Institute For The Future

"Shared folder" != copyright violation

After years of muscling fans into settlements and lawsuits over sharing folders of music on various P2P services, a judge has ruled that offering a "shared folder" of media does not constitute a copyright violation unless there is proof that an actual file changed hands.

 

From PC World:

In Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA made the legal assertion that a "sound recording" that is ripped to a computer and stored in any kind of a shared folder is unauthorized. This was an interesting statement because a shared folder can be a very broad category that wasn't entirely made clear by the RIAA.

 

This RIAA theory on "making available" files in "shared folders" wasn't taken lightly by much of the Internet as many blogs and other sites provided misinformation that the act of ripping tracks from a CD to a shared folder was now deemed illegal. To be clear the RIAA doesn't considering ripping illegal, rather loading up MP3s in a shared folder that can be accessed by anyone using a P-to-P sharing program.

 

In the ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake denied the RIAA's summary judgment motion and shot down all of the RIAA's theories of file distribution where the digital file did not change hands. This includes the "making available" and "offer to distribute" theories that pertains to storing songs in a shared folder.

 

A victory for fans!

 

Read Fred von Loehmann's take on it at the EFF site: Big Victory in Atlantic v. Howell: Court Rejects RIAA "Making Available" Theory