An Amateur's Thoughts on Copyright Cases

I read just the Slashdot notes, a few of the comments and the actual Order on the Motion for Summary Judgement on this piece of news: RIAA Foiled by "Innocent Infringement" Defense. The story indicates that a 16 year old downloader of music was able to avoid getting a Summary Judgment imposed on her for downloading 28 music tracks via Kazaa by invoking the "Innocent Infringement" Defense - as her Deposition said:

Defendant stated that she had “no reason
to doubt” that her actions were “100% free and 100% legal” and that she believed programs like
KaZaA “to be similar to online radio stations.” (Docket No. 52, Affidavit of Whitney Harper).

but the RIAA stated otherwise, saying:

Plaintiffs further claim that Defendant had access to notice sufficient for her to know that her actions
constituted infringement. (Docket No. 51, at 3).

This, according to the /. article was because copyright notices appear on compact discs in music stores, and the 16 year old girl should have known that those same songs available on the CDs were copyrighted materials.

The court denied the Motion for Summary Judgment. And I couldn't be happier. I also have a suggestion - and since Andy, I'm sure you're the only one who reads this that actually cares, please feel free to rip my argument to shreds in any way you feel fit. My suggestion is that in the day and age that digital music is very quickly becoming the industry standard, if anyone wishes to protect their songs via copyright they should put an audio warning on each individual track. As it is, studies show that end users don't read the EULA's on any sort of software they use, and while I disagree with the fact people don't read (and am bitter that I spend a decent amount of my downtime at work going over different EULA's for software we have at work, just to make sure that we don't inadvertently break our agreement and get in hot water somehow), it is a fact of life; so placing a copyright notice in a EULA agreement (or something similar) isn't going to work - unless maybe the GUI for the EULA took over the screen, and scrolled it Star Wars intro-styled and didn't let you exit out until the license was finished.

Obviously most people would HATE the fact of needing to listen to even a 3 second warning at the beginning of each track saying something like, "By the way, this track is IP of someone, and illegally downloading it constitutes an infringement of copyright, and we'll sue you if we find you." but it could be done. Hell, it would be wicked easy to do - and in fact, I should probably record that exact statement and copyright it myself, so that I can make a tenth of a penny on every track it's going to go on to.

The reason I say this, is that people are using computers at an increasingly younger age, and they are becoming much more technologically adept than even my generation, meaning that soon (unless it combusts under it's own ridiculousness sooner), the only people left to sue that WONT fall under "Innocent Infringement" protocols - lowering the total possible damages recoverable far less than the legal fees to extract those fines, will be geriatrics.

And we all know that geriatrics don't listen to the cool music that artists get all upset about anyway.

This already essentially exists as the friendly green MPAA/Interpol screen you see on every movie (even the ones that can be legally or illegally downloaded) - and I don't see people freaking out and spitting at the screen when it happens, as it is just a fact of life that EVERY time a film is shown, this warning comes up. I don't think that there can be any argument that a musical album is the equivalent of a single movie and that the tracks of the album are similar to the chapters in a film, as from the beginning of the music industry, tracks have been released individually. Chapters in motion pictures on the other hand, well, when was the last time you saw "View the chapter from the hit motion picture Titanic!"? That's right, never. Because people don't watch single chapters - but they DO listen to individual songs in an album, all the time on media as diverse as the radio, media players, television advertising or even movie scores. So if the RIAA wants to be successful in what they aim to be successful at (making our lives miserable, as it says in their mission statement), shouldn't they put audio warnings on every track sold?

Or am I just retarded, with too much time on my hands for my own good?