Oops, I was asking samclem, not mhendo.
Looks like they’re suing individuals as much as or more than before.
RIAA sues new group of 784 swappers
http://news.com.com/RIAA+sues+new+group+of+784+swappers/2110-1027_3-5768713.html?part=rss&tag=5768713&subj=news
"The Recording Industry Association of America said Wednesday that it filed a new round of lawsuits against 784 alleged file-swappers.
The suits come just a few days after the group won a landmark Supreme Court victory, which will allow it to restart copyright infringement suits against peer-to-peer software companies, as well as individual computer users. "
Not that I’m aware of.
I just started the debate because I was surprised that no one had.
I was hot and tired. Long day. Had a beer. Maybe more than one. 
I agree that this was specific to Grokster and any who specifically market their product as a “theft” tool. Yeah, I know, copyright infringement isn’t “theft” under the law, but I’m speaking in street language here. Sorry if it isn’t as precise as it could be. I’m not into punishing innocent file-sharers who get caught up in this. I don’t think you will be. How will an innocent file-sharer be punished?
I was looking for input about the case, and I knew that someone would respond with intelligent observations, posts that would come from people who had read the entire decision word-for-word. That’s what I need the Dope for.
I’m sorry if I’m not up to “debating” this. I thought this was the best forum for my OP.
If a record artist receives only five cents per CD, then feel free to start a pit thread pitting the record companies. Why piss on my thread?
It’s pretty much a non-starter. To make a free speech argument, you’d basically have to argue that copyright, as a concept, is Constitutionally invalid, or that Congress does not have the authority to regulate it. Not only do you have hundreds of years of precedent to argue against, copyrights are an explicitly enumerated power of the legislative branch.
I should mention that the EFF, with Larry Lessig, unsuccessfully challenged a recent copyright extension act by arguing that continual extensions to copyright terms were unconstitutional because the Constitution specifies that copyrights be “for limited times.”
I haven’t been able to find much information about this case apart from a blurb on Lessig’s blog.
Legally, yes. Philosophically, no: one might argue that the principle of free speech is so important that speech should not be restricted by copyright concerns, and thus the Constitution should be amended.
As for the ruling in the OP, I was disappointed when I first heard about it, but after learning more, it makes sense, and I doubt it’ll have any real effect on file sharing. It only affects people who distribute and market software for the specific purpose of violating copyrights, and there are enough legal uses for P2P networks that those people who wish to violate copyrights will have no trouble adapting software made/marketed for other purposes to suit their needs - just as criminals have no trouble finding crowbars.
Sorry, sorry. I’d give a lot more detail, but I’m burnt out. My comments above really do get to the heart of the matter, though. Even on Groklaw , the analysis of the decision was pretty much, “Huh. Common law, yep. Well, Sony’s still okay, but Grokster’s in deep trouble. Clever decision.”
Well, to be fair, media companies have cried “Wolf!” so many times that I am not disposed to believe them without TONS of proof. Maybe not even then.
Because it’s relevant whether or not the media companies are the innocent parties being harmed that they always claim they are, or a bunch of rapacious greedheads trying to suppress new tech on behalf of all the “wonderful creative folk” they rip off as vigorously as they can.
Look, every time a new recording technology that has all sorts of wonderful benefits for the consumer comes out, the media companies try to suppress it, on grounds that permitting the technology to be used by consumers will destroy them. They never succeed, and instead of being destroyed, get a great new venue for their product once the new economic model takes hold. I’m just saying, they’re a proven bunch of liars and ripoff artists and we ought to be extremely suspicious about everything they say.
What they are, is a conservative bunch sitting on a pile of dollars and ready to fight anything that might challenge their comfortable position. I think that is the correct way of putting it, and I also think that if you asked them in court, they would not be able to deny this. So technology moves onward and if they wait until a demand fullfills itself before catching up rather than move along with technology, they will always go through the same motions.
