Criminal Copyright Infringement, Charitable

Michael Geist brought to the Ippers’ attention a story about a record store owner in Ottawa, David Nolan, who pled guilty to copyright infringement for holding unauthorized copies of albums.  As the Ottawa Citizen reports, Nolan specializes in rare and hard to find recordings and many of the albums confiscated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were in fact not infringing.  The deal reached between Nolan and the Canadian government sets the number of infringing copies at 100.

The general tone of the comments on the Ottawa Citizen and Michael Geist’s blog is one of disdain for this type of copyright enforcement, disapproval for police resources being wasted on searching through a large record store for a handful of potentially infringing copies.

This Ipper, however, was struck more by something else.  The punishment in the deal between Nolan and the government is that Nolan must make a $1000 donation to the charity of his choice within three months.  Compare this to the amounts paid in the US for civil copyright infringement – the $1.92million judgment against Jammie Thomas or the $675,000 judgment in the Tenenbaum case.  Or even compare the $1000 charitable donation punishment to the punishments outlined for criminal copyright infringement in the US – up to a year in prison or a fine up to $5000 for infringing works for the purpose of commercial advantage.  (17 USC § 506 and 18 USC § 2319.)  The penalty is higher if the infringement involves reproduction or distribution.

The mounted police raiding a record shop to find a few infringing items might still make people uneasy, but this Ipper thinks as far as punishments for copyright infringement, this deal is the best she’s seen.  And, as one commenter on the Ottawa Citizen wrote, Nolan can always choose the EFF as his charity.

Small Businesses Need to Know about IP: An Example

Last week there was a really big football game on tv.  American football.  A match between two long-standing rivals, but with an extra twist this year.  The good team’s traitor star-player left and through some manipulative maneuvering, made his way to the evil team.  It was the first time the traitor had ever faced his old team.  It was a brutal game.  The Ippers, one of whom you can tell was quite invested in this match-up, had to venture out into the land of local pubs in order to watch the game.  (It was only available on cable here.)  While out at the pub, they encountered a little trademark issue.

The bartender was sampling the wares of a local gentleman who produces and sells body oils.  She explained he’s a regular customer and often comes in to share new additions to the product line.  The gentleman carried two large, black zippered cases filled with vials.  The vials were filled with liquids of different colors, each with a white label identifying the scent inside. 

While the bartender was busy sniffing various bottles, the gentleman handed out a yellow flyer with information about his oils.  The company’s clever and catchy name was displayed in large type across the top, followed by “Body Oils for men and women.”  At the bottom, the prices, ranging from $5.00 to $35.00 depending on the size of the bottles.  In the middle was a list of the hundred-some scents he offered.

Some of the scent names on the list were merely descriptive: Red Rasberry [sic], Coco Mango, Kiwi Strawberry.  Others were suggestive, Golden Goddess, T-Shirt and Panties, Walk Like She Taken.  And then, there were the problem ones.  Two different kinds of problems.  First, well-known brands of perfume and cologne: Juicy Couture, Dolce & Gabbana, Cool Water.  Then, names of famous people who probably have nothing to do with this gentleman’s products: Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.  And the names of plenty of people who have their own perfume and cologne products that bear their names.

This gentleman is a prime example of someone who needs intellectual property help.  Not only has he opened himself up to a huge amount of liability for trademark infringement, passing off and potentially right of publicity, the gentleman also has plenty of his own intellectual property to protect.  He has his own company name, many very creative names on his scents and possibly the scents themselves.  [Protection of scents is highly debated in the world of IP, see IP Review for a more in-depth discussion of this.]

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who don’t recognize the rights they might have or the rights others do have.  They do not know that attorneys are there to help them with these types of issues, and they won’t find out.  When they do meet with an attorney, it’ll be one representing those big companies whose trademarks are being infringed.  Hopefully, it’s only in the form of a cease and desist letter.

