Bush admin: RIAA win shows copyright law is 'effective'
The Bush administration said on Friday that the recording industry's $222,000 courtroom victory shows that the legal system is working against peer-to-peer pirates.
"Cases such as this remind us strong enforcement is a significant part of the effort to eliminate piracy, and that we have an effective legal system in the U.S. that enables rights holders to protect their intellectual property," said Chris Israel, the U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement, to CNET News.com.
Chris Israel, U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement, in a file photograph
President Bush named Israel, formerly a senior Commerce Department official, to the key copyright post in July 2005. He has an MBA from George Washington University and, before joining the Bush administration, worked for Time Warner's public policy arm.
Israel's comments come a day after the Recording Industry Association of America won a landmark jury verdict in a Minnesota federal court against a woman accused of sharing copyrighted songs on the Kazaa file-trading network.
The Bush administration has adopted a generally expansive view of copyright law, including writing trade deals that include anti-circumvention restrictions. In 2005, the president signed into law the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, which slaps some file-sharers with additional penalties.
Israel also said: "Piracy impacts many of our most innovative industries, costs American jobs and is a huge threat to our economic competitiveness."
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
Effective Legal System? Really? 1 person gets their a_s handed to them, and millions others continue to download at will? Yeah, thats effective. Fair and Balanced 2.0?
the award. Bush ain't no Ron Paul.
over again.
Seriously, until we fix the campaign bribery issues and other forms of lobbying, and give true grassroots movements power, we're just gonna get sold to: The Phone Company, The Cable Company, the Music Company, the Movie Company, The Insurance Company, The Seed Company (monsato: The world's most dangerous company), The Software Company, and any Other Big Company after that, looking to collect their rent from us.
RIAA downloading lawsuit: I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Please join me.
RIAA downloading lawsuit as the straw that broke the camel's back: Let's teach the heartless, greedy bastards we're the customers and boycott Sony. I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Please join me.
http://www.p2p-weblog.com/50226711/oops_sorry_wrong_person_riaa_shotgun_lawsuits.php
One lawsuit success and Bush Admin gos crazy, notice though, on the above link, we saw nothing from the Bush Admin !. So I believe that when the law is wrong its right just to keep quiet, but if the law is right, its time to take the spotlight.
as effective as the war in Afghanistan
as effective as the loss of Habeas Corpus
as effective as Torture
as effective as fish and humans coexisting peacefully.
But Clinton had his mind on far more pressing matters like, oh, BJs in the Oval office while his wife was busy stealing the White House china and tablewear.
Besides, if Gore hadn't invented the internet there would be no P2P piracy. So I guess we can blame both of these messes on the Dems.
lol
And instead of blaming poor Mexicans for the troubles of ur country, why dont u go after the real culprits? ur bozo president who is spending billions in Iraq--hello how many jobs could investing that money in the US create? Or the companies that outsource American jobs to far away countries. Thats millions of jobs more than the few that illegal immigrants take. Man! Enlighten yourselves on the real issues before spouting off. And, by the way, if you take the historical view, every American is an illegal immigrant by descent--after all, the country was stolen from the native Indians.
It always boils down to one thing - $$$. If interests or big businesses are losing their own money then it is a crime. If it is not, most of them could really care less what is really considered a crime in America........
I am a musician and a nerd so I see both sides. They say it is theft. There is no physical object being taken, it is 0's and 1's. 0's and 1's are what everything digital is made of. When the RIAA gathers information on these people, they also are taking 0's and 1's. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
As a musician I am trying to find a way to make money in advertising. We just have to find a different way make money because digital is changing everything and we can't just sue our way through it.
Music file sharing is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, in which someone shares a music file, but the RIAA still possesses such file in electronic form, and can continue to sell it in CDs, electronic downloads, etc., and is not "deprived" of the music content. This is why music, movies and software are "licensed" to you, not "sold" outright. The only thing that is "sold" to the consumer is the media (disc) - the music, movie or software are licensed.
Having made that distinction, it is absolutely wrong to infringe copyrights, and violate the terms of the licenses for the music, movie or software. I have seen many excuses by infringers, namely that the music is too expensive, that no one would buy the music anyway, etc. etc. But all such excuses are irrelevant, the bottom line is, if one does not intend to abide by the terms of the license, one should not download, copy or share the the music.
