Thursday, August 19, 2004

I find the contrasts in the following headlines interesting for what they say of the editor's knowledge of the subject before the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals: Court Rules Some File-Sharing Companies are not liable (NYT) Judges rule file-sharing software legal (News.com) Studios are dealt Piracy setback (WSJ) US Court rejects Movie, Music Makers' Piracy Claims (Reuters) Court ruling favors music-sharing networks (Post) Now, the following is the most accurate headline from early in the day today: Court Finds for Grokster, Others on Copyright (Reuters). Reuters - A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled several Internet file-sharing software companies are not liable for copyright infringement for digital video and music files traded online utilizing their programs. I have read a couple of critiques of the ruling and it boils down to an affirmation of the Sony Betamax decision of 1984.  Such affirmation hardly constitutes a blow to piracy efforts anymore than it legitimizes illegal sharing of music across a network.  Perhaps editors need to spend more time in class so that the content and context are more clearly represented in the headline (but, then they couldn't sell papers then could they?)   comment [] 9:44:33 PM