Lessig, Zittrain, Barlow To Square Off Against RIAA 288
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's case in Boston against a 24-year-old grad student, SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, in which Prof. Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School, along with members of his CyberLaw class, are representing the defendant, may shape up as a showdown between the Electronic Frontier and Big Music. The defendant's witness list includes names such as those of Prof. Lawrence Lessig (Author of 'Free Culture'), John Perry Barlow (former songwriter of The Grateful Dead and cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation), Prof. Johan Pouwelse (Scientific Director of P2P-Next), Prof. Jonathan Zittrain (Author of 'The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It'), Professors Wendy Seltzer, Terry Fisher, and John Palfrey, and others. The RIAA requested, and was granted, an adjournment of the trial, from its previously scheduled December 1st date, to March 30, 2009. (The RIAA lawyers have been asking for adjournments a lot lately, asking for an adjournment in UMG v. Lindor the other day because they were so busy preparing for the Tenenbaum December 1st trial ... I guess when you're running on hot air, you sometimes run out of steam)."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish you the best, guys. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hit 'em hard for freedom's sake, eh?
Not surprising at all (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:5, Insightful)
let's remember that Lessig doesn't want to abolish copyright, but simply restore short terms.
I didn't think the argument was about 'sensible' copyright as opposed to the current life +75 years copyright abomination of common sense.
It may not be such a bad thing to have sane copyright laws, reasonable first sale doctrines, and appropriate penalties for consumer violations.
If they'd stop putting a bad taste in my mouth... (Score:5, Insightful)
I might stop being spitting mad.
I hate:
1. DVD's that lock you out of fast forwarding through the crap (long intros, FBI warnings, previews, etc).
2. Stupid itunes making it a hassle to give my wife a copy of something WE own legally (or often was free in the first place).
3. Anti-competitive prices on CD's, and music in general. There have been findings of fact showing anti-competivie behavior, but nothing done to stop it.
4. CD's that try to install crap on my machine (yes, you Sony).
5. DVD's that all prevent me from being able to make fair use of their content (using short clips for example) without becoming a criminal.
6. Retarded EULA's.
I want to own my own shit again!
I can't wait until my clothing starts coming with FBI warnings that the design is trademarked, pateneted and that I may only wear the shirt before Labor Day, and before 8 PM on weeknights. You just wait.
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:4, Insightful)
No one in their right mind on Slashdot should want to abolish copyright. As authors of free software under licenses like the GPL, we actually depend on copyright law to keep our creations free.
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you kidding? Do you think slashdot is just a bunch of people who want to abolish copyright altogether? No copyright means the gpl is no longer enforceable. Essentially, all things would be public domain. No copyright hurts a lot of things.
The consensus Im seeing with geeks and non-geeks alike is a sensible copyright limit and sensible damage caps. We should absolutely be cheering these guys on for what they are doing. and unlike your extremist position, they have a chance of winning and changing minds.
>He is not our ally in ensuring we can get whatever media we want whenever we want for no cost.
The idea that any sensible person, let alone someone of Lessig's stature, would support something like that is beyond ridiculous. People dont mind paying fair prices and owning what they buy. The fight against the RIAA isnt to abolish copyright, its to protect consumers and to stop corporations from using the courts as a debt collection service.
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I just finished reading his book Creative Commons (you can download it here [free-culture.cc]). I have to say I agree with just about everything he says in the book.
I think that if all his reforms were instituted, there wouldn't be an "abolish copyright" movement. If copyrights were truly limited, most of what is downloaded would be free to download anyway.
The main thrust of the book is that the "permission culture" (as opposed to "free culture") harms creativity itself, something I've also been preaching.
Have you hear the Kidd Rock song "all summer long?" It starts with a note-for-note and sound for sound copy of Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London and copies much of Skynard's Sweet Home Alabama (the song is about drinking whiskey and smoking dope and having sex while listening to Sweet Home Alabama). The Zevon start is a very creative statement about the fact that the two songs use the same chords and sound a lot alike, something he isn't alone in noticing (a friend of mine who plays in bars does a medely of those two songs and a third I can't think of right now). If he wasn't on the same label as Warren Zevon and Lynard Skynard, there would be hellishly expensive lawsuits. It isn't right that no independant artist could have recorded a similar song.
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Once they do, they will see how few consumers (approximately 0%) are willing to purchase music for personal use under that kind of restriction.
Piracy will become the -only- channel for consumers to personally get music, since not a single consumer will purchase a song good for only one play. Their business model collapses, hopefully chapter 11 ensues, new management enters, abolishes overpaid execs.
Sanity can return to the music industry, but I think that it will only happen after an utter and complete failure of their 'ideal' business model.
So I say let them try to charge per song per listen. It would be quite amusing when they post their first quarter profits after adopting fully such a model. I doubt they would ever really try though, because it can't be possible that they are so blinded by greed that they can't see that adopting a pay per song per play, and ending their other distribution, is complete fail.
