Judge Says Music Sharing Doesn’t Necessarily Equal Infringement (Updated) | Listening Post from Wired.com
The RIAA appeared stymied by this result and indicated it will press the issue. “This is a strange decision that is outside of the mainstream and inconsistent with countless court rulings on these issues,” said an RIAA statement. “We are currently considering all options going forward.”
No wonder they’re stymied. Yes, the ruling is outside of the mainstream to the RIAA, because they’ve never had to prove that anyone they’ve caught had the intent to share their music libraries. The RIAA’s position has always been; if there’s music in your KAZAA folder, whether put there by you intentionally or not, if the MediaSentry catches you, you’re. Guilty. Period. End of discussion. It’s the same lame argument the record companies use against the iPod; “The people that buy them use them to steal music.” DId you guys ever hear of a Post Hoc conclusion?
Technorati Tags: file sharing, legal, riaa
Pam, the real killer is that the RIAA now wants to penalize folks for ripping music they’ve purchased legitimately. Read this article by John C. Dvorak here. This is only going to get worse. They won’t allow time shifting (unattended recording for later viewing), place shifting (ripping your media so you can store the copies on a digital device) and they want to put a DRM (digital rights management) flag on digital radio broadcasts so you can’t record them.
The punishers of innovation? You bet…
Good point, Steve. The entertainment lobby has so much money behind it that it doesn’t assume that it has to make sense, just dollars. I’d be interested to know what level the judge was ruling from.
I think the RIAA’s record is skipping like old vinyl. Get in the 21st century people.