 

goldenrail would like to thank Cathy Gellis for her assistance with this post.

Cover Tunes, More Fun and Safer!

Cover songs can be really fun, especially when they’re done in such a different way than the original that you notice something new about the music.  The groups Vitamin String Quartet and Apocalyptica are famous for these types of covers, redoing heavy metal and pop music in orchestra styles.

Lately, this Ipper has discovered a different type of cover music in a similar vain.  A lone viola player covering currently popular hip hop tunes.  Oddly enough, that’s a combination that delights this particular listener.  However, this cover artist does things a little differently than the ones mentioned above.  Instead of just adapting the tunes for the viola and playing them, he plays along with the actual hip hop songs.  This is either more costly or more dangerous.

It is more costly if the artist has the permission and necessary licenses to release tracks where he plays along with the original songs.  It is more dangerous if he does not have permission.  This has to do with the different rights in a sound recording of a song as compared with the underlying composition itself.

The underlying composition, the only thing used by groups like Apocalyptica, has one copyright.  That’s it, one.  The copyright in the music itself.  That copyright might be shared by multiple writers, but that doesn’t matter.  To use the music, a person only needs to contact the song’s publisher and make an arrangement to use the work.

But to use the whole entire recording of a song requires a lot more work and a lot more money.  The recording involves a lot more people with rights.  It’s no longer just the publisher.  It’s also the performing artist, the producer, the record label and possibly other publishers depending on who has contributed to the final version of the song that gets released.  Basically, it’s a big, costly, mess.  And that’s if the user gets permission!

Of course, if the user doesn’t get permission, he doesn’t have to deal with that whole mess.  Instead, he is liable to all those people for infringing their different rights, copyrights, mechanical rights, performance rights.  If the user did a cover of only the musical composition itself, without permission, then he is only liable to the publisher.  Either way, the user is better off just covering the tune and not playing along with the original recording. 

(And one humble opinion here is that his music would actually be much better if it were just him and the viola, without the background noise of the original works.)

 

goldenrail would like to thank Justen Barks for his assistance with this post. a favorite of the viola tunes.

Photo credit: Blinged out Viola cc-by-sa goldenrail used Pegs of a viola cc-by-sa by Lemondedo, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pegs_of_viola.JPG

But How do I Know if It’s Real?

Copyright infringement of music is rampant in Nigeria.  It may, in fact, be one of the few places where referring to infringement as piracy is truly accurate.  Huge optical disc plants churn out hundreds of thousands of unauthorized copies of cds.  The markets, the street corners, even the shops are filled with these infringing albums, to the point that finding a legitimate album is incredibly difficult.

Real or not?

Artists, producers and the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) have tried a number of methods to mark legitimate albums as such.  Unfortunately, it seems most of these methods are copied by the infringers as soon as they’re developed. 

There’s the Hologram Scheme (part of the Strategic Action Against Piracy program) through which optical disc plants apply for the right to use special tools to place a special holograph on legitimate albums.  That didn’t work because optical disc plants who received permission and had arrangements with artists to manufacture albums would just manufacture, and mark, more albums than their agreement allowed.  The plants would not pay the artists for these extra albums.   Thus, the plants released thousands of infringing albums with the official markings into the market.

Then there’s the various markings of their own design that publishers, musicians and producers have put on their album envelopes in attempt to mark them as legitimate -symbols of the record label or perhaps the producer’s mark.  Infringers easily reproduce the album envelopes, special markings and all, at local print shops.  Bad quality isn’t necessarily an indication of an infringing copy, and good quality isn’t necessarily an indication of a legitimate copy.  That all depends on the particular print house used.  Quality ranges widely and it’s not unusual to find infringing products in packaging of higher quality than the legitimate versions.

Some artists also tried using special seals on their cd envelopes or placing the envelopes inside specially marked clear plastic sleeves.  But just like the envelopes themselves, the seals can be easily reproduced.  The clear plastic sleeves are supposed to provide some indication of quality for the album inside, but they are resalable.  There is no guarantee that what the buyer gets is what was put in the envelope and sleeve originally.

