Topic: Supreme Court To Rule On File-Sharing Legality
- Jun 27, 2005 03:48pm by NRG - livin the art that is life !
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Thursday - June 23, 2005
by Carl Chery
[url]http://www.sohh.com/thewire/read.php?contentID=7237[/url]
The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to make a decision regarding the legality of file sharing later this week.
A decision in the case of MGM vs. Gokster is expected to be announced in the next few days. The case focuses on the problems of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing of songs and video clips on the Internet. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released a report suggesting that policymakers need to consider the benefits of file sharing. According to the OECD report, file sharing is on the verge of enjoying economic benefits.
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Microsoft is presently working on its own file-sharing application dubbed Avalanche. Recently previewed by UK researchers in Cambridge at Microsoft's open day, the project is the company's take on peer-to-peer file sharing technology.
"Online technologies could evolve in a manner in which unauthorized use of copyrighted works are transformed into legitimate businesses," said OECD economist Sacha Vincent and a co-author of the new report on the digital music industry.
According to the report, online music sales are poised for a massive boost during the next couple of years –prompting the computer and entertainment industries to rethink the business models.
"The rise of online music sales has implications for a wide range of players, including artists, consumers, the record industry, and new digital intermediaries," stated the OECD report.
The report also said that there is "positive potential" for the new technologies. It also advised that governments should develop new policies that takes into account the interests of suppliers, consumers, provides protection for intellectual property rights, and makes it easier to distribute music and other content online. The report also said a third of all Internet users in OECD countries (including France, the U.S., the U.K., Germany and others) have downloaded files from peer-to-peer networks. The total reached 10 million users in November of last year.
The report contends that it's difficult to prove that illegal file sharing is mainly responsible for the 20% decline in music industry revenues from 1999 to 2003. "But digital piracy may be an important impediment to the success of legitimate online content markets," the OECD report reads.
Last year reportedly marked a "turning point" when a series of legitimate online music services launched and totaled up to 230 by that end of the year.
"It is mainly the record labels that generate direct revenues for the sale of online music over third party services," said the OECD report. "Online music providers currently face low or zero margins, calling into question wholesale and retail pricing."
Online music sales presently hold 2% of all sales. It is expected to climb to 8% by 2008.However, the report says that the growth of online file purchasing may result in the loss of access to lesser known artists.
"The ramifications of this issue are, at the polar extremes, technologies like TiVo and iPod disappearing," said attorney Daniel Fisher. "If liability were there for the makers of technology that could be used for file sharing, no manufacturer would make an iPod."
- Jun 29, 2005 06:03am by NRG - livin the art that is life !
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http://alerts.sohh.com/article.php/7257
Tuesday - June 28, 2005
by Carl Chery
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that Internet file-sharing services will be held responsible if they allow their users to use software to download songs and movies illegally.
In the ruling, the Supreme Court also denied that the suit was likely to hurt the sales of popular gadgets like the next iPod. The unanimous ruling sends the case back to lower court, which previously ruled in favor of file-sharing services Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. on the basis that the companies couldn't be sued. The justices said there was sufficient evidence of unlawful intent for the case to go to court. The justices added that file-sharing services shouldn't get a pass on bad practices.
"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the court.
The case was trying to determine whether file-sharing services should be held responsible for downloads despite not having direct control over what online users do with the free software they are provided with. According to music industry filings, approximately 90% of songs and movies acquired through file-sharing networks are downloaded illegally.
The entertainment industry contends that it needs protection against the billions of dollars in revenues it loses on illegal downloading. Consumer groups were concerned that "expanded liability" would stop the technological progress of the last two decades that included video cassette recorders, MP3 players and Apple's iPod. Companies will now have to pay music artists and movie studios for up to billions in losses if they're found guilty of promoting illegal downloading.
Two lower courts previously ruled in favor of Grokster without holding a trial. They each based their rulings on the 1984 Supreme Court ruling that Sony Corp. could not be sued in relation to consumers who used its VCRs to make illegal copies of movies. The lower courts ruled that the file-sharing software can be used for "substantial" legal matters like giving away free songs, free software or government documents. The lower courts also said that the file-sharing services weren't legally liable because they don't have central servers directing users towards copyright material. In yesterday's ruling, Souter declared that the lower courts could find the file-sharing services responsible by looking at factors like the way companies marketed the product or whether they took steps to cut down copyright violation use.
"There is substantial evidence in MGM's favor on all elements of inducement," Souter wrote.
Dozens of entertainment industry companies, including musicians Don Henley, Sheryl Crow and the Dixie Chicks, and attorney generals in 40 states supported the attempts to sue the companies. Roughly 20 independent recording artists, including Chuck D, supported the file-sharing technology to provide wider distribution of their material.
With the ruling, the entertainment industry gains a new alternative instead of going directly after loads of file-sharers suspected of downloading songs and movies illegally. Considering that software programs created abroad don't face the U.S. copyright laws, the impact of the new ruling will have is still uncertain. According to analysts, the decision should increase the standing of file-sharing services that offer legal downloading for a fee. Industry observers believe that a ruling against Grokster could cause tougher policies from European regulators who were following the case for cues on how to handle copyright issues in their respective countries. To date, American record companies have sued thousands of individual users. At least 600 of the cases were later settled for approximately $3,000 each.
