence in the US too.
Ignorance of the law is not a defense.
Ignorance of facts can very much be a defense, depending on the situation. Like in this case, where it actually makes a difference whether you know that something is under copyright or whether you mistakenly believe that it isn't. This is a case where the law actually says that ignorance is a defense.
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The girl is not charged with theft, she's charged with distribution of a copyrighted work.
Which, for some reason, is far more costly. She might as well have just stole the extra copies instead of copying them (that's what I think he was saying).
Her defense is that she didn't know she was distributing it, and the court says that doesn't matter.
While I support piracy, ignorance is a pretty poor excuse.
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In this case the word "innocence" is not used to mean "not guilty" but to mean "young, naive, and ignorant"
A whole new can of worms... (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, if you wrote a worm that would root computers, and then set up a low bandwidth background torrent, it would really wreck the RIAA's ability to claim that people 'knew what they were doing', since it would set up a situation where anyone could be hosting files without consent or knowledge.
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Re:This is how I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
They did not equate the two things, they compared them.
And it's a relevant and revealing comparison: Actual theft would be more acceptable and have a lesser penalty than duplicating bits.
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Huh. Never thought of it that way. Come to think of it, why are all of those idiotic filmmakers, violinists, photographers, studio musicians, makeup artists, directors, choreographers, singers, recording engineers and all of their support people, assistants, representatives, insurance agents, and everyone else even complaining, anyway? All they do is re-arrange some bits, right?
I can tell you've never actually created anything.
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Is copyright a right in the same sense as freedom of speech or religion? In the US, Congress merely has the power to establish (or abolish) copyright laws. One could argue that even if it is a right, then it exists in a balance with the others. Why does your copyright trump my freedom of speech?
More to the point, copyright, in its current incarnation, is an abomination that is being used in wholly inappropriate and (I presume) unintended ways. Human lives are being destroyed for ... what? Profit? Not even that. There has been no significant legal redress in these cases: by most accounts the RIAA is losing money (or maybe making some, depending upon who you talk to) but no additional funds are being distributed to the creators of the music, nor are the rightsholders gaining any remuneration. Matter
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And theft, so far, has never been a super or subset of copyright infringement in any sense - affirmed, for example, by Dowling v. U.S [1985] and the Grokster case, unless you call Judge Noonan a liar.
The Judge only found it to not be a subset in a legal sense, and I'm not disputing that, so no.
In the non-legal practical and ethical sense of what is actually lost here, it is in fact a superset.
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When 90+% of the population is engaging in an activity, maybe it shouldn't be illegal, especially when very few of the perpetrators are being caught and tried. Think about targeted enforcement, anyone the RIAA doesn't like can have their life torn out from under them by sending a single letter and file some court papers, and if not them then their friends and family.
It's the same thing on the criminal side of the law. Let's pretend that I did something to piss off a member of Obama's staff. That guy call
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When 90+% of the population is engaging in an activity, maybe it shouldn't be illegal, especially when very few of the perpetrators are being caught and tried.
Even though your 90+% is a tad exaggerated, would you say the same thing if 90+% of the population were smoking pot or meth? How about committing vandalism or looting? How about writing hate mail or sending envelopes with an unknown white powder inside?
...
Something isn't right just because "everyone is doing it"
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But 90% of the population isn't smoking meth, or looting, or vandalizing. So your argument might support the idea that popular activities should be legalized.
And in fact, through history most of the things that 90% of the population do have been legal until t
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Even though your 90+% is a tad exaggerated... How about writing hate mail or sending envelopes with an unknown white powder inside? ...
Something isn't right just because "everyone is doing it"
Hey, I run a mail-order bakery and I was sending samples of baking powder to every household in America. Didn't you hear of the "Killer Ingredients at Drop-Dead prices" campaign?
In retrospect, it wasn't the best marketing campaign, and I'm up for parole soon, but excuse ME for thinking that we were ALLOWED to be ENTREPRENEURS in AMERICA.
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Pretty intellectually dishonest, if you ask me.
I disagree. I believe he was merely saying that the fact that most people support/hate something doesn't mean it should be legalized/illegalized. Which is true. Nothing should be legal/illegal based on that fact alone.
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The idea was the the majority would define what is right and what is wrong.
