If you’re going to go after the RIAA, you might as well go all-out; at least, that’s the apparent philosophy of Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, who is not only seeking to argue that file-sharing is fair use, but that the fines exacted from convicted file-sharers are essentially unconstitutional. If all goes according to his plan, the RIAA’s litigation campaign will be deemed unlawful and they will be forced to return the $100 million they’ve collected in settlements.
A pretty extreme strategy, to be sure. Not even Lawrence Lessig, vocal proponent of relaxed intellectual property laws, creative remixing, and mashups, among other things, supports the idea that file-sharing is actually fair use. Still, it’s a legal theory worth discussing, and perhaps it will spur more reasonable amendments to copyright law.
Lawyer: RIAA must pay back all $100M it has collected [Ars Technica]
(thanks to Brad Burr for the tip)
Tags: copyright law, Litigation, RIAA
