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Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

nytimes.com

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Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#41

Post by nemothekid »

pantaril wrote: post #32
nemothekid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can figure out another way to reward creators without creating artificial marketplaces that demand most go without so the few left have reason to spend. I'd argue that we have already. Creating media is expensive, and if you take away the ability for people to monetize media you get rid of a segment who create media for the sake of media. The only people left are those wealthy enough to do so, and are no doubt lo…

>and if you take away the ability for people to monetize media He is talking about figuring out another way for creators to monetize their media without artificial restrictions on sharing/copying. He doesn't want to take away money from creators, just the copyright. And i couldn't agree more with this idea.

I worded my initial post incorrectly, but I'm not at odds with whats hes saying. What I'm trying to point out is that in many cases media has already begun to shift to this model. The model where there aren't any restrictions on sharing/copying is quickly becoming ad-sponsered content. And while it hasn't begun to effect music yet, its definitely in video (no one pays a cent to watch YouTube) and print (with advertisers astroturfing as legitimate articles on websites).

If its the case you agree with the idea, does that come at the cost where you open up a newspaper and 75% of the articles are actually written by corporations pretending to be journalists?

Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#42

Post by tomp »

repsilat wrote: post #39
siliconc0w wrote: post #9

The reality is more and more services will switch to the 'client-side-encrypted' model and then you're left trying to stomp out easily replicated and anonymously sharable lists of pointers to legally stored encrypted blobs. Good luck with that. From an ideological point it seems hard to rationalize. We pretty much have an obligation to fix copyright law, build a digital Alexandria, and give it to the world. For Free.…

> figure out another way to reward creators It should be noted that the current system is working pretty damn well. More content is being created in just about every medium than ever before, and more people are consuming it. Maybe the rewards don't go as much to the artists as they should, but the money flows towards the sorts of media that people actually want to consume, which is something that other systems would…

> It should be noted that the current system is working pretty damn well. More content is being created in just about every medium than ever before, and more people are consuming it.

I don't think that either of these (more content created, and more content consumed) is because the system is working well, but despite the system being horrible. The Internet and digital media enabled many more producers, many more consumers, and it stole power from the intermediaries/distributors . Before the Internet, the distributors of media, you know, actually distributed the content. Nowadays, they only act as gatekeepers and (copyright-enabled) rent-seekers.

Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#43

Post by narag »

pantaril wrote: post #35
jval wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this, but I think it is still an extremely difficult problem to solve. Most of the political problems we have are low hanging fruit from a technical perspective, the thing that renders them almost impossible is the fact that they run contrary to vested interests. Part of the reason that Uber and Airbnb have succeeded where other content-based startups have failed is the fact that they are dealing with ci…

>As copyright is regulated federally It's even worse, copyright is regulated by international treaties[1]. Every time someone comes up with an idea to reform copyright, shorten the terms etc. it's immediately shot down by the argument that we are bound by those agreegments and cannot change anything ourselves. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_internationa...

I don't see it as a real problem. Copyright internationalization is mostly pushed by the USA. If USA itself decides to reform copyright, everybody else will jump on the bandwagon.

Of course, it's the money. It would be interesting seeing copyright rents by country.

Marijuana legalization is the very same story. Other countries wouldn't do it, fearing the wrath of USA. But now USA states are opening that mellon.

Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#44

Post by e12e »

Animats wrote: post #8
tantalor wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iTunes Store deserves much of the credit for that shift.

True. That, not the iPod, was Apple's real weapon. Apple was able to bring that off because for a reason that's not well understood. Remember, Apple was nowhere in consumer electronics at the time. There were bigger companies with MP3 players. But Apple had an edge. Hollywood, which includes the music industry, is very hierarchical. Steve Jobs was not only CEO of Apple. He was also CEO of Pixar. As the head of a majo…

Lets not forget that Sony Music/Entertainment kept hobbling Sony Tech. Which supposedly is why Sony had a few brilliant mp3 players, and then ... nothing. For a few years.