Somewhere across the line however it turned into a "the people who can pull up the most money", and we're stuck that.
I don't think it should be legal to copy songs which the owners don't want you to - but they shouldn't have a few hundred dollars each in punishment.
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One of your examples is not like the other (Score:2)
Last I checked, as soon as a person is 18 years old, they are free to model naked. Also, once a person is 18 years old, they are free to observe naked models.
You don't lose those rights when you turn 50.
-Rick
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Maybe you should. For all of us.
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Maybe 90+% of the population should not be engaging in an illegal activity.
Maybe they should just fix the broken system instead of trying to 'fix' the people.
It is really bad, but when we know we are doing something highly illegal, and then we get busted, we get all up in arms when the penalty comes through.
Probably because many people don't believe that 'loss' of potential future gain actually equates to harm, mostly because they never had that 'gain' in the first place, so there was no theft, and therefore no damages to repay. But I see what you're saying. Just because a lot of people do something, that doesn't make it right/wrong.
Re:This is how I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I guess I might as well as hop in the ring and get modded down as well. Time for one of those annoying point/counterpoint posts.
She knew exactly what she was doing. That would be like me shoplifting from a store that did not have a
Shoplifters will be prosecuted sign" and claiming that I did not know I could not shoplift.
No. It's not always like that. The article doesn't say when this took place. When I was 16, I didn't know downloading music was considered illegal. Like her - I naturally assumed that since you don't get the full content that comes with a CD, and that songs are played for free on the radio DAILY with no laws against recording the radio - that downloading music was not an issue at all. It was only once I started reading the news (as most teenagers don't actually read the news, go figure) that I found out the whole issue with Napster and Metallica causing a whole big stink. NOW I know there is an issue, and back then I didn't - which is what she's claiming.
Look. I pirate and many others on /. do as well. Everybody knows it is illegal and there is a chance of getting caught. I am just glad I am not the one getting caught, and I would be in trouble for much more than 37 songs.
Thats the thing - some of us disagree in it's illegality. Like mentioned with Radio before, they get to air it for free, and I can record any song on the radio, put the sound file on my MP3, and I am completely free of any Copyright issues. Mixed tapes were all the rage, why aren't there ridiculous lawsuits against every highschool romantic guy who ever made a mixed tape?
If you do something illegal and get caught, even if we think the penalty is horrible, the excuses some people use are ridiculous. If she was so naive to think that there was nothing illegal about downloading the music and not paying for it, then how in the hell did she figure out how to do it in the first place. I am trying to say that every single person that pirates knows it is illegal. Well, most people do. If you show grandma how to download Elvis songs, it is possible she could have no idea, but those cases are so far and few between, that I would put them in to 1% of all pirates in a study I made up myself to help out my argument.
This is EXACLTY the point she is trying to make: She was just a teenager. She wasn't some leet phreak hacker like you or I - she wasn't visitting Slashdot every day of the week and wasn't a proud supporter of open source technology. She was someone who probably went over to a friends house, they said "Hey, see this thing called Limewire? You can use it to download songs. Its great! Here', I'll set it up when I'm over at your house next".
She likely had NO idea of the consequences when this happened.
If you are going to download music, there is always a chance of getting caught. This excuse is a horrible excuse as well
Yes - but when you aren't aware it's illegal, thats where the contraversy arises. No - ignorance of the law is not an excuse - you can't say "But I didn't know!". What creates a problem is the double standards - when it is perfectly fine for someone to create a duplicate copy of a song in one way without any consequence but doing it in a certain way ends in multiple thousands of dollars in lawsuits.
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I had to look up some info on what exact precedents have been made in courts regarding this. So, here it is...
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/2007/01/20/recording-the-radio-is-legal-recording-satellite-radio-is-illegal/ [jwharrison.com]
Satellite radio is illegal to record, while standard radio is in the clear.
The main argument being standard radio is more lossy. Not a very good argument IMHO.
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"The main argument being standard radio is more lossy. Not a very good argument IMHO."
The only people making that argument are the ones who have never listened to satellite radio.
Even good satellite radio (an oxymoron) probably has as much loss as a 3rd generation cassette. It sounds basically like shortwave radio. Its *good enough* for listening to in the car, but that's about it.