On the other hand, copyright infringement, or, as I prefer to call it, theft, is definitely the case here. Games, movies, cds, they are acquired without paying the owners of the copyrights in question. I’m all for suing the individual customers, if you have to sue them. But at the same time, napster and co were providing a service and possibilities that didn’t exist before - I could listen to a track from home, I could search for songs not available in my local shops, my country, Europe, or even at all, for instance because they’d gone out of print. To this day, I have a number of songs by mainstream (hip-hop) artists such as Bustah Rhymes and Tracy Lee that I heard on a Swedish radio station 10 years ago that took direct cues from what was hot in New York at the time, and while I loved those songs I could never find an opportunity to buy them anywhere. Then napster came, and after about a year of searching, I found them and as it happens I currently have them on my PSP and still like to listen to them.
Every new service I have access to (and I might add we got such services very late, most were initially limited to the U.S.), I test for finding and downloading such songs.
Similarly, I have a surround sound setup at home, and have had one since 1992. If I go listen to a record in the record store, it not only requires me to leave my home, but I have to listen on (usually decent) headphones in mere stereo. That sounds lame, but if you’re only used to stereo, then imagine having to preview songs in mono before you buy them.
Finally, because prices for CDs had skyrocketed to ridiculous levels, in the year before I started downloading music, I had bought only 2 CDs. We had to pay 20 euros for a CD already 20 years ago, which is outrageous. There was definitely a monopoly situation going on with price arrangements.
Therefore, I support the music industry wanting to prevent theft. But I do consider it bad form to complain about a certain development without first providing at least remotely comparable services yourself, and I do believe they have abused their monopoly position in more than one way. Right now, with services like iTunes (which still does need to increase their sound-quality), things are definitely moving in the right direction and to a point where I support them suing individual file-sharers.
However, leave people alone who exchange rare live performances or songs that are not on offer through any other means, until you are prepared to offer that service yourself. You don’t have to force people to pay, you have to make them want to pay.
Sorry if I was misunderstood. I am not snarking because I have “heard these arguments a lot”. No, I was asking you for elaboration because, as others have already said, the argument has not been made, to my knowledge. Your statement, however, seemed to carry with it the implicate message that you thought the system was rife with such arguments. Thus, I was wondering what cases you had in mind.
No problem Scott. Ironically, I made the statement because of the opposite reason, I had never heard a free speech argument and could not think of a way it could apply.
sigh
::vibrotronica gives up and stares wistfully into the sky, or as he likes to call it, a hamburger::
Sorry, the term “Hamburger” is copyrighted by the McDonald’s corporation. You’ll have to steal another phrase, you damn thief, you. How about, “blue floaty thingie?”
I make a song. I register at one that belongs to me. This we call copyright. Then someone takes it without my permission. This we call copyright-infringement. We play this complicated game because what I own can be duplicated, so that something I possess is actually not taken from me, merely duplicated. But since the value of that property is abstract, an idea, a creative product, in terms of material loss it is still theft of material value. We recognised that it is important to protect this material value from (copy-)theft. Thus we invented copyrights. Because the song is mine, you do not have copyrights to it.
To now insist that breach of copyright in this context of downloading songs is not at all a kind of theft, is needlessly pedantic, similar to lawyerese squabblings about legal definitions of the term evidence.
While I do, as a linguist and thinker, recognise the importance of clearly defined terms, you have to be careful not to end up talking such a clearly defined language that nobody else understands you. For me, having been brought up in this language by virtue of mostly British literature up to the 1970s, AND working at a law-firm, that is a real danger I’m constantly trying to guard myself against. 
If I take a loaf of bread from the store, then I have a loaf of bread, and the store has one less loaf of bread to sell. This is called “theft.”
If I make a copy of your song without your permission, I have a copy of your song, but you still have a copy of your song, too. A copyright violation has occurred, but no theft has occurred, since you still have the right to copy your song and sell it.
Do you believe all copyright infringing file traders should be arrested and charged with larceny?
Truthfully, this is a better discussion… I linked the secondary discussion of the issue.
I’m sorry, did you read my post at all?? :smack:
Yes I did. Your justification for using inaccurate and inflamatory terms was, in your own words, “needlessly pedantic, similar to lawyerese.” Do you think people on this board can’t understand the term “copyright infringement”? What if one of your law firm’s clients was arrested for jaywalking and then when they got into court the charge against him was called “murder”? How would you respond? If it’s a form of theft, why aren’t these file traders arrested instead of being sued in civil court?
Copyright infringement is not theft. Stop calling it that.
I’m sorry for the hijack.
The term theft has a definite emotional meaning. However, I have to agree with vibrotronica here.