- Jun 30, 2005 04:12pm by NRG - livin the art that is life !
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By JON PARELES (ny times)
Published: June 29, 2005
ny times forum: http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/arts/popularmusic/index.html?page=recent
The Supreme Court's unanimous decision Tuesday in the Grokster case means trouble and potentially ruinous judgments against commercial file-sharing services, but it has also established a new standard for software innovation: [b:9261946563]don't ask, don't sell.[/b:9261946563]
[b:9261946563]That is, don't ask for or gather information on what users are doing with the software you write, and don't sell ads that profit from access to copyrighted material.[/b:9261946563]
The court found that the file-sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast could be sued for copyright infringement because they offered marketing and technical advice that clearly induced their customers to share files illegally, so the companies could attract larger numbers of users and thus more advertising.
But the court did not give the movie and recording businesses much ammunition to attack the Robin Hoods of the Internet: those software geeks and culture fans who really just want to share. They are online right now building Web sites that don't make a dime and spending hours writing and editing "mp3 blogs" - Web page collections of downloadable songs. They hook people up, basically because they can and because people want access to art.
File sharing software designers learned "don't ask" from the federal court judgment that shut down Napster in 2001. Napster's legal problem was that it could ask, and every request went through a central server, so Napster presumably knew what users were trading, thus abetting copyright infringement.
The geek response was decentralized programs like the software behind Grokster and Kazaa. But those are ugly programs because they don't just connect people with files to share; they also install spyware and adware to sell advertising and profit off the traffic in (primarily) copyrighted files.
Enter the geeks again, who came up with ways to stop ads from displaying or engineered stripped-down ad-free versions of the software like Kazaa Lite. In a charming move, Kazaa tried to stop distribution of Kazaa Lite, claiming it was a copyright violation.
Then the geeks came up with programs that established independent, ad-free networks or, like Bittorrent, facilitated multiple individual connections. The court's decision may torpedo the parasitical, ad-pumping services like Grokster, Kazaa and Morpheus, but no one's going to miss them much. There are plenty of geek alternatives that were devised not as business startups, but for the programmers' satisfaction and the users' sense of connection.
It's a completely alien mentality for profit-focused companies that still dream of being paid every time someone hears a song. Reality has never exactly worked that way, from radio to the Internet. In the United States, songwriters are paid for radio air play, but performers and recording companies are not, on the theory that having a song broadcast sells recordings and concert tickets.
That uncompensated use built a huge recording business. And while most radio is supported by advertising - like Grokster - it feels free to listeners.
So does the Internet, where people share everything from chocolate-chip cookie recipes to the details of last night's date. Motives for sharing music and movies are more complex than a grab for free goods. There's no doubt that getting entertainment free is a huge lure, but so is the access the Internet offers potentially to everything ever recorded or filmed.
Someone has it, and with the right hookup, so can you.
A few thousand CD's and DVD's at the mall no longer seem comprehensive. Even huge catalogs of paid downloadable music like the iTunes Music Store have notable gaps - the Beatles, for instance - and arrive with digital rights management encumbrances that can be confusing or worse.
Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, recently suggested a complete revamp of the overlapping licenses that have made it so complicated to get rights to put music online legitimately. That could take some time. In the meantime, a little digging can find even the most obscure material free and easy to use.
File-sharing software allows people to download without sharing - the logical thing to do if all that matters is getting material free. Yet millions of people open up shared folders anyway (which also opens the sharers up to lawsuits from the Recording Industry Association of America).
Why? To flaunt a collection. To spread the word on music they care about. To give back something for what they get. To feel cool. And while there is no doubt that some people are downloading copies of the latest Mariah Carey album, there are also people who grabbed a track of something they'd never hear on the radio, thus turning them into fans.
Copyright holders seem determined to shut down the buzz that builds stars. They want file-sharing technology to go away, refusing to recognize that the Internet itself could be defined as a file-sharing network. The Recording Industry of America has helped raid stores selling the mix tapes that build reputations in hip-hop, made from material supplied by the acts themselves. It sends cease-and-desist letters to fan blogs posting too many songs or lyrics and proselytizing for the music they love. Yet meanwhile, its member companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote a song into a radio hit or to make a video clip destined for MTV, where people can listen and watch free.
Six years after Napster arrived, it should be clear that geeks and fans are simply going to bypass a legal framework that was built for sales of sheet music and discs. As they did with radio and television, copyright holders should make those volunteers their allies in marketing because, try as they may, they're never going to find the Off switch.
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- May 18, 2009 03:21pm by sijia01
It's a real bummer that the Supreme Court ruled like that on the legality of file-sharing. Of course I believe that it ought to be illegal to pirate CDs and music that is other people's work and that people actually worked a long time to accomplish, but I also think that among friends, file sharing and music sharing is inevitable. You can't really put a complete halt to that I don't think. I think the best way to still maintain these music ties but also stay well within the realm of legality is to use [url=http://stonebranch.com]file transfer[/url] which will help us keep our rights to the music while not infringing on musicians' or actor's rights to their work. Personally I think this is the best solution.
peace