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:4, Insightful)
It may not be such a bad thing to have sane copyright laws, reasonable first sale doctrines, and appropriate penalties for consumer violations.
It wouldn't be such a bad thing to have sane copyright laws. In fact, it wasn't when we did.
The disapproval of copyright law has arisen as a result of the changes (bastardizations?) that have occurred in recent decades. No one complained about copyright when it first came into existence. If we put copyright back to the way it once was, most of the complaining will go away.
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:3, Insightful)
The key statement in the GP post that you overlooked is "people don't mind paying fair prices and owning what they buy".
In other words, some people download so they can actually use the content they have paid for, because it's harder to break the artificial restrictions (i.e., DRM) yourself than just download something without those restrictions.
Some people also download because they don't want to pay $20 for the crapshoot that new movies are. It's sort of like paying on the way out of a movie theater if you were entertained.
I've downloaded re-mastered CDs to see for myself if they are better or worse than the original releases that I already own. I'm not going to gamble $15 when the vast majority are worse than the original releases, because "re-mastered" today seems to mean "compress the hell out of it so that the overall volume level is louder", and stupid people will review it with astonishment about how they can now "hear the piano", even though it was there all the time and was meant to be 20dB down from the main volume.
I also own over 1000 movies on various formats, and I'm sick and tired of seeing many of them re-released every year with 20 seconds more footage, or the commentary that was supposed to be on the "special edition", but is now available on the new "extra special edition". I'm just not going to pay another $10-15 to companies that believe I'm only buying a "license" to their content and who believe that I shouldn't be allowed to sell the old version to help pay for the new one.
Re:If they'd stop putting a bad taste in my mouth. (Score:4, Insightful)
I had posted that story to a photography forum I'm a member of and someone took the initiative to contact Toyota's legal department. They're backpedaling now on their original claim:
Translation: We found a couple of legitimately infringing photos on your site but rather than give you specifics we decided to be lazy and just order them all down. We figured you'd just roll over and take it, but then you had to spread the word. Now we're facing a ton of bad PR so we're going to limit our claims to just those originally infringing photos.
while i appreciate the sentiment (Score:3, Insightful)
words evolve in meaning and use, and you need to get used to it
Re:first post (Score:2, Insightful)
The law currently allows ridiculously long period of copyright protection, while technology allows individuals to undermine the stupidity of current law. All copyright holders have to do is to put their works into the public domain (or a Creative Commons license).
See the analogy?
Re:first post (Score:2, Insightful)
I would feel sorry for the Georgia slaveholder, he'd already (however rightly so - since it was made illegal) lost property that he'd paid for. But since he was doing something completely legal for years, society had made it illegal, it's okay for government thugs to destroy his home and and food/income as well? In the land of bad analogies that is /., your analogy truly stinks.
Just because something is legal does not make it right. He still deserves what he gets.
There you go again foisting your morals off on others.
He does not deserve what he gets, and the type of bullying you're suggesting amounts to something quite worse than what the RIAA does to the people on the receiving end of their bullying.
Forcing him to comply with the law is one thing, basically killing him by destroying his ability to eat is as bad as it gets, it's tantamount to murder. In fact, they are basically murdering him and his whole family (children and all), as well as anyone else who depended on him.
When freeing the slaves, the government should have done what they are required by law to do whenever they take property, they can force a sale, but they still have to pay whatever they can convince a judge is the fair market value for it. That's right, you heard me, the US government should have bought them and freed them.
And just so your high and mighty "morals" don't get too out of control, remember, most of the culture you likely benefit from was built by societies that allowed slavery or other types of indentured service. If you're a religious nut I'll also remind you that Paul, from your New Testament sent the runaway slave back to his owner.
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:3, Insightful)
With no copyright, I could take any GPLed program, improve it to a point that people would want to use it in mass, and then not release any code or anything.
If you do "not release any code", you're running a server. On the other hand, if you publish executable code but not source code in an environment with no copyright, expect people to disassemble, comment, and document the shit out of your binaries in their free time.
Not in this day and age (Score:3, Insightful)
Their business model collapses, hopefully chapter 11 ensues, new management enters, abolishes overpaid execs.
Not in today's United States. Federal bailout. It's the new model for capitalism these days.
Incompetent execs? Outdated business model? Are you selling something that was great in the 80's but sucks today?
Federal bailout. After all, we can't have these overpriced incompetent execs making the unemployment numbers worse, can we?
I'm only halfway kidding. I would not be surprised if these sleazebags tried to dip into the new broken economy safety net of federal bailouts.
"OMG the pirates have taken our money! Help help help! NONE of this is our fault at all! Just because we've redefined music to be this thumping easily mass produced crap a trained seal and a drum machine could make and force DRM down our consumers throats (that is, when we're not suing them) doesn't mean a thing!"
