What I can gather from the brief, it looks as if Boing Boing got the story wrong.
While its true that they brought to light that Howell ripped CD's to his hard drive for his and his wifes iPod, where he (Howell) screwed up is that he loaded them to a KaZaa shared folder and made them available to the KaZaa peer-to-peer network.
In turn, though the RIAA couldn't prove that anyone down loaded any files (because Howell wiped his hard drive after notification of pending litigation), the RIAA did take screen shots of Howells KaZaa shared folder across the internet connection.
Bottom line, Howell (knowingly) screwed the pooch. He should have known better and now he'll pay for it.
Here are a few key points from the legal brief;
Defendant admitted that he converted these sound recordings from their original format to the .mp3 format for his and his wife’s use. (Howell Dep. 107:24 to 110:2; 114:1 to 116:16). The .mp3 format is a “compressed format [that] allows for rapid transmission of digital audio files from one computer to another by electronic mail or any other file transfer protocol.” Napster, 239 F.3d at 1011. Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs’ recording into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs. Moreover, Defendant had no authorization to distribute Plaintiffs’ copyrighted recordings from his KaZaA shared folder.
Each of the 11 sound recordings on Exhibit A to Plaintiffs’ Complaint were stored in the .mp3 format in the shared folder on Defendant’s computer hard drive, and each of these eleven files were actually disseminated from Defendant’s computer. Each of the 11 sound recordings on Exhibit A to Plaintiffs’ Complaint were stored in the .mp3 format in the shared folder on Defendant’s computer hard drive, and each of these eleven files were actually disseminated from Defendant’s computer. (See Jacobson Decl. ¶ 6 and Exhibit 1 thereto.) Each of these actual, unauthorized disseminations of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works violates Plaintiffs’ exclusive distribution right under the Copyright Act. See Perfect 10, 416 F. Supp. 2d at 844. In addition, Defendant unlawfully distributed all 54 of Plaintiffs’ Sound Recordings by making unauthorized copies of the recordings available to other KaZaA users for download.
It is undisputed that KaZaA is expressly designed to allow “multiple people to share files” and that files in a KaZaA user’s shared folder, including Defendant’s shared folder, are “available to other people” for download.
Defendant admits that all of the sound recordings in Exhibit B to the Complaint were in the KaZaA shared folder that he created on his computer and were being distributed to other KaZaA users from his computer.
Defendant acknowledges that he saw indications that other KaZaA users were downloading files from the shared folder in his computer, and that he never did anything to stop it.
Now, I'm no lawyer but I even I don't think that the RIAA is dumb enough to file a case about a husband and wife sharing community property (ie; music purchased with joint bank funds and placed on a jointly owned household computer).
What I do find interesting in this case is the following statement about the use/sharing of the album artwork.
Google does not own a collection of Perfect 10’s full-size images and does not have a collection of stored full-size images it makes available to the public.” Id. Thus, Google itself did not “distribute” the plaintiff’s images in violation of the Copyright Act. Id.
Why I find this interesting (and worthy of further investigation) is because of our What Are You Listening To Right Now? thread. All of us that post in that thread (pretty much) link to Amazon or CD Now's cover art. We use those digital images to show...what we are listening to.
The question then becomes....is this legal?
Any opinions from the legal minds out there?