It's ludicrous -- the company had the music rights, movie rights, patents and technical know-how -- but just refused accepting the way the trends were going.

Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#45

Post by e12e »

nemothekid wrote: post #41
pantaril wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and if you take away the ability for people to monetize media He is talking about figuring out another way for creators to monetize their media without artificial restrictions on sharing/copying. He doesn't want to take away money from creators, just the copyright. And i couldn't agree more with this idea.

I worded my initial post incorrectly, but I'm not at odds with whats hes saying. What I'm trying to point out is that in many cases media has already begun to shift to this model. The model where there aren't any restrictions on sharing/copying is quickly becoming ad-sponsered content. And while it hasn't begun to effect music yet, its definitely in video (no one pays a cent to watch YouTube) and print (with advertis…

On the other hand -- I'd be happy to pay to avoid ads on youtube. It's one of the few streaming services I'd consider paying for (if I could) -- precisely because it's mostly user-curated.

Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#46

Post by teachingaway »

WARNING - the Grooveshark founders were Personally liable for the copyright infringement. This means its not just the Grooveshark company that has to pay the fine, but cofounders Tarantino and Greenberg will need to pay out of their own pockets.

From Pages 54-56 of the decision:

> Here, defendants Tarantino and Greenberg satisfy the criteria for corporate officer liability. Tarantino and Greenberg are the co-founders of Escape. Tarantino is the Chief Executive Officer and Greenberg is the Chief Technology Officer. Together, Tarantino and Greenberg manage all aspects of Escape’s business. They both directed the infringements at issue in the present litigation by: (1) creating a business model that was based upon the unlicensed sharing of copyright protected material; (2) sending written instructions to the entire company requiring employees to operate “seeding points” so that they could launch the Grooveshark P2P Network; (3) creating the Central Music Library and directing employees to upload files to the Library; (4) deciding to launch the Grooveshark Lite streaming service and instructing Escape employees to upload files for that service; and (5) personally uploading copyrighted protected material, Moreover, they both have a substantial equity interest in Groovershark and thus, directly benefit from the infringing activity.

Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#47

Post by flavor8 »

wmf wrote: post #12
fragsworth wrote: post #10

I don't see how the judge could rule against Grooveshark. How is Grooveshark any different from Youtube, for instance? The only difference is that the users, on their own, upload much less of their own content on Grooveshark than they do on Youtube. The users are more prone to upload illegal work. But that seems like an arbitrary reason to make this ruling. It's unfortunate that the law can be so vague and ill-define…

Did you see the part of the article where employees of Grooveshark uploaded infringing music?

Youtube weren't significantly better:

https://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/viacom-google-youtube-founders...

Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#48

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

pantaril wrote: post #35
jval wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this, but I think it is still an extremely difficult problem to solve. Most of the political problems we have are low hanging fruit from a technical perspective, the thing that renders them almost impossible is the fact that they run contrary to vested interests. Part of the reason that Uber and Airbnb have succeeded where other content-based startups have failed is the fact that they are dealing with ci…

>As copyright is regulated federally It's even worse, copyright is regulated by international treaties[1]. Every time someone comes up with an idea to reform copyright, shorten the terms etc. it's immediately shot down by the argument that we are bound by those agreegments and cannot change anything ourselves. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_internationa...

Since when does the US care about treaty obligations?

Re: Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

#49

Post by talmand »

vorg wrote: post #31

Content, like code, should be free! We also need a judge somewhere to rule against the shark who hijacked the Groovy codebase and turned it all into something it wasn't originally intended to be - surely that's a copyright infringement. Instead of a specified language with many open source implementations and much documentation as per its creator's vision, it's all being controlled by one corporate with hardly anyone…

Content, like code, should be priced at the level the creator wishes it to be while considering the price the market is willing to pay.
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