In short, although many attempts have been made, it seems Nigerian artists have yet to find a successful way to indicate to consumers that the album they are buying is legitimate.  With no sure way to know, where’s the incentive to try?  The artists and government urge consumers only to buy non-infringing works, but no one can tell them how to do it.

As a side note: This Ipper recalls attempting to purchase legitimate albums by only looking at the high end, expat-geared shops.  She’s not sure that worked, but still doesn’t know of any better options.  Suggestions are very welcome!

Meghan McCain Breaking Copyright Law?

Chances are, if you’ve ever been on any instant messaging service, you’ve seen somebody put up some lyrics as an away message or status message.  It’s there a for awhile, a few contacts see it, and that’s that.  But what about when someone tweets 140 characters worth of song lyrics?

Let’s find an example from which we can work.  (clicking, scrolling, more clicking)  Ah yes, here we go, the perfect example.  A tweet from Meghan McCain earlier today.  Nearly the entire second verse from Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”  No quotes, no attribution.

The Copyright Rights

We already know the song is copyrighted.  Since we are dealing with song lyrics, it is most likely that the rights to the words are held by various collecting societies, each holding a license to the rights in their respective territories.  The question then is whether or not this 138 character quote of the lyrics constitutes infringement. 

To answer this question, we turn to Section 106 of the US Copyright Act.  [The rights granted to copyright owners in this section of the Act are very similar to rights bestowed by other copyright acts around the world thanks to our international treaties.]  The rights granted include: the right to make copies, the right to prepare derivative works, the right to publicly display or perform the work.

Copied

The song is so popular that there is no question as to whether or not the work was copied.  Despite the lack of quotation marks, most people would recognize the passage and know that Meghan McCain was not the originator of it.  The work was copied, typed out or cut and pasted into the Twitter box.

Displayed

The copied portion was then publicly displayed via Twitter.  It’d be hard to argue that this is not a public display of the lyrics.  Tweets from tweeters who do not protect their tweets are available on the web.  In addition to this, Ms. McCain has over 50,000 followers.   Even if her tweets were protected, 50,000 people, most of who do not know her personally, could hardly count as anything other than public.

Infringement

So one of the activities to which the copyright holder was given exclusive rights was done by someone without permission.  However, that does not mean that the tweet was infringing.  In the US, we need to see if the tweet might qualify as fair use.  In the UK, and other jurisdictions based on UK law, we need to see if the tweet includes a ‘substantial part’ of the original work.

Substantial Part?

Going first to the question of whether the tweet is a substantial part of “We Will Rock You.”  This Ipper (and a friendly tweeting Kat) happens to think it is.  “We Will Rock You is a very short song, clocking in at under two minutes.  It has only three verses and a two-line chorus.  The tweet contained almost the entirety of one verse, or somewhere between a third and a forth of the song.  Looking at it in a frame more apt to Twitter, the song has 666 characters, including the spaces.  The song contained 138 of these 666 characters, or roughly 20%.  That’s a pretty good sized chunk.  Adding into this equation that the copied section is highly recognizable, the tweet copies a substantial part of the original work.  Of course, as my copyright professor always liked to say, “reasonable people can disagree,” so you, or a judge, may find differently.

Fair Use

Now, about that fair use.  This Ipper happens to think this tweet would qualify as fair use in the US.  Although, as discussed above, it takes a substantial part of the work and the original work is a published commercial work, there is no apparent market harm and Ms. McCain is not using the tweet for any commercial purpose.  Additionally, the usual commercial arguments used for internet infringers is absence.  It also does not appear that  Twitter, unlike YouTube for example, is making any money from this tweet.  There are no ads on the side of the page.  Twitter does not get more money for each person that views the tweet.

