Friday, March 07, 2008

Oral argument goes forward in Atlantic v. Howell

The oral argument took place as scheduled in Atlantic v. Howell, on Wednesday, March 5th.

Our information is that the argument went well, with the Judge spending more than an hour hearing from all sides -- the record labels, the defendant (Mr. Howell), and the amicus curiae, the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- and that the Judge had a good understanding of the issues.

Commentary & discussion:

Stereophile




Keywords: digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property






4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That absolutely has to be the RIAA's worst fear. All sides represented in front of a judge who appears to have a good understanding of the issues.

One can only hope he's not a judge of the "activist" bent, who might try to create law to benefit the Plaintiffs where none yet exists.

XK-E

Alter_Fritz said...

XK-E

I don't think he is.
while I first allowed me the pun to say that judge Wake is/was not "very well awake" when he read something into the deposition of the Mr. Howell that he clearly haven't said, Judge Wake later reversed his decision after Mr. Howell pointed out the judges missinterpretation of what he said in his deposition.
(And maybe Judge Wake read my explaination what misinterpretation he read into the depo, too?!)

Anyhow it seems he is at least not to conceited to admit to himself when he made an error and reversed it promptly.

That gives hope that he will deal fairly now with the situation I guess.

Such behaviour should of course be the norm for judges and not worth to give an extra "thank you", but given that we have also seen decisions of other judges that clearly lack such character qualities let me say:

Thank you Judge Wake.

Anonymous said...

Any chance we'll get a transcript of this hearing?

Q

raybeckerman said...

If I get one you'll get one.