Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 369 posts

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

#181

Post by dhosek »

nine_k wrote: post #155
frenchtoast8 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I suppose that selling is not necessary, distribution is. Record a movie off cable TV, share with your friends, and lo and behold, they're not going to buy the licensed VHS tape! And maybe even not going to subscribe to cable TV! Losses, losses everywhere.

I remember in 1980, when our school got a VCR and television (on a cart to allow it to be moved from one classroom to another). one of my teachers said that she wasn’t allowed to record something off the air at home and then show it in the classroom.

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

#182

Post by AlexCoventry »

WarmWash wrote: post #171
frenchtoast8 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Even complete legal novices like me know about the Sony/Betamax case, FWIW. It would shock me if a judge ruling on copyright implications of a technology didn't know about it.

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

#183

Post by thaumasiotes »

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…

> How could the lower court get this so wrong?

There are no standards for lower court judges. They frequently do things that are grossly illegal.

Here's a US lower court judge who spontaneously ordered that a child's name be changed because of the judge's religious beliefs: https://volokh.com/2013/08/12/judge-orders-that-childs-name-...

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

#184

Post by stackskipton »

shevy-java wrote: post #88
achandlerwhite wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my understanding. Basic carrier vs service stuff. What I wonder is how this might impact gun manufacturers.

Yeah. The courts are inconsistent here. If they want to hold service providers responsible, they also must make arms producer responsible, and politicians too.

Courts are not inconsistent, they are following the law. Like most cases decided by SCOTUS, they are deciding on the rules set by Congress and courts have ruled time and time again, that Constitution gives Congress almost sole jurisdiction for determining how Copyright law functions.

For copyright law, Congress does not expressly allow secondary liability for third parties FOR COPYRIGHT unless the party induced the infringement or the provided service is tailored to that infringement. In this case, Cox was not cutting off copyright infringers BUT since their service could be used by same infringers for valid use, they didn't have to.

For arms producer, Congress has exempted them for liability and courts have ruled, yep, Congress gets to make the rules here.

Congress could overturn both rulings by changing the law.

This is what we want. Congress makes the rules, courts interpret but don't make new rules.

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

#185

Post by giancarlostoro »

thot_experiment wrote: post #9

A tiny victory. Copyright should not be more than a decade. This intellectual property system is one of the worst things to happen in modern society is what I would have said a few years ago, now I got bigger problems but I'm still mad.

I think for Music / Movies / Shows, sure, for Software? Probably not so simple.

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

#186

Post by awright96 »

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…

[dead]

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

#187

Post by forgotaccount3 »

ok123456 wrote: post #175
smallerize wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's sufficient to have a process that satisfies the letter of the law

No.

Let's take an example of 401ks.

Any company that has a 401k has to pass non-discrimination testing to ensure their plan doesn't favor highly compensated employees over non-highly compensated employees. This is done through Actual Deferral Percentage and Actual Contribution Percentage tests. Just doing these tests can be very costly.

If you don't want to do these tests, then you can follow a 'safe harbor' action where the company automatically contributes x% for everyone. If the plan executes the 'safe harbor' action, then they automatically pass the two tests above.

However, if they don't follow through that plan they may still not have violated the nondiscrimination policies if they end up passing those two tests.

So to bring it back to the circumstance here, because Cox was not following their own processes which would have afforded them safe harbor they do not get the benefit of being automatically protected from the action. Then the court goes to see if Cox was sufficiently involved in the violating actions in order to be liable, and the court found that Cox was not.

So going back to the line...: > It's sufficient to have a process that satisfies the letter of the law, but you can simply not follow through and enforce it.

Not at all. Because it was not enforced, Cox lost the safe harbor protections and had to defend themselves.

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

#188

Post by damnitbuilds »

thmsths wrote: post #23
ronsor wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason copyright doesn't get fixed or removed is largely because the general public is worried more about other things and the big rightsholders continue their monthly payments—err, lobbying. Though AI might change that. In the end, large corporations get what they want.

The general public also get sold on the rosy idea that copyright (and patents to a certain extent), protect the little guy, that thanks to this mechanism their work will not be stolen by opportunistic freeloaders. It also resonates with the "one day I will strike rich" mentality. What they usually "forget" to tell you is that your IP is absolutely worthless if you don't have the resources to defend it in court, which…

Also: almost no works make any money at all after 5 years.

Copyright terms longer than a reasonable 5 years are only benefitting Disney and the other big copyright cartels.

They are not serving the purpose of copyright: To encourage creation.

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

#189

Post by HDThoreaun »

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…

> I don't know anyone who sold television recordings, it was always for personal use.

The claim was that recording for personal use was still copyright infringement

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

#190

Post by pessimizer »

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…

> 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?

This is not a profitable business for anyone but low-level scumbags who are also lawyers (so they do not have to pay for lawyers.)

Related, the music industry loses not a dime to piracy. If all piracy stopped tomorrow, they wouldn't likely make an additional cent. Which means that all money they spend to fight piracy is a loss - which is why they tried to make examples out of people and publicize it i.e. if we will go after this poor single mom, we will certainly go after you. But they would not go after you, because they're not going to spend that kind of money.

Which is the reason for going after ISPs and search engines, to make it their responsibility. Meaning that they would have to pay for the monitoring, they would be cutting off people's internet (which is almost scarier than a copyright violation suit in the age of monopoly and blacklists.) The RIAA could just sit back and spend nothing, just send lists of IPs to ISPs to be cut off, and watch piracy disappear. With the shield of a SCOTUS judgement, ISPs could cut off internet as quickly as youtube bans for DMCA, with no consequences.

The situation now is that they can go after individuals, but nobody is obligated to help. It's all on their dime.

Post reply on HN