Wednesday, July 2, 2008

RIAA says evidence is not need for infringment cases


The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) urged a federal judge on Monday to leave intact the $222,000 verdict against Jammie Thomas in the first file-sharing suit to go to trial. The RIAA argues that evidence of actual distribution (people downloading the files from a shared folder) is not needed, only evidence that the files were available (the files were available in the shared folder to be downloaded) is needed. This brings out an interesting point, the court has said that it is legal to download copies of copyrighted material, and the question remains whether it is illegal to merely upload copyrighted material or to upload it and have evidence of some one downloading it from you. So if you are going to file-share, not making your files available in your shared folder may keep the RIAA off your back. A public hearing is set for August 4. Read more about it at Wired.

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