The RIAA's last stand.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/29/riaa-suing-citizen-for-copying-legally-purchased-cds-to-pc/
If there is one place the RIAA has feared to tread, it's the legality of making copies of your own media for your own personal use. And for good reason; they might very well lose. Well, looks like they're now desperate enough to roll the dice.
When you purchase a CD you technically agree to numerous restrictions; including making backup copies (there are several lobbyist induced pieces of federal and state legislation that make backing up your own CDs illegal). But, record companies and other copyright holders have never (IIRC) actually challenged the legality of anyone backing up copies for their own personal use, rather than distribution. Why? Because such a lawsuit, if unsuccessful, would be catastrophic. They must be truly desperate to attempt to put an end to personal copying technologies (an old adage about barn doors and cows comes to mind). If the black letter law is on their side, you would think this would be a slam dunk case. However, it certainly isn't.
Why, you ask? Simple: the ability of Congress to pass copyright laws is not unfettered. The copyright provision in the Constitution states:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
While broad (for example, it has been used to retroactively extend the copyrighted works of dead creators), this is not a limitless provision. At some point federal copyright law is going to run afoul of the three hundred pound gorilla of the United States legal system: the 1st amendment.
While it may seem counterintuitive, an unlimited copyright monopoly, including the ability to make backups, utterly guts the longstanding theory of jurisprudence known as "Fair Use" (wiki it if you're interested). The power to dominate the distribution and copying of a media is also the power to deny others the ability to use that work for non-commercial, classic "freedom of expression" uses. For example, if you want to compare on your blog images of Star Wars and The Triumph of the Will to demonstrate Lucas's borrowing of Reifenstahl's imagery, but you are forbidden from every duplicating or copying any image from your DVDs, that non-commercial method of expression is barred.
We've never had a decision that solves, once for all, whether Fair Use and current "copyright" laws preventing copying purchased media are incompatible. Now we will. And if the RIAA loses, many of those federal laws are going to be declared null and void (right now, we're not sure if they are or not), and the RIAA is going to lose perhaps the biggest coercive threat it has available to it.
If there is one place the RIAA has feared to tread, it's the legality of making copies of your own media for your own personal use. And for good reason; they might very well lose. Well, looks like they're now desperate enough to roll the dice.
When you purchase a CD you technically agree to numerous restrictions; including making backup copies (there are several lobbyist induced pieces of federal and state legislation that make backing up your own CDs illegal). But, record companies and other copyright holders have never (IIRC) actually challenged the legality of anyone backing up copies for their own personal use, rather than distribution. Why? Because such a lawsuit, if unsuccessful, would be catastrophic. They must be truly desperate to attempt to put an end to personal copying technologies (an old adage about barn doors and cows comes to mind). If the black letter law is on their side, you would think this would be a slam dunk case. However, it certainly isn't.
Why, you ask? Simple: the ability of Congress to pass copyright laws is not unfettered. The copyright provision in the Constitution states:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
While broad (for example, it has been used to retroactively extend the copyrighted works of dead creators), this is not a limitless provision. At some point federal copyright law is going to run afoul of the three hundred pound gorilla of the United States legal system: the 1st amendment.
While it may seem counterintuitive, an unlimited copyright monopoly, including the ability to make backups, utterly guts the longstanding theory of jurisprudence known as "Fair Use" (wiki it if you're interested). The power to dominate the distribution and copying of a media is also the power to deny others the ability to use that work for non-commercial, classic "freedom of expression" uses. For example, if you want to compare on your blog images of Star Wars and The Triumph of the Will to demonstrate Lucas's borrowing of Reifenstahl's imagery, but you are forbidden from every duplicating or copying any image from your DVDs, that non-commercial method of expression is barred.
We've never had a decision that solves, once for all, whether Fair Use and current "copyright" laws preventing copying purchased media are incompatible. Now we will. And if the RIAA loses, many of those federal laws are going to be declared null and void (right now, we're not sure if they are or not), and the RIAA is going to lose perhaps the biggest coercive threat it has available to it.
posted by O.C. Mike at
4:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home