Comments on: Fair use defense thrown out in landmark filesharing case

By: John Lister

John Lister — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:15:20 +0000

A point I forgot to include was that Judge Gertner noted that the availability of illegal downloads does inevitably deter some customers, but she acknowledged that not all the people who download an album would otherwise have bought it.

If Tenenbaum is convicted, that may be reflected in Gertner’s instructions to the jury regarding the actual losses the music industry suffered (as opposed to the simple “downloads x retail price” formula that prosecutors normally argue.)

By: Me

Me — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:37:11 +0000

Gertner was absolutely correct in that summary judgment. There is a need for some sort of legal protection for creative artists (authors, musicians, painters, etc.) and it is called copyright law.

For someone to obtain, for example, the entire set of published and any un-published (boot) recordings made and for sale by Pink Floyd or whoever owns the rights to said recordings, and then distribute them for free or at a profit without the rightholder’s permission is a scary thing.

That being said, I’ve purchased 4 copies of Pink Floyd’s DSotM album, two on vinyl, two on CD, the latter of each being Mobile Fidelity editions. I think I should be entitled to DL, for free, another copy to any media I choose. (let’s just say I lost a lot of my music collection due to unfortunate circumstances beyond my control.)

IOW, the judge has a clue in this copyright case!

By: Me

Me — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:36:37 +0000

Gertner was absolutely correct in that summary judgment. There is a need for some sort of legal protection for creative artists (authors, musicians, painters, etc.) and it is called copyright law.