Saturday, April 05, 2008

William Patry comments on 3 recent cases rejecting RIAA's "making available" theory

Thanks to 'anonymous Interested Observer' for bringing this to my attention:

William Patry, the author of the treatise Patry on Copyright, also writes a blog, The Patry Copyright Blog.

Mr. Patry has written a blog post weighing in on the 3 recent cases which rejected the RIAA's "making available" theory:

Atlantic v. Brennan
London-Sire v. Doe
Elektra v. Barker

Mr. Patry agreed with the decisions' rejection of "making available" and "authorizing" but criticized Barker for its holding in favor of the RIAA on "offering to distribute", noting that Judge Karas "went astray in my opinion in its interpretation of “distribute” in Section 106(3)" and in incorrectly equating distribution with publication, and criticized London-Sire for its statement, favoring the RIAA, equating transmission of an electronic file with "distribution" or "distribution of a copy", attributing the error to the judge's confusing the reproduction right with the distribution right.



Commentary & discussion:

Ars Technica
Copywrite



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

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