It has happened and it will be taking place tomorrow in court. The EFF yesterday announced that they will be challenging the RIAAs ‘Making Available’ theory in court.
Can the Recording Industry Association of America sue someone for having a song in a shared directory or share point? That’s what the RIAA is hoping for. Not only would there be no need to download the song to make sure it is legitimately their content and not an independent artist faking a file to promote their own works, but there would be no need to sue someone for uploading a song to anyone to prove that an infringement has occurred in the first place.
If that doesn’t sound fair and balanced, the Electronic Frontier Foundation would most certainly agree. Tomorrow, the EFF will be on the defense in court trying to stop a lawsuit against two allege Pheonix file-sharers for having copyrighted works in a “shared” folder. The idea is a newer twist to the RIAAs “making available” theory which suggests that even if a song is not downloaded, there is still damage being done to the copyright holders and, thus, allows a record label to sue a particular IP address.
“This amounts to suing someone for attempted copyright infringement — something the Copyright Act simply does not allow,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “If the RIAA wants to keep bringing these suits and collecting big settlements, then they have to follow the law and prove their case. It’s not enough to say the law could have been broken. The RIAA must prove it actually was broken.”
While it’s a newer approach in the courts to bring into law “attempted copyright infringement”, it isn’t new in US politics. The idea was proposed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last year in the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007.
The Atlantic Records, et al. v. Howell case, as it is officially known, is scheduled to commence at 2PM tomorrow. The EFF has posted a brief (PDF) in the case.
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The EEF are my heroes! Corrupt evil overbloated (and did I mention scary?) entities like the RIAA should be wiped from the face of the earth anyway possible. They are the stuff of nightmares. I refuse to ever buy a music CD again because of these terrible horrible leeches feeding off artist's creative talent while they punish people for simply sharing the music they legally purchased. Suing people especially collecge students is not the answer. They only pick on collecge students anyway because they are such an easy taget and probabyl have money stuck away somewhere to pay for their education or maybe rich fat parents they can exploit for fine money! These maggots should be sued out of existense for the pain and hurt/torture and blackmail they have inflicted on people.
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