Entertainment Companies Make Me Laugh
This is great; a US court has ruled that the RIAA has to “actually file charges on someone”:http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61670,00.html/wn_ascii before ISPs can be required to turn over information on their subscribers. And in the Netherlands, a Dutch court has said “Kazaa is not responsible”:http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,61672,00.html/wn_ascii for what people do with their software.
There are some great quotes from both.
In the RIAA’s case, new RIAA president Cary Sherman said this meant “we can no longer notify illegal file sharers before we file lawsuits against them to offer the opportunity to settle outside of litigation.” Because we don’t know who these people are, natch. Which means it’ll be pretty difficult, or at least very expensive, to litigate as well.
The stuff from Amsterdam is even more funny, however:
bq. “We now have the unpleasant situation that only the consumers who swap music can be held accountable for copyright violation,” said Cees van Rij, the head of legal affairs at Buma/Stemra.
In other words, only those people who break the law can be held responsible for, um, breaking the law. I think that’s a good thing, don’t you? I mean, if they could go after Kazaa, who wrote the software that allows the trading, could they then go after Apple? Who made the computer that runs the software that allows the trading? Where does it stop?
But this one was my *absolute favorite.*
bq. The IFPI [ the international RIAA? ] said the ruling is based on a “one-sided presentation of the facts” by Kazaa.
Now, I think this is really weird. It could just be that I’m unfamiliar with court processes elsewhere. But in Amsterdam, is the defendant required to make a case for the prosecution as well? Because otherwise, yeah. Kazaa’s presentation of the facts *would* be one-sided. As Burma/Stemra’s presentation of the facts should have been. Duh!