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Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

nytimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#171

Post by WarmWash »

frenchtoast8 wrote: post #150
jetrink wrote: post #129

Hilariously (and appropriately), the decision cites Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. , also known as the "Betamax case." > (a) “The Copyright Act does not expressly render anyone liable for infringement committed by another.” Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 434. > In Sony, copyright owners sued the maker and the retailers of the Betamax video tape recorder. Id…

> The lower court found the Betamax maker liable because the tape recorder was “not suitable for any substantial noninfringing use” and infringement “was either the most conspicuous use or the major use of the Betamax product.” I don't know anyone who sold television recordings, it was always for personal use. How could the lower court get this so wrong? Was this just one uninformed judge? Or was this actually less c…

Given that that judgement was made in 1981, it's possible that the judges (who were likely a bunch of depression era old dudes) had zero knowledge or exposure, and had never even thought much about, personal video recording before a bunch of lawyers tried to explain it to them during the case.

We have see this happen repeatedly with modern tech cases.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#172

Post by themafia »

gosub100 wrote: post #165
scott_w wrote: post #66

Just to try and understand the decision, an analogy that’s coming to mind would be like saying a van manufacturer wouldn’t have liability if it’s used in a bank robbery. However if the manufacturer sold it with the intent for the buyer to use it for bank robbery (the manufacturer having the intent in this case, as well as the robber themselves), then they could become partially liable. Have I got that right?

I think a better analogy would be crack pipes sold in minimarts in a box that says "for tobacco use only". Crackheads estate sues the pipe mfr says you knew people were using it for crack and are proximately liable for facilitating the drug use.

I watched a drug addict lovingly turn a plain lightbulb into a meth pipe.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#173

Post by saaaaaam »

ls612 wrote: post #3

9-0 against the record labels. This effectively ends a long running strategy of trying to milk ISPs for people torrenting without a VPN. At the same time it likely puts things like the *Arr stack at more risk given their more tailored nature.

What does *Arr stack mean, please?

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#174

Post by wat10000 »

frenchtoast8 wrote: post #163
lvspiff wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a relative who setup a kinda "blockbuster" type service recording things and offering them out for rental. It really took off for VHS when he got HBO and recorded movies and then rented those. It wasnt a very lucrative hustle but it was an instance of what they didnt want to have happen

Absolutely this happened, but would you say that was the primary use case of the recording capabilities? I'm trying to understand how a judge would say that the only practical use of backups were copyright infringement, since that is completely contrary to both my experiences and what I believe to be common sense. If the answer to my confusion is that this actually was the major use case and my experiences were rare,…

This is the case that determined that recording TV broadcasts for your own personal use was not copyright infringement. They understood what the tech was used for, but they didn't know that this use was non-infringing until they made that decision.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#175

Post by ok123456 »

smallerize wrote: post #107
scott_w wrote: post #66

Just to try and understand the decision, an analogy that’s coming to mind would be like saying a van manufacturer wouldn’t have liability if it’s used in a bank robbery. However if the manufacturer sold it with the intent for the buyer to use it for bank robbery (the manufacturer having the intent in this case, as well as the robber themselves), then they could become partially liable. Have I got that right?

In this case, there is a safe harbor where ISPs can avoid liability by enforcing a policy against their customers that eventually cuts them off for repeated infringement. Cox stepped outside of this safe harbor by not following their own policy. But the court says that doesn't automatically make them liable.

Does this mean the entire enforcement regime is now more or less a paper tiger? It's sufficient to have a process that satisfies the letter of the law, but you can simply not follow through and enforce it.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#176

Post by a_vanderbilt »

saaaaaam wrote: post #173
ls612 wrote: post #3

9-0 against the record labels. This effectively ends a long running strategy of trying to milk ISPs for people torrenting without a VPN. At the same time it likely puts things like the *Arr stack at more risk given their more tailored nature.

What does *Arr stack mean, please?

Sonarr et al.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#177

Post by awesome_dude »

autoexec wrote: post #131
awesome_dude wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney are able to pay that amount because their IP is still generating massive income. I'm not a fan of Disney at all, just pointing out what i belive might be the flaw in the argument.

> Disney are able to pay that amount because their IP is still generating massive income. That's entirely irrelevant though. The point of copyright isn't to protect income. The point is to encourage the creation of new works. Disney doesn't need 100+ years of exclusive profits on something to encourage them to create new works. Nobody does. I'd even argue that the more popular a work is the more important it is that…

With respect - copyright's protection of income is the point

That's, by design, the tool used to encourage people to invest their time into producing works.

We would not be having this conversation at all if people weren't able to make money of these works - there'd be no point to copyright at all if there wasn't money to be made (by the artists) and the reproduction of their works wasn't restricting their ability to generate that income (for themselves, or their agents).

I want to emphasise that I am not arguing in favour of the system, only how and why it works this way.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#178

Post by cogman10 »

JasserInicide wrote: post #162

Ok while superficially great news but the supreme cynic in me is starting to think: what if the RIAA et al go to ISPs and saying they will pay them to continue monitoring this stuff and if they bring them to court, sue them and win they will give them a cut of the winnings? Would something like this even be financially feasible i.e. a profit motive inserted somewhere into the equation that ISPs would continue monitor…

> Would something like this even be financially feasible

No.

The entire reason they went after Cox is because cox has deep pockets and there was a possibility that Cox would just settle and work with them rather than fighting this all the way to the supreme court.

The problem sony has is the maximum money they can claim from an individual is just way less than what they can get from a business. Almost certainly enough to justify the legal fees.

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