They understand not the wisdom of SOPA [Julian Sanchez, Cato at Liberty]
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Posts tagged as:
RIAA and file sharing
- What did the protests accomplish? [Image of one-day change in Hill opposition courtesy TechCrunch, PC World, Timothy Lee/Ars Technica]
- Some of the best protests [Ad Age, earlier on Flickr's clever entry and others]
- Going-dark site “strike” was a bit like Atlas Shrugged without the monologues [Greve] “So, nothing like #AS” [@nickgillespie] “…and fewer pirates” [@JohnPMcGuinness] “That’s a shame. I want to see Francisco’s money speech in binary code.” [@BenK84]
- Speaking of Citizens United… [John Samples/Cato, Popehat, @joshgreenman]
- Chris Dodd: we could turn off flow of Hollywood politibux if we don’t get this law [Politico] “Win/win!” [James Poulos]
- Where next? [Julian Sanchez, Cato, Kotaku ("PIPA not as bad as SOPA" claims), roll call via Pro Publica]
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Among those closed today are Wikipedia, Reddit and Twitpic [Mashable, Kravets/Wired; Mike Masnick; Dan Fisher on yesterday's player-piano threat; our SOPA/PIPA coverage; Cato event tomorrow on Capitol Hill via David Boaz]. Matt Sherman: “Please note that what Google, Reddit and others are doing today is corporate political speech.” Flickr’s protest idea is brilliant: it’s letting users censor each other.
Update: lawmakers have been jumping ship on the bills over the course of the day, including Senate co-sponsor Mario Rubio (R-Fla.). (Bumped to keep on top of page).
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Welcome news, if true: key members of Congress are said to be backing away from the rogue-sites legislation as currently written and in particular are willing to drop the hotly contested provisions on domain name blocking. [Timothy Lee, Sandoval/McCullagh, CNET, Mike Masnick/TechDirt] And suddenly the Obama administration is sounding skeptical notes too [Lee] As recently as last week the copyright enforcement bills were reported to be on a toboggan to quick passage [Industry Standard, earlier] More: Masnick.
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Some advocates of the legislation cook the books when they count (and double-count and triple-count) the costs of piracy. [Julian Sanchez, Cato; Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
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Brad Plumer in the Washington Post summarizes the provisions of the bill as well as the state of play on it in Congress as of mid-month. Although much commentary has assumed that persons determined to visit blocked sites could readily find ways around the SOPA restrictions, David Post notes that the draft bill authorizes the Attorney General to seek injunctions against persons who assist in circumventing the law, which might include websites that publish “here’s how to evade SOPA blocking” information. Timothy Lee at ArsTechnica notes growing opposition to the bill among conservatives, while Joshua Kopstein at Motherboard reviews a comic markup session. Meanwhile, “Gibson Guitar & Others On SOPA Supporters List Say They Never Supported The Bill” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt] Earlier here and here.
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My Cato colleague Julian Sanchez argues that a bill rapidly moving through Congress would give far too much power to authorities to close down websites without due process, yet would be readily circumvented by actual IP pirates. More: Sanchez/Cato, BoingBoing, Declan McCullagh (software execs blast proposal), Derek Bambauer/Prawfs (”Six Things Wrong With SOPA”), Stewart Baker/Volokh.
