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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

#271

Post by Aerroon »

bombcar wrote: post #192
pavon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ninth Circuit court of appeals understood correctly what the primary use of Betamax would be, but they believed that personal home recording was not fair use, and was thus copyright infringement. They interpreted the law as only allowing libraries to record TV or radio broadcasts. The Supreme Court ruling for this case found that time-shifting was fair use, but only by a narrow 5-4 margin. Fair use could have gon…

We have to remember that at the time of the decision, there really wasn't any source of things to copy with a Betamax recording device besides commercial broadcast TV and other copyrighted materials. Camcorders and such devices where you could make your own content were very rare, if available at all.

I don't think that justifies the decision though. People did personally own cameras. Also, broadcast TV might want to use it for copies themselves.

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

#272

Post by Aerroon »

shiroiuma wrote: post #269
xoa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree that any single fixed term makes sense. Rather, I think it'd be better if the exponential cost to society (in terms of works that don't happen, and works that don't happen based on those works that didn't happen and so on compounding) was just part of the yearly renewal price. Do maybe everyone gets 7 years flat to start with, then it costs $100*1.3^(year). So after another 25 years it'd be aroun…

Yep, I've been proposing a similar system literally for decades now in online discussions like this. If you dig through Slashdot posts from 20 years ago, you might find something from me saying something similar. It makes sense too: some things just aren't very profitable, and some are. If it's really worth it to the creator, they can pay for it. If they want to keep it locked up for 75 years, they better be prepared…

This could lead to a broader culture, because the most popular works would get long copyright protection terms, while the relatively unpopular ones would get short protection terms. People would be more likely to use those unpopular works and perhaps breathe new life into them.

Eg imagine if this is how the system worked right now. You could have streamers watch unpopular (modern) movies with their audience. Or a youtuber could read a book to their viewers (listeners). And it wouldn't have to be content that's 100+ years out of date.

You could also make it so that when the copyright protection first expires then a percentage of the income earned through the use of the work gets paid to the author for some number of years. Eg you're free to use the work, but you've got to pay some percentage of the revenue to the author for 10 years.

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

#273

Post by jibal »

shiroiuma wrote: post #262
jonny_eh wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't normally side with a cable company, but they're up against Sony Music, so I'll allow it. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

Yep, on the evil scale, Sony Music definitely ranks well ahead of Cox Cable. Now, if this were Comcast vs. Sony Music, it would be a closer call, but I still think Sony would have the edge.

I realize I'm in the minority but I side with whomever I think is right under the law, regardless of my (sometimes extreme) feelings about the parties and even about the law.

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

#274

Post by [deleted] »

shiroiuma wrote: post #262
jonny_eh wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't normally side with a cable company, but they're up against Sony Music, so I'll allow it. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

Yep, on the evil scale, Sony Music definitely ranks well ahead of Cox Cable. Now, if this were Comcast vs. Sony Music, it would be a closer call, but I still think Sony would have the edge.

[deleted]

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

#275

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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,…

> Absolutely this happened, but would you say that was the primary use case of the recording capabilities?

I don't think I can understate the amount that I hate this line of reasoning.

Suppose we apply this logic to writable CDs. Some drives could only read but not write CDs and those devices cost less than the ones that could write. Moreover, the early writable drives were stupid expensive and because of that most people in those days only had readers.

Then in those early days, the usage of the drives would skew more heavily towards piracy, because it would be more common to spend $1000+ more on a CD writer if you're operating a commercial piracy operation and keeping it busy than if you just want to write something to a single CD instead of an entire $20 box of floppy disks once or twice a year.

A few years later the price of the writable drives has come down to almost as low as the price of the read-only drives and everybody has them and is using them for all kinds of legitimate things. But that doesn't happen if pointing to a high initial rate of piracy can get them banned before they get widely adopted for other purposes.

There's a reason why they said "substantial non-infringing use" instead of asking what percent of existing use it is at some specific point in time.

