Posted on 09/02/2003 9:34:50 AM PDT by chance33_98
Google sucked into RIAA/P2P fight
By Dinah Greek [02-09-2003] Search firm removes links to certain P2P sites following complaint from Kazaa creators
Popular search engine Google has been sucked into the ongoing legal battle between the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and peer-to-peer sites (P2P). Following a court ruling in favour of the RIAA, Sharman Networks, the developers of the popular Kazaa P2P site, sent a letter to Google requesting that it remove links to certain sites.
Fifteen sites are thought to be in breach of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and are said by Sharman Networks to be running unauthorised copies of its Kazaa P2P software.
The letter demanded that Google should "immediately remove or disable all access to the infringing material".
Google has now removed the URLs from its search listings.
In a statement posted at the foot of its search results, Google said: "In response to a complaint we received under the DMCA, we have removed eight result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results."
Google has also posted a link to the letter from Sharman.
It has listed the full URLs of the sites it has removed, of which all but three still worked when tested by vnunet.com.
I did not know that. I stand corrected.
It wasn't a court decision, Google just chose to comply with their letter... BUT Google also linked their letter, which has all the URLs listed right on it... LOL. Serves RIAA right for trying to control information.
Quite frankly, that's none of your business - using the same logic, why do you need a backup of a cassette or a book or a magazine or a videotape?
The "why" is immaterial.
You want to debate the logic of actually getting it, fine. But when you get into challenging the "why", you begin treading on an individuals sovreign rights. For all you know, the backup copy is so that the original can be crushed in a compactor. As long as the copy is not being sold, it shouldn't matter.
Sharman's problem is that the unaltered Kazaa software includes a method for Sharman usurping the user's bandwidth via some trojan spyware. Kazaa Lite disables that capability without damaging the capability of the sharing software.
Sharman figures that if they piss in the pool (to take a page from the Microsoft/AOL playbook), everyone will come flocking back to their shop for a fix.
Just damn.
If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Anyone else see the irony in Kazaa complaining about copyright infringement?
Then why am I able to burn a copy onto CD for my own backup? Or are you telling me that's illegal too?
Anyone else see the irony in Kazaa complaining about copyright infringement?
Indeed. But some would insist it's a matter of degrees.
Actually, you seem to be supporting the idea that American citizens should not be allowed to even DISCUSS THE EXISTENCE of certain sites.
No, I'm not saying its illegal. I'm not even saying that file-sharing ala Kazaa is illegal. But it has the potential to wipe out entire industries (music/movies/games/book publishing) involving creative works. The law needs to catch up with the digital age.
The law never got lost in the race behind the advancement of technology, only law enforcement. The same old copyright infringement laws worked just as good then as they do now. Any law that only works when you make extreme examples out of someone is a pointless law. If there are so many people committing infringement then copyright itself needs to be reexamined. It never occurs to many that copyright itself is what needs to catch up with the "digital age." The number of infringing Americans is now probably around 30%-40% of our country.
When you have numbers that high you have to question the principle and the law. Copyrights should still be respected and mass infringers should be sued, but it should not be a criminal offense unless you are selling the copies. Copyright needs to evolve and become more liberal, not more authoritarian.
In this debate you are either with those of us who want to reform the law and bring it into balance with the realities of modern technology and society or with those who want to regulate everything that could infringe into the ground. There is no middle ground here. You are either for total government intervention or against it. Without total government intervention into all areas of computer development you can't stop this phenomenon. You simply couldn't enforce the laws without it.
Allow me to prove that you need backups. I'll let my 3 year old next to your CD / DVD collection (he treats them like frisbees).
Shouldn't the headline read, "Google squeezed by Sharman?"
You mean the buyer doesn't own the physical object, the CD, DVD, the box they came in, the cover? That is to say, he's not free to do as he likes with them? Call the cops if he accidentally tears a CD cover? What exactly is being licensed?
Who said anything about the publisher having to supply such copies?
There is a very long-standing practice that someone who purchases a copyrighted work also purchases the rights to do certain things with that work. Even going back before the days of computers and photocopiers, it was recognized that certain types of transcription were both reasonable and proper. For example, someone who wished to record(*) a version of a piece of music on a saxophone quarted would be expected to transcribe the music into the keys necessary for the different instruments. The person would be required to purchase as many copies of the parts as would be necessary without copying(**) but would not have to pay anything extra for the transcription rights unless the transcriptions themselves were distributed.
(*) It would be necessary to obtain a compulsory license for the recording within 30 days of its production; this license would not have any associated fees or payments, however, unless or until the recording was sold or otherwise distributed. If the recording ended up being shelved no fees would be due.The RIAA, in insisting that music must never be copied in any form, is going against very long-standing tradition. Their position would be much more supportable if they were to require that a copy of a work be purchased for every copy which is in use.(**) Generally this would imply one part per person, though if the original purchased music printed e.g. first and second clarinet parts on the same page and the transcription listed first and second saxophone on the same page, it would probably be acceptable to have both players reading off the same copy of the transcription. Note, however, that if only the second-saxophone part had to be transposed, it would probably be necessary either to transcribe both parts onto the same new page (off of which both performers would play) or else buy two copies of the page (one of which would be used as-is, and the other of which would be transposed).
BTW, CD's can and do go bad.
You've never lived in a house with young kids, have you? The things get dropped, stepped on, etc. One scratch and they're useless.
Straw-man argument. The publisher of a book does not supply me with a microfilm copy, but he doesn't complain if I choose to create one for my own purposes, nor does he complain if I choose to scan a purchased book into my PC for my own purposes
No one I know of is demanding this right. What we are demanding is to be left the hell alone in regard to how we use our DVDs and other media in our homes, cars, computers, etc. If I buy a DVD I should have a legal right to convert its data to a VCD for viewing on one of my older PCs. You are guilty of a felony under the DMCA if you do that.
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