For people who cannot afford the price of music, to listen to the music, they can check out the CD at the library, or listen to the radio, or play the album at the music store.
Although I am not in favor of those who infringe copyrights or their excuses, I think that the AA's (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) are making a big mistake by making their customers their enemy. At this point in time they are legally within their rights to sue anyone for copyright infringement, but I think suing your customers is a very poor business model, especially since it appears that the worst cases of piracy, infringement and music re-distribution are taking place outside the US and EU.
I guess that the reason they are going after their customers in the US and EU is that people in such countries are a much easier target than organized mass infringers in Russia, Eastern Europe, India, China, Africa, and the Middle East.
Finally, although typically under copyright law one would have to prove actual infringement (actual sharing) and economic damages, I believe there have been court decisions holding that just having the infringing music in a P2P file (making infringed music available for download) without proof of actual sharing does constitute infringement. So this is why in this lawsuit the mother was convicted.
You can go to your public library and REQUEST ANY CD YOU WANT and they will buy it and add it to their collection. Then the RIAA can't sue our kids.
If everyone TODAY would DONATE ALL THEIR CDs to their LOCAL LIBRARIES, the RIAA would be castrated overnight.
We now live in a country where large multi-national companies sue single mothers, children, and invalids.
The divide between the rich and the poor just got wider.
And yes we should boycott RIAA (do a search)
If they want to stop the peer to peer issue of file sharing, don't go after the users, go after Kazaa! Shut them down and then the user's can't use them. It's the same principle as the war on drugs. Go after the Columbian Cartel and the local streets dry up. If all you do is go after the small user, you'll never get ahead of the curve.
If the government really wants to end consumer copying of files etc, then they should outlaw all recordable media, VCR's, DVR's etc! Since the days of cassettes, people have been recording songs off of the radio. Peer to Peer networks are the same thing using today's technology. Maybe we should go back to paper and pencil's to slow down people's opportunities to copy files...let's be real!
If you try to do that, then I guess we are only one step away from a communist society where we have no freedoms at all.
Big Brother seems to be watching, but I'm afraid that it's watching the wrong channels!
I think you can see where I'm going with this.
It just shows the Republicans gear for the large cooperations but Bush is an extremist outrage unwilling to look at the little guy! Although I am still voting Republican for the President as I think the more recent candidates have more brains and will not go for the more extreme communism the Dems are preaching.
You know, I have never agreed with the folks at the Electronic Freedom Foundation, or other groups who seem dedicated to changing the long standing laws of copyright protection in this country. But I have noted one thing.
Their allies seem to include some of the brightest young minds in this country. From the law professors and students at Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Duke, and others ... to the lawyers at some of the most prestigious IP firms in the land ... to the engineers and scientists at some of our leading technology companies in this country ... the intellectual brainpower in this self-described "new wave" group has been impressive.
How this group could allow a strategic blunder like what we've just seen come out of Duluth is beyond me. Why these organizations didn't get involved, study the case thoroughly, and encourage Ms. Thomas, and her obviously inexperienced attorney, to surrender is truly phenomenal.
This is not the individual, the attorney, the forum, or the time I would want a precedent such as this established. What a strategic blunder!
Maybe these people are not nearly as smart as I gave them credit for. Apparently, they all sat back and naively thought (make that "wished") that Ms. Thomas would somehow end the RIAA onslaught forever.
Don't get me wrong. I applaud the decisions made by both the judge and jury in this precedent setting case. The anti-copyright crowd will suffer the consequences of this loss big time. Our economy will be strengthened. And these decisions will do more to help curtail widespread Internet Piracy than all the politicians, copyright industry executives, and lobbyists in this entire country put together.
I thought good lawyers advised their clients of the downside of their attempts to "change the law of the land" and could be sanctioned if they chose to pursue only "the big payday" or their personal "15 minutes of fame" instead. Read the copyright laws. Displaying and downloading copyright-protected works owned by others without their permission is illegal. It has both civil and criminal consequences. And, as in the case of Ms. Thomas in Duluth, they can be severe. She will have to pay back nearly $500,000 by having her pay check garnished for the rest of her life.