I give about 60/40 odds that some RIAA goon will try this sometime before the current administration is replaced. You watch.
Re:Vote with dollars for whom? (Score:3, Insightful)
To which publisher of DRM-free feature films are you suggesting the grandparent switch?
Feature films aren't food or clothing. You can live a contented life without them.
If you really can't go without them then I guess you don't really care about DRM that much.
Re:The first question to ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
The plaintiff will try to convince the judge that Tenenbaum downloaded 7 songs and owes them $1 million. The expert witnesses will try to convince the judge that Tenenbaum downloaded 7 songs and owes the plaintiffs nothing (or maybe $6.93).
In the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial," the issue before the trial court wasn't evolution, it was the teaching of evolution in the public schools in violation of Tennessee state law.
That was the position of the prosecution. The position of the defense was that the law was unconstitutional because it violated the teacher's (Scopes) constitutional rights (the law benefited a particular religious group). But at some point the trial became a media circus full of the celebrities of the age and the defense just made speeches (that as you point out were irrelevant).
Re:Well Shoot (Score:5, Insightful)
The Music Industry wants to keep its cash cow alive for as long as it can (time is money) even if it requires very expensive lawyers to do it. But sooner or later (later if the Music Industry has its way), the digital music culture will start feeding on public domain music and independently produced and distributed music, then things will change geometrically. The most interesting factor in all of this is talent. How rare is talent? How much talent does it take to develop talent? The future may help answer this.
In my experience, talent is not rare. Being untalented myself, I am always surprised by it, but there are a great many very gifted people out there who have been underemployed, in the sense that they are not employed to do the thing that best utilizes their special talents. And the reason these very talented and creative people have not been able to make a living at their art has been the 'gatekeepers'... i.e. the MAFIAA. The internet and digitalization have made it possible for the 'gatekeepers' now to be dispensed with. In my view, we are entering a golden age of music, where there will be less 'megastars' but there will be more people making a living at their art, instead of having to take 'day jobs' to sustain themselves. Society will be the better for it.
Re:The first question to ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is what do these all these "expert" witnesses contribute to the case before the court?
The plaintiff will try to convince the judge that Tenenbaum downloaded 7 songs and owes them $1 million. The expert witnesses will try to convince the judge that Tenenbaum downloaded 7 songs and owes the plaintiffs nothing (or maybe $6.93).
Well spoken, danzona. I hope you get modded up for that succinct observation (and I hope I don't get modded down as 'redundant' for agreeing with you and for not being able to improve on what you said).
Re:RIAA and the copyright MAFIA need to end. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Before you start cheering them on... (Score:4, Insightful)
The proper response to a law that you disagree with is not to disobey the law.
If a law is obeyed there is no reason to change it. It took millions of people drinking illegally for years to get Prohibition rescinded.
Otherwise we would have people murdering others out of principle.
That's the fourth box. Content providers are probably safe at least until the people exhaust the soap, ballot, and jury boxes.
If you disagree with the laws about downloading material, then you should just not listen to the music period.
Listening to music does not violate even the current draconian copyright laws.
Re:RIAA and the copyright MAFIA need to end. (Score:4, Insightful)
Get a grip. It's attitudes like yours which make everyone who opposes the RIAA look like a criminal jerk.
Are you sure you meant to say that? That is tantamount to saying that the large majority of people in this country 'look like criminal jerks'. I have never met anyone who ever heard of the RIAA who does not oppose it, except for people who are on its payroll. And I have never met anyone who thinks that 'everyone who opposes the RIAA looks like a criminal jerk'.
A lot of people think it's the RIAA and their aiders and abettors that are 'criminal jerks', such as these attorneys in St. Louis [blogspot.com], who just filed RICO counterclaims pointing out the RIAA's extortion, mail fraud, and wire fraud, and these government officials in North Carolina [blogspot.com] who have summoned the RIAA's investigators to a "probable cause hearing", and these state troopers in Massachusetts [blogspot.com] who have ordered them to "cease and desist" from their illegal "investigations".
So, just between you and me, I think you may have overstated things a bit. If it's you who thinks that everyone who opposes the RIAA looks like a criminal jerk, well, that's you, and you alone, and maybe this guy [blogspot.com].
Re:GPL etc. is copyright defending against copyrig (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you on what these copyrights cover.
But if one copyrights the fixes or upgrades to a software work, it gives them standing to claim that an equivalent fix or upgrade infringes their copyright.
Similarly, copyrighting a "compilation" of a set of otherwise free works - for instance, a Linux distribution - would give the holder of that copyright standing to claim that another, later, linux distribution was an infringing work derived from theirs.
Even if the claim is provably bogus the ability to assert it in court, especially in combination with the draconian penalties for infringement in current copyright law, is a major burden on the targets of such claims.