A law professor at Harvard University has filed a counterclaim against the Recording Industry Association of America, arguing that a statute it is using to sue Joel Tenenbaum, a student at Boston University, is unconstitutional, Computerworld reports.
The RIAA had sued Mr. Tenenbaum for violating the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 — by allegedly copying and distributing copyrighted songs. But according to the law professor, Charles Nesson, that criminal statute cannot be applied to a civil case in federal court.
Mr. Nesson is challenging both the RIAA’s use of the law and the law itself. It gives the RIAA prosecutorial authority and “unbridled discretion” to sue millions of people, he argues, according to Computerworld.
This challenge to the RIAA, the magazine says, is broader than many recent ones that focus on the group’s means of gathering evidence against alleged pirates. —Sara Lipka
2 Responses to Harvard Law Professor Takes New Tack Against RIAA
Doug_Fisher - July 13, 2012 at 10:36 am
Your posts on screen casts have been informative, Robert — keep them coming. I’m just starting, and I’ve learned to do basic editing after initial recording in iMovie. So rather than scripting out my slides exactly, I might script only bullets, and then either pause or allow a dead air on my initial recording, knowing that I can edit out mouse clicks, dead air (and yes, still some umms and ahhs and coughs too) later. I’m not “there” yet, but I can see myself improving using this strategy.
Do you have any experience with this strategy, or other thoughts? — perhaps students would actually find the full written script helpful (?)
Robert Talbert - July 13, 2012 at 3:04 pm
I think a full written script is helpful for me, just to rein me in, but I think it could also be helpful for students. Especially, full scripts could be used for closed-captioning the videos, which is something my screencasts don’t have and probably should.