[BC] Court rejects RIAA's 'making available' piracy argument

[Kevin Tekel]

CNET (via Ernie Belanger) wrote:
> In Atlantic v. Howell, Judge Neil V. Wake denied the labels' motion for
> summary judgment in a 17-page decision (PDF), allowing the suit to
> proceed to trial. The argument--that merely the act of making music
files
> available for download constituted copyright infringement--has been the
> basis for the Recording Industry Association of America's legal battle
> against online music piracy.

If that "making available" argument held water, then every single public
library would have to remove all their recordings from circulation,
because a patron could check out a CD, take it home, and burn a copy of
it.  But it seems that as long as some kind of physical recording medium
is involved, the RIAA doesn't care much about piracy... don't they already
get a royalty fee for every new blank "music" (as opposed to "data") CD-R
disc sold?




      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