Re:This is how I see it (Score:4, Insightful)
The claim that ignorance of the law is no excuse might have once held water, but these days it's unconscionable. There is not a single person anywhere in the U.S. that actually does know every law in their jurisdiction. There's not even a formal listing of laws in their current form, just a bunch of patches to patches to patches with the final resulting text recorded nowhere at all.
We all know that murder, robbery and such are illegal, and those of us who drive understand the major traffic laws reasonably well, but there's a bunch of stuff hardly any of us know. It's quite easy to imagine we might innocently break those laws.
Back in the days of Napster, I can easily see people believing file trading to be perfectly legal. After all, there was a corporation that existed solely to help us trade files, it MUST be legal!
Re:This is how I see it (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, recording from the radio and making mix tapes has always been illegal for the same reasons as today.
Actually, according to the RIAA, recording from the radio to an audio tape cassette (specifically a tape cassette, mind you) is acceptable. You may not loan the recording to a friend. Further, time-shifting has been shown to be fair use by the supremes in the Betamax decision, so you are legally permitted to record audio or video for your own use regardless of media, since January 17, 1984. Otherwise the VCR would have ceased to exist.
So no, recording from the radio and making mix tapes has always been legal and has explicitly been legal since 1984, or basically, as long as it has been an issue. Redistribution of that content is illegal, but you knew that.
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Allow me to be the first: Copyright violation and theft are two totally different acts. Copyright violation is not theft; the party that has supposedly been stolen from, at the end of the day, still has all of their physical property, and not only that, but this property is in the same exact condition as before the act. You can't even claim lost sales; if I torrent something, there is no guarantee I would pay for it, even if it were merely a penny.
I would never pay to watch a TV show that has been broadcast
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if I torrent something, there is no guarantee I would pay for it, even if it were merely a penny.
Not only that, but 'loss' of 'potential' future gain is not theft, because you never had that 'gain' in the first place! Also, if 'loss' of potential future gain somehow equated to harm, everyone would be guilty of harming everyone else, as merely choosing not to give someone your money would be considered 'harm' since they lost the potential for future gain because of you.
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She knew exactly what she was doing. That would be like me shoplifting from a store that did not have a Shoplifters will be prosecuted sign" and claiming that I did not know I could not shoplift.
Actually, for a lot of kids these days (probably including her), it's more like taking some seed grain from a local farmer's field, knowing that people take seed grain from his field regularly and have for as long as they've been alive/aware, then sowing the seed all over the place. Then the farmer is angry when no one buys his crop. The kids are perplexed when they find out that the farmer has a sign at his produce stand which says "No tresspassing, no stealing of seed grain" Sure, they can understand i
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That's one of those analogies where the actual situation is easier to understand than your analogy.
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These crazy defenses arise because the penalties are so absurd. You can't make a 16-year-old pay $27k in damages for downloading a CD. That's not sane. I think they should try the cruel-and-unusual punishment defense.
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She knew exactly what she was doing.
Prove it. Or, at the very least, allow her the chance to make her defense that she didn't know.
If you show grandma how to download Elvis songs, it is possible she could have no idea, but those cases are so far and few between, that I would put them in to 1% of all pirates in a study I made up myself to help out my argument.
Shouldn't that 1% get the chance to mount an appropriate defense?
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Why in the world would you bother? Do you think the potential penalties (no matter how absurd) are really worth it? Can't you just pay the damn $10 a shot? Or are you doing it on some sort of half-assed "principle"?
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This place really needs a "-1: Telling mods what to do".
Gentleman, start your shoplifting (Score:2, Interesting)
Just googling around, the penalty for shoplifting less than $50 worth of goods in California appears to be a mere "infraction" and $250 fine.
Please note, this post is not to be construed as legal advice (IANAL) nor incitement to commit any criminal act.
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Remember that shoplifters choose when and where to shoplift, so their chance of success is under their control.
I think that most American nerds have stopped getting their music from P2P sites
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Please note, this post is not to be construed as legal advice (IANAL) nor incitement to commit any criminal act.
..nor relevant to any aspects of the case.
