[LINK] Does copyright have a future? [WAS: iinet wins!!]

Martin Barry marty at supine.com
Tue Feb 9 19:47:40 AEDT 2010


$quoted_author = "Stilgherrian" ;
> 
> I read it as a little more precise than that. At the point that a
> participant in a BitTorrent swarm obtains the last piece of a file, their
> status in the swarm is changed to "seeder", indicating that they are now
> offering the entire file. At that point, it can be said that they are
> "making available" the copyright material.

That was the threshold he defined.

But my reading was he choose that specific point in time because they are
likely to have uploaded a similar amount of data to other peers.


> Justice Cowdroy was at pains to stress that looking at this problem at the
> level of "pieces" or "packets" was wrong.

Which is why he wasn't counting the amount of data uploaded nor the
timeframe the bittorrent client was running.

He was keen to define a binary state. You either shared 100% or you didn't.

But by making continued seeding a single infringement his interpretation
reduces the damages that the copyright holder could seek.

 
> He also seemed to indicate that more complex interpretations would be
> required to make a finding of "make available" before the entire file was
> downloaded.

There be dragons.


> Again, Justice Cowdroy spent some time pointing out that acts are
> performed by people, not computers.

Which means that AFACT would have to seize and analyse all devices behind a
NAT. Too easy for the media to paint it as a "witch hunt".

cheers
Marty



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