Streamcast Realizes The Supreme Court Decision Didn't Outlaw Their Product
from the keeping-the-lawyers-busy dept
Streamcast sure is keeping its lawyers busy these days. Just after going after Skype and its founders for charges dating all the way back to the early days of Kazaa, it appears that the company has now decided to go to court with the recording industry, rather than settle with it. This is actually a much bigger deal than it may seem. When the Supreme Court ruled on a tiny aspect of the case between Streamcast and the entertainment industry, it only said that file sharing companies could face liability if they somehow promoted copyright infringement (the so called "induce" test). As we noted at the time, if these firms could show they were not specifically promoting the use of their software to violate copyrights, they could be perfectly fine under the law. Of course, many people missed the specifics on that, and simply ran with the theme that the entertainment industry "won." The entertainment industry, of course, did nothing to discourage that viewpoint, and even started pretending the Supreme Court flat out said that file sharing was illegal -- something they didn't even come close to saying. Still, many of the file sharing platforms saw the writing on the wall and shut down or settled. Streamcast even went down that route, and said they were close to settling until one of the RIAA law firms began "seeking revenge, retaliation and retribution," rather than just coming up with an agreeable settlement. So, now, Streamcast says they've dropped settlement talks completely. Even more interesting is that they clearly recognize just how little the Supreme Court ruling really changed, as they say it doesn't make a difference. They plan on making the case that they didn't "induce" anyone to infringe on copyrights.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Legal applications of P2P
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Re: Legal applications of P2P
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"the writing on the wall"
Seems that the writting on the wall was either misunderstood or ignored. Dying are the days of cutting down of the trees. Nebuchadrezzar(s) beware; filesharing is here to stay.
Mt 24:15
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Copyright Infringement
P2P is a valuable tool that allows anyone to share their emerging ideas or evolving works to the world. This is the whole idea behind the internet anyway, right?
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Re: Copyright Infringement
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make em pay!
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The Truth
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Re: The Truth
Now, I don't download music, however I don't pay for it either. Personally I think music today sucks, all over rated junk (I'm 22, not some weird old person). I think record companies have made music into an awful thing, and should go back to letting artists do what they do.
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...CHA-CHA-CHA!!
*LAUGHS HIS ASS OFF*
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Streamcast, RIAA-type law firms, and file-sharing
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