Summary

In the US, a song-quoting tweet is probably protected by fair use and thus not an infringement.  However, in other jurisdictions, most of which do not have fair use, tweeting a substantial portion of a song’s lyrics is very likely copyright infringement.   Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter if the tweeter lives and tweets in the US, the tweet can infringe anywhere it is displayed, i.e. anywhere it’s seen. 

I doubt Meghan McCain intended any harm in her tweet.  Most likely she’s a fan of the song, it was in her head, and she wanted to share it.  Perhaps next time she should quote just a little less, not enough to be a substantial part.  Maybe also throw in some quotation marks for good measure; plagiarism isn’t much better than copyright infringement.

Have Your Cake and Infringement Too

Today, this Ipper ventured forth into the restaurant world surrounding her San Francisco workplace.  In a corner, French-themed cafe, she spotted this beautiful cake design.

Which, likely not by chance, happens to look a lot like a certain famous Disney princess.  From the brown hair and the full yellow dress with matching gloves and down to the rose in her hand.  There’s hardly a part of this cake that doesn’t look like Belle.

Now, Disney is not exactly lenient when it comes to letting others use the company’s intellectual property, so is this cake a risk?

Off hand, I’d say yes, but there’s a few things we would need to know.  It is possible that some sort of agreement exists between Disney and the bakery to make Belle cakes.  Though it’s unlikely a small bakery has a deal directly with Disney, it is possible that Disney sells Belle cake sets, complete with a license to use and display and the resulting Belle.  A quick search online shows that such cake kits do exist.  However, the Disney kits all appear to feature a plastic cake topper, not a plastic Barbie-like doll.

So let’s assume there is no agreement.  This cake, like so many of these, is probably infringing.  It is an adaptation of Disney’s drawings (and statutes, and everything else they put out in Belle form).  In this case, it’s highly unlikely that the cake would qualify as fair use, especially since Disney is in the market of producing Belle cake kits.  A cake designed like a famous cartoon seems very similar to character costumes of children’s cartoon stars.  If the corporations that own the characters are already going after entertainers for unlicensed costumes, why wouldn’t they go after bakers for cakes?

Stop, Moon, Thief!*

The Solar and Intergalactic Atomic Association (SIAA) has filed suit against the Moon for copyright/patent/trademark infringement. It also accuses the Moon of reverse passing off, attempting to claim the Sun’s light as its own and calling it Moonlight.

Proponents of the Sun claim that the Moon has persisted in the willful infringement of the Sun’s product for too long, sometimes going so far as to completely block the Sun’s product from getting to its intended market.

According to the SIAA, the Sun makes its light by a very detailed scientific process; nuclear fusion is not something anyone can do. The specific shape of the Sun’s appearance, the shade and hue of its light and the intensity of its glow are all results of the Sun’s creativity in deciding how to render itself to Earth. The bright yellow/white spear and white light are symbols that clearly represent the Sun.

“The Moon not only steals the light from the Sun, it adapts it, and then distributes the adaptation, all for its own credit!” explained SIAA spokesperson H.E. Apollo, further explaining that the Moon is also attempting to benefit from the good will of the Sun by redirecting the Sun’s light for its own purpose. “In a case like this,” Mr. Apollo continued, “we can’t rely on trade secret protection. Earth scientists have already discovered how we create the beautiful glow and warmth that is our business. We must rely on copyright, patent and trademark to protect our product.”

Representative for the Moon, Diana Mawu calls the SIAA’s claims baseless. “The Moon is not stealing anything, and is very offended at being accused of such behavior,” she told reporters yesterday. According to Ms. Mawu, the Moon’s behavior is perfectly legal. “The Moon obtains its light from the Sun via a millennium-long agreement. If the Moon desires to share this light with others, it is the Moon’s right.” Even if the Moon did not have such a long-standing agreement with the Sun, the Moon’s behavior would still be protected, Ms. Mawu claims. “The Moon is transforming the Sun’s product into something new. A new product that is not attempting to replace the Sun’s but meet the needs of a market in which the Sun is not likely enter, Night.”

