News: mp3 sharing is illegal

News:
01-04-2008:
The Register post an interesting review of the ongoing case:

A US Judge on Monday upheld the view that sharing copyrighted music is infringement. It's a defeat for defendant Denise Barker and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a victory for the four record labels in the case, led by Warner's Elektra.

The Copyright Act is fairly clear. It defines "publication" as "offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display" - but sensibly separates out performance or display itself from the definition. The legal code defines five exclusive rights of copyright: reproduction, adaptation, publication, performance, and display.

Now, digital media blurs the distinction between performance and distribution in lots of interesting ways, but unfortunately, none of these were raised in the case. The EFF instead homed in on the technical point of whether publication was distribution.

Barker had been sued in 2005 for sharing songs via the Kazaa P2P network. This lawsuit is a Motion to Dismiss the earlier ruling. The EFF argued that the labels had failed to prove the songs "were illegally downloaded or distributed by Defendant", had failed to point out the time and date of an infringement, and that the 2005 case violated the defendant's right to "fair notice" ie time required to prepare a defence. There was no proof that an "actual transfer" of copyright material had taken place, the EFF argued.

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