Lawyer Claims RIAA Suits Were Unconstitutional, Wants Settlement Money Re-Distributed
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
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on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Industry news.
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RIAA to stop lawsuits against customers, focus on working with ISPs
The Recording Industry Association of America has decided to finally cease its (largely ineffective) strategy of deterring piracy by suing individuals accused of sharing music files on P2P networks, though existing cases will proceed to trial or settlement. Their lawsuits, besides being a P.R. disaster and singlehandedly teaching an entire generation to hate the music industry, often ended up being settled for far less than the exorbitant damages claimed. According to the RIAA, the legal fees alone often exceeded the settlements (a pyrrhic victory, if I’ve ever seen one.)
The industry group is instead opting to work with internet service providers more directly, serving copyright infringement notices via the ISP to subscribers accused of file sharing. Repeated notices, effectively functioning as warnings, would eventually result in the ISP cutting service to the subscriber. In exchange for their cooperation, ISPs would no longer be forced to turn over personal subscriber information to the RIAA.
Too little, too late, or a step in the right direction? Post your thoughts.
RIAA Taps ISPs To Fight Illegal Downloads [informationweek]
Tags: Litigation, RIAA
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on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Industry news.
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