Copyright Watch
by John Walker on May.05, 2006, under The Rest
Four new copyright infringing Copyright Watches are now up.
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May 5th, 2006 on 14:44
Are you really this hysterical about copyright or is it just for the column?
May 5th, 2006 on 17:03
Do you always ask idiotic loaded questions, or was it just that one?
May 6th, 2006 on 03:13
Okay, I don’t want to get into personal insults so if you’ll allow me to change my question to something less “loaded”, do you feel restricted from making a full argument by the word limit in these columns? It’s just when I’ve read your thoughtful diatribes here it grates when you take a “think of the children” line when you mention the BPI law suits. Or maybe I’ve got that wrong and the BPI are exclusively suing children, or that suing children for illegal activity is specifically heinous? Another example is your dismissal of judges’ opinions in no. 186 that I’m forced to just take your word for because you don’t give any account of their judgement and no way to check for myself. I don’t suppose you have citations for those cases? Presumably you checked them in something like the Times law supplement?
May 6th, 2006 on 09:51
I haven’t taken a “think of the children” line. I’ve taken a “reporting what’s happening” line. “Think of the children” is a term to describe a deceptive act where one pretends that an innocuous problem will somehow harm children in an effort to heighten drama. The BPI and RIAA are systematically targeting young people as they are easier to threaten without fear of the cases reaching court. This is occuring. I report it.
Are you aware that the judge refused the defendants a trial, despite their attempts to present evidence for their defence? REFUSED A TRIAL. They were ordered to pay thousands of pounds without the right to defend themselves, and from this the BPI declare it proof that file sharing is illegal.
This is the only means by which the BPI have ever been able to justify their claims of “illegality”, and they merrily declare that the judge’s ruling proves it.
“We have long said that unauthorised filesharing is damaging the music industry and stealing the future of artists and the people who invest in them. Here is clear confirmation of what we also said – that unauthorised filesharing is illegal.” – BPI chairman Peter Jamieson
The first half is a lie, as their own sales figures demonstrate all too clearly each and every year. But nevermind that the first half of his statement is demonstrably dishonest – let’s focus on the second half: this is their final proof! They are happy to rest the evidence of illegality on the ruling of a judge who refused defendants the right to a trial. Ok then! Lap it up, let’s not question it.
So what remains far more interesting is why you are so interested in discrediting the statements. What’s your motivation?
May 6th, 2006 on 14:57
“What’s your motivation?”
Honestly, it’s nothing sinister, I don’t like the way you’ve written the columns with an obvious slant which makes it hard to take what you claim (necessarily briefly it seems) at face value.
If you can manage to believe I’m being open-minded about this and want to hear your points elaborated on I’d appreciate you going into more detail on a few things.
“The BPI and RIAA are systematically targeting young people as they are easier to threaten without fear of the cases reaching court. This is occuring. I report it.”
How are the BPI “systematically targeting” young people? As far as I can tell from newspaper archives there isn’t a report of a single law suit being issued against a minor, which makes sense as I thought they were issued based on the owner of a logged IP address?
“Are you aware that the judge refused the defendants a trial, despite their attempts to present evidence for their defence? REFUSED A TRIAL”
Again, I checked this as far as I could in the papers and one defendant claimed he “didn’t know it was wrong” which is an admittance of guilt so summary judgement is entirely fair and sane. The other defendant claimed the BPI evidence didn’t show it was him sharing files and the judge found as a question of fact that it did, so overwhelmingly that he could give summary judgement. Neither of these people were denied the chance to defend themselves, the first admitted guilt (in the legal sense, before you start on that) and the second had such a bad defence it wasn’t worth more than cursory examination when weighed against the evidence against him. Perhaps, you’ve seen the evidence in the latter case for yourself, because I would’ve thought it’d be pretty hard to criticise the judge’s opinion otherwise?
“This is the only means by which the BPI have ever been able to justify their claims of “illegality””
I almost scared to ask, but why do you seem to think file-sharing is legal? This is really the bit that confuses me the most so you can assume I’m an idiot and start at the start if you like.
Or just brush me off if you think I’m wasting your time, I can go look this stuff up elsewhere.
May 6th, 2006 on 16:44
What illegal act has occurred?