The SIAA argues that the Moon is not “sharing” its light in the true sense of the word because no matter how much light it gives away, the amount it has is not diminished. As for the transformation argument, Mr. Apollo claims that the use of the Sun’s product is hardly transformative; the Moon merely dims the Sun’s light. In addition, the Moon takes a substantial portion of the Sun’s work in making this so-called transformation, most of its light. “The Moon is trying to claim that it is doing good work by delivering light to those who cannot receive it from the Sun. It is not the Sun’s fault that some are not in a position to obtain the Sun’s product. All are welcome to make arrangements with the Sun to obtain light directly from its source instead of through this third-party infringement.”

Mr. Apollo expressed the SIAA’s position at a press conference earlier this week: “The Sun’s products highly valued on Earth. We all know that life as we know it could not survive without the hard work of the Sun. This work needs to be protected. I am confident that the law will prevail and not let such an important producer sit unprotected in the sky, free for anyone to steal its creation.”

Ms. Mawu also remains confident, but that the Moon will “succeed in thwarting this blatant extortion attempt.” “The Moon is doing nothing wrong!” she insisted. “Besides,” she added, “the Sun has failed to file any trademark or copyright registrations or applications for patents.”

*Hopefully it goes without saying that this report is fictional, but just in case, “this report is a fictional story used for illustration purposes.”

Image credits: Winter Moon in Red Oak Frame, cc-by-nc-nd, Ray Schroeder; Sun, author.

Hat tip to The Boondocks episode Riley Wuz Here for the line, "you know Riley, the moon steals its shine from the sun, and no one ever gets the two confused."

Oh Timbaland!

Dear Mr. Timothy Mosley,
I must say, I am a bit surprised. You’ve been in this game long enough to know better than this. You’ve been a producer nearly 15 years now, you ought to know all about sampling.

It’s not that you’re being sued (again) for copyright infringement – that happens to even the best of them – it’s your comments in response that make me shake my head. Before we take a look at those, I want to let you know that I am aware these comments are from 2007, when the video comparing your song and the Finnish song you allegedly used first appeared on YouTube. I am also aware that a Norwegian court has already dismissed a case about the two songs, which is now on appeal. It’s quite possible the Flordia court will find no substantial similarities or no access for copying – a friend of mine listened and said they didn’t sound alike – but, that still does not excuse your comments from 2007, when this whole mess started. Let’s go over those, shall we.

"That mess is so ridiculous." "I can't really discuss it because it's a legal matter. [And that is where you should have stopped.]

But that's why people don't believe it. [I’m not sure what ‘it’ is, so we’re going to leave this alone.]

It's from a video game, idiot. [Bad move, you just ruined one of your defenses. You admitted to having access to the allegedly infringed work. The person bringing the lawsuit, Glenn Gallefoss, claims the song was done for the Commodore 64. My family has one of those, it’s a computer, used to play video games. However, there is hope. If the video game you are mentioning came out before the allegedly infringed song, you might be able to show that Gallefoss (and the original creator, since Gallefoss remixed, Janne Sunni, actually took the song from a game themselves. ]

"Sample and stole is two different things. [That depends on whether or not you cleared the sample, and judging by the lawsuit, you didn’t.]

Stole is like I walked in your house, watched you make it, stole your protools, went to my house and told Nelly, 'Hey, I got a great song for you.' [Yes, that is stealing too, even without taking the protools with you.]

