Search Engine: File Sharing IS Fair Use

file sharing for all

Nowadays, file sharing is in demand. Much information where conveyed through emails, web or even phones. You don’t need quick cash to do so. Thanks Mike for the links I enjoy reading it. And I really agree the file sharing is fair to everyone. The disadvantage this sharing will only depends on the person who shares and receives. Just don’t be so abusive in doing file sharing always share files that are true and significant.

posted by DaneC on 29 July 2009 at 3:38 AM

Re: Search Engine: File Sharing IS Fair Use

A recession is making a controversy. Headlines are going to be reading for weeks about the Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush break up. No body in their right minds should care, and quite frankly when people actually give any attention to things like the Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush break up – it explains George Bush and Sarah Palin very well. (We mean a deficiency in intelligence. In other words, if Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush breaking up means anything to you…you can extrapolate from here, but it's a word used for a mute person.) Nobody cares if either of them need pay day loans or unsecured loans, and no one should care if Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush break up.

posted by Harrisom on 30 July 2009 at 4:47 AM

Right to sue and "open" process?

Quick thoughts:

While copyright traditionally targeted the right for copyright holders to sue alleged infringers, the most controversial aspect of recent reforms are quite different. The legacy intermediaries (motion picture, recording, etc industries) are not targeting infringers, but what they call "enablers". This is providers of technology that can be abused to infringe copyright (software authors, hardware manufacturers, communications providers).

Don't be distracted by P2P lawsuits. It wasn't a major factor in bills C-60 or C-61, and won't likely get more than a casual mention in the new bill. By word count alone the largest issue was and remains DRM (locks on our hardware to disallow us to control its legal usage) and ISP liability. The media likes to distract people talking about P2P, assuming (mostly correctly) that the people reading won't read the actual bill.

As to whether the current consultation process is "amazingly open", I am not convinced that this one isn't worse than the 2001/2002 round of consultations.

http://copyright.econsultation.ca/topics-sujets/show-montrer/6?root=517#comment_1140

posted by Russell McOrmond on 30 July 2009 at 7:27 AM

It's all about the money.

Back in 1999, there was a very ugly three year court battle between the MPIAA and the developers of DVD decryption software. At issue here was the right to PLAY legally purchased movie DVDs on your computer. That battle ended for the developers of the software when Interscope, developers of WinDVD and LinDVD (the DVD playback software that does NOT require DVD decryption for playback) were able to show the courts that you do not NEED to decrypt DVDs to copy them.

As a result, the decryption software was declared legal for playback of DVDs only. This, of course brings into the forefront the reasoning behind that lawsuit.

File sharing is no different. There are legal places where you can download and share music, such as Jamendo and Magnatune. These labels make their money off CD sales and donations. Unlike the major recording labels, about half the proceeds from sales at these labels go to the artists that record for these labels.

With Creative Commons and the General Public License (and similar open source licenses) available for content, it is no wonder that file sharing of Free content has grown exponentially. Of course, this all depends upon how much the people know about where the Free content can be found.

Because of this, the major record labels, movie studios, commercial software publishers (expecially Micro$oft) know that their business model has been threatened by file sharing, by Free content and by the Free and Open Source technologies that enable the latter two.

For example, why purchase Microsoft Office when you can download and install OpenOffice.org for the cost of a CD-R or the bandwidth needed to download OpenOffice.org.

So of course, the companies that sponsor the traditional business model will do anything to preserve that business model.

posted by phorneker on 31 July 2009 at 8:56 PM

Beyond File Sharing - To Fairness

Imagine the ramifications of a ruling in favor of the defendant. Fairness trumps corporate evil. What this result would be is legal precedent that fairness is a reasonable expectation of the individual in modern, corporate society. Could this argument be used against oil companies who reap huge profits that have no basis in the cost of production? Could you claim that exorbitant fees for text messaging or internet access use are not fair costs? Should utilities charge flat-rate surcharges to pay for deliberate long-deferred maintenance?

The principal of fairness has long been lost in our culture. The haves reaped many benefits at the expense of the have-nots. Corporate culture, unbridled consumerism and rampant greed for profit have created a world where fairness is part of the collateral damage. This case could be a turning point. Legal precedent in our modern world that allows the individual to claim supremacy over the intangible corporate structures and reassert some control over the excesses of our modern society.

One can only hope (because we don't have more than hope right now.)

To Fairness!

posted by Ed Terry on 06 August 2009 at 2:13 PM