blog.shrub

20 congressjerks support the broadcast flag.

while the RIAA is pondering their RICO defense, i’d like to note they sued a dead woman a few months back:

The Associated Press reported that the RIAA identified Gertrude Walton as a prolific file sharer known as “smittenedkitten”. Accusing her of illegally trading music over the internet, the lawsuit was apparently filed more than a month after the 83-year-old woman died in December.

Her daughter, Robin Chianumba, also pointed out that Walton, who was the sole defendant in a federal lawsuit that claimed she’d shared more than 700 songs through P2P networks, hated computers and objected to having them in the house.

“[She] wouldn’t know how to turn on a computer,” Mrs Chianumba is reported to have told AP.

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”
— Mr. Bumble, Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)

Tanya Andersen, a 41 year old disabled single mother living in Oregon, has countersued the RIAA for Oregon RICO violations, fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation, the tort of “outrage”, and deceptive business practices:

11. Settlement Support Center also falsely claimed that Ms. Andersen had “been viewed” by MediaSentry downloading “gangster rap” music at 4:24 a.m. Settlement Support Center also falsely claimed that Ms. Andersen had used the login name “gotenkito@kazaa.com.” Ms. Andersen does not like “gangster rap,” does not recognize the name “gotenkito,” is not awake at 4:24 a.m. and has never downloaded music.

I wrote this as response to a comment on Lindi’s blog about “copywrite infringement” and thought I would share it.

First, a pet peeve. It’s copyright infringement. It refers to the right — a bunch of rights, really — the rights to translate, reproduce, publicly perform, adapt (create a derivative work), be identified as the author of the work and preserve the integrity of the work. It varies from country to country, and sometimes restricts the right to rent, transmit works digitally or display works publicly.

Many activities which would constitute infringement in one context are perfectly legal in another. This is known as fair use (USA) or fair dealing (Canada).

As for punishment
If you shoplift 20 DVDs, you will be charged with theft under $5000. For this, in Canada, you can be fined $2000 or sentenced to up to six months in jail. (If they call it an indictable offense instead of a summary offense, you could get up to two years, but that is rare. §334)

If you download 20 DVDs from the Internet, you can be charged with copyright infringement. The plaintiff/crown don’t have to prove actual damages. They can collect statutory damages of $500 to $20,000. Per DVD. (§38.1)

So, let me sum that up:
- shoplift 20 DVDs. maximum fine in Canada: $2000.
- download 20 DVDs. maximum fine in Canada: $400,000

The good part
The CD example is even more fun. In the USA, if you download a single CD, which is not legal, you are liable for infringement. But not just once — each track has its own copyright. So you’re liable for infringement, say, 10 times over.

But it gets better.

Each song has two copyrights: the copyright in the song itself (words and music), which typically belongs to the songwriter. And the copyright in the sound recording itself (which typically belongs to the label). So you’re now responsible for 20 counts of copyright infringement.

If they can prove you wilfully infringed this (not hard), than you are liable for statutory damages of up $150,000 per instance. (§504 (c)(2)) So downloading a CD could leave you liable for $3 million. (Stealing the CD from a store, on the other hand leaves you liable for $1000 (California §490).)

Kutztown, Pa. school district: Downloading iChat is a felony - IO ERROR

Thirteen high school students in Kutztown, Pa., have been charged with computer trespass, a third degree felony, for simply trying to use the laptops the school district forced on them.

The kind folks at Bromberg & Sunstein LLP - Intellectual Property, Business, Litigation have a nice flowchart showing just how easy copyright law is.

they suggest reform:

A first, useful step would be a drastic reduction of copyright back to its original terms—14 years, renewable once.

The US supreme court said your city can give your land to developers. In her scathing dissent, O’Connor wrote:

Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.

AP: “She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.”