Why not treble damages? (Score:2)
I understand that punitive damages are assigned to try to curb further abuse. Historically this has been limited to treble damages, though. Why $200 per infringement considered sane, let alone $750? Or does their argument rest on the "making available" principle?
IAObviouslyNAL
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Well lets see here (Score:2)
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I just looked up the cost of CDs on amazon and most were between 5 and 10 USD so the music industry is claiming that she cost them the sale of any where between 2275 to 5550 CDs by sharing those 27 songs for well it doesn't say how long, but seeing as how she was a minor at the time I don't see how a company can justify ruining someone life, at such an early age over 27 songs. Then again that is the problem with corporations, they have more rights than the individual with no moral or ethical qualms other than serving the bottom line.
I'm sorry, but $27,750 isn't life ruining, even to someone making only $12/hour. A big problem, and a long term debt perhaps. But if she gets a good job, she can pay off that debt in four years or less, easily.
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Unless she wants to go to college...
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You do realize courts don't generally allow you to pay in installments, right? So this is a lump sum of $28k, which is likely more than she could make in a year most likely. Oh and $12/hour is funny... Where I live a good job is $12/hour... My mom for instance makes $7.75/hour and even a decade ago as a store manager was making all of $8/hour and denied overtime. So that's basically more than my mom's yearly income a decade ago or even worse now since she's not full time.
This is damning to any one on a low
All we need now is (Score:5, Interesting)
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so, basically, you dont know shit (Score:3, Informative)
and instead, talking from the filth you are fed by american media
Refuse to Hear (Score:2)
This is why all along i have said that the Supreme Court is the most powerful part of our federal government. They can allow clearly unconstitutional laws to stand on a whim and never even get their hands dirty. And we as people have ZERO recourse, except violent revolution. ( peaceful revolution at the ballet box wont work since the judges are appointed for life )
This is one of the 2 the major flaws that our founders left us with. ( The other was support for amending the Constitution beyond the first 10 am
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I'm pretty sure the first 10 amendments sufficiently covered that topic already, but were conveniently ignored. So, for some reason, it had to be restated that slaves were, in fact, humans, and therefore had rights. Good amendment, but stupidity knows no bounds.
So what is a defense? (Score:2)
"innocence" was no defense
If even innocence isn't a defense, then what the hell chance does anyone have? I can just sue you for some random thing, and the fact that you're completely innocent doesn't help you!
See. this is why we need wikileaks (Score:2)
now, tell me what would happen, if wikileaks published transcripts or audio of a conversation in between riaa and judge/jury ?
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Don't download! (Score:2)
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what are his chances of getting caught? Zero... I sure as hell am not going to turn him in!
Um. . . that's what you just did. Subpoena Geeknet for your ISP, your ISP for you, and you for him. Easy trail to follow.
Just to be clear... (Score:2)
Alito's dissent [supremecourt.gov] (starting on page 26) is interesting, and gets into just how thorny a problem it is to prove an "innocent infringer" defense under 17 U.S.C. 504. [copyright.gov] (And again, an "innocent infringer" isn't off the hook--it just reduces the minimum statutory damages that may be awarded to the rights-holder.) Basically, the girl argued that she was too young, too technically unsophisticated--not a willful infringer for the purposes of awarding d
1988 (Score:2)
I guess Alito is yet another one of the people who thinks that "the Internet" is only the web (and things that came after the web). While it wasn't songs, I sure remember getting small audio clips from movies ("I'm trying to think but nothin' happens" - Curly from the Three Stooges) from BBSes well before that -- and I don't doubt some used the Internet as their transport medium. Pr
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If you don't like it, get out
Or don't pirate music. I fully agree that $750 is a ridiculous amount for punishment, but the punishment is much easier to avoid than leaving the country. Just. don't. pirate. music. And while you're at it, don't support companies that engage in this behavior. If they're going to be dicks and assholes then screw 'em, let them rot in bankruptcy (if only we could convince enough people for that to actually happen).
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The problem with this is that the media corporations hold our cultural heritage by the balls. Culture is something we as humans need, even if you personally don't like the last crap the teens like.
I for one thing it's damn well time we ignored them and found some other means of creating and dispersing culture, but they keep blocking our attempts at every turn. The biggest problem is that often as humans we create new culture from old. As it stands now we have nearly 120 years of culture locked away from our