[Air-l] RIAA and freedom to copy

[Richard Forno]

Ah, yes.  I put Felten in as an afterthought.   My goof!

-rf


On 5/3/07 9:05 PM, "Michael Zimmer" <michael.zimmer at nyu.edu> wrote:

> A possible starting point:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=riaa+letter+college
> 
> Also:
> Read, Brock. "Record Companies to Accused Pirates: Deal or No Deal?",
> The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2007-03-16, p. A31.
> http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i28/28a03101.htm
> 
> The website students are directed to:
> http://www.p2plawsuits.com/P2P_00_Home.aspx
> 
> (and Ed Felton is a professor of computer science, not an attorney)
> 
> -mz
> 
> 
> -----
> Michael T. Zimmer
>   Doctoral Candidate, Culture and Communication, New York University
>   Student Fellow, Information Law Institute, NYU Law School
> e: michael.zimmer at nyu.edu
> w: http://michaelzimmer.org
> 
> 
> 
> On May 3, 2007, at 8:58 PM, Richard Forno wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> Is anyone aware of the effort by RIAA to force college students to
>>> pay huge
>>> cash settlements of supposed copyright infringement?
>> 
>> Not aware of any legal precedents (yet) but I have heard that some
>> unis have
>> pushed-back and told the RIAA they won't do their dirty work unless
>> the RIAA
>> pays for the staff costs associated with log analysis and such.
>> Others have
>> rolled over and supported the RIAA, too.
>> 
>>> There is no actual law suit, just the threat of a suit and a proposed
>>> settlement.
>> 
>> That's the RIAA's strategy, such that it is.  Unfortunately in it's
>> other
>> non-college cases where they use similar tactics, they're being
>> tossed out
>> of court with growing frequency for any number of reasons --
>> including for
>> suing the wrong person or having very circumstantial evidence to
>> support
>> their claims.
>> 
>>> Is file sharing really copyright infringement?
>> 
>> My own personal view is that the RIAA  (and MPAA, by extension)
>> would have
>> the public and courts believe that 'file sharing' is the same as
>> copyright
>> infringement.....and their ongoing public statements over the years
>> continues to strongly-suggest or equate the notion of 'file
>> sharing' with
>> something that is (or should be) a criminal act.  It's this belief
>> that has
>> made the entertainment industry so reviled because that "fear of
>> file-sharing" is what's led to things like HDMI, PVP, AACS, DECSS
>> and any
>> number of other technological controls contributing to the creation
>> of a
>> marketplace of barely-interoperable digital entertainment devices and
>> services that increases customer costs and levels of aggravation.
>> 
>> Additionally, ongoing legal woes pertaining to DMCA and the various
>> provisions regarding 'copyright circumvention' --- particularly
>> when DMCA
>> has been used to threaten (and sue) people for reasons that far
>> exceed its
>> original spirit of enactment by Congress -- have raised serious
>> issues about
>> free speech, basic research, and assorted aspects of what constitutes
>> "information" and "knowledge" going back to DMCA's enactment in 1998.
>> 
>>> From a more scholarly and legal perspective, Lessig, Littman,
>>> Felten, and
>> Granick (attornies all, I think) have written copiously on this
>> topic over
>> the years and would be the ideal starting point for looking at this
>> matter
>> in greater detail.  I strongly-endorse any and all of these folks'
>> writings
>> as fantastic primers on these very complex issues at the core of the
>> information society.
>> 
>> -rick
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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