What Good Will A Swedish Lawsuit Against The Pirate Bay Do?

from the hydra dept

It's been expected for a while, but reports are coming out that Swedish prosecutors will finally get around to filing charges against The Pirate Bay this week. If you don't remember, Swedish authorities bowed to US pressure a year and a half ago, and seized the servers of The Pirate Bay, a bittorrent search engine. As was noted at the time, the Pirate Bay doesn't host any infringing content, but simply acts as a search engine -- one that some artists have learned to use to their own advantage. The raid, which the entertainment industry quickly announced represented a "significant blow" against piracy, actually did the reverse. The resulting publicity, garnered the site a lot more attention, which has only continued to grow. It quickly set up new servers outside of Sweden, and it's hard to see a lawsuit doing very much but increasing the amount of attention given to the site. When the actual lawsuit is announced, expect quotes from the RIAA and MPAA about what a big deal this is -- but the only really big deal is how little this lawsuit will do to help the industry. It won't help them adjust to a changing market. It won't help them to adopt necessary new business models. It will only increase the attention given to the Pirate Bay and other sites. We've seen this before with Napster. We've seen this before with Grokster. We've seen this before with Kazaa. So why does the entertainment industry keep doing this?

Filed Under: lawsuits, mpaa, pirate bay, riaa, sweden

Should RIAA Win Against Jammie Thomas Be Tossed After RIAA Admits It Misspoke On The Stand?

from the one-would-think... dept

Well, well, well. This morning when we pointed out that the RIAA's responses to the whole Howell affair were rather lacking, we missed an important point. In the NPR debate between the RIAA's Cary Sherman and the Washington Post's Marc Fisher, while Sherman may have had the stronger case (this one time!), he did make one interesting statement that could have much wider implications. When pushed on the Howell case, rather than admitting he was wrong, Fisher moved on to a different situation: the infamously incorrect statements by Sony BMG exec Jennifer Pariser, who said on the stand, in response to a question about whether it was okay to make a personal backup copy from a CD, that saying so was "a nice way of saying, 'steals just one copy.'" As we (and many others) pointed out at the time, this statement is blatantly false.

When Fisher brought it up, Sherman responded by saying:

"The Sony person who (Fisher) relies on actually misspoke in that trial. I know because I asked her after stories started appearing. It turns out that she had misheard the question. She thought that this was a question about illegal downloading when it was actually a question about ripping CDs. That is not the position of Sony BMG. That is not the position of that spokesperson. That is not the position of the industry."

This actually is somewhat believable, as the industry does believe that downloading a single copy is the equivalent of "stealing just one copy," (even if that's questionable in itself). However, Sherman also claims "other reporters and bloggers had called about Pariser's quotes and chose not to write about them after learning she had erred."

It's not clear who those other reporters and bloggers are, but it's a bit surprising that they would then choose not to write about it. After all, it was a recording industry exec admitting she had made false statements under oath -- and those false statements were part of the case that helped Jammie Thomas lose her lawsuit. That has folks like Ray Beckerman wondering if the RIAA had notified the judge that Pariser had misspoke. Considering that we never heard the judge tell the jury to ignore those statements, at the very least, it would appear that the jury was never told that Pariser misspoke -- which certainly would suggest that Thomas has grounds to call into question that original ruling against her.

Filed Under: cary sherman, copyright, jammie thomas, jennifer pariser, lawsuits, riaa
Companies: riaa

Quick! Who Else Has A VoIP Patent That Vonage Can Settle Over?

from the sue-and-settle! dept

We've covered in too much detail how it's some sort of "open season" on Vonage when it comes to VoIP patents. After dealing with ridiculous and expensive patent lawsuits from companies who failed to actually innovate in the same way Vonage did, the company was pressured by Wall Street to quickly settle the various patent lawsuits filed against the company. Of course, rather than settle matters, that simply opened the door for other companies to go searching through their patent portfolios to see if there was anything they could sue Vonage over. Indeed, following those settlements it didn't take long for AT&T to dig up a patent and sue -- which was quickly settled as well. Thought things were over? No such luck. Nortel just showed up last month to sue and it took all of about a week and a half for Vonage to settle that case as well.

