All Posts Tagged With: "copyright"
MPAA: “We shouldn’t have to prove infringement took place before collecting $150k per file in damages”
Welcome to the real world folks, the concept of “burden of proof”, well that’s right out the window. So based on this way of thinking, copyright holders could be awarded upwards of $150,000 per file just because they believe you’re guilty. The Constitution be damned!
“Mandating such proof could thus have the pernicious effect of depriving copyright owners of a practical remedy against massive copyright infringement in many instances,” MPAA attorney Marie L. van Uitert wrote Friday to the federal judge overseeing the Jammie Thomas trial.
“It is often very difficult, and in some cases, impossible, to provide such direct proof when confronting modern forms of copyright infringement, whether over P2P networks or otherwise; understandably, copyright infringers typically do not keep records of infringement,” van Uitert wrote on behalf of the movie studios, a position shared with the Recording Industry Association of America, which sued Thomas, the single mother of two.
Assimilate that!
Wired (full article) via Boing Boing
Should Apple and Microsoft be responsible for enforcing DRM in their products?
There’s a couple of stories that Cory over at BoingBoing posted recently (1 | 2) that raise interesting questions about how Microsoft’s Windows Vista is rumored to enforce DRM and how the new Apple iPhone will do the same thing. Without a doubt, the biggest mistake Apple made this week was not having tractor trailers filled to the brim with the sleek new phone for sale. It’s definitely a jewel and has had the technology world buzzing all week. But now the euphoria is wearing off and people are starting to take a closer look at what the pricey iPhone really does and the biggest of these is also a large part of the discussion surrounding bitter rival Microsoft’s upcoming operating system. I’m not debating the finer points of whether the respective industries should protect their material, by all means, they should. Right or wrong the music and video related industries that foot the bills for creation should be able to protect their investments. I’m curious though, if by extension of trying to enforce that protection they’ve not created an umbrella which hardware and software manufacturers can hide behind to now monopolize their own respective markets.
