Judge: File-swapping tools are legal !!!!

CNET ^ | 4/25/2004 | John Borland

[ArcLight]

A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie studios' lawsuit against the two companies. In an almost complete reversal of previous victories for the record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast--parent of the Morpheus software--and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software. The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software distributed by Sharman Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment industry.

"Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends," Wilson wrote in his opinion, released Friday. "Grokster and Streamcast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."

[narby]

Well, that means you can kiss the recording industry--and rock music--goodbye permanently.

I really think that the current situation is much inferior to what we might get should things open up. There are lots of bands that are very good, yet they get very little publicity or income because the big companies promote a handful of groups that are part of the "in" crowd.

What will happen is that music will have to earn its way by live concerts. They can't sing one tune in a recording studio, and make money off that work for decades. They'll have to work every day to make a living, just like the rest of us.

Besides, the original intent of copyright laws was to allow a right to publish for a limited amount of time. I think that's right in the Constitution. And yet these people have successfully lobbied the congress to set that "limited time" to virtually forever. It's an abuse of the copyright principle in the Constitution.

[mitchbert]

Ugh.

remeber = remember. Preview twice, post once...

[The Red Zone]

The technical problem would exist even if copyrights lasted but one year.

[Petronski]

I think I'll go download Beethoven's Ninth Symphony!

[shadowman99]

A happy GNU day!!!!

[The Red Zone]

So the Betamax decision has survived the new copyright law! Very interesting.

[plain talk]

Oh really. There have been massive changes in the home recording industry over the last 5 years. One still cannot get the quality of a real studio recording at home unless you're willing to buy $5,000 limiters for each channel but its getting closer and closer to the 'pretend' studio point where its getting harder for a layman to tell the difference. Kids already can't really tell the difference between an .mp3 and a .wav file anyway. The recording industry will still exist as do $50,000 grand pianos but the home studios (and sampled keyboards) continue to make big inroads. Kids no longer want to buy whole CDs. They want the ability to string together individual songs from a 100 bands. As you can see on mp3.com, there are thousands of artists now, many of whom record at home studios. There will be smaller pool of the big acts and huge numbers of half-arsed acts. The pyranmid is flattening. It's getting more dispersed and less concentrated. I don't feel sorry for the musicians, most are stupid liberals anyway.

[Stentor]

Well, that means you can kiss the recording industry--and rock music--goodbye permanently.

Ba-bye.

[July 4th]

Well, looks like the court nailed it. Not bad...not bad at all.

[The Red Zone]

So the Betamax decision [MIGHT] survive the new copyright law... [duh]

What are the chances that Congress "fixes" this???

[BJungNan]

Finally, a common sense ruling. It is about time.

[The Old Hoosier]

the original intent of copyright laws was to allow a right to publish for a limited amount of time.

Yes, but think about it: the very minute my band publishes a song, I no longer can charge anyone for it, because it is already FREE on the internet. So who can make a living writing or playing music?

If the drug industry had this kind of paradigm, no one would ever get well.

[BJungNan]

Well, that means you can kiss the recording industry--and rock music--goodbye permanently.

Surely you joke.

[ArcLight]

Seamole, you a fool...LOL!! :-)

[kaylar]

And cassettes, too. Remember "Home recording is killing music" ? That was c.1983.

[The Old Hoosier]

Now the culture is used to getting songs for free, and it's way too late to put THAT genie back in the bottle.

I disagree. It's a matter of simple economics that no one pays for what they can get for free.

As soon as artists stop writing songs--the logical economic conclusion of this ruling--then people will not be used to getting them for free any more.

Read my lips: no new music.

[a_Turk]

Tools are legal, illegal use is not.

Guns are legal, murder is not.

Simple..

[Rifleman]

The Old Hoosier wrote:
Well, that means you can kiss the recording industry--and rock music--goodbye permanently.

Rifleman Replies:
Then there is no down side at all!

[William McKinley]

It's not already free.

Those who bootleg can still be prosecuted.

[Principled]

Whatever happened to those "artists" who always say "I do it for the looooove, maaaan".

They got busted....