Harvard Law Professor Sues RIAA > Bout time! SICK EM BOYS!

reply to Goober

Re: Bout time! SICK EM BOYS!

Copyright violation is a federal offense though. So federal court is the proper jurisdiction.

But, I agree that the statutes are being abused by the copyright holders.

i could see feds involvement if he was profiting from the copyrighted works, but not just SHARING. i dont see how its different from recoring it off the radio and making copys for friends, i did that alot when i was younger.

In your example, your copies weren't virtually perfect and you supplied only to a limited number of people.

In the cases being pursued by the RIAA, virtually perfect copies are being distributed to potentially millions of people.

I don't have to choose a side and neither does the RIAA. They can choose who they want to pursue based on whatever internal criteria they have. There's no obligation that they pursue everyone.

Can they prove that any transfer actually occurred to anyone but themselves? It just seems to me that they are making a lot of assumptions about what could have possibly happened...

cw

You make a good point.

It'll be during discovery where they'll try to get some detailed evidence. But, they have at least something that they feel was good enough to get them into court. I suppose the judge could toss the case it if he feels that the RIAA is bringing a frivolous lawsuit forward. But, I doubt that happens.

I will say, though, that I strongly doubt that this is the kind of fight the RIAA was looking for when it filed the original lawsuit. I would imagine the RIAA is scrambling to figure out how to bail out of this. Losing this lawsuit probably doesn't fit very well into the RIAA's business plan for the future.

reply to wentlanc
Nothing is ever black or white. Right and wrong are subjective and have varying degrees. Real world problems are tricky like that.