In 2007 RIAA v Jammie Thomas-Rasset (she was just Jammie Thomas then) resulted in a jury verdict and damages of $222,000 in favor of the RIAA. A few months later the trial judge had second thoughts about his instructions to the jury and ordered a new trial. In 2009 RIAA v Jammie Thomas-Rasset II: Oops [...]
Jammie Thomas-Rassert of Minnesota was the first defendant in an RIAA music-piracy lawsuit to go to trial. She lost big, appealed, the trial judge decided he mis-instructed the jury on the law and ordered a new trial, she lost again, although even bigger–$1.92 million–and appealed again. A federal judge just reduced the “shocking” damage award [...]
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The music industry generated some news while was hobbling. The RIAA announced that it is dropping its campaign of mass lawsuits. The RIAA has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against over 35,000 people in the past five years for allegedly pirating copyrighted songs, a fact most college students know well. Most suits were settled for between [...]
A student sent this post from TorrentFreak–love those web names–about BitTorrent tracker PirateBay. The post lauds PirateBay for passing 12 million users, noting that seeders now outnumber leechers, and broadcasts PirateBay’s goal to achieve 20 million users soon. The glimpse into pirate culture afforded by the comments is worth a look, if you care to [...]
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Reading how recording labels are dropping digital rights management and recording artists are finding new ways to reach their audience, one might believe that the music industry’s business model is beginning to catch up with the 21st century. For every tentative toe in the water the industry wages a rearguard action to hold on to [...]
Friday, December 28, 2007
Speaking of piracy, last week David Pogue wrote in the New York Times about The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality. He related how during talks he walks audiences down a continuum of activities that clearly do not infringe copyright at the start and then go over a line where many or most listeners believe the [...]
Sunday, November 18, 2007
A section of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (summary) unanimously approved this week by the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee would require universities and colleges that participate in federal financial aid programs to “develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as [...]