BitTorrent loses court case

[RoBe]

not really sure if this is the right section but i'm sure it'll be moved if i'm wrong

BBC NEWS | Technology | BitTorrent search site loses case

seems that the verdict was more because the judge didn't know what ram was than the actual case

The judge then asked for information from the Ram in their computers but the defendants failed in their attempt to argue the data was temporary and therefore could not be retained.

[Sinizter]

They should have specially technically qualified judges to deal with cases that deal with computers and the internet.

[staffsMike]

they should have ripped all the RAM out of the servers stuck it in a bag and given it to them .. "help yourself judge"

It's amazing how they have gone to such lengths to protect their users though, I thought it was the fashion to say the site is open to use how people will and their are many legitamate uses for P2P software and then say.. "it's all their fault" lol

I can't believe that they are still trying to fight off file sharing. After all these years do that not realise that people will simply find another way... It's time movie companies embrace it and try and profit from it from it.

[Rosaline]

They're still trying to fight off filesharing for two simple reasons:

1. Distributing something without permission is breaking copyright and hence wrong, of course.

2. It's simpler to fight file sharing than it is for them to adapt to the new global instant economy.

[dave87]

they should have ripped all the RAM out of the servers stuck it in a bag and given it to them .. "help yourself judge"

Exactly.

Another example of where technology has progressed beyond the comprehension of existing laws/legal structure.

[Russ]

id of give the most sarcastic example i could think of

like writing something on a white board then wiping it off

[Lucio]

I suspect this is a case of media paraphrasing rather than a judge who is technically incompitant making the wrong decision. After all, if the judge had indeed given them notice that this information would be required, then they should have written a logging program to get the data before it was over-written or otherwise destroyed.

It's a bit like allowing someone to continue to shred documents after the judge has told you "no, you have to provide those in court".

[Sinizter]

And how fast can you get a logging program written ? The same day that the judge asked them to start saving this information ?

The press may be paraphrasing, but only to get the point across to the less technical. I am quite sure that the judge in question made some dumb decision because he/she didnt understand the concepts involved.

But kudos to the torrenting site in question for not handing over users details without a fight.

[RedPutty]

Even if they did start capturing their ram imagine how much disk space it would require and how much it would slow the servers down.

Clueless judge.

[TooNice]

But kudos to the torrenting site in question for not handing over users details without a fight.

But was it worth it? [Read on]

I can't believe that they are still trying to fight off file sharing.

I actually find it more interesting (and unbelievable) that there are people willing to put themselves on the line by setting up unrestricted (i.e. with no attempt whatsoever to prevent torrent of copyrighted material) filesharing sites. At best they are going a pat in the back (as in the other quoted post), but I can't imagine how even those with lots of pop-up ads are making that much money. In fact, I wonder if most do not shell money out of their pocket to run the sites. It can't be fame (of the individuals) either, because for most part, I don't think those people are well known, at least until they get taken to court. Can that the prospect of running a high traffic site be the only reason?

From the entertainment industry point of view, I actually think it makes sense to simultaneously fight illegal filesharing while 'adapting to new technology' (I put this in quote because it is something I hear a lot, yet I am not entirely sure what people mean by it).

[Rosaline]

It's not so much the new technology as the new economy the technology allows for. Once upon a time, the media upon which copyrighted works was distributed was scarce, and as such demand outstripped supply and high prices could be charged. Now media is free, it is the artist's time and other forms of merchandising that is not. There's a whole series of essays on these issues over on Techdirt that are well worth a read.

[TooNice]

I've only read one article so far, and it's this one. It seems relevant to the point you were making, and at least the author gave a non abstract example in the end.

Could you please clarify when did you mean by 'once upon a time'? I have to say that vinyl is a bit before my time, and I am not quite sure what people used before that. I'd believe you if you'd said that cassettes were more expensive than CDs, tapes more expensive than DVDs (to manufacture). Yet to call those media 'scarce' seems far fetched, and I find it hard to believe that people paid a high price for the expensive media.. rather than the content within the media.

What that article discuss is probably what you referred to as 'new economy'. Giving away music for free, in the hope of reaching a larger market, hence increase the bands 'value' and the associating merchandise (not too dissimilar to a loss leader strategy). Except that I am not convinced that giving the music for free will turn a 'small pie' into a 'big pie'. If the music has a wide enough appeal, then people will know of it, through TV, radio, word of mouth etc. Popular artists can charge a lot for the goods, concert tickets, etc. I just don't think that those will increase in value so much as to make up for the hundred of thousand records they could've sold otherwise.. and that's even assuming the hundred of thousand pirated copies distributed.