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

#276

Post by _2d30 »

jonny_eh wrote: post #255
djoldman wrote: post #110

For those like myself who wanted context: > Cox Communications v. Sony Music, 607 U.S.___ (2026), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the liability of an internet service provider for its subscribers engaging in copyright infringement. > Cox Communications was sued by multiple music labels for lax enforcement of its users engaged in sharing the labels' copyrighted music, arging Cox finacially benefitted…

I wouldn't normally side with a cable company, but they're up against Sony Music, so I'll allow it. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

I don't know maybe just be worried instead about being on the side of justice and what is right and not be so worried if that side has people you don't like on it.

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

#277

Post by AbanoubRodolf »

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.

[flagged]

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

#278

Post by cess11 »

bahmboo wrote: post #266
Henchman21 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "judges making law" a key feature of common law systems? IANAL, obviously, I would know the answer to such a basic question if I were. But this is my understanding, and given that this case is in the US and the US is based on common law, I'm genuinely curious if you're advocating the US change to civil law?

Judge's rulings set precedence. So as a judge you can point to another judge, usually up the chain, and say "this is what those laws mean". Legislators write laws that are very broad and ill defined. Almost on purpose. Then the judges have to figure it out. I don't like that. It is an ill defined spec and we dump the details onto a judge who may or may not have any idea of what is going on.

As it happens, natural language is "ill defined". This is an important piece of the argument for teleological justice, where the law is framed and interpreted according to the intent of the sovereign rather than some linguistic literalism.

By the involved professionals laws are commonly understood as norms, i.e. what is established through judgement in court when the instructions from the sovereign (and sometimes sources like common sense) are interpreted and applied to so called facts presented to the court during proceedings.

In this sense, what the politicians have their minions type down into some document isn't actually the law. Common law systems give judges more leeway in how to frame and interpret the sources of law than e.g. the swedish system, where politicians apply a process that produces a series of documents that explain and teleologically ground the text that parliament then votes on. This gives the sovereign a larger degree of influence over the instructions that judges use when creating law through their judgements.

As I understand it, this leeway in common law systems is thought to balance the latent tyranny of the sovereign, and function similar to constitutional courts in that judges can take the view of the people into account to a larger extent.

Not that I'd trust US jurisdictions in anything but certain business law settings, but some clever people thought and deliberated a lot when designing what they have over there.

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

#279

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

bombcar wrote: post #195
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?

An example closer to home is those file sharing sites that allow you to pay to "download faster" which skirt very close to the line, if not go over it. But Grokster et al openly advertised that you could get all music "for free". Where the gray area is would be something that arguably can ONLY be used for piracy (an example of what this would be is hard to imagine, but maybe a device that can ONLY duplicate encrypted…

> An example closer to home is those file sharing sites that allow you to pay to "download faster" which skirt very close to the line, if not go over it.

I know some file sharing sites do ip logging so if DMCA strikes happen, they can simply ban the ip too.

Is there anything tangetially important to these file sharing sites too after this decision by Supreme Court?

I can imagine that as long as they operate legal things as well and dont do things under the intention of just being used for piracy (from their sides but we all know the reality)

Then, they don't have to do anything other than just accepting the DMCA notice.

There are definitely server providers who are more privacy oriented while being affordable who only get involved not even with DMCA but rather some court ruling within their specific country which can be permissive.

So is it possible for now for a file sharing provider to say that we follow the DMCA but only if you can get it written from a local judge that we will remove these files for the purposes of Privacy for our end users?

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

#280

Post by lazyasciiart »

jibal wrote: post #273
shiroiuma wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, on the evil scale, Sony Music definitely ranks well ahead of Cox Cable. Now, if this were Comcast vs. Sony Music, it would be a closer call, but I still think Sony would have the edge.

I realize I'm in the minority but I side with whomever I think is right under the law, regardless of my (sometimes extreme) feelings about the parties and even about the law.

A case only reaches the Supreme Court if there is confusion over who is right under the law. The Supreme Court decision itself is not a definitive guide to which side is right under the law, as they’ve overturned themselves multiple times. So how do you decide which party to side with?
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