The Nortel case is slightly different because Vonage actually already had a patent infringement lawsuit going against Nortel, but it wasn't really initiated by Vonage. Instead, it had been initiated by a patent holding firm that Vonage bought in 2006. The end result of the settlement doesn't involve money changing hands, but just a cross licensing agreement for the patents. So what's the big lesson that Vonage and others have learned from this? It's certainly got nothing to do with innovating. It's to hoard as many patents as possible so that you have your own nuclear stockpile for when someone else sues you. Want to know why the USPTO is overwhelmed? It's not because there aren't enough examiners (as some will claim) or that there aren't enough funds. It's because the way the system now works is that you are supposed to file patents on every tiny little advancement so you can use it to protect yourself against lawsuits from everyone else. That's not about innovation. It's about waste. In the meantime, since it's still open season at Vonage, who's going to be next? There are a ton of other patents in the VoIP space that can surely be used in a lawsuit, right?

Filed Under: lawsuits, patent thicket, patents, settlements, voip
Companies: nortel, vonage

Oregon Attorney General Fighting Back Against RIAA Lawsuits

from the messed-with-the-wrong-attorney-general dept

Over the summer, we wrote about a lawsuit someone had filed against the RIAA in Oregon, claiming that the RIAA's investigation tactics were illegal, since the firm it used to sniff out unauthorized users, MediaSentry, was not a licensed investigator in Oregon. This seemed like a relatively weak claim (or at least one focused on the letter of the law more than the spirit). However, it appears that argument has caught the attention of Oregon's Attorney General who already is unhappy with the RIAA. You may recall that earlier this month, the Attorney General stood up to the RIAA after it tried to get the University of Oregon to identify students. It was surprising to see the AG get involved in such an issue, but clearly, he believes the RIAA is going too far. The RIAA responded to his filing, opposing the motion, of course. And now the Attorney General has responded, not just about this particular issue, but slamming the RIAA on a number of fronts, suggesting that the RIAA may be in a bit more hot water than it believed. He repeats the argument that the RIAA's investigation techniques are illegal and then goes on to slam the evidence the RIAA has, how it's gathered, how it uses these cases to squeeze money out of unsophisticated people and many other points about these RIAA cases. The response then points out why this is an important matter for the Attorney General to take a stand on and how it would like to get some answers from the RIAA:

"Because Plaintiffs routinely obtain ex parte discovery in their John Doe infringement suits, as they themselves have pointed out, their factual assertions supporting their good cause argument are never challenged by an adverse party and their investigative methods remain free of scrutiny. They often settle their cases quickly before defendants obtain legal representation and begin to conduct discovery.... While the University is not a party to the case, Plaintiffs' subpoena affects the university's rights and obligations. Plaintiffs may be spying on students who use the University's computer system and may be accessing much more than IP addresses. The University seeks the Court's permission to serve the attached interrogatories on Plaintiffs and conduct telephonic depositions of the individuals who investigated the seventeen John Does named in this lawsuit to determine 1) what their investigative practices are and 2) whether they have any additional information with which to identify the John Does."

It looks like the RIAA may have messed with the wrong university in the wrong state.

Filed Under: copyright, investigations, lawsuits, oregon
Companies: mediasentry, riaa

Phew. Michael Robertson Finally Gets Sued

from the beginning-to-get-worried dept

For a little while there, we actually thought that Michael Robertson might have lost his touch. The serial entrepreneur had pretty near perfected his strategy for building startups: come up with a controversial business plan that totally undermines the business models of incumbents and then make sure you get sued for doing so, using that lawsuit as a publicity builder. He did it originally with MP3.com and then followed that up with Lindows (which eventually had to change its name to Linspire). Next up was SIPphone, but that one was so late to the game that it had to sue Vonage since no one was suing it. Nearly three years ago when Robertson started another music startup, MP3Tunes, we were sure that he would quickly get sued. In fact, it seemed even more likely when he hired Hollywood's most hated hacker, DVD Jon. Yet, for some reason, the two could not come up with a plan to get sued, causing DVD Jon to move on.