The way I see it, the article provides a solution for the scenario people do not buy CDs anymore (e.g. if 100% of the people will not pay for content anyway, you might as well give it away and see if you can capture an extra 10% of the market*). But if people do find values in the music they enjoy, then shouldn't they weight the value derived from the joy of listening to the music (when they want; there is always the radio otherwise) with the cost imposed by the artists.. or even the record companies the artists chose to work for? Can you really say that supply has outstripped demand.. or is it simply the fact that demand for the content have found ways to get it for free with minimal risks of being caught?

* Made up numbers, I could be wrong - but yes, though I can not 'prove' my assertions, I am certainly a little cynical. But even if you have 10x more fans, how big can your concert get, and how many hours can you work those artists?

I am quite curious how well Radiohead did with their last release. The download for as much/little as you want, or buy an expensive media version is something I applaud, but I wonder if they were better off: did managed to get even 50p on average from the people who would have downloaded for free otherwise?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I noticed I've not mentioned something on-topic on this matter here. I saw this news elsewhere a while ago, and I must also say that the RAM part is really silly.

[Rosaline]

By once upon a time, I was refering to the age before the internet and before the price of hard drive storage was such to reduce the material cost of the end-user information storage for an album, TV production or film to pennies. The media for DVDs may cost pennies, but the distribution, manufacturing and housing prior to reaching the customer is all highly limited. The quantity of a product available for any given amount of population is by definition limited (shops can only hold so much), and this limitation is far more extreme than the limitation on bandwidth.

Read all the posts in the series of which that linked article is a part, it's very informative, and explains the basis of economics on scarcity far better than I ever could. They are linked at the bottom of the article. But to put it simply, you can't make profit off something available in such large quantities so as to be forced to be effectively free.

It's also a fallacy to believe that artists profit substantially from album sales. Typical royalties are in the order of a few percent at most after the 50% cut taken by the retailer.

Looking at typical merchandising schemes for bands, items such as clothing or books are priced far higher than any album is ever priced, and clothing especially retains it's sale price far longer than any album or book.

As for radiohead's stunt, those commentators who said that it was a failure because most people downloaded it at no cost missed the whole point of the exercise.

Can you really say that supply has outstripped demand.. or is it simply the fact that demand for the content have found ways to get it for free with minimal risks of being caught?

How is there a difference here? If people are acquiring a product, it is in supply. To think that there is somehow some kind of special difference is to believe that it would somehow be entirely possible to discourage or prevent this free distribution. The moral argument against this has been shown to simply not work at all, and technology advances faster than the ability to control it's use.

It's late, I'm tired, and Techdirt really explains this far better than I ever could.

As for the RAM part, I've not looked up the actual filings yet, and groklaw has yet to cover this, but I strongly suspect it only seems silly due to the way it is being presented here outside of the context of the case itself, reported by tech-illiterate reporters. If it is silly, then there is little need to worry - as a rule, the judicial system rocks.

[Lucio]

If you want to look at companies that have profited from the idea of supplying items for "free", just look at Google or Yahoo. The vast number of people who interact with them, do so at no cost to themselves, they get a "free" product.

Sure there are ways to give them money directly, sign up for premium services, or become an advertiser, but for most people they just accept that the service is there and will always be there.

[Saracen]

.....

As for the RAM part, I've not looked up the actual filings yet, and groklaw has yet to cover this, but I strongly suspect it only seems silly due to the way it is being presented here outside of the context of the case itself, reported by tech-illiterate reporters. If it is silly, then there is little need to worry - as a rule, the judicial system rocks.

Quite right. This is not a judge that doesn't understand what RAM is or how it works, but a news report that paraphrases and condenses what was actually going on. And what was going on, according to the ruling, was a deliberate attempt to frustrate the jurisdiction of US courts by a series of techniques, ignoring a previous court ruling over production of logs. The company in question had direct control over the routing of server logs, and appears to have chose to route them via an external service (Panther) specifically to try to avoid a previous production order, and they COULD have switched that routing back off again. As for producing data that was held in RAM, it's a technical point (legally rather than in computer terms) as to what "primary storage" is. If RAM is primary storage, and according to the judge it is, then the court has the power to order production of the logs, and simply opting to enable external routing doesn't void that order.

Nor is it that the judge doesn't understand the technicalities, as Sinizter suggested. As the judgement makes clear, the technical aspects were covered in considerable detail by expert witnesses, by "hundreds of pages of briefing, technical declarations and even multiple rounds of supplemental briefing."

It went on to point out

the data in issues which is currently routed to a third party entity under contract to defendants and received in said entity's RAM ... is within the defendants possession, custody or control by virtue of defendant's ability to manipulate at will how the data in issue is routed.

In other words, the defendants had the data under their control, switched it so that it routed to a third-party under contract, and could have switched it back. So if it's under their direct control, switching it to a third party and then saying it's not technically possible to access it won't wash when they've been court-ordered to produce. And all this particular judge did was reaffirm that the previous court ruling was correct.