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Originally Posted by kane
I see this case ending one of two ways and neither are good for torrent sites or their users.
1. The record companies settle with the artists. They agree to pay those on the list whatever they are owed plus legal fees and maybe a little bit more.
If that is how it ends then these same copyright holders can go after torrent sites and say that they are using their copyrighted materials to make a profit and are not paying them for it. The torrent site will try to hide behind a safe harbor/fair use defense and we will finally get some kind of ruling about this.
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but they could do that right now anyway, in fact before it came to light that record companies were basically screwing the artist too, the Record companies could claim it was easy to find and get permission BEFORE allowing the content post
now this case will absolutely prove it not reasonable to expect that. Every appeal every claim that this is ok results in another case that can be used in the next defense.
That would all have to gotten thru BEFORE you could ever deal with the fair use defence.
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2. The record labels lose and have to pay up. I don't think the final amount would be 60 billion, because something like that would be held up in court for years and years and years.
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exactly and every arguement that they successfully make to justify not paying out the full amount could also be copied by the torrent sites.
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But let's just say that it ends up being that amount. Now we have basically a second legal president for the $20,000 per track argument. There were individuals who have been hit for that amount and now the record companies themselves have been hit for that amount. So the labels can now go after more people with a blanket number. If they find you are sharing songs on the network they hit you for 20K a song. They could, technically, also go after the torrent site for that amount. If you are linking to a torrent of a song they could argue that this is distributing that song and hit you for 20k for every song listed on your site. Doesn't mean they will win that much, but it could shut a lot of sites down.
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no they can't because fair use can and does exempt many of these behaviors, fair use does not exist for this case.
So this case can never set the precedent that 20k is justified for non commercial (peer to peer sharing) becuase even if they win all that amount the peer to peer sharer can say, that doesn't apply to us because i am not selling the goods at all. and that his a huge difference.
Even the torrent sites are not DIRECTLY profiting from the copyright infringement, like the record companies in this case.
This case can only add legal "loopholes" for torrent sites and peer to peer shares.
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They could try to force the torrent sites to prove just how many of their users are using these torrents for fair use and how many are just downloading it and sharing it because they want it for free.
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never happen based on this case, there is no way you can justify adding that level of proof based on a case where the company is making money DIRECTLY from the infringement, to what is at best making money INDIRECTLY from the infringement.
nothing set in favor of the copyright holders can apply because fo the huge massive difference between DIRECTLY profiting from the infringement and INDIRECTLY profiting from the infringement.
The indirect nature means that the torrent site can't know when they are making money from infringement, fair use, or fully licienced distribution
while the record company is 100% aware that all revenue is made from the infringement.
The torrent sites will always have that extra "excuse"
however any ruling in favor of the record company that will "Excuse" their direct infringement would be allowed to applied to any indirect infringement as well. becuase quite simply it justified or excused the infringement.