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RIAA Sues Usenet.com
from the no-joke dept
TorrentFreak points us to the news that the RIAA's latest lawsuit target is Usenet.com, a company that provides private access to Usenet (as you might expect). The RIAA's argument here is that Usenet.com falls on the wrong side of the Supreme Court's Grokster rules, which basically said that "inducing" infringement is copyright infringement itself. Whether or not Usenet.com actually induces infringement is an open question -- which is what we assume the courts will be deciding. However, if it does get anywhere, it certainly could make for an interesting test case. Part of what clouded the original Grokster ruling was that, while there clearly were non-infringing uses of Grokster, they were harder to show. When it comes to Usenet, it's quite easy to show that there is a ton of non-infringing uses for Usenet (and have been since its inception decades ago). To completely shut down a Usenet service provider for offering access to all of that may be a tougher sell.
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But will it be as easy to show the same for the alt.binaries.* hierarchy? I have a feeling this will come down to some aspect of the partitioning of usenet groups.
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Re: Binaries
> for the alt.binaries.* hierarchy?
Sure. There are dozens of binary newsgroup with non-infringing graphic and video files-- people uploading everything from their own porn to their own photography and art.
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Re: Re: Binaries
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Tough Sell
"Shh... Quiet! We believe it’s no one’s business but your own what you do on the Internet or in Usenet. We don't track user activity."
that appear on the usenet.com website will make it harder to prove that they're 100% innocent.
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Re: Tough Sell
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Sue Everybody!
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Re: Sue Everybody!
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Re:
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Due to greed of some of these musicians is why we have the RIAA.
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For every dollar an artist makes from a major label release, the label makes many, many more.
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"Due to greed of some of these musicians"
with....
"the Greed of the record companies"
It was the recording industry that created the RIAA not the artists. The artists basically sign away the rights to their music.....
215 note/entry) Musicians/bands retain the rights to their own music (check if this is actually on the list)
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"Infringing Newsgroups"
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In other news: MAFIAA gets ready to sue Internet.com because everybody knows it carries "infringing bytes".
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payback
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Re: payback
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the whole point of "inducing infringement" / "non-infringing uses" is that you dont have to prove that you are 100% innocent, just that you arent 100% guilty!!!
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Other precedents
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RIAA going to far
On December 21, 2006, the RIAA filed a lawsuit for Russian owned and operated website AllOfMP3.com in the amount of $1.65 trillion. This number was derived from multiplying 11 million songs with statutory damages of $150,000 per song. The RIAA could not obtain jurisdiction over this Russian website.
A critical case, which may determine the fate of the RIAA's litigation campaign, is Elektra v. Barker.[46] In that case, Tenise Barker, a 29-year-old nursing student in the Bronx, moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint for lack of specificity, and on the ground that merely "making available" does not constitute a copyright infringement.[47] In opposing Ms. Barker's motion, the RIAA argued that "making available" is indeed a copyright infringement. Upon learning of the RIAA's argument, which sought to expand copyright law, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the U.S. Internet Industry Association, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted amicus curiae briefs supporting Ms. Barker's motion and rebutting the RIAA's argument. The Motion Picture Association of America, in turn, submitted a brief supporting the RIAA. The U.S. Department of Justice submitted a "Statement of Interest" refuting one argument made by the EFF, but taking no position on the "making available" issue; the DOJ stated that it has never prosecuted anyone for "making available". [48] The case was argued before Judge Kenneth M. Karas in Manhattan federal court on January 26, 2007, who indicated that he will decide the "making available" issue. As of September 2, 2007, the parties are awaiting the Court's decision. Meanwhile, the same issue has been briefed in a more recent case, Warner v. Cassin[49], also in the Southern District of New York, but in the Westchester Division.
In November, 2006, a Judge in a Brooklyn Federal court upheld the legal theory behind a defense claiming that the RIAA's damages theory — which calls for aggregating statutory damages of $750 per song in its lawsuits — is unconstitutional, since the record companies' actual damages are less than $0.70 per song.[50][51]
In press reports, the RIAA assumes that every unauthorized copy of a song represents a lost sale. [52][53][54] The logic behind this is highly criticized considering there is no guarantee an individual downloading the song would have purchased it were it not readily available via copyright infringing means. In fact a large number of studies conducted since the RIAA began its campaign against peer-to-peer file-sharing have concluded that losses incurred per download range from negligible to very small.[55][56][57]
In Texas, July 2007, Rhonda Crain (Sony v. Crain[58]) sought leave to add a counterclaim against the RIAA[59] for knowingly engaging in "one or more overt acts of unlawful private investigation" in the RIAA case against Crain.[60]
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It was a good run...
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usenet.com is dead
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