Another Court Rejects RIAA's 'Making Available' Claim
from the good-news dept
Yet another court has rejected the RIAA's "making available" theory of copyright infringement. As a central part to most RIAA cases against individuals for file sharing, the record labels have insisted that merely making an unauthorized music file "available" for file sharing is the equivalent of copyright infringement. Others have pointed out that the law is pretty clear that there needs to be actual distribution (i.e., a copy is actually made) before you can show infringement. The RIAA doesn't like that theory because the evidence they have usually only shows that a file is available, not that it was actually shared. The specific case at hand involved the RIAA asking for a default judgment against an individual who did not respond to charges of infringement, but the judge rejected the default judgment, noting that by using the "making available" standard, the complaint was insufficient. The judge, among other things, points to William Patry's book on copyright, where he explains that "without actual distribution of copies.... there is no violation [of] the distribution right" and also to the infamous Perfect 10 ruling concerning copyright infringement of thumbnail images.![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
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.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: making available, riaa
Companies: riaa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Not a good precident
Oh.. never mind :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
:D
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
His point is valid though, there are many way to make copyrighted material available and for that to be interpreted as infringement is a bit of a stretch.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I think leaving the door unlocked is a good analogy...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]