Copyright Law

Another copyright law blogger quits, this one citing, as a reason, the RIAA's lawsuits against ordinary people

By Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman

Keith Henning, a Little Rock, Arkansas, attorney who has been publishing a copyright blog called "copywrite.org", wrote a post in October in which he announced the end of of his blog.

He gave four reasons for his decision, the first three of which echoed those given by Bill Patry when he closed his blog.

The fourth reason Keith gave was this one:

4. It is really depressing. The phone calls I get are the worst. On average, I receive about one phone call every other day from someone being sued for file-sharing music. I have my response memorized. There is no good news for (usually parents of) someone getting sued by RIAA, et, al. I believe that given the right case I could win. I have a dozen arguments against these suits and a complete plan of attack ready, starting with having the record company prove they are the rightful holder of rights, that each file contained both what it purported to be and that it was a enough to be infringing, that the sharing does not equal distribution, that the collection of information equaled unlicensed private investigation, that the collection of information was without permission and equals hacking, abuse of process, etc. However, no person with anything to lose would do anything but write the $4-5k check and go on with their lives. The sadness in their voices pains me. This is the reason I didn?t do criminal law or family law or even personal tax law. I love the law, I don?t like the messiness of peoples lives. I really love IP law. If someone would give me a full time IP law teaching gig, I would likely die in that job. However, I really can?t take anymore of these calls from people being hijacked by record companies for (what is usually) their life savings, or more.

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Full post as published by Recording Industry vs The People on January 25, 2009 (boomark / email).