[richlevy]

Considering a federal judge has already ruled in a similar case that makers of a product with a significant non-infringing were not liable, the kid did have an almost sure win.

Unfortunately, as he pointed out, it would have cost $250k to fight the case with nothing to win.

That being said the EFF or some other group should have backed him.

This is very similar to the spate of SLAPP suits that afflicted the country a while back. The theory behind SLAPP suits was that if we dump lawyers on an individual or small group with a case we would not normally consider winnable, they would have to withdraw and it would send a message to others. This would be the "chilling effect" you see mentioned in a lot of Supreme Court cases.

They had to pass special laws and enforce existing ones to deal with SLAPP suits. Public policy and the constitution aside, courts are overworked anyway and judges hate having their time wasted.

I hope someone slaps the RIAA - hard. They might actually have a laudable goal, assuming you really believe that they care even the tiniest bit about artists. But their tactics are pure economic and legal terrorism.

If they continue to push this hard and alienate this many people, it might be worthwhile to start lobbying Congress for a copyright rollback, more towards the 14 years originally given by the framers of the Constitution and away from the 95 year or 70 from death of author that is the current standard.

Nothing would piss them off more. And with all of the free press and awareness the RIAA has been responsible for, this would be a nice public (can't bribe your congressman in the dark) kind of debate about corporate greed, artists rights, stifling of competition, etc. If we include the strong-arming of the rest of the world to use US copyright formulas internationally, we can really bring up some excellent issues. If we can make the public aware that by extending copyright, Congress has been taking away free stuff that should have been theirs, we can really get it going. I'm sure the Library of Congress would love to discuss copyright and its recent abuses with its congressional patrons.

We are talking about a political and legal forum on a topic that was briefly tossed around during the Kazaa trial but which has never taken center stage.

Public domain - what was once ours but was taken away because someone figured it was still worth money and influenced politicians to take it away from us.

I'm ready for that debate. Hilary Rosen, the head of the RIAA has never really addressed it. She's all about adherence to the law, but not how the law got where it is and who pushed it there and why. I'd like to discuss that with her.

So, put on a nice dress Hilary, I'm ready to dance!