Copyleft: the magazine

While there’s been a lot of coverage of this one over the past week, I think it is worth another look. According to numerous news sources, the judge in Atlantic vs. Howell, a long running RIAA file-sharing lawsuit, has declare in a preliminary opinion, that the RIAA’s contention that simply having files available on KaZaA does not constitute a violation of copyright. So, if the RIAA does try to take this case to trial, it would need to prove not only that the Howell’s, who are husband and wife co-defendants in the case, not only had a KaZaA account that had music shared on it, but that someone downloaded said music and that the defendants are responsible for making that download possible. Given the Howells’ brutal honesty so far in the case about their lack of tech-savvy with regards to the workings of KaZaA and the fact that they were using it to distribute non-copyrighted works of an exhibitionist nature (that’s what the internets are for, right?), this preliminary statement is being set up by many as the gold standard for how to handle this sort of case. The case is expected to go to trial in September, so we’ll see what happens between now and then.

(via Ars Technica, EFF, et al)