RIAA+Movie Industry Appeal p2p Ruling

[OutThere]

Link: http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/08/20/riaa/

Late Monday, the Recording Industry Association of America Inc. (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the National Music Publishers' Association Inc. filed an appeal to a Los Angeles district court judge's decision that said the operators of the Grokster and Morpheus peer-to-peer (P-to-P) services couldn't know when users were trading copyrighted works.



As expected, the three groups have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson and hold StreamCast Networks Inc., the operator of Morpheus, and Grokster Ltd., responsible for copyright violations that happen on those P-to-P networks.



Wilson's decision recognized that P-to-P services have many legitimate uses, Michael Weiss, chief executive officer of StreamCast Networks, said in a statement. "In our case ... the federal court recognized that you can't ban new technology just because it threatens an old distribution model," Weiss added. "We expect to prevail and if we do not, we will take this to the Supreme Court if we must. We also believe that the 63 million file sharing, voting Americans will take the issues to Congress, so that the laws are passed to reflect social and economic realities ..."



New laws should allow for compulsory licensing similar to radio royalties, Weiss said, and he also suggested a small tax on recordable media.

My Question is how can they tax recordable media (CD-R/RW and DVD R/RW) when millions of people use them for legitimate purposes? I thought they already had 'Music CD-R's which you would pay extra for that would go to the RIAA. I think that after the RIAA gets their first victory they are going to run with it as far as they can go...cutting off everything they can everywhere no matter how legal it is. We shall see. We shall see.

 

[MrMacMan]

Sue them all to hellllllll....

Arg, P2P has many legit uses.

Distributing freeware software can be done legally.

They shouldn't be pentalized.


But they are gonna keep asking for a appeal until supreme court.

 

[Sun Baked]

Look's like they got a hit...

U.S. Man Pleads Guilty to Music Piracy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors on Thursday said a former leader of a group that distributed pirated music ahead of its commercial release pleaded guilty to criminal infringement of copyright laws.

Mark Shumaker, 21, of Orlando, Florida, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a statement. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 7.

Prosecutors charged that Shumaker headed Apocalypse Crew, a group that would recruit music industry workers, such as radio disc jockeys and employees of music magazines, to obtain pre-release copies of compact disks.

Released to the Internet, the advance copies would filter down to public distribution channels such as the file sharing networks of KaZaa and Morpheus, law enforcement officials charged.

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