After waiting so long, Robertson again tried to stir things up himself. Back in September he sued record label EMI for takedown notices the company had sent over MP3tunes' sideload.com, and the strategy finally paid off. EMI has returned the favor and is now suing MP3Tunes for for copyright infringement. Robertson, of course, can barely withhold his glee: "These guys rush off to court and tell the court that I am terrible and then they end up buying my company," which is indeed what happened with MP3.com... though, in this case, we'd hardly say that the labels "rushed" off to court. It looks like they had to be coaxed a bit. He also makes the following important point: "It is really a shame because instead of using these technologies to improve their business they make an enemy of every technology company out there." It sure took a while, but congratulations on finally getting the lawsuit.

Filed Under: lawsuits, michael robertson
Companies: mp3tunes

Charges Likely To Be Filed Against The Pirate Bay

from the the-game-of-whack-a-mole-continues dept

While the Pirate Bay has been known for quite some time among many people, the moment that really got them the most attention was when (thanks to pressure from the US) Swedish officials took the site down and began an investigation. It only took a little while for the site to come back up, after which traffic shot up in large part thanks to the press attention from the recording industry declaring "victory" over the site being down. The Swedish investigation, however, has apparently had a tough time figuring out if The Pirate Bay actually breaks any laws. After all, it's really just a search engine for content. The company doesn't host any of that content itself. Admittedly, plenty of content you can find from The Pirate Bay is unauthorized, but some of it is perfectly legitimate. The people who are making content available may be breaking copyright law, but simply indexing and pointing people to that content should be perfectly legal.

It seems hard to justify going after the Pirate Bay for anything, and it's taken Swedish investigators well over a year to come up with charges it can throw at the operators of the site -- though it sounds like they won't be filed for a few months. Oddly, it seems that part of the strategy isn't just to go after the folks who run the site, but also one of their employers, who is apparently a politically controversial figure. Torrentfreak suggests that this move is designed to move public sympathy against the site, though until the evidence is presented, it's difficult to assume anything. No matter who is charged and for what, get ready for the next case to watch in the ongoing global game of legal whack-a-mole by the recording industry.

Filed Under: bittorrent, copyright, file sharing, lawsuits, music, sweden
Companies: pirate bay

Oregon Attorney General And University Of Oregon Tell The RIAA They're Not Its Free Investigators

from the can't-just-push-around-students dept

Earlier this year, the RIAA began to focus many of its file sharing lawsuits on college students. The RIAA incorrectly referred to it as an education campaign, when it might more accurately be described as pissing off the very people the RIAA needs to support any future business model (oops, too late for that). While the RIAA tried to force universities to just hand over the names of those it accused of file sharing, it was nice to see at least a few universities fight back. In most cases, this mean telling the RIAA to shove off, as it wasn't the university's job to help serve legal complaints. Eventually though, when subpoenas came through, most universities would hand over the info. However, it looks like the University of Oregon is taking a stand. Together with the Attorney General of Oregon, they've actually filed a motion to quash the RIAA's attempt to identify students at the school. In other words, they're not just refusing to pass on the info, they're actively pushing back against the RIAA's lawsuit.

Specifically, the Attorney General points out that with just IP addresses, it's basically impossible to identify the students that the RIAA is asking the university to hand over: "Plaintiffs' subpoena is unduly burdensome and overbroad. It seeks information that the university does not readily possess." In order for the university to figure out who was associated with those IPs, it would involve a level of investigation that isn't required (and shouldn't be required) under law. In other words, the university isn't there to be the free investigative arm of the RIAA. It doesn't get to just throw some weak evidence over the wall and tell the university to figure out who's responsible. Either it comes up with a better way to find the information itself, or it should stop filing these lawsuits. It should be interesting to see if this works... and if other universities follow suit.