Sample is like you heard it somewhere, and you just sampled. [If that sample isn’t cleared, it’s still stealing. As you should well know, being a creator yourself, creators automatically get certain rights in their works, the moment the works are created. These rights – we call them copyrights - include the sole right to copy, publicly perform and make derivative works. That’s why there are things called licenses. I assume you’ve heard of licenses, and I’d bet a lot of money you frequently get paid for them from organizations like SoundExchange and (if you write as well as produce) ASCAP. Licenses are how creators arrange to let others do the things only the creators have the right to do. If I create a song and you want to make a derivative work from it, I license you that right for that work and you pay me a licensing fee.]

Maybe you didn't know who it was by because it don't have the credits listed." [This, Mr. Mosley, is called an orphan works problem. There’s been a lot of debate about orphan works lately, including in Congress. Orphan works are works for which the creator is unknown or unable to be found. Basically, the work has no parent, hence the term orphan. Just as it’s very hard to ask a parent you can’t find if his child can come out to play, it’s very hard to ask a creator you can’t find for a license to his work. Unfortunately, it does not also mean you can just use the work.
Part of the reason there are so many orphan works now floating around is the very long term of copyright and the effects of the retroactive Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Term Act. One solution to the orphan works problem would be a shorter copyright term. (Did you know it was originally only 14 years?!) But somehow, as a music producer, I’m guessing you’d be against that.]

This might sound sort of bleak, but don’t give up. There’s plenty of music out there that you can sample all you want without having to worry about lawsuits. First, there’s something called the public domain. This might be a bit hard to sample because you will only be able to use very old sound recordings of even older songs, and that’s only if the sound recording copyright owner didn’t renew their copyright (another mess from extending copyright terms.) Figuring out what’s in the public domain can be almost as much hassle as trying to license something that isn’t.

There’s an even better option. Check out ccMixter. It’s a place where people put music they want others to use and sample. You don’t have to license the music because the creators have already licensed it using Creative Commons licenses. These licenses say specifically what others can do with their work. Just don’t use anything that has an “nc” license it; that means no commercial work, and you, my friend, do commercial work.

As for the law suit, don’t worry. You’re very rich, so I’m sure you have very good attorneys. (Although, that didn’t help P.Diddy.) Just keep your mouth shut.

Sincerely,
goldenrail

Souter's Mark on IP

United States Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced last week that he will be retiring from the Court at the end of next month. Justice Souter authored several important opinions in the field of IP, including Markman, Grokster, and Campbell.

Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 517 U.S. 370 (1996) changed the face of patent litigation. Markman challenged the Court with the question of whether interpreting patent claims was a question of law or a question of fact. This is an extremely important question because in American court cases, questions of law are decided by the judge but questions of fact are decided by the jury. The Court in Markman held that the interpretation of patent claims was a question of law to be decided by the judge. This led to the development of mini-trials now generally referred to as Markman Hearings. During these hearings, the judge basically determines the meaning of the patent. Sometimes the judge's determinations may lead to a settlement of the case or the plaintiff dropping the case completely, because of how the judge has interpreted the claims of the patent at issue. The value and appropriateness of Markman hearings remain much debated issues. [Some views on Markman hearings here and here.]

MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. 913 (2005), is the case that put an end to the popular post-Napster file sharing programs. Grokster, like Napster, was a program made for people to share files. However, in an attempt to avoid the same fate as Napster, Grokster allowed file sharing without owning or running any of its own servers. Grokster was strictly peer to peer. However, in Grokster, the Court held that one who distributes a device or program with the object of promoting copyright infringement may be held liable for the resulting infringement by third parties. Thus, Grokster could be held liable for the infringement of its users. Like Napster before it, Grokster became a set of blue prints for the development of the next stage of file sharing software, eventually leading to BitTorrent and the recently litigated Pirate Bay.

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994) firmly established parody, whether commercial or not, as a fair use of copyrighted material. In this rather infamous case, publishing company Acuff-Rose claimed 2 Live Crew's rap song "Pretty Woman" infringed on their rights in the Roy Orbison hit "Oh, Pretty Woman." The Sixth Circuit had found that 2 Live Crew did commit copyright infringement because of the commercial nature of their song. The Supreme Court overturned this decision, saying that all of the fair use factors need to be considered, not just the commercial nature of the new work. Parody is considered as an aspect of free speech, something American jurisprudence holds in high regard. This case gets the best lawyering award because both Ippers and many scholars do not think Pretty Woman was actually a parody. But it was close enough that the legal argument won the day at the USSC.

