The Supremes
It saddens me when a bunch of old people are making major decisions dealing with new technologies. The Supreme Court, continuing their trend of garbage rulings, ruled that I can't share my shoestring budgeted home video camera movie (well if I had one, anyway) over file sharing networks. This time, the idiocy was unanimous.
I'm sure, the Supremes didn't actually ban file sharing networks from sharing my own little slice of craptv, but the effect is probably the same. File sharing networks will almost certainly have to exclude all audio and video files now as they can be held liable for criminal use (meaning downloading those crappy theater screen video captures, and crappy mp3 music).
Applying Supreme logic, it is like someone legally buying and owning a gun, then committing a crime with it, then holding the gun company liable. Substitute gun with car, coffee mug, book, scissors, etc. You get the picture.
Along with shaky-cam wannabe Michael Morons, crappy independent bands trying to get their music heard, or crappy poets (is there any other kind these days?) could be left out in the cold.
The entire Internet is nothing but a file sharing network. Legal use of a legal product is the responsibility of the user, and the user is to blame when they abuse it. Why don't the Supremes get that?
While I disagreed with banning it for this reason, the original Napster shared only mp3 files and it was reasonable to assume that the vast majority of use was for illegal purposes. New file sharing systems share every kind of file. If they are responsible for how it is used, then I want some punitive money from the Internet regulatory bodies for all of the illegal spam showing up in my inbox. The intent of the SCOTUS may be honorable, but the ruling is far from it.
I'm sure, the Supremes didn't actually ban file sharing networks from sharing my own little slice of craptv, but the effect is probably the same. File sharing networks will almost certainly have to exclude all audio and video files now as they can be held liable for criminal use (meaning downloading those crappy theater screen video captures, and crappy mp3 music).
Applying Supreme logic, it is like someone legally buying and owning a gun, then committing a crime with it, then holding the gun company liable. Substitute gun with car, coffee mug, book, scissors, etc. You get the picture.
Along with shaky-cam wannabe Michael Morons, crappy independent bands trying to get their music heard, or crappy poets (is there any other kind these days?) could be left out in the cold.
The entire Internet is nothing but a file sharing network. Legal use of a legal product is the responsibility of the user, and the user is to blame when they abuse it. Why don't the Supremes get that?
While I disagreed with banning it for this reason, the original Napster shared only mp3 files and it was reasonable to assume that the vast majority of use was for illegal purposes. New file sharing systems share every kind of file. If they are responsible for how it is used, then I want some punitive money from the Internet regulatory bodies for all of the illegal spam showing up in my inbox. The intent of the SCOTUS may be honorable, but the ruling is far from it.
posted by Unknown at 5:35 AM
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