RSSCourt disallows brief in trial against Harvard student who downloaded music
By Angela Gunn | Published February 13, 2009, 7:09 PM
One of the three amicus briefs filed in support of Webcasting the proceedings in the trial of a Harvard student accusing of illegally downloading music has been refused for consideration by the First Circuit Court.
The Associated Press-led brief was rejected because accepting it would have required that one of the judges involved recuse herself or himself from the case. That would indicate that one or more of the judges has a conflict of interest with one of the parties petitioning; perhaps they hold stock in a certain company, or have a close relative employed by one. (In other words, the "friend of the court" in this case is some entity with whom someone on the court really is friendly.)
The petitioners on the AP brief were Courtroom Television Network, Dow Jones & Co., Gannett, Hearst Corporation, Incisive, National Public Radio, NBC Universal, the New York Times, the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Scripps, the Tribune Company and Washington Post Digital.
The other two amicus briefs were filed by Courtroom View Network (yes, a separate brief) and by a group of media and public-interest groups led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Internet Archive. CVN has confirmed to Betanews that their brief (PDF available here) has been accepted for filing and is before the court, which still needs to read and consider whether it'll admit the actual information. The EFF's brief has likewise been accepted and will be read.
Other signatories to the EFF's brief (PDF available here) are PublicResource.org, the Media Access Project, the Internet Archive, Free Press, the California First Amendment Coalition, and LA-based journalist Ben Shaffner.
That brief, by the way, doesn't only represent organziations one might expect to side with Joel Tenenbaum's defense. Sheffner, who writes the Copyrights & Campaigns blog, is supportive of the plaintiffs' view, and wants the proceedings webcast so he can report remotely on the trial without the proceedings being filtered by other media outlets, which he believes are generally anti-RIAA.
Is this the same case where the Harvard Constitutional Law class is helping to defend against the MAFIAA?
http://www.betanews.com/..._run_at_RIAA/1227096361
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|IMO, in its time, windows 95 was the SINGLE most pirated software, and we all see how badly all those lost sales impacted microsoft...
next useless argument please?
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|That's quite an interesting point, actually.
It's about time someone did a dissertation on the impact of "lost"* sales due to piracy.
*While people may like to claim these sales are 'lost', they are in fact not recieved. Lost would mean people would without doubt buy it if there were no other means of getting it. This is very, very much not the case.
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|If people would stop downloading copyrighted music and movies these things would not be happening and it would not be costing millions in dollar of court costs for this nonsense. While I do not agree with the RIAA or the MPAA and the gestapo tactics in terrorizing people merely to get money, stealing is still stealing regardless of how you try to equate it. Now the RIAA and MPAA are merely on witch hunts and the foolish court system in the USA allows them to continue. Guess there is nothing more in the world to worry in the USA outside of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The court system and laws of the USA are pathetic at best and it also look like nothing is going to change either. Sad
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|While stealing is indeed still stealing let me just point this out:
The cost of a (newly released) album of music is £10.
The cost of a film on DVD is £10.
The cost to make a film is FAR greater than that of an album.
For what bloody reason is music so dear?
Price it properly and watch people start buying.
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|Copyright infringement != stealing
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|Paul S: For what bloody reason is music so dear?
The numnber of thieves between artist & consumer.....
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|It's hard to digest how people are still using virus laiden programs like Kazaa or Limewire and getting caught. Haven't they ever heard of torrents or newgroups? Secondly, why would you use your own network to do this?
There are thousands of places where you can access someone elses wireless. My subdivision has dozens of open networks. I am the only one who seems knows how to hide my SSID, but leave the network open to anyone who knows it so they can set up thier connection manually.
A Linksys wireless booster placed in a great spot can give you access to a dozen more weak signals. I love living in the burbs with people who know absolutely nothing about technology.
The problem is four of my neighbors have lost their jobs and can't affford internet anymore. Thier houses will be empty within three or four months
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|LOL, the RIAA fails yet again to filter the proceedings through their allies in the mainstream media. Ironically, its probably because the court discovered that one of the judges has been on the take for years. You'll never hear THAT story, you can be certain. What's really funny is the the pro-RIAA blogger who thinks that he can help these bums by showing them on a raw webcast..something they adamantly oppose (nooo, really?). I suspect he's just trolling for hits by trying to stir the pot a bit - nobody who understands the flimsiness of the industry's lawsuits can be that dumb.
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|"without the potential without the proceedings"
Come again?
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|Typo, thanks -- got it. (Proceedings was the wanted word there.)
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