May 6th, 2006 on 17:10
Electronic communication to the public of a restricted work contrary to ss.16 & 20 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Is this a trick question?
May 6th, 2006 on 17:25
No, it’s a question to which you provided the answer.
Do you believe the rulings to be just, in light of the continuous, harmless copying of music since music has existed? (Bear in mind that during the peaks of filesharing, record sales have shown their highest climbs).
(And do do some of your own research as well. In reprinting six month old columns, I really don’t delight in the idea of going back through six months of bookmarks to find each and every story. Although finding the innumerous reports of the deliberate targetting of young people by the RIAA and BPI shouldn’t take you long).
May 6th, 2006 on 18:51
Fine, I answered your question, let’s stick to that point. You said, referring to the two High Court cases: “This is the only means by which the BPI have ever been able to justify their claims of “illegality””, when in fact file-sharing of copyrighted material is prima facie illegal; the BPI don’t need to use these cases to justify any claims of illegality. So why did you write that?
Your printed article, which you are confident enough in to take money for (presumably), implies that the BPI are strong-arming people into settlements when they have no legal case. Except their case is so strong that when it actually got to court the BPI discharged a *higher* burden of proof in getting summary judgement than would otherwise be expected in a civil case. And yet somehow this last point makes you think the defendants actually didn’t get a trial at all, that they were REFUSED A TRIAL! One of them didn’t even turn up or appoint representation! And why do you say they’ve been “convicted” of a “peculiar unnamed crime” when they were appearing in a civil court, answering civil proceedings, with the case against them quite specific? And that the judge’s decision was “entirely unexplained” and “without thought, logic, or indeed reason” when his explanation for one defendant is recorded and published: [2005] EWHC 3191 (Ch)?
“Do you believe the rulings to be just, in light of the continuous, harmless copying of music since music has existed?”
That’s irrelevant on the point of legality, but yes I think it’s disgusting that the UK has some of the most atrophied fair use laws in Europe. Of course to simply say that filesharing isn’t harming the industry because sales are up is fallacious, you’d need evidence of how many sales are lost or not on top of that. I’ll look for that one later.
“Although finding the innumerous reports of the deliberate targetting of young people by the[…] BPI shouldn’t take you long”
Maybe I’m not using the right terms but google has turned up nothing on how the BPI could target children when they’ve no idea who is behind an IP address? I’m drawing a similar blank on a newspaper database covering The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent etc. There are some comments from a BPI representative acknowledging up to a third of the settlements might’ve been made by parents on the behalf of children, but unless the BPI have some mechanism to actively target children, this alone proves nothing because the sample size is too small (about 90 cases now isn’t it?).
May 6th, 2006 on 19:40
EDIT: In the interests of being clear, I want to say here: I was wrong and lazy in my comment above about the judge and the cases. I still believe that the trials should have gone ahead, because I would love to have heard the BPI’s reasoning.
“You said, referring to the two High Court cases: “This is the only means by which the BPI have ever been able to justify their claims of “illegality””, when in fact file-sharing of copyrighted material is prima facie illegal; the BPI don’t need to use these cases to justify any claims of illegality. So why did you write that?”
Because the BPI so bizarrely boasted the result as if the final proof they’d been hoping for.
Add to it that this was the first time any such case had ever reached a court, with many lawyers and experts having stated since the RIAA began their threats that they thought it likely to not stand up. File sharing is not so simple as to match to previous uses of the 1988 act, since there is no financial gain. It’s sharing. It was strongly suspected that in a proper trial, the act would not supprt the claims. It would seem relevant that the BPI/RIAA should demonstrate who exactly is being harmed such that legal action is required. I’m sure you can tell me how this is not necessary for the legal process – I fall back on my belief that this is not how justice should work.
I apologise if I gave the impression that I believed they were wheeling pushchairs into the dock – that was not my intention. Obviously it’s the parents of the young people who are being accused of the ‘crime’ that are being taken to court. But it’s the young people they’re targetting. It is their actions which bring about the lawsuits. And it’s quite obvious it will be young people at the other end of their cases – people in their 40s are not the prime users of file sharing.
No, it’s 139 BPI cases in the first wave, with about 10,000 in the States.
