Sherman refuses to firmly state whether or not the RIAA considers simple uploading to a computer or music player legal, but he calls Fisher out for misquoting the section of the brief upon which the article hinged. At the end of the segment, the RIAA's policy remains murky as ever, but it turns out that Sherman was right: The RIAA maintains in the brief that the mp3s in this case were located in a shared folder and therefore illegal -- not just because they were uploaded in the first place. The Post has since copped to the mistake and corrected the story.
But Ryan Singel at Wired's Threat Level blog makes the case that the RIAA's legal campaign against file-sharers has presumed uploading to be illegal since their ultimately victorious case against Jammie Thomas this past year.
...the RIAA's lawyer used that argument -- that individuals don't even have the right to make MP3s - to persuade a jury to levy exorbitant fines on file sharer Jammie Thomas. The judge told the jury to consider that simply offering files for download constituted copyright infringement -- the RIAA didn't have to prove anyone actually downloaded the files.
But it wasn't clear until after the testimony whether the judge would require proof that someone actually downloaded the songs she made available on Kazaa. So the RIAA''s lawyer engaged in a scorched earth campaign, argumentatively asking Thomas if she had gotten permission to simply rip the songs.
Before knowing whether the judge would enforce a burden of proof the RIAA couldn't meet -- they had no proof anyone actually downloaded songs from Thomas, the RIAA's lawyer was building a case to have Thomas found liable for simply ripping songs without permission. That's why the Sony executive said ripping a song was the same as stealing one, though now the RIAA finds it convenient to say she didn't understand the question.
Same as it ever was (ineffective and preposterous, that is).
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