Filed Under: colleges, copyright, file sharing, lawsuits, music, oregon, students
Companies: riaa, university of oregon

Sun Shows NetApp How A Patent Nuclear War Works

from the you-sure-you-want-to-do-that... dept

While you can question the motives, Sun has actually been quite vocal recently over the question of software patents. Sun CEO Jonathon Schwartz has pointed out that successful companies innovate while unsuccessful ones litigate. And, indeed, Sun hasn't been going around filing patent lawsuits left and right, (or threatening to do so) like some other companies. However, it's quite clear that Sun understands the value of defensive patenting, since patents have become the nuclear stockpiling of the software world. Thus, it should come as no surprise that following Network Appliance's decision to sue Sun for patent infringement that Sun has struck back hard, accusing Network Appliances of violating 12 patents, and basically saying that many of NetApps' offerings are in violation and should be blocked. Schwartz makes it clear that he'd prefer to avoid this sort of nuclear response, but he's sending a message: if you're going to sue rather than innovate, you need to be prepared for the response to come back much more forcefully. There's no doubt that some of this is clearly posturing on Sun's part, to win more fans in the open source community -- but that's a perfectly good reason for doing what they're doing. The end result is expressing what many of us around here believe: competition drives innovation. Patents, on the other hand, remove competition -- and therefore tend to hinder that innovation. Having to use patents defensively is an unfortunate and expensive negative externality of the system, and it's nice to see Sun publicly supporting that position.

Filed Under: lawsuits, patents
Companies: network appliances, sun

SanDisk Sues Just About Everyone It Can Think Of For Patent Infringement

from the and-using-the-loophole-too dept

Apparently SanDisk feels that it's been wronged. It believes that just about every company that makes USB flash drives, CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards, MP3/media players and/or other removable flash storage products are violating SanDisk patents. These products have been around for quite some time, but SanDisk doesn't name the specific patents in its press release, so it's not clear if these are new patents, or SanDisk's lawyers woke up one morning and suddenly decided it would be fun to sue for patent infringement. And, sue for patent infringement they did. They've targeted 25 companies with patent infringement lawsuits, and (for good measure) are using the infamous ITC loophole to ban importing any of these company's products into the US (which could happen even if the patent lawsuits get thrown out). It's certainly tough to judge the quality of the patents in play here, but the fact that there are at least 25 companies in the space doing the same thing, and all are getting sued at once, it makes you wonder how non-obvious the patents were in the first place...

Filed Under: lawsuits, patents
Companies: sandisk

Lawsuits Don't Create New Markets

from the kicking-and-screaming dept

The RIAA has apparently been getting a lot of negative publicity for its six-figure judgment against a single mother for file-sharing. RIAA president Cary Sherman has a taken to the Web to defend his organization's actions. Personally, I don't have a great deal of sympathy for Jammie Thomas given the strong evidence against her, but I did think Sherman made a couple of misleading arguments. First, Sherman claims that the lawsuits have "created a legal marketplace" for music. But the primary way you create a "legal marketplace" for your products is to offer better products. The market is growing because services like Apple's iTunes make it convenient for consumers to get the music they want in a convenient and flexible format. But the major labels can hardly take credit for that, since they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into signing on to the iTunes store. Sherman says he'd rather be "helping artists make great music that we can distribute in lots of exciting new ways that music fans want." But for the most part, their approach has been the opposite: doing their best to sue new music technologies out of existence and sharply limiting the ways consumers can listen to the music they want. Secondly, Sherman repeatedly equates copyright infringement with theft, going so far as to say that the jury found Thomas "liable for copyright theft." But of course there's no such thing as "copyright theft." As the Supreme Court and others have pointed out, copyright infringement and theft are two different crimes, and it's misleading to treat them as if they were identical.

Filed Under: business models, cary sherman, lawsuits, markets, recording industry
Companies: riaa