Sccts guy contradicts RIAA document

[Chris Gehlker]

On Jan 5, 2008, at 7:40 PM, der.hans wrote:

> Am 04. Jan, 2008 schwätzte Chris Gehlker so:
>
>> Your characterization of the plaintiff's position and Howell's is
>> accurate as far as it goes but it still completely misses the point.
>> Fisher concluded, in the teeth of the evidence, that the RIAA was
>> suing Howell for merely ripping files regardless of whether he shared
>> them or not. He  published an inaccurate and sensationalized piece
>
> Was it inaccurate?

Absolutely. Your argument below really rests on:

"If $Defendant_made_electronic_copies is not required for setting
$songs_are_no_longer_authorized_copies it should not be in the test."

But Fisher die not elide the condition before the "and" from the  
quote: he elided the part about the files being in the shared folder.   
So by your argument the part he elided is the *most* meaningful part.  
He left in the part about wearing purple and left out the part about  
shooting the president. He then warned all the people who like purple  
that the FBI and the Secret Service were out to get them.

The second  problem with your argument is that copyright is,  
interestingly, all about the right to make copies. If you don't make a  
copy, you can't conceivably have violated anyones copyright. But the  
converse is not always true. There is a bunch of law, both case law  
and explicit law, that lays out situations under which you can make a  
copy without violating copyright. For archival purposes, for personal  
use, for purposes of criticism or parody are some permitted uses that  
come to mind. So the RIAA really does have to assert both that Howell  
made copies and that he didn't make them for some permitted reason  
such as listening to them on his iPod.

Neither you nor I nor anyone on this list is the target of the RIAA's  
PR campaign. We are never going to support the politicians that they  
have in their pockets and they are never going to allow a Linux user  
to sit on the jury for one off their cases. To understand the damage  
that Fisher has  done us you have to put yourself in the frame of mind  
of  a typical NPR user: fairly bright and curious but almost  
completely uniformed about IP issues and with little knowledge of big  
media. Then, in that mind-frame, listen to the audio file of the  
debate. If you can do that, I'm sure you will see that Fisher did  
indeed do us harm. If you can't do that, nothing I say will persuade   
you.
>
>
> Let me illustrate by presuming John Hinkley was a Prince fan.
>
> C. Defendant, John Hinkley, shot sitting president Ronald Reagan.
>
> It is undisputed that Defendant possessed purple clothing and wore  
> it on a
> Thursday. Exhibit B to Plaintiffs' Complaint is a series of pictures
> showing Defendant plainly wearing purple in public on a Thursday.
> Virtually all of the clothing shown in Exhibit B is purple. Defendant
> admitted he had purple clothing because it makes his dog happy.  
> Purple is
> a "color of power." Once Defendant wore purple on a Thursday and  
> shot the
> sitting president he was no longer acting lawfully. Moreover,  
> Defendant
> had no authorization to shoot the president.
>
> If wearing purple is irrelevant to no longer acting lawfully it didn't
> belong in the sentence. The last sentence uses moreover to make it  
> appear
> that shooting the president was a second manner of illegal action  
> rather
> than the primary cause.
>
> The connections to the text from Ira Schwatz, a lawyer writing on  
> behalf
> of Atlantic Recording Corporation, should be obvious to all who've  
> been
> following these threads :).
>
> "Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recording into the  
> compressed .mp3
> format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the
> authorized copies distributed by the Plaintiffs."
>
> if 
> ($ 
> Defendant_converted_Plaintiffs 
> '_recording_into_the_compressed_.mp3_format &&  
> $they_are_in_his_shared_folder) {
> 	 
> $ 
> they_are_no_longer_the_authorized_copies_distributed_by_the_Plaintiffs
> = 'yes';
> }
>
> I'm going to rewrite that with shorter variables to make it more  
> readable.
>
> if( $Defendant_made_electronic_copies &&  
> $songs_were_in_shared_folder ) {
> 	$songs_are_no_longer_authorized_copies = 'yes';
> }
>
> If $Defendant_made_electronic_copies is not required for setting
> $songs_are_no_longer_authorized_copies it should not be in the test.
>
> We can view this as a grammatical error.
>
> We can also view this as a deliberate attempt to get converting  
> music to
> electronic formats to be illegal.
>
> Since the test appears to be in a function called
> demonstrate_Defendant_converted_the_songs_to_mp3() I find it likely  
> that
> the test was built as intended.
>
> Moreover, lawyers are supposed to not make logic mistakes like that.  
> Has
> Atlantic or the RIAA actually admitted that the test was incorrect?
>
> Which holds more legal standing, legal documents approved and upheld  
> by
> the courts or what the president of the RIAA says on a radio show?
>
> Now, what's the overall result of all of this controversy?
>
> 1. The RIAA has publicly stated, though not fully, that it is legal to
> make electronic copies of copyrighted materials for personal use.
>
> 2. Generally the public is more aware of the RIAA's actions suing
> individuals.
>
> 3. The RIAA has two instances in court documents indicating that  
> making
> copies for personal use is illegal.
>
> Time will tell if item 1 or item 3 has more influence on the future of
> fair use...
>
> http://www.DefendFairUse.org/
>
> We still don't have legal precedent showing space shifting is legal.  
> We
> might actually have two instances of precendent claiming space  
> shifting is
> not legal.
>
> ciao,
>
> der.hans
> -- 
> #  https://www.LuftHans.com/        http://www.CiscoLearning.org/
> #  To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or  
> that we
> #  are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only  
> unpatriotic
> #  and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
> #  -- Theodore Roosevelt, editorial in the Kansas City Star, 07May1918
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