It’s about time. A nice defeat for the RIAA.
From the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation):
“The district court in Atlantic v. Howell today denied the recording
industry’s motion for summary judgment against Mr. and Mrs. Howell,
two lawyer-less defendants caught up in RIAA’s litigation campaign
against file-sharers….”
“In its order, the court delivers the most decisive rejection yet of
the recording industry’s “making available” theory of infringement
(i.e., if someone could have downloaded it from you, you’ve violated
copyright, even if no one ever did). Citing to the recent ruling in
London-Sire v. Doe, the court concludes that “[t]he general rule,
supported by the great weight of authority, is that infringement of
the distribution right requires an actual dissemination of either
copies or phonorecords.” The court goes on to conclude that downloads
by the recording industry’s own investigator, MediaSentry, are not
enough to establish distribution, at least based on the facts of this
case (Mr. Howell maintains that, unbeknownst to him, the Kazaa software
was sharing his entire hard drive). Finally, the court also suggests
that P2P file-sharing may not implicate the distribution right at all,
reasoning that what is really going on is a series of reproductions.”
Interestingly, Mr. Howell maintained that he used Kazaa only to
download porn, and not music. Good thing there’s no such thing as the PIAA (is there?).
