Re: Absence of profit motive

A reply to several of you who responded to my message regarding the LaMacchia case.

When I wrote the following I made a major typo (sorry):

>

That should have read that the Court ruled that the student did NOT engage in criminal copyright. Actually, even to say that the Court "ruled" was imprecise. The student was indicted for wire fraud, and not criminal copyright infringement. But in dismissing the wire fraud claim, the Court recognized that the reason no criminal copyright charges could have been brought was that the student had no commercial motive in operating the bulletin board. (The bulletin board "subscribers" did not pay anything to subscribe to the bulletin board, just as we pay nothing to "subscribe" to cni-copyright.) The Court also explicitly declined to countenance use of the wire fraud statute for the criminal prosecution of what was essentially a contributory liability copyright infringement action that could not have risen to the level of criminal infringement because of the absence of commercial motive.

 Neil Netanel                        -  Telephone: 512-471-2679        =
 Assistant Professor                 -  Fax:  512-471-6988             =
 University of Texas School of Law   -                                 =
 727 E. 26th St.                     -                                 =
 Austin, Texas 78705                 -                                 =
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