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- Study of how class action lawyers interact with their named clients [Stephen Meili via Trask]
- California releases numbers on how bounty-hunting lawyers did in 2010 under Prop 65 environmental-warning law [Cal Biz Lit]
- According to the tale, lender errors in foreclosure gave Florida borrower home free and clear. Actual story may be more complicated than that [Funnell]
- The very long discovery arm of the Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, courts [Drug & Device Law, more]
- UK law firm “could face big bill” after sending thousands of file-sharing demand letters [ABA Journal]
- Goodbye to men’s track at U. of Delaware, and the women’s team is suffering too, as often happens with Title IX [Saving Sports]
- OSHA’s proposed “illness and injury prevention program” (I2P2) termed a “Super Rule” with potentially widespread economic impact [Kirsanow, NRO]
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- 10th Circuit: deposition not a “take-home examination” [Ronald Miller]
- Class-action suit over salt in Campbell’s soup [NJ.com] Boom predicted in suits over claims of healthy food [Ken Odza]
- Roommate indicted in Tyler Clementi suicide [Scott Greenfield, Beldar]
- “Ban fraternities” screed in WSJ: were editors trying to make Caitlin Flanagan look ridiculous on purpose? [Ann Althouse, Instapundit]
- Emotional value of family dog: “Seattle should not set bad precedent in pet case” [John W. Schedler, Seattle Times, background]
- Investigating gas-price speculation and “price gouging”: “Obama tries to cap oil leak with lawyers” [Neil Munro, Daily Caller]
- Federal law protects peanuts on planes [CNN Travel]
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Federal judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan applies some skepticism to the quantum of damages demanded by record companies in copyright actions against file-sharing service LimeWire. [American Lawyer]
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So far it’s mostly smaller and adult producers filing the suits. Will the broader film industry wind up going down the much-lawyered record-label route? [Hollywood Reporter THR, Esq.] Related: “Lessons from the Texas Downloading Dismissal – Why Due Process Matters” [Paul Alan Levy, CL&P]
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After all, it’s easier to grab text from someone else’s infringement letter than to write one again from scratch, no? [Ars Technica]
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- Kagan to senators: please don’t confuse my views with Mark Tushnet’s or Harold Koh’s [Constitutional Law Prof]
- Too much like a Star Wars lightsaber? Lucasfilm sends a cease-and-desist to a laser pointer maker [Mystal, AtL]
- Ottawa, Canada: family files complaint “against trendy wine bar that turned away dinner party because it included 3mo baby” [Drew Halfnight, National Post]
- “House left Class Action Fairness Act alone in SPILL Act” [Wood/PoL, earlier]
- Not so indie? Filmmaker doing anti-Dole documentary on Nicaraguan banana workers says he took cash from big plaintiff’s law firm Provost Umphrey [AP/WaPo, WSJLawBlog, Erik Gardner/THREsq., new plaintiffs' charges against Dole]
- Will liability ruling result in closure of popular Connecticut recreational area? [Rick Green, Hartford Courant; earlier]
- Class action lawyer Sean Coffey, running for New York attorney general, has many generous supporters [NYDN, more, WNYC (Sen. Al Franken headlines closed fundraiser at Yale Club)]
- “Judge Reduces Damages Award by 90% in Boston Music Downloading Trial” [NLJ, earlier on Tenenbaum case]
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“In the past five months, Virginia-based law firm Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver has filed suits against thousands of individuals accused of illegally downloading independent films—an operation that could yield the firm and its clients more than $19 million in damages.” Doing business as U.S. Copyright Group, the firm subpoenas ISPs to obtain IP addresses of illegal sharers “and threatens to sue each person for $150,000 unless they agree to a $1,500 to $2,500 settlement fee.” [ABA Journal] Earlier here, etc.
Under which the cost of improper song downloads from a single site exceeds all the money on the planet many times over. [Cracked.com]
It’s rather…ambitious. [Esguerra/EFF, BoingBoing, h/t reader Keith D.]
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From Computing (UK):
Law firm Tilly Bailey & Irvine (TBI) has stopped the bulk mailing of legal threats on behalf of rights holders to people accused of illegal file-sharing.
The move follows a campaign by consumer charity Which?, claiming the practice is unfair. It effectively reduces the number of UK law firms involved in bulk litigation against alleged file-sharers to one: London-based ACS Law Solicitors.
It makes a contrast with the situation in the U.S., where there seems to be no shortage of law firms eager to represent RIAA and other rights holders in mass litigation campaigns against consumers. Which? dubbed the mass demand letters “speculative invoices” and called them to bar regulators’ attention as a potential ethical violation.
Film biz follows RIAA path? “In what may be a sign of things to come, more than 20,000 individual movie torrent downloaders have been sued in the past few weeks in Washington D.C. federal court for copyright infringement. A handful of cases have already settled, and those that haven’t are creating some havoc for major ISPs.” [Eriq Gardner, THR Esq.]
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