Judge Not Amused By ACS:Law Stunts; Forcing Cases To Continue
from the be-fair-warned-us-copyright-group dept
The saga of ACS:Law and its mass P2P user shakedown campaign continues. Despite claiming to have shut down completely in an attempt to avoid any possible sanctions for its disastrous strategy, the judge is forcing the cases to continue, saying that ACS:Law and its partner MediaCAT cannot just drop the cases in an attempt to "avoid public scrutiny." The judge clearly sees the shakedown scam for what it is:I cannot imagine a system better designed to create disincentives to test the issues in court.... Why take cases to court and test the assertions when one can just write more letters and collect payments from a proportion of the recipients?The judge appears to have also slammed ACS:Law and Andrew Crossley for claiming that one reason for dropping the cases were that necessary documents were in storage and they didn't want to retrieve them. The judge saw through that excuse:
"If true, it is extraordinary," said the ruling. "A party who keeps key documents which are cited in the particulars of claim in storage is not a party anxious to progress their claim in court."Once again, those firms in the US copying this strategy should probably take note of what's happening over in the UK.
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Filed Under: copyright, pre-settlement, uk
Companies: acs:law, mediacat
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Copyright owners shooting themselves in the foot
Many musicians and record companies are in fact loosing out, as they will not allow the use of their music to be played as a backing track. The key reason I say this is most people when editing even a family video like to place a piece of music as a suitable backing track to enhance the effect.
If record companies and musicians allowed their music to be used as backing tracks more people would hear the music and more sales could be made as only when you have heard the music which you may like will you decide to purchase. I have bought most of my music only by first hearing it on a backing-track.
For example there were three beautiful compositions of both music and visual effects on this website Dorset Visual Guide /Swanage area photos and info.
http://dorsetvisualguide.co.uk/swanage.htm but only Corfe Triplet second movement can be played via Youtube. For unfortunately Corfe Triplet first movement and Corfe Triplet third movement which were considered to be the best cannot be viewed due to alleged Copyright infringement of the backing track owned by EMI. Had these three Music Videos been made available for sale I would have paid willingly to own such beautiful pieces of both picture and sound.
Marketing is all about getting your product seen or heard by as wide an audience as is possible this small-mindedness is detrimental to sales. But copying of entire Music CD's I do not agree with it is blatant theft.
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
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Re: Copyright owners shooting themselves in the foot
Two problems with just that one statement. The first fear and no vision affect the record labels preventing this. They will not change until it is to late. Its the nature of the "Industry". The second is slowly we are seeing people open up to the creative commons and very soon a large amount of independant artists are going realize that all recorded music is, is a tool for (self) promotion. When that occurs, it will be to late for the labels, they will not be positioned to use this to their advantage. You see when recorded music becomes nothing more than a promotional tool there are no more purchases of music. It essentially becomes free.
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Re: Re: Copyright owners shooting themselves in the foot
The NC and ND options still seem to be rather restrictive for no other reason than because they're there.
My entire problem with this paradigm is that it will be the next thing that causes problems once we get the copyright issue sorted out.
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Re: Re: Re: Copyright owners shooting themselves in the foot
"the next thing that causes problems once we get the copyright issue sorted out."
There really isn't a next thing. How can there be? The record labels are going to fail. No one will be willing to pay for the catalogs, the price will just be to high. The price for digital music will, for the most part, drop to zero for the consumer, and be used for promotion.
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Re: Copyright owners shooting themselves in the foot
Charging me a levy on blank media is theft.
Copying something I bought is not theft.
Most software recommends making a back-up in case anything happens to the original, easily damaged, disc.
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Re:
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The full judgement...
Its quite a good read if anyone is interested!
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Good judge
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