High drama and low points in RIAA trial

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Richard, can you shed some light on a couple things.: I don't know all the details of this trial so I'll talk in general terms about downloading files from a P2P or other source.

Ask anyone in this forum and they will tell you I am a big supporter of copyright in concept but admit I think its gone way too far. Given I am a supporter of copyright it may seem strange to hear me say this but this entire thing of suing the end users is starting to baffle me in some ways.

The one real sticking point to me is, how is the end user to know if the content inside the file is or is not copyrighted before examining it? I agree that if it says DVD or CD "rip" there is a good chance its copyrighted, but even that is not always the case. (Lots of bands put tracks out there for download.)

To give a specific example concerning music. Lets say I go to a P2P site and search for a particular song and I see say 10 listings. Some of them are a copy of the original artist, some of them are a garage band doing someone else's music. How am I to tell the difference BEFORE I download it? How do I know if the garage band had permission to do a remake (is that even required today)? How do I know if that particular song has been released for public use by the original artists or the record company? I mean if I understand the law correctly, anything you or I create (your blog here as an example) is automatically copyrighted. So in essence all works are copyrighted and I as a user have no way of knowing which copyrighted work will cause an issue and which one doens't.

Again, I am no lawyer but I've been told a law must be something the "average person" can understand, interpret, and apply to their actions to guide them. How could these laws possiblly meet that criteria if it is simply impossible to know what is in the file until I can test it?

The other thing I question are video "cams" available on the P2P networks. It seems to me this is an original work and that original work may or may not have recorded some photons from some other work. Or, it could be a commentary with scenes from another work, it could be a critique, it could be a trailer, heck it could be just about anything because a good deal of what is found on a P2P is mislabled. But no matter how you look at it, it is still an original work that someone created with their camera, and did NOT make a direct copy. Did the person that created the "cam" violate the law? I do not know, in fact I don't know if he had permission, if it was done in another country where the laws are different or if indeed its the movie studio doing it themselves to A. Promote it, B. Running a server to catch downloaders. It would seem to me the burden of remaining leagl is on the backs of those creating and releasing the "cam", not the innoincent end user that has absolutely no possible way of know if it was created legaly or not.

I mean heck, if I go into the local sports bar and they have the big game on TV am I required to demand proof from the bar owner that he has paid all the needed fees before I make a decision to watch or sit with my back to the TV? I think in an example like this its fairly easy to "catch" the bar owner and mos twould say its plain stupid to try and blame the bar patrons, but in the case of P2P they can't catch the ones that created the original work so they instead try to blame the user.

Here is my question. Has anyone been in a court case as a defendant and said the law is impossible for the average person to follow because ALL works are copyrighted and there is no way to deterine how the owner of the copyright is applying it to that specific piece of work? Isn't that a lot like suing someone for not conforming to a contract they have never seen and have no idea what the terms are and when its applied?; Posted by: No_Ax_to_Grind Posted on: 06/17/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use