[PLUG-TALK] Wanna' Help a Lawyer Defend Against the RIAA?

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Jeme A Brelin wrote:
>
> On Sat, 30 Dec 2006, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
>> Yeah, I remember the arguments. I don't much care one way or another 
>> -- I don't fileshare and I don't buy 90 percent of the material 
>> published that people *do* fileshare. If there were a thriving "black 
>> market" in performances of the Shostakovich 11th symphony,
> [snip]
>
> The problem here, Ed, is that you're perpetuating the propaganda by 
> using terms like "black market" and "copyright violation".  If you 
> don't care, don't let your language take sides.  Just a suggestion...
The problem here is not that I am perpetuating propaganda. I raised the 
issue of Shostakovich because I do, in fact, own some recordings from 
Russia of said composer playing his own works that are of questionable 
legal status on an *international* copyright basis. It's not at all 
clear whether they were obtained legally, given that the original tapes 
"escaped" from Russia about the time that the Soviet Union disintegrated 
and the laws there changed. Someone found the tapes in an archive, saw a 
way to make a quick ruble and found a studio to transfer them to CD and 
publish them.

I bought them at Tower Records in Beaverton. At the time I bought them, 
I was unaware their status was questionable. My expectation is that when 
I buy a recording of a valuable historic performance in a national 
record store chain, I have in fact engaged in a legal transaction. To 
this day, I still don't know for a fact that they are illegal and I 
don't know for a fact that they are legal.

What I am certain of, however, is that the estate of Shostakovich, if 
such a concept even exists in contemporary Russia, received little 
(probably no) compensation from their sale. Clearly, though, when 
Shostakovich recorded them, the laws of the Soviet Union were in force, 
which, IIRC, state that just about everything belongs to the State. So 
one way or another, he was screwed -- he died in 1975 -- but his widow 
and two children should have been compensated.
> Well, this is a civil suit.  The plaintiff is the RIAA, not the 
> state.  We don't need to overturn legislation.  We just need a simple 
> precedent showing that their suit is spurious, frivolous and 
> stupidous.  With such a decision (dismissal or otherwise), future 
> claims by the RIAA can be met with countersuits since they know 
> presumably know that their claims are unsupportable.
Actually the plaintiff is UMG, not the RIAA itself, although clearly the 
RIAA is "involved". But I think you *do* need to overturn legislation, 
because the concepts of patents and copyrights are written into the 
Constitution and if the legislation based thereon is unfair, ambiguous, 
unenforceable, out of step with technology or wrong in some other way, 
it should be challenged. If part of that challenge is that someone can 
be sued for illegal behavior of a relative, fine, but just getting this 
lawsuit thrown out isn't going to make the legislation go away.

-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/

If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.