01 May 2008

Do You Copy, RIAA?

Here's an important observation:

Though there is already a growing body of legal decisions that seem to be weighing against RIAA efforts to discourage individual consumers from copying content, the Howell decision is notable in that the judge went to particular pains to delve into the technological "hows" of file sharing as well as into legal precedents. In doing so, Judge Wake has challenged publishers pursuing such suits to recognize that the more that they go into these suits the more that they create a wide portfolio of rulings that begin to flesh out the full reality of electronic content use - a portfolio that over time has weakened rather than strengthened their claims to inhibit content copying. Put simply, the more that these suits continued, the more circumscribed their claims become and the more that their presumption of complete power over copying will weaken.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that the entertainment industry, more than any other, wants to stay in dinosaur times. Firstly TV was going to ruin the cinema, then cassettes were going to ruin the industry by allowing taping of music, then the same for video recording, CD copying and now music downloads. Other businesses have had to adapt to new technology (Lego is an excellent example), and there's no reason why the entertainment industry should be different.

Glyn Moody said...

Absolutely. Moreover, the IT industry is much larger than that of entertainment, and yet it is laws that suit the latter - like the DMCA - that get passed, to the detriment of the former.