But she doesn't get any sympathy from me. If she had taken this many copyrighted songs out of Best Buy or Wal-Mart, she'd be in jail right now. And owe back a like amount of money as well. None of us - right or left - want to live in a lawless society. It's interesting to debate legal principles and consequences, but fearing to go outside for a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread is not something we have had any experience with in this country at all. Thank goodness!
And if you don't think organized white collar crime families are behind much of this Internet piracy epidemic, you'd better think again.
COUNTERPOINT:
Here is the one issue I have discussed with my 20-year-old son and I do have "conflicts" with. Google infringes more legitimate copyrights every single day than Ms. Thomas could do in a lifetime. Do we now have a country that has completely different standards for the billionaires than we do for the normal working folks? If so, I sure hope this is short-lived as well. I think I'd rather give up the coffee and the bread than have to worry about Google stealing from me every single day.
What's your opinion?
George P. Riddick, III
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.
griddick@imageline2.com
Also remember that no one knows what really happened in court, except the people that were there. Media reports are usually inaccurate, or they leave out many details - I have had personal experience with this. It could be that EFF made an offer of support to this mother, and she rejected it - it could be that her lawyer advised her to settle prior to litigation just like thousands of others, that he told her they had a very weak case, and she ignored his advice and chose instead to keep fighting, with a sad result. I also have had personal experience with clients ignoring my advice, to their detriment.
Or, it could be that none of the parties you name in your post even knew she had received a demand letter from the RIAA (I only found out about her existence after the decision was in, and I read it in the paper) so how could all the "smart lawyers" you name have helped her, if they did not know about the lawsuit until it was over?
Based on the jury instructions I read in the paper that were given by the judge, the jury had no choice but to find her guilty. However, I did not see all the jury instructions - the paper never printed them all. She could appeal the instructions, and I notice from an article in the paper that several copyright lawyers have volunteered to defend her in the appeal.
Please see my other post relating to this article, I also have no sympathy for copyright infringers, but I think the RIAA is making a huge mistake by suing their customers, and by not going after well organized pirates overseas that infringe millions of songs at a time.
I think this is rather a funny statement coming from someone who may find themselves defending their self in such a case one day. You sell digital imaging equipment and how long do you believe it will be before some corporation comes after you for selling "potentially infringing equipment". Then we may see how much you applaud the decisions of such a joke of a trial.
Perhaps when that happens you will better understand why the copyright laws need changing; changed to become balanced in regards to the public and the copyright holder. Do you realize that with the current copyright that neither you, nor I or any of our kids will ever see any of the copyrighted materials go into public domain while we are alive? 70 years + another 70 years is what it is set at, 140 years before the copyrights expire, that is if the law is not changed before that time to extend it.
It is claimed that we can legally make a back-up copy of any material we own, BUT... we cannot bypass any protection that it might have without breaking the law. How utterly ridiculous is that.
The laws of this country are not decided by the people any more, they are decided by which politician gets the most donations by the best lobbying group at the Whitehouse.
I guess the upside of what we can look forward to is that these millions of so called criminals will have the chance to be the decision makers one day. Those thousands of college kids that are being sued will one day be the CEO?s of these corporations, lawyers, senators, congressmen and perhaps even one may land in the president?s chair. What do you think they will remember when they look back on the harassment and humility that they faced at the hands of a corporation while in college? Do you think they will say ?hey that taught me a lesson? I believe so, and they will do so as they vote to change our draconian laws!
James
That tell tells you something, if GWB (worst in history) says its good...run away.
- Legal but not right
- by skynet10011 October 12, 2007 11:57 AM PDT
- Copyright law is not static and has been revised many times
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(36 Comments)according to the wishes and lobbying efforts of groups like the
RIAA. Unfortunatley most people now disagree with the law and
enforcement is required to put the sheep back into their pen.
Baah. haha.
Read the Wiki --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA
Remember that RIAA members have been convicted of price
fixing, anticompetitive behavior, cheating artists out of thier
copyrights, and paying bribes to radio stations.
Also remember the RIAA is owned and operated by the WUSI
gang (pronounce woosie)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RIAA_member_labels
* Warner Music Group
* Universal Music Group
* Sony BMG Music Entertainment
* EMI
Rather than 99cent songs, it would be far more productive to
stop buying the Sony PC where you store copies of your music,
or skip the trip to Universal theme parks, or cancel you AOL or
Roadrunner account with TImeWarner so you can't download
anymore.