From Brian Behlendorf Sent Wed, Jan 7th 1998, 02:16
From Brian Behlendorf Sent Wed, Jan 7th 1998, 02:16
At 12:57 AM 1/7/98 +0000, Iain H. wrote:
>>>>About two weeks ago, Clinton signed off on legislation
>>>>which makes it a crime to trade tapes. If you send someone
>>>>a tape and get something in exchange for it, you're now in
>>>>just as much trouble, legally, as you would for selling bootleg
>>>>CD's.
Just a bit about the context of and clarity to this legislation. It was
done to "close a loophole" in copyright which stated that so long as
redistribution was done without an intent to profit, there was a limit to
how much the copyright "thief" was liable for. This "loophole" was used by
the defense in the David LaMacchia case, where a student (David) at MIT was
distributing warez from his dorm PC, and since he wasn't profiting from it,
the copyright holders couldn't sue for "lost income", and so this
legislation was proposed and sailed through Congress. Now that this is in
place, the Stormtroopers of Death I mean the Software Publisher's
Association can fine the full retail value of the perceived loss. This
situation was pre-empted by an event on the Internet, so you can bet the
copyright hounds will be looking to enforce it online and elsewhere,
including music.
But as in the real world, they'll go after the big violators; so I wouldn't
worry about giving a tape to a friend, or putting a few sound samples
online. I'd be more worried if I ran a big mp3 archive of songs in the Top
40. There was something on MTV News the other day about the new Pearl Jam
album being distributed on the Internet by fans with advance copies, even
though the whole album won't be out for a few months. And in high-quality
mpeg!
Hmm, maybe it's time to check out off-shore web hosting again...
Brian
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