Despite his simple lifestyle and his brief, rather uncontroversial, time on the Court, Souter has made a large impact on intellectual property law in the United States and the future of technology development in the country.

RIAA Hearing Live Tomorrow - POSTPONED

--I had this nice little post written about tomorrow's first-ever internet broadcasting of a US Federal Court hearing.  Then, yesterday, the Judge granted a stay.  The new hearing is scheduled for Feb. 24th. I've decided to go ahead with a post about the case, for those who might not be familiar with it yet. --

Judge Nancy Getner authorized the internet broadcasting of a pre-trial oral arguments in the Sony BMG Music v. Tenenbaum case (aka Joel Fights Back), originally scheduled for Thursday.   Her order suggested the streaming itself be done by Courtroom Live.   The Berkman Center at Harvard Law planned to rebroadcast the hearings live under a cc license.  The RIAA moved for a stay on the pre-trial hearing until the 1st Circuit can hear their appeal on the internet in the courtroom.  Judge Getner granted the stay Wednesday.

The Case

The RIAA is suing a 24 year old graduate student from Boston.  They allege he illegally downloaded and shared [edited] seven songs, nearly seven years ago.  Damages claimed: $1,000,000+.

Joel first received his "settle-or-else" letter in 2003.  The RIAA wanted $3,500.  He offered $500.  They refused.  Years later, in 2007, the RIAA finally dragged him into court.  Joel decided to fight back, pro se.  Judge Getner didn't like how crooked Lady Justice looked trying to hold up such an unbalanced scale and ensured that Joel received pro bono legal services.  (transcript)

Joel's pro bono legal counsel consists of Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson and a team of Harvard Law students.  The team distributes news about the case in a multitude of ways, including via their webpage, a the class blog and Twitter.  The actual trial is currently set for March 30, 2009.

The rescheduled hearing is pre-trial oral arguments.  The Defendants are arguing for the RIAA's allegations to be dismissed.

Access to the case's documents can be found on the Recording Industry v. The People blog.

The RIAA's Opposition to the Streaming

The RIAA has tried a lot of tactics and arguments to prevent the streaming of the hearing.  First, they claimed that the Judge doesn't have the authority to allow cameras in the courtroom.  (Then who does?!)  After the Judge ruled to allow the internet streaming, the RIAA filed an appeal asking the First Circuit to stay Judge Getner's decision.  [There are questions as to whether this type of appeal (to an interlocutory order) is even allowed.]  More information on the RIAA's desperation can be found here.

In addition to the appeal, the RIAA also moved for a stay of the pre-hearing, ideally to get the First Circuit to say the hearings cannot be broadcast on the internet before they happen.  Judge Getner agreed that the First Circuit should hear the appeal before the hearings proceed.

"...there is no emergency related to the hearing originally slated for January 22, 2009...postponing the hearing will allow the First Circuit an opportunity to fully consider the petition before it, particularly because a number of claims presented in the petition for mandamus were never raised in their current form in the district court."

The Judge's Position on the Streaming

Judge Getner called the RIAA's position "curious" because it seems counterintuitive to their professed aim of trying to educate the public about the evils of downloading.

"they [RIAA/Plaintiffs] believe that the lawsuits will deter the Defendants and the wider public from engaging in illegal file-sharing activities. Their strategy effectively relies on the publicity resulting from this litigation."

"The public benefit of offering a more complete view of these proceedings is plain, especially via a medium so carefully attuned to the Internet Generation captivated by these filesharing lawsuits."

Presentation About Case by Harvard Law Team Member