Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

On Fri, 5 May 2000, David Hale <dhale[_at_]aggt.com> wrote:
>
> One significant difference between Betamax machines and Napster is
> (theoretically) control. Sony had no way of controlling use of its
> product after it left their hands. It could not differentiate at
> the factory whether a recording made on its machines would violate
> copyright or not. The Court held that the use of the machines to
> "time-shift" programs fell under fair use. Since it was impossible
> to distinguish in advance a fair use in this context from a violation,
> Sony was held not to contributoraly infringe. Napster, however,
> should (does?) have the means of screening out access to copyright
> protected material. It would be a pain, and probably kill Napster's
> business model, but it is technologically possible. Also,
> "time-shifting" as fair use doen't apply. Without a large fair use
> out there that is impossible to distinguish by the company from
> infringing uses, Napster should be hard pressed to justify not
> blocking access to copyrighted material that it does not have
> permission to distribute.

     I would like to see you justify the claim that this is technologically possible. I've never used Napster, but my understanding is that it is a tool for file transfer -- that is it's not limited to MP3's, or even music files, though that's mainly what it's used for today. Telling a music file from some other random collection of bits is pretty much impossible to do with certainty.

   Not to say you can ever tell a fair use from infringement in advance -- it appears federal judges can disagree on this issue, I think it's unreasonable to try and make software coders put these kinds of decisions in software when people who decide court cases can't even always agree. (I also think it's unreasonable for said coders to attempt to do so on their own initiative, i.e. Digital Rights Management is a bogus goal).

Lynn

Lynn Winebarger
<owinebar[_at_]free-expression.org> Received on Wed May 10 2000 - 07:09:49 GMT