As for record sales, it has been proven by every study (not funded by the recording industry) that file sharing encourages sales. CD album sales have increased year on year, without fail, since the 80s, with huge increases during the peak year of Napster. The RIAA and BPI fixed the figures to create the impression of a drop, but that was exposed by me in PC Format, and simultaneously by a university study in the UK, when we both noticed individually that they’d included vinyl and cassette sales in order to insanely skew the results to look like an overall fall. Remove the two archaic media and, surprise, sales went up. Once this swindle was no longer possible, they shifted their focus onto singles sales, which were dropping for all manner of other reasons, but just typically they went and increased by 40% that year in the UK, rather buggering that plan up.
You are better versed in the legal side of this, and I can learn from you. You are correct that my column uses hyperbole and anger to stir up reaction and dialogue. It’s only 300 words long, and I’m allowed to kick off in it. If there are mistakes, I would like them pointed out to me so I can learn – I have learned from your replies. However, understand that the pissy and childish comment you began with didn’t exactly put me in a frame of mind to think it worth bothering.
My column intends to stand up against what copyright has become, and to stand up against the application of laws that were bought over the years by the corrupt and consistently criminal recording industry. Until the RIAA/BPI can demonstrate in court who is harmed by file sharing, and thus who is in need of the financial support of the money they are suing for, I shall continue to recognise it as deeply wrong. They cannot demonstrate this in court, since no one is suffering due to file sharing, as all independent evidence finds it to be beneficial to their sales, and hence their artists.
But I think in the interests of clarity, you really ought to state your position, because it’s quite clear this isn’t an issue with my angry column having used hyperbole. Fess up.
May 6th, 2006 on 20:51
Oh. My. Goodness. Chill out people!
May 7th, 2006 on 02:08
Well I’d like to acknowledge your honest acceptance of your mistakes and I’ve gained a good measure of respect for you because of it. And also I’d like to apologise for the opening comment, as you’ve invited me to do. I was admittedly a little drunk when I posted it, not that that’s any kind of excuse. I used inflammatory language in place of criticism and that’s terribly bad form and I can understand your response to it, given writing is your livelihood.
“But I think in the interests of clarity, you really ought to state your position, because it’s quite clear this isn’t an issue with my angry column having used hyperbole. Fess up.”
It was genuinely just the legal points that riled me up (in combination with your unapoligetically anti-BPI/RIAA stance); being a law student I get overly frustrated when I see statements of law that are so wrong it appears the person making the statement doesn’t know enough to know what they don’t know. I did consider looking into this for my dissertation actually, but my uni doesn’t have any lecturers researching in IP. Today, spurned on by your column, was the first time I’d taken time to look at the research generated regarding filesharing affecting music sales, and the only conclusion I’ve been able to reach is the more I see of BPI misrepresentation, the more pissed off I get. The latest research seems to indicate the wider availability of legal downloads has perhaps lead to a paradigm shift, with illegal downloaders using both legal and illegal methods to access music, in fact generating more online income than strictly legal downloaders. Err… so my stance is “wait and see”. What a cop out, eh?
For my own use, I’m a filthy pirate, but otherwise I’d only buy maybe eight albums a year (at most). I expect this’ll change anyway when I have a graduate wage to splurge.
I certainly agree the law in the UK doesn’t come close to allowing fair use on utilitarian principles. I looked at a few journal articles and there are still unresolved questions over whether parents can be held vicariously liable for their children, whether the children can be held responsible in their own right by analysis to tortious precedent, and what damages can actually be proven when damages in copyright actions is fairly novel in itself (as there can be no accounting for profits in p2p filesharing). I’d love to see someone argue their wifi network was insecure so it could’ve been anyone downloading from their IP; maybe some of the outstanding unsettled cases will prove more interesting than the two that’ve already been through the High Court.
May 7th, 2006 on 08:23
Argh.
May 11th, 2006 on 11:44
PS The link to Copyright Watch 182 is labelled 183, and there is no link to 182. UNLESS IT DOESN’T EXIST. Um, in which case, there’s still no link to it.
May 11th, 2006 on 11:56
And if I remember my communications law correctly (which I might not, it was ten years ago) then an individual cannot be tied to a communication made from a phone which several people have access to. Surely the same would apply to an IP address?
May 16th, 2006 on 21:12
???